Ways Women Sabotage Themselves at Work

by | Mar 2, 2022 | Business, Uncategorized

As I have spent time coaching within the corporate sphere, I have unfortunately noted that there are several ways women sabotage themselves at work. In addition, women still are not being treated as equals, I think contributing to the problem. There have been huge strides forward and there are some stellar companies out there doing their best to level the playing field, however, we’re not there yet. 

Curiously, when I observe women in corporate venues, I can see that they also have room to grow in terms of professionalism (men do too, but that isn’t the focus of this article). We can chicken-and-egg the question about what predisposes women to these self-defeating behaviors, or we can just acknowledge that they exist and move forward, making changes along the way.

How others perceive women

Really, it comes down to how you act, how you sound, how you respond, and how you market yourself. (If that doesn’t sound like “everything” I don’t know what does!) 

The following article outlines several ways women sabotage themselves at work. If you recognize these in yourself, pick one to work on.

ways women sabotage themselves at work

 

Being too thin skinned

Sometimes co-workers don’t like your ideas. Get over it. Be a team player and participate and if they don’t give you an award at the end of the day, have a strong enough self-esteem that you can move forward. In other words, assume the best of people’s intentions. When given feedback, do your best not to become defensive. Rather, ask: what can I learn from this. And if it’s truly a toxic workplace, get out and get a better job. No one should be abused at work. But also, we don’t have to be wilting lilies at the first sign of heat.

Gossiping about other co-workers.

Depending on the company, I have seen men gossip just as much as women, however, they really aren’t labeled as that. Senior executives tell men to “stop wasting time” and women to “stop gossiping.” It’s an interesting dichotomy. 

However, all the more reason for women to stop doing it, because it is a cliche’ of all that wrong with women in the workplace. Gossiping always has a flavor of something negative—i.e. no one every gets upset with someone talking someone up. Above all, be the person in your company who is known for saying nice things about people. And keep it brief and get back to work! Standing around talking in the break room is a sure way to lose your co-workers’ respect.

Trying to be “one of the guys”

It is not uncommon for one woman to be in a meeting with a bunch of men. Because of this, there is a temptation to fit in and swear as much as they do or tell off-color jokes if they are. However, there are few situations where this makes other men respect you more. You need to be who you are (the best version of who you are). I’m not suggesting that you be judgy about how they act, but you can actually raise the level of professionalism by not joining in poor behavior. And, if you have the relational capital, call them into something better. We all would like our cultural competence to raise a bit. in other words, model the kind of behavior you would like to receive.

Sharing too much information (or not enough)  

Within several of the companies that I have coached in, there is a problem with women treating their co-workers like their best friends. They share intimate details about their health or their relationships or their vacations. Some sharing is collegial. Too much is annoying to those around you who are trying to get their own work done, and it doesn’t make the person who is paying you feel good that their money is being wasted on non-productive chatter.  

On the other hand, I recently was acquainted with a woman who shared little to none with her employer or those around her about her health situation. She had a recurrence of cancer and was on an oral form of chemotherapy, of which she skipped the middle dose each day, because it made her too sick to work. At the time I spoke with her, she wondered if that skipped dose was going to lead to her mortality. I knew the owner of the business and he would have gladly given her time off or permission to do the work at home, had she told him how sick she was. This was a case where she shared too little, and it was definitely to her detriment.

Being overly concerned with offending others

Un(fortunately?), women are socialized to be kind, accepting, nice, collaborative, etc. Because of this, it is not unusual for a woman to go along with a plan that they don’t like or don’t think will succeed, because they are being “supportive.” Sometimes they do voice their opinion, but often, it is not strong enough for others to take notice and the bad plan moves forward anyway. Being willing to stand up for your ideas goes along with having a thicker skin and not being overly concerned if you offended someone in the normal course of relating. However, I’m not suggesting you be offensive. What I am saying is that you don’t need to turn yourself inside out with remorse when you tell someone you don’t think their idea will work or that their behavior is not ok.

Letting people waste your time

This is the flip side of the talking too much or gossiping with others. In order for someone to do the above behaviors, there has to be someone listening! I often coach other women and men to say things like, “I’m so happy your vacation was amazing—I”m sorry to cut you off here, but I have this deadline and I have to get back to work.” In other words, it is YOUR responsibility to stop people from wasting your time, not theirs.

Being invisible / taking up too little space

Sit at the big table. Speak up in meetings. Enough said.

