 An entrepreneur went to see a wiley old investor to ask her to fund his business idea. He had a brilliant idea about a product he wanted to launch, and he felt sure she would be interested in helping him.
The investor sat patiently while the entrepreneur enthused about his business plan…going through his proposal in great detail. When he’d finished, the investor sat back and smiled knowingly. She agreed that the entrepreneur had a great product and that it had real potential, ‘but’, she told the entrepreneur, ‘you’ve made the mistake that so many entrepreneurs make. You’ve missed a key element out of your plan, and without this your plan will fail. So on that basis, I’m afraid I can’t fund your business’. The entrepreneur was completely taken aback…he knew he had a good product, and he really believed it could sell well. Recognising his dejection, and admiring the passion he had for his business, the investor decided to help out, and give him some free advice before he left. "Do you think you can make better burgers than the ones that the McDonald’s on the retail park make?" The entrepreneur wasn’t sure where the investor was going with this, but he humoured her with a reply, “Well there’s no chance I could”, he said, “but my mum…she can make burgers that are miles better than them.” “Ok,” said the investor, “have you tasted better burgers around where you live?” “Of course I have” said the entrepreneur, “There are loads of places that serve better burgers than McDonald’s. But what are you getting at?” “Every entrepreneur tells me that they’ve tasted better burgers than McDonald’s. So if that’s the case, if so many other people do better burgers than McDonald’s…if they’re not really the best…then how is it that there’s no other business bigger than McDonald’s? Not even close to them?” A little confused, and to be honest, still smarting from the rejection of his plan, the entrepreneur sensed that this must have something to do with his pitch, but was damned if he knew what it was…”I’ve no idea”, he said, “why is that?” “It’s because McDonald’s is not about the burgers. You get better burgers in lots of other places. "McDonald’s is all about consistency. "It’s all about systems and processes, and the consistent delivery of their product and customer experience, millions of times a day, all over the world. "You buy a Big Mac anywhere in the world and it’ll be the same size, have the same ingredients, and the same great (in my opinion) taste. “What McDonald’s have done is created a template for their product and service that works better than any other brand. "Customers go to McDonald’s expecting the McDonald’s experience, and they get it consistently, every day, no matter which McDonald’s in the world they visit. “That’s something that your mum, and all of the other restaurants that serve great burgers haven’t been able to, or choose not to replicate.” “So what can I learn from them?”, asked the entrepreneur, completely enthralled. “You’ve got a great product”, said the investor, “but without processes and systems you have no scaleability. Any growth is reliant on you being there, on you being responsible for delivery. “If you want to expand to anywhere else in the country, let alone overseas, your customer’s experience won’t be the same in terms of your product, or your service. “Having great products is essential for your business success, but it’s your processes and systems that will differentiate you and ensure your business growth. “My advice to you…aim to become the McDonald’s for your product.” And at that she got up and left the entrepreneur to reflect on this game-changing guidance. Food for thought! Could you be the McDonald’s for your product? Do one thing: Consider how consistent your business is right now. How could you model McDonald's to achieve their scaleability? For more information on how MPL can help you visit www.mariannepage.co.uk or contact me on hello@mariannepage.co.uk
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 ‘The odds of hitting your target go up dramatically when you aim at it.’ Mal Pancoast
‘Get moving’ programmes have got many people up and active, improving their lives through exercise. With obesity and heart disease on the rise we’re being encouraged to walk up stairs, hop off the bus early or park well away from the supermarket door. Many of us have started to use watches and fitbits to measure our activity and keep us focused on our daily steps target. Research has shown we can get so hooked on our target that we’ll (literally) keep going that extra mile, to ensure we achieve it. So are targets good or bad for business? Well it really depends on the target. Did you hear the one about the train driver that went straight through every station to ensure he kept to his timetable! There can be real dangers in target setting. But equally great rewards. So what makes a good target? Firstly, a good target will always take you towards your business vision - so you need to be clear about that for starters. It will be holistic - in the best interests of both your Customer and your business. You can’t set targets just to improve profit - you’ll probably succeed in the short term, but what will the long-term cost be if you’ve achieved your target by cutting corners on quality? Equally, you can set targets aimed at driving Customer satisfaction above everything else, but this could cause big problems if you ignore the needs of your business profit. You want productivity – but if you focus on productivity without any thought for quality, customer focus or value for money, you’ll end up being very productive doing all the wrong things. You get the gist. Targets, like your SMART goals, will be challenging, but achievable. You’ll be able to measure them, and celebrate their achievement with the team. The individuals in your team will have personal targets which lead to the achievement of the bigger team/ business target. A good target will be a key performance indicator for both business and individual performance - an essential element in both your Planning and your Performance Management Systems. The very best targets drive your people and your business to excel and give everyone a real sense of achievement - just like your fitbit! Do one thing: Review your business plans and ask yourself - are my plans a route map to my business vision/ my destination? Do I have targets as key milestones along the way? Is my whole team involved in their achievement? For more information on how MPL can help you visit www.mariannepage.co.uk or contact me on hello@mariannepage.co.uk  When putting things right could be wrong!
