How do you define Success?

How do you define Success?

We all strive for Success … this time of the year we start to reflect on 2016. And we ask ourselves was it a successful year? We look forward to 2017 and make a pledge this year I want to be successful!

But hey, if I would ask you what does success mean to you? Can you define it? What exactly is success in your eyes?

If you don’t have a clear definition of what success means to you … how can you achieve it?

If you do a Google search on Success, ask people to define success … it is amazing how many different meanings/versions there is.

Majority of the definitions involve achieving, reaching set goals

So personal success, do you know what that means for you …

Make sure you define it or else you will search for it your whole life and never achieve it!

For me Personal Success means I do what I love to do and am good at, be the best me that only I can be, make a difference in what really matters and through all of that are able to generate a sustainable income

So what about you?

Share your thoughts what does personal Success mean to you?

 

Setting High Impact Business Goals

High Impact Business Goals

Today I would like to share my thoughts around business goals

Whether you are a business owner or working for a company it really doesn’t matter because we all need to set & achieve business goals

Some of us utilize SMART objectives, some of us utilize DUMB objectives, some of us call it the G-wave objectives

It doesn’t matter what you utilize, what is important is that we decide and determine:

1.     What we want to achieve, by when

2.     What it would look like when we have achieved it

3.     Who we need or need to involve in order to achieve these goals

4.     What the 3 key important things is what we need to do in order to reach these goals

These goals need to be specific, realistic, doable, understandable, meaningful and beneficial and linked to a timeframe

Ask yourself, why these goals are important, what if these were not your goals what would be the impact

Important you need to be able to visualise what it would be like when you achieve these goals

Make sure you check your progress on a regular basis and then give it a go … do it!

Please share your experience and thoughts with setting and achieving business goals, what works for you ....

Optimal use of your time as a business owner is key

 

 

Optimal use of your time

When you are a business owner or an entrepreneur one of the key things to manage is your time. You might think you have all this time on your hands and suddenly you might ask; so what happened to all the time?

As an entrepreneur / business owner you need to manage your time optimally or else you might end up not doing the important and key things needed for your business. Or you might end up working all day and all night without stop! Which is not healthy

Remember if you don't do it, it would mean no one else will do it!

I would like to share a couple of key tips from my experience:

1.    Get a routine as soon as possible

ü  If you are a morning person - schedule important and high involvement things to do in the morning and the more routine things for the afternoon and vice versa

ü  Try and get into some kind of habit – Monday mornings:  you will check stock / check what needs to be done for week and refine your plan for the week, Tuesday mornings you will spend time on checking all social media in a bit more detail etc.

ü  Use your smart phone diary – add in planner details and reminders on things to do

2.    Make a list of all the important things you have to do

ü  Make a list of essential things that will drive your business

ü  Make a list of how often in the month / week this needs to be done

3.    Put a planner together

ü  Start by putting a plan together for the month – slot in things from the  important list

ü  Then refine it to weekly and fill in the gaps

ü  Be specific – and vary your mornings and afternoons – or else it might get a bit boring and most of the time you will end up not as productive as you could have been

4.    Check regularly that you have in fact done what is needed

ü  Do a regular check in as to whether you have done what was on your list and planned

ü  Remember most of the time as an entrepreneur in a small business … if you don’t do it … it will not happen

Please share your experience, tips and guides on what you do as an entrepreneur to use your time optimally

 



5 Key Personality Traits of a successful entrepreneur

Thinking of starting your own business?

So what is the key personality traits of an entrepreneur?

Below 5 Key Personality traits I believe is crucial to have to be a successful entrepreneur

1.    You need to be Tenacious & Tolerant

Be prepared that you will get a lot more No’s than Yes’s

Know that not everything is going to work, what then can you handle it?

If and when things go wrong will you get up and try again?

