 The combines were out in force last night - up and down they went hour after hour, right through to 2am. Noisy buggers they are too, but rather than be frustrated or angry that they were disturbing my sleep with their racket, I was hugely impressed that they had been able to mobilise so quickly with the promise of a crop-threatening downpour due today.
And this morning, the harvest is in - they’ll no doubt be ploughing the fields later! Yes, you could say that the rain’s always coming in Britain, and why wouldn’t they be prepared and ready for action, but the snow’s always coming too, and we know what happens then. Being good in a crisis isn’t a skill, and nor is it simply a case of being a quick thinker. Being good in a crisis, being able to react when the proverbial hits the fan, is down to planning. Planning for steady growth, having a plan in place for when unexpected opportunities arrive, and contingency planning for when things go wrong, for when there’s a big error with a major order, for a downturn in the economy, for when weather is coming that’s going to ruin your crop, and therefore your livelihood. I talk a lot about the importance of Planning. It’s one of the cornerstones of McDonald’s success, and one of the 4 foundations in my McFreedom System™, because I’ve learned that sometimes in life you have to slow down to go faster. McDonald’s taught me a lot about the importance of planning, and how to be smart about it. I learned that planning is a team sport; most effective when it involves the people it affects as well as those who will deliver on it. Add someone with no bias or axe to grind into the mix, and you will develop a truly effective plan. I learned that you listen to those with the skills and experience, but you also consider the new and the different; that it’s ok to re-visit what might once have been considered crazy or just plain wrong for the business, as things change, and the ‘right time’ comes along. Just like every other area of the business, I learned that you have a system for planning that makes it routine, regular, consistent; that keeps you focused on the end goal, even when you need to adapt, or change your route. A robust planning system keeps everyone in the business, focused and on track. Since everyone knows where you’re all headed, there is less stress, and less chaos, which also saves you time and money. And of course, it gives you the opportunity to celebrate with your team when you reach your milestones and hit your targets. Planning is fun. Delivering your plan even more so. Do one thing: Think about the planning you do in your business. Is it a route map to your destination - your business Vision. Are your team all engaged and involved? Do they know where you’re headed, and how you’re going to get there together. Is it time you slowed down, to plan, to go faster? 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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 I was in my local supermarket the other day and large queues were forming at the tills.
A manager was patrolling and had called on a couple of people to help out, but the queues remained, and it seemed there was no one else to call on...bet you can't guess what he did?! Yup, he kept on patrolling…. eyes down, while we all waited, patiently and otherwise, wondering why he didn’t take off his jacket and man another till, or support the people serving in some other way. The benefits to the Customer were obvious; they would have been served quicker and he would have demonstrated that he was doing everything he could to get them served quickly. It would have brought him into closer contact with his Customers and given him a taste of life at the coal face which, you’d like to think, would have enhanced his empathy both with Customers and his team members. From his team’s point of view they would have seen him getting stuck in when they needed him, and appreciated him sharing their burden. From a business point of view, he might have unearthed a block in the system that slowed down service and caused the queues. Wins all round I would have thought. By not recognising that this was a time to roll his sleeves up, he lost an opportunity that was good for the business, his team members and the Customer. Imagine at a team member's performance review when he could have nodded with understanding borne of first hand experience, about dealing with disgruntled customers at the till, or turning a frown into a smile. Imagine how much more credibility he would have had, when discussing their performance. Don't get me wrong, I’m not suggesting for a minute that as leaders or managers, we help out all the time. I’ve known people become an extra team member to try and improve performance, rather than looking from a less involved position, at how processes and systems could be tweaked and improved. I do believe though, that there’s a time to show willing and muck in, and when it can add direct and indirect benefits as described above, then why not do it. Anyone joining McDonalds as a management trainee, goes straight onto the restaurant floor to learn first hand the role of the people they will be managing - what it's like to work in the kitchen, on the front counter, in the dining area - understanding through learning and experience, every job in the store. ‘You’ve no idea what it's like,’ isn’t something you’ll hear during (or after) a performance review there. As business owners we can’t be expert at everything, (and shouldn't try to be) but it's important that we understand what our people do, that we work with them to map out their role, to look for efficiencies, and examine together how we might streamline what they do, for their benefit, and the customer's. Your aim should be to make 'the way we do things around here' (aka your processes & systems) simple, logical and repeatable. That's how you make your operation consistent and reliable. That's how you free up your time. That's how you lower your costs and increase your profits. We all want to free up our time, we all want to work on our business not in it, but, despite the obvious benefits, we don't all want to invest time first in getting our team working efficiently and consistently. Why is that? [If time and financial freedom is what you're looking for, download our acclaimed McFreedom Report to understand what you have to do, and how to get started ] For more information on how MPL can help you visit www.mariannepage.co.uk or contact me on hello@mariannepage.co.uk  Life is full of little challenges.