Picture the scene… Your team have just produced a proposal for a client, who’s complained that there are four mistakes in it, including the mis-spelling of their business name. Oops! Not great for your reputation, or your relationship with them. So what do you do? Put it right of course, with huge apologies. But what then? Well naturally, you set about making sure it doesn’t happen again. You’ve read all about cause and effect, so you look for the cause, and determine that it’s human error - an employee with poor attention to detail. Your solution? Put in an extra layer of proof reading. Someone to do a final check to ensure accuracy. Yes it’s going to cost you, but it’s your reputation and repeat business at stake. Sounds good. But then, guess what? Mistakes keep happening. So what now? Another layer of checks? Because that worked so well for the original problem!
You couldn’t make it up. And I haven’t. This is based on a number of very real situations I’ve come across in successful small businesses over the last few years. It’s surprisingly common practice to rectify the under-par performance of a team member, by having someone else (maybe even you!) effectively do their job for them. What starts as a small problem just grows until you’ve got two, or sometimes three people doing one person’s job. That’s three times the expense - your original culprit is still under performing - your trusted people are getting hacked off - the team are fragmenting… your problem’s got bigger! So how to fix it? Tackle the root cause of the problem. Is it really an employee not having any attention to detail? What if it’s that you haven’t allowed enough time for the production of proposals, or that you haven’t giving the team any training to instil your high standards, or that your proposal template is to blame, or that your process for producing proposals is complicated and confusing? Find the root, and then tackle it. Prevent the problem happening in the first place. Prevention costs are said to be about 10% of failure costs (like re-work/losing customers ) and inspection costs (like the extra checks that were put in, in this example above). Prevention by instilling a ‘get it right first time’ culture in your business - by simplifying and perfecting your processes - by training your people to use them effectively, and to your standard. Prevention is the most cost-effective and long-term cure. It’s common sense - so make it common practice in your business. Do one thing: take a look at the number of checks in your business. How much time and money are you wasting? For more information on how MPL can help you visit www.mariannepage.co.uk or contact me on hello@mariannepage.co.uk  I’m not a great one for reality TV, but I found myself watching ‘Lose weight for love’ the other day (don’t ask).
