The Magazine for Business Owners
FLUIDBUSINESS MAGAZINE
AUTUMN 16
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Inside This Issue!
HELPING YOUR TEAM WITH CHANGE HR FOR SMEs
WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW
JIM COLLINS LIVE IN LONDON!
FIND OUT MORE PAGE 19
HOW DO YOU TRANSITION
from good to great?
Discover the 4 REASONS YOU SHOULD WORK WITH A COACH!
CONTENTS
04 FLUID INSIDER A run down of what has been going on over the last quarter at Fluid Business.
05 COACH FOCUS Our expert coaches lend their advice for your business needs.
06 HR FOR SMES We sat down with Paula Fisher to discuss her new book HR for SMEs.
08 4 REASONS WHY... You should work with a business coach. We break down why it’s vital for growth.
14 WHY WEBINARS? Free, paid-for, live, automated, we look at why webinars are so hot right now.
16 CHANGES IN THE TEAM Helping your team with change can be challenging but entirely worth it.
10 A REMINDER TO CHANGE A look into the importance of not letting yourself slip back into bad habits.
18 THE 03 LEVELS REVISITED How long does it take for change to take root in business?
NATALIE MOORE Managing Director of Fluid Business Coaching.
Welcome to the Autumn edition of the Fluid Business Magazine. The theme of this issue is change. As business owners we regularly have to change and adapt for a number of different reasons. From changing the company’s direction, changing the structure of the business or changing the teams focus, change can bring up a number of challenges. On page 10 you can read about the importance of reminding yourself to change and steer clear of that old bad habit.
On page 14 Fluid Business Coach Hugo Heij discusses his thoughts on change, and how necessary it is to involve the team if you want success. We also take a look at a Levels blog post on how long it takes for change to take root in your business on page18. Have a great quarter!
Natalie Moore 01245 423 377
FBM MAGAZINE 2016 | 3
FLUID INSIDER!
Fluid Insider y EMERY BLAURA MARKETING EXECUTIVE
A look into what Fluid Business Coaching has been getting up to over the last quarter and a sneak peak for what to expect over the next three months.
A
nother quarter has flown by at Fluid Business Coaching and it’s hard to believe we are entering Autumn 2016! As the trees begin to change their leaves, we too, are putting plans in place to make some major changes - watch this space! We have been lucky to have such a successful quarter, highlights include interview Paula Fisher, Managing Director of Practical HR on the release of her book “HR for SMEs” for the Fluid Business
Podcast available to listen to at www.fluidbusiness. co.uk/059 or head to page 6 to read all about it. Looking forward into this quarter, we are proud to be sponsoring the Fast Forward Your Business Event hosted by Roger Hamilton on 10th & 11th September 2016. Early bird tickets are also on sale for Jim Collins Live in London on 28th February 2017. You can get your tickets for both events from fluidbusiness.co.uk/events.
Have a great and successful quarter.
DON’T MISS
Laura
FAST FORWARD YOUR BUSINESS
BOOK IN A FREE SESSION
Don’t miss the World’s No.1 Entrepreneur Event at London Novotel West on 10th & 11th September 2016 with Roger Hamilton. Tickets available from www.fluidbusiness.co.uk/ffyb
If you’re looking for ways for your business to run itself, rather than run your life, then we can help you - it starts with just one free session. fluidbusiness.co.uk/free-session
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COACH FOCUS TIME:
How can we help you?
ANDY SLEET Preparing Your Business for stability and sale? Speak to Andy
HUGO HEIJ Lead and develop your team on an international scale with Hugo
ANDYSLEET@FLUIDBUSINESS.CO.UK
A:
At some point, your business will cease being your business; either you sell (transfer) it to a family member, sell it to one or more of your business team, sell it to an investor, or, like over 80% of those who start their own business, you will transfer it by shutting it down because it did not succeed. Preparing your business for sale ensures that you get the best price for your business when the time comes to sell.
PETER BOOLKAH Experiencing Rapid Growth? Speak to Peter
HUGOHEIJ@FLUIDBUSINESS.CO.UK
A:
There are different types of leaders; some are more comfortable dictating to their employees, while other prefer a more collaborative approach. It’s always a good idea to tap into the creativity of your staff: if they have a great idea that may increase the revenue of the company, why not take advantage of that?
