FocalPoint Business Coaching, MA

23/02/2024

To all my Facebook friends. It appears my account may have been hacked - I have not sent out any friend requests so if you got one from me please ignore it. I have changed my password and added additional security.

06/12/2023

Generation Innovation is now available in paperback!
Belle Walker and I remain grateful for the outstanding response to our current collaboration that was released via electronic download on November 9. Many of you have asked when the paperback version will be available and we're pleased to share that it has arrived! It's a great gift idea for the entrepreneur on your list.

03/11/2023

I'm excited to share that Belle Walker and I will be guests on Rebecca Hall Gruyter's radio show, Empowering Women, Transforming Lives on November 9, 2023. The show coincides with the launch of our book, Generation Innovation, and on the show we will share our passions and life experiences that inspired us to write it. Please join if you can!

| Mindfulness in Life and Business Thursday, November 9, 2023 on Empowering Women, Transforming Lives | VoiceAmerica - The Leader in Internet Media

18/10/2023

Have you ever picked up a book and wondered why the author chose to write that particular book? This week, Belle Walker and I would like to share, via video, why we wrote Generation Innovation / Business, Family & The Journey to Success, and why we chose to deliver a business book in a storytelling narrative. And don't forget to mark your calendars for November 9, when Generation Innovation will officially become available at a limited time price of $1.99.

11/10/2023

Is it really a book if it doesn't have a cover?

I've recently shared that Belle Walker and I collaborated on a new book entitled: Generation Innovation: Business, Family & the Path to Success. We spent considerable time on the content and are excited about where it landed... but we knew we needed help with the cover art.

Fortunately, we asked Calvin Nelson to help us and he patiently designed the cover. We're excited to share it with you tomorrow in a video feed - because no book should be published without a cover!

Mark your calendars! The book itself will be released on November 9, 2023. If you really don't want to miss it, sign up to be notified: https://signup.e2ma.net/signup/1991652/1923931/

Please look for our reveal tomorrow and tell us what you think.

04/10/2023

Coming Soon: Generation Innovation!
**Save the Date** I’m excited to share that our new book (co-authored with Belle Walker): “Generation Innovation” will be launching on November 9th!!! And starting November 9th, we will be offering our book for the special rate of $1.99 USD (just for the first 24-48hrs).

Click here:
https://app.e2ma.net/app2/audience/signup/1991652/1923931/
to join our email list and be notified when the book becomes available. Stay tuned over the next few weeks for more information.

15/11/2021

Calling All NonProfit Leaders!

Join us for the next cohort of the Bootcamp for NonProfit Leaders, beginning in January, 2022. Act now and take advantage of our EarlyBird rate.

08/06/2021

Exit Impact on Non-Exiters

There are few more unsettling changes to the ones left behind in an organization than a change in leadership, particularly if that change involves the sale of a business. Leaders set the tone and direction of the company and if their tenure is long enough, employees may have a level of comfort in knowing what to expect in the day-to-day operations. These expectations are often classified as “culture”. It’s a common understanding that culture is instrumental to the success (or failure) of a business, therefore, it should be expected that a change of leadership will be accompanied by a shift in culture.

No business is immune to the impact a leadership change can have on their culture. In fact, this culture shift happens whether you are a mega company like Apple, as happened after the passing of Steve Jobs, or a small business owner turning over your legacy to the next generation. Change is almost always difficult, but, because of the broader implications, the change associated with a turnover of leadership can be particularly terrifying for employees. Factors that drive the discomfort include lack of trust toward the new leader and a perceived loss of control by the employees. Furthermore, this impact to the employees can often be overlooked in the early-day frenzy of keeping the business moving forward while transplanting it’s most vital organ.

The Unknown
When a small business is sold to an outside entity, the transition from a known and trusted owner to an unknown leader can cause exceptional disruption to the remaining employees. Whether the new owner is a competitor, an investment group, or just someone looking to get into business for themselves, this path has a particularly high degree of uncertainty. For some employees, the looming unknown shakes them free of a passive slumber and serves to re-energize them. Others will be more trepidatious. If the stream of communication about how the business will be run is unclear, infrequent, and inconsistent, then miscommunication can quickly become the norm. In the absence of information, people begin to treat suppositions as facts and for the fearful, the outlook is almost always grim.

