Whether your endeavors encompass expanding your audience, marketing courses, operating a newsletter, providing contracting services, or managing a large business, chances are your plate is brimming with an overwhelming array of tasks.

However, time remains a finite resource, and it’s crucial to channel your focus towards endeavors that truly make a meaningful impact.

Certainly, you must have encountered Pareto’s Law, which posits that 80% of our outcomes stem from a mere 20% of our actions.

Nonetheless, the true challenge lies in discerning which specific actions constitute that critical 20%.

Thus, in the spirit of sharing an older concept which is worthwhile refreshing, I present to you a straightforward process to identify your most invaluable tasks, enabling you to make the utmost use of your scarce time and energy.

Step 1: Engage in Unrestrained Brainstorming and Compile a Task Inventory

First and foremost, unleash your creativity and set everything down on the table—quite literally.

Employ the timeless approach of pen and paper, jotting down an exhaustive list of all the tasks you juggle within your business.

Account for every aspect, be it content creation, marketing endeavors, customer support, vendor management, product development, or administrative work. Even the tiniest tasks accumulate, so strive to include every conceivable responsibility.

For now, filtering or prioritizing these tasks is of little consequence. We shall address that in due course.

Step 2: Select a Primary Objective and Evaluate Your Tasks

With your task list in hand, it is now time to discern the impact you desire to concentrate on.

Which outcome takes precedence in your grand scheme?

Are you endeavoring to expand your following? Boost subscribers to your newsletter? Drive more traffic to your website? Or increase product sales?

Each objective necessitates a distinct focus, making it vital to pinpoint your most coveted outcome. Let’s dub this your primary objective.

Once you have defined your primary objective, proceed to assign each task on your list an “Impact Score.”

Employ a scale of 1 to 10, assessing the influence each task exerts on your primary objective.

Step 3: Assess Time Allocation for Each Task

Subsequently, make an estimate of the time you typically dedicate to each task on a weekly basis.

This evaluation will shed light on whether your time is being allocated efficiently.

If you’re anything like me, patterns will rapidly emerge.

You will uncover tasks devouring substantial time while yielding scant results towards your primary objective, as well as high-value tasks that you have woefully neglected.

Step 4: Compute Your Impact-to-Time Ratio

Now that you possess both an impact score and a time investment estimate for each task, calculating your impact-to-time ratio becomes a breeze.

Simply divide the impact score by the time spent on the corresponding task.

To illustrate, suppose your primary objective involves augmenting your social media following.

Let us compare two tasks to discern which holds greater value in achieving this outcome:

Task 1: Responding to administrative emails Impact Score: 3 out of 10 Time spent: 3 hours Impact-to-time ratio: 1 (3 divided by 3)

Now, let’s juxtapose this with:

Task 2: Crafting content for Twitter Impact Score: 8 out of 10 Time spent: 2 hours Impact-to-time ratio: 4 (8 divided by 2)

In this example, it becomes evident that the time invested in writing content proves fourfold more influential in expanding your social media following.

Now proceed to conduct this calculation for all tasks in your inventory.

Step 5: Prioritize and Direct Your Energy

Now comes the enjoyable part – arranging your tasks in descending order of value.

Once you’ve accomplished this, you will possess an extensive list of tasks accompanied by their respective impact scores.

Our objective is to identify the tasks that fall within the illustrious 20% referred to by Pareto’s Law.

Suppose you have a total of 30 tasks. Distinguishing the top 20% is a breeze – it comprises the top 6 entries on your list.

By focusing on this elite 20%, you ensure that your time is dedicated to the most precious tasks at hand.

As for the remaining 80% of tasks, you have several options: eliminate, simplify, automate, or delegate. These tasks should not commandeer your precious time!

Remember, the ultimate goal is not necessarily to reduce your workload but to work intelligently and astutely.

The post Reminder of the 80/20 Rule appeared first on WILSON360.

Jay Offerdahl and his father, Brad, founded Viking Mergers & Acquisitions in Charlotte, NC in 1996. Now, Jay is the president, and he specializes in mergers & acquisitions, customized exit strategies, succession planning and seller representation. He’s a master of preparing businesses for a strong exit! In addition, Viking Mergers & Acquisitions also handles divestiture services for the mid-market company. They have dedicated and experienced advisors, and a passion for serving business owners.

Since 1996, Viking’s team of professional advisors have successfully closed on sales of more than 600 businesses. Their team is uniquely positioned to help you navigate through a successful transaction. The majority of their advisors are former business owners themselves. They have been in your shoes and they know the unique challenges of buying and selling a business.

Listen to the DealQuest Podcast.

Following in His Dad’s Footsteps

Growing up, Jay remembers his dad buying and selling large machinery. Like many kids, he gravitated towards wanting to do what his dad did. Later, when his dad bought his first company and got into entrepreneurship, that appealed to Jay as well. He seemed to always believe that his own career would somehow connect to what his father did.

And, ultimately, it has! Not many people have actually co-founded a thriving business with a parent, but Jay and his dad have had great success with Viking Mergers & Acquisitions

By the time he was preparing to graduate from Appalachian State University, Jay did some job hunting and interviewing. However, he didn’t spend much time as an employee before becoming an entrepreneur. Like many, in hindsight he can see that he was spending way too much time working in his business.

Having learned so many lessons about building a business from the ground up, Jay is very aware that his own experiences have made him especially successful at working with other entrepreneurs and business owners now.

