consultingbyhart

The Essence Of A Legacy

Wed, 06 Dec 2023 13:02:11 GMT

It’s More About ‘Why’ Than ‘What’ you’ve done.

Every now and then, I’ve thought about how many hours I’ve spent writing business columns and blogs since 2006. My guess is that I’ve written 200+ columns. Each column hovers around 1,000 words and takes a couple of hours to write, sometimes more. So, that’s like a 200,000 word essay – or a book (or two or three books worth – the average novel is about 70,000 words). And a lot of hours at the keyboard. But that’s WHAT I’ve done, not WHY.

And since 2006, I’ve led and developed the Prosperity Partners Program for Landscape Ontario – two full day workshops about running a business - which I delivered to well over 800 business owners across the Province over about 8 years. That Program changed the trajectory for MANY small business owners. It also helped to provide a business blueprint for those aspiring to start a landscape business. But that’s WHAT I’ve done, not WHY.

I know from 24 years of running my own landscape business, that it's easy to become overwhelmed with all of the responsibilities of running a business. And to feel alone. That’s why my husband Tim Kearney and I started the Peer-to-Peer Network for Landscape Ontario 11 years ago. And if I were counting the full day workshops and Summit’s I’ve delivered and facilitated for hundreds of Peer-to-Peer Network members, it would be north of 50 days – with another 150 days of prep and research. And a LOT of driving across the province. But that’s WHAT I’ve done, not WHY.

And speaking of that landscape business of mine, we won 20 Landscape Ontario Awards of Excellence. But that’s WHAT I’ve done, not WHY.

Since 2005, almost every year, I’ve been a speaker at the LO Congress Conference – to thousands of attendees, on topics ranging from engaging the team, business systems, setting goals, leadership and more. And as well, I’ve spoken at Landscape conferences and run full day workshops across the country. But that’s WHAT I’ve done, not WHY.

I also sat on the Landscape Ontario Provincial Board of Directors and was elected to the Executive Committee. But that’s WHAT I’ve done, not WHY.

Three years ago I took on the curriculum overhaul and continuous improvement delivery for the Employers of Choice program, with now over 300 business owners and managers working hard to implement that robust tool box for better HR management and employee engagement. But that’s WHAT I’ve done, not WHY.

Focus On What's Happening Through You, Not To You.

I recently read 'The Depressed Motivational Speaker by industry consultant, facilitator and long-time LO friend, Jim Paluch. And this month, I co-facilitated another Feature Congress Event with Jim for the Peer-to-Peer Network, to share some amazing strategies to build resilience under stress. The book is a must-read for business owners. One of the most striking themes for me in this story is “focus on what's happening through you, not to you”.

This one simple phrase is so powerful. Without realizing it, I believe that's what I've managed to do, through lots of challenges and adversity in my own journey - always doing my best to show up with authentic advice, separated from my own stresses. Focusing on what has been happening through me rather than to me.

Leaving A Legacy

I never thought of my role writing blogs, or building and leading the PP, P2P or EOC programs, or speaking at Conferences, as creating a Legacy. That is until now. I don't think that we typically start our careers with the intention of legacy. I didn’t. And for me now, here it is – a time to take a look at my Landscape Ontario legacy.

The essence of my ‘WHY has always been to help hard working business owners with fresh ideas and business tools, meaningful discussions, and sharing a new perspectives, with the hope that my ideas and words will build confidence and curiosity, making the path forward a bit easier, more rewarding, and more hopeful. That’s WHY. Because I believe there’s always improvement to aspire to, and the importance of being on a shared journey, together.

When you look back on the lives that your career has touched, I'm guessing that you too are building your own legacy – but perhaps without realizing it – like I have.

From the people that you've worked with, to the landscapes you've designed, or built, planted, pruned, cared for, enhanced, watered, fertilized, supplied, or illuminated, your legacy lies within.

There are watershed moments in every career that are transformational. But we often don't recognize it at the time. Pride is our looking-glass in real-time. Legacy is our rear-view mirror.

Perhaps you have heard the phrase, “it takes a community to raise a child”.

I've been thinking a lot about the LO community in the past few months, and the 'children' (businesses) it has raised, both of mine included (Water’s Edge Landscaping and Consulting By Hart). This LO community has raised tens of thousands of 'children' in its’ 50 years. And just like you, here reading this Business Tips issue for maybe the first time, or the 200th, I'm grateful to be one of them.

A Fond and Grateful Farewell to Landscape Ontario

I am confident that all of the Landscape Ontario ‘whats’ I’ve done over the past 15+ years has offered solutions, and some inspiration to try something new for business owners and managers. And that my ‘why’ has helped many to realize that they’re never alone if they engage in all Landscape Ontario has to offer.

After 200+ business column issues for Landscape Ontario, I have just submitted my last one. I am sadly retiring from all of my work with LO. I am grateful to have had the opportunity to inspire others to challenge hard working business owners and to have shared my hard-earned wisdom on running a business and a team. For your business and your team. That’s always been my ‘why’, and why I love being a business coach – which I will continue to do in the years ahead.

I encourage you to take a moment to take stock of the legacy that you are building…. And to hone in on your ‘why’ vs your ‘what’.

Onwards.

What the Market will “Bare”

Mon, 02 Oct 2023 18:13:11 GMT

Every now and then, something comes across your desk or into your inbox that is worth paying attention to. If you’re a contractor who sells services to your customers, which include labour and materials, equipment and overhead costs, then this article is worth your time to read. Unless you are either entirely recession proof in your market, or aren’t trying to improve profit in your business. But if you are working hard to figure out a way to be more profitable, read on.

Sometimes the most successful businesses have all of the cutting-edge technologies, software, apps, equipment and training. And some businesses have all of that, and still aren’t profitable enough to pay the owner well, build equity and an engaged, career-minded team.

Enter J. Paul Lamarche, and his industry-altering pricing system. JPL’s estimating and pricing system was officially adopted by Landscape Ontario in 2005. In 2010, he wrote the book: What the Market will “Bare”. It is unique, because it is specific to landscaping, and is written in plain English. His system includes simplifying and explaining the most important factors in building a profitable business:

Understand your true break-even costs (the point at which you neither lose nor make profit on a job).
Creating a budget that includes all Overhead and Return on Investment.
How to use a precise mathematical system based on division vs multiplication (don’t panic until at least you’ve checked it out!).
How to record accurate overhead allocations, including items that are not part of your record keeping and/of cheque payment system.
How to calculate return on Investment (ROI) for all vehicles and equipment.
How to do a quick breakeven analysis when quoting a job (So that you know how low you can go on your price and avoid working for free – which is especially handy coming into a recessionary trending economy).
How to deploy a simple, inexpensive estimating system using the calculator on your phone and a few important basics.

In this easy-to-follow book, the main premise is that if your company has no debt load, then you’re more competitive and have a lower cost of doing business, which leads to more profit. The trick is how to get to no debt load (i.e. leased or financed vehicles/equipment) from where you are now, and stay there.

When I first heard about JPL and his mathematical system 20 years ago, I went to a few seminars, glazed over when he started doing math on a white board, and left, thinking that I could figure it out on my own. Several hard and low-profit years later, I called him and hired him to come into my business as a consultant. It was 2007. I was 15 years into my landscape maintenance company with 20 employees, doing a million in sales, and made about 6% profit (EBITDA) after I’d paid myself fairly well. I wanted an exit strategy. I wanted to find a way to build value in my company, and have it run without me working 80-hour weeks. I wanted to prepare my business to sell.

From the easy-to-use formula’s in this book I learned to build a budget, right-size the fleet and equipment, charge properly, eliminate ‘leakage’ on labour and materials, and gain ROI on my investment in the fleet. By 2014, I had only grown sales by 10% (by choice), but I reduced the number of staff by 25%, increased my own pay by 20%, upgraded the ‘fleet’ with no debt load, had a team of 3 managers (admin, sales and ops) running the day-to-day and increased profit (EBITDA) to 18%. By the time I sold the business that year, I was only at the office 1 day a week, and selling the higher end soft landscape projects 2 days a week on a 6-figure salary, with six figure profit on top.

“What the Market will BARE” was my blueprint for success. At first, it was a bit daunting, but taking the time to go one chapter at a time, one example at a time, and learning the ‘math’ was well worth the effort for years to come.

In this book, you’ll learn:

How to calculate your overhead and ‘break-even’
How to calculate your true labour costs, including labour burden
Benchmarks – and how they relate to your business
Understanding the difference between markup and profit margin
Setting a budget to guide your pricing
Understanding Return on Investment

Here’s just one example of a mistake in pricing that’s made by the majority of business owners, that this book teaches the reader to correct:

You buy a load of plants for a project that cost you $1000.

You decide that you want 30% profit on them.

So, you take the $1000 you spent, and multiply it x 1.3 which = $1300. So you think you have a 30% profit on the plants. Right?

But you don’t.

$1000 (what you spent) divided by $1300 (what you charged) = 76.9%. So, if what you spent to buy the plants is 76.9% of what you sold them for to the customer, then the difference, 23.1%, is your profit.

Wait. What??! Look at that again. You just short-changed yourself 6.9% (the 30% you want minus 6.9% you miscalculated), profit on your materials. For most companies who make less than 10% profit overall, this places them on the hairy edge of ‘lower than hoped for’ profit.

However, if you were to read ‘What The Market Will “Bare”, you’ll understand that division is the key to profit margins, not multiplication – as used in the example above. Here’s the division example:

You buy a load of plants for a project that cost you $1000.

You decide that you want to make 30% profit on the plants.

So, you take the $1000 you spent, and DIVIDE it by (100% - 30%), which equals 70%. ( This means you take $1000/.7), which = $1428.57 as the price to charge your customer.

So you now have a 30% profit on the plants… the $1000 you spent on the plants = 70% of what you charged for them.

This is just one example of simple corrections you will likely make to your business every year, sometimes every day, on pricing and profit by reading and applying this industry-endorsed pricing system. There are many more valuable lessons in the book, that will touch on and fix leakage in all corners of your operations, improve the decisions you make, and correct your pricing.

On a personal note: Paul was not only my business coach, we became friends, meeting for lunch several times each year to ‘catch up’ on business, for over ten years. He helped me sell my landscape company, and he mentored me in setting up my consulting business. Sadly, Paul passed away in June of 2020 at the age of 70. His widow, Stella, has kindly offered to give all of the proceeds of the sale of Paul’s books to the Landscape Ontario Scholarship Fund, to support education of our newest up and coming landscape professionals. I hope that you purchase one, and improve the profit in your company.

Team Retention – Part 2 Balancing ‘Lifestyle’ with Work

Thu, 06 Jul 2023 17:40:37 GMT

In last months issue, I discussed one part of the pandemic hangover – the impact of inflation on our workforce. If you read it, hopefully you’re well on your way to leveraging the strategy of paying at least the ‘living wage’ for your area vs the ‘minimum wage’. Here is Part 2 of the post-pandemic impact on our workforce: the degree to which your potential workforce is willing to ‘work’, their definition of ‘work balance’ and their ability to navigate stress.

The Lifestyle-First Habit

Without a doubt, the Work From Home (WFH) trend has changed the mindset of a scary percentage of the workforce across the country. Everyone I’ve asked in my travels this year, knows someone who still works from home (either hybrid or full time), who would previously have always gone to an office or place of business ‘to work’. Along with this trend, comes the ‘oh I can do laundry, make dinner and walk the dog (literally and figuratively) – while I’m getting paid working from home’. While the corporate world is busy creating policies on RTW, dragging unwilling employees back and creating consequences of the refusal to return to the office, employees and legislators are figuring out ways to force employers to pay huge termination settlements if employees refuse to return full time, and many employers are being forced to concede to hybrid arrangements at the expense of productivity and profit.

What does all that have to do with employee retention in the Landscape Professions? Lots.

During the pandemic, many had to be creative to make ends meet. And many benefitted from government subsidies for a LONG time. Employers did as well. This new reality plunks us squarely into an economy that’s navigating higher interest rates, less discretionary spending, unleashed inflation, and new habits of staying closer to home – for a living. For most employers for whom I write this column, staying home means not getting paid.

So, we have a workforce that in many ways want or expect to be able to continue this new habit of managing their lives conveniently, which includes fitting the personal ‘weekly tasks’ within the work week – so that weekends are free for friends and fun. Add to this, the ever-changing interests of Gen Z (18-30 yrs) whom are less likely to stick to one job for more than a short period of time, and we have a workforce retention challenge that puts us into a whole new ball game.

The New Retention Landscape

When the going gets tough, the leading entrepreneurs get creative. Now would be a good time for you to join them. What this all means to seasonal businesses – is that the model of a workforce willing work 45+ hours a week for 30-ish weeks a year and then fend for themselves the rest of the time, is officially now defunct. So is the model where employees must be willing to work 5 days a week, starting and finishing at the same time every day, and the same time as everyone else, or there’s no job offer.

Reset your thinking. Employee retention is now inextricably linked to the ‘lifestyle balance’ and ‘stress minimization’ that your company affords them. This means having conversations about wants and needs. And about the stress that each employee is navigating outside of work. (Yes, you read that correctly.) It means having new policies on ‘days and hours of work’. Policies which include room for flexibility and customization from one employee to the next. It means building empathy into attendance policies. It means that ‘training’ has to be a confidence builder and not a source of anxiety when paired with the quick addition of responsibility. It also means ensuring that employees know that they have to show up when they say they will – I’m seeing successful employers negotiate convenience (for the employee) with dependability (for the employer).

The hardest part of this is that employers are being pinched tighter on margins, to make room for more people on staff at any given time and a more complex scheduling regimen to balance it all on the customer-facing side of the business. At a time when employers feel the need to improve ‘efficiency’, many employees are feeling the need to rest more and stress less.

If paying the Living Wage is step one to retention. Then post-pandemic ‘lifestyle balance’ is step two.

The reality is, the higher percentage of staff under the age of 35 that a company employs (I’m stereotyping here – yet it’s a clear trend), the more likely it is that a significant number of staff are walking out the door because either your workplace is too stressful for them or their home/social life is. Some of you reading this might roll your eyes and think ‘so what does that have to do with my company’…. To you I ask this: “How’s retention going for you?” In all likelihood, I’ll hazard to guess, not very well.

This is a time to slow down in order to go faster. Slow down and talk to your staff. One on one. Informally. Go for a coffee. Pick them up during the workday and go sit on a park bench. Care, and show it. You don’t need to act as a therapist – but you could direct them toward one if you think it would help. You don’t need to be a ‘parent’, but you might want to keep a box of Kleenex in your truck. Sometimes people just need to know you care. If you do, they will trust you. If they trust you, they will be more likely to stay. If they stay, you grow bench strength and minimize the need to recruit and train. Think about it.

Retention. It’s not only about the money. It’s about belonging. It’s about personal ‘safety’. It’s about being a part of a social network that is supportive. It’s about realizing that the employers’ role has changed for the foreseeable future. Honest.

Team Retention – Part 1 Paying a Living Wage vs Minimum Wage

Mon, 05 Jun 2023 15:02:56 GMT

There are many ways in which The Pandemic left a lasting impact on our profession. Some have been extremely beneficial while others are applying pressure to profitability and team retention.

Among some of the strongest legacy benefits we’ve experienced in the last few years, the one that stands out in my mind the most, is the elevated consumer/home-owner awareness and appreciation for the benefit of landscapes and pleasant outdoor spaces. There was a huge increase in demand for residential landscaping – at all levels – and the related the ripple effect that spread across all green profession sectors – drove unprecedented sales, when many sectors in the economy were shut down or drastically restricted.

We have also seen an unprecedented influx of jobseekers – from both the sectors (ie food, entertainment, travel, retail) that were deeply restricted, and from those sectors where workers realized how much ‘safer’ they felt to work outdoors.

Along with this worker migration, has also come labour shortages in manufacturing and logistics – among other pressures driving inflation to levels we haven’t seen in decades. With higher costs of living comes demands for higher wages to make ends meet.

Many of you reading this column are living this new reality – which is putting an unprecedented squeeze on the gap between labour burden costs, and charge out rates.

While we’ve never before (at least not in my 43-year green industry career) been poised to leverage this level of increased demand and respect for our products and services, it is somewhat bitter-sweet. In order to meet increased demand, the pressure is on us to attract, acquire and retain great team players like never before. And we need to be competitive in our wage rates, benefits and perks.

Enter the Living Wage. It’s now a ‘thing’. And it’s a powerful recruiting tool when properly leveraged.

Consider this map, and check in on the ‘living wage’ currently posted for your area:

Living Wage is the new minimum wage for competitive employers. You can apply and become certified as a living wage employer here - then promote it on your social media posts and recruitment marketing across all channels. If you’re not already paying your lower wage earners the ‘living wage’, it will require a ‘reset’ to get your wage rates up to a competitive level. Similarly, your charge out rates will have to take a bump up also.

Many business owners push back on raising their charge out rates, afraid to lose customers on price. Those with multi-year contracts into which there are no clauses allowing for increased pricing or renegotiation, indeed have a challenge. But for those who price their contracts each year, or by the project, the room is there to increase rates. Getting past the ‘price increase’ barrier, requires a change in perspective.

For years, labour has been the top-of-mind issue. Consider this new scenario checklist:

You have a higher demand for job seekers wanting to work outside. Check.
You have a steady right-fit sales funnel. Check.
You are paying a Living Wage to your newest/entry level employees, and everyone else proportionately more based on merit and capability. Check.
You are charging out your labour and COGS plus Overhead Recovery at a rate sufficient to earn the profit you’ve targeted. Check.
Your team is engaged, excited to learn and grow into the opportunities you have laid out for them. Check.
You have 90% retention year after year – and have little recruiting, onboarding and training to do each spring. Check.

Let’s face it: The cost of training is huge, so the less training we have to do, the more effective and profitable our teams’ performance and pride of accomplishment will be. The higher your pay scale, the more likely you can build a better workplace in which everyone on your team can thrive. A win-win for everyone. When retention is low, then both lost opportunity and the training costs are high. Training typically requires your highest paid technically capable staff to spend much of their day/focus mentoring and teaching others – which means they are your highest paid and least effective people at the production tasks. A pretty expensive pattern to be stuck in.

This is a new era. One in which we have the best opportunity to raise our charge out rates (along with every other trade), in order to pay our staff well, to live well. And for them to want to grow a career within our professional sectors.

One last thought here: If you’re worried about raising rates, just consider that for every customer or quote you might lose by increasing your charge out rate, it makes room for customers who are ready and willing to pay well for your services at a higher and up-to-date rate. Better trained and experienced staff do a better job, customers notice, and see the value. Everyone is happier – you, the team, your customers.

Why Don’t I Have Enough Profit? Overhead Recovery 101

Mon, 08 May 2023 14:31:14 GMT

If you find yourself asking this question at the end of every year, you’re in good company. Many small business entrepreneurs (under $10M in revenue) work very hard on the operations and sales of the business, keeping all of the balls in the air to ensure customers receive great service and pay their bills on time. Often, working ‘in’ the business trumps working ‘on’ the business. Herein lies the problem.

We all gravitate to do what we prefer. And most entrepreneurs lean away from ‘the numbers’ and the nitty gritty details of actions and decisions that build a healthy balance sheet (and bank account). While operational excellence is important, unfortunately, neither the balance sheet nor overhead recovery factors can perform at their best when left on autopilot.

What the heck is ‘overhead recovery’ (OHR)? It’s the act of making sure that the company’s ‘fixed costs’ are fully recovered in the prices charged to customers for products and services. Notice I said that it’s the ‘act’ of recovering costs. It doesn’t happen automatically, and unless you intentionally add the right % to your costs of good sold (COGS), PLUS a margin for profit ( see my last column ) into the price you charge your customers, you will always fall short of the money you’d hoped to make.

Here’s why it matters: For most entrepreneurs, both the business and the value that’s built into it over the years, is the retirement ‘pension’ plan and security. Whether planning to develop a business for sale, or for making additional acquisitions, taking on partners, or franchising – eventually, the track record of profit and assets acquired determine the value of the business in the future. And the ‘retirement plan’ cash flow. So, to get there from here, overhead recovery (OHR) and Return on Investment (ROI) are important - so let’s take a look at the basics:

We commonly refer to numbers on the Profit and Loss statement as either ‘above the line’ or ‘below the line’. The ‘line’ is Gross Profit. Gross Profit is calculated from the numbers ‘above’ it on the P&L: Sales minus the Cost Of Goods Sold (materials, equipment, field/billable labour, subcontractors) = Gross Profit.

Depending on how your accountant has set up your chart of accounts, you may have to do a bit of fiddling around with numbers to be able to compare your COGS, Gross Profit and OH Expenses on the P & L (income statement) with the industry standards method. Accountants typically put field labour into ‘expenses’, ‘below the (gross profit) line’. If you want to benchmark along side your peers, then you’ll need to move it up ‘above the line’.

Everything in ‘overhead expenses’ should be ‘fixed’ – and not proportionate to sales. Here are a few examples of overhead expenses: rent, utilities, communications (phones, internet, software etc), small tool purchases / shop expenses, business insurance, professional services, bank charges, management and admin salaries / vehicles (not billable in the field), etc. Note that truck lease expenses aren’t in this list. If you have 1 or 2 trucks leased, it’s ok to include them and their related costs here in ‘overhead’ for a SORS (Single Overhead Recovery) method ‘below the line’. If either your trucks or equipment are financed, their loans will appear only on the balance sheet. If you have a larger fleet, all field trucks, equipment and their related costs should be reported ‘above the line’ in Cost Of Goods Sold.

So, let’s use an example on calculating OHR: If sales are $700,000 (100% of revenue), COGS are $455,000 (65% of revenue) and Overhead Expenses (including owner’s salary or income) are $175,000 (25% of revenue), then profit would be $70,000 (10% of revenue).

So to price a contract that includes recovering overhead, in this example, here’s the calculation:

Let’s say that the Cost of Goods Sold for a soft landscape installation = $2500, and you want to make 15% profit after recovering all of your ‘overhead’. Using the JPL formula I explained in my last column , here’s answer:

100% minus 25% = 75%

$2500 divided by 75% = $3300. So, $3300 is your BREAK EVEN Cost.

Then add your desired profit of 15%:

100% minus 15% = 85%

$3300 divided by 85% = $3882 is your price to your customer.

If you use the incorrect, but commonly deployed ‘markup’ method, your price to your customer would be $2500 x 1.25 (to incorrectly ‘add’ 25% Overhead recovery) = $3125 Break Even price x 1.15 (incorrectly ‘adding’ 15% profit) , your price would be $3593.75. Which would have left $288.60 in the customer’s pocket instead of yours. So, on $2500 worth of labour, materials etc, if you don’t properly recover overhead and profit margin, you have fallen short of your profit projections for the end of the year by almost $300 bucks.

Many of you reading this might be glazing over, and you might not have actually read the numbers, thought about them and tried it on your own calculator to see if I had a typo. And you might not yet have tested this out on your own P&L against your own quotes. I’ll encourage you to suck it up and try it.

If you are falling short of your goals, then please re read this, and my last column which you can find here . Use your budget for the year, and at the very least, if you don’t have one, then use your Quickbooks Profit and Loss Statement to get your total Overhead Expenses as a % of the total sales from last year, and make necessary adjustments to forecast your best guess on how things will turn out this year for Overhead Expenses as a % of sales this year.

Recover your company overhead in every charge-out hourly rate, and every material or subcontractor cost you incur on a job. You work hard. You’ve earned it. You just might be lousy at math is all….

It’s March, and time for a ‘JPL’ Math Revival

Thu, 23 Feb 2023 16:38:21 GMT

Many of my readers remember JPL. Jean Paul Lamarche. The North American Landscape Industry guru on overhead recovery. A brilliant math genius. A passionate landscape designer and contractor. One of our professions’ all-time top mentors on landscape business profitability, production rates, pricing and retail success. JPL passed away several years ago. He was my mentor, and my good friend.

Every winter, I spend most of my time coaching business owners on improving profit. And, I deploy JPL’s formulae weekly if not daily – mentoring landscapers on simple math – and it’s actually not that painful. I realize that many if not most of you have settled on your 2023 pricing, hourly charge out rates, equipment day rates, wages and salaries to staff etc. Many have sent out contracts months or weeks ago. What I also know is that there’s going to be lots of new business come your way this year – new customers, new accounts, new referrals and new employees. My question to you is: Will you price your newly acquired work as the season wears on the same as the work you’ve already sold now?

There are many different ways to determine what to charge and what to pay staff. Some business owners use what I refer to as the ‘dartboard method’, which deploys a mixture of guess work, intuition and knowing how to stay below the competition on price. Others use budgeting software – which can be either a very valuable tool to support profitable pricing, or a weapon to destroy it if not properly used. ‘Pie in the sky’ budgeting can be more disastrous than no budget at all – because it gives a false sense of success that never materializes. Some business owners use spreadsheets which track recent and projected Sales / Costs Of Goods Sold / Overhead – line by line – to determine best predictions on profit margins.

It always amazes me at how much variation there is to the methodology, and related success. Unfortunately for many – figuring out how important both proper budgeting and overhead recovery methods are – comes too late, and the business closes down. And also, I am amazed every year at how hard working many business owners are – year after year, without decent profit or return on their investment. So, I thought I would share a few classic JPL ‘aha’ moments for you to consider going into this year’s pricing strategy on ‘markup’ and recovering overhead.

Starting with ‘mark up’ here’s an example. Let’s say you have materials and labour on a small project that in total cost you $1000. Labour, Labour Burden, Materials (Cost of Goods Sold or COGS) plus overhead recovery. And you want a 20% profit, so you’d likely ‘mark it up’ 20%.

If I handed you a calculator, and asked you to add 20% profit to those costs most typically take $1000 x 1.2 = $1200 as the price to the customer. Right? Does that give you a 20% profit? Nope.

It gives you only 16.7% profit. ($1000/$1200 = .833 as the cost of the materials, which means .167 x 100 or 16.7% is profit)

You just left 3.3% profit on the table. When most landscape companies average 2-3% profit (as reported by LMN), that’s a problem. The proper way to calculate ‘profit’ added to Costs of Goods Sold is this:

$1000 / .8 = $1250 as the price to the customer. $1,000 / $1250 = 20%. Why divide by ‘.8’? Well, 100% minus the 20% desired profit = 80%. So if you divide by 80%, what’s left is the 20% you’re seeking. Look at the numbers here….. 1000 is 80% of 1250.