PETERBOOLKAH@FLUIDBUSINESS.CO.UK
A:
Every single business has the potential to grow, to develop and improve performance if they are willing to change. 90% of the time it is not the business that has hit the ceiling, it’s the business owner. In order to grow the business owner must embrace change in order to stay ahead of the game. Putting the right structures in place that a company going through rapid growth needs, enables a smooth transition.
RAY MOORE MANAGING COACH Expert in family business, succession planning and author of The Levels. RAYMOORE@FLUIDBUSINESS.CO.UK
A:
A whopping 73% of family businesses want to keep the business in the family but only 33% make it to the second generation and only 9% to the third. Interestingly, studies also show that 57% of family businesses have no defined plan for succession. Here at Fluid Business Coaching we meet far too many business owners who have just left it too late. Often they feel that when they employ people they take on a responsibility and that responsibility can or has become
a burden. The owner has built his business by sheer hard work and determination. All that experience forms their common sense. Unfortunately, that sense is only common to them and they can’t get why the successors just don’t get it. It’s because only the owner has the experience but they don’t truly understand how they have achieved their success so they can’t pass on the experience and have to wait for the successor to ripen!
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FEATURE
HR FOR SMES A MANUAL FOR EVERY BUSINESS Last month we caught up with Paula Fisher, MD of Practical HR, to discuss her recently released book HR for SMEs.
HR for SMEs by Paula Fisher Get your copy from fluidbusiness.co.uk
A Message from the Author, Paula Fisher “I wrote the book because SMEs have particular issues when it comes to HR and I wanted to give them a very practical and a very commercial approach to HR. HR can have a really bad reputation out there and I just wanted to give them a much clearer idea of what HR was all about within an SME. The idea of the book is to make it really jargon-free and really easy to understand. What I’ve done is I’ve taken an analogy of the game of football.
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You might think, “Well, what has football got to do with HR?” but there’s a lot of similarities when you talk about teams and everything else. As an example, in the game of football, you have to have rules. I think everybody knows the rules of football. In a business, you also have to have rules, but even when you have rules, even on the football pitch, you need a referee. The same thing happens in a business. Some of the basics for HR is to get those rules in place and get clarity around those rules so everyone’s playing to the same rules.”
Paula expalins, there are a lot of common themes that run through the SMEs she works with. There is a lot of fear around HR and employment law. Which means that sometimes business owners don’t want to deal with HR issues because they don’t know how to deal with them, so often things get swept under the carpet rather than being addressed head on. Some SMEs also tend to have a lack of rules and clarity; things like good contracts of employment, employee handbooks, codes of conduct and the values that they want people to work by. Like the football analogy, with these lack of rules around everything, what can happen is people are breaking the rules and the referee isn’t doing anything about it because no one knows what the rule is. Suddenly, you haven’t got a game of football. You’ve got a game of rugby. That fear and that lack of knowing what to do in terms of putting the rules in place is a very common theme. In HR for SMEs, what Paula does is she breaks down some really practical steps in terms of how to put some of these rules in
place and demonstrate how HR is actually fundamental to running a business. You can’t run a successful business without good people. In order to get good people, you’ve got to start with the recruitment process. Depending on what league you want to play in depends what level of people you’re going to be recruiting. The book takes a very step-by-step approach to HR, so depending on the league you’re playing in, the level that you’re playing in depends on the level of HR that you may want to put in at any one time. Everything from your rules, your team, how do you get them to perform and how do you measure their performance. In business, you’re talking about things like job descriptions, measurement in terms of key performance indicators (KPI’s), but you’ve also then got to help your employees understand where they sit in the business and what contribution they make to your business. On a football pitch, again, it’s easy. The forward knows they’ve got to go and score a goal. If the goalie decides that they’re going to leave their post and run up the pitch,
“HR IS NOT SEPARATE TO THE BUSINESS” no one’s going to thank them. In a business, everyone needs to know their contribution.
because of the key performance indicators that now need to be achieved.
Then you’ve got the coaches. The coach is the person who has to get the best out of the people on the football pitch. Your coaches in your business are your managers, and they’re the people who can help your people in terms of their training and their development and focusing them in the right direction. Throughout the book, Paula goes through those areas in a step-by-step process to show SMEs how it should be aligned to the business so that HR is not something that’s separate from the business but is integral to taking the business forward.