First Deals

The first deal Jay remembers being a part of was setting up a candy store kiosk in a local mall. He thought he’d hit paydirt at 22 years old, and was thrilled to get started. Now, he laughs a bit about that and has fond memories of his humble beginnings.

One of his major takeaways is that there is no substitute for hands-on time on the job. You have to get in the trenches and learn what works and what doesn’t.

In every business he’s been a part of, Jay has seen things that really work, and things that don’t. He’s had to learn what his own philosophies and processes will be, and also what he doesn’t want to be part of his business.

Intentionality plays a large role in this, and that same intentionality has been a major part of determining who he serves, and what kind of deals he’ll take on today.

I Don’t Live to Work

Jay shares that he doesn’t want to get on a plane unless he’s doing it for leisure. He doesn’t want his advisors to have to do so either.

As a result, Viking has intentionally chosen to craft a business model that allows them to serve well, without pushing them to revert to “working to live”. So far, it seems to be working well!

Because of the nature of their work, Jay also shared that a “repeat” client might be someone they see every 10 years! Their clients are doing transactions, and in some ways the work that Jay’s team is doing is transactional as well. That doesn’t mean they aren’t building relationships, of course! It does mean, however, that they aren’t generating ongoing revenue from subscription-type models that enable you to build profits from repeatedly working with the same people or groups.

Instead, they have to continually pursue new deals with new organizations. After all, how many times does a single entrepreneur or owner have a company to sell that’s valued in the millions, or tens of millions, of dollars?

Why Do You Start a Business?

Having seen hundreds of transactions over the years, Jay notes that many entrepreneurs lose sight of the fact that the successful end to their business is to sell it for a profit. No one will be here forever, and the options available are to either close up shop, or to sell.

Being prepared to sell can ensure that your work will live on, and can also prepare you to enter your retirement years with a solid footing.

It’s essential that you’re thinking about the right time to turn equity into cash in your pocket. Some of this is based on feel, much like the stock market.

Jay also jokes that nepotism can create problems here. It can be tempting to simply hand over the business you bootstrapped from the garage in its early days, but it’s often not the most helpful way to ensure success. He compares it to buying your teenager a brand new sports car on their 16th birthday. You could do it, but it’s likely not a great investment.

Instead, he recommends that you secure your own retirement first buy selling your business, then taking a percentage of those proceeds and use it as a down payment on a smaller business that you can plan to coach your heirs through building on their own.

The reality is, 2nd and 3rd generation businesses have profoundly poor outcomes. Some of that may be connected to the idea that a business should just be handed over to the incoming generations, without making payments.

In fact, Jay notes that when his dad was ready to retire, he bought him out. It’s a legally completed deal, and Jay did have to take on debt, and risk, to make it happen. However, he thinks that’s an important part of ensuring that he’ll show up, go the extra mile, and be committed to achieving success in his own right long into the future.

The Deal-Making Table

Jay believes that a buyer is paying for what the seller has accomplished, but is buying because they see the opportunity to realize greater success. If a company seems perfect, that can also mean there is little to no room to actually grow, which is actually a downside.

I’ve seen deals fall apart because the buyer is attracted to a company, but isn’t able to see margin for improvement. There can be a sort of ceiling, or cap, that makes a potential sale seem less attractive, and that’s something to be aware.

Funny enough, even though growth margin is a good thing, sometimes the person selling their company can get offended or upset if weaknesses (which are also the growth areas) are named. The ego can get involved and want to insist that nothing is a problem.

Plus, going to market can feel emotional, even when ego isn’t a problem. Your business is incredibly close to your heart, and is often something you’ve poured years of sweat and tears into. Jay counsels clients to really focus on creating consistent results that are intentionally designed with an exit strategy in place. That way, you can go out on your terms, rather than having the sale dictated to you.

Do Your Due Diligence

Professionals know what buyers are looking for. Jay and I are both very familiar with what sorts of questions are going to come up. We’re also skilled at helping you navigate them.

As Jay notes, due diligence and preparing to sell can literally feel like a second full job. If you’re not prepared for that, you can quickly become overwhelmed. Due diligence is the opportunity for the buyer to really assess their risk. Understandably, most of them want to dig into the minutiae in order to ensure that your business will be a good fit for them.

No one wants a lemon, and failure to do due diligence can result in deals that should have never happened.

Listen in to learn more about our thoughts on due diligence and preparing for a strong exit.

The post Preparing for a Strong Exit appeared first on WILSON360.

I’ve been an entrepreneur most of my adult life and from my experience, economic downturns are a great time to build a business. Today I’m a CEO and executive coach, and when business owners ask me how to succeed during tough times, the answer is: remove distractions and focus on what will gain you the most ground. Surround yourself with experts in areas you don’t know well, take decisive action every day, reinvent systems and processes that are more agile and effective, and invest in tools and practices that will make your business more competitive.

With that in mind, here are six areas to get right:

Digital Fluency

Get up to speed on data. Your tech priorities should include an analytic program for forecasting and benchmarking; updated accounting and marketing software; network- and cloud-enabled devices; a platform that improves customer experience; and cybersecurity technologies to protect your information.

Relevance

It’s the new competitive advantage. Being relevant means that you are constantly adjusting your services and business model to be in tune with your market’s needs and shows that you understand how your business resonates with your customers and the candidates you’re looking to hire. If you’re not relevant, yourcustomers and job applicants may go somewhere else.

It’s not easy running a company. But there are several strategies for being ready when the inevitable chaos creeps up.

