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.

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Comment 13

10 Business Survival Strategies in Difficult Times

Jun 30 2015

We are in uncertain times for business at the moment. The economy seems to do well one moment, at other times there is doom and gloom.

I’m not an economist, yet even I understand that despite some good signs there are fundamental economic indicators that are worrying, including interest rates, international GDP trends and unemployment. I’m a business owner just like you, and while I look after my business as best as I can, I do realise that there are things happening that is outside of my control.

However what is important is that we keep track of wider economic trends and see how they affect us, and, even more importantly, implement strategies that mitigate risk. So when I received an email last week from Sheryl, a follower of my blog, asking me what “common sense” things she should do to ensure that she was prepared for whatever might happen, I reached into my toolbox and pulled out 10 strategies that are useful in difficult times.

In over 30 years’ of consulting to business and other organisations, I have found that history often repeats itself. So why reinvent the wheel?

In this video I run through 10 business survival strategies for difficult times that are “common sense”, can be instigated now, and that I have seen work in other times of economic woe. Would you believe the first paper I wrote about these strategies was for a conference I presented to in 1987? Since then I have refined them at least three times as the world economy fluctuated over the last 28 years.

There’s no secret really – here they are again:-

Comment 13

Doing things for yourself

Jun 23 2015

When you are running a small business you are jack of all trades. You’re probably master of a few too!

I was discussing this with one of my clients (not a small business by any means!) and they were telling me about how they were using their in-house counsel in reviewing their tax structures.

“But wait,” I said, “Isn’t he a corporate lawyer?”

Yes they said but tax lawyers are extremely expensive and since they have him anyway, surely a lawyer is trained in reading the law and can read any legislation?

I see this so often in my consulting business, and not only amongst small businesses who need to ensure every dollar they spend is well spent. I see it also amongst my larger clients who think they should do everything in-house. There is a time and a place for doing things for yourself. But there is also a time and place to ensure you get the advice from someone outside who deals with the issues every day.

In the example of my client who was getting tax advice from their in-house corporate lawyer, I don’t mean to put down their lawyer, but there is a difference between his skill in reading tax legislation and the experience in tax legislation.

The difference between skill and experience is that one is learned while the other is gained. I’m sure you can read an Ikea instruction leaflet on how to put together a shelving unit with doors – you have the skill. But I’ll bet that you can’t put it together as fast and as cleanly as an experienced handyman – that’s because he has the experience of putting shelves together with power tools every day.

What does this mean for your business?

It’s only right that sometimes you should hire someone else to provide both the skill and the experience required for a task, the skill and experience that you don’t have.

However where you can you need to be engaged, to ensure that the consultant has all the facts they need in front of them. After all, nobody knows your business, and all its nuances better than yourself. The marriage of your knowledge and the skill and experience you buy in should provide you with the best outcome.

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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?

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Comment 13

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