If you haven’t seen it (and why would you have), the show is based around the concept that in order to lose weight, couples need to spend time apart to work on their individual issues, then come back together to move forward as a team. It was quite an uplifting watch, and I found myself willing them to succeed. What’s amazing is that each person knows they are slowly, or in some cases quickly, killing themselves, yet they haven’t succeeded in changing their habits. Some had been yoyo dieting for years and some you felt had given up, until this tv opportunity came along. What the consultants had to do was find out WHY these individuals continued to do what was bad for them, and then adjust their mindset away from the idea of ‘a diet’, a programme they had to suffer through, an add on to their already busy lives, to focus on building a new and sustainable way of life. To make eating well and exercising, ‘just how we do things round here’. I come across a lot of successful small business owners who operate in a similar way to our ‘weight loss lovers’. They talk about wanting to change, wanting to have an easier life, wanting to spend more time with those they love - but what do they actually DO about it? They know that they don’t need to work such long hours; that there is a way to keep their commitments to their partner, their children, their friends; that they can have a business that runs like a well-oiled machine - but just like our overweight friends, they see the remedy (systemising their business) as something they have to do ‘in addition to the day job’, something that’s going to cost them, something that’s going to be a whole heap of pain and effort. So they do nothing, and plough on with the fourteen hour work days, grabbing a few days holiday when the business that’s running their life, allows them. And the truth is that systemising does take effort, possibly as much as 12 months’ effort. It takes time to build a High Performing Team and a business that runs like a well-oiled machine whether you’re there or not. And yes, if you wanted to be guided down the simplest route to systemising, you have to invest in support from those who’ve been there and done that, many times. But isn’t it worth it for the rewards you would reap? Don’t you love yourself and your family enough to make the changes? Don't you want that ideal future? Why wait another 12 months? Why waste another 12 months? Today is the day to change your MINDSET, to think about your big WHY, to take ACTION. Do it for Love. For more information on how MPL can help you visit www.mariannepage.co.uk or contact me on hello@mariannepage.co.uk  Development can help great people be even better - but if you have a pound to spend, spend 70p getting the right person in the door.
Last week we were looking at having great performance reviews as part of an evolving process of continuous feedback and development. I was saying that there may be times when you need to part company with someone who despite your best efforts, isn’t improving, and that the sooner you realise they’re not the right fit and have an honest conversation with them, the better for both of you. I’m sure we all know people who’ve had a career change who said; ‘Blimey, wish I’d done this years ago’. The truth is though, that while effective performance management is easier if you’re giving informal feedback throughout the year, it’s much, much easier if you’ve recruited the right person for you and your business in the first place. So what do I mean by the right person for you? I mean the person whose values match your own; who has all of the personal attributes that will see them easily fit into the way you and your team work; their work ethic, their energy, their positive view of life - that sort of thing. Their CV will only tell you what they have experience of, not how they did it, or whether they were any good at it. Of course, if you’re going to hire to your values, then you have to be really clear about what they are, and that brings me back to two of the most important questions for any business owner to be able to answer: 1. Where are you going? and 2. What do you stand for? If you picked up a pen and paper now to jot down your values, what would you write? Integrity? A passion for Customer service? Continuous learning? Consistency? Having fun…? And how do those values show up in your business? How do you demonstrate through your every day actions that these are your values? How obvious are they to your team… and what about to your customers? Once you’re really clear about what you stand for…your values, then you can use them to recruit the right people - the people who stand for the same things. So, if your core value is integrity and passion for Customers, you won’t want to hire a salesperson who focuses on getting a sale at all costs. If you’re all about making business fun, then you’re not going to take on someone who struggles to find their personality every morning. You get my drift. A great way to get the right people to interview is to put together a job description that shares the following three pieces of information:
I don’t know much about Paul Russell, but he was right on the mark when he said, "Development can help great people be even better - but if I had a dollar to spend, I'd spend 70 cents getting the right person in the door." Do one thing: Review your hiring system, and make sure that your job descriptions are set up to hire the ‘right’ people for you and your business, first time Want to learn more about hiring and developing a High Performing Team? Join us at the next McFreedom Secrets Workshop. Click HERE for info. For more information on how MPL can help you visit www.mariannepage.co.uk or contact me on hello@mariannepage.co.uk  Do you feel like you’re drowning? Drowning in paperwork, in problems, in people stuff? And all because of your success!