Right? Right!

So if you use a multiplier of 1.2 to get a ‘profit mark up’ of 20% on a $1000 COGS job – you left $50 on the table. If it’s a $10,000 COGS job – that’s $500 out of your pocket – if it’s a 100,000 job COGS , that’s $5000 profit you thought you’d priced in your ‘markup’ but didn’t by using a multiplier of ‘1.2’.

If you want 10% profit, divide your $1000 project costs (including overhead) by .90 = $1,111 price to the customer.

If you want 15% profit, divide your $1000 project costs (including overhead) by .85 = $1176 price to the customer .

If you want 25% profit, divide your $1000 project costs (including overhead) by .75 = $1333 price to the customer .

I think you get my drift here. While the difference seems small – think of a company with $500,000 in sales, with overhead properly recovered (see this column next month) and looking for a desired profit of 15%:

With the incorrect ‘profit markup’, $500,000 x 1.15 = $575,000. With correct profit margin calculated, $500,000 / .85 = $588,235. On $500,000 in sales, $13,235 is left hanging in the breeze, not in your bank account. That’s 2.65% more profit just by pricing correctly for the profit you thought you were going to get. That’s the hairy edge margin that many companies surf between break even and having enough money to get through the winter and keep going.

I hope that instead of managing disappointment at the end of this upcoming landscaping season, you’ll be happier with profit, by using the right math to calculate the profit you’re after.

The 7 Most Expensive Words In Business

Mon, 21 Nov 2022 20:32:39 GMT

Many of you have likely heard me speak of this concept in the past…. So I thought that I would round off the year with a little reminder.

As we near the end of a year that started with COVID-19 lockdowns, and ends with hope that we are rounding the bend toward a hopefully more ‘normal’ business year ahead, my attention is focused on how I can best support entrepreneurs and managers into 2023. The answer lies in the wisdom of the 7 Most Expensive Words In Business.

After travelling to speak at conferences from coast to coast this past fall, plus hosting the 2-day Peer To Peer Network Muskoka Summit – all of which were focused on ‘solving the staffing dilemma’, I’m absolutely sure that solving the workforce dilemma AND improving employee engagement is crucial to a successful 2023 across both the provinces, and all sectors. The solution isn’t easy. It requires a paradigm shift in thinking. Industry wide. Those who know me, have heard me talk about this for several years now. I’ve seen it coming, and I’m frustrated by the resistance to change from literally hundreds of business owners and managers I’ve engaged on the topic this year.

I’m going to give the following example for the Landscape Profession – as over 90% of my readers are in some way related to that industry. Listen up. I truly believe that we are in all poised on the cusp of a moment in our profession that’s unprecedented in many ways:

1. We have momentum of consumer engagement in the value of the plants and landscapes we create and manage – like never before. A positive legacy from COVID-19.

2. We have momentum also in credibility for our contractors – with whom millions of homeowners across the country have engaged like never before through COVID-19.

3. We are finally positioned to ride upward trends on pricing – where every customer will totally understand that our costs have soared exponentially along with everything else around them. Inflation out of control. Now is our moment to raise prices so that we can properly pay our staff.

4. Despite increases in interest rates, and increase in travel, consumers (primarily residential) are still showing more interest in ‘when’ than in ‘how much’. If you have it, they’ll buy it. If you can meet their timeline on a project, most prefer that to bickering on price.

5. Government subsidies and funding for Apprenticeship training have never been higher for supporting the costs of training your willing employees.

6. The GROW Program is unprecedented in preparing new employees for you , and for training budding supervisors – all for FREE.

7. There is public awareness of climate change, carbon emission targets, flood mitigation, pollinator threats, habitat loss among many other issues that is unprecedented, and ripe to leverage our contribution to solving each of these issues and more.

8. There is also a generation called Gen Z (under 28) who are willing to show up engaged, aligned, interested and growth oriented – if you make the effort to shift your thinking and adapt to meet them where they are starting from, and be the life coach they need to succeed.

I know that the biggest stretch for most owner/manager is to trust in that last bullet point. I’ve personally witnessed it Coast to Coast in Canada yet again this year. I know for sure that if your company has a staffing dilemma, then it’s more the fault of your approach to attracting hiring and retention than anything else.

In order for our Profession’s business owners to leverage this moment to it’s highest potential it will require avoiding the 7 most expensive words in business: “Because We’ve Always Done It This Way”.

Short staffed? It’s not necessary to stay stuck there. You do have options. Those employers who ‘get it’, aren’t short staffed – so I’m not making this up. FYI, Gen Z represents 29% of Canadians between the ages of 15 – 65. And they’re showing up with a different life skills tool box than what you need them to have (because you may have had stronger life skills ‘at their age’), when they come onboard with your business.

The bottom line? 2023 is your chance to up-level your business – despite any downward economic pressures you might need to navigate and despite your 2022 ‘we can’t find good staff’ mantra. Carpe Diem. Seize the Day. 2023 is going to be ‘Our Day’ in the history of our profession. We will rise to the top. We have hope like never before. We will be proud like never before. I can feel it. I can see it. Go out there and be the best you can be, showing up as leaders who inspire, protect and grow our next generation like never before. You’ve got this. If you want to.

Carpe Diem.

Thoughts on Motivation and Engaging the Team

Thu, 27 Oct 2022 19:38:46 GMT

After 5 years of focusing my attention on the behaviour differences between generations in the workplace, I’ve come to a few conclusions. Let me explain. There’s a long list of reasons why I’ve come to believe in these conclusions – which I don’t have the space to explain here. Instead, I’ll share the highlights (I’d like to say ‘Coles Notes’, but my Millennial and Gen Z readers might roll their eyes and stop reading.) .

1. The ‘Millennial Problem’ isn’t a problem in the least. It’s an opportunity .

For the last 10 years, many employers have thrown their arms up in despair and frustration at trying to understand how to work with Millennials. It’s actually not that hard. And, they’re not lazy. They’re not self-entitled either. Millennials are highly creative, and prefer t o work as a part of the ‘hive mind’ collective. They want to collaborate. And they need encouragement – in real-time, and often. They are now in their late 20’s through early 40’s.

The employer / employee clash comes when Gen X and Baby boomers are operating with the old paradigm toward work in our profession – commit to the company, show up, work hard, pull your own weight, hit the targets/metrics you’re told to achieve, get your cheque, and as for feedback, well no news is good news now then isn’t it!? Well, actually, no, not any more. If you’re a Gen X (early 40’s thru late 50’s) or Baby Boomer (60-ish thru early 70’s), then you’re likely frustrated with the ‘attitude’ of most ‘young people’ that you hire because of the work ethic you perceive them to have.

And the Millennial employees who find themselves in the midst of companies led like that, run screaming in the opposite direction, in search for a workplace where the will be treated as a collaborative and valued person on the team – from day one. As for the ‘show up’ part – Millennials are social, and community minded – they crave being valued and appreciated. If there’s something in their personal life or circle that trumps your targets and budgets, then they’re likely not showing up for you every day. And they dislike conflict – so if they know they’ll get ‘in trouble’ for taking a day off – they just won’t call in and get the hassle, they just don’t show up and then based on the reaction when they return to work – they either shrug it off or leave altogether. They rarely will work the long hours in a day or week that you might. But they will work as hard, if you meet them on their terms. Paid time off is a great example of helping Millennials feel more committed to the company. Paid time to do a community / volunteer project can be a very sticky benefit to offer.

2. Gen Z is wired differently than Millennials. Very differently .

This cohort (now in their mid 20’s and younger) aren’t as ‘needy’ as millennials may seem. They aren’t as set on being a part of a collaborating, co-creating group. This generation has a bit more independence. They want to know how they are doing, and measure their own progress or success on individually assigned projects or goals – or on their own ‘part’ of a workday team plan.

And, this generation is also highly curious, and extremely protective of their life-work balance. Note that ‘life’ comes first here. They are timid, curious, social and a bit flighty. Easily intimidated. Sensitive to criticism of either themselves or of others around them, if it is not accompanied with coaching for improved results. They aren’t afraid to learn but they insist on feeling they’ve been set up for success. If they don’t, they’ll bolt for the door. Culture therefore, is critical. This generation needs to feel autonomy – a tough challenge for employers running crews, and welcoming ‘entry-level’ workers into a company that’s set up with a hierarchy of levels of authority and control.

The companies that are successful engaging this vibrant, bright and curious generation, are those who have shifted the leadership paradigm around the meaning of ‘hard work’ and ‘life balance’. And if you want to have success building the team you need, then get with this program – Life Work Balance. Ask them what that means to them, and engage in the conversation.

3. Motivating the team is only a challenge when the generation trying to motivate has a different paradigm around what’s meaningful and important .

I was recently coaching a husband and wife business owner Millennial team. They were asking for advice on motivation. After proudly describing a bonus system they’d devised for their teams, including how the shared ‘leader board’ displayed employee ‘points’ earned on performance each month – and who was ‘leading/winning’ the contest, I asked them if the program worked. They both laughed and said it was an absolute failure. One of the terms they kept using was ‘here’s the numbers we need to meet’. BINGO. Externally defined, meaningless goals in a bonus system based on achieving numbers that were meaningful to the owners – not to the team. AND, a system designed to publicly shame those who were struggling to meet or compete with the targets. Doomed to fail. The team btw are mostly younger Millennials and Gen Z over 20.

The solution we discussed was Gen Z-based thinking: Stop talking about gross profit or job costing targets up front. Start talking about what is scheduled for any given crew for a week, and let them figure out how to get the work done on time, and to standard. Consider setting in place more of a ‘salary’ than ‘hourly rate’. It’s easier than you might think.

Seriously, as an employer, if you were to turn it around into a Gen Z context – and say ‘I’ll pay you $X.xx per week for the season. Some weeks will be heavier than others depending on the time of year. The attention to detail has to be met. The schedule will be reasonable. If you and your team mates can figure out a way to get the work done at or above standard, in less time, then you get paid time off. ‘ I.e. be super efficient and diligent, show up and dig in, and you can get hot or rainy days off, or half days, or Fridays off , or start later each day – etc.

Individually motivated to get what they want – more time off – and steady paycheque. BINGO.

If you’re struggling with finding the motivation miracle – My suggestion is simple: Look in the mirror. If you see any grey hair, odds are that your company might be running ‘behind the times’.

What’s up with Gen Z?

Thu, 22 Sep 2022 17:01:02 GMT

Ahhh yes. Generation Z. That wonderfully energetic project-focused generation amongst every company, who are under the age of 29. A tricky bunch – if you’re an employer over the age of 45. The statistics show (gallup) that they will change jobs at least 3 times more often than their older cohorts – Gen X and Baby Boomers. So what does this mean to you? It means that you have to adjust your recruiting strategy to reflect this new reality. Because, it’s not going away any time soon. Job hopping is here to stay. For the most part.

Careers look different now than ever before. We’ve shifted from Boomers and Gen X learning a trade, graduating college and expecting to have a long career with a single employer – at the end of which we would get the customary gold watch and a pension. The ‘status quo’ was that companies could count on a steady and long-term work force and their employees would enjoy a lifetime of predictable income and benefits.

Fast forward to 2022, and we find a career-driven generation who know their worth, who are taking advantage of the job seekers market, and who don’t accept status quo. If you want to attract, hire and retain them, you have to get with the program. The Gen Z Program and meet them where they are. They’re not going to have it any other way.

In the absence of any handy Canadian statistics on this topic, I look south of the border to the Bureau of Labor Statistics for context and research: I found that the median tenure of workers aged 55-64 is 10 years, while of the 25-34 age group – it’s 2.8 years. Short term job seekers are here to stay with this cohort looking to change employers in less that 3 years and only a quarter of them looking for a 5+ year opportunity in the same company.

Also, over a third of them expect multiple job offers every time they look to switch jobs - which they do whenever they’re looking for meaningful work where they can make an impact, learn new skills and build on their work experience for their next gig (i.e. ‘what’s in it for me if I work for you’?). They are bold and fearless of new situations and aren’t afraid to pursue a new opportunity.

Why is this a big deal? Worth noting, Gen Z and Millennials combined make up over 40% of the current work force. And the cost of high turnover might be higher than you think: according to labor statistics by the Center for American Progress , the cost of losing an employee can range from 16% of what you pay them annually, to 213% for highly trained positions. These include costs for people on your team, who already have other work to do, to be attracting, hiring, onboarding, and training new recruits. I encourage you to stop and think about that for a moment… If up to 40% of your team are either leaving or new every three years on average – this cost is having a huge, and possibly uncalculated negative impact on your bottom line – not to mention team morale and customer confidence.

So now what?

I think that the best way forward is to develop a recruitment team who are focused on developing candidate pipelines and focus on trendy strategies for employee retention. The key is to be building long-term strategies that not only respond to job hoppers, but that stay one step ahead of them.

How can you do this? Here are a few tips to help you attract the right candidates, build a strong hiring brand, and be the winning employer when candidates have multiple offers

Create a ‘candidate relationship’ strategy, to continually foster relationships with candidates throughout their career journey, even if they don’t accept your offer – the first time. There are software products out there to help you manage ongoing relationships with candidates. Keep the door open, even if they don’t accept your offer. They might be back if things don’t work out, or if they decide to give you another try.
Promote how candidates will making an impact and enjoy meaningful work. We know that Millennials and Gen Z both prioritize salary and work-life balance as the most important factors when considering a new job. One big difference though is that Gen Z places increased value on job duties or projects where Millennials look for career growth opportunities. Job ads could include specific timelines and plans with actionable first steps a candidate could take once hired.
Slow down to go faster. Taking less time to hire is the end goal, after retention. Reduce costs of attracting recruiting and onboarding by creating a ‘rinse and repeat’ process. Make sure that you ‘bake in’ questions that identify potential bad hires early on in the process. There’s a high cost associated with constantly returning to the drawing board on hiring. There are even higher costs of being short staffed/ limited in fulfilling your client service obligations.

While I realize that even the best hiring questions can’t prevent you losing a great worker who prematurely heads for the exit , I believe that you can proactively minimize the risk of an unexpectedly open critical position.

So, as you head into the next season, ask yourself, ‘What can we do to best ensure our business isn’t caught flat-footed when it’s time to find a quality replacement or make an addition to our growing team’? ‘What can we ‘rinse and repeat’ in our recruiting process?’

It’s Good To Be Sticky

Tue, 02 Aug 2022 16:59:16 GMT

With ongoing challenges in recruitment and retention of employees, I think it’s a good time of year to check in with how your employees are feeling about their work with your company… and what’s ‘next’ for them – and you.

The challenge with starting to explore ‘what’s next’ with your younger team members (Gen Z, the under 25’s in particular), is that without being properly prepared, you might be opening up questions with them for which you haven’t yet developed great answers. This column provides a glance into a framework worth considering to help you have that ‘what’s next’ discussion successfully.

When working with a coaching client on developing career paths recently, I realized that many employers simply either haven’t yet or don’t know how to chart a path for employees to follow.

To help you chart that path, I want to throw out a company structure idea: Agile Cooperative vs Top Down Hierarchy. An agile cooperative is a type of company structure, where the responsibilities of each person are very clear, and different people make different types or ‘levels’ of decisions based on skills and knowledge (capability). Instead of the ‘top down’ structure where information mostly ‘flows down’ to the field workers / labourers, think more of a wheel with spokes than an organizational chart with different levels of seniority. In an agile cooperative, the number of years of tenure rarely equate to a raise or promotion. Raises are tied to merit, skill, knowledge etc.

Charting out an employee pathway starts with first being crystal clear on what their (or any) company position requires for skills and knowledge. In additio n, it’s also pretty tough to entice young workers to stay when they haven’t yet realized that there are three key ingredients to earning more money or responsibility: 1. Skills. 2. Knowledge. 3. Will. Having just two of the three doesn’t cut it.

To keep the people you have, they need to know ‘what’s in it for me if I stay? My answer to that is typically something like: “Well, that’s pretty much up to you”.

With clear job descriptions that describe each role, the responsibilities, the required results of effort, the skills and qualifications – then you can show the path forward (note – I didn’t say ‘ the path upwards’). Here’s an example (with very approximate* pay rate ranges):

Click on image to enlarge.

The movement between positions is intended to be lateral, not upwards.

My premise for this is simple: when you realize who Gen Z is, and why they think the way they do, it’s easy: They don’t want to start at the bottom. None of us do or ever did, but many of us ‘had to’ and worked hard to ‘move up’. Gen Z simply have more options and resources at their finger tips than each of the generations before them and they are impatient – they don’t want to start at the bottom. They are looking for psychological safety, fairness and opportunity. When you can teach them that SKILLS + KNOWLEDGE = OPPORTUNITY, that could well be the glue that encourages them to stay.

Employees can’t gain either if they keep moving around job to job. You need to convince them of that.

A more challenging economic environment is now perched on our doorstep. When companies start to feel consumers pull back from spending, then ‘newer’ employees are let go first. Talking to your team about staying – so that they avoid becoming a victim of downsizing – is a worthy conversation.

The reality is that without a clear path, there’s a lot of great young workers who have lost hope, who feel adrift, and who are restless, often believing at a different job, it will be better. However, when they can see a way forward with your company and have the reassurance that there is a ‘safe’ journey where they will be respected, valued and be appreciated for their contribution no matter what job title they have, your company will be more STICKY.

STICKY means keeping the team players you need, and having an engaged team with the WILL to work hard, be dependable, learn, grow and improve their opportunities. The tide will start to turn a bit more in favour of employers in the months/year ahead I’m fairly certain. What will you do to be ready and well equipped , encouraging your staff to stay, learn, engage and grow with your team?

Merely Urgent vs Really Important — The Difference Matters

Tue, 14 Jun 2022 18:01:46 GMT

Like many busy small business owners, you might find yourself in the role of ‘fire chief’ and ‘solver of all crises’ more often than you’d like to admit, or even planned on when you signed up as entrepreneur. At the end of the day, this can leave you both running on empty AND frustrated because you didn’t get to the list of things you ought to have. If, like many of my readers, you’re managing a seasonal business, you are most likely nodding your head in agreement already.

If so, read on. This column is about being effective rather than being ‘crazy’ busy. I’m talking about the common confusion between what is merely urgent and what is really important. To quote Dwight Eisenhower: “What is important is seldom urgent and what is urgent is seldom important."

If you think about real-time social media, or an email campaign from a store you frequent as an example, it exploits our weakness for focusing on the urgent.

To clarify the difference between the two:

Urgent: Urgent matters are those which need your immediate attention and action. They either have a visible and looming deadline, or they are sudden and unanticipated emergencies.

Important: Important tasks are those that pursue achieving goals or dreams. They rarely have an ‘in your face’ deadline. They typically lurk in the weeds of your ‘to do’ list.

THE URGENT-IMPORTANT MATRIX:  This is one of the simplest yet most profound concepts in time management, put forward by Dwight Eisenhower, promoted by Winston Churchill and later popularized by author Stephen Covey.

There are four quadrants formed by the combination of the words important and urgent.

Quadrant 1: Important and Urgent:

Tax Filing Deadline.
A Crying Baby.
Preparation for an important meeting.
Medical emergencies.
Relationship crisis, Financial crisis.
Depression, Severe Anxiety Intolerable stress.

This is an Action Quadrant . These are things that affect you significantly and tasks that have to be tackled immediately. Some of these tasks are ‘expected urgencies’ caused because we procrastinated until almost too late. Some are ‘unexpected urgencies’ like a medical emergency or accident, a customer relationship turned sour etc. This is a reactive quadrant – preventing you from being proactive. The long term effect of operating in this quadrant is burn out, making excuses, habitually blaming others, low team morale, short-sighted decisions etc.

Quadrant 2: Not Urgent but Important:

Self-improvement: reading, research, and reflection.
Clarifying beliefs and values, crafting your dreams.
Setting your goals, priorities, and plans.
All your New Year resolutions are quadrant 2 activities.
Training and learning new relevant skills.
Recreation, vacation, excursion, hobbies.
Building and nurturing human relationships, networking.
Health choices, car and home maintenance, choosing proper insurance, managing savings & investments.

Quadrant 2 is a ‘decision facilitator’. It is a quadrant which prepares you for decisions by clarifying your thoughts, priorities and it’s where you focus to engage in effective activities.

The focus of quadrant 2 is on the end results, on what is really important versus what is merely urgent. These are important matters that are not tagged as urgent. These are “sow now and reap later” activities. There is nobody with a stick chasing us to do these tasks. These are tasks where moving the needle in the right direction is more important than how fast you’re moving the needle. This quadrant gives direction and quality to our lives through fulfillment, control, fewer crises and regrets.

Quadrant 3: Urgent but not Important:

1 Interrupting phone calls.
Unexpected visitor.
Most emails, messages, or social media notifications.
Requests for help from others because you mostly involved in quadrant 4) activities.
Social activities others want you to do but that don’t align with your purpose.
Meetings, functions, ceremonies where your presence does not matter either for you or for the other.
Activities th at support your ego, not your goals.

I like to call this the ‘rabbit hole’ quadrant. These are tasks that you just think are important. But, once you start understanding the big difference between urgency and importance you realize that there are many things you often do which fit here. If some tasks here seem unavoidable, try and delegate them to others and go back to Quadrant 2. We are often mired in this quadrant because we lost sight of strategy and goals. If you have a hard time saying ‘no’, you’re likely here often. AND, if you have what I call ‘the Hero Syndrome’ (always looking for ways to be appreciated, please others or be irreplaceable), you’re here often and likely can’t see it… even reading this article.

This is a deception quadrant where you are busy, without doing anything important. People spend most of their time in quadrant 3 thinking that they are activities of quadrant 1. There are many activities that the ego can create as urgent. Urgent to impress, to be faster, stronger, better, smarter, more important, more successful etc. Sooner or later, all of these become stressful and create urgencies where there are none. Relax, think and act.

Quadrant 4: Not Urgent and Not Important:

Gossip, long telephone conversations, social media like WhatsApp, facebook, twitter, reading junk e-mails etc.
Going down rabbit holes… getting distracted by online ads, clicking on them and getting absorbed unexpectedly.
Excessive breaks, daydreaming, interrupting others
Mindless TV shows, video games, computer games, watching sports.
Attending lectures without introspection, or learning within your ‘comfortable band width.

This is about impulsive activities. It is a quadrant of the escapists. People exhausted after dealing with urgent matters of quadrant 1 and quadrant 3 find solace here. Stress and boredom are big reasons for people to fall helplessly in this quadrant. The activities have no value for you or for anybody else. This is the worst quadrant to be in. This quadrant instills guilt as it is a quadrant of waste. The result can be dwindling self-esteem.

People who spend time almost exclusively in quadrant 3 and quadrant 4 lead challenging lives. It is easy to get trapped in these quadrants if you aren’t sure about your dreams and goals. Somewhere, deep down we know how important quadrant 2 is but we lack the awareness of importance it carries. We easily get carried away by the quadrant 3 ‘image’ or quadrant 4 ‘feel good’ and avoid the quadrant 2 ‘simplicity’.

This is about clarity of thought and direction - they are of the utmost importance. Climbing a ladder hurriedly only to find that it is leaning against the wrong wall is frustrating. Avoiding quadrant 2 to save time will cost heavily in the long run. Most of us spend too little time in quadrant 2 because it doesn’t shout with urgency. Try not to delude yourself by saying “someday I will work on quadrant 2, for now, let me do the urgent stuff”. That ‘someday’ won’t come. When we pursue what is most important to us, we will create value for ourselves our company, and for those around us.

Building Strategic Relationships Part 2

Mon, 28 Feb 2022 18:25:57 GMT

Have you ever wondered how your customers view your company?

Have you considered ‘where do we grow to now?’

What’s your strategy to develop relationships and the culture of your business with intention and specific goals?

Goals don’t just have to be about KPI’s and metrics. They can also help to direct the increase of intrinsic value in a business. The model I’m sharing here can form an excellent way to benchmark and strategically identify the nature of relationships in your business, and in each division of your business.

This is ‘out of the box’ concept about relationships is one which I first discovered many years ago from Whetstone Inc, and have since simplified. The easiest way to start playing with the power in this model is to assess your current client list, and place them into each of the four levels…. Do they view you as a stranger, supplier, desired supplier or trusted advisor? What would it take to convert each group into the next category?

When you consider this framework and overlay it into your company - division by division- some of your services may be at level 3 but others may be at level 1 or 2…. Some may NEVER reach level 4.

Level 4 isn’t better. It’s different. It’s deeper. Some companies never go as deep as this on building relationships. For example – with price focused business models – their strategy isn’t to be a desired supplier or a trusted advisor – it’s a volume play, not a loyalty play – where being considered as a ‘strange’ or a ‘supplier’ is just fine.

If you’re looking to build your business on loyalty, then there’s value in recognizing which offerings and clients you currently have at each level, and strategize how to nudge into the deeper levels if that’s your intention.

Just FYI, whatever stage you think you’re at now, it’s likely actually at one stage lower. A very common mistake is to over evaluate. But, consider this: you don’t yet know what you don’t know about strategically building relationships. I’m writing this blog to peak your interest and to inspire you into some intentional client relationship analysis and strategy. When we over-rate ourselves, we stop reaching for higher goals and stretching our ability, and we don’t challenge the status quo. Developing the focus of culture is key, and it’s important to perfect that focus before thinking of moving to the next level.

Another example of how to use this model is to consider your business’ culture focus: are you establishing the business – experimenting… setting up systems, testing your market, service, product, pricing, establishing a team etc.? or are you operating in a culture of ‘doing’? Getting the work done – going hard on contracts, cranking out the work… growing, adding crews etc… At level three, we see companies who are established, and now starting to perfect pricing, production rates, systems, consistency and attention to detail – establishing a company signature, a ‘sweet spot’. By this stage you know what you do well and what to avoid taking on – playing only to the strengths and competency of the team. Once a company reaches level 4 across ALL divisions, there is a culture of engagement – core values, common vision, mission, focus, alignment, retention, career growth and commitment. This is tough stage to reach in today’s workforce climate, and happens in companies where a focus on culture, consistency and excellence prevails.

