Osborne Yuille offers clients a unique and disciplined Business Coaching service, often in footstep with Accountancy and Business Advisory services. To bring a new perspective and new opportunities for growth, our coaches work with our clients on (among other things) their mindset. It can often be the most valuable process a client experiences as a changed mindset in a business owner can change the trajectory of a whole set of lives. John Osborne talks here about mindset and why it is so critical to scaling a business.
For a business owner, a totally honest self-examination usually finds that we are strong in some areas but weak in other areas. We are not only trying to be successful in business but also in life generally as parents, husbands and wives and we seek not only to be successful, but to live fruitful lives.
The Bible actually outlines a pretty good roadmap for life and experiencing a fruitful and successful life generally, not just in business. It lists Biblical “types” of fruit we need to see in our lives, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.
If we worked on each of these areas in our business and life generally, we would see a change of “mindset” in the way we go about business. We would see a “growth mindset” developing in our way of thinking.
The question we need to ask ourselves is where do you want to be?
As business people, we can actually change our mindset. Sometimes we are limited by our current behaviours, our education level, the knowledge we have gained over the years, our business skills.
We can change limited thinking. We are only limited by what we feed into our brain. We can decide what mindset we want.
HOW DO WE CREATE A GROWTH MIND-SET?
Living Life with a Passion
Living life with a passion can be a challenge, but if you don’t let life get you down and you control that mindset you can frame the problems and obstacles you face each day as a challenge.
Face these challenges in your life and work as a joy to deal with.
“Life can be a rocky road. The challenge is not to let it grind you into dust but to polish you
into a brilliant gem”.
John Milton Fogg
Life inevitably gets easier when we create a passion worth pursuing. Business needs to be enjoyable while creating a lifestyle for yourself and your family. Life is too short to live without passion. When we creating a passion in our business, it can lay a foundation that sets us apart from our competitors.
What level is your business?
There are arguably three levels in business.
1. Survival: You are just surviving in your business but not really getting ahead living from day to day, hoping to make it through this month or this year.
2. Success: Your business has been growing but you realise it is now time to take your business to the next level in your field of business
3. A Significant business: You have now moved to that next level in business. You are recognised as an industry leader by your customers and your competitors.
Where do you see your business?
Reaching the level of being a significant business in your field. You are immediately top of mind with your customers. You are considered a successful company and you attract the top people who want to work with you. Because you considered a successful business more work comes your way, more clients are being referred to you.
Without passion for your business you are not going to have a positive influence with your staff and will not create customers who will come back to you time and time again, creating customer loyalty.
How to create this passion for business
Some of us sometimes lose our passion for our business. We get worn down by the pressures of day to day business survival and we lose sight of what it was that we started the business for in the first place. If that has happened to you, you’ve probably lost sight of a few things. The first is thing we often lose sight of is our Vision.
To maintain (or regain) our passion we need to clarify our long-term vision and goals and how to make them happen.
Having a vision for business success
We need to have a clearly defined vision for our business. On the opening day of Walt Disney World, his brother Roy Disney was asked to escort the media through the park. As he did, one of the journalists made the comment, “Isn’t it a shame that Walt never saw this place open?” Roy Disney replied, “He did! He just happened to see it first in his mind, before you and I saw it today.”
Some Questions to get you thinking about your vision for your business:
- Do you have a clear, focused and communicated vision for your business and its future?
- What do you want to achieve in and with your business?
- Where you see your business in 12 months?
- Where do you see your business in 3 years and 5 years? •
- If you created a business of significance what would it look like?
A Clear Vision will:
- Provide a clear and focused direction for the business and its future.
- Improve the quality of management and performance of staff
- Take people’s thinking beyond the barriers and problems that they encounter
- Encourage motivation
- Identify the company’s ethics and culture
- Ensure the business’s survival
- Anticipate change and reach out for opportunities.
A vision must have substance, it cannot be artificial. It must come from the values, ethics and aspirations of you and the people within your business. The first key to your success in business is to create a business that is built on customer loyalty. This will ensure your long-term success in business and your future.
Strategy for Success
The Vision must be clear. People who have vague goals, will get vague results. Setting clear goals and specific milestones, targets and outcomes will avoid “should have” or “I’ll get around to it” mentalities. From clear goals you can develop a plan of action to make a vision happen.
In breaking down our vision into a specific plan, there are some areas we need to consider so that our planning process can get started. We need to ask (and form answers to);
- Have I got the right products and service offering I need to compete in the market I am in?
- What profit do I want to make in my business?
- How do I position my business to attract the type of customers and business I want?
- What systems do I need to put in place so that my business runs efficiently and smoothly, and can run without me?
- What skills, knowledge and techniques do I need to see growth in my business and take my business to the next level?
- How do I attract the right people to enable me to reach my goals?
- What skills and qualifications do they need to have? Where do I find them?
- What key performance indicators (kpi’s) should I set to measure the business and team’s performance? How many customers do I need to reach my budgeted revenue and how much will they spend?
Your business is the vehicle to drive your success
Your business is the vehicle to take you to where you want to go and achieve your personal goals.
Significant success is when you have created a productive and profitable enterprise that works without you.
Significant success is doing what you love to do, not only receiving a significant income, but also being recognised by your customers and peers as being successful.
Questions to assist you in clarifying your vision in business and your passion in business
1. What do you need to do to be recognised as significant in your marketplace?
2. What are you trying to achieve in your business?
3. What is your vision for the business?
4. What does your business stand-for in its marketplace?
4. Spell out what needs to be done by the business to achieve this vision?
5. Where do you see yourself and business in twelve months?
6. Where do you see yourself and business in five years?
7. If you have created a business considered by your peers to be significant, what would it look like?
8. What does significant success mean to you?
9. What does your succession plan look like?
10. Have we created a change in your mind-set to achieve success?
As the foolish builder in the Bible learnt, you can’t build a house without good foundations. When the rains came the house collapsed. If your thinking and mind-set is not based on sound foundations when obstacles come, you will not cope.
Developing the right mind-set is crucial
- 1. Be aware of your thoughts and belief systems as they are what drives you. Have you overcome some of those negative thoughts and belief systems that have impacted you over the years? Things our teachers, parents or peers have said may have influenced us to have negative outcomes in our thinking.
- 2. Have you the training and mental capabilities to solve problems and prioritise what things are important in your business?
- 3. What are your goals and priorities for your business? Are you able to stay focused and watching the horizon for obstacles and changes that may come your way in business?
- 4. Have you learnt disciplines and knowledge such as, accounting, tax, marketing and skills required in your business?
- 5. Have you developed a website for your business and a marketing plan and social media program
It is important to work on these foundations in changing our mind-set.
It is important to conduct a self-examination of our life and performance to date.