Agility

Nothing can match the maneuverability of an agile organization when it comes to outperforming. Higher productivity, faster time to market, better quality, higher engagement — the list goes on. But transforming the business you built yesterday to one that will be nimble and quick tomorrow is tough. You need to break down traditional hierarchies, silos and structures to become flatter. You also need to put information and decision-making in the hands of the teams and people that do the work.

Leadership Development

Invest in building effective organizational leadership for both individuals and teams. It not only expands everyone’s capacity to be effective in their role, but develops strategic thinking and the ability to look at the big picture and excel at solving problems from 30,000 feet. Industry associations, peer groups or executive coaching and training can help with leadership development. Not asking for help when you need it is a missed opportunity to identify blind spots.

Resiliency

Every CEO’s resiliency playbook should include an effective crisis management plan that focuses on stress events outside your company’s control, a scalable strategic plan to create, preserve or recover value as quickly as possible, and a SWT — strengths, weaknesses and trends assessment to help you course correct.

Invest in the long game

Every business has four life cycles — startup, growth, maturity and renewal. Strong leaders make smart decisions about each stage the business is in, and how the market is changing and impacting growth. Your path to the finish line, whether it’s in years or decades, should always include a succession plan, a positive cash flow, a scalable service and a value proposition that is second-to-none.

In the end, “winds of change” have the potential to create strong and successful businesses, and strong and successful competitors. As a long-distance cyclist and as a CEO, I believe in being alert to changes in the wind as an opportunity to gain ground. A headwind for one leader is a tailwind for someone going in the opposite direction.

The only question for CEOs in 2023 is, how will you partner with the wind to win?

Reprinted with permission. GIE Media. Lawn & Landscape February 2023 (c)

The post Leading through a crisis appeared first on WILSON360.

(????on observed trends and biz ideas to capitalize on them)

Trend: Working from Home

1) Niche remodeling that exclusively turns seldom-used dining rooms, spare bedrooms, and garage bays into dream home offices fully kitted out for remote work and video calls and content. (sound, lighting, etc.) Or just designs them.

2) Garage remodeling including floor coatings, cabinets, home gyms, man caves, storage solutions etc. Turn large neglected garages into show stoppers.

3) Backyard resort makeovers (kitchens, firepits, pools, playgrounds) are here to stay. People home a lot need to play too.

Trend: Global Remote Workforce

4) People want to hire global remote talent but it’s harder to know the caliber of a candidate just from a zoom interview and resume. Start a company that tests, interviews, and evaluates candidates for a fee to help make sure they land all-stars.

Trends: Health and Wellness

5) Sauna and Cold Plunge Sales and Install. People are going bonkers for these.

6) Cold Plunge Manufacturing. I think there needs to be more options at more price points. Not very good selection and value presently. Hasn’t kept up w/demand.

7) TRT therapy. Testosterone is plummeting for some reason and its all middle age high income dudes trying to be fit are talking about. Make a zillion dollars treating it with pellets, shots, oral tabs, and cream. It works, it’s expensive, and it’s long-term recurring revenue.

Trends: Food and Beverage

8) Bars in big cities with zero alcohol with great vibes and all varieties of mocktails for the growing segment of the population that abstains from alcohol. Or more non-alcoholic accomodations and shame-free options at normal bars and nightclubs.

9) Healthy-ish fast food, with no seed oils, corn syrup, or other unpopular industrial ingredients. Think real sugar and healthy sugar substitutes only. Anything fried is in tallow, lard, or maybe coconut oil. Good fats, no bad fats, and lots of high protein / low carb options

10) PCaaS. Personal Chef as a Service. Subscription options. Real chefs cook at ghost kitchens nearby exactly what you want according to your dietary preferences, and bring you “home cooked” meals at whatever intervals you choose. Ghost kitchens in high income residential areas

Trends: Boomers

11) Golf Cart Sales and Service. Holy crap the demand! Not just for golfers. Every gated community has people in golf carts rolling around their ‘hoods. Have a new dealership and also do used sales, upgrades (lifts, wheels, and accessories) and service

12) Mobility. Sell in-home elevators, stair lifts, recliners that tilt you up, mobility scooters, wheelchair ramp installs, easy entry bathtubs and showers, etc. Hugely bullish on all this.

13) Tech. Household managed IT services for Boomers personal electronics and smart homes

Trend: Homeschooling and Alternative Education

14) Imagine an incredible Coworking space in a hot tech hub, but it’s for homeschoolers. Different levels of membership for different ages, and whether or not their parent is their with them or they need guides/tutors to supervise

15) Micro Schools. Hire a teacher, host the space, and charge parents of ~10 similar aged kids to all have just that 1 teacher so many days a week and make a margin for putting it all together. More formal than #14 idea, for small groups. Cheaper than private school. Check laws

16) Music and Sports. People are leaving public schools to homeschool in big numbers and parents still want them to be able to participate in sports and arts. Band. Choir. Clubs. Athletics. Etc. Recreate all extracurriculars as awesome small businesses

17) Autism and Special Education options. People need more and better care here and there’s a segment of the population that will pay for it if you create better options for them.

18) Homeschool consulting. Walk new homeschool parents through curriculum selection and a system

Trend: Pet Obsession

19) Have a pet resort as a hub and mobile grooming and training vans that roll out from there daily and maybe poop pickup routes too. Be the solution for everything except the veterinary piece… or maybe even rent part of the facility to a vet?

