Business books give me great insight and perspective – like  Tribes, by Seth Godin. There’s a great section in there about a scene from his vacation that pretty much sums up how much easier it is for entrepreneurs to take advantage of time in ways that employees just don’t get – which is why they’re still employees and you’ve got far higher potential:

“A couple walks by, obviously on their way to bed, having pushed the idea of vacation a little too hard. The woman looks over to me and in a harsh whisper a little quieter than a yell, says to her friend, “Isn’t that sad? That guy comes here on vacation and he’s stuck checking his e-mail. He can’t even enjoy his two weeks off.

“I think the real question – the one they probably wouldn’t want to answer – was, “Isn’t it sad that we have a job where we spend two weeks avoiding the stuff we have to do fifty weeks a year?”

Godin wasn’t just being a snob. His point was that since he was passionate about his work and his life, he was happy to be checking emails at 4 am. He’s not alienated from his work. He actually enjoys it. So if he wasn’t sleeping, it was natural for him to take care of business – and enjoy it.

When you’re spending your time doing the work you love and leading change instead of adapting to the system, you’ve actually got more time to enjoy life – and earn what you deserve.

Linda Chu
CEO – Out of Chaos, Professional Organizing Solutions
www.outofchaos.ca

For many entrepreneurs, the summer season is a bit of a down time for their business. Clients are away at the lake for vacation. Even those that stay in the city may not be working a typical workweek and might not return your call for a long while. This can be a time for building up the back-end of your business that we all tend to neglect when our schedules are filled.

Give your books a thorough audit to look for efficiencies.

• Develop a sales plan to launch for when the season is likely to pick up.
• Purchase new or replacement equipment and train yourself and your staff to use the new tools.
• Engage in team-building exercises with your staff or partners.
• Develop and test new products and services.
• Update your business plan (You should be doing this at least once a year).

Even before you start out, you may be able to predict when these downtimes are likely to occur if you’ve done your proper business planning and market research. For these quieter periods, instead of ramping up your efforts two-or-threefold to capture declining opportunities, attend to more strategic tasks in preparation for the upturn.

Linda Chu
CEO – Out of Chaos, Professional Organizing Solutions
www.outofchaos.ca

Lately I’ve been following Heather White and Lori Joyce on their television show about their Cupcakes business. I’ve been treating myself to a Cupcakes-brand cupcakes since years ago (Nothing beats a walk on English Bay Beach followed by a sweet frosted treat on Denman).

They have a thriving business. But one of the biggest hurdles they faced (and one that is also common to people in other professions – for instance, professional organizing) when starting out was keeping up cash flow:

“The first thing that most businesses do is stack themselves with rainy-day funds,” says Cupcakes co-founder Lori Joyce. She and Heather White didn’t do that. “As sales came through the front door, we were paying our suppliers out the back.” Now, prospective franchisees must have access to at least six months’ worth of unencumbered cash to get approved by the cupcake girls.

This is critical for businesses at all stages. New entrepreneurs will often focus on the quarter-to-quarter balance sheets while neglecting the importance of cash flow. Suppliers may demand payment in 10 days while clients may take months to fork over the cash you need to run your business.

Projected cash flow has to be part of your overall business plan or you risk a full-scale stoppage just when you want to ramp up and reap the benefits.

Linda Chu
CEO – Out of Chaos, Professional Organizing Solutions
www.outofchaos.ca

“I have witnessed that the single most limiting factor
in a person’s feeling of success
is our human habit of negative self-judgment.” – Ariana Strozzi

Making a small business as well-respected as a larger business has a lot to do with how you think. Thinking big, instead of thinking small gets you in the right mindset to achieve big things.

How seriously you take your business is exactly how seriously others will take your business.

It starts with how you think, which translates into how you behave. And, how you think very subtly affects your body language, which others pick up and are influenced by, even if they aren’t consciously aware of it.