I hope that you’ll consider using the frameworks I’ve provided in both this and last month’s blog to challenge yourself - thinking more strategically about the relationships in your business.

Here comes 2022 – so let’s grow with intention and hone your business relationship strategy!

Building Strategic Relationships

Thu, 27 Jan 2022 17:35:52 GMT

Last month, I presented a couple of virtual seminars at Congress Conference Redefined… one of which seemed to strike a surprising response in terms of participant engagement, curiosity and gratitude for the ideas I presented.

I thought that my readers here would like to learn the highlights too. Reading a 1000 word column isn’t quite the same impact as a 55 minute live presentation… but let me give you the ‘coles notes’.

In my opinion, relationships can either help to make your business stronger, or they can break it. A few key, solid, well timed relationships can launch your business into its next level. And they can be your steady bread and butter. They can provide insight and creativity to innovate, pivot, and re-invent. They can challenge your status quo – pushing you to stretch your talent and beliefs. Without them, you’ll be paddling up stream – doing the heavy lifting yourself to keep your business moving forward, one inch at a time.

So, how do you go about improving the quality and quantity of relationships?

How do you prioritize decisions as to what relationships to nurture and abandon?

Try these THREE STEPS to focus your energy and launch your relationship results:

STEP 1:

Be intentional as to where you spend your time relative to developing important relationships in your business – suppliers, customers, advocates, community partners, allied trades, etc. Consider these three categories:

RETURN ON TIME INVESTED – R.O.T.I.

This is the return to you for your time invested in the business. It could be salary, commission, dividend, bonus, profit, new skills/training etc.

POTENTIAL RETURN ON TIME INVESTED - P.R.O.T.I.

This is the return to the business on the time you spend outside of your ‘work tasks’. For example, networking at a local business group event, working on new offering/market share, peer groups, online communities etc.

RETURN ON RELATIONSHIPS – R.O.R.

This is the returned intrinsic value to the business from relationships developed with suppliers, employees, colleagues, competitors, customers, community influencers. It’s your Word Of Mouth Referral Base.

By taking stock of the activities you do which directly and indirectly support relationships, you’re going to be equipped to develop the key relationships your business needs to thrive.

STEP 2:

Build relationships strategically, both inside and outside of your business. This diagram is a portion of a Business Roadmap that I developed in my coaching tool box. In this segment of the Roadmap©, I’m illustrating how the dynamics between your company’s ‘internal’ brand and ‘external’ brand are both separate and connected. Staff and customer experience both form the foundation which drives the steps above each. If you’re missing one of the levels, everything above it won’t be sustainable. Start from the bottom and work upwards – each level is a driver for the level above it.

This is where the heart-beat of the company dwells.

It’s where the experience that people have of the business, both inside and outside, translates into delight, engagement and success.

I often think back to this quote from Simon Sinek: “Customers will never love your company until the employees love it first.”

This is about recognizing when the emphasis of your focus needs to be on building relationships with your employees and when you need to shift that focus on building relationships with customers and others. While it’s true that all relationships need to be nurtured constantly, there are times in the growth and development of every business when attention must shift to respond to the every-changing dynamics of the business cycle. And, relationships need to be built strategically, and through a progression of layered steps.

STEP 3:

The opportunities to build better relationships in your business run both broad and deep. How often do you make the time to assess how consistently your team is managing the relationships across your business?

For example, do you have a ‘cooling off’ policy for staff to follow before responding to a text or email into which staff may have read ‘tone’ and might respond inappropriately? Is there a standard sign-off, signature, greeting, firm hand shake (whenever that will be allowed again…) etc.

What inspired me to focus on this, was a combination of horrific realizations that at times and in different ways, my staff were unintentionally misaligned with my company brand image and the clientele with whom we provided our services…. Who primarily were wealthy cottagers in the Muskoka region.

There were little signs, here and there, and I felt that I always had to ‘script’ what staff would say to a customer or supplier…. To put my words and intention in their mouth so that the right sentiment, professionalism and ethic came across consistently. Ok, so I was a bit anal about my brand, but it paid off big time in loyal customers, referrals, aligned trades, helpful suppliers etc.

I thought ‘common sense’ would direct staff toward ‘aligned’ behaviour. Boy, was I wrong. What it boils down to is this: Common Sense = Information + Experience . That’s it. Period.

I decided to create a list of every opportunity our team had to ‘make an impression’, and I put guidelines and processes in place for each one.

I came up with a list of over 50 touch-points in my business on any given day… How many can you list?

I covered the areas of Website, Social Media Channels, The Office phone/voice mail protocols, cell phone voice mail, Office visitors, Facility appearance, security, signage, visitor experience, Staff conduct off-site, Print media , public media, emails/contracts/correspondence, Interviewing, Hiring, Community, and Networking.

The Touchpoint List and the resulting processes/protocols helped to guide my team to act and think in a way that was aligned with my brand consistently – with each other, with customers, suppliers and potential customers who saw our trucks and brand out in the community.

As you head boldly into this new year and upcoming season, I invite you to pause and think about your relationship building strategy – to support and launch your business to its’ next level this year!

Lead On!

Tue, 14 Dec 2021 17:42:39 GMT

So, what’s your plan for your business in 2022? Some of you by now will have developed your sales strategy, marketing plans, projections, KPI’s and other targets for the year ahead. Others take more of a ‘go hard and it should work out’ approach and then some of you will be somewhere in between.

And when it comes your plan for the team in 2022 – How are you planning to roll out staff engagement, training and retention…both for returning staff and building the new team? In what ways will your company culture support attracting new staff to your company, recruiting, orienting, onboarding, training and building ‘sticky’ personal improvement paths…. What are you going to do differently this year in order to get improved results?

Without a doubt, the number one challenge I hear from employer after employer – coast to coast – is recruitment and retention. So, how will you ‘move the needle’ and improve your team this year?

Here is an idea, from my friend Jim Paluch of JP Horizons. Jim has a (once again) written a great book to help nurture impactful mindsets and approaches toward leading others: Five Important Things. This book is an energy-packed book that explains why success can be simple. The Five Important Things are:

Continue to Learn
Appreciate People
Set Goals
Develop a Positive Attitude
Don’t Quit

If you read Jim’s book, you’ll understand why applying these vital success principles to your own life (work life and home life) really matters. These principles are really well aligned with solutions for the ongoing difficulty most employers experience connecting to and engaging with multiple workplace generations at the same time. Creating a culture of continuous improvement and appreciation will feed positive attitudes, support reaching goals, and will encourage the tenacity you need your team players to have when the going gets tough.

And here’s another golden tidbit from Jim Paluch for you to consider as well. Last year, I hosted a session with Jim in our Peer To Peer Network Business Bite Series. As usual, whenever I hear Jim speak, it’s from the heart, and he always says something profoundly helpful and that’s simple to do. This time, Jims’ simply profound words of wisdom for leaders were “focus on what’s happening THROUGH you, rather than what’s happening TO you”.

He hit the Jackpot with that one sentence.

I shared it with several teams I work with, and they’ve transformed the results they’re getting, especially when it comes to engagement and building trust. By focusing on ways in which you can make a positive impact (or quickly notice and correct a negative one), it opens up a space to be focused on others rather than self. By having this mind set it invites a focus on how your words and actions are impacting others, and helps you to catch yourself when you’re putting yourself ahead of those around you. Focusing on what happens through you sets up others to feel hopeful, proud and supported with empathy. And that’s what your younger staff are in need of.

This connects with Simon Sinek’s 'Leaders Eat Last' philosophy. I think Simon put it best when he said this:

“There are leaders and there are those who lead. Leaders hold a position of power or authority, but those who lead inspire us. Whether they’re individuals or organizations, we follow those who lead, not because we have to, but because we want to.”

My wish for you as you head into this New Year, is to give yourself the permission to honestly and humbly consider ways in which your words and actions are either contributing to improved team engagement, or getting in the way of it. Yup, there it is…. From my vantage point as a business coach, consultant and trainer – there are many who lead businesses and teams who are actually getting in the way of the one thing their business is starving for…. Improved engagement and retention.

So, Lead On! Lead in a way that’s humble, that’s engaging, that builds hope, pride and empathy for each and every one of your staff – each and every day.

My very best wishes to each of you for a healthy, prosperous New Year. Together, we truly are better.

Keep The Employees You Have

Thu, 25 Nov 2021 19:32:29 GMT

This year’s Business Bites series has flown past, I’m surprised that we’re here at the end already!

I had the pleasure of chatting with Domenic Richichi from EIO Solutions in our last installment of the Landscape Ontario Peer To Peer Network’s Monthly Business Bites. We focused our chat on the topic of finding creative ways to keep the employees you’ve worked hard to get in the door, onboard and train.

To start off the conversation, Domenic summed up what we’re experiencing as employers beautifully: This is a Worker Revolution.

In addition to Covid-19 management challenges, the ‘Great Resignation’ (Millennials), and the ‘Great Reshuffle’ (Generation Z – where up to 70% of employees moved jobs in the last year) – there’s a huge paradigm shift that employers must make in order to improve their recruiting and retention results.

This is something I’ve spoken about at countless Peer Network workshops, in this column and online for several years now… and it’s really nice to have Domenic’s validation from his vantage point.

Domenic offered us excellent advice. Here are the highlights:

Step One: Cross Train Key Employees

By ensuring your key employees are nurtured to have not only depth of experience and knowledge, but breadth as well, you’ll be sure to avoid burnout, boredom, and will be able to have ‘pinch hitters’ in a variety of divisions or roles when you need them the most. And with your best players cross trained, they will be able to support a broader team development with onboarding and mentoring in house.

Step Two: Life-Work Balance vs Work-Life Balance

Yes, it’s a thing. Generation Z and younger Millennials are changing the face of balancing priorities in the workplace. They are redefining what they focus their energy on, and you need to adapt…. Meeting them where they’re starting from. Top of mind are wages and benefits. You need to move away from a ‘one size fits all’ model and approach toward benefits. Gone are the days when one ‘plan’ suited all, and where one plan was seen as a ‘true’ benefit to everyone to the same degree. Your younger employees have different visions of ‘benefits’ than your older demographic. We’ve moved into an era where a focus on overall wellness trumps coverage for prescription glasses and Gym memberships trump prescription plans for many younger workers.

Step Three: Lifestyle accounts

Many employers have started to offer these health spending accounts in recent years. They can be set up by your benefits provider and customized to how employees can spend the money you budget for them by setting up company policies on what’s an acceptable expense. Lifestyle accounts are where it’s at if you want to engage employees in a benefits plan that’s ‘sticky’… that they value and wouldn’t want to lose by leaving your company.

Step Four: Lead, Grow, Support Engage – the 4 pillars of employee management from EIO Solutions. (EIO by the way, stands for Employee Investment Optimization).

Lead: This is the piece that many of you have heard me talk about here before… Creating hope, pride, a co-created company vision, clear concise communication that’s consistent and aligned with core values of the business, and creating the opportunity for every employee to continually make valued contributions (daily, weekly etc).

Grow:

a) Your company has to sell itself to your employees constantly. It’s not the other way around. Gone are the days when a candidate came in to try to convince you why there were a right fit. Now you have to convince them you’re offering a great place to work and be valued. Paradigm Shift 101.

b) Your company has to select the fight-fit people into the right seats ‘on the company bus’. EIO Solutions has recently partnered with Predictive Success in providing both a ‘role assessment’ tool as well as a ‘candidate assessment’ tool to ensure that you’re recruiting the right fit person.

Support: Health and Safety compliance, and having the culture to support and engage everyone in that mind set is paramount. Having the HR systems, a Handbook, Standard Operating Procedures etc that help the company to run smoothly and consistently is necessary.

Engage: Empower everyone to to their best. Set each person up to succeed every day. Equip them to do their job properly through engaging training that’s effective, proactive and timely. Motivate the team to continuously improve, giving casual feedback and updates on progress toward goals and targets daily if not weekly. And reward them. Reward for creativity – critical thinking, solutions, new processes etc. Reward them for hitting or exceeding KPI’s. Avoid letting people feel like they’re being taken advantage of, like they’re unappreciated, like they’re just a number. Engage, engage, engage.

The reality here, is that the work paradigm has changed. Your workforce has changed it’s perspective as to what’s nice, desirable, enticing, engaging and ‘sticky’. Are you ready?

We are here to help you shift gears and up your employee management game.

Defining Your Ideal Client Avatar

Wed, 17 Nov 2021 21:03:00 GMT

I recently hosted another episode of the Landscape Ontario Peer to Peer Network ‘BUSINESS BITES’ series. I was thrilled to spend the hour talking with Scott Wentworth about how his company Wentworth Landscapes, has determined who their right-fit ‘ideal client avatar’ is.

We were joined by a curious group of business owners – who all enjoyed the discussion, and chimed in with great questions during the live session on Zoom.

Here are the highlights from our discussion:

I’m taking the liberty to paraphrase Scott Wentworth in saying that in his business, it’s equally as important to determine who the ideal clients are, as who they aren't. “Prequalifying isn't black and white, it's intuitive.” explains Scott.

At Wentworth Landscapes, one key driver for knowing in advance of starting a project as to who is 'right fit', is being clear on a key company-wide goal – to create "The Raving Fan Experience" for their customers.

“When the company and team goal is to partner with the client so that the team and client both enjoy the process of the project as much as the end result, this draws a line in the sand.” Says Scott. When ‘red flags’ pop up as warning signs for the sales/design team, they act on it, using their intuition to inform decisions whether or not to take on a client.

Here are my top take-aways from our ‘Ideal Client Avatar’ Business Bite discussion:

1. Be very clear in advance, exactly who the company is, and who is right fit to both work in and with the team. Without this clarity, you won’t know whether the client seems aligned with your company culture and values . And, if you don’t know who is right- and wrong-fit, and know how to act on it, you are likely going to struggle with clients who either give the team a hard time (on either project scope, quality or payment) or leave unhappy, spreading unfair news of your company’s service.

2. Be very clear and steadfast as to whether the work the client wants done is within your profitable wheelhouse. This means that you need to know which types of work are more profitable than others for your business, and focus on making it a part of the decision as to which projects you are willing to take on.

3. Make sure that you know, crew by crew, the types of work that will energize the team . It’s super important for your team to know that you’re strategically selecting work that they are confident to do and that they enjoy – as much as possible. And it’s super important as a retention strategy to include them in the conversation about what work is and isn’t interesting to them.

4. Use your company branding and ‘sweet spot’ also as a filter to guide the right projects (or locations) for the clients that you take on. All too often, you’ll hear stories of a company that took on a specialty job, a ‘one-off’ that turned out to be a nightmare. Stick to what you’re known for, and to what you and the team are accustomed to accomplishing.

5. Take the time to learn enough about the prospective client to learn whether their ethics are aligned with your company process and practices. Some great examples that Scott shared on this point for his company, included red flagging a prospect who isn’t interested in either getting permits, or preserving habitat, or respecting neighbours/community/bylaws. Stick to your own ethics and invite a customer who expects you to compromise on them, to seek a different company for their project.

6. Learn whether the client is interested in partnering with you on the project. This is a big one for Scott and his team. They only take on a client who will be engaged and partner with them on the whole project. One of the red flags on this point that Scott mentioned which would show a potential client is wrong fit for his team, would include someone who refuses to plan for and commit to a weekly site meeting with the project leads… someone who is ‘too busy’ to be engaged in the process and progress of the job… is a wrong-fit for Scott and his team.

One of Scott’s closing comments was this: “We are always competing with the other experiences the client could purchase with their expendable income. So we'd better make it fabulous. Listen to your instincts. Give yourself the permission to drop clients before you start to work for them.” I’d like to add here, that at the time we recorded this session, the Wentworth Landscapes team had 1,000 leads in their sales funnel to qualify, categorize and follow up with.

Taking in all of Scott’s comments in our discussion, leaves me reflecting on one of our CBH Business Building Blocks: Sustained Relationships. Think of the 'client for life' relationship. Ask yourself ‘Is this someone who you want to work for many times over?’ If you see red flags, run the other way.

There’s lot to think about here… and lots to learn from the wisdom of Scott Wentworth. I am grateful that we have wonderful leaders in our profession who are so willing to share their advice and best practices openly with others.

Keep Your Promises

Thu, 23 Sep 2021 16:49:58 GMT

I believe there are few things that can happen in business to derail a customers trust and confidence in you and your team than a broken promise. Promises are what broug ht a customer into your business – your brand promise, a value exchange promise, a service delivery promise, a design/build promise, a dream fulfilling promise…. Whatever promise you and your team have made, KEEP IT.

The challenge of keeping promises lies in the crevices of your communication systems. How often, in what way, and with what accuracy communication takes place – in all directions. Many businesses struggle with clear communication. Without clear and timely communication that’s consistently delivered, it’s pretty tough not to disappoint sooner or later .

Last month for my Business Bites session, I hosted Glenn Curtis, Principal at Plantenance Inc, based in Montreal. Glenn, who now also does business coaching in our profession, is celebrating his companys’ 40th anniversary this year. An impressive and rare milestone – especially with the added accolades of countless Awards of Excellence from Landscape Ontario for his teams’ design/build talent .

In preparation for our hour-long chat, Glenn and I talked about how he ensures his company keeps its’ promises to customers. I pulled a Top 6 Tips from our chat, and that’s what we discussed for the Business Bite session. Here’s Glenn’s Top 6:

Continuous Improvement Teams
Expectation Training
Three C's
AAA - After Act Assessment
SOW Scope of Work
Digital C hange Orders

Here’s the highlights:

1. Continuous Improvement Teams. Every winter (no, they don’t ‘do’ snow anymore), the staff descend upon a large envelope full of notes which have captured ideas and dropped balls as the season progressed. They sort and prioritize the notes, and then dig in to solving the root causes of communication and service issues. The end result is team engagement in new/tweaked systems designed to continually finetune or replace the processes that failed.

Expectation Training: Each spring, Glenn brings in professional trainers from outside the company who assist with training employees how to anticipate, communication and manage customer expectations.

2. Three C’s: Communicate, Communicate, Communicate. Glenns’ team are excellent communicators, whom are constantly asking themselves what they could do better. They are nimble, observant and open-minded. When the slightest hint of a customer being confused or ‘on a different page’, they dive in to why… by asking questions such as: what did we say or write that led the customer to think that? Or what didn’t we write/say? How could we word our contracts differently? Do we need to change the order of clauses? How could we create a simply visual for customers to refer to their contract? Etc.

3. AAA – After Act Assessment. Taken from a military framework for debriefing an event, Glenn and his team are always asking themselves (and their customers and staff) how did we do? They take the feedback and discoveries seriously, and quickly implement solutions to inefficiency and inaccuracies.

4. SOW – Scope of Work. Glenn is very proud of how detailed his design build contracts are. Yet he knows there’s always room for improvement…. “we’re not perfect but we sure try to be” he remarked in our interview.

5. Digital Change Orders. Every business owner knows how hard it is to manage changes on the fly, to get written approvals and make sure materials are ordered in a timely way. And the biggie: to make sure everything is billed properly and in a timely way. His team has created digital change orders, which put the right info into the right hands immediately, and also which flow through to automatically update the customers budget, and their projected completion date on their project.

The systems that help to manage both the volume of work and the precision of keeping promises at Plantenance are all living systems… constantly changing, adapting, tweaking, and celebrating success. Glenn, Rosie and their team set a great example of how to use the concept of continuous improvement, with a dash of humility, to get the job of keeping promises done really well.

So, I challenge you to look at Glenn’s top six tips on keeping promises, and make the time to consider how some of these great ideas might very well assist you and your team in upping the game on customer experience management!

Taking the Temperature of Company Culture

Wed, 08 Sep 2021 14:38:35 GMT

By the time this is published, pretty much every company owner/manager in our profession knows who the solid and engaged team players are. And who they aren’t.

But do you know why?

The answer is most often found in the space between policies and actions. That’s where company culture is demonstrated the best. Buried in between what is supposed to happen, and what actually happens when ‘the boss’ isn’t looking or within earshot.

This is a great time of year to really step back and assess the pulse of your company culture. Slow down. Take stock. Now is the time of year when pretty much everyone on your team has been onboarded, oriented and are well into their training plans. In other words, culture should be at it’s most consistently demonstrated-best right now. So, how’s it going?

As a part of our 10-part series of Business Bites, last month I had the pleasure of hosting Joe Salemi, Landscape Ontario’s Deputy Executive Director and Director of Operations, to talk to our Peer to Peer Network Members on ‘Walking the Talk’ in company culture. Joe brought lots of great advice, including the trending differences between great and not-so-great company culture. Here are his key points on each scenario:

If you were to take these two lists to each of your employees and allow them to indicate which of these settings and perceptions they experience on a daily or weekly basis…. What points do you think that they would select?

Consider the importance of this for a moment, and how culture absolutely impacts the ability of your company to attract and retain good people. Good people whom, as Mark Bradley might say (CEO of LMN) “They have to be able to finish your sentences and carry your wallet.”. While your staff might not ever check off all of the great cultural ‘BE’ characteristics shown here, their list should at the very least outweigh the bad culture ‘don’t be’ scenarios shown above. In addition, your key staff in particular can likely articulate why they selected what they did from each list.

As a business coach, I have been inside many companies, worked with many teams, and have seen the whole range from awesome culture, to horrible work settings where there is neither any joy nor engagement. Based on my experience, the old adage ‘the boss is the last to know’ holds true most of the time. Often, the business owner has a much more positive perception of the company culture than that of the team (and sometimes the customers).

I believe that it’s important to start the conversation… one on one… or anonymously if that’s the only way people will open up… but start asking for feedback, listen to it, and start to challenge your status quo thinking about what it’s like to work in your company – by starting to identify the actions, words, expressions (or lack thereof) that contribute to both the wins and losses on the healthy company culture quest.

Join us on the Peer to Peer Network’s next Business Bite session with Scott Wentworth – and learn how to identify your ideal client avatar. Go to https://horttrades.com/peer-to-peer-network-main-page to register.

One Year Later… ‘Nimble’ is still the name of the game

Tue, 11 May 2021 18:45:09 GMT

A year ago, I’m pretty sure that most of us thought that COVID-19 wouldn’t be an issue by fall, or winter at the very latest. Most people I spoke with last spring figure d we were in this for a sprint, and things would be back to normal quickly. Few predicted a marathon. Even fewer predicted the situation we’re wading through 14 months later with the highest case counts and hospitalizations ever.

As I write this in early May, there are ‘lockdowns’ of various descriptions across Canada. All are meeting resistance from every corner of our communities, including from weary parents, frustrated entrepreneurs, anxious athletes and lonely kids. Vaccine roll outs are an unmitigated failure when compared to per capita vaccination rates in many other countries. Between the anti-vaxer groups, the Astra-Zeneca bad press, slow clinic set ups and line-ups longer than supply can accommodate – the truth is that we’re not yet out of the woods in Canada. As a country compared on the world stage, in my opinion, we’ve done both lockdowns and vaccinations ineffectively…. Leaving us embarrassingly far behind the US, the UK and much of Europe (per capita) with ‘the jab’ as a means to an end. Here’s a link to a website that provides interesting data – a 12 month timeline of COVID activity in any country you choose – here, it’s set to Canada: https://www.worldlifeexpectancy.com/country-health-profile/canada .

So, your business…. And COVID-19…. For some, it’s a boom. And unfortunately, for others, a bust. In the horticulture profession, where most of my readers dwell, the upswing of demand for backyard improvements and ‘staycation’ upgrades have set record sales and profits. Amid cumbersome protocols and changes to how people and equipment are moved around, many businesses are thriving like never before. Will the COVID bubble burst once travellers are free to head across the borders again? Likely so. In the meantime, it’s important to keep your eye on both the near and farther horizon.

Whether your company is booming or struggling to make it through government-imposed activity and restrictions, now is an important time to be strategic. While none of us have a crystal ball, you’ve got a year of this pandemic under your belt now, to see the trends, and navigate your way ahead. But remember my famous line: “If you’re aiming at nothing, you’ll hit it with huge accuracy”.

A year ago, most business owners were panicking. Budgeting for the worst, hoping for the best. And now, there’s a mix of record-breaking success, devastating losses, and everything in between. Regardless of whether the last year has molded new opportunities or restricted the potential in your business, you’ve got to stay in the game and remain nimble. Ready and willing to pivot when things change – whether the economy in your region is ‘opening up’ or ‘locking down’ or some murky shade of grey in between.

Now that we all know how each of these social measures extremes affects our business rhythm, we all must remember how important it is to check in on our strategy – with a variety of scenarios sketched out in preparation for the months (years) ahead. Staying on top of your numbers – your payables, receivables, cash flows, sales funnel, overhead etc is crucial. And also it’s vital to keep your eye on the horizon and ear to the ground… what’s the ‘pulse’ of your team? And of your clients’ interest and ability to spend money on your services or products? What opportunities could you grab that didn’t exist a few months or a year ago? How can you support your community, contributing to something larger than your business (even just by volunteering) … to help keep your staff engaged and customers loyal?

Take a look around your business community. Notice the businesses that are thriving. Check them out. Talk to them. Follow them online. What’s different? How have they pivoted? Are there ways in which your team can help you to think creatively? To be more nimble?

There are opportunities out there for many entrepreneurs right now. And I believe that you’re one of them. Keep your momentum going, and keep your eye on the horizon…. Surely I won’t be writing about this next May, and we’ll all be taking inventory of the lessons learned through this pandemic. Onwards!

Until next time, be well.

Anxiety – It’s a ‘Thing’… Still.

Thu, 01 Apr 2021 18:49:15 GMT

Last month, I met with a group of 20 employers – and talked about the sources of anxiety within their businesses. We spent well over an hour discussing strategies to recognize, manage and mitigate anxiety and stress.

While the Covid-19 Pandemic has created increased incidence of anxiety for many – whether at work or at home, there remains a shocking number of employees, managers and owners in our midst who are either silently or openly struggling with anxiety – either with or without Covid in the mix.

