Imagine for a moment you are at the hospital, and the doctor is explaining to you that your wife/daughter/father… is very sick and over the next few months, they will be fighting for their lives. After the initial shock and as you support them through this, you start realising you are not able to put the time into your business that is needed.

Slowly but surely the business starts to stutter; small problems become bigger; staff are not "stepping up" like you need them to; cash flow starts to get tight, and you just don’t have the time to sort these things out. It’s becoming necessary to be at the hospital more and more, but if you don’t resolve these problems with the business, there is going to be one more casualty.

If you were in this situation, would your business survive for a week, a month, six months, a year? Would it continue to produce profits and income for you, or would it struggle to survive?

Here is the not-so-secret secret: Your business doesn’t care what’s happening to you. It just reacts to what you give it.

Your business is like a plant. If you give it water (customers), sunshine (good systems and staff), and good soil (the right market), it grows and flourishes. But if you neglect it, forget to water it, and put it in the wrong place, it will struggle. Leave it alone for too long and eventually it will die. 

What if you found the perfect place for your plant, set up an automated water supply, and gave it nutrient-rich compost? Sure, you still need to check on it from time to time, but if you are away for a while, it would be okay. The plant doesn’t care what is happening in your personal life or if you or your family are healthy or well. It doesn’t understand and never will. To live and flourish it just needs what it needs.

I have seen businesses too reliant on the owner get into trouble very quickly. The owner experiences an unexpected personal crisis, can’t work for awhile, their attention is elsewhere. All of a sudden jobs start going wrong, customers start complaining, cash flow dries up, work stops coming in; it’s very very stressful.

As we all know (especially in Christchurch), unexpected things can happen in life. Circumstances can change in an instant, and your whole world looks different.

What kind of stuff can happen? Well, anything.

•    Trouble with your marriage/partner
•    A family member is very sick/Life-threatening illness
•    Death of a loved one
•    Personal injury or illness/chronic pain
•    Spouse/partner needs a minor or major operation
•    Addiction struggles (your own or a family member)
or
•    Staff you rely on are experiencing one of the above

The list is endless, but you get the idea.

By the way, although the odds of these things happening to you in the next year are relatively small, if you look at the list entirely, the chances are at least one of these things will happen to you or your staff.

When it does, you will not be able to give the time and effort to your business that you once were. You will need space to deal with these important life events. (Even if you are still spending time in your business, you won’t be at your best).

I think we all agree family is more important than business. So if someone you love needs you, you need to be able to step away from your business without things falling apart.

In these storms, you need a business that will look after itself for a while or at least survive with only a little focus and help from you.

Remember too there are plenty of good things that affect your business also, although these are easier to see coming. 

•    Weddings and new relationships
•    Pregnancy and new babies
•    Moving house
•    A big holiday or trip overseas

Think about what happened last time you took a few days or months off. What shape was your business in when you got back? Maybe you don’t take holidays anymore because the mess you come back to is just too stressful…

The good news is with planning and some good strong systems, it doesn’t have to be this way.

Two of my clients not so long ago each had an unexpected health crisis, and both of their businesses have come through in good shape. I am not saying the businesses were performing at optimum capacity, but they kept functioning properly in spite of the owners absence - continued to produce results, perform well and provide income. Staff knew what to do, so there was no extra stress on the owner. 

You know what? Every single circumstance I listed above has happened in the lives of business owners I work with, at least once, in the last two years alone! And some in my own life as well. 

As a business mentor and coach, I know how important it is to hope and plan for the best, but also have a plan for the worst.

So to sum up: your business needs protection. You need to make sure you have everything in place so, just like the plant, it will carry on regardless of your circumstances.

​PS:
If you need help, email me to ask about the 7 Most Important Action Steps to ensure any business would survive a personal crisis.

I was talking recently with one of the top surgeons in Christchurch about how he works with high-risk patients or any patients for that matter. He said he starts with Plan A, but then he also has a Plan B, and a Plan C, and more if needed. The whole surgical team talk through these in depth and everyone knows exactly what to do in each scenario.

Nothing is left to chance - every possibility is evaluated and the best course of action decided on if it were needed. So then, when they perform the operation, the whole team has confidence that they will not get into trouble if things don’t go according to the original plan, and more importantly they know what to do, no matter what happens.

Now does that mean that nothing ever goes wrong? Of course, not. Patients sometimes are unpredictable - they are people after all. The difference is that the plan is there ready and waiting if unlikely scenarios occur. This saves lives.

And this approach ultimately can save your business too. It’s the surprises that you don’t know how to deal with, or just don’t have enough time to fix in the heat of the moment, that are the most dangerous. These usually cause the most damage, take all your focus and attention, and cause the most stress. Have too many of these and you are in trouble big time. You may not be in business any more.  