Ever see a small dog send a much larger dog running? Quit wasting time thinking small. BE big.

Liz Gaige
Market Navigators Consulting

Do you show business leadership in challenging times through a robot-like focus on your own work (and an expectation that your members team will do the same)? Or can you get better results from your team with honesty and a bit of emotional intelligence? I’m for the latter.

My recommended reading for this week includes a column by Rick Spence in the Financial Post called “You Can Still Win in a Slow Economy”. One of his suggestions:

“Keep it real: employees will rarely go the extra mile for leaders who are all logic and no emotion. Share what the new economic realities mean for you personally. Let your guard down; be human.”

I totally agree. While many of us are seeing a turnaround in 2010, memories of 2009’s economic troubles are not far from my thoughts. It was a tough time for many of us, and our teams of employees, subcontractors and partners were not immune to fear and confusion about the future. They needed leadership more than ever at that time.

I’ve always been an emotionally intuitive person and the crisis brought that out even more. I was very up-front and honest with the people I worked with. I reassured them as best I could. I told them the plan we had for getting through the tough times. 

I felt I had to be honest and let them know that there were no guarantees, and even the experts weren’t sure where the overall business climate was going long-term. But I was honest about the risks we were facing – and I was facing personally, as the owner of my business. I answered questions about the steps we were taking to maintain and potentially even grow the business in difficult times. 

My colleagues and partners understood the situation, felt I understood their perspective and knew that I was doing everything I could to keep things on an even keel. They felt appreciated and “in the loop” – and seemed to be able to focus better on their work.

Particularly in tough times, leaders need to be able to reassure their people. But show you’re human and share their concerns. Help them understand that you’re just as motivated as they are to solve the challenges you face together.

Linda Chu
CEO – Out of Chaos, Professional Organizing Solutions
www.outofchaos.ca

If you want to lead the way in your business, you’re going to have to cut back. Way back.

One of the first lessons an entrepreneur takes to heart is usually that they can’t do it all themselves. They need a team of people to make their dream happen. No one is an engineer, financial expert, marketing professional and receptionist all-in-one. You need to downsize your own contribution to focus on what you do well.

The procedure is roughly akin to what happens when my downsizing house-moving clients need to choose what to take with them to their new abode. They can’t take everything. But how do they choose? Based on utility? Size and space required? Cost that they bought it for (even if it has limited resale value)? Sentimental value? 

The choice for entrepreneurs is a lot easier, actually. Which of your responsibilities are providing real value for your business? Which might be done quicker, more efficiently and at less cost (considering that time is money) than if you did it yourself? These sorts of variables tend to be easier to measure quantitatively. 

Make a list to figure out where you can cut back or out-task and do it. There are only so many hours in the day and to be a leader in your field, you’ll need to focus on what you do best.

Linda Chu
CEO – Out of Chaos, Professional Organizing Solutions
www.outofchaos.ca

Some say leadership is about being able to motivate. Others say it’s about being decisive. But the one thing that all leaders need is the strength of confidence. How do you get that confidence? Well, having a sense of structure helps.

How do you get that structure? It’s not rocket science (Though maintaining good habits can be tricky). Here a few suggestions you can implement today:

1. Use a calendar. I’m still amazed by the number of entrepreneurs I meet who can’t consistently track their appointments and routines. Don’t be like that.

2. Track your time. Use a basic spreadsheet to track how you’ve used your time over at least a two-week period. When you review it, you’ll have a better idea of how to structure your efforts and where some activities might be made more efficient.

3. Use and record processes. Whether you’re working with contracts, budgets, or more creative projects, having repeatable processes boosts long-term productivity.

4. Use agendas for every meeting. Adding a sense of structure to meetings will help you get more accomplished and your clients will appreciate it.

5. Keep your work-space free of clutter. Processes and good habits help you get your mind straight, but having a physical sense of structure will augment that.