Anxiety appears in many forms with your team members and here are some challenges we discussed:

1. New employees who don’t show up for their first day, or shortly there-after

If this is a challenge in your company, then take a step back and look at what their experience has been since they were hired… what information have they been given in advance, what have you or others in your company done to make them feel welcome? Have you tried to make them feel at ease? Do they know in advance what to expect and how to properly prepare for day one? Is there someone for them to check in with if they’re nervous? Is there someone to encourage them? Did someone move them through day one with an eye on the new candidates’ level of stress or anxiety/nervousness? An absence of special attention to these factors can lead to great potential candidates being de-railed before they’ve given the job a chance.

2. A lack of ‘orientation’ to the company or meeting people before day-one due to Covid and virtual interviewing – which leads to high anxiety on day one (and beyond).

One participant brought up this great observation: ” It’s tough to walk into your first day of a job, having been hired without ever meeting anyone in person, or having seen the ‘layout’ of your workplace” . Consider taking the time with a new candidate in advance of day one and ask them what they’d like to know. Make sure that they know in advance who to look for when they arrive, where to park or which bus will bring them to the closest stop. What landmark should they look for? Ask what would make them comfortable on their first day? What are they nervous of? If they’ve never worked on a crew outdoors before, talk to them about what type of kit to bring their lunch/snacks in, and how much they should bring, what to wear, how to be prepared and who to ask for when they arrive.

3. Whether a new employee or one who’s in a new role, they don’t know what they don’t know. It’s up to you to anticipate and be one step ahead of their sources of stress.

“It’s easy for new and returning staff to quickly become overwhelmed” said another attendee. The results you’ll see are varied and may include poor attendance and low retention. It’s hard to recover from feeling overwhelmed when the days are long. Feeling stressed everyday can lead quickly to overwhelm. One of the youngest entrepreneurs in the group offered this great comment: “we all have to balance our output of energy with recovery time” . Talk to staff who seem to be showing signs of being overwhelmed and check in with them…. Are they looking after themselves after work? Are there ways you can help them move more smoothly through the day with less stress? How do they recharge their batteries?

4. There are many amongst us who struggle with chronic anxiety. There are ways each workplace can adjust to accommodate this challenge with empathy.

Chronic anxiety is immobilizing. Another participant talked with the group about his experience as an employer to make space, both in his team’s set up and with his own expectations for members on his team who work hard to manage their levels of anxiety. Recognizing chronic anxiety and being open about strategies to help staff who wrestle with it daily is both effective and builds trust.

5. Be vulnerable. Let the team know that you’re doing your best to help make their work and workplace as pleasant as you can, and that you might not have all the answers. Be open to their ideas.

Even employers have times of the season and situations that arise which cause them anxiety also! A mother/son business ownership team brought up this great point… that “we too get anxious – especially if the team is short staffed and the roster is full” . They feel really anxious and frustrated when they are pushing extra work on everyone just to keep caught up with the client demand. They share their anxiety openly with the team, and feel they get support in return.

As a seasoned ‘multi-generation’ workshop facilitator, many in my audiences have heard me repeatedly say “Anxiety is the Millennial Curse” . I firmly believe when each employer and team recognizes that the statistics show there is someone in their midst (of any age) struggling with anxiety – the conversations can change, the culture become more supportive and responsive – with better outcomes for everyone.

Take a breath and please start the conversation about anxiety with your team.

I believe that you might be a bit surprised, and glad that you did.

Well worth the time!

Fri, 26 Feb 2021 16:18:10 GMT

In January, I hosted an annual Peer Network Leadership Event for Landscape Ontario. This year we held the session as a half day panelist discussion with Breakouts in January – via Zoom.

I warmed up the attendees with this question: What is the most influential business book you’ve read?

Here’s the reading list that resulted from their comments – I hope that you find something interesting here to read:

The E Myth - Michael E. Gerber
Start with Why - Simon Sinek
Ownership thinking - Brad Hams
Turn the Ship Around - David Marquet
The Infinite Game - Simon Sinek
E-Myth for contractors - Michael E. Gerber
Think & Grow Rich - Napolean Hill
Great Game of Business - Jack Stack
How to win friends and influence people - Dale Carnegie
The Great game of Business - Jack Stack
Miracle Morning - Hal Elrod
First Who Then What, as well as From Good to Great - Jim Collins
The Execution Factor - Perell
Profit Works - Alex Freytag
Profit First - Mike Michalowicz
The Four Hour Work Week - Tim Ferriss
Creating Sanctuary - Jessi Bloom
How to win friends and influence people - Dale Carneigie
The Inward Garden - Julie Moir Messervy
The Leadership Contract - Vince Molinaro
48 Laws of Power - Robert Greene
Who Moved My Cheese?! - Spencer Johnson
“Surrounded by Idiots – Thomas Erikson
You're Not Listening: What You're Missing and Why It Matters - Kate Murphy

With an awesome panelist lineup, we tackled the questions around keeping your business nimble in a crisis, learning from 6 professional business leaders how they handled the challenges of 2020, and in what ways their companies are better prepared to remain nimble no matter what comes their way in the future.

I asked three questions of our panelists which were followed by a break-out session of panelists and attendees. For the Panel Discussion, here’s the questions I asked them…. Which perhaps you may want to ask yourself:

When the ‘non-essential’ lockdown started last spring, what was the impact on YOU, your team and customers? How did you feel? What stressed you out the most?
What leadership lessons did you learn? What leadership strengths did you personally lean on? What did you need to learn on the fly? What strengths did you need to mentor others to embrace?
How have the pandemic lessons better prepared your mindset and business systems/team for the next unanticipated impactful external event?

Some of the nuggets of advice they so openly shared included these key points and actions:

Scott Wentworth, Wentworth Landscapes: “Don’t panic. When you panic, you make mistakes. Never panic.” He and his team were determined to not be surprised by events as they unfolded. They stripped away complexity and made things as simple as possible for staff, customers and management alike.

Kevin Scott, Muskoka Landscapers: “This is a good time not to run in either direction”. Without history or context for handling the situation, Kevin and his team stuck to intentional processes for making decisions. They slowed down so that timelines weren’t a source of stress. They looked at what was best for staff, family and the business and struck a balance.

George Uvari, Oriole Landscaping: ‘We, not me’. We made sure everyone had a right-hand to help them. Plus, we used data to drive decisions: we stockpiled materials, reorganized storage, and acquired a few small companies who were in trouble, and combined our teams.

Phil Charal, AllWeather Landscaping: ‘Back to basics’. We renewed our company culture, focused on appreciation and what makes us proud. It brought everyone together with reassurance and support.

Grant Harrison, Nextra Consulting: ‘Think like an owner, not a technician and trust your staff’. We worked hard to support our coaching clients to make ‘owner’ type decisions, we trusted our own team to bring their best forward and assisted clients to pivot looking for new opportunities (ie e-commerce).

Joe Salemi, Landscape Ontario: “Don’t expect everyone to run at the same speed”. We made sure we connected with how others were feeling on our team. We didn’t panic and realized there was something constant about the rapid change – we found our rhythm and kept moving forward.

This fun January session was a great launch to the Peer Network Professional Development program I’ve developed for 2021 – The Business Bites Series. Last month I spent an hour with Frank Bourque talking about High Performance Mindset. March’s feature speaker is Peter Guinane who will join me to discuss some of his large company’s approaches to getting employee buy-in to systems. In April, Mark Bradley, CEO of Landscape Management Network will join us to talk about the Top Deadly Wastes in business.

To register for our monthly Business Bite Guest Speaker events, held on the first Wednesday morning of each month, go to www.horttrades.com/peer-to-peer-network-main-page

It’s free.

Circling Back To Self-Care

Tue, 16 Feb 2021 20:45:22 GMT

In my December blog, I wrote about Self Care. I’m surprised by the number of people who reached out to thank me for the reminder, and actually, to just kind of chat about it. So, as I sit writing this, we are in a Provincial Lock Down here in Ontario, so I’m going to talk about checking in with yourself once again.

When I reflect on that feedback, and the conversations I’ve had with many Landscape Professional members during the CongressConnect week, I’ve come to a conclusion: The majority of us are cruising through our days and weeks in the same ship: we’re stressed and we’re tired and we’re numb to it.

On the surface, most are telling me “I’m good, it’s all good” . But when we talk or 5 or 10 minutes, what bubbles to the surface are anecdotes about how different things are, how the lock down is impacting family, friends, routines, how we spend our time, and how rarely we laugh and smile. It all adds up to an undercurrent of stress.

I felt it throughout the CongressConnect week. (For those of you unfamiliar with the infamous ‘Congress week’, its every January, with over 14,000 landscape professionals coming through the door for tradeshow, symposiums, live demo’s, seminars, keynote lunches and more). While the Landscape Ontario Team did an OUTSTANDING job creating the first-ever virtual event, the awesome SPONSORS stepped up and engaged, the VENDORS put their best products and digital content for us all to peruse with friendly staff at the ready to Chat, and the SPEAKERS all brought themselves fully to their presentations with great content – something was missing…. And it wasn’t just me who felt it. And, it left me feeling a bit empty and kind of lonely. The footprint of Covid-19.

What’s missing are the faces. The voices. The laughter. The smiles. The nods of recognition when you see an acquaintance you met last year. The conversations outside of the seminar rooms. The chance encounters. And yes, shaking hands in a friendly greeting and meaning it. I think it’s this part of the Provincial Shut Down that’s hardest on us all. The physical void between you and everyone else.

I’m also finding that there’s virtual overload. Sure, Zoom calls help to keep us connected with each other, but having to tap the space bar just to chime in on fun group banter leaves ‘the moment’ expired in the conversation. And having to manage the ‘bandwidth’ you’re sharing with everyone else in the house just so Zoom won’t freeze on you, is wearing thin for many. In the midst of our newly virtual world, emotional, mental and spiritual self-care seems a lower priority. Lost in the space between changed routines, losing freedom and staying home.

I heard a friend say the other day that she was struggling with her husband working from home in ‘her’ daytime space. Like me, she works from her own home office full time. What she told her husband was this: “I may have married you for better or for worse, but not for lunch.” After I stopped laughing, I realized she was on to something. In this pandemic, we’ve lost, among other things, our own personal rhythm. Whether it’s personal space, mind space, or mental space. For many, the world is kind of imploding rather than expanding. Sooner or later, we all get tired of the computer screen, the tv and surfing the web. We just want to meet a friend for coffee or dinner out someplace where there’s activity and laughter.

So, let me ask: How are you FEELING? All of you, your head, your heart, your spirit.

In a recent conversation with my friend and LO colleague (and Georgian Lakelands Chapter past President) Lexi Dearborn, she shared these thoughts about pandemic stress:

“My clients are important but I’m more importanter.” This is my take-away from the stressful 2020 Pandemic landscape season. I thought I had this one! Only to find I didn’t. For me, my stress release has always been the gym. If I could get to the gym 3-4 times a week, I feel better, look better, and my stress is under control. I leave my stress at the gym. There, I get much needed ‘alone time’ which does wonders for my well-being and brain power. Of course, my gym was closed for much of the season, and walking on a jobsite just isn’t the same as pumping a bit of iron. No gym + Stress = Little sleep. I can take on the world with 8 hours of sleep. But I found towards the end of last season, I was sleeping less and less each night. With a lack of sleep came a lack of productivity…. Or even caring if I was productive. Putting my mental and physical well-being second to my clients needs through the pandemic created a very strung-out, stressed-out, and unhappy me. I’m re-learning to put myself first.”

Thanks Lexi. We all need to put ourselves first. Especially right now.

So to my readers, please check in with yourself as we move through our ‘down time’ months and ramp back up toward spring. You ARE More Importanter.

Your tanks need to be full in a couple of months. All 4 of them: Physical, Mental, Spiritual, Emotional

Please make sure that you’re taking good care of your mental health. Everyone else is telling you how to look after your physical health. It’s the other layers that I’m suggesting you pay attention to. Check in. Be self reflective. Take good care of you.

Please.

It's my sincerest hope that a year from now, we could all go back and read this blog and think: “Ya, that sure was a weird and trying time – glad that’s over”.

Onwards

The Silver Lining of 2020

Tue, 12 Jan 2021 14:17:52 GMT

Welcome 2021! I think we’re all hopeful that by the end of this year, Covid protocols will be fading into memory, and we will be picking up where we left off last March in all aspects of our lives.

When I think back to a year ago, many of my readers attended the Landscape Ontario Congress in Toronto – Canada’s largest Green Profession Trade Show and Conference. Thousands of us networked, shook hands, attended packed info sessions, we laughed, we hugged, we socialized in busy bars and packed ball rooms. After which many hopped on a plane and hit a resort somewhere warm. Imagine that.

So here we are and to start off this New Year, I’d like to offer a retrospective glance backward, to what I see as a few of the surviving legacies of the pandemic year gone by:

1. A Refreshed Focus on Health and Safety: Landscape Ontario President Dave Wright said last April “We must become safety companies who do landscaping”. Dave was right. And together as a broad community of industry Professionals, we did.

Covid-19 pushed every company leadership team to look inward and take stock of the company pattern used to communicate and train health and safety policies and processes. Everyone engaged in conversations around ‘why’ and ‘how’ and ‘when’ PPE and various protocols were to be used. This provided a lens thru which to review how the team upholds and embraces other company policies (or not). The net effect was to place health and safety at the forefront of our team members minds, right where it belongs.

2. Being Resourceful in finding facts, resources and templates:

We all hunted for and found the appropriate conduits of information and facts. Leaning on our Association membership services teams and trickling onto every business leaders’ desktop, online became the gateway for ‘how’ to keep moving forward. Together with your business community, you opened channels of communication and mentorship with Peers to find the fast track for sourcing PPE, Policies, Processes and Protocols to manage the COVID-19 risks to staff, customers and the community. We all learned to ignore the rumours and suss out the facts.

3. Communicating like never before:

I think the most important legacy lesson of the pandemic year: Zoom. Second place runner up: WebinarJam. Without a doubt, if you’d never used Zoom before, or attended an online webinar, you’ve likely done so by now. Whatever online video platform you chose to use regularly , my guess is that it’s transformed your comfort level with being ‘on camera’, and being live in a virtual room with others – either on camera or on the sidebar chat.

Who knew we’d be where we are now? None of us ever thought a year ago that we’d be unable to be go to conferences, weddings or parties in person. And we’ve adapted fairly well I think.

When I look back at 2019 and early 2020 – it was like pulling teeth without anaesthetic trying to get landscapers to meet me online in a video call. Now – it’s no sweat. I’m proud for the steep learning curve you’ve all jumped onto, and how well you’ve adapted. I can only guess at the ways in which these new-found communication platforms have opened up your efficiencies and effectiveness at communicating with your team, your clients and suppliers.

Communication was key throughout the pandemic – especially in the early days – the ‘essential/non-essential’ days. Remember that? And the legacy is your new-found comfort online.

4. Pivoting and moving forward purposefully:

Being nimble and maintaining forward momentum with hope, was the name of the pandemic game. Adapt, Adapt, Adapt. Tomorrow, adapt again. Those of you who embraced that, in all of it’s weirdness, early on in the spring, are the ones who navigated the issues laid at your feet with the least amount of stress and few mistakes. Flexibility and creativity ruled the decision-making process.

We learned that pushing up against something we can’t control is unhelpful, and wildly stressful. Moving quickly to Acceptance, Assessment and Action became a crucial path to success.

It’s from these lessons, we take forward into 2021 the legacies of the 2020 pandemic year: Health and Safety, Resourcefulness, Communication, Flexibility, Creativity, Trust, Empathy and Hope.

This year will be quite different in how we can keep learning and stay connected. While we might not know what 2021 will bring, I know for sure that we are all much better equipped to adapt and respond to whatever comes our way. We are stronger together.

Bring it on 2021, we’ve got each other’s backs.

Self-Care. What?

Tue, 15 Dec 2020 21:55:36 GMT

While I know that many, many businesses across our Profession have had an awesome year for sales, it’s been a roller coaster for the leaders behind the scenes. So, I want to end this year by talking to the leadership t eams on a different level…. About how well you take care of yourself when the pressure is high.

Seriously. Self-Care. It’s a ‘thing’.

However, unfortunately it’s a ‘thing’ neither familiar nor convenient to many entrepreneurs at the best of times. Let alone in a year such as this.

In a profession where the annual peak business season seems like an impossibly hard up-hill marathon, most of us manage to pitch self-care to the sidelines and run on adrenalin for a couple of months, knowing that things will settle down soon, and we’ll make it thru. Drive-Thru diets, caffeine top-ups, dirty truck consoles are all sure signs of a life in overdrive without self-care.

This year has, in so many ways, been a pressure cooker for stress and self-neglect. And, based on the COVID-19 case number surges across the country colliding with colder weather and more indoor activities, I think we’re in for a longer COVID marathon than any of us hoped would actually happen.

Stress manifests in many ways, often taking a toll on our health fairly silently until it rears it’s ugly head. It’s human nature to experience stress when we’re shoved unceremoniously and unwillingly from the familiar into the unfamiliar. And here we all are. Without a playbook on managing the intricacies of stress induced by the pandemic on all levels. We have the playbook on managing the risks and exposure to COVID itself, but not it’s ripple effects.

My concern lies between the cracks in the armour of bold brave entrepreneurs. I could have been the poster child for how not to manage stress twenty years ago. I have the scars to prove it. And now, in my late 50’s, I know that with managing stress as with most other things, hind-sight is 20/20.

Self-Care for some is a daily routine. For others, it’s a foreign concept – and many waft somewhere in between a cherished solid self-care routine and running on empty.

So why am I blabbing on about stress and self-care? It’s because I want you to take a few minutes to ‘check in’ with yourself as we close in on the end of a stressful year. A few quiet minutes of self reflection, to check in on how you’re doing, how you’re feeling, and how well you’re set for the weeks and months ahead. With the fast approaching Holiday season, things will continue to be ‘busy’.

Please take a few minutes to answer these questions, and think about what you should/will act on to either improve or change:

Do I take at least fifteen minutes of quiet time to myself every day – without my phone, other people, devices, a task at hand, or noise?
Am I conscious of the stress that comes from change, fear or uncertainty that I may be feeling?
Am I eating properly, and managing my nutrition for a healthy outcome?
What routine could I change or begin, to improve my mental health in some way?
When I’m stressed about things I can’t control, who supports me?
Are others around me leaning on me for support and reassurance? Can I keep it up?
What is happening daily/weekly that fills my cup? (makes me happy/feel rejuvenated)
When is the last time I had a ‘physical’ exam, or over-all health consultation with my health care provider? Is it time to talk to him/her about how I’m feeling?
What one thing should I stop doing that’s unhelpful to managing stress.
What steps do I need to take to align myself and my family (without stress) to health ministry recommendations?

We are all in this pandemic management journey together. It’s still new. It’s a bit unsettling. It’s enduring longer than we’d hoped. It brings unique and new challenges to our lives and routines. Please take some time alone, and with your family, to ‘check in’ on where you are, how you’re feeling, and what steps you need to take to be and do your best this winter.

Onwards!

It’s November. Already.

Mon, 02 Nov 2020 19:04:41 GMT

Every now and then I take the opportunity to share one of my own ‘best practices’ from my 25-year experience as a landscape business owner. In the past I’ve shared my ‘November Files’ process with you a few times, and always to great feedback from readers. At the risk of sounding somewhat repetitive, I decided to print it here again, as we near the close of this unusual year.

And what a year it has been. Full of surprises – both good and bad – fraught with ‘new normals’ we’d have never imagined would be in our midst when most of us gathered at Congress last January.

Along with the weirdness of 2020, has emerged an amazing ‘we got this’ pulse amongst the business owners and LO Peer Network Members I talk with regularly. That which terrified us in April has us taking in stride today. And there are many things you’ve learned between then and now. It’s worth capturing.

As I write this, Ontario has had the highest case numbers of COVID-19 since the pandemic showed up here. It’s late October. A long winter ahead may continue to challenge and impact our new definition of ‘normal’, social bubble sizes and the ability to gather or the need to shelter in place.

So, what does that mean for your business? Your team? Your clients? Your best practices? Your cash flow? Your season ahead?

Now is the time of year when I used to sit down, and gather all of those thoughts and ideas I had throughout the season for making improvements or trying new ways of doing our work. When I owned Water’s Edge Landscaping, I used to have a ‘November’ File. It was a folder into which I chucked every scribbled down idea, post-it notes describing spontaneous strokes of brilliance, articles, book titles, brochures etc that came across my desk or my mind through the season, that I was too busy to deal with in the moment.

Each November, I’d set aside a half day to go through the November File, which was typically fairly thick, and note by note, page by page, I’d prioritize each ‘in the heat of the moment’ idea I had jotted down earlier in the year, and give it serious consideration. To me, November is the best month to debrief the season that just was, and set a course for identifying where to improve, what to stop doing, what to start doing and what not to change at all.

The reality is that winter flies by. Many of you are pushing hard to get to ‘the end’ of the seasons work before weather closes in. Some of you do snow/ice management – for which this is the change of the guard (and equipment) – the time to flick that switch to thinking about working nights instead of days, and working like crazy when it’s storming outside – instead of taking a ‘rain day’. No matter what though, in my opinion, it’s a crucial time of year to debrief, assess, plan and prepare to implement new training and changed processes. Every year in March, I hear many say ‘I just don’t know where the winter went… I wanted to put new things I in place and haven’t got it done yet’…..

What we all know for sure, is that we don’t know what spring 2021 will look like. And, that’s just going to have to be ok for now. And I know spring will come faster than we think it will from today’s vantage point.

Here’s something you can do no matter what spring brings: focus on what you can control…. How you can best prepare for either a COVID free or COVID restricted spring start?

I encourage you to take the time now to reflect and ask yourself:

What went really well this year?
What ideas did I or my team bring forward that we’d ‘get to this winter’?
What did we struggle with the most?
What improvements could we make to tweak and continue to be better prepared, proactive and work effectively – while keeping everyone safe?
What is my Plan A, B and C for 2021? (Play a bit of ‘what if’.)
What do the ‘Red, Amber and Green’ budgets for 2021 look like?

We’re blessed to have businesses that change with the seasons. It gives us a chance to ‘reset’ and refresh. Please take a moment this month to count your blessings, and show gratitude to those people and events which contributed to a successful season, and to everyone’s safety.

It’s November. Already. Make the most of it!

Start Now

Thu, 01 Oct 2020 15:06:37 GMT

I recently hosted the 4th annual Peer Network Summit for Landscape Ontario – albeit online for the first time. This Peer Network has over 300 members and is an active gr oup of business owners who willingly share experience, suppliers, techniques, ideas etc.

The speakers, advice and mentorship was second to none yet again this year. We had two themes which were decided upon by the 70 Peer Network Members who participated in the Congress 2020 Feature Event live session last January: Operational Efficiency and Exit Strategies/Succession Planning.

Our lineup of speakers, who gave their time and advice generously were

Arden Urbano, Vice President, Greenius (speaker)
Mark Bradley, CEO, LMN (keynote speaker and panelist)
Frank Bourque, President Frank Bourque Consulting (speaker and panelist)
David Wright, President Wrights Landscaping (panelist)
Brian Cotter, President LGMP and Durham Artificial Grass (panelist)
Jacki Hart, President Co nsulting By Hart (facilitator, panelist)

On our first morning session, Arden kicked off the Summit with her deep and broad experience in training – and how to set up a training system that engages and brings positive results. In my ‘podcast style’ discussion with her on our virtual Zoom stage, we talked about the mixed demographic of employees, and that the younger generation coming in to our businesses, are arriving with different skills than most employers did at the same phase of their work life.

We discussed how anxiety has become a big factor which contributes to the turn-over churn, engagement (or lack thereof) and the over all confidence your new employees experience during their onboarding phase in your company. Arden’s presentation included a fact that I found startling: the average company in our industry across North America has 25% of the team with less than 4 months experience at any given time. That’s a lot of repetitive training. A lot of inefficiency. A lot of stress on the foremen/supervisors/leads.

Arden provided a simple template for efficient and effective training, based on the GoGreenius.com training process: Watch, Test, Review and Measure.

We ventured into break out rooms and discussed what Peers feel they need to improve, and what the sources of anxiety would be for their staff at all levels. The highlights were awesome – and included the unanimous conclusion that ‘we’ need to include compassion and empathy in our onboarding processes.

Next up we heard from Frank Bourque talking about operational efficiency…. Where Frank shared his system for discovering where a company has inefficiencies, and how to fix them. He provided great resources to the participants, who can self assess their business on efficiencies going forward. Franks key points included looking at a company from the top down, from the bottom up, the outside in and from the inside out – these vantage points included Strategy, Identifying and Simplifying systems, Reviewing the Company Position in the Marketplace, and assessing Resources and Processes within the Company. All of these point to an effective Operations Strategy.

A great take away from Frank’s session was that in order to become efficient in your operations, truly efficient, a fresh set of eyes and an intentionally detailed, structured process is required for the highest impact. Thanks to Frank Bourque for his talent and skill as a leading business coach and consultant.

On our second Peer Summit morning event, we kicked off with Mark Bradley, CEO of Landscape Management Network, giving us a ‘Keynote’ talk on preparing your business for sale. Mark provided an excellent overview of the detailed process, and tasks required to prepare a business for sale. The participants in the Summit received Mark’s keynote address slides to help guide them forward as they embark of their journey to prepare for their next stage of business success.

We then had a lively discussion with 5 panelists – all of whom have either bought, sold and/or transitioned into a family business. Here’s a sample of the questions asked by our moderator, Joe Salemi, Deputy Executive Director of Landscape Ontario:

What brought you to the decision to sell?
As many of our peers are exploring exit strategies, those that haven’t been through it aren’t familiar with what the transition process/progress looks like. Can you take us through what that looked like for you?
Was your focus on legacy or complete exit?
What level of due diligence did you engage in prior to signing on the sale of your business?
What were the biggest challenges you experienced?
Exit ing your business should come with an honourary degree with the amount of learning that takes place. What advice would you offer your peers based on your most profound learning?

There was a broad range of experience, which included the challenge of ‘letting go’ as a seller, and the challenge of continuing the business successfully as the buyer – with a fair and equitable purchase arrangement.

