Many of you will have vague memories of a childhood story called "The Goose That Laid Golden Eggs".

The story basically goes like this: There was a poor farmer and his wife who were very short of money and were unable to feed their large family. It was a desperate situation and if something did not change soon, they were all going to stave. One day a miraculous thing happened: the farmer found a golden egg laid by his goose. There was much celebration and the farmer took the egg to market and traded it for some food for his family. They had enough food for months!

Each day the farmer would check to see if there were any more eggs and often he would find another egg laid by the wonderful Golden Goose. They now no longer had to worry about food as they had a good collection of eggs, and could even afford a few extras. They were becoming wealthy. The farmer started thinking - he wondered how many more eggs his Golden Goose had in her. So he grabbed a knife and killed the goose to see what was inside. To his shock and horror there were no eggs inside and his prized goose was dead. He never found another golden egg again.

The moral of the story is "Don't kill your Golden Goose!"

So, what is the Golden Goose in your business? 

What are the vital things you need to be looking after this year in your business? - the things that give you good income, good profit, that you rely on - and if lost, would plunge you and your business into crisis mode...

It might be one or more of these things:

• Your best machinery that you are running at maximum capacity but not regularly maintaining.
• Your best employees who are working longer hours than they should without a break, recognition or reward.
• Your best customers that need care and attention so they stick around for a long time to come.
• Your bank balance/cashflow that needs attention so that you can pay everyone and not be under undue stress from the bank and creditors.
• Your health if you have not kept yourself in good shape (especially if your business relies heavily on you).
• And of course, Your family who are perhaps the reason you work so hard - but they hardly ever see you because you are working longer hours than you need to. It is important to invest regularly into your key relationships. Because a crisis in this area will, without doubt, affect your business.

We all have more than one Golden Goose, but remember that if the Golden Goose stops laying golden eggs (your income), then you are in real trouble.

So look after your Golden Goose's - as they are the future for you and your business. 

Action Point: Take a few minutes and write down your Golden Goose's. Then beside each one, write what you will do to feed and keep them in top condition for this year. In the next week make sure you feed each of your Golden Goose's, and commit to this for the rest of the year. 

Robots? Daniel, what the heck are you talking about? I don't have robotics in my business and although I feel like a robot I am unlikely to have one.

Well let me explain. I went to a robotics workshop with my son during the school holidays. The instructor first put on some DVDs showing how far robotics technology has progressed, and it is amazing. It won't be long before robots are a normal part of our lives. You may have seen a recent TV commercial urging you to buy a UFO-shaped robot that vacuums your house while you laze on the couch. In Holland in an aged care facility there is a robot that takes the washing to the laundry, pours and serves drinks to the elderly - and it keeps track of how much liquid each resident is served each day. Another four legged version (like a headless horse) could walk over almost any terrain including rocks and stairs, and another was bug sized and could fly around the room just like an insect. All this is available now if you have the money.

The instructor then got the kids to put together a robot themselves. There are two parts to robotics - the hardware assembly, and then the computer programming or instructions. Without the programming the robot will do nothing, it just sits there, useless. The instructions are everything.

This is just like business. Basically every function of your business, from customer service, production, cashflow, marketing, day to day operation... are all based on a series of instructions that we follow to get the job done. 

Now here is the problem. In most businesses the instructions are in the owners head. This means the business must rely heavily on the owner to perform many of the basic functions. The business owner only has limited time, so this can start to cause problems very quickly. The business becomes inefficient as staff have to rely on the owner relaying instructions to get things done.

The obvious answer is delegate, get someone else to do it. What I hear you say is "Daniel, that's all very well but how will I know that my staff will do the job as well as me? After all it's my business and I have standards". Good point however the reality is that a job delegated properly can still have the standards you need and expect.

Let me give you an example of how this played out with one of my clients. My electrician friend wanted to get off the tools so he could spend time improving the business. But he was concerned that without constant supervision, his workers would not provide the same standards he was giving his customers. What if they didn't complete all the safety checks? After all this is electricity we are talking about. Or,  what if all the parts for the job were not charged out, what if, what if...

