I never find it much fun playing with PowerPoint but this time it’s been really easy – I’ve cut out 75% of my slides! Why, because I’ll be telling lots of stories instead. We all remember the stories we learnt as children, from books we’ve read and stories that other people have told us. We remember some presentations better than others, but the evidence is clear – people not only remember stories but they are influenced by them.

I read an article by Martin Sykes www.martinjsykes.com in Talk Business Magazine (www.talkbusinessmagazine.co.uk ) a couple of weeks ago called ‘Stories that Move Mountains’. That single article reminded me about the power of storytelling. After all that is what presentations are all about, storytelling.

I want to engage my audience and I want them to recognise the pain that failing to solve problems causes.  I want to show them that the pain doesn’t have to continue. I want to persuade them that my views, methods and programs are so interesting and important to their business that they would engage me in the future.

My husband, Steve is a commercial insurance broker – not the most riveting topic to listen to but critical for business owners to understand it. Whenever he presents to business owners he does it by telling stories – all of which have happened to business he has worked with. His audience feels the pain through these stories and they always ask Steve to help them make sure that their insurance arrangements are correct.

Throughout my entire coaching, mentoring and business career I have participated, seen and been involved with lots and lots of stories. So I soon realised that I had plenty of stories that very clearly illustrate the point much better than a boring bullet point list would do.

Perhaps, a problem solving short story book might be my next project…….

For a copy of the visual story map from stories that move mountains visit www.storiesthatmovemountains.com

The Fix-It Business MasterClass Launched!

Over the past three years I have worked with many businesses, agencies, companies and organisations; I’ve met lots of people and attended many networking and training events. But there was something missing. I wanted to start / join / belong to a group of liked-minded people that really added value, thought leadership, intellect and enabled me to continue my personal development, to learn something new, debate ‘business’, develop new understandings and build a really trusting peer to peer group. I didn’t want to have breakfast or lunch all the time and I didn’t want to pay an annual membership fee. I’m happy to pay for great training but not for someone to just host a breakfast or lunch.

Out of this frustration and feeling of being under-whelmed I have developed a new model for training, networking and peer to peer groups – The Fix It Business MasterClass.  These masterclasses are 6 half day workshops, held over 18 weeks and that’s all you pay for. Each workshop has three section

1. An hour ‘talk and chalk’ on a specific business topic – you’ll learn something
2. 1 hour practical working – you work on your own solutions here – because I know that you’ll get distracted when you get back to work!
3. 1 hour review and networking – you’ll test your plans and share ideas.

Over these 6 sessions, groups of 6-8 non-competing business owners, will naturally form a self-sustaining peer to peer group where everyone can support and help each other in the future without having to pay any membership fees – ever!

The overriding theme of the Fix It MasterClass is all about problem solving. We all know that businesses waste far too much time and money ignoring problems rather than solving them. Each workshop will cover a separate subject such as sales, marketing, operations and finance giving you a complete picture over the series of workshops.

The small print….

• A new Fix It Business MasterClass will start each month and then re-launch on a rolling basis.
• Each Fix It Business MasterClass runs once every 3 weeks (slight tweaks for Christmas) and is completed over 18 weeks
• Places are limited to 7 non-competing business owners plus one bursary (see below)
• The cost for the 6 workshops is £2000+ VAT. No extra charges for refreshments!
• MasterClasses are generally held at our training rooms in Lenham, but we do travel too, so if there is a group in a particular location we can come to you
• There is no charge for peer to peer group meetings
• Workbooks, training materials and networking is all included

Finally, it has always been my plan to give something back. So, I’m offering one bursary for each Fix It MasterClass to a young business owner. Full details of the bursary can be found here.

If you would like more information, or to check availability please do give me a call on 07885 197 364 or email Shirley.mansfield@coachsme.co.uk

]]> http://www.coachsme.co.uk/fix-it-masterclass/feed/ 2 http://www.coachsme.co.uk/young-entrepreneur-bursary/ http://www.coachsme.co.uk/young-entrepreneur-bursary/#comments Thu, 09 May 2013 12:52:49 +0000 Shirley Mansfield http://www.coachsme.co.uk/?p=1379

It’s Launched – The Young Entrepreneur Business Bursary

Young people need help getting on the employment ladder and heaps of businesses offer apprenticeships and internships to help them. Many young people, so disaffected by the current state of the jobs market, are now setting up their own businesses. The UK needs these young people to be contributing to the economy, setting up successful business, employing people and generating wealth. But they need help too.