Toward the end of the morning, after breakout discussions where attendees could hop into a breakout room with various panelists to ask their questions, we did a round table of ‘top take aways’. I think the most important take away was related to timelines. It was clear from all of the panelists, that selling a business is nothing like selling a house. It takes YEARS to prepare the business, and YEARS to execute the plan – ensuring that profitability, risk management and systems are well established, that the company would emerge well from due diligence scrutiny, and that all parties have a win-win experience in the end.

One of the top pieces of advice I think from both days – focusing in improving efficiency of staff and company – and focusing on a plan and strategy to transition the business upon retirement – is to START NOW. Create a timeline. Identify priorities. Get traction.

Once again a huge thank you to our speakers.

And, an even bigger THANK YOU to our Peer Network Sponsors: Greenius, LMN and Dynascape. These leading companies recognize the value of Peer mentorship, and are committed to the improvement of the profitability and success of the member companies of Landscape Ontario.

Change is a good thing!?

Fri, 07 Aug 2020 13:40:48 GMT

This spring and summer season will likely go down in our history books as one of the most surprising and challenging for entrepreneurs yet.

Together, we’ve navigated the ‘non-essential’ turmoil and crisis management of Covid-19 that weighed everyone down with uncertainty, panic and confusion. If I were to judge the success of adaptive strategies put in place, from the hundreds of conversations I’ve had with business entrepreneurs – especially contractors, I’d say that you all have earned your ‘stress management stripes’ – most with gold stars aplenty!

Through the past few months, as the impact and shock of the pandemic phases of community engagement have smoothed out, I set out to learn which of the ‘covid-required’ changed processes have actually turned out to be a benefit, and will continue going forward.

Let me explain where I’m coming from: Through months of weekly coffee chats in the Landscape Ontario Peer To Peer Network via zoom since mid March – I have learned that the pandemic shifted homeowner perception of the value in what we provide as a profession, driving up demand for our Members products and services.

Here are some examples recently discussed at a Peer Network online informal chat meeting with contractors to illustrate what I mean: I asked “what have you changed as a result of the pandemic, that your team and company will keep in place going forward – pandemic or no pandemic?”

“A set of tools for each employee” - the positive effect seems to be that each employee takes better care of tools, leaves them behind on sites less often, tries to fix themselves if something breaks, or at the very least, asks for a replacement immediately (as opposed to leaving it in the bed of a truck or in a dark corner of the shop in a useless state of disrepair).
“Handwashing stations in our enclosed trailers” – Appreciated by all staff, and used regularly, these are turning out to be a ‘must have’ that was never on the radar before.
“The expectation of patience from our customers.” – In peak season, suddenly customers found patience and were willing to understand that we were doing our best. They didn’t move on give their work to the first company who could show up – they waited their turn and trusted they were on the list. I want to see this respect continue.
“Using ‘cloud’ communication across the company” – Communication has improved… it’s more effective and efficient.
“Staff taking their own vehicles to site” - In many cases, it’s more convenient for them to have their own vehicle handy all day, and makes scheduling maintenance sites of various sizes more efficient – we don’t have to have the same size crew show up on every site all day – they can start or finish or meet up mid day on bigger sites, then split up to do smaller ones where appropriate.
“Answering the phone when it rings” – Through the pandemic, we were falling behind, and switched our process to put responding to phone calls as a priority. It seems that people want to talk to you more now than ever. (as of July) We’re booking into fall for irrigation installations and customers are willing to wait for our professional high-service focus. Our sales are through the roof.

This pandemic ‘season’ hasn’t been with its’ obvious challenges – especially managing the creeping in of complacency on PPE and physical distancing. I also asked the Peer Network members what the biggest challenges they are facing at this point. The most common concern is this: A second spiked wave of COVID-19 cases, causing another shut down to the core ‘essential/non-essential’ phase.

The epidemiologists have been consistently sharing the statistics of the probability that we may still have a bumpy ride ahead… which is a great reason to keep your red, amber and green budgets in mind. Yes, for many of you reading this, your sales are up and strong – which is great! I’ll ask you to remember, as I did the Peer Network members, to continue reviewing your numbers at month-end (at the very least) EVERY MONTH. With uncertainty still lingering in the air, it’s important to have a plan B and C, should things that are not within your control, create pressure on your company resources and cash flow.

I’m so proud of our Profession. I’m proud for all of you to have shown the grit and determination to keep moving forward in this unprecedented year! Pat yourselves on the back , celebrate successes, positive change and keep your eye on the prize – emerging successfully from this era as a viable company, with a viable, engaged team, and with viable profit.

Onwards!

Need help figuring out Plan B and Plan C? Get in touch and let’s talk.

Staying The Course

Tue, 07 Jul 2020 18:16:11 GMT

OK. Phew. We’ve all ‘made it’ to here from a very uncertain and stressful spring. So far, (hopefully) so good.

There are many new boxes you’ve had to tick on your ‘to-do’ list this year: Pandemic management PPE sourced and in ample supply. Social Distancing Policies in place. Procedures being practiced. Customers aligned with company protocols. Staff trained on staying healthy, and what to do if they or someone in their home isn’t. The list of adjustments and accommodations is a long one, and it’s not static, it’s dynamic. As are the constantly changing local bylaws.

Everyone in business has had to change ‘normal’ to ‘new’ with very little notice.

In my last column, I coined the phrase ‘Compliant vs Complacent’. And, I want everyone reading this to think about how well YOUR team is performing and how consistently they are exercising every required step of compliance EVERY hour of every day. For example: Wearing a mask in 30C weather sucks. Let alone doing physical work while wearing one. It’s going to be a tough summer as long as COVID-19 lurks in the shadows of encounters with people and the things they’ve touched or coughed upon.

While it’s great that our economy and the movement within our communities is ‘opening up’…. At the same time, it’s playing a bit of roulette with the probability of a second pandemic wave. We’re all watching the US COVID-19 case numbers, and realize that a more measured, diligent approach is what’s kept us on our generally curve-flattened trajectory.

What does that have to do with your business? Everything.

In late March, throughout April and well into May, there were countless webinars and online meetings held to provide you with sound pandemic business advice. Whether from your professional association, your bank, investment advisors, accountant or coach, advice was yours for the asking. Topics were widely ranging : definitions of ‘essential’, how to stay distanced 2m, variances between jurisdictions/ regions, what policies were needed, protocol advice and process testing, where to find bathrooms facilities for the team, how to interact with clients, how to protect the team, what to train them on. To help people continue to move forward, industry consultants dug deep, pivoted quickly and created resources for businesses on many levels. Among these other awesome resources, I developed and ran several 5-day boot camps on what I call the 5 C’s of Crisis Management: Cash Flow, Communication, Culture, Course of Action and Compliance.

It’s these 5 points I want you to keep in mind as you move through the summer months, into fall, and possibly, into another economy shut down if the pandemic follows the predicted course of the epidemiologists, and international patterns we’ve been watching to date. It’s entirely possible that the crisis isn’t completely over yet. I want you to be calm and ready if and when you need to be.

You need to stay the course. The pandemic management course. The ‘pivot quickly’ course. The Amber Budget course. (While I know that many of you are having hugely successful sales results in the past month or so – we could be shuttered once again if things go in the wrong direction – and you need to be prepared with a plan for that second wave if it comes.)

When it comes to two of the 5 C’s – Culture and Compliance, I’d like you to consider my favourite expression: Culture Eats Compliance (policies and procedures) For Breakfast. If your team isn’t on the page you need them to be on, thinking and acting the way you need them to, it makes no difference how many posters you use, how many sanitizing kits are in your trucks or your store or on your work sites. Culture will either see you through a crisis – or destroy your best intentions every time.

An engaged team, who are appreciated, who feel safe and protected, who are proud, who are hopeful and who are learning – that’s your ticket to compliance – and to success – pandemic or no pandemic.

So, as we crest the hump of the frenetic spring rush, and slip into the busy but more steady pace the summer months, a word of caution from me: focus on your company culture, build it, grow it, talk to your team. Engage them with great questions. When was the last time you asked each employee one on one: ‘What do you need from me to be successful today?’ or ‘How do you feel about where our community is on the pandemic right now?’. Show empathy, and show it consistently, and they’ll show up.

I encourage you to think about systems this summer because they are the key to the 5 C’s when they’re working well. How well are your company systems working? What’s broken? What are you measuring? How do the metrics compare to targets? What’s getting in the way of blowing past profit projections?

Look deep and look often into how your people are not only performing, but how they’re feeling about it. Look for things to celebrate. Bring joy. Bring safety. Bring confidence. Bring empathy to the company conversations.

In unprecedented times, you need to be nimble, consider things you haven’t before, and keep your eye on the horizon. Work ON your business this summer.

This blog is dedicated to the memory of my friend and mentor, Jean Paul Lamarche. JPL taught me first and foremost to be a successful, profitable entrepreneur – with an exit strategy – and second but equally as impactful, to be a successful business coach and consultant. I miss him already, and cherish his wisdom. As JPL would say if he were here with respect to staying on top of pandemic management strategies, Giddy Up.

A Leadership Blueprint

Tue, 02 Jun 2020 18:25:24 GMT

Without at doubt, the past few months have separated those with tenacity and grit from those without. I want to share a story with all of my readers this month, one that makes me incredibly grateful to be a part of. It’s about the community of Landscape Ontario (LO) and how it has shone through the crisis of April and May that struck our profession at the worst possible time of year.

I am impossibly proud to be an LO member.

Not a week has gone by in the past two months that I haven’t been both grateful and impressed with the sincere dedication of the staff team, the volunteer COVID-19 Task Force, those allied with the industry, the garden communicators, the allied professional business coaches and many more.

There’s a long, long list of leaders who have stepped up amidst rapid and uncertain change. It’s an impressive and long list of entrepreneurs and volunteers who have come together to give dozens (if not hundreds) of hours dedicated to finding clarity on rapidly changing, complex and time sensitive issues to support members.

Some researched tirelessly and posted resources, some ‘pulled strings’ to get answers from politicians and community leaders, some worked hard to reassure, others advised on next steps and creating new plans. Everyone simply dug in and leaned hard into the challenges we all faced.

Sir Winston Churchill once said “Never Let A Good Crisis Go To Waste” . He was referring to the unlikely trio alliance created between himself, Roosevelt and Stalin in February 1945 – when among other things, they agreed to collaborate to form the UN. Amidst a crisis, they came together to create opportunity.

In my opinion, Landscape Ontario has just showed the same leadership blueprint for stronger members and an improved professional community for the future. LO has demonstrated how to rally in a crisis, with humility, sincerity and patience.

If any of you ever doubted the value of a membership in LO before, I hope that you never will again. If I’m correct about this stellar leadership blueprint, then Tony Digiovanni (Executive Director) is our Winston. He’ll possibly be cross with me for saying so (because he is so humble), but every cause and every army has its leader. And Tony has truly led the collaboration and mutual improvement ethic, which has equipped and empowered our members to succeed as best as possible this spring. It’s his vision of collaboration and cooperation that mobilized an army.

In the midst of an unpredictably and rapidly changing business and health landscape, Tony mobilized the LO Leadership Team (welcome aboard Joe!) and the staff to swing into action swiftly and effectively. And in doing so, they have equipped us as members to do the same. AND, this has raised the profile of our profession with politicians and policy makers alike.

LO has been the broker of an unbelievable amount of valuable and important information at a time when we needed it the most. In an instant, LO is in the webinar business (shout out here with thanks to the lovely Keri McIvor!) The countless webinars are a blur. And we now have online training modules up and running as well.

Personally, I connected with the Peer Network members by hosting twice weekly ‘coffee chats’ on Zoom with up to 35 Peers at a time – and facilitated great mentors and resource people like LO President Dave Wright, Sally Harvey, LMN CEO Mark Bradley, Scott Wentworth, Frank Bourque, Task Force Chair Al White.

Our community has come together like never before. We kept moving forward even when we didn’t know what that really looked like. Thank you LO. Thank you Outdoor Profession Entrepreneurs. We’ve GOT this.

My Thoughts on Safety Compliance Going Forward:

As we move through the various phases of COVID-19 restrictions and openings, there are challenges still ahead with respect to keeping the protocols in place for worker safety, team health and family protection: Ensuring that ‘Compliant’ doesn’t become ‘Complacent’.

Complacency is going to be tough to avoid. As the weather warms up, masks and gloves will become less and less manageable. As more and more people come outside, social distancing will become harder to ensure and enforce.

Now that you have your policies and procedures in place I think the next challenge is to keep staff, your clients, sub-trades and suppliers engaged and compliant in the longer term.

We can all see and hear the risks that our ‘normal’ PPE protects us from, but we can’t ‘see’ the risk of COVID-19 unless we’re watching the news, or have loved ones amid outbreak situations at work or in LTC residences.

Please keep your eye on the prize: Compliance with all of your policies and procedures. Complacency can and will creep in… it’s human nature to go back to the ‘old’ way. Heads up! Be ready!

ONWARDS!

COVID-19 Drives New and Nimble Strategies

Fri, 17 Apr 2020 14:54:04 GMT

We have landed in a strange place. A spring where there exists fear, confusion, hesitation, stop-work orders, fines, tension, polarized debates, newly laid off staff, business cash flow that’s on fumes, mixed messages to customers and parents learning to home-school on a moments notice.

The past 6 weeks for me has been filled with dozens of hours every week working with business owners to CTRL>ALT>DEL on ‘the plan that was’ and helping them to pivot to something else, something surreal and completely different. Finding calm and purposeful intention amid chaos and fear is hard work. Way harder than being in the customary slip stream of long spring hours and frenetic days. And being intentional about emerging from the COVID-19 Era able to look back proud of how we handled ourselves, our team our business viability and our brand is the key goal at the moment.

There are silver linings tangled in between the unanticipated conversations with staff, suppliers, customers and creditors. Silver linings that have emerged in ways least expected. There’s time for your own professional development, and your teams’ like never before. It’s also a great time to connect with business groups and business communities. For example, I started twice-weekly Zoom chats with hundreds of entrepreneurs who belong in a Peer Network I facilitate – to offer resources, mentoring, hope, and connectedness during which all have found comfort that their not alone finding their way through COVID-19. Giving members a place to share frustration and solutions has been an important part of helping them to regain their momentum and focus. And to plant hope.

Also, countless volunteers have stepped up, onto committees, Zoom meetings and as speakers on webinars – all to keep business professionals informed and moving forward through unprecedented stress and disruption. Companies across this Province have been forced to re-think, tighten up, and show empathy.

Last month I was asked by the Nursery and Landscape Association Executives of North America to moderate two webinars with 4 of my professional business coach peers – Mark Bradley of LMN, Jim Paluch of JP Horizons, Phil Harwood of Grow The Bench and Jeffrey Scott of Jeffrey Scott Consulting. It was absolutely great, with over 650 professionals both north and south of the border, coast to coast. We talked about ‘what to do’, and ‘how to think’ through this crisis. I wanted to share with you here, the advice I offered in that webinar – as a way to help you to keep moving forward.

1. Be Conscious Of Your Mindset. Judgement keeps us stuck. Acceptance moves us forward. Find the courage and resolve to accept that we are in an unprecedented situation. There’s no manual for this. (Yet.) And you’re going to have to think differently about your business than ever before, to create new solutions and efficiencies that align with current reality. It might not be pretty, and you need to build your own bridge to success while you’re walking across it - in the weeks and months ahead. Breathe. Focus. Grow Forward. Even if it seems counter-intuitive, you’ve GOT this.

2. Manage Your Stress Level. Make the time to unplug every week. Go outside. Have some fun. Decompress. You can’t lead others, or your company brand, or the company bank account if you’re overwhelmed. Pay attention to your ‘self-talk’. Don’t panic.

3. Focus on what you can Control, and on what you can Influence. Give no ‘air-time’ to things you can’t control. Answer three key questions:

What (has happened that I didn’t expect)? WRITE IT DOWN.
So What (does that mean to my business, cash flow, team etc)? WRITE IT DOWN. ALL OF IT.
Now What (can I leverage and change to adapt and keep growing forward)? WRITE DOWN EVERY IDEA, RESOURCE, RELATIONSHIP etc. Devise a framework of a plan – be nimble, be prepared for a few ‘what if’ scenarios. Focus on Forward-Proofing your business and community.

We are stronger together. Your company is stronger with you working hard to start with the end in mind: emerging from COVID-19 as a viable, stable, efficient company, with an engaged and grateful team, and a loyal customer base.

If you need help figuring out how to pivot and rework your strategy for this year, LET’S TALK.

5 Top Reasons Your Team Isn't Engaged

Wed, 12 Feb 2020 14:12:40 GMT

Without a doubt, one of the best authors on Team Engagement is Patrick Lencioni. He’s written many books on teams: the Five Dysfunctions of a Team, The Ideal Team Player, Three Signs of a Miserable Job among many. His writings are brilliant – and have come full circle. With some written well before we even knew what a Millennial was, and Gen Z were still in diapers – Lencioni’s wisdom and advice wouldn't be more relevant if he’d written it last month. It’s about the human condition – and I believe the main disconnect lies in the ‘screen-time’ factor of our lives. We’ve forgotten how to connect and value others in a sincere way – let alone at work where there’s targets and deadlines.

This month, I’ll be running a full day workshop on “Working Together” at the Ottawa Green Trade Expo. I’ll also be speaking at the conference on the topic of Employee Engagement – so, it’s a topic at the forefront of the minds of many business managers who are looking ahead to a busy spring business season – and spending lots of energy trying to become better employers, recruiters and career providers.

So, why do so many company managers struggle with finding, engaging and keeping great team players? I think it boils down to a few key issues – all of which have roots in the generation gap of preferences and communication styles that represent the average company demographic.

It all boils down to this: Everyone wants to know that their efforts will make an impact, that they’re valued, and appreciated. It’s important for everyone to know what they’re supposed to be doing at work, what they need to know/learn, when they’ll learn it and how. We all want to go to work every day, set up to succeed. Pretty tough to do if here’s a lack of clarity on what’s expected of them and how their performance will be measured.

To be honest, most employers I know (myself included for many years) really suck at being proactively clear on job responsibilities, desired results and providing constant feedback. And now more than ever, it’s become crucial. Our younger demographic employees just won’t cope well without clarity. They’re digital natives. Information has never been inaccessible to them. Until they hit the workforce. Especially for younger staff (under 25) – they leave the school/college system where they’ve had structured learning and regular feedback (report cards, test scores, essay/project grades) and jump into the work world where it’s kind of like the Wild West. Fend for yourself and find your own way. And they run in the opposite direction – or worse – stay and put in their time wafting along, disengaged and not doing their best, because they don’t feel valued, and don’t care.

Here's 5 key things to consider – If these happen in your business, then engaged employees could well be eluding you:

1. They're in the wrong position and have been unintentionally set up to fail. With increasingly bigger challenges filling company positions, it's tempting to put the best person you can find (not the properly trained or experienced one necessarily) into a vacant position. Maybe you've taken an employee and promoted them once, or twice...until they reach the level of their own incompetence - it's call the Peter Principle, and it's a recipe for disaster.

2. They feel like a commodity - "I'm just a warm body." One of the great thought-leaders of our time is Simon Sinek. In his recent book Leaders Eat Last, Simon says "Money is a commodity to be managed to help grow your people, not the other way around." By this he means that you can no longer treat front line or junior employees like worker bees (or worse) who are expendable. The premise is that you expect to make a profit off the back of your underpaid employees - you're going to have a revolving door in the HR department. You need to invest in your people, grow their skills, give them hope, lift them up -and the company results will follow. They will appreciate being appreciated. They will Step Up. They will engage. Just watch them!

3. Their work has no meaning to them - Everyone needs to feel proud. Everyday. And when you set people to tasks without having the big picture and understanding what part their own personal effort will play in the over all success - they'll feel useless and leave. Or just not show up whenever they feel like a mental health day, or sleeping in. You give them no hope, and no relevance.

4. They don't feel valued or 'safe' to learn. If your staff is intimidated, embarrassed, or wrong when they ask questions - say good bye. If they have poor trainer (impatient, condescending, flippant) then they'll be poorly trained. Which leads to being discouraged, feeling 'dumb', inadequate...and who the heck would stick around for that?

5. There is no path to personal success. Again, it's about creating hope. It starts with a living wage. Not what you think it should be but what they need to be. They'll ask themselves daily: Why should I stay? What's in it for ME? Will I succeed here? How and when? If your hiring, on-boarding and training system leaves them unable to answer these questions, whether a new or seasoned employee - then out the door they'll go. Sooner or later, they'll leave.

So, I’ll leave you with this suggestion: take a look at these five factors, and think about them one by one. Ask your team – what do they experience? Does any of this take place without (or with) you realizing it? Can you engage your team to help you design a better system for information sharing, feedback, job position clarity, career options and continuous improvement? What would be different if you had all of these 5 things banished from your company? I think you’d have a Rockstar Team, that’s what I think…. I hope that you agree.

The Learning/Implementation Gap

Wed, 13 Nov 2019 16:06:48 GMT

Here's a suggestion for how to get there from here:

Many of my readers either work in an industry or live in a region where winter brings a slower business pace, allowing many to catch their breath and plan ahead. It’s a time for professional development, over-hauling systems, adopting new software and generally stepping back enough to plan for new improvements.

It’s at this time of year I hear of great plans laid out by business owners and their managers heading off to take courses and workshops designed to hone their knowledge and skills. As a contractor, I was always excited to start the winter season with a long reading list and schedule of workshops to attend. There was always a hum of excitement and anticipation for the learning ahead. There were hopeful goals for tweaking and applying new systems and technology in order to smooth out the wrinkles and improve.

And yet every spring I hear many lament on how quickly the winter flew by – and that they’re not ‘ready’ to implement everything they’ve learned for the busy season ahead. The best laid plans for professional development and idea generation may have panned out exactly as hoped for – yet there’s a lingering problem with implementing the new learning in an effective and sustainable way. Often, the transfer of ideas from workshop/course notes into effective action turns out to be neither simple nor sustainable.

As a retired contractor and now as a business coach, I’ve come to realize that there’s an unanticipated gap between discovering new ideas and skills – and the starting point in your business to actually implement it. I struggled with this challenge for years – returning home from trade shows and courses armed with tons of notes and ideas – most of which either sat in a drawer once things got busy, or were implemented in such a way that the team resisted and quickly fell back into old habits. I’ve pondered how to bridge this implementation gap many, many times.

I believe what’s missing for most entrepreneurs who are working hard to make changes for improvement is a comprehensive structure to guide the conversion of new ideas into actionable, sustainable change.

I’ve spent the past several years test driving my own solutions. I’m happy to share that it’s working. I’ve recently launched my new online Business Skills Academy. I designed the program for managers and business owners with a few things in mind: Accessibility, affordability and implementation success. It’s a three-part program designed to target the most common trends for key business challenges that I’ve observed from working with hundreds of business owners. My first groups of manager/supervisors and entrepreneurs who are in the course are both impressed with the volume of content, and the ready-to-use value to their business. Here’s how the Academy works: it’s a three-part program:

Part One – The Business Skills Incubator –

In this Course there are 6 modules which combine to deliver a power pack of 24 business management tools and improvement strategies over a 12 week period – participants need one to three hours a week to follow the path. The Program is delivered via bi-weekly live online small-group video seminars, supported by a private online lounge for discussions, templates, self-managed assignments, and pre-recorded module video access during the course. The course is designed for small – medium business entrepreneurs, their managers and future managers.

Part Two – The Business Boot Camp –

The content of this course builds on the Business Skills Incubator Course – which is a prerequisite. In this second Course, we take a deeper dive into the implementation of the 24 business tools taught in Part One. Weekly online live video meetings throughout the 8 weeks of this course are designed to engage and support participants in making sustainable improvements. The end goal is to better equip and permanently shift your leadership team to collaborate and engage in a high-performance culture.

Part Three – The Business MasterMind –

This 12-month commitment is for the graduates of Part One and Part Two. It is designed to form a core group of mutually supportive, trusted peers in a facilitated mentoring format. We will meet online bi-weekly to ask tough questions and receive peer advice – all facilitated and filtered through the concepts of business skills and high-performance from the first two courses. Designed to be an ongoing small-group format – each Mastermind Group will become a trusted board of advisors for each other, while continuing to learn new skills pertinent to the group from the facilitator, as various issues arise. This program requires a pledge to commit to attending every online meeting, and participating actively in the group for the duration of the program.

We’ll be sending out some free resources to you in the weeks ahead – to give you a taste of what’s inside the Business Skills Incubator Course…

Watch for a series of emails explaining what the program will do for your management skills and team. If you want to dodge the emails and bolt straight onto the pre-registration waitlist.

Or go to Academy.consultingbyhart.com for course info, pricing and start dates.

Narrowing The Engagement Gap

Thu, 26 Sep 2019 17:37:16 GMT

I have developed a new engagement tool – and want to share it with you. I mentioned it in a recent business summit - and you could have heard a pin drop. So I know I’m on to something.

As many of you know, I spend a lot of my time working with leadership teams, business owners and other business coaches – all focused on improving team engagement.

I also listen. I listen to frustrated employers, supervisors and managers. I listen to frustrated employees, youth and students. I also listen to frustrated unemployed (but employable) young adults looking for an appealing job.

So, I took a step back this past summer, and did a lot of thinking. I spent a lot of time researching and collaborating with other engagement experts and working on developing new programs aimed at helping to solve this engagement gap problem.

Amid my musings, I’ve developed a brand-new idea – and I want to share it with you here – hoping for some feedback from my readers...

To Pay Bonus or Not to Pay Bonus:

Many have asked this question. Myself included. Many times over when I was running my own landscape company. I recall sitting in a huge ball room at Congress many years ago, watching Charles VanderKooi using a flip chart up on stage (yes, it was a LONG time ago, pre-dating PowerPoint – lol). Charles was running through a complicated, intricately calculated production bonus system. I tried it. And it failed to motivate my team in the way it was supposed to. I also sat transfixed in years afterwards, watching JPL (Jean Paul Lamarche) do the same, with different math and logic – and a more trendy tool – a huge rolling dry erase board. I tried his system also. And it worked. That is until I realized that a few of my staff were actually counting on the ‘bonus’ as a part of their annual reported income in order to get a loan. Not much of a motivator when a bonus is an expected right…. There was nothing wrong with the solid math of JPL’s bonus system – the problem was the sense of entitlement a bonus created.