Using qualifiers instead of being direct

Women have a tendency to speak with qualifiers. I’m not sure if this is because we are socialized to be less direct or if it is because women tend to get their feelings hurt where others are direct with them? Regardless, it is in your best interest to learn how to speak directly when you are working with men. (And, actually, most women prefer direct communication as well).

“Perhaps you would consider giving this proposal a tiny bit of your time. You might find it of use (or you might not). But it could give you a bit of a boost in your meeting.” 

Versus: “You need to look at this briefing. It’s got information in it that will help you with your negotiation.”

Direct does not equal rude. Rude is rude. Direct is clear. 

Direct: I would like to do this in this manner.

Indirect: I have some ideas, but whatever you want to do is fine by me. But I kind of like this one.

Rude: We always do it your way—this time we’re doing it my way because I am right and you are wrong.

Moving Forward

 

There are literally hundreds of ways women sabotage themselves at work—these are only a few of them. However, these are a good place to start. I recommend any of the books below (and they all have a substantial reading list in the back of each book).

If you want some individual help, consider hiring a coach! See my article here for how coaching can help you.

Regardless, of what you do to here’s no reason to up your game, do something! And, above all else stop sabotaging yourself at work and otherwise.

Some books to read: 

Nice Girls Still Don’t Get the Corner Office by Lois P. Frankel, PhD

Hardball for Women: Winning at the Game of Business by Pat Heim and Susan K. Golant

Power Talk: Using Language to Build Authority and Influence by Sarah Myers McGinty

Lean In: Women, Work and the Will to Lead by Sheryl Sandberg

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Setting Up a Business Without Sabotaging Yourself in 7 Clear Steps.

by | Jan 26, 2022 | Business

Road map with 7 steps to beginning a business

Setting Up a Business Without Sabotaging Yourself in 7 Clear Steps

Setting up a business without sabotaging yourself— these 7 steps will help you avoid common pitfalls if you are thinking about starting a business. It is an exciting thing to start your own business, however, there are so many details and things to think about and ways you can get in your own way.

While there are many individual steps, also, there is a simple structure that all businesses need to engage with before becoming a viable entity.

The following article gives 7 steps to setting up a business without sabotaging yourself.

 

Road map with 7 steps to beginning a business

Road map with 7 steps to beginning a business

 

1. Create a Clear Mission Statement 

A mission statement clearly states what your company is doing and why. One of the ways companies and owners sabotage themselves creating their mission statement is that they formulate elaborate mission statements that encompass all sorts of company values. As a result, it gets so idealistic and cumbersome that no one can remember it or articulate it well.

A mission statement needs to be so simple that it can be remembered by every member of the company. Similarly, it needs to be so easy to understand that the customer immediately gets why you do what you do.

Often, a company will have an internal mission statement, with some quantifiable metrics. For example, “We will get a walker into the hands of every elderly and disabled person in the United States by the year 2025.”

The Outward and Inward Mission Statements

Usually, there is also an outward facing mission statement that explains the “why” of the business. For instance: Our mission is to get a walker into the hands of every elderly and disabled person because everyone deserves to have mobility and quality of life.

The internal mission statement clarifies “what,” to “whom,” by “when” (a date on the calendar). Similarly, it helps keep your team motivated and it is exceedingly clear what they are supposed to be working on and toward. The external mission statement helps your customers know how you can serve them. In other words, it tells them WHY you want to bring them this service.

Importantly, it follows then that creating a clear mission statement is an essential step toward setting up your business. Emphasis on “clear.” In other words, don’t sabotage yourself by getting too broad and not focusing on the correct activities to help you succeed. With a clear mission statement, your team and your customers know exactly where to put their focus. 

If you would like help creating a mission statement, consider hiring a Business Made Simple Coach.

2. Define a product offering

In this paragraph, I want to talk about how to not sabotage yourself with your product offerings. Many companies struggle to narrow their focus to a specific and clear product offering. For example, they have a vague sense of what they offer, or they offer too many things.  Moreover, then the marketing and messaging gets a bit mushy. 

I heard one billionaire entrepreneur say the other day: Create your marketing materials first and then create the product. I believe he knows that until you can describe it succinctly to others, you will struggle to create the item with the focus that it needs.

Above all, get very clear about as many of the variables about your product as possible. Firstly, Is this a physical product? A digital one? Or maybe even both! It can be a service or a thing. Secondly, as you become more defined in your product offering, everything else also falls into place like your marketing, your budgets for production, your hiring needs, etc.

Clarity is always your friend and lack of said clarity is one of the common ways owners, CEOs and marketing departments sabotage the over-all effort.

