Contentment can sound like a dirty word in business. There’s a thought that we should all be striving and pursuing and achieving and other go-getting verbs! And I agree I’m all for continuous improvement, for making things better and easier for clients; for being as good as I can be. That is my business mantra, as I know it will be for many of you. But things can start to turn sour if the constant exposure to social media makes people start to feel unworthy and discontent by comparison with peers. I read recently that this is happening and starting to undermine people’s self-worth. So today I want to share with you a short story which I hope will shore up any flagging self-esteem and draw learning points to restore or protect your self-belief.

Are you sitting comfortably? Then I’ll begin…

Long, long, ago in a land far, far away there lived an old man. Each day he went to the stream with two earthen pots hung from either end of a pole. One was perfect, always full of water, the other was cracked and leaking, only half full when he got back to the house.

One day the cracked pot said (stick with me) to the man, ‘I’m so ashamed’.

‘Why on earth would that be?’ asked the old man.

‘I’m hopeless!’, said the pot, ‘water leaks out of my cracks all the way back to your house and you never get home with two full pots of water. I’m a failure.’

‘You couldn’t be more wrong’ laughed the old man, ‘you’re a wonderful pot. On the way back home look carefully at the side of the path and tell me what you see.’

All the way home the cracked pot paid attention, and at the end of their walk the old man asked him what he’d seen.

‘Flowers’ answered the miserable pot. ‘I know they’re beautiful, but it doesn’t help me. It was nice to look at the flowers but here I am only half full again. I’m still leaking. I’m still a failure. I’m so sorry old man.’

The old man smiled. ‘You daft old pot,’ he said, ‘there’s no need to be sorry. Did you not notice where the flowers were growing?’

‘Well, yes,’ said the puzzled pot. ’On my side of the path; why?’

‘All these years I’ve planted seed on your side of the path. And every day as we walked back from the stream, you’ve watered them, and the seeds have grown, and the flowers have bloomed for all the villagers to see. You are a wonderful pot. Because you are the way you are, the village path is full of beautiful flowers.’

The cracked pot glowed with pride and happily watered the path for ever after, content that he was after all, a wonderful pot.

Sweet story, but how does it relate to you and your business? There are a few key learning points:

• Don’t compare yourself to others; focus on what you do best. All too often we focus on what we haven't done, what we're not good at. Take time to look at just how far you have come, what you've achieved already and how much you've learned.

 

• Never think you have to be perfect or that someone else is; we all have flaws. Others you compare yourself to may have different values, backgrounds and ambitions. They may have totally different definitions of what success means. Remember you are unique and special and have a lot to offer the world - look for the flowers in your life.

 

• Value yourself and what you do for others. Your business helps the local and national economy, you may be providing people with jobs, you may support the local community, you may be a great dad, mum, child, you may simply make people smile every day…

 

• Make sure you make the people around you feel valued too. Tell them how special they are; the positive impact they have e.g. in your business, with your customers; because you can train them and then trust them to do the job to your standard. If you’re thinking something good about someone, tell them, (unless it will get you arrested!) otherwise it’s a wasted thought. Don’t assume they’ve seen the flowers growing.

Do one thing: Brainstorm all the good things you do and all the value you add in your life as a whole, and in your business specifically, as a person and as a business owner. Then take the time to celebrate your YOUness.

Thanks for reading.

20% of business owners interviewed didn’t have a single day off that year.

Ah, another bank holiday approaches and all over the UK those SME’s closing down for 3 days are scuttling round like blue-arsed flies. (Where does that expression come from? Anyone?) 

There’s nothing like an approaching holiday to instil a sense of urgency. I know I seem to get tonnes more done in the week leading up to a holiday; my brain seems to find a sixth gear from somewhere. Okay I think I’ve mixed enough metaphors, moving on!

I was trying to find some stats relating to business owners taking holidays or not taking them. In one report, research revealed that around 20% of UK business owners interviewed didn’t have a single day off that year. 52% took five days or less and well over half of those worked while they were away.

I like to think I’m as passionate about my work as the next person and many days it doesn’t feel like work because I love what I do. So I work hard but I do make sure that my planning is for life first and business second. As a fan of Stephen Covey’s, ‘The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People’ I know that I need to ‘regularly sharpen the saw’. This isn’t just about burnout, or always having energy and focus to give my best. It’s about relationships, pursuing favourite hobbies and pastimes and having a full and enriched life. 