I witnessed the impact of this type of transition with a company that had written decades of success stories. When the owner approached retirement age with no family to whom he could transition his legacy and no internal employees interested in, or capable of, taking over, he had to go outside to sell. It wasn’t difficult to find a willing buyer for a business with their track record of success and from all accounts the new owner was committed to providing the tools to grow the company at a faster rate. Even so, the next six months were a rollercoaster ride for all involved.

Some employees thrived in the new environment and garnered favor with the new leader. Others found themselves oscillating between a desire to flee the strange new circumstances and a determination to decipher the key to survival in this new normal. Managers reported that long tenured employees were planning to leave despite the fact that there were no indications that their jobs were in jeopardy. The managers themselves were soliciting job offers with the competition.

What made these employees believe, even if only sometimes, that moving to a completely different company would be less disruptive than transitioning to new ownership within their existing company, where they would be surrounded by a core group of co-workers they knew well? Control. I’m sorry, I meant to say “perceived control.”

The Untested
Acknowledging that the unknown, new owner can be overwhelming for some employees, it stands to reason that the leadership transfer across generations within a family might cause less of a shock to an organization. Of course this approach carries its own challenges. First and foremost is perceived (or real?) nepotism, which can lead to assumed lack of skills or ability of the new leader. Even when the necessary skills are present, the new, untested leader is then faced with the task of finding a way to respectfully transition the organization from the direction set by their family member to their own vision for the future. Given these constraints, we might expect that the transition to the semi-familiar leader will have less impact on the employees.

I’ve witnessed this type of transition in small businesses and have observed very different reactions. On one end of the spectrum was a young leader who inherited a young workforce and on the other, a young leader whose inherited workforce was ageing out. In both cases the employees reacted to the change in culture, but in the first scenario the younger workforce welcomed the new leader and embraced the changes. This was likely because the employees didn’t have enough time-in-role to feel deep ownership or loss of control from the change.

The ageing-out workforce under the new generation leader exhibited a very different response. While some employees were energized by the new direction, others resented the push for growth and change and felt a sense of loss of control. In some cases, employees even flat out ignored the directives of the new leader. In both examples, the new leader wanted to improve and grow their company and each introduced a new culture. Yet the response to the young leader by the older workforce was quite similar to the response described above to a complete outsider. The familial ties were insufficient to automatically create the trust needed to change the overall employee sentiments, resulting in the same fear of the unknown, driven by the same perceived lack of control.

The “Bait and Switch”
The transition that often carries the lowest expected impact on the company culture is when the owner or CEO leaves and is replaced by a known member of the senior management team. In this situation, the new leader has likely already influenced the organizational culture by virtue of their previous role. Their past behaviors should clearly indicate whether they can be trusted by the employees to maintain a level of consistency. But what happens when the new leader’s past behavior is primarily a reflection of the limits placed upon them by the outgoing leader? What happens when, given freedom and control, the new leader institutes changes that they had wanted to make in the past and now are in a position to implement? This can be perceived as a “bait and switch” by employees, a seeming breach of trust causing some to resist the changes.

As the persistent possibility of employee pushback and resentment across all of these scenarios indicates, any leadership change that accompanies the exit of a long term business leader can be very difficult for employees. A new leader should expect that there will be a transition period where trust needs to be established (or re-established) and even the most stable employees may experience negative reactions to the change. Most negative reactions can be traced back to the perceived loss of control. It’s important for new ownership to be aware that trust and control will always be two critical forces in the mix of a business transition and that these forces cannot be mitigated in the short term by words, but rather in the long term by actions.

A change in leadership will inevitably impact the culture and the employees in any organization regardless of size or level of sophistication. The key to a successful ownership transition is to plan for the impact of the cultural shift prior to the transition and to monitor the results from the earliest stages of change. Earning the trust of the employees will go a long way towards moderating the early disruption. Including employees early and often during the transition can serve to soften the perceived loss of control and can even create a re-energized workforce. And in the process, don’t forget to address the impact of the change to the new leader, too.

12/05/2021

Growing Your Business Using Steel Beam Construction

I recently met a business owner, Gary, who blew me away with his point of view on the importance of goals and metrics: he believed in them! In fact, he even went so far as to say that his business wouldn't survive without them!

If you have spent any portion of your career in a mid to large sized company, you may not be as impressed as I was with Gary’s point of view. Goals and metrics are foundational business tools for larger companies and your experience is likely that they played a part in most everything the company did. You have almost certainly come to expect a planning season and regular metrics updates. But the entrepreneur is often a different breed.