Many of us have watched and learned from Mark Bradley of TBG on how he handled developing a brilliant productivity bonus system, that saw his foremen, office staff and production staff all contributing to earning bonuses at the end of each year – crew by crew. It worked well for his company… but didn’t seem to fit my estate maintenance contract market.

I tried many different ways of ‘profit sharing’ – and thankfully never wandered into the abyss of giving shares of my company to employees as motivation.

So, taking all of the potential bonus systems and calculations into account, how can we as employers use money to motivate a younger generation who doesn’t value money over company culture and how they feel working for you?

I think I’ve found a key part of the answer. Knowing what I do about the ‘millennial mindset’, and the upcoming Generation Z – after a huge amount of research over the past several years – the under30’s in your company are looking for different things than just money. They don’t aspire to material things the way their parents or grand parents did. They aspire to being valued. While cash is nice, if they’re paid a living wage, it’s revered not nearly as much as belonging, being appreciated, being a part of something bigger than themselves. Contribution is the name of the engagement game. Intrinsic contribution.

Skipping back to the paying bonus question – here’s what I think will work much better: My newest business management tool to share is : My Career Development Fund©. Here’s how it works: Every employee has a ‘career dream’ intake meeting with HR/business owner. Learn what they aspire to. While many are wafting along, without career aspirations, most are able to tell you what they’d like to learn about. Understand where they’re starting from. Make a connection with the skills/knowledge needed to pursue their own interests. Set a ‘budget’ which is actually the money you’d otherwise have spent on a bonus – whether it’s using a signing bonus for joining the team, a referral bonus for bringing in a new employee, a production bonus, profit sharing etc – and ‘deposit’ it into their career development fund. Set parameters for how the money can be spent ie post secondary classes, fitness classes, special interest, industry training, certification, apprenticeship expenses etc. Also set a policy on what happens if they don’t use it all up. Can they roll it into the next year? Do they get a pay out if they leave? (I’d suggest ‘no’).

My idea is to take money you were already going to spend, and invest it in your people – whether it’s for business related skills improvement or not. Show them you care. Show them their aspirations are important to you. Know that few will likely stay for more than several years (yep, that’s the current stats) – and be ok with that. Invest in your staff intrinsically – like never before – and I’m convinced that you’ll reap the rewards with developing a team who stays longer, and where the back door is softly closed.

SPOILER ALERT!

Tue, 06 Aug 2019 13:26:31 GMT

I have a new online offering starting next month: The Business Incubator.

I’m super excited to bring you this news! By giving you this little spoiler alert – it could well be the best Business Tip I’ve ever written about here in the CBH Business Tips Series. There’s more info packed into our new CBH Incubator Program for you than I’ve included in the past 3 years of Monthly Business Tips!

I recognize that there’s a need for business coaching that’s targeted, effective and convenient – without leaving the comfort of your own office. You will still have access to the more intensive one on one or team coaching in face to face meetings. But with this new online offering, you'll now have an easily accessible opportunity to work together at an affordable rate.

The Business Incubator is designed for business owners with a glint of growth in their eye – who need to really get a firm grip on the invisible factors driving their results and strategy.

The Business Incubator modules focus on demystifying elusive results and gaining fresh understanding on how to:

Cultivate a stronger tribe
Smooth out your day-to-day operations
Build confidence in leaders
And pave your way towards better profit margins

And it’s built from years of tried, tested and true CBH business tools straight from my own Coaching Toolkit.

Let me explain:

My new 12-week online program is an interactive, connect-the-dots style learning opportunity that introduces participants to the CBH Business Building Blocks™. Participants (limited to groups of 5-8) will engage with me and each other online in targeted live video learning sessions every second week of the program.

On alternate weeks, they’ll work on applying and implementing what they’ve learned and baking it into relevant ‘next steps’ for their business by filling out helpful templates and worksheets. They’ll all be supported by their CBH Incubator Online Community within a closed Facebook group and I’ll also be available during our weekly Office Hour.

I’ve structured the program this way because I know every hard-working entrepreneur can afford to free up very little time during the week to work ON their business. The good news is that it will be time well spent, and it won't leave anyone wondering how to implement and get real results.

Learn more about the Business Incubator here (and get first-purchaser access when you join the waitlist!)

Top Ten Tips to Better Know Your Business’ Business

Fri, 28 Jun 2019 20:10:23 GMT

This months newsletter, I’m sharing my Top Ten tips to better know and run your business. Last month, I shared the first half of the Facebook Live interview with the Bracebridge Chamber of Commerce – entitled Know Your Businesses’ Business. I’ve had a lot of response since from business owners, so I struck a chord with many of you, and thought I’d include the summary of the Top Ten here with you.

The Facebook Live interview was a Q and A format. Hopefully you can take a small snippet away to mull over to inspire you to keep working ON your business, and to recognize the signs when you might need to ‘know your businesses’ business” better than you do at this point in time.

1. Work smarter : Start with realizing that your business won’t be profitable all on its’ own. Working harder isn’t the answer, working smarter is. Technology integration has become a must in order to keep up with the marketplace. Tools and information at your fingertips is crucial to being effective and efficient. You’re the leader, which included the being the thought-leader, critical thinker and strategy developer. Make the time for all three of these roles, every week.

2. Equip yourself for success : Good tools are needed to support every business – the equipment, the right software – the right person inputting data, the right marketing tools especially online, the right advisors, the right client: product match, the right people etc. Always consider what it’s actually costing your business to NOT spend money on qualified people. Hire Up – build the bench strength of your team to handle tomorrow’s business.

3. D on’t compete on price : A common mistake is to compare your prices to everyone else and match the competitions price. This is a death wish. Without knowing your competitors’ costs of goods, labor, equipment and fixed expenses, you have no idea whether your price should be comparable to theirs, or if you should compete on a different basis than on price alone. Competing on price alone in a young business typically ends up a race to the bottom of the profitability drain.

4. Stick to what you’re good at: make sure that you don’t try to be all things to everyone. Know when to say no to an ‘off-brand’ request or to one that’s out of your service territory or supply chain.

5. Get help to learn what you don’t do well. Whether it’s understanding how to price what you do in order to pay yourself better, or how to build a team who like coming to work with you, get proven advice to fast track you to better success. Find a trusted and experienced mentor, an advisor, a Peer Group (ie Landscape Ontario Peer To Peer Network!), a bank advisor, a good office manager, a talented book keeper, or a good coach.

6. Change your thinking: Einstein said: “you can’t solve a problem by using the same thinking that created it”. If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get the same thing. Learn. Review results. Adapt. Try again.

7. Step Back – Stop, Start and Continue: Take time to slow down and take stock of what’s happening. It’s counter intuitive to step back, and it pays you back in spades to get clear on what you should stop, start and continue doing.

8. Get Clarity – Why do you do what you do? Why did you start your business? Where is it going? It will be successful when what exactly is happening? What’s your vision? What’s non negotiable – your core values…

9. Build a team who believe what you believe – Simon Sineks infamous ‘Start with Why’ – search the TedTalk and watch it. WHY are you in business? What should others believe in, to help you follow your business vision.

10. Work hard to keep Right-Fit customers, staff and suppliers. Relationships are the key to successful companies. Word of mouth referrals from clients, suppliers that you treat well, who will return the favor when you need it most, customers who promote you first hand – these are all critical to your business success.

At CBH, our team of seasoned Business Coaches and Consultants are well equipped to guide you through the steps to build better financial results, stronger leadership, a cohesive team culture and consistent systems for improved accountability. If your looking for solutions to master these key business components, qualified help is just an email away.

The Tough Road to Profit

jacki@consultingbyhart.com (Jacki Hart) — Mon, 03 Jun 2019 16:22:37 GMT

Watch the full Facebook Live interview here: WATCH NOW!

Your business needs you to work ON it every month, no matter whether it’s your peak season, or a slower time of the year.

Last month, I did a live FB interview with the Bracebridge Chamber of Commerce – entitled ‘Know your businesses’ business. I’ve had lots of response since from business owners, so I struck a chord with many of you, and thought I’d include the highlights here this month.

The interview was a Q and A format. Hopefully you can take a small snippet away to mull over to inspire you to keep working ON your business, and to recognize the signs when you might need to ‘know your businesses’ business” better than you do at this point in time.

Q. Based on your experience as a business coach, in what ways is the average small business owner prepared to run a business?

Unfortunately, many people enter business ownership without formal business management experience or training. They typically come armed with passion, determination and lots of hope. Many small business owners come to own a business because they have experience /skills and believe they can be successful ‘doing’ what they do best rather than knowing how to manage a business.

Most are able to grow a small business to the point where they gather a few staff, and a growing customer base – and it’s all because they have built the company around that core skill they have – whether retail, in the trades, or light manufacturing. Typically there’s lots of experimenting, long hours and determination to get a foothold in the market. But rarely is there the business knowledge, strategy or capital to really get solid momentum.

“What are some of the reasons that many small businesses struggle to make profit?”

In the early months and years, the focus is usually on validating the business, and gathering momentum (brand, cash flow, sales).

Sooner or later, most hit the wall of growth where the business (or the customers) are either running them, outsmarting them or both. Young businesses typically don’t have consistent systems in place – so everything flows to and through the owner. When you’re spread too thin, balls start to drop and so does profit. Typically no one is working regularly ON the business, everyone is full-on IN the work of the business. Without knowing how to manage gross profit and overhead recovery, a small business owner can back themselves into a corner financially fairly quickly.

Think of the Peter Principle, where people get continually promoted until they reach the level of their own incompetence. Many small businesses gain momentum to the point that the owner is promoted to his or her own level of incompetence. It’s at that point that many close the doors and work elsewhere, dig a deeper hole without realizing it, or finally seek the help, resources and coaching they need to turn the results around into profit.

“At what point does the reality of low profit and high debt typically happen?”

In my experience, for contractors and most service providers, the pain point – where business owners start hitting their own glass ceiling - is around $1mil in sales. – give or take $200K

I have coined the phrase in many of my published articles, web materials, MasterMind groups and workshops as “hitting The Million Dollar Wall.”

It’s the point at which business owners need to shift from owning a business to buy themselves a job, to becoming an entrepreneur who solves problems and builds equity strategically. It’s also the point at which many small businesses either stall or fail.

“How do you help guide business owners past hitting the wall of poor profit and cashflow?”

There are lots of important lessons to ‘learning your businesses’ business’. They start with a clear ‘reality check’ on what’s actually going on. An early step in the ‘fixing’ process includes a deep dive into ‘the numbers’ – which makes most small business owners either cringe or doze off. We work together, step by step until we find the answers to basic questions such as: How is product or service being priced? What are the overhead expenses? What are the cost of sales? How accurately are records being kept and how often? What debt are they carrying and can they service it comfortably? (loans, leases, rent, credit cards, lines of credit etc). The low hanging fruit to better results is typically found in this first layer of inquiry. It’s a good place to start getting early wins. It’s always well worth the effort and pays back exponentially.

Watch your inbox for next months issue, where I’ll be sharing the second half of the FB Live Interview TOP TEN TIPS to help you Know Your Business’ Business.

Culture Part 2: Engaging Your Team to Focus on Wellness and Safety

Wed, 01 May 2019 00:00:00 GMT

We are all challenged to ensure we have a culture of safety and wellness… the challenge, is what exactly does that look like? What should we all ‘do’? What will our conversations sound like when we’re ‘there’?

The shift that’s occurred in many of our careers from a culture of ‘get it done no matter what’ to a culture of ‘get it done safely and with work-life balance’ is not only extreme, but it’s complete and here to stay.

Long gone are the days when safety was a topic rarely discussed at work, and never past an employee's first day orientation. Every Foreperson, supervisor, manager and company owner is now required to ensure that the entire staff are following a clearly defined safety protocol at every turn, every day.

Recently, the power went out in my home town for a couple of hours in the morning. I went to my local Pharmacy to pick up a prescription after the power was restored, only to find the doors locked with a sign that read: “Due to our health and safety programme, which is designed to protect the safety of our team, we are closed while we await the power to come back on and fully re start our systems and computers”. I found a similar message when I went to the local Restore to drop off a donation. It reminded me that health and safety protocols are clearly defined across every industry, and require strict protocols to be followed.

The challenge for every company management team is to decide what the safety policies need to be, and how to communicate, train and engage the team to respect and follow them every day.

At a recent workshop session held in London, I invited the WSPS to provide their informative and inspiring presentation on Mental Health in the Workplace. They presented a workplace self evaluation survey designed to bring the issue of mental health to the forefront in the minds of policy makers and managers tasked with ensuring the team is healthy in all ways possible.

Prior to last winter, I hadn’t connected the dots between workplace processes and the personal mental health of the team. Now I realize that there is a true benefit in having candid, meaningful conversations among staff, with management, to address the challenges many face throughout their year (whether at work or not).

As employers, there’s an onus upon us to ensure that people who need support have access to us whenever we can. Opening up conversations about mental health is creating a more tightly nit team in each of the companies I see making the effort to embark on the journey. My thinking is that if WSPS is training on it to employers across the board, then it’s important to stand up and pay attention.

While you read this column, please pause and ask yourself if there’s room in the employee engagement department for you to open a conversation with your team about wellness. Can you take a stand and make the effort to create space for troubled staff to share and ask for support? Is there something that you can do to flex your work structure, to reduce stress and accommodate challenging child care, transportation or home life challenges? Are there people in your midst on your team whom would engage more deeply with your company brand if it included a sincere focus on wellness for everyone?

Among my readers here in this column, I know that there are companies who hold monthly ‘hang out’ events that range from ‘yoga in the park’ for the whole team, to bar-b-ques, fun days, ice cream sundae eating contests (no cutlery allowed), community projects, wildlife sanctuary volunteer projects, and the list goes on. What I have observed in these companies, is a true ethic to support and engage staff in dialogue and collaboration to support overall wellness of the team.

Creating the culture of safety isn’t a very long step away from the wellness discussions. At a coaching session last winter, I lead an afternoon discussion on establishing and maintaining a continually improving culture of safety. We emphasized the point that as long as the management firmly believes that everyone should have the right to go home uninjured – and they walk their talk, then the rest usually falls into place. The challenge presents when time schedules are tight, work orders are piling up and it seems like safety meetings are in slow motion…. Something to be ‘rescheduled’.

I suggest that in order to create a truly engaged culture of safety and wellness, safety meetings are scheduled and never delayed. It sends a message to the team if you put off training and conversations about the importance of safety over and over again. It’s THEIR safety that’s at risk if they don’t get the training they need. They don’t know what they don’t know. The onus is on the leadership team to inform, train, and engage everyone in safety and proactive, consistent smart practices, designed to keep staff, pedestrians and client families safe.

Take a moment, especially now at this difficult and rushed time of year, to make sure that you’re on target with your safety training plan, and don’t let your foot off the gas. Not now. Not ever. The message to your team that their safety and wellness is important and non-negotiable is not only appreciated, but necessary.

Dig in, show you care, ask for ideas, engage your team in a culture of safety and wellness!

Company Culture – Part 1: Communicating and Engaging The Team

Mon, 01 Apr 2019 00:00:00 GMT

What are the Company Core Values?
What’s non-negotiable?
How do you treat each other?
What’s not acceptable?
How does everyone know what’s right and wrong in your business?
For example, if one of your core values is Personal Growth – what does that mean exactly?
Are staff supposed to self identify what they need/want to learn (either personal skills or technical skills)?
Who supports their goals?
What is expected of them and you?
How will progress be measured and communicated?
What if the goals change?
What will it look like every day if Personal Growth is a part of daily culture?

I’ve worked with many companies and teams to identify and define their Culture and Core Values. For the companies that print them into the employee handbook and post them on the wall – there’s little or no impact. But for those who enliven and communicate the Core Values as a part of daily focus and language – it’s transformational.

When Core Values can be used every day to guide decisions, discussions and behaviour there is no looking back. These companies attract right fit people, clients, suppliers and projects/contracts. Their policies align with the core values, processes, performance evaluations, brand messaging, social media posts – everything aligns, and creates the company ‘slip stream’.

Recently, I spent a day with a management team of ten. We were working on stepping up their personal leadership abilities, and solving perennial challenges. We went through an exercise, where in two groups, they listed all of the company processes and policies they felt were consistently broken or not working. A year previously, the Company Core Values had been clearly defined and communicated. When we looked at the lists produced by the two groups, what I saw, was a bunch of ignored core values. I challenged them to rhyme off the values to me, which they did with ease. Then I asked them to help me to understand how their lists could exist if the core values were being followed?

After an interesting silence, one by one, they piped up and started talking about which core values weren’t being followed, and what the different outcome would be if they were to keep those values at the forefront of every hour each day. The energy in the room became so dynamic and exciting! They could see very quickly how the solution to most of their challenges was right in front of them. All they had to do was agree to fully engage in the culture that was already established. It was a very cool revelation for them all – and I’m looking forward to hearing back from them with examples of how their engagement and shift in mindset is making a difference this spring. I’m confident that their ‘aha’ moment in our Leadership Day session will carry them through to hold themselves and each other accountable to consistent behaviour, alignment with policies and consistent engagement in procedures across the board.

So, if your company struggles at times with achieving consistent attitudes, actions and accountability, have faith. In my experience, most of the reason for inconsistent results is rooted in a lack of understanding and clarity on what’s expected and what’s wrong-fit. If you’re not sure about how effective a clearly defined company culture can be, then contact CBH to begin defining your Core Values, and see for yourself.

Take The Pulse Of Your Recruiting Style

Fri, 01 Mar 2019 00:00:00 GMT

I’m writing this under the assumption that your company has an available position or two, or five, or more. Without a stack of perfect resumes and daily requests from candidates wanting a job, willing to do anything (faint memories of the 90’s) – let’s take a walk through who your message is (or isn’t) appealing to, and why.

There are many factors contributing to the challenges businesses face with recruiting. Some of which we have little control over… like competitive industries which pay a bit better, offer a bit more job security, or jobs that are entrenched in technology or something else a bit more ‘sexy’. Yet, there are some things that we DO have control over: One of the main ones I see over and over again is the disconnected message between who you’re trying to attract, and how you’re communicating who you’re looking for.

We’re navigating a multi-generational workforce more now than ever before – many companies have 5 different generations: The ‘founders’, ‘baby-boomers’, ‘gen X’, ‘millennials (gen Y – or as I call them, gen WHY’) and now ‘genZ’. The impact on businesses to shift how and what they communicate is fast paced and significant. Attracting digital natives (Gen Z – under 22 years old) is an entirely different game than attracting Baby Boomers. The language, the message and the media used to engage applicants is polar opposite. While Boomers (age 57 – 70) will (reluctantly) search online to find your job postings, will have a polished resume, expect the ‘traditional’ interview process and reference checks and WILL show up for an interview on time and well dressed, hiring Gen Z is a whole different ball game.

Generation Z and the younger Millennials (the under 30’s) click to a different tune. Entirely. Neither right nor wrong, good nor bad, it is what it is. So, in what ways have you changed your messaging to attract a generation who put different emphasis on what they value in employment? I will avoid a discussion about parenting and how they were raised, and hone in on what’s important to them: Contributing to the goals of the team, being valued, being praised and given feedback, feeling included, engaged in learning and personal growth, wellness balanced with work – to just name the top ones.

What this shift in perception of value in employment means to employers, is that you must address this wish list up front and right from the start.

Did you know that the under 30 applicants will surf straight to your FACEBOOK and INSTAGRAM sites BEFORE your website? They’ll look first at how many followers and likes your company has. If there isn’t an interesting and engaging company story there, you’re toast. They might apply, but likely will show up as a last resort. They will keep looking for something ‘better’.

So many businesses are still pounding hard at website edits, updates etc, and ignore their social media presence. Think twice about that. The reality is that these two generations won’t likely find you by googling ‘landscapers near me’, and comb through your website to learn about you and opportunities you may have. Your website is a validator to most who visit – whether prospective employees, clients, suppliers or lenders. It’s not your best recruiting tool.

Another thing to consider, is that social media has changed the way Gen Z thinks…. They’ve grown up with a smart phone in their hand, and a social media presence that’s really important to them. They’re likely to be asking themselves “What does it say about me, if I work for that company?”. Yep, it’s just that important to them.

As for showing up for interviews, the reality is that they will typically flit around the web, applying for many opportunities at the same time. Some loose track, some keep track. In either case, they actually treat interviews like asking a store to hold a pair of jeans while they run an errand… if somewhere else in the mall (assuming they’re shopping in person not online) they come across a better deal, or better pair, they’ll buy and never return to the store holding the first pair. That sense of ‘courtesy’ isn’t a part of their fast changing world. They’re ‘in the moment’. It is what it is.

So, I encourage you to sit back and take a look at your online presence, and the message you’re conveying in your recruiting program. Can applicants see an engaged youthful team working together? A sense of community? Can they quickly learn that there’s something in it for them other than a paycheque? Is there a visual story of work balance and wellness, mutual respect and appreciation for the team? If your job ads talk about what YOU need ( i.e. willing to work long hours, high level of physical fitness, their own car etc) then you’re out of date. If your job ads talk about what you provide and what’s in it for your employees (balance, personal growth, contributing to the team and community), then you’re likely going to get better results.

I’m hopeful that you’re able to improve your recruiting results this year, and connect with right-fit people for your team this year, better than ever!

The Boom-X Paradigm

Fri, 01 Feb 2019 00:00:00 GMT

There is a paradigm shift upon us. It’s been creeping into many industries about ten years. In this past year, it seems to have reached its’ own critical mass, and those who don’t fully embrace it are being left behind in the labour market. It’s a transformational metamorphosis of our labour force, being driven by unexpected agents of change. Not by the economy. But by the Millennials, thankfully .

If the terms ‘gig economy’, ‘boomerang employees’ and ‘Tours of duty’ are unfamiliar, it’s time for you to ‘get with the NEW paradigm’ which is now upon us. I’ve created a new thought-leader term for it: The ‘Boom-X Paradigm’*. I’ve named it that, because it applies to the Baby Boomers and Gen-Xers who make up the majority of employers at this present time. Let me explain….

For example, in the landscape industry recruiting and job hunting has been turned upside down. If you’re an employer, I’d dare to wager that you had at least one ‘no show’ for interviews this past year. Finding a job or a ‘better’ job these days for the tech savvy, is like finding a new pair of jeans – just search, click, pick and get what you want when you want it. There’s lots to choose from. That’s why many don’t show up for scheduled interviews. They browsed your job posting like a store in a mall. And they see so many, they forget which ones were keeping something on hold for them. They just buy the most convenient one, or the best deal when they’re ready to. The impact of technology on recruiting and job hunting.

For several years now, I’ve been reading, observing, listening and brainstorming on the subject of ‘employee attitudes’, I’m now absolutely convinced that our biggest labour challenge is rooted in how employers think about the structure of their business and the people who work there. Using the jean analogy, selling ahead of the competition is more about convenience, simplicity and appeal to the buyer. Jobs are now the item ‘for sale’, Millennials are the consumers. And God Bless them, because they are forcing old stale habits to reinvent.

I believe that contracting industries aren’t unappealing because of what we do, but because of how we think. In fact, what we do in the landscape industry for example, is totally aligned with Millennials’ desire to contribute to the good of the climate, communities and the environment. We need to adopt transformational thinking in order to solve our labour crises our employer market needs to navigate the Boom-X Paradigm Shift. And FAST.

This paradigm shift is buried deep in the subconscious of our key demographic group of potential team players and future managers. In an industry that includes physical fitness as a common factor for suitability in matching candidates to jobs, many employers are thinking still about filling seats in trucks and haven’t yet brought their recruiting and hiring criteria up to match the mindset of those they seek to bring on board.

Gone are the days of hiring ‘labourers’ - and treating them as such. No self-respecting Millennial is going to be treated as a labourer. This wonderful creative generation is looking for more. Not more money (well, ok, maybe more money than you think you can afford). They are looking for more opportunity. They want to bring meaning to their day by making purposeful contributions to the big picture, to be a part of the solutions and success. They want to be included. And, fyi, they’re not lazy. If you engage them, you’ll not be able to keep up with them. What this generational attitude shift represents to employers is the need to completely change their thinking about why they’re hiring and what happens when they do.

Historically, business successes across many industries have been achieved by focusing on efficiency, in a stable and highly predictable environment – where generations of workers chose a trade and stuck with one career – often one company – for life.

It was an era when people were managed as a commodity to produce profit. I’ll paraphrase Simon Sinek’s formula:

People + Productivity = Profit.

Today we face a different reality which is unstable and highly unpredictable. This new reality is made up of changing attitudes toward work and a rapidly changing marketplace. Recent statistics indicate that 80% of employees (under the age of 35, across all industries) will change jobs every three to five years. The reasons for job change vary but include ‘lousy boss’ as the highest ranked and better pay as one of the lowest ranked reasons for leaving their job.

I have come to believe that what has made our industry successful in the past (People + Productivity = Profit) is a big part of what’s holding us back from success now and will in the future. The NEW Boom-X Paradigm* is shifting to both a focus on effectiveness and engagement in a way never thought of before now. Profit now must be managed as a commodity used to grow and nurture the people. This new reality demands a new formula for success:

People + Purpose = Performance.

I’ve spent the last year developing ways to help employers deploy fresh thinking to solve stale problems. As an industry, I believe that we need to engage, equip and empower our teams, challenge status quo thinking, and ignite our leadership teams with hope and new knowledge. The Boom-X Paradigm* is here to stay.

Making Intentional Improvements

Wed, 02 Jan 2019 00:00:00 GMT

This is the time of the year many business owners consider how to improve profitability, their teams and market share. Many of you will wade deep into newly found resources, adapting to new software and apps, and generally working on improving systems for the year ahead.

The true challenge lies in making changes that will stick through your busiest times of the year. It’s easy to let others tell us what we need to ‘fix’ and how to fix it. In my experience, the impetus for change should be coming from within your company: from the leadership team – rather than from someone outside of your company. Including a coach.

