Poll

I'd love you to hit this link and give us some feedback in a Poll about Business needs. It will take 1 minute.

Thanks

Karl

Congratulations to The George Hotel

The George Hotel has been voted No 2 in New Zealand and No1 in the South Island in the new category of the top 20 city hotels in Australia and New Zealand in the recent best Hotel survey in international "Travel and Leisure" magazine.

We really enjoy working with the team at the George Hotel and particularly their commitment to being the best at what they do.

Karl

Living What We Teach

As a Practise we strive to live what we teach, in fact it is one of our core values. We measure our relevant KPI's to help drive the business and we hold each associate accountable for their "piece in the pie".

One of our main measures is to ensure our clients meet their quarterly goals because this is important for them and it ensures we as a team are adding maximum value to their team. To make this a robust process we peer review each clients quarterly goal for relevance in the yearly goal and in the 3-5 year plan. We also check that it is achievable, measurable and challenging.

Living what we teach is an important core value of Results.Com.

Karl

Weekly Meetings

Weekly meetings are the life blood of any business and yet so many do not bother. Of course the secret is to have a meeting agenda that is short, holds people accountable, discusses the important things, allows decisions to be made and doesn't sap the will of you staff to live!! A two hour marathon just isn't needed!!

Try it and get Results.

Karl

Where is the Pain?

Right now Canterbury Business owners are looking at how they can survive a prolonged decrease in revenue. In a lot of cases the hard decisions to cut staff or overheads has been left too late and now there are not so many options as they could have had a few months ago as part of a planned approach.

On average it seems that revenue across most industries has declined by 30-40% and it is likely the market recovery is going to be slow. So how do you operate and grow in a consumers market where your competitors are competing on price? How do you get more productivity from less staff? How do you ensure marketing is effective given the fact you have a far smaller advertising budget?

Now the bad news.......there is no magic bullet that will solve this. It takes a good long term strategy, well targeted short and medium terms goals, a focused offering to the market with a unique point of difference and it takes good communication, staff 90 day goals, accountability across the company and measurement of the relevant KPI's.

That takes skill and planning and the real value is being able to execute these things and make them happen rather than simply come up with a plan.

Take some action and make it happen. Oh and have fun.....it is too easy to get lost in the doom & stress.

Karl

Excuses are Crap!

One thing we face each day as we assist Business Owners to execute their Business Plan is the inevitable round of excuses. Lets face it as a Business Owner there are a thousand things going on and lots of white noise that can detract from the real issues. So how do we get around this? Quite simply we hold them accountable for their own plan. We confront reality and we tell them how it is.....novel I know!!

Another reality for Business Owners is that sometimes they never hear the truth.....sure they get well meaning watered down reports or feedback from loyal staff but sometimes when we work through the issues facing a company the reality is the main blockage or bottleneck slowing progress is.....you guessed it the actual owner. They need to know this, the reasons why and be shown how to get out of the way of their own business. Of course with many personalities this needs to be done in the most productive way.....but it needs to be direct, give the facts and be honest! If a business can functon perfectly well without the owner then thats added value, makes it sellable and more valuable.

On another note I'm glad Mr Weatherston was found guilty yesterday. An appalling crime that deserves an appallingly long Prison sentence.

Karl

What does your Brand promise?

The Brand Promise you give to the market is pretty fundamental. It is really what your brand stands for. Of course it ties in with the core values and vision I have discussed in previous blogs. If you get this right and can back it up with tangible evidence or facts that your company is delivering then it becomes powerful and adds value to your brand......if you have a valuable brand then you have a valuable investment!

The Results.Com Brand Promise is "We engage all of your people and deliver extraordinary results". I'm not saying this is the best or the most powerful but if you take into account that independent research is conducted regularly then it comes to life. As at Feb 09 our clients average annual revenue growth was 26%.......down from over 40% the previous year but still extraordinary in the face of the biggest recession since World War Two. Add to this we are now entering the recovery phase so our clients are going to be well placed to ride the lift!

If you have the research independently carried out and verified then its pretty powerful isn't it?

So what is your brand promise?

Karl

Vision- Kennedy proved a point!

40 years after landing on the moon it is timely to reflect upon this achievement. President John F. Kennedy had a powerful vision in the very early 60's when he stated that the intention of the USA was "to land a man on the moon and successfully bring him home by the end of the decade" (or words to that effect).

