business mentoring Archives - Page 3 of 26

9 Tips to Becoming Scalable Ready

April 13, 2023 by Lisa Mininni Leave a Comment

Becoming “scalable ready” means that a company has the capacity to grow its operations and revenue significantly. Many company leaders think that if they can get more business and they have good cash flow for a couple of months, they’re scalable ready.

When sales are continuously rising, it’s tempting to scale based on projections. However, if your anticipated sales don’t happen as quickly as you thought, the market shifts, and you don’t have enough reserves, you have just taken on more overhead.

Additionally, your sales will have an impact on operations. If you have a lot of sales but your back office operations rely on manual systems, your attempts to scale will have negative outcomes.

Before you jump on your desire to scale, remember these 9 tips:

1. Plan for scalability: Scaling requires careful planning and execution because a change in one area of your business will impact other areas. If you don’t carefully plan, you’ll be dealing with customer service and employee relations issues.

2. Build a strong foundation: A scalable company needs to have a solid foundation in terms of your company’s infrastructure, systems, and processes. This includes not only having robust and scalable IT systems, streamlined workflows, standardized operating procedures, but those processes should align with your company’s Contribution, Vision, Mission, and Values.

3. Define a scalable business model: A scalable business model is one that can accommodate growth without requiring proportional increases in resources. There are many ways to build a sustainable and scalable business model. If you’re a service-based company, you may create products. If you’re a product-based company, you may create a service. At our Wake Up Profitable Boot Camp, where we teach a systems approach to scaling, we look at the best way each company can scale but also how the scaled model will impact your operations.

For many companies, scaling doesn’t mean making a big investment either. There may be assets you’re not using or not using as well as you could that will benefit your company. One of our clients created a consulting arm from her product-based business, not only adding another income stream but increasing the lifetime value of each client.

4. Develop a compelling value proposition: A company needs to clearly articulate its value proposition to customers and differentiate itself from competitors. One way to do that is to create your Signature Asset. A signature asset is a unique model, program, process, or system that defines your approach and distinguishes you from all others that have similar products and services.

5. Focus on market validation: Validating the demand for the company’s products or services in the target market is crucial before scaling. This may involve conducting market research, piloting the business model in a smaller market, testing different marketing strategies, and refining the product-market fit.

6. Build a strong team: Having a skilled and motivated team is essential for scalability. How do you build an effective team? By understanding their innate human wiring and learning how to align their natural wiring with how you need that position executed is a game changer when scaling a business. When you understand the environment in which they best thrive, you can align people with your positions, keep them highly engaged, and increase satisfaction and productivity.

7. Be Fiscally Fit. Scaling typically requires an investment so be sure you secure adequate funding or save enough in your reserves. To be funding-ready, create solid key performance indicators that are reviewed regularly. If you can show a lender that you’re responsible in managing your numbers, they are more likely to fund your next level growth.

8. Embrace technology: Use technology to automate processes, streamline operations, and enhance customer experiences. This may include adopting cloud-based systems, data analytics, apps, and other technologies that can drive efficiency and effectiveness. These solutions also don’t have to be expensive to be effective.

9. Focus on customer success: Satisfied customers are more likely to be loyal and refer others to the company, which can fuel growth. Ensuring excellent customer service, delivering value, and building strong customer relationships can help drive customer success and support scalability. Remember to give your biggest fans an opportunity to support you, by asking them to leave a review.

By following these tips and setting up a continuous improvement culture, your company will increase its scalability readiness, and position itself for sustained growth.

Invitation

If you are inspired to learn the Entrepreneurial Edge System’s approach to scaling your business, join us for the Wake Up Profitable Boot Camp for Business Owners on April 25-26, 2023. Walk out with your Blueprint to Scale by registering today at https://www.excellerateassociates.com/wake-up-profitable-boot-camp/

Human Wiring: It Influences Your Company Culture More Than You Realize

February 16, 2023 by Lisa Mininni Leave a Comment

Hu man wiring refers to the innate, neurological tendencies and traits that are present in every individual. It’s no surprise, then, that human wiring has a significant impact on company culture, as it influences how employees interact with each other, how they approach their work, and how they respond to the environment they work in.

Specific ways in which human wiring can affect company culture include:

1. Communication

Different people have different communication styles and ways they process information, which can impact how they interact with others in the workplace. Some individuals may naturally prefer more direct communication, while others may require more diplomacy or tact. Understanding these differences at a level where you can deliver communication they way the other person wants to receive it can help build a more harmonious and effective workplace culture.