I’ve lost count of how many business owners I know who have paid for and started to implement new systems, processes, policies or service lines that were either quickly abandoned, or left to smolder in the wings without closure. Most tried to make changes because someone from outside of the company recommended either what to change, how to change it, or when. Rarely does that work for very long.

The changes that you implement will likely fail at a rate directly proportionate to the number of people involved in sustaining it, unless everyone feels the need for change, and takes part in its’ success.

Whether making changes either behind the scenes or upfront, be very intentional about it. Consider answering this: What should change? Why? When and How?

Select one critical ‘must improve’ issue: For example: “I don’t have enough time to stay on top of special requests from customers during peak months. As a result, our customers are disappointed (or worse).”

Step 1. What specifically is the gap between what needs to happen and what’s currently happening? Example: we need to follow through and communicate more consistently.

Step 2. How can we change our process to consistently get the desired result? Example: Could we be using apps, shared calendars, live documents etc to capture verbal promises, or paste emailed ones into a shared space.

Step 3. What steps are we missing to make this happen? Example: Start with the end in mind and work backwards: Ask questions such as : in what instances are we dropping the ‘follow through’ ball? Who on our team is most likely to benefit from having a solution available that prevents relying on memory alone in peak months?

Step 4. What process needs to be created (steps for staff / customer to follow) to manage clear communication and approval? Example: Consider adopting a Customer Relations Management app.

Step 5. How will we communicate and train everyone on what steps to follow in the event of an unexpected customer request? Example: Create a signoff training for introducing the steps/forms/email trail to follow.

Remember Einsteins famous mantra: “You can’t solve a problem using the same thinking that created it.” When you and your team intentionally commit to purposeful change, it will happen!

Having trouble shifting thinking in your company, and managing change? We can help you to align thinking, and launch ahead with new solutions to repetitive problems.

The Power of Gratitude

Sat, 01 Dec 2018 00:00:00 GMT

Gratitude is a change maker. It’s powerful and contagious. Practicing gratitude can shift you from stressed to smiling or from floundering to grounded in the blink of an eye. What does gratitude have to do with your business and its’ prosperity? Everything. Let me explain.

Most of us come and go through our days, weeks, months and seasons with a lot on our plates. Whether in high speed multi-tasking mode, or in high effectiveness hyper-focused mode or anywhere in between, we can easily skim over the ‘’obvious’ small incremental successes and swat them aside as ‘expected’ results – charging on ahead focused on the bigger goals.

Where the rubber starts to hit the road in the gratitude value department is when your multi tasking mode seems to never be enough to reach the end of your to do list, and the hyper focused mode just seems to put you farther behind on everything else. Sooner or later each year, most of us quietly wonder if its’ all worth the long days, drive thru diet and exhaustion.

I have many wonderful long-time colleagues whom have mentored me on the power of gratitude over the years. Some through sharing their self fulfillment and joy from Church activities, some through their strong religious faith, and others from stories of cherished family memories and business triumphs.

Gratitude: An Attitude of Choice

2018 for me was a full stop in the gratitude value lesson department. In 9 short months, l lost my beloved four-legged labradoodle ‘daughter’, both of my parents, and our chocolate labrador retriever. I had an important and tough choices to make. Either be consumed by deep deep grief, or be lifted up and comforted with huge gratitude for having had each of them in my life, until the last living breath of each of theirs. A tough choice. I chose gratitude. (I think that I’ve said ‘thank you’ more times in the past year than in the last 50) And it’s not yet let me down as a grounding force through really tough times.

When I reflect back on 25 years of highs and lows as a contractor business owner and the challenges that come with seasonal peaks, 20+ staff and a highly demanding wealthy clientele – I see the parallels of navigating crises – whether business or grief, no matter what the cause. My business for many years was ‘my child’. Sometimes making me laugh, shake my head in disbelief, curse in frustration and yes, it even brought me to tears on more than one occasion. The one thing that has always pulled me back to my feet was a good dusting of gratitude.

When you’re grateful, truly deeply grateful, you FEEL better. Giving thanks and expressing gratitude, whether silently to yourself, to a Deity, to a friend, child, parent, neighbour or co-worker – it’s powerful. When you tell someone that you’re truly grateful for the impact or contribution they’ve made toward you, they’ll feel better. They’ll feel more grounded, appreciated. They’re then more likely to ‘Pass it on’.

It’s contagious.

A Culture of Gratitude

What if….. at every training session, every staff meeting, and at the start of YOUR day, there was an open invitation and routine to express gratitude? What if your staff had a weekly chance to thank someone on the team for something that happened the week before they’re grateful for? What if you paused each morning with family, or on the way to work, to tell someone (or the universe) what you’re grateful for? What if you and your team focused more on resonating from a place of gratitude? I think it would be powerful, and spill into the experience of your customers in measurable ways.

I’m truly grateful for many things, including the wonderful spirit of community for mutual improvement in my Peer Network. I’m grateful for their accolades as their Network leader and facilitator. I’m also grateful for the high return on investment my clients report that I bring to them through my business coaching work. I’m grateful for cherished memories, and to be the living legacy of my parents’ character and values.

As we look ahead to 2019, and each work hard to take ourselves to our own next level, I’d like to nudge each of my readers to take a moment this month to think about gratitude, what you’re grateful for, and how you could each leverage its’ power to be your foundation for a better, stronger you next year. With best wishes for many things to be grateful for in the year ahead.

Self Reflection - A Paradigm Shift

Mon, 29 Oct 2018 00:00:00 GMT

Last month a member of a professional contractors Peer Network I facilitate, posted a deeply sincere and important message on the groups private Face Book page. The day he posted his message was the one year anniversary of the suicidal death of one of his employees. His message was clear: Look after your staff, treat them well, listen to them, support them on a holistic level whenever you can. Build a culture where you watch out for and take concern for each other.

Lindsey is a millennial. He is a perfect example of the paradigm shift emerging in the millennial-built teams and businesses over the past few years. Many business owners in our industry grew up with the industrial era mind-set that people in a business were a commodity to be managed in order to grow profit. The paradigm shift that’s now very evident in progressive business teams, is that money is now the commodity to be managed in order to grow the people. Simon Sinek discusses this concept in great detail and with his usual wonderfully thought provoking style in his book Leaders Eat Last.

It takes a dedicated entrepreneur, determined to grow their team and solve their staffing issues to realize how crucial this timely paradigm shift really is. It takes the intentional act of self-reflection as a first step to start shifting from focusing on what we can’t control (ie the labour market) to focusing on what we can control (growing the people we have and attracting more like them).

I charged head-long through many formative and mid years in my landscape company focusing on profit, efficiency and top line growth. It took a major health event and a few weeks in the hospital to snap me out of it, and experience the value of stepping back to get clarity and carve out a smarter path. Self-reflection was the key.

Self reflection ensures the time for business owners and top level managers to contemplate rather than produce, to analyze rather than invent, and to stay present in daily affairs. There are lots of questions that you can ask yourself and your team, which require a pause in default routines as well as default activity. One of the most effective ways I’ve seen this process happening recently, is through management teams making the time to step away and have a strategic thinking retreat.

There is huge return on investment benefit to making the time for a day or two of ‘think-tank’ style get-away. Sometimes an outside facilitator can listen and then offer a fresh perspective, along with helping to manage discussions when there’s disagreement or tension. With a little bit of preparation and structure, having a pause in the rapid fire pace of daily business can inspire self-reflection and great new ideas to surface. While it might seem like an expensive idea, ask yourself what it costs your company to NOT get a hold of real issues and solve expensive problems (i.e. lost opportunities in revenue from being short staffed, repeating the high cost of recruiting, training and onboarding a steady stream of new employees every year.

“Clarity Precedes Mastery”

I’ve mentioned this famous quotation before. And its’ worth mentioning again. In my experience, when a business is faced with chronic challenges, it’s time for clarity. You really can’t master anything if you don’t have total clarity on what the issues really are, what you can and can’t control, and what you can influence if you put your mind to it.

I’m proud to say that active members in my contractors Peer Network have greater clarity on many levels of their business now than ever before, and their success continues to grow on all levels in their businesses. In our September Summit #P2PSummitLO this year, many reported that their employee churn/turnover and recruiting issues have all but disappeared. Why? Because they’ve spent the past few years working together as peers reflecting on their real-time business issues, delving into many key issues around people, profit and processes. They have emerged on the other side with what I believe is a higher than average rate of employee retention, engagement and growth.

Self-reflective activities work well to improve business results. Whether through focused facilitated discussion groups with your industry Peers, or with your own team – making the time to step out of your box on a regular basis brings huge return on investment, both in time and money. We can help make it easy and time well spent.

The Curious Entrepreneur

Tue, 25 Sep 2018 00:00:00 GMT

I’ve yet to see a business that exists in a vacuum of stability. There are constant changes effecting every business. These include: the marketplace, technology, staff, relevant legislation, trends, talent, available resources, sophistication, goals, obstacles etc.

I’ll share the story of a restaurant in my local town as an example of an entrepreneur who lost his curiosity (and his business). The business started as a catering and fine food frozen take out. Then he was curious to see what would happen if he added a few tables and service for lunch and dinner. Then he added breakfast. When business waned, he realized it. He researched, curious about how he could enliven his well-established customer base - he re-branded to a ‘bistro’ type restaurant – offering a fabulous menu for fine cuisine 3 meals a day. It became one of the hottest places in town for an upscale meal. The ‘go-to’ for business meetings and couples looking for white linen table cloths with a relaxed quiet delicious meal. He was continually scanning for creative new ways to improve his recipes and business skills. He developed themed night events and the business continued to thrive – with a customer base excited and looking for what would be his next new offering.

Ten years went by. Other fine dining restaurants opened up in town. Competition became a threat. Nothing changed in his restaurant, other than a fair amount of ‘dissing’ the competition to his patrons. The odd tweak to the menu brought little excitement from the customer base. Online ratings were favourable, but few and far between – drawing predominantly a 55+ aged crowd – perhaps not interested in posting pictures to Instagram, Pinterest and Trip Advisor. Frustration of the owner became evident to patrons. Empty tables dominated over the patrons seated at most meals. After a month closure for vacation, and a family tragedy, the restaurant closed down. A career and life long business simply tired and closed without saleability or return on the owners investment. He has lost his curiosity and drive to innovate and adapt, in an industry where refreshing the image and menu is the true recipe for success.

Here are three key take-aways to keep you challenging your business status quo:

Innovate: In todays fast changing marketplace and consumer sophistication, those businesses which constantly innovate will stay ahead of the pack. Innovation requires you to have a keen sense of what needs to change, in what way, and when. Keeping your eye on the vision and desired outcomes will help to guide innovative directions. Engaging your team to apply their creativity toward the company potential is a huge part of the millennial contribution. Entrepreneurs can either lead innovation or engage their team to be the innovators. In both cases, knowing what available resources and market demand is out there will keep the power of curiosity on your side.

Customize: This sometimes requires you to slow down in order to go faster. There will be times when your business will benefit from customization of software, data management, processes, systems, policies, and apps or technology available. Many business owners are so mired in their day to day operations, that they can’t even get a glimpse of the forest for the trees. Trust that there is a huge payback in the potential of your time invested to step off the company treadmill, regroup and map a more effective path forward with customized solutions.

Adapt: In an earlier article, I talked about resilience. Adapting on the fly requires that resilience and curiosity combined. Being able to adapt to current performance (either people or brand or profit) and push on ahead with tweaked solutions is paramount to success. Stay stuck in the old patterns, fail to adapt to changing conditions – and you’re heading for the cliff. Even the Millennial workforce has carved out the need for new recruiting and on-boarding styles. Emphasis of recruiters has to shift to meet this demographic. If you don’t, you’ll be overworking your team and be faced with expensive empty seats on the bus.

Often, it takes a fresh set of experienced eyes to help spark your curiosity back up. By having a business coach or advisor ask you the difficult and fresh questions, it can spur you on to discover opportunities, use your creativity to seize opportunities and launch forward through your glass ceiling. (Bump, Bump, ouch). We can help.

Polished Salesmanship

Tue, 31 Jul 2018 00:00:00 GMT

Part 4 – Top Ten Entrepreneurial Skills

To recap, in the last three columns, I’ve written about the key entrepreneurial skills of Engagement, Resilience and Focus. In addition to these skills, salesmanship is also a crucial skill for the business owner to possess.

The owner of every business is its top brand manager. It is up to the business owner – the driver of the company bus – to ensure that the brand promise (both internally and externally) matches the actions of the team, and the functionality of the products being sold.

It’s the business owner who can best train the team on what ‘script’ to use when speaking with customers, suppliers, potential customers and each other. It’s also the business owner who can best sell to the top accounts and rescue the customer relationship if things have come off the rails.

Three things to consider about your role in salesmanship:

1. Selling your internal brand: It’s important to align the team with your expectations for how they will deliver on the company promises. This important step starts with training, then mentoring your team on what the final result needs to be with respect to your customers experience, and the steps they will take to accomplish it. You need to sell them on how the company culture needs to be deployed in order to deliver on the external brand promise. When your team is focused on your vision of successfully delivering on the company brand promise, that’s when the magic happens. And profit.

2. Selling your external brand: Everything that is communicated about your company to the marketplace (and internet) makes up the sum-total of your brand image. The expectations for the ‘experience’ of doing business with your company stems from your branding image and messaging. It’s up to you to ensure that as the top sales person, you are leading the brand in the direction that fits the strategy and deliverability of your promises.

3. Earning word of mouth referrals and reviews: The single-most relevant and effective sales funnel in your business comes from Word of Mouth and Online Reviews. This is where your company reputation for consistent experience and promises kept is measured and leveraged. As the leader in salesmanship, it’s up to you ensure your top accounts are asked for their referrals, and to ensure that your team understands the huge value referrals bring to the bottom line profit. Good news travels fast and can build an important bank of right-fit aligned clients to whom it’s easy to sell. Bad news travels faster and farther.

Take a few minutes to think about the ways in which you are highly skilled at acquiring top and key accounts with your polished, confident style. How do you train others to walk that talk and learn the thinking behind your ‘script’. While you can’t force staff to say things exactly the way you do, you can use your well articulated core values, purpose and vision to give them the company dictionary to use for creating their own scripts and sell your company brand and customer confidence with their own style.

If you’re looking for ways in which you could improve the effectiveness and consistency of how your company delivers on its brand image – both internally and externally – we can help you .

The Focused Entrepreneur

Tue, 03 Jul 2018 00:00:00 GMT

#3 of our Top 10 Entrepreneurial Skills Inventory: FOCUS

A skilled business owner is focused on what’s important – if not every day or every week, at the very least they check in on what’s happening and needs to happen, every month. This check-in requires Focus .

While it’s easy to become inhaled by the day-to-day activities between staff, customers, inventory, service promises and marketing messages…. It’s also easy to look solely on that near horizon, put out the fires and continuously connect the dots, losing sight of the bigger horizon.

Successful businesses are driven by the bigger horizon focus. It’s the driver of strategy. And, it’s an important discipline that takes practice.

Entrepreneurial Focus requires the ability to maintain the birds’ eye view, constantly checking that action matches three crucial factors in your business: Vision , Strategy and Targets .

Vision: Where is your business going – what’s the destination? What will be happening (or not happening) when it is successful? At what are you aiming? What does the team understand as the ‘end-game’ of why they come to work every day? If you haven’t already articulated a vision statement to your team and customers, you should. A vision statement (ONE sentence only) drives the efforts and FOCUS of the whole team. And keeps the core leadership team on track.

In the millennial era of business teams, knowing where the company is going, and how each person will contribute to the greater success is crucial. In one simple sentence, skilled entrepreneurs can make their single most effective impact on the company’s forward momentum.

If you’re aiming at nothing, you’ll hit it with huge accuracy – and so will your business. Everyone in your business needs FOCUS. If you’ve ever had staff in your midst who ‘just don’t ‘get it’, and your business operates without a vision statement, then you know exactly what I mean.

If you don’t give clear direction, who will? Ask yourself these two crucial leadership questions if you don’t have a clearly stated vision statement: If not me then who? If not now then when? You need a razor-sharp vision statement to have Focus.

Strategy: The infamous ‘Strategic Plan’ leaves many business owners rolling their eyes, muttering something about having not enough time under their breath. The truly successful effective business owners are the exception. They understand the importance of the road map.

By now, most of us have experienced a bad piece of advice from an in-car GPS – that we follow somewhat blindly with deep trust. What the GPS is missing is the understanding of the context of your preferences for the journey. They usually get you to where you want to go eventually, but often in an inefficient, wasteful way (time, distance, traffic patterns etc – despite setting your preferences for the journey). They are helpful when traffic is moving along smoothly – just like your business – and typically become increasingly inefficient as unplanned things get in the way – just like your business. Journeys started with greatest plan – rarely ending with adaptability and focus on what’s important.

Think of your business in this way. Without all of the information laid out (the strategy), how can you determine to what you need apply resources, how much and when. Even more to the point, how can you engage the team (or attract them) if you’re unclear as to what contribution they will need to make (and the Return On Investment they will bring)? The strategy is the road map from which you FOCUS What, When and How. And you need one.

Targets and Goals: Whether daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly or annual – targets are an important part of business success. They are the milestones on which the team, your marketing and business results depend. They bring clarity and create important metrics, driving what gets measured and when. They provide Focus.

Everyone needs to be focused on results. Targets and Goals help to create the ability to measure performance. This is what drives accountability. It’s what rallies the team and drives FOCUS.

‘If you’re aiming at nothing, you’ll hit it with huge accuracy’ – remember? When there is an absence of clarity, there’s an absence of FOCUS. If you don’t set targets and spur on all efforts to meet or exceed them, who will?

The Focused entrepreneur will maintain the birds eye view, constantly checking that action matches strategy, vision and targets. We can help you sort through the intense pace of your business, gain crystal clear Focus, and launch your results to break through to your next level of success.

The Resilient Entrepreneur

Fri, 15 Jun 2018 00:00:00 GMT

This may very well be THE title for a book in my future writing dreams.

I’ve worked with hundreds of business owners over the years, and as I mentioned here last month, I’ve created my own list of required skills for the entrepreneurs who rise to the top. Every entrepreneur needs the innate ability to always pick themselves up after an unexpected business blunder, dust themselves off and keep moving forward. The ones with resilience seem to steer their businesses well through both the thick and thin times.

A colleague of mine shared a pretty cool catch phrase with me many years ago, and it’s stuck with me ever since: Fail Forward Fast. In order to do this, to recognize, respond and recover quickly, business owners simply need to have a bit of steely resolve – steeped in resilience.

Business owners who climb through bumpy start-ups or sudden market changes are resilient. They typically know in advance that running a business will have its’ challenges, victories and unexpected events. What they don’t know, is upon which invisible skills they will depend for success when the S_ _ _ hits the fan.

In my experience most entrepreneurs have the uncanny ability to see around corners - but there’s always something to which we cast a blind eye – and then eventually end up reeling from the jolt of difficult circumstance. How effectively and how quickly you move through and recover from these challenges speaks to resilience.

Here are my Top 3 'learn-able' resilient entrepreneur skills:

1. See Around Corners: Resilient entrepreneurs anticipate and notice when things are heading in the wrong direction: Resilience requires the ability to both admit that ‘plan A’ isn’t working – and to figure out ‘plan B’ in a hurry. Admitting that you’ve made a mistake in judgement or planning requires the character trait of resilience (and a bit of humility).

2. Don’t Skip a Beat: WHAM! You just fell flat on your face. Whatever brilliant plan you developed for your business just failed miserably – and with a hefty dose of resilience in your back pocket, you will be able to regroup and make the necessary ‘real-time’ shift in thinking and activities to get results back on track. The resilient entrepreneur doesn’t skip a beat when disaster strikes. They’re already devising the solution and plan to recover.

3. Fail Forward Fast: The resilient entrepreneur is a solution creator in the face of adversity. I’ve worked with many business owners who come to me without resilience. They are mired deeply in the drama of disastrous people performance or lousy communication, are constantly managing disappointment and stay stuck there – staring at the problem rather than successfully, purposefully navigating it. They spin in circles, spiralling farther away from intentional effective action. They lose traction when the going gets tough.

Resilience is the key to moving through failed leadership or failed plans, or both. And it’s a skill that’s teachable. Ive taught many to shift their thinking and learn to be effective problem solvers in the face of adversity – so I know that you can do it if you try.

A great way to start working on improving the availability of this important skill in your Presidents’ tool box, is to step back and assess your performance. How well do you ‘measure up’ with the skills you need to be a strong entrepreneur? Stay tuned here for the balance of the year in these monthly issues – I’ll share a different unique entrepreneurial skill with you each month for you to consider taking stock of in your own business tool box. Last month we talked about ‘Engagement’. Next month…. We will talk about the skill of maintaining Focus.

Top Skills of Great Entrepreneurs

Thu, 10 May 2018 00:00:00 GMT

After many years of working with and mentoring business owners, I’ve concluded there is a surprising set of skills that are key to successful business careers, regardless of what sector or industry in which we choose to develop our careers.

In the next few months, I’ll chat about some of these key skills in this column. I encourage you to make the time to sit and ponder where your strengths are in each of them. There’s always room for improvement. By having strengths in each of these skills, you will bring a broad-based value to your company as it grows and matures to its’ next level.

After having spent several full day workshops last winter focusing on building teams, onboarding and improving people management systems, of my top ten skills, I’ll pick the skill of Engagement for this column.

A fully Engaged business owner includes three main actions as a part of their daily habits:

1. Proactively recruits new people to the team, keeping their eye on the horizon to balance the emerging needs of the business with the emerging needs of the team. Recruiting has become one of the most important internal activities in most businesses. Creativity, diligence, perseverance are all required in order to proactively build a right fit team at the right time. When new recruits move through the onboarding system, there can be unanticipated strengths and talent that emerge when they’re least expected. An engaged entrepreneur notices and adapts constantly.

2. Continuously considers their role as the lead company Mentor, to people at all levels of the business. Mentoring is one of the key strategies to engage people – especially the millennial generation. Inspire, engage and tuck them under your wing. Challenge their thinking, give them small projects, demonstrate excellence hands on for them to strive for… there are countless ways to make the time as a mentor – to set the example and engage no matter in what position an employee works. Put yourself in their shoes. Who mentored you to get you to where you are? Who gave you a bit of special attention or unexpected compliment over the years? Who taught you what they knew because they saw the potential in you? Be the mentor you appreciated.

3. Efficiently provides meaningful training opportunities for staff, with an open-door policy for asking questions without fear of ridicule or reprimand. The only thing worse than feeling like you need to ask a ‘dumb’ question, is not asking it to save yourself the embarrassment, and then making a reprimandable costly mistake at work. Training is an ongoing activity, and has to be meaningful, effective, timely and consistent between employees / teams.

The engaged ‘boss’ ensures that they effectively manage the moving parts of the business, with an eye on the big picture. They enable their team to be aligned with one another and continually communicate the targeted company results to everyone with transparency and resolve. They encourage positive accountability at all levels, which most particularly starts with holding him/herself fully accountable to the stated company values and vision.

Even in the busiest time of the year, seasoned business owners and managers have developed the wisdom and skills to step back from the busy day-to-day tactical duties and consider their own role as an important part of leading the team.

Keep your eye on the prize!

Branding Your Business To Be Seen

Mon, 12 Mar 2018 00:00:00 GMT

A brand is the sum total of the experiences your customers and potential customers have with your company. A strong brand communicates what your company does, how it does it, and at the same time, establishes trust and credibility. Your brand lives in everyday interactions with your customers, the images you share, the messages you post on your website, the content of your marketing materials, and in your posts on social networks.

How can a small business develop a strong brand on a tiny budget? Here are 10 tips to help you get started:

Be unique. One of the most iconic brands of our time – Apple – was reborn after it launched, in 1997, an innovative campaign inviting people to “Think Different”. Today, Apple products are perceived to be better designed, more fun, and more reliable than products from Apple’s competitors. What makes your business unique? What’s your story? What do you do that others in your industry do not do?
Grow your community. Many of the world’s best brands, including Google, Amazon, Facebook, Virgin, and Skype, spend modest sums on advertising and instead, focus on building and improving their communities. Those companies understand that if people trust a brand’s community, they will extend trust to the brand. Small businesses have many opportunities to build online and offline communities. For example, you can build online communities on Twitter, Facebook, your small business blog, on Instagram, or on other social networks. And remember that you can’t be in all places at once. Pick one or two places where you can focus building your community, and invest your time and resources there.
Build great products and services. Earlier this year, market research firm Millward Brown published its annual BrandZ study, ranking the world’s leading brands. When you consider that the number one reason people write about brands is to share experiences, Apple’s top ranking is not surprising – people love Apple’s products.vSome companies stop focusing on building great products and services when they become successful. This is a mistake. In 2008, Nokia was the world’s ninth most valuable brand. In 2011, Nokia was ranked 81st and this year, it fell even further. Even a strong brand will suffer when it creates average or below average products or services.
Have a good name and logo. A strong brand is easily recognizable. Recognition starts with the name of your business. The name will appear on your business cards, letterhead, website, social networks, promotional materials, products, and pretty much everywhere in print and online to identify your company or your company’s products and/or services.
It’s not enough to have a recognizable name. People commonly associate brands with the brand’s logo. As you think about your logo, keep your audience and products/services in mind because you want your logo to reflect your company. A good logo builds trust and a strong logo will help to pull your brand together. Think about the logos of some of the world’s most admired brands (Apple, Google, Amazon). How do you feel (emotionally) when you see their logos?
Find your voice. What you say is important, but don’t overlook how you say it. Your company’s “voice” is the language and personality you and your employees will use to deliver your branding message and reach your customers. Successful brands speak with a unique voice. Think about the brands you admire – what makes them unique? How do they communicate with you and other customers? What do you like about their voice?
Be consistent. Many small businesses mistakenly change their messaging depending on their audience. For example, a company might take a more serious tone on their website but a very lighthearted tone on their Facebook fan page. This can confuse your customers and potential customers. To build and maintain a strong brand, every aspect of your brand should be as good as your product or service and you must be consistent in presenting your brand. This includes not only your company’s name, logo, overall aesthetic design, products and services, but also includes your marketing materials, website, appearances at trade shows and conferences, content posted to social networks, etc. Why should you care about brand consistency? You should care because brand consistency leads to familiarity, and familiarity leads to trust.
Keep your promises. Although this is common sense, you’d be surprised how many small businesses tarnish relationships with their customers by failing to keep their promises. Happy customers who feel good about your business are your best source of referrals. For example, Zappos has built great trust and credibility with customers by promising quick delivery (2-5 business days) but Zappos goes even further and upgrades most customers to free overnight shipping. As a result, Zappos has very loyal and zealous customers.
Stand for something. Think about brands you love. Those brands commonly stand for something (or against something) and connect with their customers emotionally. One of my favorite companies, 37signals, develops software to help people collaborate. 37signals believes that most software is bloated and difficult to use. They don’t compete on features – they compete on usability. They have developed a reputation as a company that stands for easy to use software. What does your business stand for (or against)?
Empower your customers. You are not in control of your brand. You can set your brand’s direction, but how your brand is perceived is determined by your customers and potential customers. People can become your brand’s ambassadors – spreading your ideas and brand to their own networks. Spend time nurturing relationships with such people. Who are they? What can they give and get in order to help your brand? Ultimately, successful brands recognize that if they help their customers succeed, the customers will in turn help the brand succeed.
Deliver value. Value doesn’t always mean lowest price. You can focus on product leadership (having the best products in the marketplace, like Apple), operational excellence (having the lower prices in the marketplace, like Ikea), or great customer service (Virgin, Zappos). You can also focus on a combination of those things.