I don’t think success is all about money. I think it’s about making a difference to the lives of those around you - loved ones, clients and communities and also living your own life to the full. To achieve any of that I need freedom.

Two main things help me strive towards that goal:

1. My team who I’ve recruited to my values, trained and nurtured and in whom I have implicit trust and
2. The systems we operate in the business - having consistent, logical ways of doing everything we do, or very nearly!

Small business owners are clearly passionate about what they do, so it’s no surprise that they find it hard to leave work behind on holiday. It can be a challenge also to totally switch off from work as technology has made it so much easier to stay in touch. It is crucial to take proper breaks to achieve an enriched life and avoid business burn out. 

Do one thing: Unless your business directly benefits from bank holiday weekends, take well-earned time off to recharge your batteries. If you find yourself using the time to catch up or get ahead, have a think of what you could change to give yourself that time freedom.

Thanks for reading. Have a great weekend!

I read a great quote by Clare Balding the other day about Pep Guardiola. She wrote, “He (Pep) is the manager not just of a team of players but also of backroom staff whom he always values, praises and thanks. He is a leader who makes them all believe the impossible is possible.”

It just got me thinking about how bosses and managers treat their ‘backroom’ team. One of my pet hates over the years is hearing a manager giving someone a task and apologise for it. How does that person then feel? How can they take pride in their job and feel any sort of fulfilment? I’ve seen it in managers who want to be liked or are worried about a possible reaction, “I’m really sorry to have to ask you to do this…’’  

Now I’m not suggesting they do a Tarzan swing and ‘big-up’ a simple or repetitive job but rather to explain to people how their role fits in to the bigger picture. You may think cleaning toilets isn’t much of a job. Okay now imagine you work in an office and they’re not cleaned! I know many people who judge an eatery not just by its food and service but also by its toilets. Have you ever come back from the loo and raved about it or returned to your table vowing never to return to the restaurant? 

We had a US vice president at McDonald’s who would always make the toilets his first port of call when checking out a restaurant. Not for a call of nature but to make sure they were so clean that he could eat his burger off the toilet floor. (I wonder if he ever did?)

People want to feel that they belong, that they’re valued, that they are part of the business and that they make a difference to its success. I heard a story recently where a school had called a meeting about its future but had just invited teachers to it. Not the facilities people or the grounds team, those people without whom the teaching couldn’t happen. How to quickly make people feel they don’t count!

On the other hand, I know someone who made a point of working late a few times a week to catch the cleaners coming in so she could learn their names, thank them in person and explain the difference they made to the working environment and the business’s success. Yes, these people were employed by an Agency, but she felt they were still part of the team. She would also insist on clear desks and work areas every night explaining that it made it easier for the cleaners and to get her team members to appreciate their work. 

An old boss of mine used to love telling the tale of the man he used to pass regularly on his way to work pushing his dustcart round London streets. He was so impressed that this guy was always smiling, acknowledging people as he passed. His cart was decorated and the pride he took in his work oozed from his pores. Imagine if the person giving him that task had been apologetic rather than explaining that the first impression people get of a city is its clean streets.

So going back to Guardiola, I imagine that when he has a team meeting which is about the future, rather than next week’s tactics, he invites the whole team. And what is so great about it is that the extremes in that team would be hard to replicate in most SME’s; famous multi-millionaires and the person who cuts the grass being inspired by the boss about the future of the club.

Do one thing: make time to ask your team members individually how they think their role impacts the business. If they don’t know, then there’s your chance.

Thanks for reading. Have a great week.

Does your other half complain that they see too much of you?

Do your kids groan ‘cos you’re taking them out for the day, again?

Are you the number one invite on your friends’ social calendar?

Do you never take your laptop on holiday with you?

No?

So you’re telling me you don’t have all the time in the world?!

Then let me ask you this: do you own your business, or does it own you?

We had a meeting with a new client recently, and we asked him how he felt about his business.  He paused for such a long time I can remember thinking, ‘this is going to be a loooong day’, and then he said just one word: 

‘’Resentful!”

“This ‘job’ - that’s what I call it now, totally owns me. It dictates my mood; my appetite, my energy levels. I think about it all the time. I lie awake fretting about it. It feels like my entire life is being sucked into a big black hole.

“I went out on my own to have more freedom - to spend more time with my wife and kids, and look at me now - working every hour God sends.