Trend: Transportation

20) Will anyone ever create a semi-affordable retrofit of classic cars to become fully electric daily drivers? Jeeps, Porsche, Corvettes, Cobras, Muscle Cars, all come to mind…

21) Auto shops. New cars are expensive and interest rates are high. Fix em

22) Flight Training. Soooo many markets have a shortage of instructors and good flight training. Recruiting instructors is the challenge. Pay them well and create a premium instruction and rental operation in a place w/a shortage. Nice planes w/glass cockpits instead of old junk

23) Aircraft Detailing. Great “sweaty startup” with much better economics and ROI on your time than auto detailing.

24) Aircraft maintenance, overhaul, upgrades, paint, avionics, etc. There’s a resurgence of General Aviation interest. New plane owners want upgrades & MX partner.

25) RV’s. I’m not bullish on new RV sales so much as I am maintenance, detailing, storage, as well as brokering. Lots of small businesses possible keeping RV’s shiny, protected, running, and trading hands on the used market.

Trends: Gen Z and Millennials

26) Adventure travel. Int’l adventure travel is back! Poor 20-somethings have been cooped up in the prime of their lives. They’re ready to see the world and spend some money on it. Create adventurous travel experiences for them.

27) I think there’s real business to be had with social media, porn, and smartphone detoxing and addictions. Whether that’s camps, counseling, or high tech solutions to high tech problems. Lots of people need help disconnecting and don’t know how to get it.

Trends: SMB / Entrepreneurship

28) Bookkeeping and business finance. Thousands of businesses being bought by serious operators that don’t want to use Seller’s daughter-in-law for their books and are ready to outsource their books to pros and get proactive advice on them.

29) SMB Consulting. Specifically EOS, Value Builder, and Exit Planning. Massive opportunities in the 2-50M revenue space where people are wanting to professionalize their ops/management and build value towards an exit. Not enough pros to help all the people that need it.

30) Fractional video production and Social Media Marketing Combo. Get a studio with a great camera, lighting, and sound setup. Get a bunch of SMB owners to come in 1X a month and shoot a month’s of video content w/you that you then edit and distribute for them across social.

Trend: Childcare

31) Childcare

*disclaimer, this post is personal opinions based on stuff I personally like and problems I observe, but I also believe there’s good money to be made in almost any industry, and there’s good and bad businesses in all industries.

The post 30 Business Ideas for 2023: appeared first on WILSON360.

Rugby’s notoriously rough but the lessons I learned from the pitch offer important insight for leaders. Great team captains, like great CEOs, embody a leadership style that focuses on their players — their needs, their performance and their ability to win together. It’s one of the best examples I know of human-centered leadership — a style of leading and coaching by empowering others to bring their best game.

In my conversations with CEOs and leaders around the county, most assume they’re doing a pretty good job. But when the SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats) results come in, not all employees agree. When faced with this disconnect, how do leaders close the gap?

Inspirational leadership is much harder than it sounds. But whether you’re coaching a team or building a business, your ability to connect with every person you work with, in the way that works best for them, will strengthen your ability to shift from thinking about what your employees do, to why they are driven to do it.

If managing people is the toughest part of your job, consider changing your approach. Here are eight ways to develop the skills and mindset to become a wiser, more compassionate leader of humans:

1. Address basic needs.
Care as much about your employees’ needs for autonomy, excellence and purpose as you do about the purpose and excellence of your business. Build a workplace and work culture that offers a win-win proposition, where the success of your growth strategy is proportionate to your investment in improving your employees’ work experience.

2. Make everyone feel heard.
Listen to what employees really want and make sure they feel heard and respected. Repair the trust of employees who are disengaged or feel undervalued, and show appreciation for employees who give their best.

3. Invite ideas. Not all ideas have tangible value, but in today’s innovation-economy, your team’s ability to generate ideas and rethink obstacles will directly impact sales and improve customer experience — and give you a team invested in and accountable to results.

4. Model trust. If you want your employees to bring their best selves to work, they need to feel safe. Modeling humility and vulnerability, and choosing transparency over control, will create an environment of trust, where growing from mistakes and moving forward is more important than being right.

5. Prioritize alignment. Expecting everyone in your organization to be in agreement is unrealistic. Instead, strive to find alignment and compromise on key points so everyone feels they have a role in implementing your vision.

6. Celebrate individuality. The individuality and diversity of your team is a plus. When employees are respected and acknowledged for their uniqueness, and your workplace is relentlessly inclusive, it creates a stronger sense of belonging and reinforces what it means to pull together as one.

7. Value and purpose matters. People are motivated when they feel valued in their work and can have a positive impact. Strive to incorporate context and empathy around work performance, and help employees realize they can and do make a difference.

8. Don’t forget to have fun. Fun is the shortest distance between productivity and positivity between colleagues, and essential to team spirit — that feeling of camaraderie, mutual trust and pride that inspires everyone to come together as one. If company team-building events have been on the back-burner, it’s time to bring them back.

With quiet quitting and employee disengagement trending topics, leaving old leadership approaches behind could be more than a strategic imperative. Becoming more human-centric could re-energize your company for years to come.

The post A Playbook For the Human Side of Leadership appeared first on WILSON360.

By Perry D. Wiggins and CPA

December 5, 2018

When organizations make hiring decisions, they’re counting on the people they bring onboard to be well worth the investment. Whether an employee is in a revenue-generating role or serving in an administrative or support capacity, the ratio of revenue generated to each employee can be a key indicator of how productive and efficient the organization is as a whole.

For this month’s metric, we examine business entity revenue per business entity employee, as compiled by APQC’s Finance Organization Open Standards Benchmarking® survey. The 20,905 responses were pulled from a variety of surveys across multiple organizational functions. The calculation used for this metric is the total annual business entity revenue for the period when the survey was completed, divided by total business entity employees.