The main aspect which comes again back to coaching and The Levels is it’s about review. It’s about continually reviewing where you are with your business and therefore where you are with your HR. Clarity around KPIs becomes even more important. Clarity around accountability becomes more important and then also training your inhouse managers to take on more. All of that is HR.
HR is fundamental to a business moving through The Levels because at every level, you need slightly different things. A business may start off with some real basics like contracts and handbooks. As the business grows, the need for HR becomes more and more aparent. It is most important, when a business is going through growth, when it may need to change things. Suddenly, you need to be looking sometimes at exit strategies because the people who are currently in the business either don’t want to be in the business anymore because it’s going through such growth or unfortunately are not capable of staying in their position
It’s a great book to read, especially if your business is moving through The Levels. It actually makes it very clear at the end that it is all about continually reviewing what you need to do. The other thing that’s really important that Paula tries to make clear in the book is that HR, is not separate to the business. It’s not separate to the business plan, and ultimately it is the responsibility of the business owner. To get your copy of HR for SMEs by Paula Fisher visit www.fluidbusiness.co.uk. As a promotion, Fluid Business Coaching is giving away a limited amount of free copies. To get your copy of The Levels visit fluidbusiness.co.uk.
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COACHING FOCUS
4 REASONS YOU SHOULD WORK WITH A COACH Break out of your comfort zone and start working with a business coach, we guarantee your mind will become clearer and your business will become stronger.
FLUID BUSINESS COACHING www.fluisbusiness.co.uk
Business coaching maybe a modern concept, but worldclass athletes have been working with performance coaches for generations and there’s a reason for that. Think about it. Many business owners, especially those that think outside the box, are recognising that having a business coach is an
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extremely powerful way to keep them on track with their growth goals. We asked some of our valued clients to share some of their reasons behind working with Fluid Business Coaching. We took the most popular comments and turned them into 4 solid reasons you should use a business coach.
My Business Coach Showed Me How to Get Greater Returns With Less Work You work way too many hours and you believe if you were to leave your business alone, even for a short weekend getaway with the family, things might fall apart yet you are so ready to work less hours! People label business coaching in different ways; executive coaching, small business coaching, leadership coaching, rapid growth coaching etc call it what you wish, the most important part is the results for you and your business. Business coaching will make you and your business more efficient. That means you will work fewer hours and ultimately make more progress towards your goals. A business coach can help you trade in your old business model for entirely new model that’s more aware, structured and profitable. My Business Coach Helped Me Increase Profits If you aren’t making the profits you thought you would it’s time to change that and turn things around. Fluid Business Coaching can help you do that. We’re not here to make the decisions for you, but to open your mind and help you explore how you might reach your goals and make the progress you desire. My Business Coach Helped Me Develop My Team You are ready to build an all-star team to help you grow your business. That’s great news. A business coach can help you recruit, train, and keep the right team members. When you build a winning team with the help of your business coach, it can motivate everyone around you. You can create real passion among your team members. My Business Coach Helped Me Reignite My Passion
RAY MOORE Fluid Business Coach
a vision and passion. Whether you are building a team, experiencing rapid growth, putting in systems and processes or preparing your exit strategy; your business coach is an excellent sounding board and can be an invaluable tool to help you get your passion back! Working with a certified business coach is a great investment in your business and in your future.
If you need to fall back in love with your business, a business coach is the best way to help you do that. Overtime every business can become a bit mundane and a bit boring, and that’s ok. Motivation is key to maintaining and growing
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FEATURE
A REMINDER TO CHANGE Sometimes we need reminding to change.
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Making sure that you remind yourself to change is the way to re-wire a bad habit into a good one.
Isn’t it interesting that the wiring of a bad habit can so easily be reconnected to restore an old behaviour. The key is to be aware that a change has occurred and then have a reminder to get you back to the new behaviour as soon as possible. Imagine you had not ridden a bike for some time maybe even years. How long would it take to regain your balance and be peddling away? That’s right, minutes because the wiring, the muscle memory, is all still there. We often see business owners who struggle to change their work practices away from the daily grind (doing the do). They make the necessary changes and briefly enjoy less stress and some personal freedom to spend their time away from the business. This change can appear to have become the norm but then something unexpected happens that drags them straight back into the cut and thrust of the business. Back to the old grindstone. Unfortunately, just like riding a bike, the daily doing quickly feels natural because the old wiring is still there.
