5 Leadership Lessons Business Owners Usually Pay Thousands For

Remember markets are constantly evolving, they're evolving really quickly. So you have to stay on top of developments, whether that's technology or whether that's through legislation or maybe just through what your competition's doing and you've got to keep up with them. So it's essential that you're constantly learning and improving. I'm Mike Harris and I help businesses to successfully grow their turnover and profit. In the last year alone I have helped dozens of businesses at least double in size and I work with small, medium and large businesses including startups and multi-nationals. As you know my day job is advising clients on how to improve their businesses through strategy and coaching them on how to become better leaders. I often get asked what are my top tips for these clients, you know the advice that they pay thousands of pounds for. Well don't tell them but I've decided to share this advice for you for free. That's right for free. So welcome to the first episode in a regular mini-series of which I'll be sharing my not to be missed top advice. Here's the first five and if you stay to the end you'll learn how to get exclusive advice which will catapult your career to new heights. Hello and welcome to all your leaders and strategy in series four with providing top advice for business leaders. So today we're going to look at five of my top tips. Number one, define a clear vision and mission. People get confused between these so your vision sets out the direction for your business. It should be a clear and inspiring statement that describes the future for your organization. It paints a picture of where the business ultimately wants to go on what they want to achieve. However your mission explains the purpose it is a concise statement that explains what the organization does every day to serve its customers and its stakeholders. It's important to communicate consistently to your team and to external stakeholders. So just to give an example then I'm going to use strategies, consultants, mission and vision statements and I don't do this to hold them up as being good examples. It just helps to kind of explain the difference between what they are. So strategies vision is to create a legacy by helping develop the next generation of leaders. Otherwise it sets out the direction of travel for the business and our mission is to continually improve our customers performance through strategy, innovation and experience. So our mission is setting out how we deliver that vision statement. So number two is focus on value creation and by value creation what I mean is the process of making the business more competitive, more profitable, more sustainable or possibly all free over a period of time. So you should always be asking yourself how does this decision that I'm about to make create value for our customers, our employees and/or our stakeholders. So an example of this is a few years ago I worked with a business that was being acquired by private equity firm and what I learnt was that the private equity are really focused on how they grow the value of the business. So they pay a sum of money for the company and then they look at at some point in the future they're going to sell the business and they want to look at how they maximize what the value of the business is going to be over a period of time. And in doing that they're looking at how they improve the customer experience, how they improve the pipeline of work that's coming in, they look at the employees, how do they grow the business and how do they make sure they've got the strength and depth of the employees that go with it and they also look at the benefit of the stakeholders not just themselves but other stakeholders as well. And the reason I found that really important and interesting is because even though they were doing it as a private equity firm actually the thought process is vital for every business whoever actually owns it. So even if you're a small startup or you're large multinational the idea that you're constantly looking at how you improve the business, how you grow its value and how you benefit as I say the customers, the employees and shareholders, stakeholders etc is really really important. It also makes actually the input that you have into leading the business really enjoyable and quite fun because it gives you something to be constantly looking at and constantly striving for. So remember businesses thrive when they're looking at how they can create ongoing value. Number three, build a strong network. So the first two examples I gave was advice on how you can benefit your business but it's equally important to look at how you benefit yourself as a business leader, how do you grow and how do you develop and therefore building a strong network is absolutely essential for you. This means creating new relationships, extending the relationships you've got and building upon those relationships. So this might be surrounding yourself with mentors having peers that you can talk to and rely upon and create partnerships with other people which will provide insights, maybe support and create opportunity. Clearly by doing that, by building your own personal network you're also benefiting the business because that network will help you but will help the business. We did talk about this in season three in an episode with Paul Heatherington which happens to be our top viewed episode to date with 40,000 viewers which is fantastic and thank you for everybody who watched that episode. So if you're going to have a look at that that will help give you some some thoughts around how to build your network but just remember if you help others they will help you. This episode is sponsored by Strategist Consulting, expert business and leadership consultancy for everyday businesses and professionals. What if the key to your business's next growth phase isn't a mystery by the proven process? Is your business at the ceiling with profits