Among the top 25% of organizations that are considered the best performers on this metric, annual revenue per business entity employee is $562,500 or more. Among the bottom 25%, revenue generated per employee is $188,889 or less. At the median are the organizations bringing in $322,835 in revenue per employee each year.

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, a median full-time employee’s pay is $887 a week, or $46,124 annually. If you add a 30% benefits load to cover the employer share of Social Security and Medicare, unemployment insurance, workers’ compensation coverage, healthcare insurance premiums, and pension costs, the cost of each employee grows to about $60,000.

At a median organization, per the metric above, such an employee would bring the company a bit more than five times the amount of his or her pay in annual revenue. In other words, that employee’s job would pay for itself five times over.

Business Entity Revenue Per Business Entity Employee

Of course, salary ranges and revenue can vary wildly depending on industry and business model. Regardless of how large that ratio can potentially be, every manager’s challenge is to ensure each employee’s contributions more than cover the cost of his or her employment, or even better, generate a healthy profit.

At the same time, each company has to have the right brainpower for its business model. Due to the nature of our work at APQC, for example, we have a large percentage of highly skilled employees with advanced degrees. Because the cost of such labor is high, we are careful to use those resources wisely to ensure the continuity of our organization. The key here is maximizing the productivity of our human resources — especially those whose credentials come at a premium cost.

Measuring Productivity

Organizations should examine their industry-specific view of revenue per employee. Those that fall into the bottom half on this metric may need to take a hard look at overhead and resource allocation, ensuring the balance of administrative and revenue-generating positions is appropriate. In addition, they need to check that all employees have the tools to maximize productivity.

To optimize productivity and increase revenue, an organization first has to start measuring and tracking the key performance indicators (KPIs) of employee productivity. Selecting the right KPIs can help an organization prioritize work, align work with overall organizational strategy, and measure progress toward established targets.

At many organizations, tracking, analyzing, and reporting KPIs is the finance team’s responsibility.

Choosing the right KPIs is a critical first step in the successful deployment of most performance management systems. These include balanced scorecard-type systems, which typically examine KPIs from four perspectives: financial, customer, internal, and learning. They also include lean management systems, which focus on eliminating waste, and quality-management approaches, such as using the seven categories from the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award.

KPIs not only help track employee and organizational performance, they identify areas for improvement and help monitor progress toward both short and long-term goals.

By establishing performance measurement systems and tracking KPIs, organizations can ensure they make the most of each employee’s time, knowledge, and experience. By maximizing employee productivity, an organization can move closer to the top-performer category in terms of revenue generated per employee.

The post Metric of the Month: Business Entity Revenue Per Employee appeared first on WILSON360.

The bad news? If you can’t communicate why your vision matters, the people you need most will never help you get your big idea off the ground.

I know. Because it happened to me.

A while back my partner and I grew a local landscape business into a regional powerhouse. We tripled its market value, grew our base and kept employees engaged. Our teams worked together to pull our vision over the finish line and reap the benefits of success.

However, there were times my ability to inspire didn’t meet the moment.

When I searched for a way to make our message more compelling, I turned to the motivational mantras of rugby — a game I played before business — to help our company become one of the greatest business teams in our market.

The New Zealand All Blacks is rugby royalty. They have a famously consistent team culture and perform the Haka — a Maori dance designed to intimidate the competition and energize the home team.

How did they become invincible? Was it showmanship or was it something else?

It turns out, it was a fierce commitment to win together.

How did they get there? They asked themselves three things:

• How can we be better?
• How can we make the team better?
• How can we make the future better?

How can we be better?

A conversation about change is the ultimate test of your company’s emotional intelligence and an opportunity to build trust. Invite your employees into the process and say: 1. “Here are my ideas about what needs to change and why.” 2. “I need your input on direction.” 3. “You are important to me and I need your help to make this work.” By putting your vision in the hands of your employees, they’ll be empowered to make it happen. Make the message and process bilingual so no one gets left out.

How can we make the team better?

As important as your executive team is, you need positive energy and enthusiasm from everyone to maintain momentum. Who are your company’s best cheerleaders? Look to your people in the field or the back office or someone you least expect who can be your greatest vision ambassadors. Celebrate incremental wins, recognize and reward progress on goals and make it fun so everyone shares pride in the results.

How can we make the future better?

Balanced Scorecards are the nitty-gritty of getting your company from here to there. They work to identify slippage, and improve operational performance and processes so your vision doesn’t get lost in the execution. As a management tool, it helps you choose the right things to measure so you can reach your goal, and puts those things into a comprehensive dashboard so everyone’s on the same page. In other words, it takes the abstract of big picture thinking and breaks it down into actionable, deadline-driven steps.

I’ve been an athlete and a CEO. In both, my success was a direct result of teams who made my game soar. But like jumping off a cliff and building an airplane on the way down, the more aerodynamic the wing, the faster your idea can climb.

Reprinted with permission. GIE Media. Lawn & Landscape December 2022 (c)

The post 3 Questions to Better Your Organization appeared first on WILSON360.

If 100% of your 1st prospect meetings don’t result in 2nd meetings, there is likely a good reason and a few easy steps to correct it.

Our company is best known for the Door Opener® Service. We get our clients the important, executive-level prospect meetings that fill a company’s sales pipeline with new opportunities. Successful initial prospect meetings are as much about having the right sales message delivered by the right seller at the right time to land the meeting as they are about having the right conversation during the meeting to land the next meeting.