 

2.    You must have Passion & Vision

Believe in what you do

Love what you do

Make sure you build your business on the following recipe:

 Skill, Experience and Passion make sure you have all three of these

3.    You must have Self-Discipline and Drive

If you need some-one to tell you what to do or to give you structure and direction – this is not for you

You need to be a self-starter and have the self-discipline and drive to do all things - not only things you like to do

4.    Be flexible and open to try something different

Be open to try and try again. Sometimes the tried and tested might not work and you will have to try something different. Open-mindedness is key

5.    You need to believe in yourself and be confident

Believe in yourself and know yourself – what you are good at and what you are not good at

Be bold and be honest with yourself

A high level of self-awareness is key

 

Please send me your thoughts what personality traits to you believe makes a successful entrepreneur?

Impact of good self awareness on teams, companies and leadership

Today I would like to share and highlight the impact of Good Self-awareness on teams, companies and leadership

1.     Teams filled with Self-aware people are more effective

2.     Organisations with poor results usually have people with lower self-awareness

3.     High Self-awareness = a good predictor for Leadership success

See info below from Insights Discovery

So it starts at home … how are you doing?

This time of year with all the performance appraisals and reviews …

Self-awareness comes to the foreground like no other time of year

 your colleagues, peers and your manager gives you their feedback and input

 

One of the best tools to improve your own self-awareness is the Insights Discovery Personal profile

If you have invested in this great tool … my question when last did you read through it?

Do yourself a favour take it out from your cupboard or draw … find it

And take some time to read through it again

Do a quick check in with yourself

You will be amazed …

If you have any questions regarding your profile or just would like to have a quick chat and share session

Please pop me a quick email on madtrainingsolutions@gmail.com   or share your thoughts

on MAD Guru blog http://themadguru.blogspot.com

If you have not invested in your Insights Discovery Personal profile …

No problem please pop me an email and I can send you a quote

 

 

Sharing more from my learnings in the first 3 months as these were the make or break months. This section focusses on staff management as a huge part of my learning & development was and is still today in this area. Effective staff management comes through hard work, it is difficult at times as it is a huge adjustment and a lot of learning … a lot of trying and check what works and what doesn’t work and not taking things personal

 From Corporate to Entrepreneur – sharing my story & learnings

3)    Getting down to business - Quarter 1 – key learnings (Part 2)

So what was the learnings for the first 3 months? Continued

6)   Staff management: One of my greatest and most valuable learnings in the first 3 months and in the following months were around staff management. Remember, previous to this I managed and lead 7 Sales Managers who was responsible for 72 representatives. Now I was responsible to lead and manage the 5 ladies at the shop. Three ladies working in the kitchen and 2 ladies working in the front shop. The best way I could describe this … it was a huge challenge and it developed me to another level!

I found that there are a lot of similarities in staff management between my previous role in Corporate and my new role in my small coffee shop: Here is a list of those;  Setting clear expectations and ensuring every-one is well skilled on what to do and how to do the job. Agreeing on acceptable behaviour within the work place and towards each other = treating each other as adults, with respect, honesty and transparency. As always it is important to understanding that the majority of people want to take pride in what they do and they want to be successful and then … only a few people don’t really want to be there and is not a fit to the environment / the job and would / need to eventually leave

I also found a couple of differences in staff management between my previous role and my new role own business (coffee shop):

A) Staff circumstances was different as people were reliant on public transport (taxis), which in its own is not reliant. This resulted in staff being late on some days with no pre-warning. Resulting in an impact on the business as some days the shop had to open later, close earlier and putting unnecessarily added stress on colleagues. Initially I would have staff not pitching at all for a day or come in hours later, without any notice of where or what happened, just to pitch next day or later to say transport issues. This was a major uncontrollable stress factor in my day to day working life in the first couple of months

Key Learning: For me it was important to focus on what was in my sphere of influence … what I could control and what was important to me. So what I did to manage this and my stress levels was to decide what was important … for me to know what was going on and whether some-one was in fact late or not. Then I could decide on action for the shop around moving staff and adjusting times if needed. Agree with staff that if they had issues with transport or any other that they need to let me know and discuss it … if they don’t have airtime send me a call me back. This was something for the staff to get used to as some of them just did not want to adhere to this … to big a change, and some abusing the system … not always the transport that was an issue. In the end all my staff bought into this, this worked well in the almost 3 years I had the shop resulting on less stress on me as well as the staff and less impact on the business

 B) Staff levels of expertize and exposure different: Coming from a background of working in Corporate I realised every day we do take so many things for granted. I found that amongst these ladies sometimes unsatisfactory work was due to lack of knowing better, or just not knowing and not having experience/ exposure to something. I had to go back to basics and often introduce basics as there was no reference.

