Back to Basics - July 28, 2009
Does This Describe Your Business?
A business that is sane. A business that offers the entrepreneur time with her family. A business that you run, rather than a business that runs you. A business that from the onset grows into a financially viable asset. A business that allows you the freedom to live your life as you see fit.
This is what I call a successful business. And you can have this by simply using Basic Business Tools.
Back to Basics
Not a very sexy title. But oh so important! Too many of us think we need to either ‘know everything’ or be an absolute expert before we can really begin to build a strong business. But nothing is further from the truth. We don’t need to be experts and we don’t need to know everything. In fact, typically we simply need to get out of our own way.
This article is going to discuss one particular basic: time. I urge you to at least read to the bottom of this first section before you decide that I either can’t help you or you are not interested. I especially urge you to keep reading if you would like your business to be like the one I described above, what I call a “successful business.”
My goal for this article is to encourage all of you to diligently decide what hours you are going to work each week and what you are going to do within those hours each week. And here is why, if you and your team are NOT working within a calendar each week, your business is doomed. And please note, that I said you and your team.
Many of you may keep business hours, with a set start and stop time, but if your downline is not, the growth of your business is curtailed to what you do. You are missing out on the most important growth factor in network marketing, leverage. Basically, you have bought yourself a job. Strong words but I have not in my 20 years of either building a networking business or coaching the industry, seen a successful business that didn’t include set working hours.
Don’t get me wrong. I’ve seen people make money, lots of it without good business hours. But they weren’t sane. They didn’t have a family life. They were living this notion (which I believe to be mistaken) that they would sacrifice now in order to have what they wanted later. Sounds noble. But who says they are going to be around later? And how do you put a family “on hold.” They are all going to grow up while you are sacrificing the most important thing you have, time with them. For those of you continuing with the article, this is what you will have when you are finished reading.
Coaching tools to present the importance of store hours to even the most resistant members (new and old) on your team Basic tools for keeping store hours A working friendly calendar
Is Your Frustration With Your Job (Current or Past) Killing Your Business?
Working set hours is a basic business principle. Unfortunately, too often those who have escaped (or are working to escape) their corporate positions have such a bad taste in their mouths that they want to eschew any and all corporate structures. It often sounds like this:
It is my business and I’m not going to pin myself down to a calendar again. It feels too much like Corporate America.
Big mistake! Although, I understand the sentiment. None of us want to be told what to do or when to do it. None of us! Everyone knows what the favorite word of a two year old is when you tell them to do something. “NO.” If my mom was writing this, she would tell you that I didn’t get any better at taking instructions as I grew up either. Did you? No, of course not. We all want to be in charge of ourselves (and rightly so).
Unfortunately, what I see most often is confusion between the basic business practice of dedicated time and someone else telling you what to do. They are not the same thing. It is critically important as entrepreneurs to understand that walking away from your corporate job and building a business does not mean that you can (or should) walk away from all corporate business practices. Some of them are essential to running an efficient, financially lucrative business. Working store hours is one of those things.
Is Your Business an Example of Your Freewill or Chaos?
Forgive me if I seem a bit “in your face about this.” I am known as the “not so warm and fuzzy coach” (although there are many who would tell you my bite is not so bad). But I feel really strongly that the high failure rate of networking businesses (probably all businesses) is because of the lack good business basics. In a home business often the first hurdle to overcome is that of time. Some of us never even consider the idea of ‘store hours’ and others of us are so hard over against them because of the bad taste in our mouths from our jobs, that when we fire our boss we hire chaos and anarchy. Ignorance, lack of consciousness or running things by the seat of your pants are not good tools with which to run a business. Not ever.
You have complete freewill in your business. But like anything else freewill, if it is going to work for you, needs to be exercised and not ignored. If you approach time and your calendar with the idea that they need to work for you then decisions about when to work and when not to work, as well as what to do inside of that allotted time, all make your life better. No one but you is making decisions. Your calendar is simply the way to keep track of your intentions. It may be your guide/boss/director but you established what it was going to direct you to do. You are in the driver’s seat, which is exactly where an entrepreneur needs to be (not in the backseat or running behind trying to catch up).