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The old behaviour, once reconnected, quickly becomes second nature again and then interestingly reverting back to the new behaviour seems to get harder and harder. Much easier to lose yourself in the daily doing. The important thing is to make sure you also have that reminder to promt you to change back. This could be an event like a weekly review or a regular catch up with your coach. Take a moment to think what outmoded old habit wiring you still have in place in your business that only needs the right circumstances to be reconnected? The great thing about this is when you know the trigger that starts the bad behaviour you can make the conscious effort to avoid it.
A REMINDER TO CHANGE
“Take a moment to think what outmoded old habit wiring you still have in place in your business”
- Ray Moore
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WHY WEBINARS ARE SO POWERFUL By David Sargant
It may seem crazy, but not only should you love webinars and attend them as often as you can – your customers and potential customers will love yours! Even if they don’t watch live, they love watching the evergreen replays that you can run automatically 365 days a year, 24 hours a day – they’re totally great at growing your email list too! Here are the main reasons why they are so popular; Viewers Feel Connected with You When people become your subscriber and fan, they want to see you in every way that they can, be it on a webinar or in person. Take advantage of that and be where your fans want you to be, so that you can build better relationships and ultimately make more sales. It’s Easier to Understand Difficult Topics Many people learn better with visuals, and video can massively help with that. If you’re teaching a difficult subject or concept, being able to talk through examples on screen, really engage with your audience, and answer questions on the spot makes the topic a lot easier to understand. They Find It Interesting Audiences overwhelmingly find webinars more interesting than blog posts, articles, and other forms of content. They are more likely to interact with a webinar, make comments, and participate than they are a blog or social media post. They Feel Included When you invite people to your webinars, they feel included in your inner circle. Whether your webinars are public or for your subscribers only, it doesn’t matter. Your audience will feel included and part
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of your VIP circle – they’re great for customer retention in that respect. It Feels Like a Real Event It feels real because it is. If you’re hosting live webinars, they’re real events that people can and will get excited about. Your audience will be happy, and that happiness will rub off on you and make you happy to perform the webinar each week or month. They Can Build Relationships When your audience is watching you live, in their mind you’re
building a relationship with them. They’re looking into your eyes; they feel as if you’re talking only to them. They like to get to know people before they spend money, and webinars are the best way to do that. It Feels Separate from the Sales Cycle While webinars and webinars today are certainly part of the sales cycle, to the audience it feels separate from the sales cycle. As long as your webinars are informative, they’re not going to feel sold to or talked down to. They’re going to enjoy it.
When your audience is watching you live, in their mind you’re building a relationship with them. They’re looking into your eyes; they feel as if you’re talking only to them.
People Like to Follow Thought Leaders If you’re an expert in your industry (or you want to be seen as one), then any time you publish a webinar your people are going to want to participate and learn from you. People Love Demos When you teach your audience to do something, even things you think are easy and boring, they just love it. Host a webinar teaching your audience to do one small thing that you do on a regular
basis, and it’ll be a well-attended webinar - especially if you let them ask questions. People Like Consistency It’s like this very magazine; people like being able to count on something. If it’s a weekly or monthly live event, they’re going to be excited to view it and tell others about it too. Checkout Fluid Business Podcast episode 010 on Delivery Consistency.
will continue giving insightful and valuable content, they’re going to be even more likely to tell others – which means a bigger email list, more potential clients and faster growth. Hosting a weekly or monthly webinar will pay off in a big way if you stay consistent and keep going. Ensure that your chosen subject fits with your target audience and you’ll be surprised at how much of an impact they really can have on your business.
If they know for sure that you
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Helping Your Team with Change Hugo Heij discusses his thoughts on change, and how necessary it is to involve the team if you want success.