There are lots of organisations that provide free or subsidised business start-up services – but there is scant help and on-going support for young business owners. In fact, it’s becoming increasingly difficult for business owners with growing companies to find the expert support that they need.

Asking myself what I could do to help led me to develop the Young Entrepreneur Bursary. Having just launched my Business Fix It Masterclasses   I decided to offer a free place to a young business owner on each workshop series that I run. That’s 6 half day interactive workshops with 5 other non-competing business owners. It’s worth £2000, but priceless in terms of mentoring, coaching, exposure to other business owners and an opportunity to become part of a dynamic peer to peer group.

What is the Bursary?

Its one free place for a young business owner on each Business Fix It MasterClass Series held. It includes:

• 6 half day workshops, one held every 3 weeks.
• A self-sustaining peer to peer business group
• Assistance to access Growth Accelerator grants
• Discounted 1:1 coaching & mentoring

Who is eligible?

You must be:

•     A business owner
•    23 years of age or under
•    Generating revenue through the business

You will want to

•  learn more about business and improve your business skills
•  become a pro-active member of the peer to peer group, taking advantage of advice from other business owners in addition to the training
•  access additional business support, coaching and mentoring

How to apply?

If you are a business owner and applying for yourself or if you are nominating someone else, then just email Shirley.mansfield@coachsme.co.uk and tell me why you should be awarded the bursary.

Dr Kawashima made a small fortune on Brain Training™ for Nintendo.  The principle was to use games to train the brain to act younger than it actually is. My mum swears by the Daily Mail crossword and code word puzzles to keep brain working well.

These puzzles are fun but they also serve a purpose in keeping our brain cells working well. In fact what we are doing is engaging the brain to solve the problem. We use analysis, logic and creativity to find solutions to complete the puzzle or solve the problem.

This set me thinking…. What games should we be playing to help us keep our brains business fit?  Here is a fun list for you…

Analytical skills:

• Cryptic crosswords
• Sudoku
• Numerical and alphabetical puzzles

Tactical skills

• Chess
• Bridge
• Backgammon
• Yahtzee
• Jenga
• Poker

Risk Analysis

• Operation
• Mousetrap
• Computer games

Team working skills are always improved by playing any team sport.

And some hobbies that have problems to solve, choices to make or creativity

• Mechanics
• Golf
• DIY
• Programming
• Sewing and needlecraft
• Gardening, and the list goes on

Not surprising really then, that recruiters and employers ask what your hobbies, interests and pastimes are.

It’s dull and dreary outside today but I was reflecting on my recent trip to Bermuda with lots of affection. Why? It was just so consistent:

• The weather – the temperature day and night doesn’t fall below 20 degrees C or rise above 32 degrees C.
• The beaches – clean and soft with stunning colours of sand – the water clear, warm and full of fish.
• The constant smiles on Bermudians faces, their continuing interest in, and joy at meeting and helping visitors, their constant friendly greetings and a consistent love of their beautiful country.
• The bars and restaurants too – especially those Rum Swizzles!

Consistency was definitely a theme and this got me thinking about how inconsistent we are in our businesses, especially how inconsistent our delivery of customer experience is to our clients. Not always, but our delivery, our product quality, availability, our service and of course our moods, can be so inconsistent. But most of all businesses suffer from such inconsistent messages about their business.

Companies that get that consistency right are the companies that we admire, remember and probably re-purchase from.

Here are 7 areas where consistency is vital in projecting the right (and consistent) image of your business.

1. Product quality – make sure that your customers aren’t your quality control department!
2. Product availability – constantly ‘out of stock’ will drive customers away.
3. Pricing – why is it that we still give ‘new’ customers better prices?
4. Service – probably the most inconsistent of all. But how nice is it when you experience a great and consistent customer service?
5. Customer contact – nothing for months then that ‘buy me’ offer arrives and the pestering starts.
6. Response times – usually depends on how the staff feel.
7. Customer experience – Read the E-Myth or study MacDonalds, Premier Inn (too name just a couple) for a great display of consistency of Customer experience – now lovingly called Customer UX.

I can’t wait return to Bermuda – if only for some sunshine – but each time my mind wanders to Bermuda I’ll be reminded just how important consistency is.

