The 4 key things a great consultant understands

It’s all about relationships 

You’ve had a stellar career working high up in a blue chip or fortune 500 company, felt you had reached the pinnacle of your career and now you are looking to “give back” by imparting your priceless knowledge to the business community.

You have entered the realm of small business - you have become one.......

Welcome to club fear!!!!

Being an SME is different to consulting to the bigger end of town - let me tell you! 

Being on the other side - pitching to large corporates and SMEs is not for the faint hearted 

Being in a top position in a corporate gives you a position of POWER where you know that the service provider   is basically “desperate” to do business with you!

Large business transactions are built on the balance of power, SME transactions are almost always built upon shoestring budgets and understanding the needs and benefits of both parties.

It’s all about relationships - and tour ability to relate to the client - be it big or small.

Relationships is the fuel that makes your business flourish. 

Create them, nurture them and grow them! 

It a world of digital distraction, it’s easy to lose touch with real human connection. Remain focused and grounded on what truly makes impact..... strong relationships.

If you do not know something - be comfortable that you can refer to someone who does have the knowledge and experience to solve the problem 

It is not about you - It is ALL about the client.

Be flexible and adaptable, most of all be accommodating to changing priorities. Park your ego and WIIFM at the door. 

It’s about listening 

Have a 2 sided conversation and come up with a solution for their actual problem, not the one you are hoping they have.

B low is a great story about the patient who went to see a doctor with a dislocated finger..

“Next patient please!”

You: “Hi doc, I hav……..”

Doc: “Hey have you heard about our new improved Viagra? It’s something else really, not only does it give you the vitality of an 18 year old, it also grows a full head of luscious hair and will make you feel 15 years younger!”

You: “Yes but my fing….”

Doc: “Did I mention that I know of at least 10 people exactly like you that have created new families because of this. Probably more that have not given me a personal testimonial! Really everyone needs to try this!”

You holding up your finger (bent at an odd angle): “ But doc can you help me with my f…..”

Doc: “Of course I can help you!! That is why you came here isn’t it! I know you are probably a bit cautious about the possible side effects of this drug… but rest assured I have never had a poor review… actually one or two but they obviously did not follow my instructions correctly. So what do you say, can I sign you up?”

Don’t be out there as a consultant doing the equivalent of prescribing Viagra for a dislocated finger.

It’s about taking them on the journey 

Business is personal - it’s an extension of yourself. Share your clients  failures and disappointments and rejoice in their wins (and your contributions to those wins) as much as your client does. 

Don’t stop at the recommendations - see it through - take them along on the journey. be a leader

It about delivering 

Under promise and overdeliver - provide a wow service 

Follow  some of your earlier client’s successes anddfeel proud of your contribution 

6 time saving hacks from Robin Farmanfarmaian

“Show me your calendar and I will show you your productivity, actions and goals!”Says my friend Robin Farmafarmaian.

She shares with us the 6 time hacking tips to avoid procrastination that she shared with Forbes https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesbusinessdevelopmentcouncil/2019/03/06/six-tips-for-getting-the-most-out-of-your-business-day/#3ecf5c773b61

1. Block off time for you 

69-90 minutes -  This time is to read news, reply to work emails, and sort your business calendar. 

60 to 90 minutes - for your daily excercise (yoga, Gym, Pilates, walling) - this will get you focussed for the rest of the day. 

2. Remember: copy-and-paste is your friend.

Copy-and-pasting can save you considerably more time than you think. Keep a spreadsheet or document up to date with templated language for bios, descriptions and more, then use it to streamline your business language and marketing materials. I keep a Word document open with general copy-and-paste language that I use frequently. 

Ivan’s Tips :-

1. on your phone use your standard templates in notes 
2. On your phone - go to settings / keyboard / text replacement - create a code and put in standard templates - so when you type the code, the standard template pops up! 

3. Use the 90% rule.

Perfection is the enemy!! As a startup and an entrepreneur - if it’s 90% done, it usually requires a significant amount of time and resources. As Silicon Valley VC Reid Hoffman famously said about startups: “If you’re not embarrassed by the first version of your product, you’ve launched too late.” 

We cannot afford perfection.

Remember the Pareto Principal - 80% of productivity tends to come from 20% of the input.

4. Make fast decisions to seize opportunities.

Delayed decisions lead to inaction, which can lead to lost opportunities in the world of business development.

When you’re having trouble with a decision at work, try using this worksheet to organize your thoughts and direct you to the right answer. Set a timer for five minutes.

• What’s the decision you need to make?

• What other things do you need to consider?

• If you decide to do this, what would be the immediate consequences to your business?

• What would the potential consequences be of delaying the decision?

• What’s the best business benefit that could come from your decision?

• What fears or anxieties do you still have around your decision?

• Write your decision here.

