Be a leader, not a business owner!

Leadership I believe is one of the critical links to business success, yet often as small business owners we can struggle to see ourselves as a leader. We see ourselves as a business owner, as a doer in our business, as a motivator of staff (if we have any). It is something that needs to be focused on.

 

Leadership is about developing a vision, about developing your personal vision of success for you both professionally and personally.

I want to share with you four questions that I have used frequently over the past 10 years with my clients. These are very simple questions that I heard from a keynote speaker at a conference I attended years ago. These questions will help you to build your personal framework around being a leader.

1 . How do you see yourself as a leader?

Ask yourself: What is your leadership point of view?
How would you describe your leadership style?
What matters to you in terms of your leadership?
Do you see yourself as a leader?

2. How do others see you?

Ask yourself: Do you know?
Do you care?
Are you right? (i.e. is your information accurate?)
How do you assess this every day of the week?

Note: Some of the best leaders are extremely conscious of how people see them. They ask for feedback frequently and evaluate it. They think about it daily and ask themselves:
“Is what I mean being perceived the way I intended”? “ If not, how do I need to change my message?”

3. How do you want to be seen?

This involves needs and values. If we don’t know the needs and values we are driven by, they can wreak havoc in our environment. The best leaders are in pursuit of respect first and popularity second.

4. How must and should you be seen to be effective?

If you don’t know this, then working with a mentor can help you look at the gaps and help you to see what you need to do tomorrow to be seen as more effective.

 

Once you've answered the questions above, and if you're ready for it, I'd like to share with you an exercise that I do each year around December time. 

It's an exercise that one of my Lecturer's recommended we do, when I was studying for my Masters Degree, and it's again a tool that has always stuck with me.

 

It's interesting because it's an exercise I would always use with my corporate clients, and these where in some cases jaded Senior Executives and CEO's who didn't feel as if they had much control over their lives.  At times they would resist this exercise, but the ones who took the time out and completed it, always feed back how profound they found it.

 

When I moved my focus back to small business owners for some reason I stopped asking my clients to look at this exercise.  I'm not sure why?  But after my recent realisation that I had stopped leading my business, I looked at my current letter to the future, and it helped me regain my balance, and now I would like you to try it out...

 

Here's how it works:

Writing Your Letter To The Future

Find a quiet space to begin, and have your journal (or a piece of paper) in hand.  

• Write the date that is into the future.  I normally do 31st December, speaking about what has happened in the year.
• Write a salutation (greeting) to yourself.
• Start of with your first paragraph explaining the reason you are writing the letter to yourself.
• Then go into what has happened for you in the past twelve months - be specific!  For each part of your life, create a new paragraph.  The more specific you are, the more real it is.  Take time to develop this letter.  Once you feel that your letter is complete...
• Sign off on your letter.

 

Place your letter in a safe place, ready to be read at that time in the future.

 

As always, please feel free to share with me your experience in writing your letter to the future.

 

Want to use this Article?

I would be honoured if you did, just be sure to use it in full and include the following information:

Deb Pilgrim helps you start, grow and lead your business, so that you can create the life you want. When you work with Deb, you get the results you always knew you could!  To find out more about how you can work with Deb visit her website, and whilst you are there download her latest report that will show you how to be one of the Top 5% of Entrepreneurs who succeed.

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Our mission is to support you in starting, growing and leading your business.  To do this, we provide you with the tools, strategies and knowledge that will help you get the edge in your industry.  Over the next few months, we have new programs coming out to support those of you who are new to business, as well as higher end programs for those of you who have been in business for a while and want more personalised business growth coaching.

The key foundations we’ve developed that run through
all parts of our coaching, focuses on FOUR Foundations: You, Your clients, Your offer, and Your message.

When you have these four foundations in place, your business is growing strong.

Although I would love to walk you through specifically what modules, key points, and measures form the basis of each of this foundations, we really don’t have the room here in today’s article, so what I am going to do is share with you some of the key snippets about the first foundation. 

The first of these foundations is: YOU!  And yes, mindset is very much a part of this foundation.  I’m going to say this as it is - it really doesn’t matter how educated you may be, if you don’t have the right mindset for business success, you will struggle to grow your business. 

There is more to the YOU than just a positive mindset – it’s also about how you think about work, what you do to structure your days, how you lead your business, and what you do to continually stay ahead of what is happening in the marketplace. 

The key point here is being clear on your work ethic. What actions do you do day in and day out that are building your business?

Growing a business takes time; it takes energy, focus and hard work. But it doesn’t need to be rocket science. You can grow your business by working smarter, not harder.  Be smart about how you build your business, don’t wipe yourself out or put those closest to you on the ‘back burner’, thinking they will be there when you reach your goal.  They may not! 