“Everyone told me I needed a team, but all that’s done is increase my workload - the tax, the paperwork, keeping on top of them. I’m sure right now they’ll be glued to their phones cos I’m not there. Arghhh….”

Of course he’s not unusual. 

In fact he could be a poster boy for the small successful business owner! Maybe he’s just like you?

You started small, right? Built a really great business, had loads of fun doing it, started taking people on. It was all ok for you too at first, and then… the wheels came off.  You lost your consistency, you lost your belief that people would perform for you, you began to work longer and longer hours to keep on top of everything.

But, and this may surprise you, even ‘the youth of today’ don’t come to work with the sole purpose of pissing you off. Nobody plans to have a bad day or do a bad job, especially not the people you hand-picked for your business.

The change you’re looking for doesn’t start with your people, it starts with you.

You want freedom, particularly time freedom? Then build strong foundations, that free your people first. 

Strong foundations built around:

Your Plans - showing your team what the destination is, and how you’re going to reach it together - the route map for them to follow

Your Processes - having a set way of doing what you do - a system for everything

Your People - only hiring people who match your values, and fit your team, and then training them to follow your set way of doing things

Your Performance Management - taking every opportunity to give constructive feedback, to correct, to praise.  Having regular performance reviews that reward excellence

Successful business is built on the consistent performance of high performing teams who know where they’re going and follow the business systems to take them there. Look to McDonald’s, to Virgin, to Apple if you doubt what I’m saying.

And you can have this too. Put your energy into building your foundations, and you will find your freedom.

Do one thing: take a look at your life and your business and decide if it’s time to change.

Thanks for reading :)

So, you have a big Vision that gives you goosebumps and it’s plastered on your wall in huge letters. You’ve started to plan with your team about how together you’ll make that Vision a reality. And you’re all buzzing about the future and cracking on. Great stuff! I can feel the energy from here.

Now, all that’s missing is an effective Personal Management System. Not the sexiest title I’ve come across but even the most inspiring vision, and the smartest of plans will be wasted if you don't have the means to keep yourself on track.


A Personal Management System

Your daily routine is the cornerstone of your personal management system, and should be crammed full of habits that will maximise your productivity, and move you closer to your Vision. 

1. Get into the habit of planning your day the evening before (and your week on a Sunday evening). At the end of the day, you’re usually very clear about what still needs to done, what the priorities are, what tomorrow’s frog* will be. Advanced planning like this makes sure that you hit the ground running. 

2. Chunk your work into 90 minute segments. This is a good timeframe for focus, and FOCUS is the key word - don’t multi-task - if you’re going to work on a sales letter, work on it for the full 90 minutes, or until it’s done, if you can do it within the 90. 

3. Peak Practice - Work out which part of the day you’re at your peak - for me it’s first thing in the morning - and use that 90 minutes to ‘eat your frog’ - *do the thing that you don't necessarily want to do, but that’s weighing you down mentally, because you know you really need to get it done. 

Just get focused and eat the damn frog! It’s a really good success habit to get into. 

4. Set yourself mini deadlines - always good for those of us who like a bit of last minute pressure - make them ‘drop-dead’-lines too! Absolute must delivers! Breaks are always a good deadline. Holidays are also excellent. Ever noticed how much more you get done in the days leading up to a holiday, or the minutes leading up to any deadline.

5. Switch Off. Both breaks and holidays are essential for your long-term productivity too - refreshing and re-energising your mind and body. The most successful businessmen and women really get this, and have made breaks long and short, a habit they will always keep. 

6. Daily Exercise. Other daily routines and success habits that are good for your mind and body, include taking at least 30 minutes exercise a day - even if it’s just a walk down the road and back - and drinking plenty of water - two litres is the recommended amount isn’t it? I’m no scientist, but I can testify to the power of a lunchtime walk for clearing your head and setting you up for a productive afternoon. 

For budding entrepreneurs, there are three other personal management essentials: 

1. A second in command. This may be one person or a whole team who can work self sufficiently, enabled and empowered to make the right calls in your absence. If you want to grow your business or create new ones you can’t afford to be stuck in the daily minutiae.
2. An assistant or PA.  There are only so many things that you can be brilliant at, or that really get your juices flowing; for everything else, you need an assistant - someone who will keep you organised, do the really important, but really boring (to you) stuff that eats away at your time. A mentor of mine refers to the £10ph, £100ph and £1000ph tasks in your business. Which are you spending all of your precious time on? And talking of mentors, the third essential is
3. A mentor.  What I’ve learned from the mentors I’ve worked with, is that they get you to the next level faster; they get you to raise your game - to see things from a different viewpoint - they share their expertise to help you grow. Your mentor is a key member of your support team - the sounding board and advisor who speeds up your journey to the results you’re looking for.

