This year, I celebrate ‘writing my own check’ for the past 30 years! Being a business owner is the one thing that I have been doing for the longest part of my life. Looking back, my journey has certainly been eventful. Would I do it all over again…for sure, without a doubt.
Yet, the past 30 years have not been without its challenges. A fellow business coach summarised his journey as an entrepreneur “as being 80% of the time a daily slog and only 20% filled with moments of celebration and a sense of achievement.”
Published statistics on business success in South Africa tell a story that is far from inspiring: 40% of businesses fail within the first three years, 49.9% within five years, 65.8% within 10 years, 73.3% within 15 years, and nearly 80% within 20 years.
Here's my sanity test – the upsides and downsides of owning a business.
As we step into the enchanting embrace of a new season, it serves as a poignant reminder to reflect on the journey we've traversed throughout the year. Amid the holiday cheer and festive decorations, let's take a moment to delve into the depths of our experiences, aspirations, and, most importantly, our purpose.
Welcome to this edition of our newsletter, where we explore the theme of A Season of Grace and navigate the path to a more meaningful and intentional 2024.
As we step into the enchanting embrace of a new season, it serves as a poignant reminder to reflect on the journey we've traversed throughout the year. Amid the holiday cheer and festive decorations, let's take a moment to delve into the depths of our experiences, aspirations, and, most importantly, our purpose.
Welcome to this edition of our newsletter, where we explore the theme of A Season of Grace and navigate the path to a more meaningful and intentional 2024.
Blindfolded participants were told to walk in a straight…
There's a fascinating experiment that's always stuck with me. Researchers blindfolded participants and told them to walk in a straight line across a field. Despite their best efforts, nearly everyone started walking in circles without even realizing it.
This, for me, is a striking metaphor for the human experience. Without clear milestones or markers to guide us, we humans, both literally and metaphorically, tend to wander around in circles.
The 'naked truth' about business coaching….
Recently, in a business coaching session with a client, I asked him about some limiting self-beliefs he has been internalising.
Thinking about an answer to me, he paused, started smiling, and said: "This feels like a visit to a beauty salon. Striped down to my undies, lying exposed, worried about the following treatment that will probably be on the rather painful side!"
While a business coaching session and a visit to a beauty salon might seem like vastly different experiences, there are some obvious parallels around feelings of vulnerability and exposure.
Let's explore the comparisons between the two scenarios:
Leading Self, Leading Others
No better time to be alive than right now!
‘Life’ is fast-paced, unpredictable, uncertain, and highly adventurous. We are daily being challenged to adapt and embrace change as a constant. We experience abundance…access to information, access to resources, access to networks, and access to opportunities.
“For the first time – literally – substantial and rapidly growing numbers of people have choices. For the first time, they will have to manage themselves. And society is totally unprepared for it…”
-Peter Drucker -
Yes, self-leadership is indeed critical to thriving in one's career. Self-leadership refers to the ability to lead oneself in a way that maximizes one's potential and achieves desired outcomes. It involves taking responsibility for one's own growth and development, setting goals, and having the motivation, self-discipline, and self-awareness to achieve those goals.
The year 2022 was filled with unprecedented challenges, but as we turned the page and stepped into 2023, it's time to refocus, re-strategise and make it our best business year yet.
Here are a few strategies to ensure 2023 will be your most successful year in business:
Review Your Financials:
Review your business's performance during the past financial year at the end of every financial year. Analyse revenue streams, expenses, profit margins, and net cash flow position. Identify areas affecting net cash flow including operational costs, all factors impacting realised gross profit, optimising operations as well as the overall performance of all revenue streams. Identify areas for improvement, and finalise all budgets and cash flow forecasts.
Recent research has highlighted several critical traits of successful entrepreneurs and business owners.
A growth mindset is one such trait, which is the belief that personal qualities and abilities can be developed through effort and learning. Entrepreneurs with a growth mindset are more likely to persevere through challenges and take calculated risks in pursuit of their goals. Investing in their own growth, learning, reading, and acquiring new skills is always a top priority.
Tip for 2023:
Defined as plentiful and having ample quantities of resources, abundance is a mindset that can affect how you respond to adversity. Focusing on abundance means you are engaged in activities that raise wealth for everyone you encounter.
In business, abundance can be a creed to lift the lives of your employees, vendors, suppliers, and customers with every interaction.
Establishing an abundant mindset can start early. “Stanford psychologist Carol Dweck examined mindsets among young students. She found that children who have a growth mindset that intelligence can be developed are better able to overcome academic challenges than those who have a fixed mindset that intelligence is predetermined” (Forbes.com, 2020).
A very powerful statement…” nothing fails like success”.
When I read this statement, I had to think about the possible meaning. How can ‘success fail’? As business owners, we endeavor to be successful and grow sustainable companies.