Another important point is to look at the activities within your business that you can outsource.  What is it that you don’t need to be doing, that you can outsource to someone else?  

Make a list of all the critical and non-critical tasks and then look at what competencies some-one needs to have to work on the non-critical tasks for you.  Once you're clear on what type of person you need, take time to either bring some-one in to do this work for you, or outsource it.  Remember that you can bring contractors in and out of your business on a project-by-project basis if you need to. 

It’s important to take time to detach from your work, and to nourish the people and activities that are important to you.  Using the excuse that you’re too busy to spend time with those who mean the most to you just doesn’t cut it.  I see it all too often, in fact I’ve done it myself, and it makes having a successful business very hollow.

Another key point is take time to detach each day from your business. 

What can you do at the end of the day, that will allow you to detach from your business?  Make a list of the things you can do and work your way through this list – have some serious fun!

Finally, I would like to leave you this final key point, which is to have a vision for your business that is bigger than you!

I would love to hear back from you, about what you believe also sits under the YOU foundation.  As mentioned earlier, our aim is to support you as much as we can, so please let us know what else you need from us.

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“That’s not how I see myself!”

Is the usual response that I get from clients when I ask them, “Do you see yourself as a leader?” 

Then the conversation invariably turns into a discussion about how leaders are usually men and women who, in moments of crisis, stand up and make a great difference to a course of events.  Unfortunately, this image creates a belief that you can’t be a leader unless there is some type of crisis and through this you have the ability to inspire thousands.

But really, the definition of leadership is simply ‘the ability to guide, direct, or influence people’.  And the reality is, YOU lead every day!

Let’s remember:  Mothers and fathers lead, little children lead and as a business owner, you lead.

So tell me?  “How do you see yourself as leader?”

Still not sure how this fits into your circumstances?  Think about a time recently when you’ve influenced another by the decisions you made, or when a conversation you had affected someone else’s decisions.  You may want to consider when you’ve chosen to spend time focusing on the growth of your business rather than getting caught in putting out the day to day fires…..

This is leadership, it’s your own personal leadership and guess what – you are upfront leading…..

Now that doesn’t mean you don’t make mistakes and you don’t always get everything 100% correct, and that the wheels won’t come off on the odd occasion.  They probably will! 

But when you make the choice to see yourself as a leader, you know what value you bring to your business, to your clients and to yourself. 

You understand that at these times you still have to put out some fires, deal with the day to day events, as well as all that other *fun* stuff. But you know when you’re in this frame of mind, your focus is about managing and management, and you don’t stay there very long. 

And the reason you don’t stay there for very long is because you’ve made the decision to lead your life rather than manage it.

To lead your life - over the next few days, take some time and list all the roles you play in your business.  Identify where these roles fit – are they “Leadership” or are they “Management”?  Look at where you are spending most of your time. 

If you are spending more of your time managing, ask yourself:

“What impact does this have on my business and my life?” 

“What do I get from managing rather than leading my life?”

“What needs to change, so that I can spend more time leading?” 

“What is one action I can do today, that will move me from managing my life into leading my life?”

When you’ve answered these questions, take that one action step and do it, then tomorrow take one more action, keep this going until you are spending most of your time leading. 

Take a moment to comment below and let me know how it feels to lead rather than manage….

Oh, if you want to find out more about how you can lead rather than manage, then click here....

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I always find the time immediately after a holiday, as an exciting time in business.  Your thinking is clearer and more creative, and you are open to possibilities that you may not have been just prior to your break.  I know this has been the case for my VIP mentor clients and myself!  There is a buzz in the air around business, and it’s as if everyone has their mojo back!  Do you feel the same?

If so, you’re ready to do things differently……

You want to know what are the core foundations you have to put in place for your success in 2011.  You know that 2010 doesn’t count anymore, as this is the New Year!

So, here are two key foundations that you will want to put in place for your success in 2011… 

1.  Taking action, without any excuses!

Taking action and being persistent is the difference between the successful and the not so successful.  It’s something that I learnt many years ago in my very first business!  After studying successful business people and then being mentored by some of these individuals, I realised that the difference between them and myself, was that they took action.  They made their decisions and acted upon them almost immediately!  They believed in themselves and they trusted the vision they held for themselves. 

Unlike myself, who at that time, would…make a decision, think about it, research it a little more, maybe do a course about it, think about it a little more, second guess myself…. (I know, you get the drift here now)…and then wonder why I was still running around chasing my tail while making limited profits!  Sound familiar?