You’ll be the leader, funder, manager, director, referee, salesman, finance director, cleaner, car washer, motivator, disciplinarian, rule setter, teacher, coach, press guru, fire fighter, problem solver, bookkeeper and problem solver to name just a few.

If you are a solopreneur then all of these jobs will have to land in your lap. But you mustn’t forget your own role and how much you cost, and can add value to, the business. Think of yourself as a £100,000 a year salary – that’s £55 an hour. That’s an expensive resource to be doing the cleaning, packaging, delivery driving, all the bookkeeping, etc. Nevertheless, if it is just you in the business, you can still outsource some activities which will save you money – bookkeeping, payroll and cleaning are good examples.

As the business grows you will have to start recruiting a team to help you run the business. A great way to determine what type of person you’re looking for is to be very clear about what their role will be. This might change; say in six months’ time, as you recruit even more staff.

Many of you will just go ahead and construct an organisation chart based on people and job titles. Stop! An organisation chart is a great tool to use but construct it with the job roles in mind. List out everything that needs to be achieved in the business and then allocate them into natural groupings. Then you can post these roles into the organisation chart. Once you are happy with the structure you can write the job description and start recruiting.

Reviewing the role chart at each growth stage of your business is a great habit to get into.  As a result, every time you are recruiting new employees you will be clear about what you want them to achieve. And as an added bonus everyone in the business will also be clear about who does what.

There is no doubt that at day one of your business you will end up wearing all of the hats, but as your business grows you will be able to pass those hats on to your new team.

In general, we solve everyday problems by ourselves. Perhaps if it is a tricky one, that has several options, is better solved by talking to someone else. The old saying a problem shared is a problem halved.

But business issues are different. Yes, they follow the same problem solving process but they are generally more complex or they require a different type of thinking.

Margaret Mead, anthropologist said

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed people can change the world. Indeed it’s the only thing that ever has.”

Problem-solving requires both analytical and creative skills but team working is critical to. So forming a problem-solving team with different people and expertise might be the best solution to help you find the best solution. If you don’t have a problem solving team then it is important that you talk to someone else for a different perspective.

My thanks to the University of Kent for the following story which underpins just how different thinking can solve problems….

A large cosmetics company had a problem that some of the soapboxes were coming of the production lines empty. The problem was quickly isolated to the assembly line, which transported the package boxes of soap to the delivery department: some soapboxes went through the assembly line empty.

The management asked its engineers to solve the problem. They spent much of the time and money in devising an x-ray machine with high resolution monitors manned by staff to watch all the boxes on the line to make sure they weren’t empty.

A workman on hearing about this came up with another solution. He got a powerful industrial fan and pointed it at the assembly line. As each soapbox passed the fan the empty boxes were blown off the line. Moral: the simplest solution is usually the best!

So the next time you are faced with the business problem ask yourself who else can help you solve it, sometimes the best and simplest help comes from the most unexpected source.

As Paul Hawken said, “Good management is the art of making problems so interesting and their solutions so constructive that everyone wants to get to work and deal with them”

It is from your leadership that the business will develop the right attitude towards problem solving. There are five key attributes to help you focus.

1.  Commitment. If you are not committed to making sure that those obstacles are removed to help you achieve your objectives then it is unlikely that your employees will not be committed either. Demonstrating your commitment to problem solving through your actions and words is very strong message to give to your staff.

2. Culture. Developing and nurturing a culture within your business that encourages a smooth process for problem solving is critical to business success. If, on the other hand, you have created a culture of fear where people are frightened to put their head above the parapet or say what they really think, you will be holding your business back. In a fear and blame culture, your people will recognise problems but will actively bury them because they are frightened to speak out. These problems then become really big issues for your business. Along with demonstrating your commitment building an open and transparent culture towards problem solving is crucial.

3. Creativity. Successful problem-solving is all about logic plus creativity. For any one obstacle that might come your way there will be a number of ways of solving it. Putting creativity at the heart of your business will enable you and your team to come up with creative solutions that will no doubt transform a problem into an opportunity.

“We are constantly faced with great opportunities brilliantly disguised as problems” Anonymous

4. Continued Improvement. For any business to grow and succeed it must continually improve. In the majority of cases problems arise through inadequacies with the processes, systems and procedures within your business. By actively looking for those gaps & problems and then solving them, you will be fostering a culture of continuous improvement. Each problem you solve means the business runs smoother, more efficiently & effectively and the result will be more profit, happier staff and a fun place to work.

