Why Are So Many Small Businesses Failing?

Getting Ready to Change Starts with the Decision to do so

 

If you’ve ever ventured out on your own in the business world, it’s likely you’ve heard a myriad of statistics when it comes to the rate of small businesses failing within their first year of operation.  As it stands, the current figures in Australia are sitting lower than 2%. This is still cause for concern but many are adamant that it’s no longer the first year of business that small businesses need to survive, the danger point is now further down the track with more and more businesses bowing out in their third or fourth years.

So, what is it that small business owners seem to be missing when it comes to the business game?

Problem: Forgetting to work on the business.

Solution:  The first thing you need is a business plan, but many business owners often overlook this. How do you plan to reach your clients? What do you want to achieve through your business? Other questions like this should arise while you create your business plan so that you can have a clear vision of the future. Don’t forget to be flexible and willing to update your business plan throughout the life in your business life.

Problem: Overlooking personal and employee training.

Solution:  A lot of business owners take a business idea and run with it without thinking it through, but before they know it, they’re knee-deep in a business that they’re not properly trained for. As a result, they often have a ‘learn as you go’ approach to training which is not always a positive approach. Encouraging employees to learn more, defining their role clearly and making sure they’re on-board with the business vision will give them a natural desire to learn and receive formal training to be able to contribute at full capacity.

Problem: Ignoring the need for marketing.

Solution:  The digital age has brought a whole new world of marketing to the forefront of our minds. It’s now easier to get your business out there through the Internet and it’s easier to be overlooked in the oversaturation of advertisements.  Harnessing your social media and using it to advertise and connect could be the best starting point for your small business – it’s only on to bigger and better things from there.

Problem: Having no analysis strategies.

Solution: The first step to fixing this problem, is recognising it. Already you’re on your way to analysing your business! To make things easy for yourself, start with the most simple and widely loved analysis strategy – SWOT analysis.

–       Strengths

–       Weaknesses

–       Opportunities

–       Threats

By looking at your business through all four of these lenses you can start to work out where you need to improve and where you need to start taking action as well as the areas in which you can be encouraged by your performance. It’s a great way to think deeply about your business without getting overwhelmed by the bad points or distracted by the good.

If you can recognise any of these problems in your small business, it might be time to start implementing some solutions, one at a time, to get your business on the road to success.

 

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Keys to Unlocking a Productive Day

Keys to Unlocking a Productive Day Bx Matt Alderton

Keys to Unlocking a Productive Day

Regardless of how many businesses you own, projects you’re starting or events you have on, each of us has exactly the same amount of hours in a day. This fact can either be inspiring or disheartening, depending on the way you approach it. The following four points should be your key to unlocking a powerful, productive day worthy of an entrepreneur.

Setting Goals

Some think that it’s better to just glide through life and see what happens, without setting any goals. Unfortunately, that’s not realistic and it’s not something that entrepreneurs do. When it comes to creating these goals, the S.M.A.R.T method has become extremely popular and for good reason – it works!

  • Specific – be clear and direct, there’s no use being vague.
  • Measurable – Measure your goals so you know when to celebrate success.
  • Attainable – aim high but be prepared to adjust your goals as you go.
  • Relevant – create goals which match your vision for your business.
  • Timely – set deadlines.

Create Systems

Have you ever done anything more than once? If there’s some task that you find yourself doing over and over again, systemise it. You can’t afford to be spending that time repeating a process over and over again when you could be making headway on a less menial task.

Do you ever feel like you can’t go on holiday or get sick? If you feel like your business will fall apart without you, it might be time to think about implementing some systems. Without systemising, delegating and automating, you start to become the business. It means you’re just making more work for yourself when you could be utilising the resources at your fingertips.

If you leave it too long, you could find that you are the only person who knows how to do a particular task and, when you hit a crisis, the burden will be on your shoulders. Instead, share the load – whether that’s with technology or with your employees – and don’t wait until you hit that crisis, create systems and process now so that they can steer you smoothly through the dangerous waters later.

Time Management

Funnily enough, being productive is not actually a talent, it’s simply a result of being organised. Time management comes under the organisation umbrella and it’s something that very few manage to master.

“Don’t say you don’t have enough time. You have exactly the same number of hours per day that were given to Helen Keller, Pasteur, Michelangelo, Mother Teresa, Leonardo da Vinci, Thomas Jefferson and Albert Einstein.”