5. Use the five-minute rule to create habits.

When you want to create a new habit, you can commit to doing it five minutes a day for one week. 

Then gradually add minutes. Go to 10 minutes per day, then 15 minutes per day. By starting small and gradually increasing your commitment, the task may be easier to accomplish. 

Because I’ve found that the first two minutes of doing anything are the hardest, you may find you greatly surpass five minutes during that first week. You can always fit five minutes into your workday.

This works for anything you want to turn into a habit or change at work: Imagine you want to get a promotion, and in order to do so, you need to learn a new skill. 

Commit to spending five minutes a day learning that new skill and gradually increase the time. That makes it easier to slip into the habit. This also works for business writing, especially if you have just decided to start publishing articles and sharing your professional knowledge but aren’t experienced at writing yet. 

Doing it for five minutes a day can be a great jumping-off point because it is a small commitment to do something that is initially difficult.   

6. Finish the small task.

If a task takes less than two minutes to complete, do it now. In your personal life, instead of putting your dirty dish in the sink, rinse it and put it in the dishwasher. (This will make your partner v. happy) 

Professionally, instead of letting your inbox pile up, respond to as many emails as you can from clients or employees in two minutes. This rule of mine is why you’ll sometimes get immediate responses from me through email and text. 

This goes for any of those small tasks that pile up on your desk and create a cluttered work environment. This concept can be crucial in the world of sales and business development, especially with smaller tasks like recording contacts and following up with leads. 

When you take immediate action, it doesn’t pile up on your to-do list and you save time in the long run. 

What works for me is thinking or saying the mantra “finish the task” whenever I am about to become lazy and push the tiny task to “later,” where it can pile up with other tasks and be much harder to finish. Saying those three words can be enough to motivate you to do it now.

What are some of your time saving hacks 

Ps - here is a YouTube video that came up while researching https://youtu.be/mSi2iYfOWn8 - it’s pretty cool 

Why are you in business

Krista Mollion reminded me to relook at why I am in business in her article the #1 business killer every entrepreneur must avoid! 

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/scarcity-mindset-krista-mollion

It’s about financial freedom

Everyone knows that Finance is the heart of any business. You go into a business with the goal of making more money now and in the future 

It is not about money or wealth. It is all about financial freedom, business health, and mindset. Ultimately, it is about living a live where you don't have to work sixty hours forever if you don't want to.

If you are just working in your business, then you are no business owner. 

You are an employee of your business, a slave to your bank, your clients, and your bills and financial obligations. 

Working on your business means knowing not only what it looks like now but what you ultimately want it to look like. 

If you have built your business on something people truly need - and defined the audience who wants it, sales will be easy. If you don’t have time for sales, there is a huge problem. 

Breaking even is not good enough - the business needs to grow and scale. 

Why businesses fail

No one really knows how a business is doing....

On the outside they have decent results and sometimes even an impressive client portfolio but when you look at their actual revenue - it isn’t covering costs.

It’s a dirty secret

The business owner  sheepishly begin apologizing, often saying “I know, I know, I don’t do enough sales or marketing.” or “I haven’t been working on my business enough lately.” 

But the reality is - they are not investing in their business growth - “I can’t afford it. My revenue is only enough to cover operating costs, taxes, loan payments, salary, and random expenses.”

Many business owners feel uncomfortable around money and sales  in general and some even undercharge.

They do not focus on sales or where they want the business to be in the future 

Here is a cold hard fact ......

It’s about sales

Sales is the heart of your business so you are going to have to master this skill!!

The good thing - is that it is teachable - there is a formula called the growth equation 

The growth equation is  made up of 4 variables

Current clients x  retention

Leads  x conversion

The number of times clients  buy from you 

The price that you charge 

Click the link to download the growth equation calculator, the cash flow calculator and the breakeven calculator. 

Based on what you need to focus on - identify the strategies that you can implement to 

• improve your retention rate
• Generate new leads
• Increase your prices 
• Increase the number of times people will buy

(There are over 75 white papers and detailed strategies you can adopt)

Here is the link https://bsi.skillsoptimiser.com/BusinessHealth/

If you are open to it - I will give you a complimentary detailed diagnostic of your business, together with a go forward plan and strategies on what to focus on. 

Here is the reality about you and your business

Clients and customers aren’t buying from bits or outsourced sales and marketing people - they are buying from you . Don’t hide behind your products. Know like and trust  is  at the heart of sales. 

Clients need to know like and trust you to buy from you. 

You need to know your worth, know the competition and do not sell on price! 

Get yourself a mindset coach

Krista Mollion suggests that as a business owner you should have a mindset coach. Someone to challenge your fears that are holding you back from taking your business to the level it should be at. 

Read all you can about scarcity and abundance mindsets. 

Do exactly what you fear most. Set clear goals and an action plan. 