My shower stopped working a few months back. No big deal, I soon found a recommended plumber who fixed it, and you’ll be glad to hear I’ve been happily clean for quite some time now. The thing is though, I still haven’t had the bill. I rang the guy after a couple of months and explained that I hadn’t received my invoice. ‘Oh, she hasn’t got round to it yet’ came the reply, ‘thanks for being so honest.’ I’m not sure who the ‘she’ is but whoever ‘she’ is, she still hasn’t sent it. What’s worse is that I offered to pay the plumber there and then…in cash. You know yourself how important cashflow is, and it’s left me wondering, if this lack of invoicing is the norm, how is he still in business? Inefficiency like this will surely send him under. There’s an old saying - never discuss money, politics or religion - but if you’re running a business, you have to talk money and the sooner the better. How much wealthier would this plumber be, if only he had a system that brought money into his customer dealings much sooner, and more consistently? A simple, logical and repeatable system for invoicing his customers - a template invoice, a simple spreadsheet to track the work done, a reminder system to send the invoice when work is completed, short 7 day payment terms, and reminders to keep asking until payment is made. Giving an estimate and getting a down-payment upfront, offering a discount for speedy payment and of course, knowing who has and who hasn’t paid their bill, are all tried and tested methods for keeping your cashflow healthy. For larger jobs, staged payments where you don’t move on to stage two until stage one has been paid for, also work well. You like to believe that people would be honest and pay what they owe, but how many of us, if not asked for payment, would think, ‘Well if you’re not bothered, I’m not bothered’. And then what happens? The likes of my plumber finally get their act together and send you an invoice, long after you’ve forgotten that you owed them money, screwing up your cashflow. It’s a lose-lose situation, and completely avoidable. As you’d expect, I’ll be chasing my plumber again today! Do one thing: Review your invoicing system, and make sure you're using it effectively. Don't forget that help in creating your system is at hand, via The Busy Business Owner's Guide to Developing Simple Systems For more information on how MPL can help you visit www.mariannepage.co.uk or contact me on hello@mariannepage.co.uk  Think of a time you had so much to do, you did nothing.
Perhaps that day was yesterday. It happens to us all. My sister has been going to update her ensuite, the family bathroom and the kitchen, for the last three years. And yes, you’ve guessed it, nothing has been done except for numerous trips to look at show homes, and showrooms, and yet more show homes. It’s procrastination by activity. A slow death by research. You seem busy but you’re not actually getting anywhere. Sound familiar? So how to get around it? Remember the old adage, ‘Don’t eat the elephant all in one bite’? Well I’d say, don’t even feel you have to go for the trunk. Go for a toenail if it gets you moving forward. If my sister had focused solely on her ensuite, she may have had the whole house refurbished by now. But she's not alone in her procrastination is she? Oh no! We all have large elephants in our procrastination closet. For many it's the systems elephant. So many business owners would love to 'do a McDonald's' and have a process and a system in every area of their business. They see the benefits. They understand how it would free up their time, and give their people ownership. But it's all so overwhelming...they know they need a LOT of systems...and they're so busy...so they wait to start until they're less busy...and they end up with none. You may recognise yourself here. Well here's a question for you: what if someone had developed a guide to developing Simple, Logical and Repeatable systems? And what if they'd gone one step further, and actually developed a number of Simple Systems - 'How to' guides and templates - for key areas of your business? Areas like Planning and time management, operating Processes, People systems like hiring and training, and Performance management? Would you get started then? Let's see... Do one thing: Download your FREE Busy Business Owner's Guide to Developing Simple Systems and take one small bite of that systems elephant today. For more information on how MPL can help you visit www.mariannepage.co.uk or contact me on hello@mariannepage.co.uk  I’d like to introduce you to someone who’s saved me a lot of time and money over the years.