3. Define your pricing and payment terms, and other variables related to your customer.

Remember what I said about clarity and the product offering? This holds true for the other variables related to your customer as well. Check out my article regarding improving your customer’s journey for a more in-depth look at this topic. However, in this paragraph, I want to help you avoid sabotaging your customer service efforts specifically. 

How clear are your payment methods? What will you charge? How will you get paid? Will there be any exceptions? What will your guarantee be? Do you know what your refund policy will be? What will your direct customer service look like? All of these things are part of the pricing and payment umbrella and they each deserve their own section. 

The latter questions will be discussed in a later article—the bare bones of this is that you have to decide what your pricing is and how you will collect money. Here’s an interesting question: will you accept cryptocurrency? This isn’t a big deal quite yet, but I believe it is going to be on in the near future! 

It goes without saying that this can get tricky if your product is expensive—will you allow people to make installments? What happens if they pay for part, but not all of the purchase price? If this is a subscription, and they ask for money to be refunded months after the fact, because they didn’t use the service—all of these contingencies eventually need to be hammered out. This is a vital step to setting up your business without sabotaging yourself, and failure to have clarity here (i.e. making exceptions for everyone and deciding on the fly) is one of the ways businesses sabotage their schedule and energy.

4. Define the forms and templates you want to use and then create them.

Hooray for some nice concrete parts of the business that many people enjoy, because it feels like they are DOING something! 

However, depending on the kind of business you create, you may want a proposal template. First, you will want an invoice and second, a receipt template. Third, depending on the product, you may need a contract template.

There are many free resources on the internet, so I suggest you look at several before you decide on the forms you need to utilize. Above all, this section gets you to think of these things ahead of time and create them before you need them, so that you aren’t scrambling as the need arrises. Similarly, the template is to keep you from having to reinvent the wheel each time.

This is a fun activity where you get to put your name and your logo on these documents and it feels like, wow! You are getting somewhere with this business. This is one of the fun steps to setting up your business!

My one caution here is to avoid investing too much time and resources into this, because the likelihood of it iterating quite a bit at the front end is high. I wish I had back all the money invested in URLs for my fictitious companies. Give yourself permission to work out some of the kinks before you invest heavily in design and logos.

In 5. Get your legal forms filled out and submitted. 

In this paragraph, let’s discuss legal forms. Some people would say that this is the first step to setting up your business, but I’m going to disagree. 

A lot of iteration that happens in business. In addition, when you set up your company with the government, there are many choices you have to make at that juncture. Name, website url, etc. Part of the reason the government has a DBA (doing business as) category is that it is a PAIN to change all these forms and names and tax IDs—but often, people realize later, down the road, that they need to change their name. In addition, they don’t want to create (and pay the fees) for a whole new business entity. 

So, my recommendation is to spend some time really honing in on your mission and your product, before you make it legal and official. (However DO make it legal and official before you start selling products!).

Business Cards and the Like

I know business owners who have spent a small fortune on business cards, letter head, website development, all to change it and go through the whole process again, because they have shifted their focus or changed their name. The business cards and physical items are very fun, because it makes it feel like the business is up and running and viable, but really, until you sell something, this is a bit of an illusion. Get very clear, then register your business, then order the logged apparel.  

Here is a place where people sabotage themselves at the front end: They try to DIY everything. Talk to your tax guy about the forms that are necessary for your type of business and your location. If anything involves large sums of money, pay the $300 / hour for short session with an attorney who specializes in business.  The DOES make a difference in the long run and it will save you time and money down the road. 

6. Determining the banking tools you need is a critical step in setting up your business without sabotaging yourself.

Want to know a large sabotag-y no-no? Mingling, co-mingling, mixing business and personal finances. Yes, I know you know.  And I also know you do it, as do many people, especially at the front end of a business.

In this paragraph, I’m going to hound you to keep your business finances separate from your personal ones. The point of business (besides altruistically providing a service for other humans) is to make money! And nothing gets messier than having co-mingled accounts. As your business grows it gets so difficult to see accurately what is happening when there is no clear separation between personal and business finances.

Of course, a business bank account separate from your own checking / savings account is a must! However, many new entrepreneurs let everything co-mingle in the early stages of their business.  I would say, once you have the business as a registered entity, give it a separate bank account. In addition to making things easier for you, your tax person will thank you! (And if you are your tax person, you will thank yourself too!) Lastly, this removes so many headaches down the road.

Next, you need to establish an account with a method of taking payments (like square, etc.) 

