Goal-setting | Teik Oh

10 Business Opportunities in good or bad times

Jul 14 2015

A couple of weeks ago I wrote about 10 business survival strategies in difficult times.

I received a ton of email telling me that you guys are actually having it good out there!

John from Sydney said that his office design business had never seen it so good! Peta, also from Sydney, said that while she did see ups and downs the sales in her online home-wares business was growing steadily. Anne and Peter told me that their cafe in Adelaide hit a rough patch last year but they seem to be recovering now. From London, Geoff who runs a house-clearance company (Steptoe and Sons?) says that with a little smart management he has maintained his sales while reducing costs.

That’s great!

So I thought this week I’d “balance the books”. Here’s a video about 10 business improvement opportunities that you can take advantage of in good time (or bad – see, I’m hedging my bets).

These are 10 things you really should look to do whatever the economic climate – they just make sense if you want to make your business be more efficient, be more responsive, be more profitable, and grow.

Improve your business position, whether physical (better location), market share or quality products;
Look for opportunities to buy out your competitors or their equipment;
Increase the quality of your employees;
Reorganise your finance facilities;
Renegotiate property leases;
Increase margins (by increasing quality and service);
Eliminate unprofitable business segments or products;
Restructure and reorganise operations for more efficiency or customer-responsiveness;
Reorganise your office – put in more efficient systems to save time and cost;
Review your long term personal goals.

OK people, send me more email about how you’re going! I love getting your ideas and your stories.

Or, if you don’t mind sharing, get over to https://teikoh.com and leave a comment. While you’re there, or click here to subscribe to our newsletter and receive great valuable tips, tools and resources to grow your business.

Comment 13

Don’t leave a seminar without taking at least one action!

Jul 07 2015

I’m sure that you’ve attended a seminar or webinar, watched an instructional video or presentation, and thought “wow, I really learned from that, I can really use some of that stuff!”

But be honest, have you?

My own principle is that if I walk away having learned one thing, it’s been a valuable experience – but only if I use that one thing!

So I impose a rule on myself – I never leave a seminar or training presentation without immediately taking at least one action.

I don’t care what that single action is – just do it – and you will find that it builds a momentum of its own and the next thing you know you’ll think of the next action.

It might be to make a call and discuss what you learned, it may be to make a change in your business, it may be to follow the training and map out a process to implement it on the back of an envelope – whatever it is take that action, then work out what the next action is and when you intend to do it.

This is the way to turn the value from attending a seminar to the value of using what you learned, otherwise it’s a waste of money. And before you start with your “yes, but” comments, I do realise that immediately after you leave the seminar you are likely to get back to ringing telephones and problems, but do you want to live in a world of problems or do you want to move to a world of improvement and growth? One small step leads to another and you’ll end up running to victory!

As usual the most exciting stuff happens now – let me know what you think, how do you make things happen? How do you get value from seminars? Get over to the website https://teikoh.com and leave a comment, or get over to our Facebook page Teik Oh Dot Com and leave a comment there.

And while you’re at it, how about subscribing to our newsletter here to get valuable but free tips, tools and resources to grow your business delivered directly to your inbox. Our subscribers get special free gifts from time to time with no – repeat NO – sales pitch!

Comment 13

Creating a Mission-oriented Organisation Structure

Jun 16 2015

As you start or grow your business sooner or later you will employ people.

Perhaps what started as a micro-business with just you or you and your spouse begins to grow and you need to leverage your time. The tasks that you once divided up between the two of you seamlessly have to be explained to your new staff. You need to draw up “job descriptions” so that everyone knew what they were responsible for, so that you reduced confusion when something might be forgotten. In time this grows in complexity and you need to have different teams looking after different parts of the business.

This can happen with anywhere upwards of three people!

So you start to doodle organisational structures – you know, you at the top, then the people who are in charge of different aspects of the business who report directly to you, then below them the people who work in their sections who report to them.

The problem is, these structure diagrams seem so straight-forward, but are they organised so you get work done – or are they organised so that the focus of all your work is towards your mission?