He may well have done the same for you. He’s Mr Kipling; not the maker of exceedingly good cakes, but the author of the famous lines: “I keep six honest serving-men (They taught me all I know); Their names are What and Why and When And How and Where and Who.” (from The Elephant’s Child) I’ve used these serving-men a lot throughout my business life - when I’ve been developing processes and plans, or deciding what and how to delegate and who to, or working to improve my work life balance. When you have an idea you’re just busting to jump right into and get on with, reeling this little poem off in your head can remind you that a bit of discipline up front will save you a whole lot of bother further down the line. What, Why, When, How, Where, WhoIt’s hard to argue that Planning, Process development or Cost Benefit Analysis are sexy and fun, but they’ll save you a whole heap of money in the long term and free your time to enjoy things that are. So instead of “do, do, do, patch, patch, patch” why not try “plan, plan, plan, implement, review, improve”. Your team and customers will love you for it too. On the other hand, if a snake wanders into your office - just kill it! (Only hypothetical, for any snake lovers out there!) Now, where did I leave that fondant fancy…? For more information on how MPL can help you visit www.mariannepage.co.uk or contact me on hello@mariannepage.co.uk  Systems exist to make our lives easier, there really is no other reason for having them.
Whether it's your personal system for getting yourself up and out to work, or getting your kids to school on time, or your key business system for taking a customer order, or delivering a product; it should make life easier - for you, or your family, your team, or your customer...or maybe all of those. If a system doesn't make life easier, it's the wrong system. Fact. I learned that a long time ago (albeit unknowingly) watching how my mother coped with 5 little girls under 10, while managing the admin for my dad's business, and running the house. Try managing that little lot without effective systems! It was embedded further into my dna at McDonald's, where systems ran the business, and people learned to run the systems. McDonald's success is all about the systems - if you think it's about the burgers, you've missed the point. I realised over time, that to make life easier, every system has to have three key elements - it has to be Simple, it has to be Logical and it has to be Repeatable. Simple Your systems have to be easy to understand. So many people over-complicate their systems and add unnecessary bells and whistles which they imagine will make the system better. They don't. They just make it more complicated. Sometimes a system can become complicated over time, often because too many people have been allowed to adjust it to suit their own way of working. Sometimes it becomes complicated because we build in too many checks, because we don't trust, or we need to control. With a personal system, we may have just become bored with doing things the easiest way, and decided to 'spice things up'! Simple is good. Anyone can follow a simple, straightforward system. Logical Let's be honest, we can all do things that are completely illogical. They seem perfectly logical to us at the time, but to everyone else we've lost the plot! For a system to be effective, it has to be logical. It has to be reasonable, and make sense to those who are going to use it, not just to you. The best way to achieve a logical system is to use the 5 Whys. The first Why should always be 'Why do I have this system?' It may be a system that gets you from A to B...but is B really where you need to be going? Be sure that it's the right system for you/ your business - something that makes life easier - before moving on. If it is the right system, then check each step in your system by asking Why four further times. 'Why do we need this step? Why do we do it this way? and so on. Check your logic at every stage, and if you have a team, involve them in the process too. Repeatable You don't create a system for something that you're going to do once and never do again. There was no need for me to devise a system for jumping out of a plane, for example, because much as I loved the experience (once the chute had opened), there is not a cat in hell's chance of me ever doing it again! But you should have a process or a system for anything that you're going to repeat, even if it's only once a year. How many times have you gone back to do something that you've done before, and you've forgotten how you did it? You have to go searching through google, or trawl through you tube videos to remind yourself of the best way to do it. And even having gone through this pain, you STILL don't record how you did it to make it easier for yourself next time. That R in SLR could just as easily stand for Recorded. Think about