flat, daily chaos and scaling up, feeling like a risky leap? You're not alone and you don't have to solve it alone. Strategist Consulting is your partner for structured transformative growth. Led by my carous, a proven strategist and project manager with expertise in scaling businesses, bid management and delivering results. We provide clarity through our call service, the business review workshop. This isn't just advice. It's a deep dive analysis that delivers a clear actionable roadmap. We identify your bottlenecks, uncover hidden opportunities and give you the precise steps to move from stuck to strategic execution. Visit www.StrategyS Consulting.co.de.fe now and transform your business trajectory. So the fourth tip for today is embrace continuing to learn and what I mean by that is from a business point of view, create a culture of continuous improvement, constantly review activities, carry out lessons learned, look at how you can take those lessons and bring them back into the business, production plans in place to constantly develop and move the business forward. So ultimately, you're better tomorrow than you were yesterday. And remember markets are constantly evolving, they're evolving really quickly. And then also looking at it from a point of view of personal development, whether that's your own personal development as a business leader or the personal development of your employees. How do you upskill them? How do you give them the capabilities they need? Whether that's technical capabilities which help them to do the job that they are actually employed to do, or whether it's softer skills such as helping with communication and how people interface with each other, etc. And also looking at it from a personal perspective, make sure you stay curious that you're always asking questions, finding out what's going on, and then using that information to grow and develop as an individual. Read, I do a lot of reading of books, whether that books around strategy and leadership, or maybe if I'm working with a new client, finding out more about the industry, they're in an understanding, the background. So I can actually help them with some knowledge of the sector that they work with it. Attend industry events, I find that's always a great opportunity to learn what's going on, what's new, what people are doing differently, what's maybe coming ahead in the, and what's coming up in the year ahead. And lastly, of course, don't forget to listen to podcasts and in particular this one, you'll learn a lot obviously and you'll be continuously learning. And then the last tip for today is make sure you prioritize financial disciplines. I've said it before that cash flow is the lifeblood of your business. It's essential that your business remains cash positive, not just from a point of view of being able to trade, not being insolvent, but more importantly, because if you've got money in the bank, you can invest in the future, you can invest in innovation. It's easier to make decisions and bring in the resources that you need to implement those decisions, where if you haven't got cash and money's really tight, you're constantly looking to see where you spend the money and that can push you to the point where you're not actually taking the actions that you need to take. And obviously you also need to focus on being profitable. Profit is not a dirty word. Every business needs to be profitable to survive. So therefore focusing on that being up for the customers around what your profitability levels need to be. And then monitor your finances closely, make sure you're maintaining healthy margins and avoiding unnecessary debt. So that's it for today. I hope that made sense. And in summary then the top five tips from this episode are one, Define a Clear Vision Emission, Your Vision Sets the Direction of Travel, Your Mission Explains, how you're going to get there. To focus on value creation always ask how does this decision create value for my customers, my employees and all my stakeholders. Three, Build a strong network, surround yourself with mentors, peers, partners who can provide insight, support and opportunities. Four, embrace continuous learning, markets evolve fast, so do your competition, so stay curious and stay ahead. And lastly, five, Priorties Financial Discipline, Cash Flow is King, Avoid unnecessary debt. As you know, I like to set some homework, so today's homework is this. Review those five top tips, identify which ones would benefit you and your business most and maybe take one or two of them and apply them in your day-to-day activities. Look at how they affect you and look at how they affect your business and then turn them into an action plan for the next three months. Maybe hold a workshop involving key members of your team. You might even consider using an external facilitator and of course if you do, you know where I am if you think I can help. And lastly, let me know how you get on. I'd love to hear your comments. Now for ongoing support, join our new Patreon community, subscribe for exclusive content from the leaders in strategy podcast, downloadable resources like our annual business plan checklist and access to a full business course. As a member, you'll get discounted rates on one-to-one workshops which has to have your business questions answered and featured in Special Monthly Podcast episodes. Let's strategize and let's execute. Join our Patreon now and become a leader in strategy yourself. And just a quick reminder where you can find us, you can watch us on the leaders in strategy YouTube channel, listen to us and Spotify, Apple Podcast, Amazon Music, Podbean and PodJacer. And of course we upload every episode onto my LinkedIn page and also onto the strategies consulting website. So there you have it, that's it for today. I hope you've enjoyed it and you come back again next time when we have another great episode where the special guest will be looking at how to maximize your business's potential. I'll see you there. [BLANK_AUDIO]