Identifying the Bottleneck In Your Business!

Do you have a bottleneck in your business? Can you identify exactly what that bottleneck is? Do you know how to reduce or remove the bottleneck? These are some of the questions I would like you to consider today particularly for those of you who are in a new, small or medium business. Sometimes we may be a single person enterprise or have a team of helpers who may be direct employees or partners. Either way it’s usually us who must deal with the strategic elements of our business. We need to be able to look ahead to determine what is coming up, however, the day to day running of our business can sometimes take over, preventing potential bottlenecks. This is fine of course if we can ‘see’ the bottleneck coming up! As we know things happen when we least expect, and with the best will in the world we

It’s Relationships That Get Us Through Isn’t It?

After the tragic and traumatic events of last Friday imprinted images are embedded in all our minds. We all left reeling with waves of varying emotions within us, from anger, frustration, sadness, confusion and many more. Like any senseless act which takes innocent lives, it makes us wonder what in the world are we coming to when we all live in the same ‘place’ and should be living in harmony and peace and not war and hatred. Today, however, I wanted to focus more on how we manage dealing with ‘events’ that may affect us directly and indirectly, and how we might manage to work out how we process what has happened, move forward, working through our feelings, thoughts and memories of that day. We are a social animal, and as such need interaction with others, particularly in the aftermath of something that affects all of us in many ways.

Is Your Problem Child Your Business?

As a business owner, I find it interesting hearing other business owner’s thoughts and views about being a business owner, what it’s like and how it feels, particularly compared to their previous ‘lives’ as an employee and the difference from being in a corporate world and being self-employed. We have this dream about being a business owner, conquering the world; being the best at what we do. We dream of being our own boss, no-one telling us what to do, choosing the hours we want and working the days we choose. Then of course reality kicks in and hits us just where it hurts! The business we set up and grew, isn’t growing as we want it to, or going in the direction we saw it going. Perhaps the clients we expected to come knocking at our door are looking elsewhere. The dream ‘child’ we imagined as a business owner,

Finding the RIGHT way – Do it YOUR way!

You probably recall the song by Frank Sinatra ‘My Way’ which came out in 1969? I’m not going to talk about the song but about doing things the right way or your way! The song talks about the end being near, facing the final curtain, living life to the full, travelling each and every highway, having regrets, planning a chartered course, taking careful steps along the byways, biting off more than he could chew, facing up to things and standing tall, laughing and crying, and having his fair share of losing. Wow! That’s some list isn’t it? The song, and its lyrics made me think about how we spend our days often doing same or similar tasks, trying to find better, easier and more productive way of doing things so we can get more out of each day. I’m sure like me you’ve had family, friends or colleagues who have

How focused are you on your business?

Are you in your business or on your business? Is what you’re doing right now going to lead to a sale or a new client? How much of your time on any given day is chargeable time? Intentions – Our aim and purpose might be to allocate a certain amount of time on our business but, what happens? The ‘day’ job takes over and we end up being pushed into operational tasks rather than focusing on the strategic elements of our business. Present and Future – We know that the past has gone, that we need to focus on the present, but to make the best of each day we need to think about how we see our future and plan what we are doing. This means starting with the long-term goals i.e. where do we see our business in years to come, and are we heading in the right

What does SUCCESS mean to you?

We all might have dreams and aspirations of being successful and having success, but do we really know what that is, what that means? It’s different for each one of us isn’t it? Do we know when we’ve got there? Is it what we wanted? Are we satisfied feeling we’ve achieved our lifetime ambition, and are fulfilled? I fear not! We strive continually for success, whatever that is or means, and often feel we haven’t got there, or we see other people appearing to have success, and we don’t seem to get there. We need to be careful we are wishing for the right thing, aiming for the right goal, going down the right path, don’t we? In the meantime, whilst we are on our journey to success, let’s look at what it could look like; perhaps some of these resonate with you? Success may mean or include the following

SOS – Setbacks or Speed-bumps

SOS - Setbacks or Speed-bumps We probably all know what SOS stands for don’t we? Help! Save Our Souls! An acronym, abbreviation or slang word; an international code signal of extreme distress, used mainly by ships at sea. However, this isn’t the SOS that I’m referring to, but setbacks or speed-bumps. Setbacks! How do you deal with them? How do you recover from them? How do you regain control afterwards? If we’re honest with ourselves, we all have setbacks; we might not shout them from the rooftops, but we may share them with close friends or family. It’s because we don’t share them and ask for help, we need to find our own strategies and have a comprehensive toolbox to help us manage them. Here’s some tips: Take time out – so what, something went wrong, or you made a mistake; but you are not perfect and so take some

The Bars of Life, would you have a Bar of it?

You’ve likely heard the saying “I wouldn’t have a bar of it?” The origin or meaning apparently stems from USA with bar being short for barrow, i.e. “I wouldn’t take a barrow of him even if they or he was giving it or him away for free”! Or it could be referring to a bar of chocolate i.e. “I wouldn’t want anything to do with him even if it came in a bar of chocolate or he or it was neatly packaged up like a tasty bar of chocolate”. How about imaging it’s neither of these, but more an acronym – BAR. Let’s look at what this acronym is and means and how we can integrate BAR into our lives. B – Believe – We need to believe in ourselves, in what we do, our abilities, our goals, our desires and more importantly our abilities. We can be our worst

Shudder the Thought!

Shudder the Thought! I recently revisited Napier, the last time being 10 years ago. One of the return visits was to the earthquake museum. The video talked about ‘The Day that Hit the Bay’ and it also referred to Napier as being ‘The town where time stood still’. This got me thinking about how an event such as an earthquake or other major event in our lives can change us forever and affect us in ways that we don’t even realise until much later. These events in our lives leave scars, emotional, mental and sometimes physical, which can be seen and felt by us and others. Napier’s event reduced a city to rubble, killing and hurting many, leaving pain and heartbreak for lots of people. However, in time a new beginning came about, a new city with an Art Deco theme incorporating many cultures across the world. When we have

At this time of year, do you intend to?

I’m sure you’ve heard the proverb “the road to hell is paved with good intentions”, and you probably know it has nothing to do with a road to hell or that the road is paved, but that, ‘hell’ (or Sir Hell) was paved with good intentions. This reminds me of the other more common word used, the ‘a round tuit’, (or the saying never getting around to it), referring to those who say they intend to do something and never do. This led me to wondering how many times your road been paved with good intentions or how many round tuits you might have and why have you never gotten around to doing things? Feeling – Thinking – Doing – let’s look at these individually. Feeling – We spend a great deal of time with our emotions feeling happy or sad or various other feelings of possibly empathy with others