When you were starting out you had a handle on everything. Now you’ve grown you’ve had to take on more people and it’s just not the same. You feel like you’ve lost control. And like any new parent you’re finding it hard to trust anyone with your ‘baby’ - to do things your way. If it helps, you’re not alone. There are lots of successful small business owners out there who have fallen out of love with their business. What used to be fun, exciting and rewarding is doing great financially, but not giving you the same pleasure or sense of adventure. Of course you always worked hard, but in the early days that hard work was interesting and added real value to the business. Now you’re working even harder and it doesn’t ever seem to move things on. 7 Clear Signs Your Business Needs a Systems Overhaul
So…are you stuck? Or are you drowning? I hope you’re neither, but if you are, let me throw you a lifebelt. It doesn’t have to be this way. You can have time freedom, and a business that runs like a well oiled machine, manned by a high performing team. You just need to systemise, in every area of your business, and that’s not as daunting as it sounds. In fact, there are only 10 steps to McFreedom - that freedom to scale, grow or sell your business…or run it from a beach somewhere. For more information on how MPL can help you visit www.mariannepage.co.uk or contact me on hello@mariannepage.co.uk  It’s time to silence the voices! To get ‘unstuck’ and accelerate out of the rut you’re in. To find your McFreedom.
How many dreams never get off the ground because we listen to the voices? The internal voices that ask us, ‘Just who do you think you are?’ ‘What makes you so special?’ That tell us to play it safe, don’t invest, don’t take a risk. That at the first sign of trouble say, ‘I told you so’. Those voices that take every little hiccup and present it as evidence to support their ‘you’re never going to succeed’ stance. How many business owners get stuck because of the external voices that say, ‘If I’m not around, nothing’s gonna get done right. These people are just so dim!’ ‘I’ve got to work again this weekend, there’s nobody else who can do my books/ write my marketing copy/ sort out my CRM’ ‘Who needs planning - I don’t have time for it, and besides, I know where I’m going’ ‘Systems are a luxury I can’t afford!’ It’s time to silence the voices! It’s time to get ‘unstuck’ and accelerate out of the rut you’re in. But how? Simple. By following the 10 steps to McFreedom™
Do one thing: Join us at The McFreedom Secrets Workshop and learn what The McFreedom System™ could do for you and your business. Find out more HERE For more information on how MPL can help you visit www.mariannepage.co.uk or contact me on hello@mariannepage.co.uk  Have you ever had to complain to a business?
I don’t know how many times I’ve found myself saying, ‘I know it’s not your fault’ to the individual I’m speaking to, desperately trying not to take out my frustration on them because they, as an individual, are not responsible. Often the person I’m speaking to is lovely, full of empathy and ready to see what they can do to resolve the problem. I often think how wasted this person is, working for a company focused on putting things right, when they'd clearly be excellent at doing the right thing for customers in the first place. What a shame that the talent of this individual is being focused on rectifying problems caused by poor systems and poor training, when it could be used to build proactive relationships with customers. With effective systems, operated by people like this, resources could be channelled into growth rather than fire-fighting. Good for business, the Customer and the team. Are your people working with 'bad systems'? Take the time to examine the systems that run your operation... 'the way you do things' currently. • How straightforward is your customer journey. • Is the route from A to B logical? • Is it simple and easy for your customers, your team and you...or have you added in complexity to be ‘clever’, or maybe just over time? • How’s your communication system? Are you easy to contact, to give feedback to? Do you have a system for keeping in touch regularly with your customers? • Do you have a documented process for every activity you repeat - even if it’s only once a year? The only reason that systems exist is to make life easier - yours, your customers’, your team’s. Do your systems make life easier? Do one thing: Find out! Because as our old friend Dr Deming says, ‘A bad system will beat a good person every time’ [If you know that you need to improve your systems, but don't know where to start, why not download our Busy Business Owner's Guide to Developing Simple Systems, and use it as your guide.] For more information on how MPL can help you visit www.mariannepage.co.uk or contact me on hello@mariannepage.co.uk  It’s that time of year when my ancient boiler gets its annual health check. For about fifteen years now I’ve had a series of engineers visit my house, make that ‘sucking through the teeth’, noise, and shake their head, as they discover the age of the patient.