As a coach to independent business owners, one of the most challenging topics I address with my clients is the need for relevant goals and metrics. Sure they have broad goals: they want to grow their business, they want to earn more this year than they did last year, and they want the business to create value. Ideally, they want that value to be high enough that selling would make a significant contribution to their retirement fund or allow the business to become a self-standing legacy. This list of goals is then often evaluated at a high level, such as “are we better off this year than last year?” or for early stage companies, “is there enough cash at the end of the month to pay the bills?” The concept of establishing concrete and specific goals and measures is often skirted or actively avoided.

In order to achieve their “big dreams,” entrepreneurs need hard metrics to chart their progress along the way. The savvy business owner I referenced earlier told me that when he first embraced the idea of metrics in his business, he introduced 100 of them. Not a typo! In retrospect he admits that he went overboard but that in doing so he learned a very valuable lesson. With 100 metrics he was measuring everything, which at the time he believed allowed him to manage everything that was happening in his business. His ah-ha moment was when he realized that looking at everything was preventing him from focusing on the most important things.

Identifying the right metrics for a business can be a difficult exercise, often leading to default, common measures like revenue or net income. The problem is that these measures are after-the-fact, trailing indicators. More useful metrics are predictive in nature. For example, consider a dentist who defines success based on revenue growth and uses the revenue itself as their only metric. By the time the revenue has grown, or failed to grow, it is already too late to influence the outcome! Tracking chair utilization or the frequency of scheduling the next patient appointment during the current visit can provide early warnings of a potential revenue shortfall. Looking at other industries, a payment processing business could use a volume indicator to determine when they need to add the next employee and a business that is concerned about sales effectiveness could measure lead generation or conversion rates. The list goes on.

It is an art to determine which measures most effectively predict the results you are tracking but what is certain is that there should only be a few of them. When you find the right metrics, you can trust they will lead you to the desired business outcome. Gary describes the benefit of this shift as being similar to the transition from wood to steel in building construction. Prior to the late 1800’s, when buildings were held up by wooden support beams, multi-story buildings were possible but the maximum height was limited. With the introduction of steel beam construction in the late 1800’s, far heavier structures could be supported and building heights began to soar.

For business owners trying to build value, “bigger” is better but when all you have is wood, “bigger” buildings end up like the parthenon - sprawling and low. If the overall goal is to create something 50 stories tall, no number of additional wooden columns is going to get you there. In Gary’s case, trying to grow his business by tracking 100 metrics meant assessing every detail of every element of his business. Tracking all of these variables meant that none stood out and he was left with reduced bandwidth for action, even if the 100 metrics indicated that action was required. He simply wasn’t seeing the accelerated growth that he was targeting.

Gary reports that his ah-ha moment led him to switch to 5 metrics from the original 100 and he realized two significant, immediate improvements as a result of this move. First, the business is growing faster because he is focusing on the right areas. Second, and perhaps unexpectedly, he now has more balance in his life. By zeroing in on the most important metrics and viewing the rest as supporting materials, Gary is able to drive the growth of his business at a more rapid pace. In fact, he reported his recent quarter returned the same sales as all of the previous year! Stronger tools produce better results. When you identify the critical measures that drive sales and growth in your business, and measure progress against them, growth is accelerated and you are less likely to be distracted by “nice to have” or less impactful activities.

Gary’s 100 metrics, or wooden beams, guided his early success, but his five metrics, the steel beams of his business, have given him the focus he needs to accelerate his growth.

31/03/2021

Tapping Your Talent for Business Improvement

One of the most productive ways for managers to gain insight into the needs of a business is to go right to the source - the employees. There is no one better than the “feet on the street” or individuals in the trenches to understand what’s working and what’s not working in a growing business. It’s likely that employees are already sharing needed changes with each other and these conversations probably result in some pretty awesome recommendations. So it may seem obvious that the way to harness those discussions and ideas to improve your business is simply to ask the employees! But what if, when you ask, all you hear is crickets?

Much like other human interactions, trust is a table stake for open communication in business. You may think you have the ultimate trust with your employees, especially if things are going well, because agreement requires little to no trust. This “don’t ask don’t tell” assumption that all is well can make it easy to assume that high trust exists - and sometimes such an assumption is completely correct! But trust is something that has to be earned through consistency in communication and actions. A culture that values employee input is one that is more likely to experience a healthy give and take. So when you hit your first impasse and determine that the solution is to rally the troops and get their feedback, if you have yet to fully prove your commitment to open communication and action, don’t be surprised when the response is underwhelming.

