Learning Styles
Have you ever had a team meeting, shared your wishes on what needs to happen, only to find that only a few of the troops do what you ask? I often hear things like “I don’t know how many times I have to say something…
Business regrets
What is your biggest regret in business? When I look back, my biggest regret in business was that I did not engage business advice when I bought my first business. Coming out of a high level corporate role and purchasing a small business was going…
The Power of Conducting a Swot Analysis
Don’t under estimate the power of conducting a SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats) analysis. When we are working with clients this is usually completed quite early on in the process to get an overview of a company’s potential and is a key component when…
Disorganisation
One of the things that we often encounter in businesses we visit is DISORGANISATION – sometimes it’s the boss, sometimes it’s the team members individually, sometimes (but fortunately, not very often) it’s everyone. Other times it’s the office or workshop environment that creates the opportunity…
What is your Hourly Rate?
The question of hourly rates is very relevant now. With costs increasing almost everywhere, business margins are being squeezed at a relentless rate. If you are in a service-based industry where your revenue includes a charge for time, then this may be of some interest…
The Importance of Budgeting Every Year
The majority of business owners we work with do not like budgeting. Whether it is because of a lack of excel skills, understanding the construction of how Profit and Loss or Cashflow statement are compiled or the fact it can be boring budgeting on your…
What’s in a margin?
Lately, most of us will have been dealing with rising costs in our businesses. In particular, the rising cost of materials. This is not a new phenomenon, but the frequency of rises on materials has hit new highs and is not showing any signs of…
Business Ownership: The dreams we once had
One of the first questions we ask of our new business clients is, “when you started this business, what was your dream?” You would not believe the wonderful and exciting answers we get! The sad thing is that many we talk to have “lost their…
A Business Owner: Fixing those issues
One of the first questions we ask of our new business clients is, “if there was one thing we could fix for you right now, what would it be?” You would be astounded the answers that we get! We all need to remember that when…
The Business Advisor / Consultant Paradigm
What do The All Blacks, An Olympic Gold Medalist and Bill Gates have in common? They all employ a coach. They employ a coach to help them “Create the perfect game plan perfectly implemented.” It is no coincidence that the vast majority of businesses that…
Are you seeing what you need to see in your business?
Most people have heard the terms “Can’t see the woods for the trees” or “becoming store blind”, but do you actually know what they mean? It is a common issue with a lot of SME business owners, generally because they are too busy on fire…
Sew, Mow or Row
In your business, are you the: Sewer? (The clothing type – not wastewater!!) Mower? Rower? The Sewer They are the fixers. They spend an extraordinary amount of their time (perhaps all of it) working on things in their business that are broken, or in need…
Keeping it fresh!
What a lovely weekend it was weather wise! It was so nice that it inspired my partner and me to walk Orakei Basin as we do once a month on average. As we approached the entry/exit point, I suggested that we take a new approach…
Cash Flow Management
One of the biggest reasons for business failure in New Zealand is not businesses not making a profit but would you believe bad cash flow management. This can be caused by several reasons. The most common are: The business is growing too quickly and does…
Thrive Before Five
This may take you by surprise – a blog article by a business advisor that is NOT about business. Nor about work, or management, or profitability, time management, productivity, efficiency and so on. And especially not about a pandemic. No, I want to share a…
Reflect to Achieve Business Success in 2022
Let’s face it, for business owners the last two year haven’t been easy. While some have consistently struggled to keep business going, managing through pivots and some hard choices, others have seen their business stay on course—or even boom. Regardless of the situation, business owners…
The Torment of not Sleeping
So often we talk to business owners and they tell us of their personal issues. Some of those simple things that without thought, tend to just keep going on in your life, worrying you every day. Things like not sleeping at night. Struggling to get…
The reasons why SMEs succeed with a great Business Advisor
As our world starts to try and understand how to deal with Covid, we as Business owners start to try and understand a new way of going about our daily lives, and indeed how we run our respective businesses. Small to medium business enterprises (SMEs)…
Hospitality – how do we get back to making money?
Hopefully we are all soon moving to a position where we can go back to work and start making a dollar or two to make up for the recent difficulties here in New Zealand. Yes, you are right in your thinking, some businesses have done well during…
Lockdowns be gone….
Hopefully we are all moving to a position where we can go back to work and start making a dollar or two to make up for the recent difficulties here in New Zealand. Yes, you are right in your thinking, some businesses have done well…
SME Survival in a Covid environment
Some time ago I wrote about Covid and the Economy – here is an updated personal perspective looking to a new financial year. – John Cleghorn The government is talking a great deal about New Zealand getting vaccinated and staying on track from an economic…
11 Reasons to have a Business Coach/Advisor
As business owners there is only so much you can achieve on your own. You need a sounding board from time to time. Someone that keeps you in check and helps you and your business grow. Find out why taking on a business coach can…
Dealing with stress
I doubt that anyone manages to live their life totally stress free. If you do congratulations, you would be one of a very few unique people. Regardless of the position we hold or the work we do, most of us have stressful situations that we…
The Business Owners To Do List
Most small business owners will have a ‘to-do’ list in one form or another, and for a select few it is all they need as they instinctively trade their way through their current business day, week or month. They manage to regularly achieve what they…
Is your business strategy ready for tomorrow?
The markets of today move very quickly, often leaving SME’s stranded in the past, as they fail to “keep up” with the changes. In today’ COVID-19 environment, we need to move even more quickly, understanding the difficulties and nuances of our particular market and what…