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A Personal Management System takes discipline and time to develop, but when you learn to manage yourself, the business will be a piece of cake!

Do one thing: look back over today/yesterday. Did your work take you towards your Vision? Did you have frog for breakfast? If not, look to adopt these good habits and improve your routines.

For more information on how MPL can help you, contact us here: hello@mariannepage.co.uk

Business owners, will you be keeping one eye on your e-mails on Christmas Day? According to recent research 1 in 5 of us will be. I can picture it now, a sneaky look at your phone secreted under your Christmas napkin and then all hell breaking loose when you’re spotted!

These stats make for interesting reading:

• 75% of UK small business owners will work to some degree during the entire festive season
• A mere 12% of small business owners expect to switch off for the whole of the Christmas period
• Around 60%  working on Christmas Day will work more than six hours, with 18% working more than ten
• Over 60% who do take Christmas Day off will be straight back on Boxing Day

You could expect these figures for Christmas Day if they were coming from the hospitality industry, and of course retail returns with a bang again with Boxing Day sales, but these are across a wide range of SMEs. So what about other owners? Some will take the ‘down’ time to catch up on paperwork, some to think about the coming year and some may just want the excuse to escape from relatives.

For many though it’s the pressure of having to keep up with work. The ‘one man band’ may not have a choice. Larger businesses work over the festive period perhaps because the owners don’t trust their team and manager(s) to run things without them. It’s said to be the reason why so many businesses in the UK remain in ‘startup’ mode instead of scale-up.

So if you have a team but you still need to supervise and double check their every move, take a moment to think about ‘why?’ And then, what better time with the New Year approaching to think about what you’ll do to change things. 

Michael Gerber says in the E-Myth,

“If your business depends on you, then you don’t own a business, you have a job, and it’s the worst job in the world, because you’re working for a lunatic!’’ 

He’s right, because quite often, as business owners, we are lunatics. We’re control freaks. We’re demanding. Demanding of ourselves. We insist on long hours and hard work, and really, that’s the technician, in us, the person who feels that they have to do everything.

Serious business owners and entrepreneurs can take time off whenever they want and their income still comes in. They have two fundamental things: 

• They have systems
• They have good people to run those systems.

I’ll be taking a full two weeks off this festive season. I’m not saying this smugly, I’m saying it because it actually took me a while to get to this point.

To get to the point where I don’t feel guilty to get to the point where I can trust my team to do what needs to be done, where I have that level of trust. And to plan work so that I can also give my team a good break.

The trust that allowed me a totally switched off three weeks last Summer has come from having the strong systems in place that I need, having the team in place to get on and follow the systems, and achieve our goals.  We business owners talk endlessly about how to engage and reward people and what better way than enabling them to get on unhindered by our daily meddling. Ask yourself how you would like to work for someone constantly looking over your shoulder and that’s how your team will feel. Simple, logical, repeatable systems, and a good team to run them, are the root to stress-free holidays, to long weekends off, to any weekend off, and to financial and time freedom.

Holidays, for me, are absolutely vital for continuing to do good work for my clients, continuing to come up with new ideas, or better ways of doing things. That all just comes out of resting my brain, stopping the relentless running and rushing around to see clients, or to develop and deliver programmes. It’s really, really important that you take that time to rest and relax, and you can only do that, as a business owner, if you have the systems in place, if you have the team in place.

I’d love you to think about that, if you recognise yourself here. 

Simple, logical, repeatable systems, and a good team to run them.

Do one thing: Let this be your goal for 2019.

    •        you will not be working bank holidays
    •        you will not be working weekends
    •        you won’t be working 60 or 70+ hour weeks

Instead, you’ll be spending quality time with the people that you love, with your animals or whatever you love doing beyond your work.