Coach To Enroll, Don’t Tell
If most of us still harbor a two year old inside ourselves saying “no” to being told what to do, then it makes perfect sense not to tell people what to do. But we do it all the time and then wonder why people resist us. We need to bring them on board through their own volition. Not as hard to do as you might think.
Coaching is about interaction. It is not about me pointing a lot of information at you and you opening your brain like a huge receptacle and taking it in. Coaching is really about engagement. An easy way to do this is by setting up what I call a parallel example. It is about engaging the other person. It is a great coaching technique when you come across resistance. Because we are working with store hours our parallel example will be their current or former job.
Coaching is typically done around questions rather than statements. In order to stress the importance of store hours to their success my parallel example might look like this:
Why did your boss want you to show up at the same time every day and do the job you are supposed to do? (I am quiet, and let them answer. Then I affirm their answer and repeat, paraphrasing what they said is fine.) Right, it is how the job got done. That is how the widget they were building got built and delivered to the customer. Why is it important for the widget to get built? (Wait for an answer.) Right, to make money.
I told you it was a simple (dare I say basic) process. By asking these two questions we walked them through the coaching process. They established for themselves that they started and stopped their job with regular business hours because that was how the business got things done. We then correlated that getting the product built and out the door is what makes money for the company.
It is a short step from here to ask the final enrolling question in order to suggest this may be an important requirement for their business.
Does it make sense then that your business will do better if it also has start and stop times? (Wait for the answer.) Right, the job gets done and your business makes money. Does that make sense? (This is the final enrolling question in this particular example. As always, wait for an answer to the question you asked.)
Fairly straight forward, yes? By asking questions whose answers will build your case for you, you can open the doors for people to see the value to them of doing what you are suggesting. It is a wonderful coaching technique to overcome resistance to tools that are beneficial to their business.
Basics of Store Hours
How different would your business look if the people in your downline:
Knew exactly when they were going to start work? Knew exactly what they were going to do when they started work? Knew exactly when they were going to finish work?
In a nutshell folks this is all we are talking about when say “store hours.” If you know exactly when you start work, exactly what you are going to do during the time you are at work and know exactly when you intend to finish for the day, your business and personal life will, for the most part, run much more smoothly. Nothing is perfect. And I’m not suggesting that everything will be. However, if you have this basis laid out, then when the phone rings at a time that you cannot talk you will be able to do one of two things:
Don’t answer it Tell who ever is on the phone you need to call them back because you have an appointment. And you do, with yourself to do whatever is called out in your calendar.
Basics of Your Calendar
The first premise of your calendar is that you everything you are going to do that day, is in your calendar. Everything. That means no to-do list. Right. No to-do list. If you have it to-do, give it a time in your calendar to get it done. Stop dragging that to-do list around with you. It is nothing more than a ball and chain keeping you over busy and stressed.
And make that calendar what I call a ‘Swiss cheese’ calendar. Make sure that you in-bed 15 minutes in between each item on your calendar. That way you’ll have some breathing room when something takes longer or life interrupts as it has a habit of doing.
I was asked during one of my coaching programs recently, when do I have free time? Schedule it. Big blocks of nothing to do. It’s your free time. If you want to pencil in your golf game, or yoga or walk by all means do so. Schedule time for yourself. Schedule time for your family. Schedule a date night. Block out big amounts of time for a romantic evening. Schedule it and it gets done.
Oops, What Do You Do When You Realize You Are Off Calendar
Get back on. No judgment. No remorse. Just get back on. If you need to make changes in your schedule, make them. But don’t just blow your calendar off. If you want to re-schedule something because something fun has come up, take advantage of the fact that you are the boss. And go do it. But reschedule what ever activity you are preempting.