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How honest are you prepared to be to grow your Business?

Written by: Christiane Pohl

Article Overview: What challenges is your business going to face in 2009? What measures are you going to take to grow your business? To really get to the bottom of the issues, to really focus on finding better solutions we need to apply a great deal of honesty - here is my 3 step approach to identify the real problems and solve them. .

How honest are you prepared to be to grow your Business?

The times they are a changing.....

A new year, a new start and we are bombarded with daily headlines of increased violence, economic uncertainty and political confusion. The struggle to stay in business, to keep our job, to secure a future for our children, to improve our education and our social systems seems more potent then ever.

Struggle involves disharmony, upheaval, confusion, doubt, and frustration. Struggle can render us feeling weak, helpless and frustrated OR it can unleash a surge of new ideas, creativity and solutions.

Extraordinary times call for extraordinary commitments...

The time has come to choose wisely and take responsibility if we want our businesses to survive, our resources to be distributed better and our environment to be more user friendly.

It is struggle and adversity that can bring out the worst in us, OR the Very BEST. It is when the chips are down and when times are tough that we often make our most courageous choices, re-define our values, take a stand and feel compelled to walk our talk.

What challenges is your business going to face in 2009?

What measures are you going to take to grow your business?

How honest are you prepared to be to find real solutions?

Clearly, identifying and understanding the opportunities, shortcomings and challenges of your business is the first step. By understanding I mean to understand on a very real, basic level and to be very honest. The most common answers given to why the sales and profits are down are 'weak economy' 'unreliable market' 'people just don't have any money to spend'. And yes all of those are factors to be taken into consideration - but the real question is:

What could we have done or do better? And to really get to the bottom of the issues, to really focus on finding better solutions we need to apply a great deal of honesty.

1. I have found that the best way to start is by sitting down and identifying all the things you could have done and did not - whatever the reason. Simply make a 'What we failed to do list' with your team: 'We missed our bottom line commitment because we failed to d.... We missed our customer service commitment because we failed to... We missed our commitment to our staff team because we failed to... We missed our sales commitment because we failed to... In this way you take OWNERSHIP, identify the source of the real problems and get valuable answers.

2. The next step is to decide what needs to be done and to commit to specific, effective and innovative actions. Get everyone involved; the whole management and staff team. Sharing the problems, asking for input, coming up with new solutions and then identifying who will do what will keep everyone motivated. Ask each team member for his or her commitment (I commit to generating - revenue) and write down all the commitments you make. Making commitments is much more powerful than talking about reaching goals or targets.

3. Then follow up on a regular basis on how everyone is doing and make adjustments when needed.

So, this is it - 3 steps to take ownership and identify the real issues at any time.

With my best wishes for your success!

Christiane Pohl

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Article Tags: Business solutions, Customer service, Growth



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