Key Learning: Invest a lot of time in training, up skilling and understanding your staff, their individual personalities, their circumstances and experience is it always pays off and is worth it. This taught me a lot of patience … if you think you have a lot of patience … this experience will show you, you still need a lot more. For me it was important when something happened in the shop to Breathe take a walk and then come back and address it when I have cooled off. Remember you just cannot react and talk to people when you are upset within your business … remember this is your bread and butter so it is personal and you will react accordingly … resulting in no way forward, no learning and cultural & interpersonal misunderstandings.

Important you should always be flexible and treat every-one according to their personality type and experience, but when it comes to what needs to be done and the requirements here you need to be inflexible and consistent

 

For more tips and guides on staff management go to http://www.madtrainingsolutions.co.za/business_basics_staff.html

 See info from MAD Training solutions website below

Share your experience with staff management ... start the conversation!

 

 

Can you believe it ...

 

it is November … wow time is running out for 2016!

Few days before year end, so what will it take for you and your team to stay engaged?

Take a look at the guide below as this will assist you to lead your team and yourself

to the next level of engagement based on your leading Insights Discovery colour energy

 

 

Reminder if you have an individual who can benefit from an Insights Discovery Personal Profile and you need someone to assist and give a feedback discussion …

Please do not hesitate to contact me for a quote. As the MAD Guru I am also available to assist with coaching around application of Insights Discovery

Visit www.madtrainingsolutions.co.za for more info on Insights Discovery - Discover Yourself section.

Please share with me some of the strategies you are using in these last days of 2016 to keep yourself and your team engaged!

 

 

From Corporate to Entrepreneur – sharing my story & learnings

3)    Getting down to business - Quarter 1 – key learnings (Part 1)

The first 3 months was such a huge learning and leap of faith. During this time I often felt wow what just happened … Anybody who thinks that owning and managing your own business is easy and you have lots of time on your hands, think again. You work hard and I mean you work hard often both physically and emotionally. So be prepared for one of the most wonderful journeys … owning and managing your own business

So many people think & dream of their own little coffee shop a dream come true … yes it is a huge privilege but hey you need to know what it would entail and what it is going to take. Often people I speak to have a total different and idealist idea about it and are not prepared of the road ahead. For this reason I decided to share my story and the learnings from owning and managing a small coffee shop – as it can be such a wonderful & blessed experience

The first three months flew by in a nick of time! Very busy packed days and long hours was my everyday routine as I tried to get to grips of the business and how to take it forward.

A good surprise, was to loose so much weight in the first months … this by just walking around and being on my feet most of the time … remember I use to work for a Corporate before.

 

So what was the learnings for the first 3 months?

1)      Month 1 run business on similar basis as previous owner: As mentioned in previous blog, try your utmost best not to change things immediately, (except for things that are wrong and needs to be changed immediately) check it out make notes and jot down ideas on how you’d like to improve things from second month. In month two gradually start minor changes and tweaks. Update your business plan as you go along … remember your business plan is a dynamic document http://www.madtrainingsolutions.co.za/business_basics_business_plan.html

2)      Company registration: Choose a name not taken before for your company, do the search on CIPC website on http://www.cipc.co.za/   Make sure you choose registration of your company in the most appropriate way as this will have tax implications going forward. For example the difference between registering a Sole proprietor vs Ltd Pty company. See more info on different types of companies in South Africa and tax implications  http://www.madtrainingsolutions.co.za/business_basics_types.html

Check with your accountant as to which, for your circumstances, would be the best option. Do your homework

3)      Bank account: Choose the most appropriate Business Account as the packages differ a lot and your choice will depend on how your business will run day to day. If you are going to do a lot of cash deposits check the costs as this vary a lot as well. Make sure you vary your trips to the bank … go at different times and different days. Check what the Business account package include as extras. If you have a merchant machine (credit card) remember the commission vary a lot, choose the lowest as this will deplete your profits. Also make a decision on what the minimum transaction amount on the cards would be for your business.