I work with a dynamic manager, “Ryan”, whose default decision-making approach is to consider employee impact first; a fabulous enabler for building high trust cultures. He has been a manager for eight years and his team has low turnover. Recently, Ryan decided that he would like to meet weekly with his team to get a better understanding of how he could help them improve their working environment. Such open solicitation of employee input had never happened in the fifty years of the firm and some of the employees were puzzled by the meeting request. Despite this, the first meeting went very well and Ryan actually received a suggestion which he could quickly act upon and that directly improved the team’s day to day experiences. Given that the team had now offered a suggestion, observed Ryan’s commitment to action, and benefited from the result you might expect that in the following meeting there were three great ideas! Well, actually there were zero.

While Ryan took a positive step to gain trust by quickly acting on a relevant employee suggestion, one such moment and action can only start the trust earning process. There is still much more to be done. Unfortunately, Ryan’s optimism led him to confuse “kicking off the trust building process” with “having built the trust”. This left him disappointed by the lack of further ideas flowing in subsequent meetings. In fact, one employee openly expressed that “these meetings are a waste of time.” Buzz kill? Yes BUT, also absolutely expected in an organization where ideas have never before been solicited and only one employee suggestion has thus far been enacted.

Creating a high trust environment alone is insufficient to guarantee the desired outpouring of suggestions and insights. I also work with a successful business owner, “Susan”, who is an outstanding communicator that consistently meets with her team and appears to have built a high level of organizational trust. Susan recently established a lucrative strategic alliance with a former competitor and her business is poised for accelerated success. While her operations are solid, Susan recognizes that to maximize the value of this alliance, there is room for improvement and that her employees are the best source for improvement ideas.

Susan is a firm believer in rewarding people for their ideas and promptly established a reward and recognition program that allows employees to earn points for business enhancing suggestions that can be turned into gifts of their choice. The Q1 program was kicked off in early January and last week Susan reported that after a two week surge in activity in January, no one has taken initiative to earn points through suggestions. What went wrong?

The rewards program was new and frankly, neither Susan nor her managers were 100% clear on what success looks like or how the program would run most effectively. While Susan’s employees and managers inherently understood her positive intent, no one fully understood what was being asked of them. Perhaps Susan should have asked the employees how to design the program. Regardless, Susan concluded that she could have done a better job explaining the expectations and benefits. The good news is that there is something called Q2 coming up and Susan and her managers are putting together a simpler program with more achievable goals.

For a genuine and mutually beneficial relationship with your employees, high trust is built by consistently demonstrating trusting and trust enhancing behaviors. Before high trust can be attained, managers must first break a vicious cycle where lack of employee input leads to lack of management opportunities for demonstrating action which leads back lack of trust and therefore lack of employee input. Thus the cycle continues. If employees do not initially respond favorably when asked for input, never fear! The silence is hardly a sign that it is time to give up, but rather that it is time to step on the gas. The benefits of a high trust environment far outweigh the hard work needed to get you there and the hard work goes beyond consistency in meetings.

Both Ryan and Susan have the right idea in engaging employees in the design of a feedback system; they both just need to iterate. Their first attempts sent the message that they want the feedback and plan to use it. The consistent actions of Ryan continuing his weekly meetings and acting on any suggestions that arise will, over time, establish the high trust culture he is seeking. Susan, in refining her Q2 program, is building on the existing trust to create positive outcomes for employees and business alike. While each waits for the trickle of ideas and insights to become a gusher (or at least a flow), Ryan and Susan should continue to acknowledge and celebrate the opportunities their teams highlight. The possibilities are vast, and the most important thing is to build trust by continuously encouraging open and honest feedback.

01/03/2021

A Novice Guide to Business Productivity Tools

One of the biggest adjustments I had to make when transitioning from a corporate employee to a small business owner was taking ownership of identifying and obtaining the tools I needed to maximize my productivity. Then, even more importantly, I had to learn how to use them. In the corporate world, aside from pushing for an Apple laptop and integrating my personal iPhone into the corporate network, the tools I needed for my job were selected for me and training was readily available, or even required. I quickly learned to respect my former lack of choices.The fact is, as a small business owner and relative small business tool novice, I have spent countless hours evaluating potential tools and trying to decide what is really necessary, all the while battling my belief that Excel is the universal elixir.