Finally, I would suggest reading a book like Profit First or looking into something like Business Made Simple—they have a simple accounting method that helps you make sense of the money coming in and going out of your business venture. Also, keeping finances separate allows you to more accurately monitor your cash flow.

Check out my article on Cash Flow for a more in-depth look at this topic.

7. Determine where you will conduct your business, aka “do I need an office.”

You need to determine where you will run your business. Do you need to rent an office? Perhaps. However, if you don’t need to rent one immediately, this is a great expense to save for later. For instance, since the 2020 pandemic, many business that formerly thought they needed a physical location have since discovered that they actually don’t. Consequently, they have saved thousands of dollars by not renewing their lease.

One of the ways I see young businesses sabotage themselves is by spending more money than their business can support. It is easy to think that you will begin earning revenue quickly (and perhaps you will). However, I have seen companies raise large amounts of seed money (i.e. in the millions) and still run out of runway before their product is finished or launched. If you don’t have to rent an office, don’t. Cut costs by renting a less expensive office, if you can. Or see if you can get a shorter lease in the event cash flow becomes an issue. Hope for the best, but plan for the worst. Jim Collins (in Good to Great, called this productive paranoia).

In conclusion, with the early stages of a business, you need to keep your overhead low, so that you don’t find yourself running low on cash. In other words, this is one of the early killers of new business and one that creates a tremendous amount of stress for the owner.

Summary: here are 7 Steps to Setting up a Business Without Sabotaging Yourself:

      1. Create a clear mission statement.
      2. Define a product offering
      3. Create your pricing and payment terms, along with other variables related to your customer.
      4. Define the forms and templates you want to use and then create them.
      5. Get your legal forms filled out and submitted. 
      6. Determine the banking tools you want to use is a critical step as you set up your business.
      7. Determine where you will conduct your business.

If you begin with these 7 steps to setting up a business, you will be well on your way.

If you would like help with any of these, consider hiring a coach! At Leavebetter.com we believe that everyone should be able to win in business and in life!

head shot Miriam Gunn

If you find this helpful in the functioning and success of your business, consider hiring LeaveBetter for some additional coaching.

There are many other topics like these in key realms of business development that are strategic to the ongoing development of your business and life.

Reach out to me and we can get started working on that, or on your personalized Life Plan. As a certified coach and therapist, this is what I do best: helping people like you achieve the skills you need to reach your next level in your business and life.

Why Should I Hire a Business Made Simple Coach?

by | Oct 30, 2021 | Business

Web - Business Made Simple Coach

If you are a business owner seeking to increase your focus and boost your business, chances are you have heard of the Business Made Simple program. You may have even enrolled in it and started to make the changes necessary to increase your business health. A common question that many entrepreneurs ask is, “Will hiring a coach help my business?” And more specifically, “Should I hire a Business Made Simple coach?” 

It’s also possible that you feel stuck or like you’ve hit a wall in terms of your ability to action what you know is necessary to move your company forward. Let’s face it—you know going it alone is both “faster” and “slower” at the same time. 

Perhaps you are considering hiring a Business Made Simple coach to help you on your journey.

Now the real question is:

Should I Hire a Business Made Simple Coach?

 

Let’s look at some common questions owners of businesses have and see if you come away with more clarity.

Who are BMS coaches and what do they do? 

Web - Business Made Simple Coach BLACK

These engaging people have completed a certification program through BusinessMadeSimple.com. Their mission is to help business owners utilize the information that they have gotten via their BMS course subscription. 

While there are other coaching programs, these programs do not address the material created within the BMS platform. When you hire a Business Made Simple coach, you get a coach who understands the mechanics of business. This person truly desires to help your business succeed.

Let me back up a minute. If you are unfamiliar with Business Made Simple (BMS), here is a bit of history. BMS is a subset of StoryBrand, created by Donald Miller. StoryBrand puts out Business Made Simple Daily. These are series of emails designed to help growing businesses succeed and scale. In addition to the emails and classes, there is a coaching program, which is the focus of this post.

If you hire a Business Made Simple coach, will this actually help you grow your company?

The simple answer is “Possibly.”

Hiring a Business Made Simple coach can grow your business by helping you identify and take the steps that move your business forward. You can’t grow without a clear path and this is exactly what a coach helps you create. They will help you assess the various parts of a company. They will look at your marketing, sales, strategic plan, overall vision, mission statement, communication, leadership, etc.

When you assess and then address these components of your business, you are certain to find some areas that can be improved.  If you take action on these, your company moves along its trajectory, with positive change.

This in turn will lead to increased value within your company.