One organizing system I teach my entrepreneurial clients to get structure in their work and their lives is the GO System. People around you will notice when you are organized and structured. That’s not all that it takes to be a leader (I’ve known plenty of receptionists and assistants in non-leadership roles who used all of the habits described above), but without it, it’s harder to be taken seriously as the head of the pack.

Taking the time to implement this system allows for fewer details to be trifled with daily and allows you more time, energy and concentration to deal with problems as they arise.

Give the gift of confidence to yourself and others.

Linda Chu
CEO – Out of Chaos, Professional Organizing Solutions
www.outofchaos.ca

It’s not always possible to get through the latest messages in your inbox. Sometimes you have to focus on the work at hand. Then again, procrastinating with responses to email and phone messages doesn’t do you or your customer any favors.

I set aside some time each day to respond to messages. Over time, my clients have gotten the message that I value their business. Even if I can’t get back to them the same day, they know that their communication has gotten through and they won’t need to corner someone to get a response. Even better, longstanding clients have often improved their own response times.

There are key habits to help you provide role-model type behavior for organized communications:

1. Use email filters to help sort your incoming messages, prioritize them and avoid wasting time on spam.

2. These days, many businesses like publicize a range of other ways for customers to contact you, like Skype or Twitter. Even if customers can initially contact you through those means, it’s often easier to respond by picking up a phone or jotting off an email. Get a feel for what your clients prefer to use to communicate, but if you have a preference, you should make that clear to reduce stress from your side.

3. Think about responding to email messages with a phone call. A call can often feel more warm and personal than an email and also allow for better communication. Rather than sending emails back and forth all day, a five-minute conversation can help speed things along remarkably fast.

Linda Chu
CEO – Out of Chaos, Professional Organizing Solutions
www.outofchaos.ca

Some entrepreneurs feel like they have to make a show of the amount of work they’re doing in order to impress clients. They want to give the impression that they can handle client requests 24/7. As well, they may feel that appearing to be over-booked will leave the customer with a favorable impression (“If everyone else is giving this person business, they must be doing something right. I’m hiring them!”).

There’s a problem with this way of thinking: unless you’re the CEO of a company with many employees and sophisticated client management infrastructure, you can’t realistically be on call at all times. And giving the impression that you’re busy with clients all the time can actually be counterproductive in winning new business – prospective customers may be given the impression that you’ll be too busy to handle their needs.

Setting reasonable limits such as publicizing your business hours helps give an impression that you and your employees are enjoying a healthy work-life balance. For most types of business, there’s really no need to be taking care of your clients at 2 am.

Don’t run yourself ragged. Set an example for your colleagues and clients. It won’t just make you look good – you’ll actually be able to take better care of your business tasks successfully without getting overwhelmed. Set limits, stick by them and keep doing what you do the best way you can.

Linda Chu
CEO – Out of Chaos, Professional Organizing Solutions
www.outofchaos.ca

Green is a Spring color, so it makes sense to reevaluate some of your processes with a thought to the environment. It’s easy for you to take actions that will make you a role model for mixing good business practices and sustainable habits. Here are some green organizing tips:

1. Reduce the amount of paper you use. Many businesses are taking advantage of the storage space on hard drives, memory sticks and servers to go entirely paperless. Businesses using applications like Google Docs can keep paper clutter and the need for physical storage space to an absolute minimum.

2. Re-use stuff. Keep track of where everything is and stick to maintenance schedules. If you can even get a few months more usage out of equipment or furniture, you’re saving time and money.

3. Recycle. It’s often very cost effective and convenient to start up recycling programs for paper, bottles and other items. Electronics can be recycled as well. There could even be some dollars in it for you if you can sell items or get a tax receipt.

Companies that go green set a good example for their employees, partners and clients. Get recognized for this, boost your image and increase efficiency.

Linda Chu
CEO – Out of Chaos, Professional Organizing Solutions
www.outofchaos.ca