All these things he would normally check when overseeing jobs are simply a set of instructions that he follows in his head.

So my electrician friend is now putting together a list of principles and detailed instructions for his workers. He has made these into a checklist his workers tick off and sign. Now if there are any problems with the job he can go back through the signed checklist for each job, he can see if everything was completed correctly. Now he has the freedom to work on getting more customers and making more profit without being constantly on site checking work. 

Start thinking about how your business can be systematized with checklists - so that you don't need to micro manage your staff and be there holding their hand every time.

Action Point: Take one task in your business that you normally do, but don't want to do anymore. Create a checklist of instructions. Delegate this job to someone else, and then check that the list is followed a few times until you have confidence that the job is being done properly.

I recently attended an ANZ seminar on Business Growth put on by Stephen Caulter, and one of the questions posed to the group was "If your business is growing should you be worried?".  Very good question Stephen.

The answer if you are not sure is Yes, you should be worried. It's great that your business is growing and it's exciting because it is a time of great potential. But if you are not careful you are in danger of quickly running out of money and losing control of your business.

This is happening with a lot of trades and related industries at the moment. Here are some of the warning signs that show you are heading into danger.....

Losing Control - Business is really busy, it's exciting but the problem is, now all you do is put out fires and you are anxious about where the next one is going to come from. You are working longer and longer hours. You used to know how much money you had in the bank, who owed you money, what your staff were doing, who your customers were, and you had high quality standards. Now you are so busy that you don't have time to even think about these things any more - you have lost control.

Customers not paying on time - Invoicing is not being completed until long after the job is finished and no one is chasing old outstanding invoices.

Bank relationship is getting strained - You are going over your overdraft far too often, and the bank doesn't want to lend you any more money. 

Suppliers not happy - The amounts you owe your suppliers just keep getting larger. Previously your supplier was happy with you being a few months overdue, but now they want you current on your account and are putting limits on how big the account can get. It doesn't seem to matter how hard you try to keep current, it isn't happening and it is starting to affect your business in a big way.

Stock accumulating - As your sales increase, in most cases you will need more stock to keep ensure that your customers have what they want when they want it. Employees are buying product ahead of time. You look around your business and see stock accumulating in all sorts of places.

More staff but less efficient - You have more staff now and you are finding that they don't seem to be getting much more done than when you had less staff. (Chances are your instincts are correct.)

Quality control - There are far too many jobs not being completed to your previous standards, customer complaints are increasing and you are spending way too much time going back to correct old jobs. 

Too many of the wrong kind of customers - Some of you may be thinking "Daniel I have been following you so far, but this sounds a little crazy - I know some of my new customers are a pain - but more customers can only be a good thing. Right?"

Let's look at a example. A plumber may be very good at working in well with small building companies. He has a good ad in the yellow pages online and as his industry gets busier, he is now getting a lot of small one-off jobs from individuals that take between 1-3 hours each to complete. However by the time his employees travel to these jobs, work out what is needed and then do the job, he finds they can only bill out the full hourly rate of billable hours for 4 out of the 8 hours per day. By comparison with the builders he can get 7 out of 8 hours charged that day. If he is honest, on some of those smaller jobs he is losing money or at best breaking even. So if he grows with these smaller jobs, he either has to become really efficient or will be losing money. In effect doing twice the work for half the profit.

If you are growing it is essential that you have a good plan for growth that addresses these problems. If you do not, it won't be long before you run out of money. If you are seeing some of these signs in your business then do something now before it's too late.

Now that 2013 is here and you are settled back in to the swing of your business, you should be excited! It is the perfect time to plan and make some positive changes in your business for the year ahead. 

How do you make 2013 your best year in business yet?

Here are four great questions business owners should be asking themselves to start the year off right and get the maximum out of 2013. Do it now before the busy takes over and you end up caught up in the currents of chaos and misdirection. Don't continue in mediocrity! 

1) What achievements in 2012 are worth celebrating and what actions should I repeat this year?