The only reason I said, “possibly” instead of a resounding “YES!” is that if you Hire a Business Made Simple coach, it requires a partnership between you and the coach. 

As both a therapist and a coach, I have seen many people who are willing to pay money and spend time but do nothing.  Talking can be useful to a point, but then you have to DO something.  You have to make changes.

Hiring a coach is not like hiring a contractor.  The contractor does the work for you.  A coach, coaches you as you do the work, making the decisions for your company.

If you take the time to assess your company and then make positive changes, your company WILL grow in the way it needs to.

 

What is the cost to hire a Business Made Simple coach? 

This is quite variable. Coaching can cost anywhere from about $3-10K / quarter. If you delve into the coaching realm, you can find all manner of packages and prices.

Some coaches sell their time by the session. Others sell by the quarter or year. Costs are often based on the location of the coach and the years of experience and training.

At LeaveBetter Coaching (Business Made Simple Certified), we sell our coaching packages by the quarter (or year for a discount).

Is hiring a BMS coach worth the money?

It can be.

This depends on what your company’s revenue is and whether or not you are poised to do the work. As mentioned above, coaching can further your business if you are willing to take action.

Other Coaches You’ve Had

 

If you think about when you were a kid and you took music lessons—your teacher was a coach. They gave you specific things to practice and you did (hopefully!) and then came back the next week for some fine-tuning and a new challenge.

Or think about sports when you were in high school. If you were lucky, you had a good coach who built you up and gave you specific instructions on how to get better. Well then, you already know how excellent coaching can further your natural abilities!

If you were one of those kids who never practiced and kind of blew your childhood coaches off, then it’s entirely possible that you will do the same with a business coach, in which case, it might not be worth the money.

However, people can grow and change and as someone who has been on the receiving end of some great inside out coaching, I know it revolutionized the way I think about business and it increased my bottom line exponentially.

At this point, you may be asking yourself “Do I actually need a business coach when I can just take online courses?” 

This is a great question! 

Many entrepreneurs are DIYers. We are inclined to simply do our own research via the web and move forward.

However, the downside to this that there is an overwhelming amount of material, and not all of it is good. 

It is also easy to get distracted—for example, to fall into you-tube sinkholes—because you have no one to be accountable to but yourself.

An experienced business coach helps you expedite your process, setting you on a path to your desired results in a more straightforward way. Here, there is built-in accountability.

Several times during my stints of receiving coaching I said, “Ugh! I have to get this done by tomorrow because I told my coach that I would have it done by then!” This moved my business forward more than you might think.

Another perk of working with a coach is the camaraderie and bond that you build during your journey. Why go it alone when you can have a knowledgeable professional in your corner?

If I hire a Business Made Simple coach, how will this make my company more profitable? 

Your coach challenges you to take those ‘next steps’ to create bigger, better products that you are able to charge more for. They challenge you to close the loop on things that have been left hanging. (Things like invoices!)

Have you been struggling with creating a new revenue stream?

Your coach undoubtedly has insights that you can discover together. Having a coach to work with helps you to see your company in a new way and flesh out ideas for increasing profit that may have been hiding in plain sight.

Simply put, as you develop a close relationship with your coach, they help you overcome the obstacles that are holding you back. 

We all know: The path to profitability is not a straight line. 

A great coach understands not only this concept but will also be able to help guide you down a path with understanding and keen insight.

How are BMS coaches different from other business or life coaches? 

Business Made Simple Coaches are trained to work WITH the BMS classes and their ethos. This means that they are proficient in Business Made Simple systems and have access to an entire community dedicated to helping you grow your company. 

Not all business coaches can assist in your professional development the way BMS coaches can. This system is designed to create coaches who not only provide insight and problem-solving but are adept at recognizing the strengths, weaknesses, and subtle nuances that make your business different from others. This is not a “one size fits all” coaching solution, but rather a tailored approach.

 

In Summary:

You are considering getting a coach and you wonder if there is a difference—should you hire a Business Made Simple coach? 

Our answer at LeaveBetter Coaching is YES!

A BMS-certified coach can help remove those roadblocks that you experience inside of your business. They integrate the online material regarding communication, marketing, sales, etc with your own business and your own challenges. 

Yes, you can figure it out alone. But, why would you, when you can have someone help you and speed up the process? 

One last comment: people tend to think of the cost of coaching as a deterrent. However, I look at it as an investment. If you walk away with 2x or 3x or 10x of what you were previously making, then doesn’t the investment seem worth your time and energy? Or if they help you hire a better team (or remove people for a better team) isn’t this better for your bottom line?