One often misunderstood concept of change is that we want to change the team or change the people. If this is your starting point, you are doomed to fail. It is not the new situation that often creates the resistance; it is the uncertainty of what is going to happen - whether on the whole, or personally to each individual. This is the main reason why people object instantly and question the change, often in a very defensive way. Therefore, I recommend flipping this entirely on it’s head. When leading companies and teams we need to show the vision and direction we are heading for. We also need to show what the new situation will bring, explain the new situation and show how it is going to be beneficial to the individual. I have seen from personal experience that people are clever enough to understand that sometimes they need to change in order to commit to a common goal. If your team members do not see the need to change, help them understand it. Years ago I worked in a company which was not known for embracing change and for over 20 years the company was run in the same way with nothing ever really happening. Then crisis hit our industry and in order to deal with this changed ecomony, change needs to happen. My starting point was to make clear to everybody what the end goal was and what we wanted to achieve (share the mission). At this point people were invited to contribute to the actions that needed to be done. Many years ago I learned the following: “Tell the team, and they will know. Show the team, and they will remember. Involve the team, and 16 | FBM MAGAZINE 2016
they will learn.” It has been on my whiteboard ever since, and I have applied this in Holland, Sweden and in the UK. Especially when change is concerned it is a very powerful reminder that effective change only happens when people are involved in the process. The second thing we did was completing DiSC assessments and training with all of the office team, including the foreman of the warehouse. This was never done before and people were very anxious of the outcomes. Being profiled sounded very daunting in itself, but what frightened even more was the next step when we discussed the profiles in small groups. The workshop however became a very big success, because team members realised that the profiles were actually ‘them’. Especially after they understood that there was no right or wrong outcome in the DiSC profiling tool. It was just an assessment of who they were. I still believe that one of the other elements for the success was my open involvement as Managing Director. Also, my profile (including some obvious characteristics) were scrutinised by the team. Some of them were basis for some light banter amongst the team. For me, the most fascinating outcome was that a few memmbers of staff had worked together for decades, without really understanding their co-workers. With that understanding it was much easier to work together, because we all react differently in various situations. As I said, you cannot lead a team or any group from a big tower, shouting instructions. Especially
in change processes it is vital that you are seen as a leader. Show the team you are also going through the challenges and paces of change. This will help them to overcome their challenges and join you in the process. Again, change is not scary in itself. The scary bit comes if we do not know why we are changing or what the change is for (knowing the bigger picture). Make clear to your team what destination you are heading for and what direction you are going. Trust your team with the responsibility to adjust their own
INVOLVE YOUR TEAM WITH CHANGE If you want success.
course along with yours. This will give you credibility as a leader and much more success for the change.
If you would like to discuss teams and change with Hugo, contact the team on 01245 423377 or email hugoheij@fluidbusiness.co.uk
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HOW LONG DOES IT TAKE FOR CHANGE TO TAKE ROOT IN BUSINESS? By Ray Moore, originally posted on thelevelsblog.com
Well here is a sign that I have taken a few days away from the office. After a couple of days to recharge the batteries and just relax, it’s time to review the past few months and plan for the coming year. Part of this reflection is to reconsider the priorities that have been set to drive the business to the next level and to review their effectiveness. Change within a business takes time to take hold. The early shoots of this change can be easily damaged if not nurtured. As in nature it takes a long time to establish roots before a plant can grow.
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Whilst the roots of change are establishing themselves it is easy to believe nothing is happening. If we have prepared the soil and have kept the plant watered and nourished the roots will grow strong. Don’t be tempted to dig up the plant to check on the roots! In business it is easy to belief we have focused on the wrong priority when we don’t get immediate results and in the hope of quicker wins chop and change direction. Remember the gardener, have patience, look for signs of growth and then waits for the plant to flourish.
HOW DO YOU TRANSITION FROM GOOD TO GREAT ? JIM COLLINS LIVE IN LONDON Lead your business to greatness
Books by Jim Collins GOOD TO GREAT GREAT BY CHOICE HOW THE MIGHTY FALL BUILT TO LAST *COLLECTIVELY SOLD OVER 10 MILLION COPIES
Jim Collins, best-selling author of business classics Built to Last, Good to Great, How The Mighty Fall and Great by Choice, will present a powerful half-day seminar on what it takes to build an enduring great company. We live in a world where we can no longer predict with certainty the twists and turns our lives will take. Throughout the world, technological change and global competition continues their relentless, disruptive march. Life is uncertain, the future unknown. Yet some companies and leaders navigate this type of world exceptionally well. They don’t merely react; they create. They don’t merely survive; they prevail. They don’t merely succeed; they thrive. They build great enterprises that can endure. Jim Collins will reveal findings from his 25 years of research which asks the simple question Why do some companies thrive in uncertainty, even chaos, and others do not? When buffeted by tumultuous events, when hit by big, fast-moving forces that we can neither predict nor control, what distinguishes those who perform exceptionally well from those who underperform or worse?
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THE LEVELS