The CEO Coach

How Does Your Business Measure Up In Tough Economic Times?

Watch this quick 7 minute video to get an idea of how you measure up to America's best companies.  Then grab your free customized business assessment at  www.QuickBizQuiz.com.

Financial Management Error: Not Managing By An Annual Budget

It's advice time from the CEO Coach.

Every year about this time, we recommend highly that all small businesses get to work on creating their budgets for the next fiscal year.  You've got almost three months time!

- Yes, you know your business inside and out
- Yes, you may inherently know where you stand financially at  any given time
- AND… Yes it is a big mistake to not utilize budgeting

A professionally managed business REQUIRES budgets.   You should budget both expenses AND income.  This is the only way you can realistically forecast your margins.

Management: How To Get Better Performance From Your Team

In my ongoing work to support small businesses, I come across numerous "solutions" being sold to help every aspect of the business.  I have discovered one that actually IS such a solution...

Success Factors is an an online software product that helps businesses get better performance out of management teams by:

• Setting SMART goals that are established down through every level of the organization
• Tracking the performance on each member of the team related to their part in the accomplishment of the goal
• A performance review system tied to the company's goals
• Finally, a compensation bonus system tied t o the same goals

Perfect...

Business Vacation: Take One Frequently, Make Valuable Business Contacts and Write it All Off

I recently came across a most interesting idea for small business owners:  a "vacation club" that brings together entrepreneurial small business owners to have fun, create interesting business deals, learn from each other (mastermind), have fun in a beautiful vacation area and write all this off as a business expense.

CLICK HERE to get more details.

I stayed awhile back in the first property of many that the Entrepreneurs' Vacation Club (EVC) will be purchasing- a gorgeous luxury private vacation property in Breckenridge, Colorado.

Grow Your Business: Small Business Owner's Toolkit

Today I came across an amazing resource for small business CEOs - The Business Owners' Toolkit at www.toolkit.com.   

As business owners, we always want to be aware of any resources that will help us with our business.  When they are FREE (a very good price) and useful, I always want to make sure our readers connect to the resource

Here are some key areas you'll find:

SWOT Out The Competition

SWOT is an often discussed but not often implemented business tool, at least in small businesses.  It stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats.

Sometimes companies do a little chart showing some bullet points, but that will be it.  The question, then, is how to make this little idea actually helpful.  So here are eight simple steps:

1. Get a management team together (at least two including you)
2. Use a flip chart or white board
3. First, consider your internal (within your company) Strengths and Weaknesses.  Write them down
4. Then, consider your external (out in the marketplace) Opportunities and Threats

(continued)

Planning: Fail To Plan, Plan To Fail

I'm sure you've heard it before: "If you fail to plan, you plan to fail..."

But, tell me honestly - did you take it seriously?  Or, are you always too "busy" to plan?

The biggest danger in failing to plan is that your activities will be incongruent.   By this, I mean that you will be working very hard, but not accomplishing much. 

Many CEOs feel like they are on a “treadmill”.  You don’t dare stop or slow down because you know you will be thrown from the machine.  This is why doing a plan seems like just more work.

To exit the treadmill, you must find a way to keep your current activities moving while moving forward on the truly “important” items...

Being A Great Small Business CEO: No Open Door Policy, Please!

Are you the great-guy CEO who loves to be loved by all your employees?  So then, do you have an "open door policy?"  I have a challenge for you - close it!

Think about it - open door policies are for big businesses that need a strategy to break barriers.  Small businesses don’t have those barriers.  The only thing an open door policy does is upset the chain of command and confuse your employees. 

Things are somewhat unorganized, undermanned, and chaotic in most small businesses.  An open door policy reinforces this dynamic.

REAL-LIFE EXAMPLE:
Our The How To Double Your Profit System member Alan prided himself on his interpersonal skills.  He knew the hobbies, kids, spouse’s name, and personal history of all thirty of his employees.  Alan also prided himself on his open door policy. 

Attitude: Thinking To Win

Over on the Small Business CEO blog, you will find an article to challenge you on what it takes to be a successful entrepreneur and small business CEO.

The idea here is that it's all about attitude, dude.  "Thinking To Win" will challenge you to look inward as you prepare for the outward success of your business.

What's your stance on how you manage your own commitments?  Do you know what your company's focus and goals are?  Are you disciplined in the way you approach your day to day operations in terms of your company's predetermined focus and goals?  Do you have internal ownership of your business (not just the stock or LLC, but do you truly own your company;s outcomes?

CLICK HERE to read this important piece and challenge yourself to grow.

CEO Coaching: 100 Business Podcasts

I just found an excellent resource.  Turn your car or treadmill into a "mobile university," as Brian Tracy likes to say.

Here is a list of 100 "podcasts," which are simply downloadable audios by top notch business experts.  There are programs on every small business growth subject you can imagine - certainly something you could use to grow your business!

The main idea here is to start using "down time" in the car or during exercise to feed the entrepreneur inside.  It's easy.  Just download some audios, load them on an I Pod or mp3 player (don't know how all this works - just ask your kids!).

CLICK HERE to go to 100 Small Business Audio Podcasts.

Management Trap: Not Delegating

Yes, you are Superman or Superwoman.  Yes, you can do it better than any of your employees...

However, at some point you run out of time.   J. Willard Marriott said, “Don’t do ANYTHING someone else can do for you.”  This seems to be lie an anti-creed of small business people, however.  Our credo is, “Don’t you dare let those idiots do it.” 

We've found in our The How To Double Your Profit System groups that the reason many of us don’t delegate is NOT the talent level of our employees, as many would like to complain.  It is almost certainly things that you, the CEO, have control over.  There are many reasons you don’t delegate, but - to be completely blunt - they all fall back on you.

Crummy employees - your fault.  Trust issues - you again.  Lousy training - you, too.  Turnover, yep, you.