So, do you have a business plan? Because if you don’t, you need one.

A plan is important to any business, no matter what the size, and I am not talking about the 50 page type plan that sits in the office drawer never to be looked at again. I am talking about a day by day, week by week, month by month plan for areas of your business that need attention like marketing, cashflow or maybe profits, just to name a few.

For example let’s have a look at a typical problem business owners have – cashflow. The cashflow plan would look something like this depending on the business and their situation:

Plan A
•    System for invoicing (making sure money is invoiced on time)
•    Ensure target margins are being meet with jobs
•    System for collecting money on time
•    How to deal with late payers
•    Ensuring you are getting the right kind of customers (in other words the ones that pay)
•    Negotiating with suppliers for credit terms
•    Good stock control (not buying stock too early before needed)
•    Complete a cash flow to see when money is likely to be short

Plan B
•    All of the above, plus:
•    Selling dead stock
•    Extra facility in place with bank when needed
•    Access to extra capital

Plan C (last resort - if in crisis)
•    All of the above, plus:
•    Negotiate payment plan IRD for overdue and current outstanding amounts
•    Negotiate with suppliers to help you through a bad patch

This plan if followed will keep most businesses out of trouble and the bank account thriving.

Now the thing with a plan is that it needs to be put into action and used. So Plan A should be applied every day or at least every week. This is the proactive “sort things out before they get out of hand” plan. 

Plan B and C are if things are a little more serious. By the way please make sure that if you are reading this and you do owe the IRD overdue payments, negotiate a payment plan immediately. If you don’t, you will find very quickly that the penalties and interest will accumulate and could double the amount you owe. If you are unsure how to negotiate with IRD then get your accountant involved or give me a call and we can talk through some negotiation tactics that have worked very well with those I have helped get out of trouble.

On Plan A you will also notice “Complete a cash flow”. This is important as it will show you what times of the year you are likely to out of cash like Christmas holidays, and what times of the month are difficult. Once you know this, you can work out how to deal with it. Always better to see a problem coming and make a plan, than be caught by surprise. I hate bad surprises as I am sure you do also. 

So how does your bank balance look? Are you constantly being surprised when you don’t have any money in the bank? Take the stress out of it and make a plan, follow the plan and have Plan B and C ready if needed.


At the end of the day, if it is you that ends up on the operating table, you want to know that your surgeon has thought through his plan of action and has every eventuality covered. Your business is your livelihood - your family, your staff, your customers are depending on you - think like a surgeon and use this approach to win.


Task:

1. Pick the area of your business that you are having the most difficulty with. 
2. Now list all possible solutions to the problem – Create Plan A.  (If possible involve your staff in this as they will often have some perspectives you would not think of)
3. Think about things that might derail Plan A - other things that could go wrong – and think of solid solutions for these scenarios. This is your Plan B, C and so on.
4. Take action - use Plan A – remember a plan without action does not work! 
5. And have Plan B ready if needed. 

Business owners often tell me this - that staff are their biggest headache. The fact of the matter is that the more staff you have, the more things can go wrong. Many business owners say that if they just had good staff, they would be okay. 

But there is another side to the story - even with the very best employees, they will never meet their potential and live up to your expectations without good systems and clear guidelines for what you expect from them. 

Can you relate to this story? Bob the Builder has started his new business. He gets known as dependable and does good work. He does everything - manages the projects and works hard on the tools, and Wendy his wife does the accounts. Before long he has more work than he can handle himself, so he employs some extra workers and finds some good subbies. Things get busier, and he is finding he is running out of cash as his business grows. Part of the problem is that Wendy was getting the bookwork done at night, but now that the sheen has worn off and the workload is increasing, more and more is getting left undone. Bills are not getting out on time, so Bob is not getting paid when he should. No one is chasing up old accounts not paid, and some are over six months old.

He decides he needs a good office lady as Wendy does not have the time anymore to keep up with the extra work and is sick of chasing Bob so that she can get the invoices out when she would rather be chasing him round the bedroom. So he employs Cindy and everything seems to be going well, although Bob is now so busy that he doesn’t really know what is happening with every project, or how much money they have.  But Cindy seems to have it under control so why worry, it's working. Then out of the blue Cindy hands in her resignation; she wants to pursue a career in interior design which is what she really loves.

A week after Cindy leaves, everything turns to custard. Bob suddenly discovers there are a whole lot of problems he did not see coming. Suppliers have not been paid for three months and have stopped supplying, customers are unhappy that jobs are taking too long, and there are a whole pile of jobs that were never invoiced. Bob finds himself in absolute frustration – he trusted Cindy and she let him down. 