Free yourself from this paralysis around Sales.

Or continue as-is but next time you are scrolling through the news online and you see one of your competitors getting a huge award or announcing a mind-blowing achievement or even (gasp!) selling their business and retiring to sail around the world while you are struggling to stay afloat, you’ll know the reason.

How do you stop wasting time ?

One of the biggest issues of leaders and entrepreneurs is their use of their time.

Below  are 3 key questions you need to ask yourself to find out to help you  maximizing your time at work.

• Where should you be spending time – and where shouldn’t you – 
• What are your  biggest time wasters? 
• What are you going to do about it? 

1. Where you should be spending time

What are the 2 or 3 activities you do that really make a difference to your business?

Paretos 80/20 Principle really reigns supreme.

What are the marketing activities that you do that will generate more business for you?

Here are some  activities that help you generate more leads and conversions – building more revenue, profit and ultimately more cash in your bank:

• Calling potential customers
• Emailing/ mailing potential customers
• Staying in touch with potential customers
• Creating ads to promote what you sell
• Finessing you sales presentation
• Testing different marketing techniques
• Getting PR for your business
• Contacting old customers
• Developing new products and services
• Studying how to grow your business faster
• Improving the performance of key staff

How much time are you spending on any of the above?

Instead, they are being consumed by seemingly urgent but really relatively inconsequential tasks.

Which brings us to the second critical question:

2. What are your  biggest time wasters? 

What are the low value things you are doing that are taking up much of the day? And who are the people who are stealing your valuable hours?

Unless you take the time to observe and analyse your days and identify these insidious time wasters, you are doomed to average achievement levels.

Some of mine are –

• looking at emails, 
• continually looking at social media, 
• not planning my day, 
• procrastination ( I will do it tomorrow) , 
• meeting after meeting – that is not relevant to growing the business, 
• focussing on internal politics, doing repetitive tasks that can be outsourced, 
• not being able to find things from my untidy desk
• helping everybody else withour focussing on my task at hand 
• managing crises  

This brings us to the third critical question to ask.

3. What are you going to do about it? 

It’s not enough to merely become aware of the problem (although awareness is key). You need to now decide what tangible changes you are going to make to your week to combat the time wasters and dramatically increase time spent on the key activities that will help you grow your business.

There is a a cool diagram called the 4 Ds where you can allocate all your activities…. And then focus on 1 and 2!!

• Important and Urgent – DO IT 
• Important and Not Urgent – DEFER IT (diarise for specific tmes in time blocks – this is really cool stuff) 
• Not Important and Urgent – DELEGATE IT
• Not Important and Not Urgent – DUMP IT 

How can you stop certain people interrupting you? How can you reduce average meeting times?

Can you schedule an amount of time each day to focus on what’s really going to move the needle for your company?

Can you do your email in 2 or 3 blocks each day?

Can you work away from your office a day or two per week on these important tasks?

Only when you make new rules and restructure your week so that you’re spending large amounts of time on the IMPORTANT, will you start advancing your career and business .

What are your time wasters?

Analyse your time and allocate it to one of the 4 Ds… focus on the DO IT and DEFER IT

Don’t judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree

Join us for breakfast at www.bbg.business

Rehabilitation of offenders through education and learning

BSI is proud and priviliged to be playing a part in this amazing narrative - helping create generational legacies!

Corrective Services NSW is committed to the rehabilitation of all offenders and the provision of education opportunities is vital to that.

CSNSW provides education, employment and training opportunities to inmates, including those on remand.

CSNSW works in partnership with BSI Learning and TAFE NSW to provide education and vocational training, which includes HSC subjects, Literacy and Numeracy, First Aid, Forklift, Welding, Food Preparation, Engineering and Asset Maintenance.

Education for inmates reflects best practice adult education in the community.

#csnsw #inmateeducation #reducingreoffending #inmaterehabilitation

If you are a small business owner or start up - and are looking to grow your business - this is for you!

I am looking for 12 business owners and leaders (can be startups) in Sydney who has the desire to grow their business significantly - to be part of a mastermind group that I will be part of over the next 12 months. 

This is a pilot programme with the objective of 10Xing your business.

If you believe that you are keen to be part of this programme and have the motivation , authority and desire to 

• grow your business, sales and profits, 
• have more cash in your pocket
• Work ON your business and not IN your business 
• expand your networks, while earning an  internationally recognised business qualification BSB50215 Diploma of Business

And are prepare to push the boundaries of your potential.....

Join me at a complimentary briefing to see if there is a fit. 

BOOK NOW!

Seating at this exclusive Briefing is strictly limited  and tickets will be allocated on a first-come first-served basis.

Click on invitation below  

Sydney - Tuesday 16 Oct - 12-2pm - at L7 14 Martin Place