Merry Christmas from all of the MPL team x

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 that 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've 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 Simplifying

1. Your business doesn’t seem joined up, you have a group of individuals, but no-one is working as one team
2. Your Customer journey is over-complicated; in the past one person dealt with each customer, now they have half a dozen different points of contact 
3. You have no set ways of doing things; everyone in the team has their own way of doing each task
4. You’re great at what you do but you have no experience of managing people, and it shows. Your people are devouring your time
5. You’ve tried to solve this by promoting someone in your team to manage, but you can’t give them the development or hand-holding they need, so they’re struggling to support you and you’re waste time checking up on them
6. You have no performance measures in place and struggle to give feedback, so nobody knows how they’re doing so engagement is low
7. You’ve simply lost sight of why you started all this in the first place.

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 develop a strong second line of management. That’s not as daunting as it sounds. 

In fact, there are only 10 steps to your Freedom - that freedom to scale, grow or sell your business, or run it from a beach somewhere if that's what you really want.

Fancy a bit of that?

Do one thing: Our Systems Mastery Programme works around you and your life, giving you the freedom to work ON your business, not IN it. Read more here: Systems Mastery Programme

I know it’s the onset of Autumn and downtime for nature but for me September is my business springboard. It’s a great month for planning.

It always just feels so right, and just this morning I was reminding myself why.

For some, January may seem like the obvious choice, the beginning of a new calendar year with new year’s resolutions, and a full twelve months stretching out ahead of you.

The downside is that you’re coming out of the Christmas holiday period, possibly still feeling bloated and hungover, certainly feeling that little bit poorer, and maybe you still have the kids off school – you’re probably already half way through January before you can even think about fresh plans.

It’s a foggy time of year too – the weather’s awful, usually dank and dull, and business-wise January and February may be slow, so there’s really not much to get you energised and excited enough to start planning.

April is the next obvious choice with spring in the air and new beginnings.

But April is all about tax and getting your finances sorted – personal tax, business tax. It’s all very numbers oriented, which is great, if you’re building your plans entirely around numbers, but not if you’re looking at the other crucial areas of your business, like people, products, promotions. It’s a busy time for a lot of businesses, so you’re not necessarily in the right head space to plan.

June, you’re then going into the holidays. You’ve got July and August round the corner, and the challenges of the long school break, your team taking their holidays, maintaining a healthy cash flow etc.

September on the other hand, is the perfect time to plan.

With September comes excitement!

Think about it.

It’s the start of a new school year, the start of a new term, stepping up to the next year group – I don’t have children but I do still remember going to school and looking forward to what the next year would bring.

You’re often just back from your own holiday away from the business, you’ve had quality time with family and friends, you’re feeling refreshed and re-energised – you’ve had time to think, to take stock. Maybe you’ve just finished reading, ‘Simple Logical Repeatable’ on the beach and you’re bursting with ideas that you’re dying to put into practice :)

You’ve got three meaty months ahead of you – September, October, November. Even if you only finish your plans mid September, you’ve still got three full months to mid December before the whole ‘I haven’t started my Christmas shopping’ panic kicks in.

For me it is the perfect month to plan.

So here we are heading into September – time to get preparing. Have you jotted down all those ideas you had whirring while you were on holiday? Have you gone from beer-mat to mind-map, expanding on those initial thoughts? So you’ll be ready to turn them into goals with deadlines?  Are you going to make them happen?

Or have you been sucked back into the day to day, reacting to your mobile phone, slave to your inbox?

Are you going to be looking back in another twelve months wondering where the year went, and what happened to everything you were going to achieve?

Do one thing: Take back control of your life!

Download our How To Mind-map for some great advice on getting those initial thoughts down onto paper - see below.

Take one day away from your business this September – yes you can if it’s important enough to you – and plan out the next twelve months.
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Or, if you feel that you’ve just been repeating the same year after year in the same Groundhog day fashion, join us for a two day bootcamp and learn how to evolve from startup mode.

Testimonial
“The Systems4Scale Bootcamp was invaluable to our business in being able to take key team members out of the office for 2 whole days to work on the business instead of in it. I've been working on this for a while (not always successfully), but taking team members along too made this shift a lot easier for all of us. 
Marianne makes everything clear and simple. She encouraged and supported us to think differently and help us to implement the systems she was teaching. I felt like she was on my team with us. 
We gained so much from the two days - a vision of where we are going, excitement over it, ability to implement systems that will help us get there and make everyone's life easier. 
We've implemented several areas which have had great benefit and are already ahead of our 1 year goals! Thanks Marianne!”
Jennifer Page (no relation!) - Business Owner, Affinity Gymnastics

Thanks for reading. Have a great week