With the right coach and also the right engagement from you, this increased ROI is what you could be looking at.

 

head shot Miriam Gunn

If you are curious to know more, please contact me!

As someone who has been a therapist for over a decade and has been coaching people for over three decades, I am uniquely qualified to address your concerns.

Reduce Sales Sabotage by Improving Your Customer’s Journey

by | Aug 8, 2021 | Business

 

Get results—for YOU and your company!

Reduce Sales Sabotage by Creating A Better Customer Experience

 

How to Reduce Sales Sabotage by Improving Your Customer’s Journey

 

Wondering how to reduce sales sabotage by improving your customer’s journey?

Regardless of the type of business you own (or are thinking of creating), there are several things that can sabotage these efforts. We all have had the experience (similar to fishing) where we think we have a sale in the bag and then somewhere along the line, we lose the customer.

What gets in the way? Friction.

The other day, I was trying to purchase some plane tickets and the website was not working correctly.  I struggled for over an hour and then decided to try customer service. I had to wade (fruitlessly) through several web pages, looking for a way to engage in a chat, which was non-existent. Then I looked for a way to call, but all the numbers were international and I did not have this service on my phone. Finally, I found a way to call someone in the US, and the line was garbled, the person had a very thick accent and spoke quickly. I couldn’t understand a word they said. I got off the phone with no more help than I started and in the end I gave up. That was an $1900 lost sale to that company (three international tickets). It was just TOO MUCH FRICTION.

The fewer hurdles your customer experiences along their journey, the more likely they are to purchase from you, stick with you, and refer others to you. Here are several things you can do to reduce sales sabotage by improving your customer’s journey.

Related: check out this article which also expands on ways to avoid sabotage in the creation of your business.

Remove Confusion by Creating a Service-Level Agreement

This is a document that tells you how you will engage with the customer (like product will ship in 24 hours. Or we will respond within the business day. How about no hassle refunds?

It is interesting how many businesses (at least initially) will not have standard procedures for how they will conduct business.  It follows then that this lack of “systems” will tax all those working in the business, because things will have to be decided over and over. Of course, these procedures can be iterated, of course, but they do have to be established and then utilized if you want to help your customer have a smooth journey.

It also helps to have these procedures in place for the non-customer-facing parts of the business.  For example, if the emails come out on a specific date, then people both in and outside of the business know what to expect.

You can use some software like zendesk to track these sorts of interactions, to make sure that you are keeping your agreement. 

Creating a service level agreement will help reduce sales sabotage by improving your customer’s journey.

Create FAQs for the common questions customers ask. 

Add some of this info to your web copy, so that the customer knows this information even before they buy. Make this section easy to find (and possibly have it in a couple of places.  What you are trying to do is reduce the frustration a customer has.

Sometimes the FAQ section helps reduce the friction between the customer’s internal roadblocks to purchasing the product and the actual purchase.

To sum things up—if you want to reduce sales sabotage by improving your customer’s journey, have an FAQ section, make it easy to find. Enough said.

 

photo-of-people-holding-each-other-s-hands-3184424, business made simple coaching

 

 

 

Empower your Customer Service Team

If your people have to check in with their supervisor for every concession, you will lose sales and revenue. Think about the last time you were on some sort of call with some “help” person, asking a question or for an exception. When you hear the dreaded words, “let me go ask my supervisor” how likely are you to hang up? Or at least to want to hang up? I know I get supremely irritated at these delays (and I actually am a fairly patient person!)

Empower your team to upsell products to further solve customer’s problems.  Or to add bonuses to customers to prevent refunds or to enable a renewal of a subscription. Make it easy for your team to solve your customer’s problems without involving you. It goes without saying that everyone will be more grateful in the end.

If you want to reduce sales sabotage by improving your customer’s journey, empower your team to do so.

 

Streamline Your Payments

How many people bounce off a site or change their mind if the payment taking process is cumbersome?  Many.  Lots.  A ton.  I, myself, am extremely guilty of this.  If it is hard, if I have to wait, I leave the site. However, if you make it easy and painless to take payments, impulsive people are already through the process before they can change their mind. And those who are more thoughtful about purchasing internally comment on how easy and seamless the process is.  Consumers value a great customer journey.

 

Have a dedicated place to capture customer feedback

Where is that place where you team can see what customer like and complain about? Do they know where it is and are they checking it regularly? Does your team know what the customers are confused about? Is there a sense of the new products customers are expressing a desire for?