There’s a saying in management consulting – “strategy creates structure”.

This means that in order to work out the optimal structure for your business, you need to make sure that the structure is created by your strategy. Otherwise “structure forces strategy”, or in other words your strategies start to be formulated in accordance with what your structure implies. For example if you had a structure that included a design team separate from a construction team, that structure may force a strategy upon you that says you will only make what has been designed. If on the other hand if strategy created structure, you may find that you start with the best strategy – to make products that are designed by people in and outside your business. Then you design your structure that either does away with a design team or incorporates them into a “build and design team” thereby increasing innovation and flexibility.

So, how do you create an organisation structure that is mission-oriented?

Get over to the website after you have watched the video and start the conversation. What does your organisation structure look like? Is it mission-oriented or do you find that the structure itself changes the mission?

Subscribe to our newsletter here and get tips, tools and resources like this to grow your business delivered directly to your inbox so that you can watch in your own time.

Comment 13

How to implement lasting change in your business

Jun 09 2015

We know that death and taxes are constant. Well, when you are in business, change is also constant.

There’s an old saying – “if you do nothing, something terrible happens….nothing”.

In business change can be demanded by the market, by your customers changing, by new trends and technologies, by changing team members and by your own changing life goals. If you don’t change, one of these things will jump out an bite you and if you don’t respond, your business will inevitably suffer.

But if you’ve ever tried to change something in your business, have you found that it may have worked for a while, then after some time, people slip back into their old ways. Or, it has been impossible to put through a change because people just don’t want anything to do with it!

Why is that?

Because change has to be implemented by people, and people just hate change.

You know how it is. You get comfortable doing the same things over and over again. In fact you get really good at it that you can do it in your sleep, with your eyes closed! You get so good at it that you start to justify why you don’t need to change – it would cost too much, you would need retraining, it would take a long time to be as efficient as the way you have been doing it because you can do it in your sleep, with your eyes closed.

You even say this when the need for change is staring you in the face.

Your product is getting old. New entrants into the market are using mobile apps to deliver your product. Yet you say “they’re not as good, they don’t go into the detail like your hands on approach can provide”. While that may be true enough your customers are voting with your feet. Remember Kodak had the best film processing chain in the world. They stuck to what they knew because it was so good. Meanwhile customers started buying better and better digital cameras.

So, how do you implement change in your business that will “stick”?

Here’s those 8 steps again:-

Comment 13

Be SMART in planning processes

May 15 2015

When you are preparing your plan, whether it is a Strategic Plan, Business Plan, Marketing Plan, Operational Plan, or any other plan, you will end up listing your Goals and Objectives, and probably your strategies or actions of one kind or other.

However, have you been in a position where, some time later, people who are implementing the plan disagree about how far you have got and how much you have achieved? Some will say you’ve got there, others will say that you are only partially successful – and yet they are reading off the same planing document! Have you come to re-read your document say a year later, and then wondered exactly what you meant when you wrote “open up new markets”? Did you mean in different towns, or with different products?

Perhaps you re-read your plan later and thought “how did we agree to do that? It was never achievable!”

SMART is a model that you should use whenever you are writing goals, objectives, strategies and actions. This video explains what is SMART and how to use it.

SMART means:-

Comment 13

Increase your sales through a highly focused marketing plan!

SMART Marketing: In this book, the owners of a small business are led through the SMART Marketing 7 Step Process to produce a marketing plan targeted at their most desirable customers. Any business can use these principles and in 4 to 6 weeks implement a plan to get them through the door! Find out how...

The SMART Marketing Workbook: Companion to “SMART Marketing”, this workbook sets out the SMART Marketing process in 7 workshops for you and your staff to complete questionnaires and templates that at the end, form the marketing plan you need to sell your REAL product to your REAL customer! View now...

Category - Goal-setting

Get FREE weekly ideas to grow your business

10 Business Opportunities in good or bad times

Don’t leave a seminar without taking at least one action!

Creating a Mission-oriented Organisation Structure

How to implement lasting change in your business

Be SMART in planning processes