It wasn’t until one of these mentors stopped me in my tracks one day, and said: “Deb, it’s time for you to stop thinking about it, stop learning about it, and just start doing it.  You spend too much time ruminating and not enough time taking action.  It’s time for you to take action, especially if you want to be a successful entrepreneur!  Otherwise you might as well close shop and go home.” 

Ouch!!!! Closing shop and going home, just wasn’t an option, so it was time to take action and be persistent.  It was time to stop thinking and start doing.  Time to believe in the vision that I held for myself and my business.

I want you to ask yourself:  “What do I need to do today?”  Once you are clear on the exact tasks you need to do, make a commitment to do them!

Sounds straightforward? That is until the self-sabotaging behaviours begin to rear their ugly heads, which leads nicely into the next foundation for your success…

2.  Removing Those Limiting Beliefs that are Holding You Back.

These are the stories that you tell, to keep yourself ‘safe’, to keep yourself where you are currently.  To stop you from focusing on the real action you need to take.

Removing your limiting beliefs, can be as difficult as culling your wardrobe!  You know you should get rid of some of your things, but even through much of it is totally out of fashion, not very flattering and you’ve not worn it for years, you insist on hanging on to it all.  Every time you open the wardrobe, staring back at you, is that white jacket with gold buttons and big shoulder pads!  It gets in the way of all the other great clothes that you could be wearing, if only you could see them.

We do the same with our beliefs:  we keep them when we don’t need them any more, when we have outgrown them.  Some of them have been with us for years.  Despite the fact they’re not really relevant anymore, we find them comfortable and familiar and insist on keeping them.  It’s worth acknowledging that limiting beliefs sometimes hold us back as a form of protection against the very success we are striving for.  So if you want success rather than to be a wannabe, you’ve got to get rid of these beliefs.  Make room for something new.  If they won’t go, change them so that they work for you more positively.

It’s time to put away those beliefs that are holding you back, away once and for all!  Take a moment to think about what your future will be like, what it will feel like with your old beliefs put away where they belong.  Notice again how this looks, feels and sounds for you. 

So, here are two key foundation pieces that you will want to put in place for 2011 - TAKING ACTION and removing your LIMITING BELIEFS.  If you have been thinking about doing something different, now is the time for you ACTUALLY do something different.  Step out of the sea of sameness and make it happen in 2011.

I can’t wait to support you further and hear about what you are doing different in 2011.  If you have your 'must-does', why not take a moment and share them with us here.

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When you first started your business, did you make the same mistake that I made?  Did you feel you   had to take on every new client who approached you?  I did!  When I started, one of the strategies I thought would build a successful business was to see everyone as a potential client.  I would chase them until I became exhausted.  It didn't guarantee me new clients, my bottom line didn't grow, and my business wasn't successful.  Something had to change. 

I knew what I wanted to create, but at that time I didn’t really know or understand how to create it successfully. It took me time, and a high level of commitment, but after reading, studying, and being mentored, I knew I had the skills and knowledge to build a business that I would be proud of.  A business that would be successful! I realised that it took focus and persistence, because building a business is a marathon, it’s not a sprint.

Over a period of time, I developed a formula that worked for me. I called it my Success Formula.  It goes like this:

Make a Decision + Stay Focused + Be Persistent = Success

So how does this look in reality?

Make A Decision

So, you’ve blocked out your 2011 planning time, begun to thrash out your goals and intentions for creating the best business year yet.  Research has been completed. You’ve worked with your business mentor or advisors around how to stretch yourself further, and achieve these goals.  Now it’s time to make a decision! 

Ask yourself:   Are you excited by the goals and intentions you have set?  If yes: 

Have you stretched yourself?  If yes: 

After intensive research, are you willing to back yourself?  If yes:

Are you willing to make the decision that these are your goals for 2011?  If yes:

It’s time for you to commit to this decision.

Now if we go back to the very first question around being excited by your goals – if you answered ‘no’ to this question, than its back to the drawing board for you.  Keep working on your goals and intentions, until you feel the excitement, until you know internally that the goals you are setting will set you on fire.

Okay, now you’ve made the decision, what’s next?

Stay focused & be persistent!

As mentioned earlier, building your successful business is not a sprint, you want to treat it as a marathon.  Don’t make it hard.  If you read anything about successful entrepreneurs, you know that in most cases they persist when others give up.  Now that doesn’t mean at times you may need to change or modify your decision, but what you want to do is make the necessary changes, get back on track, and continue to be focused and persistent.

When working with my mentoring clients, and step up their marketing efforts – by doing research, developing extraordinary products and services, and focusing in on their target market.  Often what I will begin hearing from them is “Deb, you are relentless, and this is a lot of work.”  And they're right, but this is business, and this is the legacy they are creating. 