5. Competence. Whilst you may have the commitment, the right culture and the creativity to focus on problem solving to help your continued improvement you also need to be competent. Throughout life we learn lots of different ways to solve problems. As children we soon worked out what we had to do when we didn’t get a new toy at the first time of asking! We learnt the skills but we must now be competent in deploying those skills in a business scenario. Firstly, find the problem second make sure that you have got to the root of the problem and then implement the problem-solving process within your business to overcome the obstacles.

Every day we are faced with problems but it is how we approach the solving of those problems which defines us as a leader.

But how do you stand out from the crowd and make sure that you get the match funding too? It’s a big challenge. Expansion East Kent has had a slow start primarily because the quality of the applications submitted had not been thought through. This is not ‘free’ money – that era of government support has gone – you will have to work hard to secure a loan. In fact you have to secure 2 sources of finance, so careful planning needs to start now.

Then where do you start? The first port of call is some ‘joined up thinking’. What is the real reason that you need the money, what are you going to do with it and what will you achieve as a result. Can you achieve the same results in a different way? For example, do you have piles of stock tying up your cash and if you sold that stock would you have enough cash to do the same project? So joined up thinking must come first.

Then it’s down to writing and lots of it…

1. What is your story? This will need to clearly articulate the vision for your business – your company manifesto if you like. If you are not sure what a brand manifesto is then here is some advice Brand Manifesto  How have you got to where you are now and where are you going?

2. Write the objectives of the project down – do they make sense are they achievable, relevant and specific? What will you achieve?

3. It’s really easy to write numbers into an Excel spread sheet for your cash flow forecast but do you know what those numbers mean? How realistic are they? Do you know how many units you need to sell to hit your sales forecast and where will those sales come from? You will need to stress test these forecasts and a quick way to do that is to do optimistic, pessimistic and realistic projections – yes that’s 3 cash flow forecasts and 3 sales forecasts! When you have completed these you will at least know the best case and worst case scenarios.

4. Now to write your project plan. That’s the who, what, why, how and when plan. Match this with your budget and stress test it again.

5. Now you need to find the match funding – after all TIGER isn’t going to give you the money if you don’t have the match in place. The awarding body will be happier if you apply with your match already in place. Not always possible, but you should at the very least run both strategies side by side. Chances are that the other funder will want certain bits of information from you so find out the specifics and write those down too.

6. Now you should be in a much better position to actually complete the application and the supplementary information for the application. Once you have written it put it to one side and then review with a fresh pair of eyes, be critical and check for waffle! Better still run it past someone who will give you some constructive feedback. Make it easy for the person reviewing your application to understand it rather than having to sift through for the information.

The team managing the TIGER fund have worked really hard to secure the funding from central government and we will know how funding can help businesses really grow. Successful applicants from the Expansion East Kent fund are testimony to that. The money is not there as a right – it has to be earned and respected.

Further information, and the guidance notes are posted at www.tiger20million.co.uk

Good Luck with your application – remember that joined up thinking will win the day!

These are my own views and opinions and are not necessarily those of anyone directly associated with the TIGER Fund

So what is the problem? It can be defined as “a situation(s) where we are un-certain, un-nerved, un-clear about what it is or we have difficulty in achieving our objective”. Effectively it is an objective + obstacle = problem. If you want to achieve your objective, then you have to remove the obstacle and problem solved!

The “head in the sand” strategy, especially if this strategy isn’t changed, is eventually terminal for a business. Firstly the business stalls, and then it stagnates, becomes sick and then sicker. Decline sets in and eventually it will die a slow painful death.

Every business including mine has a problem or problems that arise. They may be sudden and unexpected, for example, a key suppliers factory burns down and you can’t get any products. Or these problems are slow to develop, grow quietly and then fester.

But ‘problems’ can become opportunities; it’s just a matter of dealing with the problem and I mean really dealing with the problems, root cause and all. The key is to have a system that identifies the problem, then a process to dig down and get to the root cause and finally a way of solving the problems.

These are all the skills that we should have learnt throughout our lives. After all, the problem solving process is just the same for problems outside of business. But it’s a skill, which if more businesses learnt how to do it well, then their business would thrive rather than die on the vine. Avoid problem solving at your peril; don’t leave it in the too difficult pile, get it out and solve the problem now, you’ll be glad you did.

What’s your best tip for problem solving?