I have seen this kind of thing a lot. The problem in this scenario is that Bob did not know what Cindy was doing, and even worse Cindy did not know what Bob even wanted. So the chances of this going well were abysmal. Bob was not clear on what time frame was acceptable to send invoices within, when old accounts should be chased, what suppliers should be paid first, how much money should be in the bank, etc...

Can Bob fix it? Not without good systems.

The moral of this story is: Have good staff, but have even better systems. This is the vital first step towards building yourself a great team...

Good systems will show when staff are not performing, Good systems will make good staff, Good systems will mean the business carries on when staff leave, Good systems take headaches out of your business.

Action Point: Look at your key staff and list what you specifically need from them. Then meet with them individually and go through it with them. It could be the most important thing you do this 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.

"Under the gun" is an older saying I remember hearing as a kid. It was often used to describe when someone was under pressure, if they had a tight deadline and time was running out. 

I was reading a book called "Being the Best" by Denis Waitley who researched the (supposedly real-life) origin of this saying, giving quite a different insight into its meaning..............

Back in the 1700's when sailing ships were prevalent, a young naval officer reaps the reward for solving a problem, but also pays a high price for creating the problem in the first place.

This young mans name was Ensign Noble and he was aboard the HMS Intrepid en route from England to the colonies.

Back then the colonists were rebellious and this Royal Navy ship was loaded with guns and ammunition including a large cannon for delivery to the proper authorities.

Two days into the trip they were headed into bad storm and needed to secure the huge cannon to the deck to prevent it from damaging the ship or falling overboard. The young naval officer Noble quickly secured the cannon while telling himself that "these ropes should hold it; It doesn't look like the storm is that bad anyway" - a patch up job at best.

He finished the job and went below deck. It was only a few minutes and the storm got much worse. The cannon came loose, and started moving around the deck, damaging the ship, and putting other crew members lives in danger. He leapt back on deck to see the cannon rolling to the port side and straight for two fellow sailors who were trying work the sails and stop them from ripping in the violent winds.

Without a moment's hesitation, Noble put himself in harms way by throwing himself in front of the cannon, somehow stopping its path and saving the two sailors from a messy end. Both his legs were broken under the weight of the cannon, but he had saved the day by literally throwing himself under the gun.

The next morning there was a ceremony in his honour to celebrate this act of bravery. The whole crew were present as Noble hobbled forward (supported by crutches on his two broken legs) as the Captain bestowed a medal of honour for the countries highest award of bravery. The crew cheered, but soon fell to absolute silence as the Captain finished his presentation by saying "For placing his ship and shipmates in dire peril and being guilty of dereliction of his duty, Ensign Noble is sentenced to death by firing squad, sentence to be carried out immediately".

Dennis Waitley concluded the following moral of the story: "That working hard even heroically to solve a problem is not to your credit if you created the problem in the first place".

I believe in second chances and I think most of us would agree that the Captain's punishment was severe considering Noble's heroic act.

However, storms come regardless of people's intentions and if the cannon is not secured, there will be a price to be paid by someone.

What "storms" could affect your business? External factors that you don't always have control over but have a choice as to how you react to them. Some you can see coming, others creep up on you or strike suddenly. It could be earthquake, recession, competitors' new products, a health or family crisis....... A good business needs to be positioned to weather whatever storms may come. With good systems in your business, you will at least have planned ahead and be better prepared for these eventualities.

What are the "loose cannons"? These are the internal factors that you do have some control over: Poor office procedures, a disruptive staff member that is influencing the others, customers not paying when they should, eroding margins, wrong kind of customers, unhappy and complaining customers........ The crucial matters that if allowed to get out of control can cause serious damage to your business!

If you put the right systems/procedures in place (ie tying down the ropes), you are on the way. And remember you can have the best systems in the world, but they will only work if they are followed. The Royal Navy had excellent procedures for tying down cannons, but our friend Noble did not follow them. I suspect this is why the Captain was so tough - because this situation should never have happened.

I encourage you to spend some time writing out your systems and procedures step by step, and making sure they are followed. Secure the "loose cannons" in your business. Follow through. Make sure everyone knows how to tie down the cannons properly, from management to the cleaner. Because if you are the only one who knows and you are caught in a storm, then you are in trouble.

The benefits of good systems are threefold:

• Your business will function much more efficiently day-to-day with happier staff and less headaches for you, freeing your time and ultimately giving you more profit.
• You can relax and not stress about "what if's" knowing that your business is in good shape if the waters get choppy.
• Your business will be ready to take advantage of good opportunities that come along - and do even better!

Be prepared and don't be caught "under the gun"!