When a client known for his direct, authoritative communication style, went through human wiring awareness training, he was flabbergasted at how he occurred to others. He had no awareness that his direct style was causing stress for his team. When he understood the innate needs of his team members and with a few tweaks in the way he approached them made a difference in employee engagement and productivity. Instead of running away when he entered the room, the workplace environment became interactive and enjoyable.

2. Conflict Resolution

Human wiring influences the way individuals’ approach and resolve conflicts. Some individuals prefer a collaborative approach, while others are comfortable with confrontation. Using a confronting approach with someone who needs a collaborative approach is a recipe for a trip to your HR department. When you understand human wiring and use effective communication and conflict resolution tools, your team can actively participate in promoting a positive, productive and drama-free workplace culture.

When a colleague, who preferred a collaborative approach, mentioned that his boss would shoot down every idea he had, I suggested that he find out what was most important to his boss. With a few targeted questions, he was able to get to the heart of his boss’s viewpoint. Once he addressed each concern, his boss bought in to his latest idea.

3. Leadership Styles

Depending on human wiring, a leader may be more authoritarian or directive, while others may be more democratic or collaborative. Providing leaders with personal awareness training creates leaders who generate a more effective workplace environment.

For example, one of our clients has a leadership team that possess two common human wiring elements. Each senior leader has a high degree of autonomy and a high sense of urgency (impatient). With this mix of wiring, they are inclined to push themselves and others for immediate results, often creating unrealistic timeframes. Since their leaders naturally pushed (high urgency) for results, their staff found the greatest rewards came by delivering results quickly. However, rather than departments collaborating, people worked in silos making independent decisions to get results. This autonomous, results-driven leadership team found themselves operating in less-than-ideal productivity and profitability. There was often rework because decisions were made in silos, quickly, and without inter and intra-departmental collaboration.

My clients quickly realized the influence of their natural wiring in shaping the company culture. Once they raised awareness of their wiring’s influence on the company’s culture, we were able to set up leadership development tools, a cultural framework, and processes to align what they say their values are and demonstrate those values in action.

When you are clear on your key cultural alignment factors along with the impact of your team’s human wiring on the company environment, you get to the root of cultural alignment, team productivity, authentic and conscious leadership, and company performance.

Overall, understanding human wiring gives company leadership the tools to create a workplace culture that is supportive, productive, and positive for their employees. By valuing and leveraging the unique strengths and perspectives of each individual, companies can build a productive and resilient organization.

How to Build an Unstoppable Team

February 9, 2023 by Lisa Mininni Leave a Comment

Many of the core issues that face business leaders today have to do with people. In particular, how do you effectively give your team what they innately need to create unstoppable teams?

Human Wiring tells us how people are best engaged in decision making, why some people want lots of information to make an effective decision and others want critical points of information. None of this wiring is good or bad or right or wrong, it does, however, give us critical insights on how to align people with positions and keep them engaged. When you know what your employees innately need, you are able to avoid burnout, increase employee engagement, and create unstoppable teams.

What’s Underneath Feeling Burned Out and How Do You Overcome It?

It’s not a secret that the pandemic played into a global feeling of burn out. Collectively, our brains had to (and in many cases still have to) make a lot of brand new decisions related to the post-pandemic world.

The pandemic has left many people in a state of burn out. One of my clients who is naturally wired as an External Thinker wondered why she felt burned out and de-energized. She described how, for the previous 24 months and with few exceptions, she worked from home…alone. Her only connection was online.

As an External or Verbal Thinker as her predominant wiring, she derives her energy by being with people face to face. With a few exceptions during the previous 24 months, she was online. She did not get enough of her natural motivators met, leaving her fatigued.

The first step to overcoming fatigue was to understand her human wiring. With this information, we were able to determine what was missing. We looked at:

How she functioned on or in a team
Her need to create and act on her own ideas.
How she processed thought.
Her preferred work style.
How much information she needed for effective decision making.

Based on her human wiring, we suggested adjustments to her schedule that involved face-to-face communication, development of challenging assignments, and delegation and automation of routine tasks. She was able to get her innate needs met, causing her to be re-engaged with her work.

As a leader, when you understand human wiring, you can proactively determine ways create an environment in which you utilize your team’s innate strengths. When you tap into their innate strengths, you will help to create a culture where both the individual and the organization thrives.

Invitation

If you’re inspired to learn about your human wiring and what best motivates you and your team, join us for:

Wired to Win 101: How Are You Hardwired?

