Consistency in a business is so important, not just with your customers, but also in your internal dealings.

The thing that is most obvious to the outside world is, of course, how you treat your customers. Do you keep them well informed, do you treat them with respect and are you always consistent in how you communicate with them. However, it is also the unspoken things which are important to promote consistency. For example, if you claim to be providing high quality products, then the literature you have to support it, the way you and your team look, and everything else that supports your product or service must have the look of quality about it. Any inconsistency can quickly raise suspicions and you can easily lose business by creating uncertainty in your customer’s minds.

So that is the external consistency, but what about internal consistency, ie how you relate to your team. The most important point is that you are fair and consistent with all. To be able to do this you must make it completely clear what is expected of all your staff, and what culture they should buy into. In this way you can reasonably discipline people when they do things incorrectly, or don’t do things they are responsible for. Equally well you can offer praise every time they go the extra mile, or exceed expectations.

So if you find that you are inconsistent either externally or internally, take a good look at your systems and procedures, check your job responsibilities and re-examine your business culture. You’ll be amazed at what simple changes to things like this can have on the success of your business.

Some of you may be aware that I am on a bit of a crusade at the moment to try to lift the general gloom and despondency which people are only too willing to allow to influence them. At a business networking meeting this morning I was talking about this and a number of people there agreed that it is all too easy to find negatives and things that are not looking so good, but to constantly focus on the positive is a whole lot harder. However, they also agreed that things are not as bad as the press and general media portray, and immediately started to tell me about the good things happening to them and their businesses, and to the people they do business with.

As I have often said, doing things is a whole lot harder than not doing things. Talking about anything is easy, but actually putting it into action is a different matter altogether.

I have told quite a lot of people about the good news bulletin which I am videoing weekly, and in so doing have asked people to send me stories for me to include in it. Of course many have said “great idea, and “of course I’ll send you things”. However, when it comes down to it, I have only had 3 stories sent to me so far. The benefits of sending something about their company are good not just for the general community, but of course it allows them to get free publicity as well. So you might think I would be inundated – but no (so far).

So I would just like to put this thought out there. How many of you are contemplating doing something positive in your business or even talking about it, but then failing to take any action. You know it will benefit you and your business and yet you still do nothing. Isn’t it about time you started to do more and postulate less?!

When was the last time you checked your break-even point? In fact have you ever checked it, and if not do you know how to? One of the first questions I ask new clients is do they know what their break-even point is, and more often than not they will tell me that they do, and will then give me an approximate figure of what they think it is. The trouble is, that invariably they are not correct (often by large amounts), either because they don’t fully understand the concept of break-even, or because they have had changes in circumstances which they have not taken into account.

Of course this is a recipe for disaster. Assuming you know your break-even point (but being wrong about it), and therefore having misleading targets, could potentially cause the business to go bust. Therefore when things change, such as taking on new staff, or costs of materials have risen, or rent or rates have changed, then the break-even will also change and it is essential that you recheck to ensure you alter monthly targets accordingly.

On another note I made an assumption last year about my conversion rate, and found that I was out by 10%. Again assuming numbers wrongly could have thrown me badly off target, and had we not checked we wouldn’t have been able to react and change things to improve our numbers. In my case we decided that we needed to increase the number of meetings I was having, so we took on a new part-time telemarketer, which had an immediate effect. However, we didn’t just leave it at that. We also reviewed our sales process as a whole, and started changing things to improve my conversion rate as well.

So making assumptions about anything is always risky, but in particular when it comes to your numbers it is even more so.

Bringing positives to your world is not a new concept, but having used this method myself and finding that it works may also help others.

When I first started out with my own business, I found things pretty tough going at the outset. A lot of money going out and little to none coming in. In fact I was beginning to wonder if I had made a horrible mistake. So I turned to others for advice, and the best, cheapest and most immediate piece of advice I was given, was to start writing down all the good things that happened during any given day, however small they might seem. Sometimes this could mean writing down that it was sunny, or that I had a good conversation with someone, but what it did was start to bring more positives my way (and if truth be told, helped me to see more positives in things that previously I had seen at best as neutral, but more likely as a negative). Within 3 weeks of starting this process I had my first client, and things were underway. Now I don’t keep this up all the time by any means, but from time to time if things start to look a little worrying, I revert to this method, and it always works for me.

So imagine if more and more of us try this. On a personal basis it will be good from your own point of view, but if lots of individuals all start doing this and getting more good things then imagine how this could cause a tidal wave of positivity, which would be good for all of us.