When you put the right work in, focus and stay persistent, results will happen.  If you’re not sure what the next step is for you and your business, why not check out my Marketing Blueprint Workshops.  What’s the worst thing that could happen?  You could come away with your 2011 marketing plan.  Remember all it takes is making that decision.

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I always believed that being a member of the Royal Australian Air Force gave me a great foundation for my life, both professionally and personally.  The things I learnt from my time in the military have been invaluable to my business success.  The expansive skill set of strategic planning, competitive intelligence, decision making, leadership development, high standard enforcement, and innovation in execution are just a few of the skills that I walked away with.

When I first started out in business, I looked at the skills I had, but then quickly realised that to be effective, I needed to translate them from a military context, into a context that would provide me with the greatest value to my business.

I am reminded of these skills whenever the end of the year is upon me, as I normally will spend the last couple of months of the year planning and preparing for the next year. 

Here are three of the skills from the military that I find most useful for my business:

Intelligence:  In the military, there is always a systematic and ongoing analysis of competitors.  Understanding and reviewing the intelligence of your competition allows you to stay alive!  So when was the last time you spent time studying your competitors?  Do you know who your top five competitors are and what can you learn from them?

Action Step: Before now and the end of the year, take time to identify your top 10 competitors.  Use the questions set out in my previous article – Competition is not a Dirty Word and diligently work through these questions, so you have a better understanding of what your competitors are doing.  Use this information to either make changes to what you are currently doing or allow it to show you that what you currently do is cutting-edge. 

Planning and Preparation:  The military are known for their comprehensive and structured planning – which they do very well.  Not only is the planning  comprehensive, but it is timely and well executed.  There are only 64 days until 2011 hits us – have you begun to put together your strategic plan for 2011?  What are your goals and targets?  Have you started to develop your 2011 Marketing Plan?  Remember that 90% of all small businesses don’t have a marketing plan in place.  Make sure you are one of the 10% that does.

Action Step:  Block out time between now and January 1st to plan for 2011.  If you're not sure what you need to do here, now is the time to identify the specific type of support you need to help you develop your plan.  Get clear on this, and 2011 will be your best year.

Leadership Development:  The value of a great military leader was more than just what they did, it was how they did it, how they made decisions, lead their teams and presented themselves overall.  Many had to learn to be great leaders, and often in very trying circumstances.  I often find that when working with SME’s, they either don’t understand or don’t see the importance of being a strong leader.  But I would like to challenge you to think about this differently, whether you are a solopreneur or have a small team, your leadership skills and development is vitally important. 

Action Step: Please don’t make the mistake of not seeing yourself as a leader.  Take time to create a vision of the leader you would like to be and see the impact this can have on your business.

I look forward to hearing how you plan to spend your next 64 days.  Feel free to let me know.

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  Do you have a mission statement?  If so, what is it and how
  does it help/assist you with your business success?

  Would love your thoughts, so please take a moment to share!  Tweet

I was reading a report last week that said that only 10% of small businesses in America take the time to properly develop a marketing strategy. It made me think that if this was happening in the US, I’m sure the figures would be similar regardless of where you are in the world. Why is it that you may start a business, but decide not to put a plan into place of how to grow your livehood? If you were heading out on a road trip to a new destination, my guess is that you would have some type of map, whether it be a GPS, a list of directions or a good old-fashioned map. It just makes sense to know where you’re going!

Often when I begin working with my mentor clients, and we begin to speak about their marketing strategy, they overcomplicate the process and aren't quite sure what this needs to look like or be for them. And, I need to let you know that in some cases, these are woman and man who have been in business for five or more years. Now, I'm not saying this to make them wrong, but I wanted to highlight the fact that it's not just a challenge for those who are new to business. As you will know, I’m a big believer in using the “KISS” principle. Keep it simple (stupid) and make it practical, so that you firstly, develop the strategy, and secondly, make sure you implement the strategy.

Having a marketing strategy in place is good business sense, and as I mentioned if you need something simple, than please make it simple. My request is that you take the time to develop this strategy, so that it helps you grow your business, helps you increase your sales funnel, boost your client list, pay your bills and most importantly bring you back to the reason you are doing what you are doing.

Let’s take a look at two simple steps you can put in place to begin developing your marketing strategy for 2011. (Yes, I do mean 2011, because it is coming fast!)