The Value of Completion

February 2, 2023 by Lisa Mininni Leave a Comment

If you have ever been on the receiving end of ghosting, it left you with many questions.

What went wrong?
What happened?
What’s going on?

According to Psychology Today, ghosting is abruptly ending communication with someone without explanation. While some people believe it’s a way of coping with decision fatigue others believe that ghosting is troubling given it offers no sense of completion.

There’s value in completion. Think of a time where you:

-Completed a 5k run
-Returned the sales person call that you wouldn’t be working with them
-Achieved a stretch goal you didn’t think you could
-Finished a difficult class
-Gave your employer the required notice
-Sat through a boring event because you gave your word you would be there to support someone

In each of these cases, you completed: a goal, a conversation or a promise. You gave them feedback. You allowed them to move on. You honored your word.

Completing conversations, relationships, business arrangements, or commitments allows you to say what there is to say, clarify misperceptions, be your word, finalize a transaction, acknowledge someone, or stretch yourself beyond your self-imposed limits.

When you complete a commitment, relationship, transaction, or goal with full ownership of your part, you can walk away:

With a new perspective
Fully self-expressed
Resolved
Understood
Clarified
Improved
Free

Excellerate Exercise:

Where in your life could you complete something that is unsaid or undone? If you need to complete conversations, start with taking full responsibility of your part.

I promised I would follow up and didn’t and the impact is….
I haven’t told you and was keeping it in and there’s an impact on you…
I wasn’t intentional about fulfilling my promise and the impact on you is…

Leadership: Managing Multiple Commitments

January 26, 2023 by Lisa Mininni Leave a Comment

Meeting your multiple commitments with ease, can seem impossible. Ask anyone how they are doing. What is the typical answer?

I’m so busy.

We all have full lives that can, at times, collide:

⋙ Managing your business (or several of them) or career
⋙ Attending family events
⋙ Focusing on self-care activities, like exercise

So, how do you powerfully satisfy multiple commitments with ease?

Systems thinking. Systems thinking is a holistic approach that focuses on the way parts interrelate within the context of larger systems. When using systems thinking, you consider how each area of life interrelates.

One of my clients couldn’t get traction on both her business goals and personal goals. From a human wiring standpoint, she was wired to perform functions in sequence. She would work on one thing, get it done, and move on to the next.

She saw each commitment as a separate from the other. Behaviorally, she also put her business goals ahead of her personal goals.
Using systems thinking, we explored options by looking at how seemingly separate commitments could be integrated. How could she get her self-care routine accomplished, be on time for that morning appointment, and forward what she was up to in her business.

There were a number of options we discussed, such as:

1. Write down goals in all areas of life.

As she wrote down her goals in all areas of her life, she also realized where she was being unclear about the outcome she desired. According to research, you are 42 percent more likely to achieve your goals if you write them down. Writing down goals also compels you to choose metrics so that you celebrate when you reach it. With this clarity, you can filter the most important activities and enroll others to support your goals (and release others that don’t).

2. Ask for assistance.

My client was naturally wired to want to figure out things for herself and be sequential about each task. Becoming aware of her natural default behavior, she learned to ask herself, “who else could perform this task?” That simple question prompted her brain to explore options and ask for assistance rather than take on everything herself.

3. Use Visual Cues.

Visual cues, like posting your goals or, in my client’s case, bringing her walking shoes to work gave her the visual reminder to put her self-care first. There are other ways to integrate exercise, like parking in the furthest spot from the door, use a stand-up desk, or take short breaks doing simple squats at your desk.

4. Delegate.

My client was of the mindset that it was just quicker to get a task done if she did it herself. However, in the long run, the tasks absorbed time better spent on forwarding another goal. She learned that when she didn’t give her team or her children opportunities to step up, she wasn’t allowing herself or others to grow.

Systems thinking expands the range of options to accomplish goals. Can you see how integrating small steps can have you take giant leaps over time and in multiple areas?

When you have multiple commitments, you may first want to ask if you’re really committed or just interested in that goal. When you are merely interested, you will do what’s convenient. When you’re committed, you’ll do whatever it takes.

Take a minute to ask yourself:

➥ Where in your business or life could you integrate commitments getting two things accomplished at one time?
➥ Where could you ask for assistance or delegate?
➥ Where could you take an easy task that would forward your goal?

Then, take action consistent with your commitment not the circumstance.

Invitation

If inspired to learn more about how to powerfully manage all areas of your life, join us for the Introduction to Scaling & Systematizing Your Business. Join us online or onsite.

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