You have to have a dedicated way to capture these sentiments (email, twitter, DM from IG, etc). And then you have to have a dedicated space to keep them. Lastly, you have to discuss these at weekly, monthly or quarterly meetings for overall quality management and improvement.

Capturing and then responding to these bits of information from purchasers is a sure way to reduce sales sabotage by improving your customer’s journey.

 

In summary

 

  • Create a service-level agreement
  • Create FAQs for the common questions customers ask. 
  • Empower your Customer Service Team
  • Streamline your payments.
  • Have a dedicated place to capture customer feedback.

 

reduce sales sabotage by improving your customer’s journey and reap the benefits!

 

 

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Help your Business Survive and Scale: Do You Know the 5 critical Actions?

by | Jun 4, 2021 | Uncategorized

Business Strategy: Do you know the 5 Critical Actions that allow your Business to Survive and Scale?

by Miriam Gunn | May 29, 2021 | 

 

Do you know which actions are critical within your business strategy to help your business to survive and scale? 

Many entrepreneurs do not have a good strategy for their business.  There are so many variables to keep your eye on—it is easy to get distracted and lose sight of the critical factors to watch. 

As a society, we are deluged with information from every angle— blog posts, podcasts, and videos have so much information. It is easy in a business to find your efforts spread thin as you race from this to that. 

As well, there are many other activities that, while good, are not essential to the success of your business. Things like bonus structures, philanthropic endeavors, and the Christmas party—These are good and important parts of your business ethos, however, they are not essential to the survival or scaling of your business. 

Ask yourself: From a bird’s-eye-view, what are the key components of a business? Of your business. If you understand these and then derive actions from these principles (that you then implement), your business will flourish and you will scale over time.

Here are five actions that will help your business survive and scale! 

 

One: Keep Overhead Down to Protect Cash Flow

 

Overhead is the ongoing business expenses for anything involved in the cost of doing business that is not related to product creation, marketing, or sales. 

For example— staff lunches, replacing computers, purchasing company t-shirts. In short, anything not going towards your sales of products. Other items fall into this category as well, such as office rent, advertising, utilities, insurance, etc. These are all the costs related to supporting the business, but they are not the costs directly associated with creating revenue.

Companies get themselves into trouble when they lose sight of the actions that drain their resources.   

Investopedia wrote a good article on calculating overhead ratios. 

“Calculations of overhead exclude costs that are directly related to the production of the goods or services that the company produces.

Thus, in a toy factory, the skilled workers who make the toys and the tools they use to create them are not overhead expenses. But employees of the marketing department and the promotional materials they produce are overhead costs.”

When looking at your overhead, you have to learn to say “no” to things that aren’t necessary. (A side note, saying “no” is an important thing to do in your life as well. Our lives also seem to collect more overhead than energy to run them. See an earlier post about this here).

Here is the main thing: Is the overhead of your company easily sustainable within the revenue of your business? If not, you need to reduce your overhead or you will eventually run out of money. You will have to begin firing people or may even lose the company.

Keeping overhead down is a critical action within your business strategy so you can survive and scale.

 

Two: Make and Sell 

 

It is so important to make and sell the right product. 

Part of your business strategy has to be the continual assessment of the products you offer and then getting them to your customers.

You want a product that will be useful to people and that consumers will want/need to use. Is it profitable? Is it strong? Is it a product that people will want to keep around? 

How do you know if a product will sell?

Cat LeBlanc, on her podcast, Your Business, Your Rules, states that there are seven main reasons a customer buys a product.  Namely, the product either makes you more money, protects you in some way, makes you feel better, helps you have better relationships, saves time or improves performance, gives you an experience, or helps you look better.  

If your product does any of the above and then is marketed well, you will make money. 

It is important to decide if the product or service you are selling is in demand, and at the end of the day will help you grow as a business. 

Here is the main thing you need to be aware of: Is your product or service one that meets a felt need? If not, you need to develop something else. The market rewards products and services that address a customer’s pain/problem.

 

Three: Prioritize Marketing 

Whether you are a new company, or an established one, part of your business strategy has to involve marketing.  “If you build it, they will come.” is only true in Hollywood! 

If you don’t have a good marketing plan, you cannot expect to sell products. 

Have you ever steered away from buying a product because their branding/marketing was not appealing to you? Or perhaps the company did not have any real strategic plan for their marketing. 

The messaging for the product is what captures your attention, not the product itself. There are plenty of good products that falter, due to poor marketing.  

Business Made Simple has a suite of products regarding marketing and messaging. Their tagline is “If you confuse, you’ll lose. Noise is the enemy and a clear message will make you money.” I couldn’t agree more.