the systems you work with every day, week, month and year. You'll have lots, both personally and professionally. How many of those systems could you hand over to someone else, today? You repeat every single one of them, but are they recorded and therefore repeatable by someone else. Systems exist to make life easier. For a business owner they have the power to free up your time, by having other people run them for you. To have other people run them for you they have to be Simple, Logical, and Repeatable. How SLR are YOUR systems? For more information on how MPL can help you visit www.mariannepage.co.uk or contact me on hello@mariannepage.co.uk  Systems exist to make our lives easier, there really is no other reason for having them.
Whether it's your personal system for getting yourself up and out to work, or getting your kids to school on time, or your key business system for taking a customer order, or delivering a product; it should make life easier - for you, or your family, your team, or your customer...or maybe all of those. If a system doesn't make life easier, it's the wrong system. Fact. I learned that a long time ago (albeit unknowingly) watching how my mother coped with 5 little girls under 10, while managing the admin for my dad's business, and running the house. Try managing that little lot without effective systems! It was embedded further into my dna at McDonald's, where systems ran the business, and people learned to run the systems. McDonald's success is all about the systems - if you think it's about the burgers, you've missed the point. I realised over time, that to make life easier, every system has to have three key elements - it has to be Simple, it has to be Logical and it has to be Repeatable. Simple Your systems have to be easy to understand. So many people over-complicate their systems and add unnecessary bells and whistles which they imagine will make the system better. They don't. They just make it more complicated. Sometimes a system can become complicated over time, often because too many people have been allowed to adjust it to suit their own way of working. Sometimes it becomes complicated because we build in too many checks, because we don't trust, or we need to control. With a personal system, we may have just become bored with doing things the easiest way, and decided to 'spice things up'! Simple is good. Anyone can follow a simple, straightforward system. Logical Let's be honest, we can all do things that are completely illogical. They seem perfectly logical to us at the time, but to everyone else we've lost the plot! For a system to be effective, it has to be logical. It has to be reasonable, and make sense to those who are going to use it, not just to you. The best way to achieve a logical system is to use the 5 Whys. The first Why should always be 'Why do I have this system?' It may be a system that gets you from A to B...but is B really where you need to be going? Be sure that it's the right system for you/ your business - something that makes life easier - before moving on. If it is the right system, then check each step in your system by asking Why four further times. 'Why do we need this step? Why do we do it this way? and so on. Check your logic at every stage, and if you have a team, involve them in the process too. Repeatable You don't create a system for something that you're going to do once and never do again. There was no need for me to devise a system for jumping out of a plane, for example, because much as I loved the experience (once the chute had opened), there is not a cat in hell's chance of me ever doing it again! But you should have a process or a system for anything that you're going to repeat, even if it's only once a year. How many times have you gone back to do something that you've done before, and you've forgotten how you did it? You have to go searching through google, or trawl through you tube videos to remind yourself of the best way to do it. And even having gone through this pain, you STILL don't record how you did it to make it easier for yourself next time. That R in SLR could just as easily stand for Recorded. Think about the systems you work with every day, week, month and year. You'll have lots, both personally and professionally. How many of those systems could you hand over to someone else, today? You repeat every single one of them, but are they recorded and therefore repeatable by someone else. Systems exist to make life easier. For a business owner they have the power to free up your time, by having other people run them for you. To have other people run them for you they have to be Simple, Logical, and Repeatable. How SLR are YOUR systems? For more information on how MPL can help you visit www.mariannepage.co.uk or contact me on hello@mariannepage.co.uk  I was in Africa last week...a great place to spend time, if you haven't already done so.