If you’re tracking key sales metrics like the number of calls and emails or the number of prospects in rotation, you’ve got a good start on monitoring activity. While these metrics are helpful, they don’t tell the whole story. For example, you may have sent emails and made calls, but what was the quality of those interactions, to which kinds of prospects, and what was the frequency? Measuring the EFFECTIVENESS of the activity is as important (if not more important) than measuring the activity. One example of an activity effectiveness metric is the number of first meetings which go to second meetings.

A few years ago, a prospect of ours shared that her inside sales team wasn’t producing prospect meetings her producers valued. Before we started working with them, their meetings weren’t with the right companies, or not with the right decision makers or the prospects who showed up didn’t know why they were there. Her producers complained the meetings wasted their time. When I asked what percentage of first meetings resulted in second meetings, she told me that even though they had this data, it wasn’t a metric they measured. When she did the calculation, she reported that 37% of their 1st meetings resulted in second meetings. We were both shocked the number was so low. When I told her that 100% of Kopp Consulting’s clients’ Door Opener® meetings result in 2nd meetings, she was intrigued as to what we were doing that her team wasn’t to make this possible.

Why 100% of our clients’ Door Opener® Meetings Result In 2nd Meetings:

1. The right prospects attend. Sales efficiency starts with being crystal clear on which prospects are exactly right for you (which is part of our Moment of Yes® sales messaging process) and then being so disciplined that only those prospects are pursued.
2. So much value is provided during the meeting that prospects WANT the next meeting. Using a proprietary pre-meeting planning tool, we provide our clients guidance for conversation structure during the meeting, which logically leads to a second meeting. Further, when the meetings we set for clients are on zoom, we do a warm hand-off, meaning our senior-level Door Opener® is in the meeting with our client to ensure it goes well.
3. ASK for the next meeting. Our mantra is date & time! There is always a date and time for every step in the sales process. If a meeting is 30 minutes long, start closing up for the next steps (including asking for a date and time) by minute 23. Waiting until the meeting is over to get a next meeting only delays your sales cycle and creates unnecessary chasing.

Business development and new opportunities are the lifeblood of most companies. There is only so much time in the day, so efficiency in the sales process is critical. Monitoring the percentage of 1st meetings that go to 2nd meetings and course correcting if the metric is under 100% will help you close more (of the right) sales in less time.

The post The Sales Effectiveness Metric Most Don’t Measure appeared first on WILSON360.

Are you considering implementing Scaling Up or EOS in your business? Not sure which is right for you? This article gives a frank comparison of Scaling Up Vs EOS…

I just came across Traction by Gino Wickman and looked into his Entrepreneurial Operating System (EOS). It sounds a lot like Scaling Up: Rockefeller Habits 2.0. Is that a coincidence?

That isn’t surprising. Many people find the fundamentals of Traction oddly similar to Scaling Up: Mastering the Rockefeller Habits 2.0.

Both Scaling Up/Rockefeller Habits, and later EOS, grew out of the need to help leaders manage the chaos that comes with scaling up an organization. Though there’s plenty of information on how to start a business, and an equal number of MBA programs designed to help you manage a large company – there wasn’t a comprehensive “parenting manual” for how to scale up a small to mid-market business.

To address this gap, in 1991 I launched an executive education program, in partnership with MIT and Inc. Magazine, called “The Birthing of Giants.” Over the next decade the foundational ideas that became branded as the Rockefeller Habits were developed, tested, and continuously updated as the core curriculum for what is now called the Entrepreneurial Master’s Program (EMP), a program in which I still teach today. To date, over 1,800 leaders of growing firms have graduated from that EMP program and over 70,000 companies, worldwide, utilize Scaling Up (Rockefeller Habits 2.0).

Scaling Up (Rockefeller Habits 2.0) continues to serve as a foundational framework for EO’s EMP held on the campus of MIT. The Scaling Up content, for the past decade, also serves as the core curriculum for EO’s Accelerator program, helping companies scale from a few hundred thousand dollars to beyond the minimum $1 million revenue threshold required to join EO.

As for Gino, he was one of thousands of CEOs using the Rockefeller Habits tools and techniques – later detailed in my 2002 book Mastering the Rockefeller Habits – to scale and exit his own company. He later became one of our early coaching partners when we started the Scaling Up Certified coaching network (originally called Gazelles). He specifically represented and exclusively used the Rockefeller Habits to coach other companies on behalf of my firm – and was an outstanding coach for us.

As is often the case among entrepreneurs, Gino eventually chose to leave and create a modified system of his own. Five years after Mastering the Rockefeller Habits was published, he wrote Traction, crediting many of its ideas to what he learned implementing the Rockefeller Habits in his own firm and others.

What are the Similarities Between Scaling Up and EOS?

Scaling Up and EOS share a few similarities in their approach to helping scaleups.

They are each designed to help you get your team aligned around a shared vision, as Jim Collins recommends. Each includes structured monthly, quarterly and annual sessions to help you execute their respective tools. Both focus on helping you achieve your objectives, and both offer coaching and software to help you scale.

How Are EOS and Scaling Up Different?

Scaling Up offers what we brand a “performance platform.” EOS, as the name implies, offers up an “operating system.” Though both are related, as noted above, the scalability and scope of each differ significantly.

In short, operating systems are a “last century” term that gained popularity in the 1990s as personal computers became more prevalent —think of the early disk operating system (DOS). This century, modern firms prefer to use broader platforms that allow leaders like yourself to layer on capabilities as needed and that integrate seamlessly.