According to ActionCOACH, the goal is to build profitable, commercial enterprises that effectively work without the owners. The upside of a successful business is an acceptable ROI and available discretionary net income to the owners and freedom of choice of lifestyle.
“Gratitude is the healthiest of all human emotions. The more you express gratitude
for what you have, the more likely you will have even more to express gratitude for.” — Zig Ziglar
Why Is Gratitude Important?
Studies show there are many benefits to acknowledging our blessings and expressing gratitude to others. Here are just a few:
Consistency is all about the results and deliverables. It is the McDonald’s model, we know exactly what to expect every time we order a Big Mac; whether we order it in California, Texas, or Dubai. Good or bad, like or not, it is always the same! This consistency gives us confidence. At the end of the day, it is about consistent processes, policies, procedures, and expectations from the customer side.
Consistency is the key to success in any business. The business needs a consistent flow of customers, who need to be serviced by consistently motivated and qualified employees who are going to deliver consistent quality to the customers.
I was volunteering at St. Philips Community Center and School when I noticed something they were doing that benefits small businesses in many ways.
There were a bunch of us there giving our time towards packing up about 50,000 meals for hungry children around Dallas. We did this by forming an assembly line that separated and assigned different tasks to different people.
We had some folks putting ingredients into packages, some would weigh the packages, some would seal the packages, and finally, others would box the packages.
Have you ever noticed how you always look forward to being with certain people? It’s usually because you feel comfortable with them, and they are just fun to be around. In life, that translates into more friends and better relationships. In business, it means more clients and greater access to key figures.
A good sense of humor and the ability to have fun may be intangible, but it’s extremely valuable. In fact, every time women are polled on what they want most in a man, the #1 answer is a good sense of humor. And it doesn’t stop there.
Tackling Work-life Imbalance
As a business owner or entrepreneur, you may have the freedom to control your work schedule, but that doesn’t make it easier to achieve a work-life balance. In fact, a study conducted by Melissa Milkie and her colleagues at the University of Toronto found that people who set their own working hours and work over 50 hours a week tend to have more, not fewer, work-life conflicts.
What We Can Learn About Teamwork From The Animal Kingdom
Teamwork is an essential part of the workplace. From small to large businesses, it is the backbone of successful operations and productive environments. Most would say that mankind is more evolved because human cognitive abilities are much higher than that present in the animal kingdom. However, animals that work together have amazing organizational structures, behaviors, and traits to help them thrive in their habitats. This is crucial
Principles that guarantee success
Have you ever found yourself scrolling through LinkedIn or Facebook, marveling at someone else’s success, wondering why your time hasn’t come yet? Maybe you procrastinated on that passion project last quarter. Perhaps you lost interest in the new business you wanted to launch. Or maybe the universe kept giving you secret signs to just cut your losses. With the smoke and mirrors of social media, it’s easy to question if success is even in the cards for us. I invite you to wade through those smoke and mirrors with me and evaluate what principles can guarantee success.
Communication Planning
HOW LONG IS YOUR PLAN?
A marketing plan is a sub-part of a business plan. The formalized process of writing these business artifacts has shortened to the one-page project scope. Below you will find links to Business Model Explained and Lean Canvas. These are two FREE resources you can use for strategic planning.
To Lead is a Choice…the 4 ‘I’s of Thriving Leadership
Navigating ourselves and our businesses in an ever-changing environment with macroeconomic forces at play has become a real challenge for many.
Yet, for every business that reaches the end of its road that are many more businesses that thrive despite of.
The past two weeks, in particular, only perhaps equaled by a two-week period after the looting and rioting of last year, I’ve found myself at the center of conversations with negative, depressed, stressed, and very emotional people. With the very odd exception, people...
The past year, 2021, has been an interesting ‘ride’…that is, depending on one’s perspective!
For many this year has been an uphill struggle to stay afloat with pressures on sales, cash flow, team morale, and business in general. Some sectors that have been the most adversely affected by the global pandemic are hospitality, restaurants, retail, construction, and smaller players in the manufacturing sector.
On the other hand, many other sectors...
The idea of working with a business coach is becoming more and more considered and acceptable. There are many reasons for this from the recent global pandemic and forced lock downs to the very volatile, disruptive nature of business. It has become critically important for all business owners and leaders to invest in the continuous learning and developing of business skills and knowledge.
‘Business’ is certainly not for the ‘faint hearted’, the ill-informed or those lagging in creativity, agility and ability to adapt!
This blog is inspired by Simon Sinek’s recent book called, The infinite Game Of Business. What a great read for all business owners and leaders in business, especially during the interesting time we find ourselves in business!