One of the first things you notice in Africa is how big the sky is...it's huge. Very big and very blue and seemingly endless...with vast horizons and extensive landscapes. You see things very differently in a place like that. The detail becomes secondary to the beauty of the big picture. It's like when you go up to the top of a skyscraper...the Shard for example...and look out over the city. How different that experience is to being on the streets below. It's more peaceful, you don't have a million and one things invading your senses, you don't have to deal with all the hustle and bustle...you can see the big picture in all its glory. In business, we often get caught up 'on the streets below'...we can't see the beauty of the forest for the density of the trees...there's no vast blue sky above us...only gathering clouds. So when we plan...when we begin to look at systemising our business...we start small, we focus on the minutiae, and give all our attention to the near and the immediate. Plans and systems are two-sides of the same coin. They both help us to get where we want to be. They both make our life easier. And they both require an investment of our time to set them up effectively. But they won't be effective if we don't start with the big picture, and ask ourselves: What am I trying to achieve...and why? Too often we plan for the short term with no clear idea of what our end game is...what success really looks like to us...where we're going. Too often we create systems to get us from A to B, without stopping to ask ourselves why we want to go to B...is it logical...is it serving our customer...would it be easier and more effective to go straight to C? Knowing what we're trying to achieve has to be our starting point, whether we are building plans or developing systems. Start with that beautiful big picture...and work back to the detail from there. For more information on how MPL can help you visit www.mariannepage.co.uk or contact me on hello@mariannepage.co.uk  A successful business is run by systems. That’s a fact. Systems should be running your business.
If your business is not as successful as it should be, or if you are running the whole shebang - working every hour God sends to do so - then you need to take a long hard look at the systems you have in place, and what they are doing…or not…to support you. Start with the systems that run your life.
Then look at the systems that run your operation.
And finally, when you have the first two sorted…look at your techy systems.
Systems run your business. You and your team run the systems. Simplify - Systemise - Succeed. For more information on how MPL can help you visit www.mariannepage.co.uk or contact me on hello@mariannepage.co.uk  Having your ‘own way of doing things’ is great a lot of the time…it’s good to be original, to be a bit of a maverick on occasion…to want to make your own mark.
But when it comes to how things work inside a business, everyone having their own way of doing things, is a recipe for a lot of wasted time and money, if not complete business disaster. It’s the same when you’re starting out on your own, and you learn how to do a particular task…you spend hours working out how to do it, to make sure you get it just right, to get the result and standard that you’re happy with…and then you don't have to do that piece of work again for what…? …a month, maybe a quarter , or even a year. What happens when you come back to it? How much have you remembered? Some of the basics probably, but what about the detail that got you to the standard you wanted? So you do it to the best of your memory, not as enthusiastically, or to the same standard as the first time, and again, all that effort…all that time and money (remember how much you cost your business) wasted. When you talk to a business owner about the need to create standard processes and operating procedures and document them, you see them visibly shut down at the thought of this mammoth, soul-shrinking task. They get that it will make their business more efficient, but they just can’t face doing it. Yet, if we start creating processes early enough in our business life, it’s not a mammoth task at all. As we complete a new piece of work, as we learn something new, we simply write down how we did it…how we got to the result we wanted. That’s all a process is. And in doing that - notes that would take us maybe 15-30 minutes to write up - we create a step by step blueprint for any member of our team to follow…or for us to follow when that task comes round again. The huge benefit for us as we build our team, is that we can focus fully on the really important stuff that will help grow our business, completely confident that the day to day is being managed to our high standards, following the logical, effective processes that we created. Who wouldn’t want that? 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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