It’s also why some of the fastest growing companies are creating platform technologies vs. simplistic operating systems for entire industries. The “Scaling Up Performance Platform” provides this same capability for leaders of scaleups.

Scaling Up and Traction, as books, are also quite different. Scaling Up integrates (and acknowledges) ideas and tools from forty other thought leaders and their books and best practices. Traction is singular in its approach and based, essentially, on the ideas of one person. Here are some of the major differences:

1. Scope and Scale | Scaling Up Vs EOS

EOS is a one-size-fits all, plug-and-play system with a fixed beginning, middle, and end–and is helpful for smaller firms in the beginning stages of installing the original three foundational habits from the Rockefeller Habits: setting priorities, establishing metrics, and implementing various meeting rhythms (except the daily huddle – more on that below). EOS also has its own version of the original One-Page Strategic Plan (OPSP) from Rockefeller Habits. The average client uses EOS for 18-24 months, according to the 2 Year EOS Overview.

Scaling Up is more comprehensive and open-ended, remaining adaptable to the immediate needs and constraints of the business. As a result, Scaling Up has continued to produce new tools/models/best practices to evolve with the ever-changing growth environment. Scaling Up is generally geared for larger firms (25 – 2500 employees) and younger firms/startups wanting to scale more rapidly. Additionally, Scaling up helps a firm install the same foundational Rockefeller Habits and utilizes the original One-Page Strategic Plan and updated one-page Vision Summary. The average client uses Scaling Up for the duration of their business through exit–and will bring the platform over to the acquirer, if they stay on. This is how many divisions of Fortune 500 firms have come to use Scaling Up.

2. Strategy | Scaling Up Vs EOS

EOS centers on the “Six Key Components of Every Business:” People, Vision, Data, Process, Issues and Traction. Scaling Up centers on the “Four Decisions” (the 4Ds) every organization must get right in order to scale: People, Strategy, Execution and Cash.

A key difference revolves around getting a company’s strategy right. As one blogger put it, “EOS simply seems to skip over this fundamental on how it suggests a business should operate.” While focusing on execution without the right strategy is better than nothing, there’s a risk of leaving the door open for competition to steal your market and people, and for your firm to miss opportunities to create new markets.

Scaling Up integrates the top strategy thought leaders (mainly from Harvard Business School) into a one-page tool called the “7 Strata”— seven decisions a company must get right if it’s to dominate its market, reduce marketing costs, and generate outsized margins (generally 3x–5x industry average profitability).

3. Cash | Scaling Up Vs EOS

A company can get by with decent people, decent strategy, and decent execution – but not a day without cash. EOS, as indicated by its framework, doesn’t have a rich set of tools or technology platforms to help leaders make important decisions on how to scale through internally generated cash.

Scaling Up teaches the ever important principles of the CCC (cash conversion cycle), which is the technical term for how long it takes, after you spend a dollar/euro/yen on rent, utilities, payroll, inventory, marketing, etc. for it to make its way through your business model and back into your pocket.

Scaling Up integrates Greg Crabtree’s Simple Numbers and Alan Miltz’s Cash Flow Story tools and technology into its performance platform, giving leaders a comprehensive understanding of how cash flows through the business. The Scaling Up “Power of One” tool and technology platform allows scaleups to perform quick “what-if?” scenarios to see the impact on cash and profit.  And the Scaling Up Certified coaching partners provide a quarterly cash-flow analysis to make sure the firm isn’t “growing broke” as it scales.

4. Daily Huddle | Scaling Up Vs EOS

EOS, while replicating many of the Rockefeller Habits, de-emphasizes the need for the daily huddle–making EOS much more appealing, on the surface, to clients unfamiliar with this critical routine.

Scaling Up emphasizes the importance of a daily huddle, a short meeting designed to get quick input from your team and keep everyone aligned. Properly implementing the daily huddle saves hours of frustration, as well as time wasted emailing back and forth. Teams find, for instance, that every minute they participate in a daily huddle gives them back 10 minutes in their schedule. Thus, an 8-minute daily huddle will win everyone back about an hour-and-a-half a day.

Our coaching partners spend the necessary time to support teams in implementing the daily huddle. Executed properly, the daily huddle eliminates the “administrivia” that clogs up the weekly meeting, allowing it to be more strategic. And, though startups sometimes resist implementing the daily huddle; once they get into the rhythm of this crucial habit—a fundamental dating back to John D. Rockefeller and used by the late Steve Jobs and almost every technology firm using agile to scale their platforms–it’s a game-changer. If you want to scale faster, you need to pulse faster.

Although EOS promises to be easier and less time consuming initially to implement (its reason for de-emphasizing the daily huddle), in the long run you will leave a lot of money and time on the table. As Albert Einstein put it, “Everything should be made as simple as possible but not simpler.”

5. Technology Platform | Scaling Up Vs EOS

The Scaling Up Scoreboard is a comprehensive and mobile-ready SaaS platform used by thousands which integrates seamlessly with the Scaling Up Performance Platform and tools. Using the Scaling Up Scoreboard enables you to store planning, execution and communication activities in one centralized tool, with cascading responsibilities and accountabilities shared across the full team. All the Scaling Up growth tools, including the One-Page Strategic Plan, are a part of the Scoreboard platform. The Scaling Up Scoreboard also includes mobile-ready visual dashboards that keep you on track with real-time progress updates on your priorities, critical numbers and KPIs.