All kidding aside about Excel (kind of), most new business owners are astute enough to understand that there are a few tools that are a cost of entry for any business venture. A business email address, a website, a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) platform (or Excel), a bookkeeping platform (or Excel), an appointment management system, and, in these days of COVID, a virtual meeting platform such as Zoom can all be necessary very early in the process. But is that where it ends?

Actually, that’s just where it begins. Do you need to set up email using your own domain or can you leverage Gmail? Gmail may be fine if it is LLBusiness rather than LisaFlower7 but sometimes you want the LLBusiness after the @ rather than before. Similar questions manifest for each of the options I listed. Should you create your own website or hire someone? Is a sophisticated CRM really necessary early on or should you consider the free version of platforms like Hubspot or MailChimp? Can a small business get away with using Excel (again, the universal elixir) to track financials? Possibly, but just Google accounting software and you’ll find you have numerous options. A scheduling app like Calendly is great for starters and is free until you want to integrate it with your daily calendar and offer multiple types of appointments. The truth is, you can get early help from many different places. You just need to know where to look and trusted friends and colleagues are always a great source to send you in the right direction.

Once you have tied down the foundational tools, it’s time to look at the next level - social media. Some people consider this a cost of entry as well, and they are right. The reality is that more people find me through my LinkedIn profile than they do through my website. But after that, for me the value begins to decline. I have a Facebook business page, but having never been a personal Facebook user, I know I am not leveraging the platform to its fullest - even after attending webinars on the topic. My lack of skills on the platform probably contributes to my limited success in using it. There are plenty of social media mavens who have made skillful use of their professional presence on Facebook.

Continuing with social media platforms that may at first blush appear to be more for personal use, Instagram and Snapchat are becoming more prevalent with businesses as well. My initial reaction was: “that’s where I post pictures of my dogs and reach out to my daughters with goofy filters.” But in fairness, I will admit to a steep slope in the purchase activity on my Instagram account. Those ads get me. Often, however, I question how many of the people who are enjoying the pics of my dogs in costume are also interested in Business Coaching. I counter my own skepticism with the knowledge that clients often seek engagements with coaches they feel like they know and trust, a relationship that can be kick started with a strong social media presence. In truth, there is a long line of success stories of people who were able to successfully switch from personal to professional on these platforms.

It may again be tempting to believe we have reached the end of the discussion but the list just keeps growing. There is a third level of tools: those that are specific to your business. Do you need a project management tool, a billing system, or credit card processing for example? Similar to levels one and two, any selections must be appropriately vetted both for their value and their ability to integrate with other tools selected. But at some point you need to put a stake in the ground and actually start working on that business you just started. For those of you who like to learn new platforms, there will be no lack of options. While tempting, avoid being dragged into the minutia of a platform at the expense of focusing on developing your business. Apply the 80/20 rule, recognizing that 20% of the functionality will get you 80% of the benefit of the tool. If the 20% is insufficient to move the needle for your business, then move on.

Speaking of numbers, such an extensive list of “basics” might raise an important question: how much will these ‘helpful’ options cost me? You can easily be nickel-and-dimed to death as a small business layering on tools in effort to create efficiencies. Any one tool might seem like a bargain but enough bargains can quickly add up to a significant cost for early stage businesses still looking to establish meaningful revenue. Determining how to approach the balance between useful and expensive may depend more on your individual personality than on your particular business. For example, I know that for myself, FOMO causes me to struggle with removing tools and subscriptions so I need to be very careful about what I add. I apply the 80/20 rule before signing up, rather than as a culling mechanism whereas someone who is quick to cancel may be better served by signing up early and often as they will refine their portfolio regularly.

We are living in unprecedented times for business growth. New businesses need at least a minimal amount of infrastructure to organize and execute, requiring owners to identify the tools they need to get their businesses off the ground. Once you have decided on the basic categories of tools you plan to use for your business, you must still determine the best option for each. The answers likely depend on the type of business you are trying to build. Tools are being created every day that help us with productivity and creativity and you will rarely be challenged to find a tool that can meet your needs. Instead, the challenge comes in sorting through the options, which is a great problem to have. Next week, I’ll bring my personal perspective to decision-making criteria on how to select the platforms most useful to you and your business.

24/02/2021

Do you struggle with determining what the right metrics are to help you grow your business? Join FocalPoint Coach Greg DeSimone on Tuesday, March 9 for "Metrics that Matter." Greg with share with you the five numbers you need to know to grow your business.