– H. Jackson Brown Jr.

There are hundreds of tips out there and, if we’re honest with ourselves, not one of those is going to be the magical solution to all your time management problems. Everybody’s days look different but you need to know what yours looks like to work out how you can improve. Using Google calendars or a similar app can mean that you can see your week at a glance.

Knowing your limits when it comes to your time can also be crucial. If you know when to say ‘no’ to opportunities (great as they may be), it gives your ‘yes’ a value boost.

Support Network

Networking for your business is invaluable, but it will never beat the network you already have. Scheduling time to spend with your family and friends means that you get a great balance in your day and a safe haven away from the uncertain business world.

These four key points are all crucial to creating a week that maximises productivity, moves your business forward and gives you a great work/life balance. Carving out time to put these points into practice could be the jump start you need to create a productive working week.

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Getting Ready to Change Starts with the Decision to do so

Getting Ready to Change Starts with the Decision to do so

Dear readers, it’s time for some tough love. It’s the second month of the new year, and no doubt many of you have big plans for how you want this year to be different. This is the year you’re going to achieve new success, reach your financial goals and grow your business by x percent. Fantastic, I love the positivity and determination.

But, are you actually doing anything about it?

In the past year of coaching business owners, I’ve noticed an alarmingly common pattern. Clients come to me full of ideas and talk about how they want to achieve x, y and z. Yet, when it comes time to commit to attending coaching calls or personal development events and to putting new ideas and approaches into practice, there is resistance. “I don’t have time to make the webinar this month,” they say. “But we’ve always managed things this way,” comes the reply to an alternative suggestion.

Keep doing Matt Alderton, Bx, Business for Life, B-xponentialwhat you’ve always done, and you’ll keep getting the same results


Sorry guys, but success isn’t going to magically land in your lap. If you want to get different results, you need to be prepared to change your approach and try new ways of doing things. Ultimately, change is a choice. You need to decide to change direction or change what you are doing. You need to be willing to push through any barriers and discomfort that might be in your way.

Because ultimately, change is inevitable, whether you actively seek and embrace it or not. Your business is not operating in a vacuum. Competitors are constantly progressing and threatening your territory. Technology advances and enables new ways of doing things that you hadn’t imagined just a short time ago. By doing things the same way, at best your business will get the same results and stagnate; at worst, you will become irrelevant and eventually obsolete. Imagining the outcomes of not embracing change can sometimes be the motivator you need.

The three P’s of change

Instigating a change in our lives involves focusing on three key areas: the people around us and who we interact with; our psychology and the programming of our mind; and our physiology, including how we think, act and express ourselves.

  • People: Seek out mentors to learn from and be open to different ways of thinking. Spend time with people who display the attributes you wish to develop in yourself, and identify successful people whose behaviour and habits you can model from.
  • Psychology: Remember to take time to pause, stop and clear your mind. Focus on the right now, not the past and the future. Taking slow, deep breaths can help to bring you back to the moment, rather than worrying about what you should have done or should do later.
  • Physiology: Try visualising the behaviour and results that you want to achieve, and then articulate this as positive facts in the present tense. Physically, act and move the way you would if you were achieving what you wanted.

Are you ready to stop talking about making changes and start making them? With our Business for Life coaching program, we’re ready to help you beyond talking and into action. Call Bx on 1300 068 229 or find out about our Business for Life Program.

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Failure is just a Stepping Stone to Success

Failure is just a Stepping Stone to Success

What do Walt Disney, Thomas Edison, Steve Jobs, JK Rowling, Henry Ford and Oprah Winfrey all have in common? Before achieving amazing levels of success in their respective fields, they all experienced varying levels of failure, including being fired, losing large amounts of money and dealing with countless rejections.

I get knocked down, and I get up again

So often in life, it’s not what happens to us that is important, but how we choose to react and respond. This lesson was reinforced for me in 2008 when I discovered that my business partner had fraudulently robbed the business of over $500K by taking money from the business, not paying taxes and so forth. He used the money to prop up his own failing businesses, and in the end went bankrupt anyway. I found myself with an enormous debt of nearly $750K by the time penalties and interest were applied and staring down two equally unappealing choices – declaring bankruptcy or trying to repay such a huge amount of money.