EOS has two software options for companies running on EOS. They are called Traction Tools and Ninety.io. Similar to the Scaling Up Scoreboard software, they allow users to keep track of their Rocks, weekly meetings, to-dos, and other tactics. EOS doesn’t own either platform, so integration is less robust. This is an issue the PE firm that purchased EOS is working to resolve.

6. Professional development | Scaling Up Vs EOS

Scaling Up, through ScaleUpU, offers leaders and their employees’ access to online accredited executive education programs–an outsourced corporate university for small to mid-market firms (several Fortune 500 firms also utilize these courses). Leaders can enroll in our accredited Master of Business Dynamics (MBD) program, which offers an entire suite of branded and professionally coached master courses around growth, sales, marketing, leadership, execution, HR, and cash management. There is also a Master Course specifically geared to implementing Scaling Up. These blended online programs have a 78% graduation rate among executives. (MOOCs, in contrast, have a dropout rate above 90%).

EOS has an online training program called EOS Basecamp, focused only on implementing EOS’s operating system.It offers training videos on how to use 20 downloadable tools, along with printable worksheets and guides. In addition, Gino Wickman and Rene Boer’s book How to be a Great Boss is part of the EOS library.

7. Coaching | Scaling Up Vs EOS

Both EOS and Scaling Up rely on coaching partners to support implementation of their respective approaches. Each differs in the initial and ongoing training and development provided these coaching partners.

EOS offers initial training to its implementers but does not require them to participate in ongoing education to maintain certification. EOS Implementers spend 2.5 days at the beginning of their journey learning how to give the introductory workshop. Its “Certified Implementers” must attend three out of four Quarterly Collaborative Exchanges, which are one-day sessions with their peers. “Professional Implementers” are required to attend just two of the four. Much of the training they get is on-the-job. EOS will often encourage executives within their client base to become internal implementers and then actively recruit them to leave the client and become full time implementers for EOS.

Scaling Up Certified coaching partners, located on six continents, spend a similar 2.5 days of initial education – and must participate in a minimum of 48 hours of continuing education every year to remain certified (some take part in upwards of 250 hours) – similar to the number of hours required by doctors to keep their license. Besides keeping current on the ever-evolving Scaling Up performance platform, Scaling Up Certified coaches are exposed each year to dozens of other thoughts leaders, helping them to remain up-to-date on the new ideas/tools as methods for scaling–sales, marketing, strategy, execution, and cash. They also have access to a wide range of complementary tools, techniques and advanced certifications that allow them to customize the performance platform to the needs of an organization, once they assess a company according to where it stands on the 4Ds. EOS Implementers are restricted from using any additional methodologies besides EOS.

8. The Cost of Implementing EOS Vs Scaling Up

Implementing EOS will cost you from $14 (for the paperback version of Traction) to $50,000+ per year.

Installing Scaling Up will cost you from $20 (for the paperback version of the Scaling Up) to $40,000 – $200,000+ per year for full coaching support. For more detail on the costs for installing Scaling Up see the article “How Much Does Scaling Up (Rockefeller Habits 2.0) Cost to Implement?”.

One reason for the difference in pricing is the amount of time spent with clients. Some Scaling Up coaches meet with CEOs and their teams monthly; facilitate two-day quarterly sessions; and lead two to three-day annual planning sessions. Weekly calls, if needed to fine tune daily and weekly huddles, are also included in many coaching packages. In total, this is 10 to 25 days of facilitation and support.

A typical fixed EOS engagement starts with one monthly session in the first sixty days; thereafter, the meetings are one-day quarterly sessions, with one two-day annual session. There are no in-person sessions in between. Some coaches check in by email or schedule a phone call prior to the session. This amounts to 5-6 days of coaching time per year.

Scaling Up Vs EOS?

Still not sure? We’re happy to help with initial complimentary 4D and Cash Flow assessments. We’ll discuss where you are and where you want to go as a business, and then we’ll readily share which options we feel are an ideal fit for you and your business. Contact us at 480-251-2366 or robert@theradixgroupllc.com.

The post Scaling Up vs EOS: appeared first on WILSON360.

Image from www.chiefsalesleader.com

Here’s a collection of concepts that I use when thinking about building a great process:

1. Have realistic expectations
2. Confirm you actually need a true Process (vs a reference document/Notion page)
3. Get crystal clear on what triggers the process to start
4. Start with low-tech
5. Enforce a culture of daily task completion
6. Contort your business to the tools
7. Standardize terminology, punctuation, and verb tense
8. Involve the right team members throughout
9. Use as few tools & technology as possible, but no fewer
10. Eliminate & re-order steps at every opportunity
11. Don’t overlap with another process
12. Don’t manually enter data at runtime if only used once
13. Just enough process – don’t overengineer, boil the ocean
14. Build for the common-case, not the rare exceptions
15. Minimize (but don’t eliminate) conditional logic
16. Put HOW to do it, WHERE you do it (self-documenting)
17. Make it easy & fast to start the process
18. Build in a few hours and deploy immediately. Capture the momentum
19. Improvements should be incremental
20. Don’t wait to start. “Minutes are hours, and hours are pain.” -Jon Matzner
21. You’re never “done” with a process

Resources & Further Reading:

Aimee Berkompas

• What’s in a System?
• Efficiency & Profitability
• How to think through a process (possibly my favorite article of all time on processes)

Other

• The Checklist Manifesto (required reading)
• Joshua Schultz Twitter Thread on Documenting Your Business
• Watch me build a process in real-time

The post How To Design A Process People Actually Want To Use appeared first on WILSON360.