Yet on it chugs - incredibly reliable despite the regular pronouncements of its imminent demise. Thanks to that annual service. Thanks to that bit of TLC which keeps it working safely and efficiently. Many would say that paying for an annual service is a waste of money, but for me, if you want to keep anything working consistently over time, you need to invest in it - to maintain it, fine tune it, update any parts that aren’t working. With my boiler, that investment has extended its life, prevented breakdowns and the need for expensive callouts and parts, and stopped it from blowing up - and that’s worth the investment to me. In business, we also need that regular health check, that examination of what’s working and what isn’t, beyond our end of year accounts. Yet how many of us are willing to make that investment? The beginning of a new year, whether that’s calendar or financial, is an ideal time for retrospection and planning. Many of us will be working to sparkly new year plans that we developed for 2016, but what are those plans based on? How deep did we dig into what’s been working in our business and what hasn’t? Are they just based on ‘more of the same’, because we had a good year last year so everything must be working well, right? Like my boiler service, the pre-work for planning requires investment of the one thing most precious to us all…time. And stepping off the treadmill; making time to review, re-energise and re-focus; actually seems like a waste of it, especially when you’ve got a busy business to run. But, sometimes you have to slow down to go faster. Just like when you want to lose weight, you get on the scales, you think about what you’re eating, you look at how much you’ve been exercising, or not. You work out your starting point and you get clear about your target - it’s essential to getting where you want to be. Invest time in your boiler. Take time to:
Have a firm handle on where you are now, where you want to get to, and what success will look like to you. Understand the blocks that are in your way, and how you’re going to overcome them. Be clear about what your customers, your team and your family want for you, and from you. Don't wait for another year to do it. Do it now. Your business needs that health check - and you may just save it’s life! [If you want to ‘service your business’ but don’t know where to start, or simply want an objective view…why not join us for a personal Big Cheese Day! A day where we put you and your business front and centre, get all the worms out of the can, and help you to review, re-energise and re-focus. And have fun doing it too! Find out more, HERE] For more information on how MPL can help you visit www.mariannepage.co.uk or contact me on hello@mariannepage.co.uk  I have a problem with process! There, I’ve said it!
Don’t get me wrong, I love what it does, the results you can achieve through it…but the word itself chips a little piece off my soul - makes me think of bureaucracy, paperwork, jumping through hoops. My mind turns to ISO9001, Lean six sigma and the like - things that are so not me - words that turn me off probably as much as they do you. I lost count of the number of times, I’d use the word ‘process’ at networking meetings,and see the shutters go down. I’d use the softer, more business-owner-friendly term, ‘systems’, and they’d think I was a techy, into software and IT. I used language that put me in a box that no-one wanted to open…’except in emergency’! I labelled myself as a process person, even called my first book ‘Process to Profit’, when really, I’m a ‘making life easier’ person. Because the truth is - the only reason a process or a system exists is to make life easier for you, your team, your customers. There is no other reason for them. In changing my language, I changed and grew my business. People ‘got it’. They saw what was in it for them - less work, not more. In a similar way, a young bloke came up to me at the end of a seminar I was attending, and started talking to me about the similarities in what we did. He said he was all about helping business owners to grow their business without all the stress and the long hours; that he gave them the tools and the control that made their lives easier. Turned out he was an accountant, but had realised the limitations of the label - the way the word would restrict the conversations he might otherwise have. Words matter. They turn people on, or turn people off. What words are you using that are limiting your conversations? How are you labelling yourself? Do one thing: Think about the language you use to describe what you do. Make it about what's in it for the person you're talking to, and watch your opportunities grow. Download an excerpt from Marianne's book "Process to Profit' - the label says Process, the content says 'make your life easier' :o) For more information on how MPL can help you visit www.mariannepage.co.uk or contact me on hello@mariannepage.co.uk |
AuthorMarianne is the author of three books, and is currently working on her fourth, whilst regularly writing her blog, we hope you enjoy it :-) Archives
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