Watching “The Apprentice” last night, as usual I found myself laughing at their mistakes, ridiculing their ineptitude, and wondering above all, how most of them had achieved anything at all in the business world. Of course this has now become much more of a “show” than an actual serious recruitment of real talent, and being on television, we only see the bits which are entertaining, and therefore generally the most cringe-worthy extracts. So is there anything that we can actually learn from watching it all pan out?

I think probably the key thing that I get from this is that at least they have got off their backsides and done
something. People are so quick to offer advice, and to put others down, but how often are they themselves prepared to put themselves in a position where they too could be laughed at.

You could say that it is part of the English culture; after all we all know the press love to belittle people. There is almost a feeling of “How dare they have the audacity to try something, and possibly be better, braver, and funnier than me. Let’s hope they trip and fall.”

Business Owners suffer this all the time. “You’re so lucky” seems to be the accusation leveled at them, when they have achieved great things, and actually have a life-style that many would love, but are never prepared to do something themselves to make it happen.

So next time you find yourself feeling jealous, or criticising someone for trying something (and possibly failing) think carefully why you are doing this. Could it be that they are touching a nerve? Perhaps you could be better also. Perhaps now is the time to take a chance and really go for the dream that you once had.

In my capacity as business coach, I often work with family businesses, husband and wife, father and son or daughter, or even more extended relationships, involving cousins, uncles etc. Without exception, one of the hardest aspects involved in this is that of succession i.e. the handing over the reins from one generation to the next. In fact only today I was speaking to a highly successful and resourceful Managing Director who was telling me how hard she was finding it to get her father to let go, and allow her to run the business her way.
I am currently working with another extremely successful company, which has been very well run over the years, but the time has come for the next generation to take over. This is not really in contention, in that the Managing Director (the father) is quite happy to work on a part-time basis, but the trouble is, he still wants to keep control of everything. Naturally enough this is not a tenable situation, and in order for the business to take the quantum steps forward which the sons want to do, he has to be prepared to step aside, and trust them to make executive decisions themselves.
So how do we get around this, without causing major family ructions? The best solution I can come up with is to take the emotion out of it by writing a clear (new) business structure. This identifies in detail the new roles and responsibilities everyone has agreed to do, and ensures that once these are in place that the old regime do not get involved in areas for which they are no longer responsible. Often this is still quite hard to enforce initially, but gradually once the ex. M.D. sees that things do run well without him or her, and they realise that if they try to interfere in areas they are not wanted that they will consistently be told to back-off, bit by bit they will learn to enjoy their new role, and meaningful change can then be introduced.
As a rider to this, it should be said that to sideline the older members of the family altogether, is a rash and potentially wasteful use of resources. After all, they didn’t get to where they are without being canny businessmen in their own right, so keep them as your mentors, and use their knowledge and advice when you need it. In this way you get the best out of both worlds. Positive change and great support.

A lot of businesses I work with are still finding it quite hard to grow, and make bigger profits. The recession whilst officially over, still has its grip on us, and it will probably be quite some time yet before things feel any easier. So right now we all need to be looking for any ways in which we can increase our bottom line. In its simplest terms this means you need to increase your turnover (without increasing costs proportionately) and/or reduce your costs. Raising prices is clearly one of the easiest ways to do this, but many business owners are scared of going by this route at the moment. However, I am not suggesting huge increases, or necessarily across all your products or services, but when you analyse your sales in detail, you can see what a difference it can make. Just suppose your average sale was around £15.00, and you are selling 100 units of these per week, if you were able to raise the average price by£1.50, a relatively small amount in real terms, your income per week would go up by £150, per month by £600, and in the year over £7000.

On the other aspect of reducing costs, again close analysis, and small changes can make significant savings. I recently worked with a business which was offering refreshments to their clients (coffee/cold drinks), but there is no system or limit on who could be offered what. On analysing this we found that simply by ensuring that clients were offered refreshments following a system which would automatically reduce the cost (but without upsetting the clients), we were able to save £4000.

So think again, re-look at your business, and see what could you do to improve your bottom line.

This is a topic which I find extremely interesting as it can appear in all aspects of life, and at any age. Most of us have experienced it to a greater or lesser extent at some stage, and we have therefore had to find ways of dealing with it (even if is has not been first hand, we may have had to support or help others through it).
The thing is although people may typically think of bullying as something which happens in our younger years (probably at school), in fact it carries on throughout life and the older we become, often it becomes more serious and harder to deal with.
The reason I am addressing this subject, is because recently I worked with a client who was being bullied. Not from within his business, but from one of his key customers. Essentially this customer felt he had such a financial hold over my client that he could demand things from him at any time, be rude to him, and generally treat him with a total lack of respect. Equally well, because my client felt so vulnerable because of his dependence on this customer, he would always back down, and do as he was told. In fact it got so bad, that my client started to plan his holidays when he knew this customer was also away, so he wouldn’t be pestered while he was trying to enjoy family time. In the end it came to a head, and my client finally had had enough. He told him that he was not prepared to take the abuse any longer, and if that meant losing the business, so be it. After the initial indignant explosion, and promises that he would indeed take his business elsewhere, in fact after a weekend cooling off, the bully backed down, and now there is a different dynamic altogether.
My belief is that this is by no means an uncommon situation, and whilst I am not suddenly advising everyone to “smack the bully in the nose” as it could clearly result in a serious or possibly terminal loss of business, I am suggesting that perhaps you should ask yourself is your current relationship/situation with clients like this really worth it? In my opinion you can never appease a bully. They love the power they have over you, and they get pleasure from building you up and then knocking you down again. Therefore there are two ways to deal with this, one physical (which I do not advise) and two, adopting the “why should I care what your opinion is” attitude to these people. Obviously if your business is so heavily reliant on one customer’s business, that if you lose it you could go bust, you will need to decide what matters most to you. But self-respect, and being able to sleep without worrying about the next volley of abuse you are going to get, are hugely important, and sometimes even more so than just lying down and taking it.
Obviously different people are in different situations, and it is never possible to give a “one size fits all” kind of advice. However, I have never in any walk of life seen anyone feel happy if they continue to kowtow or ultimately run away from the bully. The only way to beat them is to stand up to them and to show them that you are strong enough to get by without them.