4)      Ensure you have cash flow:   Majority of companies fail in the first 6 months due to lack of cash flow. When opening your bank account place a buffer amount in your account. This should only be used in case of emergencies and should only be taped into in the beginning of the month to serve as a buffer as profit start coming in. Remember in the beginning of the month you have to buy fresh stock this needs money. Keep the amount consistent for example if you started with a R 10 000 buffer keep the R 10 000 buffer as a minimum  

5)      Web / email / phone: one of the things we often forget when we work for a Corporate is how convenient it is if some-one (in IT) takes care of all of this … a bit more difficult to do all of this on your own if you are not very technical inclined. But hey there is very good service providers out there and they are very helpful. Make sure you have all the needed IT set up and equipment. Useful tip set up a small Wi-Fi router in order for you to be able to use multiple devices it really makes your life easier as well as it really is very cost effective

More to follow on learnings from first 3 months …

Important in the first three months it is not all about what you look at but all about what you can see …  important quote from Henry D Thoreau

This time of the year is just so hectic and just such a rush!

Most of us have only 2 months to achieve our goals and targets for 2016

In this time we focus on what worked what did not work …

So question is how do we continue and keep going in the last months?

 

Below a very relevant quote (from W Churchill)  for this time period …

The key is to have the courage to continue …

Good luck and please share your thoughts and feedback

Have a great rest of the week!

regards the MAD Guru

From Corporate to Entrepreneur – sharing my story & learnings

2)    The next step - from idea to reality - First month

So then yes it happened my request for voluntary retrenchment was approved. Now there was no turning back. We finalized the purchasing of the Coffee shop in the next week and again checked all is in order. Arranged with the previous owner to train me as part of the hand over for two weeks. It all worked out 100%, I left my previous job the agreed Friday and drove straight to the coffee shop to do a handover and stock take that same afternoon.

The First two weeks

I decided to take full opportunity of the first two weeks of training from the previous owner and found out Everything on how they operated the shop … from menu, to people management, to managing cash, to managing admin, to managing stock and suppliers as well as all about the every-day running of the shop.

Key Learning: even if you have experience and a lot of ideas, take time find out from the previous owner / manager how the business ran on a day to day basis … keep an open mind it will save you a lot of time. And remember there is always something you can learn and not duplicate … don’t unnecessary reinvent the wheel

The First month:

I then decided to run the first month based on the same principal it ran previously and checked and tested what’s working and what not. I refined my business plan during that first month in business. I started making notes of possible other/different ways to do things for future months. It is always a good idea to only start changing things once you have assessed the reality … only when you knew out rightly it was wrong change it immediately

Key Learning: even if you have experience and a lot of ideas, take time find out from the previous owner / manager how the business ran on a day to day basis … keep an open mind it will save you a lot of time. And remember there is always something you can learn and not duplicate … don’t unnecessary reinvent the wheel

Also during this first month I ensured I had expectation meetings with all staff and set the expectation and standards going forward. I ensure I opened the appropriate Business Bank account that suited this business. (Regular deposits of cash, change requirements and EFT payments, merchant machine). I also ensured I got to know every aspect of the business … personally I learnt how to make every item on the menu, how all the equipment operated and how every routine etc. worked.

See important quote from Richard Branson below. I did this and I can guarantee this is worth it and works like magic. Remember this with any business … make sure you are familiar with all aspects of that business and know exactly how it operates … payback will definitely come in future

 

If I'm setting up a new business I'll spend three or four months learning everything there is about that business, everything there is about that subject and then I will find good people to run it on a day-to-day basis, but whilst they're running it at least I know what they're talking about when they come back to me.

-Richard Branson ( Running, People, Good People, Come Back To Me, New Business, Bases, Four, Months, Subjects, Talking, Three, Day To Day, Setting, Settings, Knows, Learning Everything, Ifs,) 

 

For more info on starting your own business and taking your idea to reality, handy tips and guides click on the link below

http://www.madtrainingsolutions.co.za/business_basics_turning_idea.html

 

Have you started your own business ... Please share your experience and learnings from the first month

Soon more to follow on From Corporate to Entrepreneur on the MAD Guru blog