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Quickstart - Define Your Organisation. It's Not Just You
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Quickstart
Grow a Profitable Consultancy and Still Have Time for a Life
In this issue
Note from Beverley - To Dream, Perchance to Have!
One Step Further - Define Your Organisation; It's Not Just You
Personal Reflections - Another Year Older
Note from Beverley
I always get kind of reflective around the time of my birthday and this year is no exception. I also get quite optimistic. So much so that I walked around a Mercedes showroom last week and sat in at SLK280 - wow, if that's not an incentive to focus the revenue earning possibilities nothing is!
Have a good week.
Beverley
bev@onestepfurther.co.uk
www.onestepfurther.co.uk
+44 (0)1258 817647
One Step Further
The consultancy market is highly competitive and sometimes crowded and standing out, showing how you are different and optimising your unique promise of value are all things you’ve heard me mention before.
When it comes to building your business systems, these concepts can really enhance your uniqueness and make a difference to how your clients view your services and why they may or may not choose you over one of your competitors. But like all aspects of your business they start with you; what you want and what you want to achieve.
A key system is that of your organisational structure. Now before you say Yes But there's only me let me explain.
In any business there are certain jobs or functions that need to be performed and certain results that need to be achieved to make that business a success. (Success defined by that business's vision and objectives)
In order for those results to be achieved there needs to be accountability and that accountability needs to sit with one function or one value stream. Whether you are an independent consultant or work for a large corporation the principle is equally relevant.
When establishing your own consultancy there can be a tendency to just do everything without any thought to what needs to be achieved, how it needs to be achieved and therefore who needs to do it and be accountable for it. Because you think you are your business and therefore you will just do everything.
So how could you do it differently, here is a 10 step process to consider. (With deference and reference to Michael Gerber) and remember you are planning for when your business is fully established as defined by your vision
1. Think of yourself as a investor in your business - external to it
2. Define or revisit the vision and objectives for your business
3. Define all the roles that are needed to deliver the completed business i.e. plan for what you want the business to look like when it is fully established
4. Write all the accountabilities for each of those roles i.e. what results does each role need to deliver to make a successful contribution to the business
5. Write the measures and standards by which each position will be assessed
6. Think of yourself as an employee of your business - internal to it
7. Appoint yourself to only those positions that you want to and are equipped to fulfil
8. Think of who or what type of person, in an ideal world, you would like to fulfil the remaining positions
9. Draw and organisational chart using what you have decided in step 8
10. Draw up a list of people you know that could support you in the positions that you do not want to or are not equipped to fulfil
So why spend time doing this?
Many consultants and solo professionals fail in their businesses because they don't work ON their business. All their time is spent working IN their business and they lose sight of what they are trying to achieve and why, all because they jump in and try to do everything with no context or framework for reference and decision making.
I say to many of my clients your unique skills are where you should be spending 80% of your time. The other 20% should be spent on new ideas, planning and strategy. Your non core skills should be (as soon as possible) outsourced to someone who has your non core skills as their core skills.
"Most companies organise around personalities rather than around functions. That is around people rather than accountabilities. The result is almost always chaos." Michael Gerber The E-Myth Revisited
Personal Reflections
As I celebrate another year on this planet I am taking time to reflect on how my year has been.
Have I learnt more? Yes.
Have I taken risks? Definitely.
So what have I learnt? I need to get out of my own way and believe that I will achieve what I want by surrounding myself with successful people who can help and support me and from whom I can learn. The lone ranger syndrome whilst seemingly noble gets in my way of the success I truly want. I also need to have the courage of my convictions to work to get what I want - personally and professionally whilst balancing the time spent on both.
So what risks have I taken? I have focused my time in sowing seeds for tomorrow with the dream that those seeds will reap much more than I could have achieved my simply tending my current garden! It's scary and exciting and with Total Flow emerging and evolving I feel quietly confident that our proposition has legs. I am being more focused with One Step Further and I have redefined the types of client I want to work with and the type of work I want to do which is
* High level, high worth 1 to 1 coaching for business owners/consultants who want to actively grow a profitable consultancy and still have time for their life
* Team effectiveness development with executive teams focusing on strategy, business improvement and how the leadership team needs to act and behave to deliver defined results
* Seminars/workshops on the 6 key strategies for independent business consultants
I am also working to gain more out of my personal life and to create stronger relationships with those people that really matter to me.
I have moved home and that is proving a fantastic decision and has removed so many of the tolerations that were dragging me down.
All in all a good year, not necessarily in the way I expected it to be but then life's like that.
So onward and upward and I hope that the future will be even more successful and still holds opportunities and surprises that I can only dream of.
Best Regards
Bev
bev@onestepfurther.co.uk
www.onestepfurther.co.uk
+44 (0)1258 817647 |
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