Step 1 :

Develop your strategy .

a) Be very clear on who your ideal clients are. I’m going to presume that since you have been reading my newsletters you are clear on who these people are. If you’re not sure, then take time to re-read this article. If you haven’t done so already, take the time to work through my latest report on “How you can identify your ideal clients.”. If it has been over 2 months since you subscribed, then you may want this updated report to work through .

b) Look at what you can do to take your solutions from ordinary to extraordinary. As there are so many small businesses out there, you may not be getting noticed, because you seem just like everyone else. Take a moment, ask yourself and be really honest here with your answer; “What do I need to do to make my service extraordinary?” If you’re not sure, ask those people around you that you trust, ask some of your most valuable clients – find out and listen to what people are saying to you. The answers you receive may require you to re-think your current business strategy. But don’t despair, because I know this will be worth it; especially if you can offer a product or service in a way that nobody else can, your competition can become redundant. And I heard this saying recently and want to share it with you: When it comes to your prospects, don't be a choice - be the choice.

Step 2:

Develop your plan

a) Block out some time, and begin to develop your 12-month plan that fits in precisely with your strategy. To achieve your goals for the next 12 months - what are the strategies you need to put in place each month and how are you going to track them? Here are a few ideas to begin thinking about: email campaigns; advertising campaigns; public relations campaigns; your live events; keynote speaking; training webinars; etc .

b) Once you have developed your 12-month plan, and broken it down into monthly targets, break it down further into what you will need to do weekly to meet your overall goal. Then each week, block out some time to evaluate what happened the week before; what you will be focusing on this week and what is coming up the following week. It’s like your road trip, you know where you are going but if something comes up unexpectedly, you are prepared to meet this current challenge or issue.

Let me know how you go with this. If you’re still not sure what you need to do here to begin, then you won’t want to miss out on October’s Business Building Blocks webinar – this is exactly what we will be working on. So get the jump on your competitors and join our call.

And one last thought - activity breeds activity Tweet

I’m about to state the obvious - the key to success for any business, is your clients, your customers, those people who do business with you. And most people will start working with you, or buy something from you because of a service or product you provide that solves a challenge or problem for them. But it is the experience that they get from working with you that will keep them there, and will turn them into raving fans.

The above statement is something that I believe in, and is something that I tell my mentor clients as well as my business building blocks members whenever I can. It’s something that I want to live up to for my readers of this newsletter as well. Reading the results of the survey has really helped me better understand the needs that you have, the challenges that you are facing, and how I can support you in your business growth.

I’ve been where a lot of you are currently at, a new-start up – struggling to understand how to best market your services to your ideal clients, wondering where the next client was coming from, and thinking about where you could actually find these clients. At the five-year plus stage, when my business was growing, I wasn’t sure what my next step would be. I wasn’t really sure what I wanted or needed to do to take my business to that next level that would allow it to grow and develop into what it is today. But at each stage, I was supported by mentors and colleagues who would listen to my questions and concerns, and provide me with the information I needed to keep moving forward.

To give you a snapshot of what you have been telling me from the survey, the following areas are where you would like to see improvements:

· Knowing how to market your product or services - 73.3%
· Getting new customers or clients – 60%
· Taking your business to the next level – 53.3%
· Professional development programs – 40%
· Pricing of products and services – 33.3%
· Achieving work/life balance – 33.3%

You would like further support, ideas and information on:
· Sales,
· Marketing,
· Networking,
· Building strong referrals,
· Understanding clients/customers better,
· Social media, and
· Staying motivated and being supported, to name but a few.

Many of you stated that you would love to work with me, but don’t have the budget to work with me one on one in my Fast Track Success Program. That is okay. Over the next few weeks, I will be letting you know about a group-mentoring program I will be offering to support those of you hungry to move forward. This program will be open to only five business owners and it will be very cost effective. So if you want to know more, or reserve your spot NOW, email me at deb@debpilgrim.com with ‘group-mentoring’ in the subject line, so that you are the first to hear about it.

I am also pulling together leaders within the areas of sales, social media, networking, personal development, internet marketing, web design, client retention, and client satisfaction, to run content-rich programs for you. Most of these will sit within the mentoring programs, and my Business Building Blocks monthly membership calls, but I will also be running some free webinars to support my Biz Booster readers. These experts are also excited to be sharing their information within the article section of Biz Booster as well.

My commitment is to support you in building the business you desire. Please keep talking to me, and sending your questions through via email and I will continue to support you. There are so many great resources out there that I am committed to bring to you the best of this information. I do hope to hear from you soon.
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I was watching a video this week, promoting CrossFit (CrossFit is strength & conditioning fitness) and thought I would take our question of the week from this.

What is your fear, when it comes to your business?  Does fear stop you from achieving your goals? 

Would love to know what you think......Please take a moment to share your thoughts. Tweet