As our businesses change we often forget to keep doing the things that worked so well before, so take a look at what promotions or actions you have taken that produced results. Write them down and make them part of your plans for 2013.

Last year one client I coached increased their sales by 74% and handled the workload with relative ease. Another went from being under enormous pressure from creditors to healthy cashflow, working 70 to 80 hours per week to working 30 to 40 hours per week with 3 days off. Well worth celebrating and duplicating!

Some things in common with these clients - they all:

• Set very specific GOALS early then stayed focused and refused to be distracted.
• Realised that they could not achieve these things alone, and make sure the right people were in the right places to help them.
• With the right people in place, they made sure these helpers knew the end goal and what was expected of them - and put in place regular meetings to make sure everyone kept on track.
• They used regular testing and measuring against their GOALS, and adjusted if they were not on target.
  
  

Action Point: Take a moment NOW to write down your greatest achievements and which actions you should repeat again this year.

2) What did not go so well last year and what lesson can I learn to make sure these mistakes are not repeated?

What mistakes or decisions have you made in the last year that were bad for business? There were a lot of businesses I came across who did not have a great year; many were struggling with sales, margins were down, they were frustrated with their staff and felt they were the only ones who could do the job properly. Generalising, here are some very obvious mistakes that are worth mentioning:

• No clear direction or plan, and had to accept whatever circumstances were thrown their way.
• Gave no feedback or clear expectations to their staff and were frustrated with the results.
• Did not know how their company was performing, had no idea if there were making or losing money each month (always resulting in unpleasant surprises).
• Had no marketing strategies in place, so could not affect their sales in any significant way.
• Did not know how to attract new customers or even which customers were best for their business.
• Mindset "did not believe things could get better" (so they didn't).

This was not all, but these are some of the biggest issues.

What mistakes did you make, that you are no longer prepared to accept or repeat?

Action Point: Take a moment NOW to write down the mistakes you do not want to repeat.

3) What things must I do to have a better year in 2013?

This is a great question, and one that you should not just ask once a year, but every single day. If you consistently ask this question every day, you will be amazed at how focused you are in your business and what you will achieve. Also your mind will start working on finding the answers. Since completing both my business and personal goals for the year, I have had more focus and already I can see they are more achievable than before I started. 

In my experience goals are only effective if you keep looking at them and comparing your progress, breaking them down to smaller targets with specific time frames. Only then will we be able to keep on track. I also find that the more focused my clients are on the target, the more results they achieve.

Are you excited yet? You should be. Seeing what your future can look like is certainly exciting for me.

Action Point: Spend a few minutes writing down your GOALS.

If you have already written down your GOALS for this year, I would encourage you to look at them again and make sure they are:
Specific - In other words they must be very clear, and you should be able to answer these questions: what, why, who, when and where.
Measurable - You should be able to measure the result.
Attainable - Attainable and realistic (ie you wont be able to double your business in 1 week).
Relevant - They need to be relevant and beneficial if they are achieved.
Time - You need to specify a specific time frame.

For example: XYZ Co will increase total sales from 1.5 million to 2.5 million for the year finishing 30th December 2013.

4) What would stop me from achieving the GOALS I have just set?

This may not be very positive, but lets be blunt. There will be some barriers, some things will get in the road. I like to call this life's way of asking if you are really serious about what you have just decided. You go on a new diet and the next thing you are being offered is the best looking chocolate cake you have every seen in your life. Say NO to the cake and let your resolve snowball into great success. In business, there will always be a hundred other things to take your attention, but you must stay focused. 

Maybe your GOAL is "I want to increase my sales or profits by 50%". This is a great goal, but also think about what could stop you from doing that.

If you see the barriers before you get to them, you will already have thought of strategies to deal to them and you won't be caught off guard.

Action Point: Write down all the barriers that could stop you from getting to the GOAL, then beside each one, put what action needs to be taken to destroy the barrier.

Put the answers to these four important questions up somewhere you see them every day.

Remember: actions you have taken to date have got you to here. To get to the next level you will need to do some things differently. Goals and planning aren't always sexy but you must spend time on these tasks if you want to succeed.