Goal-setting | Teik Oh

How To Keep Innovating

Dec 20 2016

“We need to innovate to thrive.”

“Business has to be agile these days.”

“The cheese has moved.”

“Every market sector will face disruption.”

We’ve all heard these phrases haven’t we? “Innovate” and “agile” and “disruption”, what do these trendy words mean?

Well, believe it or not, there’s nothing new under the sun. All these trendy sayings mean something that businesses have had to do for centuries – we all need to move with the times. If you settle, you go the way of Kodak and Blackberry, and in the sense of industries, you face the challenges of the taxi industry in the face of Uber or of the hotel industry when Air BnB is out there.

So you have to innovate. You have to be aware of what is happening around you, to your business, to your customers, to your industry, to your market, and find new ways of doing things or new ways to serve. Yet business success is a game of inches, not Eureka moments.

If you expect miracles, you set up your mindset for the BIG new thing to invent. This makes people feel nervous because they will find it hard to innovate at such a big leap. So they react by working on what they know, and innovation? Nothing.

You need to shift mindsets – yours and those of your team. Believe that innovation is possible but you do it through small improvements. If people are allowed to change their world with small improvements, then they are not afraid to fail because if they do fail, it’s small. When a good attempt has not succeeded, don’t label it a failure – accept that an experiment has given you a result and ask “what did we learn to do/not to do?”

And remember to measure. Take simple measurements like time saved, or cost saved – feel the progress and celebrate, then look for more.

Finally if you are reading this on one of my social media channels, you might be missing a lot of great ideas and tools and resources to help you grow your business, create effective strategy and show leadership. Why don’t you go to my website at teikoh.com and sign up to get these free ideas sent directly to your inbox (not forgetting to mark the email from teikoh.com as safe so that it doesn’t go straight to your spam folder.

See you next week!

Comment 13

Plan With An Eye To The Outside

Nov 29 2016

When you wrote your last business plan, did you go on a “retreat”?

That’s what most people do – they clear out some time and take their team out of the workplace so they won’t be disturbed, and they spend a couple of days discussing what’s going on in the business and how to improve it and set goals and strategies.

But here’s what’s wrong with this approach – more often than not you discuss and find solutions for problems and opportunities from inside your business, and forget that it’s external stimuli that will have serious and unpredictable effects.

So you go along and implement your plan only to have, one day —– WHAM! A big problem from outside hits you where you weren’t expecting.

Watch this week as I discuss how to plan with an eye to external factors.

Let’s summarise – use PESTLE to analyse and think about the external factors that could have an impact on your plans:

P for Political, being any political changes in your region that could have an impact;

E for Economic, requiring you to look at the local, national and global economy;

S for Social, asking what social trends are happening right now that could affect your business;

T for Technological – what is happening in and outside your industry that is affected by tech changes, social media and so on;

L for Legal, looking for potential changes to the law that could impact your industry;

E for Environmental, including the environment as well as surrounding factors – can any development here affect you?

If you want more of these free tips, tools and resources to help you grow your business, click here and sign up to get them sent directly to your inbox every week.

And while you’re there, go to teikoh.com and see what other great ideas you’ve missed.

Comment 13

Back To Front Planning

Sep 20 2016

How do you plan for something? Created some goals right? Identified what you wanted to achieve this year or in 5 years’ time, then worked out strategies on how to get there?

Well, how do you know if those goals and strategies will get you to a place you really desire and not just some random point on the way there? Where even is “there”?

Stephen Covey said it best: “Begin with the end in mind.” I believe that you always have to start your planning from the back end, from where you want to end up, and then go back to where you are now. Otherwise, how can you create goals and strategies to go “forward” when you’re not clear where “forward” actually is?

And I don’t mean some wild and wooly “vision and mission” statement – I mean a clear, quantified, specifically described, ideal future situation. You absolutely need clarity on this before you plan for anything, so that you can ask “Will this goal or strategy or action get me nearer there and only there?”

Watch this video on the one way I recommend to clarify what your “vision” is and what it actually means when it has been achieved.

If you use this method you can cascade the detailing of what your ultimate dream business is, all the way to the detailed steps and actions you need to take – try it out! Remember:-

The first question is “what do I mean by my ideal…..(business)?”
Then keep asking “what do I mean by…..”

If you’ve missed out on any of my free advice, tips, ideas, systems and step by step processes to grow and build your dream of a business, go to teikoh.com and check them all out there.

By the way, if you are missing out, it probably means that you aren’t on my members’ list. It’s free to join and if you’re on it I send you every week, free and valuable updates on all these great tools and systems. Click here to sign up, and be aware that I hate spam so I will never sell or give your details to anyone else!

Comment 13

The Vision For Your Business

Jun 07 2016

I cannot say this enough – whatever you intend to do, start a business, attain a goal, arrive at somewhere, you need to start with a clear picture of where you want to end up.

Call this your “business vision” the “purpose” of your business, or the “why” of your business, as Stephen Covey says “Begin with the end in mind”.

Having a detailed picture of where you want to end up simply clarifies a lot of details and makes a lot of small day to day decisions suddenly easier. You want to hire someone – will they fit into what the place will look like in your vision? You are thinking of a new process – will it bring you closer or faster to your vision of how the business will work? You want to introduce a new product – does it fit in with your vision of how the business will look to the public?

Yet, how do you get to that detailed picture?

In this video I discuss one way of describing your vision, and then clarifying all the details that the vision implies. It’s as simple as having a conversation with yourself where you just ask “What do I mean by…?”

Remember:-

Start with a simple question; “If I want to build my dream (business), what do I mean by my perfect (business)?”
Then for each description of that ideal you come up with, ask: “So, what do I mean by (descriptor)?”

You can keep cascading those questions down until you end up with a highly detailed, quantified, version of your dream business.

As usual, the fun starts after the learning! Go to the blog at teikoh.com and post a comment to this video and tell me – What is the one single most important way you use your vision?

I’m also offering a free download of my Entrepreneur’s Business Health Checklist which assesses the health of your business in 6 key areas – get it here.

Comment 13

So, How Are Your 2016 Resolutions Going?

Mar 29 2016

You have to admit, I’ve given you a chance! I haven’t asked you about your New Year resolutions until now so you have to agree I’ve given you a good head start, right?

So, how are your New Year resolutions going? Are you ticking them off? Or like many others have they fallen off the cliff after 2 or 3 months (or should I say weeks)?

If you have been working on them, and you are on track – hey, congratulations! You are amongst that elite group who pick out what’s important and focus on the end. You follow through!

As for the rest of you, don’t feel bad. You haven’t failed! All that’s happened is that you now realise you don’t have a system to follow through. So, don’t give up, if your resolutions or goals are that important to you, keep trying.

But this time, arm yourself with a winning formula for following through.

In this video I’m providing training on the formula for following through on your resolutions and goals.

Here’s a tweetable that comes out of the training for you – Hit your goals everytime by keying in on key goals @OhTeik

Remember:-

Fewer (but key) goals
Make real written plans with deadlines and resources
Commit – believe you need to do this and you can do this
Review regularly – set yourself up to succeed
Don’t forget to celebrate every win!

For more ideas and tips on creating great strategy, show leadership and grow your business, go to my website at teikoh.com – subscribe while you’re there, or just subscribe here, to get these valuable ideas delivered to your inbox for free!

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

How To Keep Innovating

Plan With An Eye To The Outside

Back To Front Planning

The Vision For Your Business

I’m also offering a free download of my Entrepreneur’s Business Health Checklist which assesses the health of your business in 6 key areas – get it here.

So, How Are Your 2016 Resolutions Going?