We have all been globally challenged as business owners and entrepreneurs over the last 18+ months by the Covid-19 pandemic causing exponential change, volatility, complexity and the speed and scale of disruption experienced in the world of business is unprecedented – also referred to the VUCA world of business (Volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous).
“The greatest danger in times of turbulence is not the turbulence—it is to act with yesterday’s logic.” —Peter Drucker
The current and future business reality, also referred to at the 4th Industrial Revolution, is complex - driven by exponential change and digital disruption.
A great explanation on how our business world has changed, is with the Cynefin Framework by David Snowden:
As a business owner, do you truly believe you could have or even deserve freedom? Do you know what real freedom actually tastes like? As a business coach for more than a decade, I have more often than not, discovered when talking to a new client—a business owner—that...
I had the privilege to attend a presentation of Ian Thomas, well-known international speaker, tracker and author.
Ian has studied lions at close quarters for more than thirty years. He has a unique understanding of how lions raise such potent individuals and then combine them into...
I was recently asked to reflect on my life as a serial entrepreneur thus far…what are some of the lessons that I learned?
Upon reflection, an image of the well-known Joan of Arc came to mind. Joan of Arc, a peasant girl, believing that she was acting under divine guidance, led the French army at a tender age of 18 to...
Become unshakeable…!
Sounds fabulous, doesn’t it? Of course, we all want that!!
NOW more than ever!
Especially given the brutal reality of the global CV-19 pandemic and the significant global change experienced on a daily basis. Economic stability, stable trading conditions, customer loyalty, predictable consumer behavior
To succeed at anything in life and business requires a winning mindset. Our thoughts, the lens through which we see life around us, how we choose to respond, etc. The internal dialogue with ‘self’ determines what we say (our words), how we act, the decisions we make and subsequently the results we see in our lives and businesses.
A brilliant read on...
The growth cycle of a Chinese Bamboo Tree is a great metaphor for that of any business.
Why do I say this?
Well, after planting the seeds of a Chinese Bamboo Tree, it takes the best part of 5 years of irrigation and nurturing with nutrients before the first leaves appear above the ground. During the next 5 to 6 weeks, some types grow to over 90ft!
During the 5 year period, an extensive root...
Let me tell you a story…
This story is about a specific women’s journey in business. She graduated with a Master’s Degree in Personnel Management and started her career as a personnel officer at Iscor HQ, Pretoria.
Half a decade later, disillusioned about losing ‘self’ in endless, mindless meetings, challenges with filing paperwork on deadlines for payroll and the ‘joys’ of climbing the corporate ladder, she made an...
Life is a journey and by choosing ‘business’ as your vehicle of choice may prove to be the ultimate challenge, especially in the current South African economic reality!
Some interesting facts about the current economic reality is that there are 5,6 million SMME’S in South Africa of which 3,3 million can be regarded as ‘survivalist businesses’… they are barely surviving, cash flow is poor, and...
In other words, a sell by date is ‘a time after which something or someone is no longer considered desirable or effective’. In the current digital age, change is a constant and the ways we always conducted ‘business’ are long gone past.
Such as:
A new year always brings with it a sense of reflection on the year gone past as well as a need to review and define goals for 2019.
We’ve all heard Albert Einstein’s famous line: “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”
Some good questions to answer are:
“Not finance. Not strategy. Not technology. It is teamwork that remains the ultimate competitive advantage, both because it is so powerful and so rare” – The Five Dysfunctions of a team, Patrick Lencioni
Building an effective team that despite individuals, collectively operate with synergistic results is inarguably for most business owners the biggest challenge. I recently...
I have been thinking a lot about success in life…what does it mean? How does one become successful with a sense of achievement? Why do some of us become successful and achieve some significant goals while many others don’t? Does luck come into the equation with some people that seems to be luckier than others? I have realised that some answers to the above comes back to ActionCOACH’s formula for success in life namely:
I so often, in coaching business owners, hear the following:
“I am so busy, do not know if I am coming or going…!” or “Have not been able to focus on any of the work we agreed on, I have been running around like crazy..!”
“Help coach, I am drowning, feeling totally overwhelmed!”
The majority of business owners have huge challenges on their ability to manage and master their time. It does help to accept that we will never have...
So, I was invited to address a group of business owners and members of the Goldfields Chamber of Business in Welkom today, the 30th June 2017….yes, you heard right…Welkom, in the heart of the Free State! This occurrence can be regarded by anyone reading my blog as ‘just another event in the life of a coach’! Sure….But, for me personally, this event was VERY special for the following reasons:
Today, exactly a year ago...
Contact Lindie
ActionCOACH Business Coach Lindie Malan
Unit 5 & 6, Toni's Centre
4 Fagan Street
Somerset West, South Africa
Phone: +27 21 203 5335
Mobile: +27 82 921 0482
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