How many times have you seen a billboard and you have no idea what it is for? Don’t make that same mistake with your products. Be so clear that with a 30-second glance, a person knows what you are selling and how it solves their problem.

Here is a company whose marketing is exceptionally clear:

Clearbrand.com — from the first page, you know exactly what they are selling.

Another example of clear marketing: Do you want more traffic?

If you have a great product or service and market it with a plan, you will have customers. 

(Also: It is important to also have a good landing page to test your offering before you launch your product). 

Here is the main thing you need to be aware of: Do you have a marketing plan and is your messaging clear? What is your next step to improve your marketing strategy? These both help your business survive and scale.

Four: Run a Sales System 

 

Is your company holding out for people to purchase just based on the merits of the product alone? Unfortunately, there is too much noise now. Too many options and too much competition for your product to sell based on the item/service itself.

You have to have a sales system.

    1. Hire a salesperson 
    2. Hire a sales manager with sales reps 
    3. Add administrative help and a qualifier within the sales department – the biggest boost comes when create a sales pipeline and measure results in each stage 

Part of your sales system involves establishing a sales pipeline.

A pipeline is a series of repeatable actions that take a prospective customer from the point of initial contact to the point of sale. Here is an example of a sales pipeline:

    1. Qualify the lead
    2. Send information and schedule the call
    3. Engage in intake meeting
    4. Send a proposal
    5. Enter into the closing sequence

Your sales team needs a path to guide their customers to the point of sale. By creating a step-by-step path that is clear and goal-oriented, your sales team can then increase their product sales. It goes without saying that it is critical to monitor the process of every lead. 

Here is the main thing you need to be aware of: Do you have a plan for developing a sales system and team? Do you have any kind of sales pipeline? Is there any way to improve your existing sales process? A sales process is essential to helping your business survive and scale.

 

Five: Protect Cash Flow 

In my last post Cash Flow and Cash Flow Analysis: 5 Important Questions — Strategic Coaching for Business and Life, I talked in depth about cash flow. Successful entrepreneurs watch their cash flow closely. 

Failure to do so is like turning your back on the ocean. It’s only a matter of time before the tide or an errant wave catches up to you and knocks you down (and often drags you under).  

I started this article with a discussion of overhead versus cash flow.  Without cash, there eventually is no company.  For the beginning company or one in early development, lack of capital is the number one reason for the failure of the company (29% in fact).

Here are 7 questions to ask about cash flow: 

  1. How much cash will we need to create this product? 
  2. What is our profit margin?
  3. When will we start making money? 
  4. How will launching this product affect our other revenue streams? 
  5. Does losing money on this product generate sales and profits elsewhere? 
  6. How can we make this product even more profitable? 
  7. What iterations of this product could we sell for more money? 

Businesses that succeed ask these questions before to making the product to make sure they have enough cash flow to make/launch their product. 

Every decision that you make has to go back to these questions: how will this affect the cash flow? And, will this be sustainable to keep this company and product afloat? Without cash flow, there is no way to help your business survive and scale.

Putting it all together

list of things to do in business

Too many entrepreneurs approach their business rather haphazardly. They react to the tyranny of the urgent and whatever is screaming the loudest. You can operate that way while you are extremely small, but as your company grows, this will not be sustainable.

Failure to address the 5 categories mentioned above will result in lost revenue opportunities and possible destruction of the company.

As you create your Business Strategic Plan, make sure that you include these 5 critical actions to help your business survive and scale:

  1. Keep Overhead Low
  2. Create a Product that the Market Wants
  3. Market that Product with Clear Messaging
  4. Implement a Sales System/Team
  5. Monitor Your Cash Flow Carefully

If you do these 5 things, you will have a competitive advantage over those who do not, and you will have a company that both survives and can scale over time.

If you find topics like the above useful in the functioning and success of your business, consider hiring LeaveBetter for some additional coaching! Assessment and then action is strategic to the ongoing development of your business and life.

Reach out to me and we can get started working together. As a certified coach and therapist, this is what I do best: Helping people like you achieve the skills and systems you need to win in both business and life.

 

 

head shot Miriam Gunn

If you look at the above list and find these questions helpful in the functioning and success of your business, consider hiring LeaveBetter for some additional coaching. There are many other questions like these in key realms of business development that are strategic to the ongoing development of your business and life.

Reach out to me and we can get started working on that, or on your personalized Life Plan. As a certified coach and therapist, this is what I do best: helping people like you achieve the skills you need to reach your next level in your business and life.