Now love him or hate him the amazing thing was that when he made that statement the technology for such feat did not exist. But achieve it they did.....politics and cold war mongering aside, this was impressive and you can only imagine how brave those early astronauts were! Of course the spin off from the space program has been huge in many ways- new technology, new inventions (air conditioning, navigation systems, food, rocket engines, fuels and of course an interesting toilet system!).

The power of vision or as Jim Collins likes to call it "a Big hairy Audacious Goal" is incredible and if it is time bound, measurable, achievable and stretches a team then it really come to life. Get the Core Values right and the Vision and you are on the road to extraordinary results.

Karl (see our website)

Core Values- More than a List!

Core Values are things that many organisations tend to list, frame and hang on the wall. True Core Values are lived daily in the Company and are referred to used continuously. Staff are recruited from them, appraisals are done from them and if required staff are dismissed if they breach one of them.

Our Core Values at Results.Com are;

• People First
• Go the extra mile
• Live what we teach
• Abundance mentality
• Make a difference
• Passion for learning
• Straight talk

Our Core Purpose: To enhance peoples experience of life.

What are yours? and what do you do with them? Are they alive in the organisation? Why are they important?

Karl (see our website)

Results.Com

Many people ask us what we do? Many think we are one of the many Business Coaching organisations that seem to tout their wares around the town. Well we are not Coaches....we grow businesses, we provide Business Execution Strategy's for those we work with that allow them to grow. We transform business potential into extraordinary results. Our team delivering these results are Business Execution Specialists with a variety of backgrounds, experience and qualifications.

Even more excitingly as a company we are developing and will soon launch a variety of new services and options that will allow organisations to easily work with us in a way that best suits their requirements.

Currently and in this challenging economic environment our clients are growing and on average are achieving 26% revenue growth (*Perspective Insight (Independent Client Research) Annual survey Feb 09).

Karl (see our website)

Checking in With Reality

As we work one on one with business owners to grow their businesses we get to see their many and varied challenges. One learning that we have as a team in our own business is to constantly check our systems against reality. It is very easy to add more complexity to a company when what is really needed is a simple tweak to the current process to get better results or information. New systems for the sake of them do not save time. Checking reality with the desired outcome is all that is required to see is a system is performing.

Each business we work with has a different structure, industry, market and their own unique financial and management challenges and whilst there are similarities in the evolution of each business a universal approach to growth does not work. Likewise the owner operator has differing needs than a larger company with a management team. One common theme is that all business owners experience the isolation of leading. Sometimes the network we provide by getting our clients together regularly or by simply listening to their issues, gives that sounding board they need to re energise and overcome the latest challenge.

Karl (hit our website)

Never Mind The Pain...!

Every day I am meeting with Canterbury Business owners looking to improve things.....never mind the pain lets just get on with it is the attitude! Presently we seem to have a consensus from the economists (well as good as you can expect) that the economy is kicking along the bottom and we can expect to see things improve slowly over the next 12-18 months.

The smart operators right now are preparing to take advantage of that lift....if its going to be a small & drawn out lift in the market then we all need to be focused and poised for growth. That means honing in on your target market, careful marketing, making sure debtors are under control, staff are focused, the sales team is actively hunting for sales (not taking orders....big difference!) and celebrating the successes when they happen. In other words you need to be ready to lead your market to really reap the rewards.

I am seeing more business owners seeking advice from us on implementation of these key drivers in their business.....after all that's what we do...."We grow Businesses".

Talk soon

Karl (hit our website)

Wacko Jacko

Here's the thing, i actually liked Michael Jackson. For all his weirdness, insecurities, strange family, attitude to kids.....put all that aside and look at his music and wow....a real point of difference. His voice, energy in dance....lets face it skills on the dance floor even! What a brand and what earning potential.

So what went wrong, why was he so heavily in debt? Put into business context you have to ask what his 10-15 year goal was? Did he really use his obvious points of difference in a positive way? Why was the "Michael Jackson" brand replaced by the "Wacko Jacko" brand? There is also the begging question as to whether he really had the right advisers, employees with skills and were they all working towards the big goal?

So as we watch the media frenzy unfold and we are fed the edited version of what happened in his life and watch his bank accounts fill up to the brim "post humously" it is always healthy to look at why his business model did not work and remember his positive aspects...the song and dance he gave the world.

Karl (see our website)