In the end, there really was no choice – my business, my problem, despite the circumstances of how we got there. So my wife and I sold our family home and did everything we could to pay down the debt. We struggled through the global financial crisis and devastating personal and family tragedies.

And then, after working and working, we made it through. At the beginning of 2015, I signed off on an amazing equity raise with one of our businesses. From a start-up IT business in 2006, it had grown to be the largest of its kind in Australia.

It’s not a failure if you learn from it

Nobody likes to fail, there’s no doubt that it’s an unpleasant life event. But the risk of failure should be acknowledged as an accepted part of taking a risk. An important part of moving beyond a failure – and hopefully using it as a stepping stone to a future success – is taking the time to analyse what went wrong and how you can learn from the experience.

It’s also really important to make sure your team know that the process of reviewing a failure isn’t about finding someone to blame. It’s about identifying the things that can be done differently in the future and using the experience to set plans and goals that will allow you to move forward.Matt Alderton, Bx, Business for Life, B-xponential

As Winston Churchill said, “Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.” And that’s the most important element in turning a failure into a success – having the courage to move beyond the hit to your pride and to try something different. The only true failure comes when you give up trying.
Do you have a story to share about bouncing back from failure? Or are you struggling to dust yourself off and try again? We’d love to speak about how we could help your business to move beyond this blip into success. Call Bx on 1300 068 229 or find out about our Business for Life Program.

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How to Hire New Employees to Help your Business Soar

How to Hire New Employees to Help your Business Soar

Taking on new employees can be a scary decision for many small businesses. There’s a sense of responsibility that comes with committing to pay someone on a regular basis and the worry that your business might not grow enough to support another team member.

And yes, there is no doubt that taking on a new employee is a balancing act. If you hire someone before they are needed, your profitability can take a hit. But on the flip side, if you don’t add a team member soon enough, how will your business grow?

 

Here’s some of our tips for taking the leap of faith to hire new team members so that your business can reach new heights.

When to hire new team members

It can be hard to know when it is the right time to hire a new team member. But ultimately, it all comes down to planning. If you have a plan for your business and the growth goals you want to achieve, that will help you to determine what resources you need to achieve that growth.

The immediate trigger for hiring a new employee is freeing up your own time as the business owner to retain your focus on high-level strategic decisions. For many businesses, including my own, a first hire is often a bookkeeper. This allows someone else to take on responsibility for day to day administrative tasks like invoicing and chasing bill payments, so that you can focus on reviewing the big picture and dedicating time to revenue-generating action.

By getting the right people on the bus – in the right seats (i.e. in the job roles that best suit their skills and experience) – you can concentrate on driving towards your ultimate destination. If you don’t know what that destination is, you need to take some time to plan and set goals for your business!

Don’t forget training

The other vital element in hiring employees is making sure that they have appropriate training. Just because somebody has experience in similar businesses doesn’t mean that you should leave them to sink or swim.

There are three key elements to any employee training program:

  1. Induction Training: This includes practical training on your businesses systems and processes. It should also cover background on the business and any HR policies. For example, how do you answer the phone or greet customers? What is the procedure for taking an order? Induction training should cover all the basic elements that will allow a new employee to have the best possible start.
  2. On-the-Job Training: Ideally, this is buddying up with another team member to explain any processes and procedures in more detail. In a café, this might mean watchinMatt Alderton, Bx, Business for Life, B-xponentialg the buddy serve a customer, then serving the next customer under supervision. Or in an office environment, this could take the shape of shadowing the buddy on a customer call.
  3. Ongoing Training: Providing ongoing training in a variety of areas to build the skills of employees helps to keep your team engaged and interested. Many businesses are reluctant to train people due to the fear that they will take their new skills and leave for a better job, but ongoing training has been demonstrated to improve employee retention. Besides, what’s the alternative – you don’t train employees and they stay? Do you really want unskilled staff? Provide training in the areas of personal development, leadership, specific skills like selling and customer service, or any other areas that are relevant to your business.

Are you wanting to expand your team but don’t know if your business is ready? Or have you delayed hiring and felt your business struggle to cope as a result? We’d love to speak about how we could help your business to improve its performance. Call Bx on 1300 068 229 or find out about our Business for Life Program.

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