As you think about the value your company delivers – you can ask the following questions: What sets your product, service and company apart from your competitors? What value do you provide and how does that value differ from that provided by your competitors? Think about which of the benefits are emotional – the most powerful brands tap into emotions.

Attracting Talent In a New Era

Fri, 16 Feb 2018 00:00:00 GMT

The single-most common topic of conversation I’ve heard among business owners in January and February of this year, were centered on the topic of staffing. Discussions are ranging from how to find new ones, how to entrench the new ones, and how to keep the good ones.

In response to these burning questions, a Peer Network that I facilitate set their winter agenda focused on recruiting, onboarding and retaining staff. We gathered for two days, asking great questions, sharing tried, tested and true techniques, and worked on a series of best practices to apply this year.

In January, we kicked off with a panel discussion which included three HR managers from companies in the industry. They openly shared great information, and techniques their companies are using to find and keep new staff. The discussion centered around the generation gap between Baby Boomers and the Gen X, and the Millennials, and how to effectively connect together.

For the past three years, I’ve been researching the topic extensively, and added the context of national trends to the discussion. The resulting break out sessions were productive, effective and helped all of our peers to leave armed with fresh ideas and cutting edge techniques. The topics of discussion ranged from how to get recruits to respond to ads, to actually show up to interviews, eagerly engage in their new jobs, and new ways to get them off to a great start.

We followed this session up with another two weeks later in early February, where our discussion groups focused on the important topic of on-boarding….which is the process of getting new staff integrated into the company culture, working safely and really set up to succeed.

This era of HR management is different in every way. By the same measure that health and safety protocols and due diligence have been introduced in the past 20 years – from zero to full on … so now has the concept of onboarding. Gone are the days when a seasonal business employer could hold an orientation meeting at the start of their busy time with whomever was ‘on the roster’ , and consider the seasons’ training to be complete.

A colleague of mine at Landscape Ontario has recently coined the phrase ‘Employers of Choice’ to describe the recruiting program focus employers must now develop if they wish to minimize the challenges that come with being understaffed. Employers need to become creative with how they tell their story and manage their employees’ experience. Statistics show that the Millennial generation (presently between the ages of 20 – 35) will change jobs every THREE to FIVE years. They’re not likely coming to work for you as a career. They might come into your industry looking for a career. And yes, some might stay 5-10 years…. Or longer if you’re lucky. But it will be the exception, not the rule to your HR program.

With this in mind, what employers must do is accept and adapt more quickly to this current reality, and create a line item under their overhead expenses for onboarding and recruiting.

Establishing an efficient onboarding program, which rolls out routinely with every new hire is the way forward. Employers who aren’t changing with the times, are being left in the dust and severely short staffed.

Here are some tips to get you started:

• Ask your newest employees what their experience was like when they joined your team, and how it could be improved. Listen them and take their observations to heart. Involve them in creating a checklist of what should happen in the early days and months onboard with you.

• Prepare hiring kits in advance, each containing the necessary paperwork, training info and records, plus the steps through the onboarding process. Be proactive.

• Consider adding staff-experience and ‘how-to-apply-here tips’ videos on to your website, have an internal company facebook or snapchat pages for staff to connect and engage

• Consider offering signing bonuses

• Learn how to strongly articulate and entrench your company culture – those who have this in place are leading the pack hands down (and might be beating you at the recruiting game).

If you’re struggling with figuring out how to become an employer of choice, or improving your hiring program, we can help .

Becoming a Master At What You Do

Tue, 02 Jan 2018 00:00:00 GMT

The winding-down from a busy year has always been a time to ask lots of questions about the years’ results. Most particularly, self-reflective questions that I ask myself. I believe that January is a great month to create some quiet time for self-reflection. It’s a time of year to take stock of who you are, where you are, and where you need to grow to in order to reach your goals.

Clarity Precedes Mastery:

The Unknown author of this phrase was really on to something big.

To become a master at what you do, there are a few rungs to climb on the ladder.

• You first need to be very clear about what you believe in, who you are and who you need to be.
• You also must know what mastery actually is…. What it would look like when you’re a master at something – what you will know, say, do, teach and accomplish.
• You must be able to recognize the gaps between here and there. This is where the Clarity part takes place.

First Thing First

To accomplish the first step, you need to define your Core Values. And your Businesses’ Core Values. Who are you? What do you believe in? What are the non-negotiable beliefs that guide your thinking and actions every day?

I’ve worked with dozens of business owners and their teams on this project…. It’s a lot harder to do than you may think: it takes longer to complete than you think it should, and yet it’s so incredibly powerful in bringing clarity to your whole team. It’s the single most effective way to get everyone on the same page, aligning attitudes and decisions with the direction of the company goals.

Of the companies I know who have fully engaged with this step, the clarity it has brought for both the non-negotiable behaviour and decision-making filters for the team has transformed both their communication and performance. Without connecting all of the dots on Who the company is, and Why it is, energy will be spent unnecessarily on keeping everyone and everything all glued together. Usually, it’s energy that the boss doesn’t have to waste.

If you take one thing from reading this column, I hope it’s realizing that you’d never look back or question why you spent the time to take this step, and get the cultural clarity your business needs.

If You’re Aiming At Nothing….

Familiar readers of mine know how to finish the sentence in this heading…. ‘You’ll Hit It With Huge Accuracy’. What is your end game? At what skills do you need to be better? In what ways does your company need to improve to achieve it’s ultimate success? How will the company ‘bench strength’ need to change? What will be different when you’re ‘there’ – being a master at what you do? What will all of your team be doing and saying differently? How will you all be thinking differently in order to have the Mastery you strive for? What needs to change? What should stay the same to support your vision of success?

Mind The Gap

Think about ways in which you could quantify the potential return on time invested if you intentionally improve to become a master at what you do. There’s a price tag attached to training…. And that cost becomes priceless when the training pays off and nudges your company closer to mastery. Ask important questions to guide your training choices… align your investment with your vision of success. Often it’s hard to know what you don’t know… your business coach can bring a birds’ eye objective view to your gap analysis.

From my friends at Kinergy Leadership, I share their 5 A’s of Selecting Leaders – which may help you to get started:

1. Assessment of Needs: What is needed to pursue mastery?
2. Assets on Hand: Who in the company is available and ‘right fit’?
3. Ability of Candidates: Who is able to be trained, and likely to apply what they learn?
4. Attitude of Candidates: Who is willing to be trained and ‘step up’ their level of engagement?
5. Accomplishments of Candidates: Who gets things done?

You can also ask yourself some important gap filling questions: Who Do I show up as every day? Where do I need to grow to? Who should I show up as, if I were a level closer to mastery at what I do?

Managing Accountability

At Consulting By Hart, one of our great strengths is helping teams to understand how to function properly, and to create a culture of self-accountability as well as team accountability. Supporting the outcomes of training and improving your teams’ ability to align with your goals is completely dependent on who holds themselves accountable and when.

We can help create an accountability program – to launch your results of training and improvement to new heights! You don’t have to figure this all out on your own. We can help. There’s a rich right-fit resource for you to use here. Jump In and step up your Mastery game.

Embracing Millennials

Thu, 12 Oct 2017 00:00:00 GMT

Faster Than A Speeding Bullet ….
Look! It’s a Bird, It’s a Plane…. No, it’s today’s entrepreneur running madly in all directions trying to figure out how to engage their team! If that opening phrase tugs you down memory lane to a guy in a red cape, my guess is there’s room in your HR strategy for improvement. More now than ever, business owners and managers are finding it increasingly difficult to engage and retain their younger workforce. So, you’re not alone.

Here’s Why
Whether you choose to call them Millennials or not, your employees who are 35 and younger have different filters than their employers and managers who are over 35. These are the first career-seekers who were referred to as ‘latch-key’ / ‘tech-savvy’ kids. Their world revolves around being accepted, making a difference, and contributing to the greater good – and all at relatively break-neck-speed when compared to the pace at which information and change could happen 20 years ago. That’s why they’re impatient – which, in my opinion, is actually a good thing…. They’re curious, ambitious and want to do their best for you. Once you figure out how to leverage their desire to change your processes from doing things ‘the old way’, you’re off to the races. The challenge my clients come to me with, is figuring it out.

CTRL>ALT>DEL
Having just read that heading, do you realize that many under the age of 25 and most under 20 don’t know what that means? You don’t ‘CTRL>ALT>DEL an iPad. If your team makes you feel a bit out of date, you likely are. This young, vibrant generation is bringing with them lots of creativity and different skills to your workplace, its’ processes, and the resulting outcomes of the team efforts. You need to figure out how to leverage it. While it’s human nature to resist change, I think Charles Darwin said it best: “It is not the strongest species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the ones most responsive to change.” Businesses are no different. What’s changed in our younger workforce over the past 10 years, is the culture of what’s considered fulfilling in a job or career. Gone are the days where working the longest hours at the hardest manual labour meant you kept your job and likely got a promotion. Gone too are the young, dynamic eager-beavers who come into your company looking for a life-long career. Gonzo. Bye-Bye. Nada.

Hello Context, I’d like you to meet History
Each generation to move up into the workforce of the industrialized world has been frowned upon by their ‘elders’, labelled as ‘lazy’, having weak ‘character’ and not understanding the true meaning of ‘an honest days’ work’. Sound familiar? I remember my parents and their friends snubbing the ‘work ethic’ of my generation. Thinking they were doomed, and the last generation to understand the meaning of hard work. And, until recently, I caught myself many times as an employer of 20 landscape technicians often thinking the same way. ‘Why don’t they get it?’ I’d lament to whomever would listen. It’s not until the past few years, wading through dozens of books, articles and blogs on the topic of Millennials, that I feel I’ve figured out how we can engage and embrace the differences they bring to business.

Now What? Start Here…

Here’s a glimpse into part of our CBH Millennial-Ready Checklist

1. Impatience: This younger workforce grew up with instant gratification and information at their fingertips. From Amazon purchases arriving tomorrow, to dinner from Uber Eats, to downloading Netflicks whenever they feel like it, to finding a hot date without leaving the house – it’s all in the palm of their hand. Your business has to adapt in some way to the speed of light. (Hint: If you’ve never experienced Amazon, UberEats or Netflicks, you’re probably going to need help with this generation shift)

2. Hard work = meaningful work: If what they do every day isn’t changing lives (including their own), they’re not interested. Your HR office will need a revolving door.

3. Having a story to tell is more important than having a job. If they have nothing interesting and proudful to share on social media and with friends, they won’t feel successful or important, and they won’t show up.

4. They need to feel included and appreciated. Feedback, feedback feedback. And Now. And tomorrow. And the next day. A company with a ‘no news is good news’ approach to feedback is dead in the water. (Hint: If you don’t know what Onboarding is, let alone have it established in your company culture, you really need to get up to speed.)

Standing in the Presence of Greatness

Fri, 08 Sep 2017 00:00:00 GMT

Every now and then, business owners who combine passion with skill and professionalism, have very special (and memorable) moments. Some of those moments may include landing a great contract, hiring a right-fit dynamo, or creating your ‘best ever’ masterpiece. Some of those moments may happen when you come across a mentor, a coach, or perhaps a chapter in a book that really connects to your core, and ‘feels right’.

When these great moments happen in our careers, they are magical. They affirm for each of us that we are doing exactly what we are supposed to be doing and when. Moments of greatness happen when you’ve really got your game on, and everything comes together smoothly.

Many a time over the years of running my landscape contracting company in Muskoka, I would turn to a planting crew in the middle of laying out hundreds (or thousands) of plants, and informed them that they were ‘standing in the presence of greatness’ – in other words, they are witness to one of my more brilliant creations.

Some of them laughed. Some of them rolled their eyes. Others, asked why. Unbeknownst to them, It’s the ones who asked ‘why’, that had the greatest potential of making their own moments of greatness in my business, as a part of my future core team. The ‘keepers’ as I called them.

As our 2017 year heads into the home stretch, I’m asking for you to reflect back, and consider your own Moments of Greatness…. At what times in your business venture could you have turned to co workers / staff and told them they were ‘standing in the presence of greatness’ – your greatness!?

I believe that sharing our successes as well as looking to professionals for solutions to our challenges, are in themselves moments of greatness. These are the opportunities for our own growth – both personally and professionally. It takes courage, and a bit of vulnerability in order to ask for help solving your business challenges. We’re here to help.

I encourage you to celebrate your wonderful moments of greatness, and pay attention to how they make you feel, and how you could best share and nurture those moments for others around you. If you slow yourself down enough to notice, you’ll see that the wave of success, confidence and achievement will give you a free ride to your next successful moment. And, it’s contagious.

Moments of Greatness…. Here YOU come!

Get Me Outta Here | Succession Planning

Sat, 05 Aug 2017 00:00:00 GMT

There is one important area of business planning the majority of business owners either ignore or are ‘too busy’ to put on their radar…. Until it’s almost too late: The Exit Strategy.

Over the years, I’ve met many small business owners who work very hard year after year in their business, making the common assumption that when they are ready to either retire or ‘sell’ the business, that they will have built up a valuable company, and can make an easy return on their time and hard work invested.

The reality is, it’s just not that simple. Selling a business is not at all like selling a house. There can be deep layers to the way in which businesses are valued. And there are simple ways. It depends on who is buying, who is selling, the ‘urgency’, the structure of the business, the current market, the assets and liabilities, retained earnings, profitability, and at times, who stays in the business through a transition, who will leave, and how quickly the owner expects to exit.

Of the entrepreneurial business transactions and offers to purchase I’ve been aware of and assisted with, the only thing that’s predictable, and that is no one ‘golden formula’, and every transaction is different.

I’ve seen large companies move in on small vulnerable service operators who are struggling, offer to cut a cheque for 15% of gross sales, and tell the owner to keep the used equipment and trucks, dispose of them at will and keep the cash. I’ve seen others who purchase a business just to get the strategically located ‘yard’ at a discount – because the owner can’t manage the debt load of payments etc, and is in need of a quick bail out, and possibly, a ‘raise’ and a secure salary by staying on to manage for a new owner. Those are the deals where the seller typically wins in the short term, and the purchaser wins in the long run.

At the opposite end of the scale, I’ve seen very well run businesses, with solid financial track records, real estate assets and low debt ratios to negotiate excellent returns on their time invested and the soft value of their business, turning out to be a win-win for both parties. I’ve also seen quite a few in between.

When it comes to selling a business, it’s rare that someone will walk through your door, look around at the stuff, and make an offer as if they were buying your house …. Equally rare is to find a buyer prepared to cut you a cheque for payment in full within days, weeks or months of you deciding to sell your company. Selling businesses can take months to negotiate and years to transpire. Payment schedules and methods to fund succession vary greatly…. And can take years to transpire until the new owner has full control and the exiting owner has payment in full.

The point I’m working on making here, is that if you own a business, and at some point in the future, you plan to move on, retire, or perhaps take on a partner, you need to turn some attention to a long term strategy (3-5 years perhaps) to ‘prepare’ your business for sale in order to get the best possible return, and to prepare properly for the tax implications of the transaction.

The CRA (Canada Revenue Agency) has strict guidelines and rules for disposing of shares and assets in a business, as well as when capital gains exemptions can and can not be applied. It can be extremely complicated, or simple – depending on how your business is structured, and how the transaction is negotiated (i.e. a purchase of assets vs a purchase of shares for example), and with whom.

For those business owners with family members in line to succeed the founder or parent/relative in the business, there are also the broad stroke considerations which include who is right fit for which roles, what the business needs, and whether or not the succeeding generation has the necessary skills, temperament and passion to successfully carry on the torch. Many businesses fail in their second generation, even more in their third. Just because you’re related doesn’t mean that you’re qualified.

The ‘take away’ for you from reading this blog post is hopefully this: The time to start planning your exit strategy from business is yesterday.

5 Metrics To Increase Profitability

Mon, 26 Jun 2017 00:00:00 GMT

Measure only what you monitor, and monitor what you measure.

Are your sales targets being met or exceeded?
Are wages in line?
Is labour burden on budget?
Materials costs being properly charged out?
Is overhead being recovered?

These are all important management questions. And really important ones to have the answers for NOW, not when the snow flies and it’s too late to adjust your pricing and work flow accordingly.

As ominous as it may seem, setting aside a couple of days to review and strategize is crucial to ensuring a solid finish to the year with as much money as possible in the bank.

The bottom line is that if you don’t manage your business, it will manage you. If you’re aiming at nothing, you will hit it with huge accuracy! One of the main reasons that so many small businesses fail, is the owners simply don’t know how or what to measure, or when. It’s really not that hard, and I’m here to help demystify it for you.

Here is 5 top metrics tips to get you started:

1. Monitoring Wages as a Percent of Sales
This can give you a quick at a glance pulse of how much more or less productive your staff are compared to a previous year or period of time. This includes staff who work with your customers and who are delivering your services to them. It includes the wages, labour burden, down time, etc. The total 'front line' staff costs. Simply divide this total by your sales for the same period. Compare it to last year. (Hint office staff and owner or non-billable managers aren’t included.)

2. Sales Targets
If you haven’t set targets by month and year(or by week) how will you know if you’re having a strong year let alone the potential a for profitable year? It’s crucial to know if you have enough sales to pay all of your bills and have profit left over. If you didn’t set a sales budget, you could start by comparing your sales to the same period last year, service division by service division.

3. Recovering Labour Burden
This is one area where most companies lose opportunity for profit. It can really sneak up on you. This metric includes how much time in a day you pay various staff for tasks, travel time and breaks, materials or inventory handling etc: wage costs for which you can’t bill your customers. Every time I sit and calculate this with business owners, they’re shocked. Add up the minutes of paid 'down time', convert to a decimal in hours and divide into total average daily hours. This percentage should be added to your wage and labour burden costs to get a true cost of labour. From there, you’ll add overhead recovery and profit to arrive at your charge out rate.

4. Materials Pricing
How do you handle it when you give a customer a price and before completing the sale you have to source products from somewhere else more expensive? Do you know what type of products you sell (and possibly install) make you more profit than others? Start paying attention to this… it will pay off at year end.

5. Recovering Expenses
Also referred to as overhead recovery. This metric is about knowing what expenses your business has that will be fairly consistent for the year: rent, heat, hydro, phones, office staff, insurance, owner salary, management salaries, etc. Smaller companies often lump equipment, trucks etc in to this cost also (referred to as single overhead recovery). The total of these expenses have to be included in your costs markup somewhere, to ensure that your business recovers costs in every price you set for your products or services.

Creating Systems

Mon, 29 May 2017 00:00:00 GMT

The rubber hits the road. Every business has it’s peak season each year. In the region where I live (Muskoka, Ontario) the seasonal residents start to show up in May, peak in July and August, and linger on in smaller numbers through mid October. By early November, you could shoot a cannon down any regional towns’ main street and not hit a soul. Its’ during your business’ busiest time of year that the Systems Test takes place.

Regardless of the sector in which you’ve chosen to hang your entrepreneurial hat, we are all very, very busy when our business rides through seasonal or annual peaks. There are rarely enough hours in the day or days in the week to complete everything demanded of us, and to the best of our ability. Our systems are tested, and resources are stretched thin. The obvious pool of resources we need at this time of year include cash flow, production capacity, catchy product displays, timely inventory, administrative support, technology to aid the flow of information (in every direction), our market share, our client base, our creativity and the talent of our people.

The less obvious resource we really need, is the one that most of us work hard at improving in our ‘off season’: Systems. More than any other time of year, it is now that our ‘systems’ are put through the rigors of every test.

Consider for a moment this comment from Ron Carroll:
“Each customer contact is a moment of truth, a time when the relationship can be won or lost. Customers do business with companies that consistently meet their expectations – that deliver explicitly on their promise. Effective systems ensure that nothing is left to change and that customers get what they wanted and expect every time.”

In this column, many times I’ve written about the importance of ‘managing the customers’ experience of everything you do’. Systems are typically designed to help with managing all of the moving parts, people, plants and promises. The end goal, is to provide consistent customer experiences, consistent delivery on promises, and consistent profit for the company.

Many of you have worked on improving your systems by leveraging various online resources, books, courses, workshops, conferences and community business support – We all have access to great info to help us improve our careers and business.

What we often don’t do as a result of networking or taking seminars and courses, is make sustainable change to our systems. Getting the changes we want to implement actually stick, is hard work. When the rubber hits the road, testing your new policies, processes, people and profit projections, you need to be prepared to measure and adapt. The success and sustainability of change is hard to measure, unless you’re prepared to create a metric to assess where you’ve achieved improvement, and what still needs work. How can you measure the success of your improved systems? It’s easier than you may think. I’ve said many times to participants in my business seminars: “if you’re aiming at nothing you’ll hit it with huge accuracy”. My suggestion is to simply write on a flipchart page or sheet of paper, how you anticipate things will look and sound like when your changes are sustained and things are going more smoothly. Ask yourself what the signs are that you’ll see when your systems and processes are working well. Refer to this list often.

What if you’re not seeing those positive signs? Here’s a suggestion:
1. Create an accessible place where you can quickly jot down and dump your observations over the next month or two (i.e. a notepad or Word file on your smart phone or tablet, a journal, a large empty glass vase or jar). By having a quick and easy way to capture observations in the midst of this peak season, we’re all more likely to remember what isn’t working very well (and the problems seem to dominate my thoughts less at night when I know I’ve earmarked them for improvement later on). Personally, I like the glass jar approach. I can see a collection of thoughts growing (by the number of notes I chuck in there every week on my way out the door).

2. Next, book an appointment with yourself for a FULL DAY a couple of months after implementing new systems or processes. That’s the day you will commit to work with yourself, ON your business, and review the ‘slips, trips and falls’ of your systems. (I tape a note to the outside of my ‘systems’ jar with this appointment time, so that every time I toss in a note, I am reminded to keep that date set aside for working on my business). The reason I recommend doing this ‘mid season’ is so that you can assess what’s really in need of fixing, and can prioritize some solutions to implement for the remainder of the season.

3. Keep your appointment time, and spend the day away from distractions (i.e. NOT at the office) treat yourself to a ‘business lunch’, and focus on prioritizing your biggest system failures – and work on solutions.

Organizing your challenges into categories can help to set priorities: Five Key Business Pillars are: Financial Health, Sales Success, Loyalty (internal and external), Next Level Leadership, Smoother Operations.

At Consulting By Hart, we offer workshops targeting how to improve systems in your business. Why not talk to your peers at your next Chamber of Commerce or local business event and partner with us to improve your business community’s success!

Strategic Thinking: A New Perspective

Tue, 07 Mar 2017 00:00:00 GMT

When I talk to business owners about strategy, they typically roll their eyes, conjuring up images of lengthy strat plans requiring days of work. That’s not why I talk about strategy. To me, strategy requires thinking strategically – which is a critical business leadership skill of which most entrepreneurs are unaware.

Based on many years as a consultant working with entrepreneurs, I believe there are 6 key steps baked into a sound, well thought out business strategy. ‘The Plan’ (strategic plan) depends on this critical thinking in order to determine what investment the company needs to move forward, and how much profit will be generated.

Here are my six Strategic Thinking steps to building a solid, well led business:

1. Clarify Culture. WHO is your company? (not to be confused with what your company does or offers.) What are the non-negotiable values in your business? What do believe in? What is unique about the effective dynamics behind the scenes, and between staff and customers? (HINT: if you’re feeling your company doesn’t have effective dynamics either behind the scenes or with customers, you really need to start with a Culture Project!) This is about defining your Foundation – your Culture. A particularly crucial step to take if you’re having trouble attracting ‘right fit’ people – something you simply can’t do if you don’t have a clear definition of what ‘right fit’ is!

2. Establish Strategic Focus. WHY does your business exist (what’s its’ purpose / mission?), and what are you ultimately trying to create by being in business? Where are is the company headed, when, and with which service/product offerings? (What’s the Vision?) By taking this step, you are setting the context for your business. This becomes the filter through which vast information you take in (i.e. online offerings or information) is either discarded or adopted. Time is money, and without intentionally defining your Strategic Focus, you may find yourself wasting many valuable hours of desk time trying to figure out what’s relevant and what’s not, or bounding madly off in all directions without getting anything actually done.

3. Create structure. This will support and drive your strategy (Strategic Focus) … not the other way around: Strategy drives structure. Strategy determines what fits (including people and positions) and what doesn’t. Structure is the implementation plan for your Strategy. Be careful not to create business strategies around personalities, or the talents (or lack thereof) of various employees (or family employees). The template we call structure, is used to determine what positions to create and people to fill them (i.e. corporate structure), should be driven primarily by your Strategic Focus.

4. Align people. One of the most effective ways to increase productivity (and profit), is to reduce or eliminate unproductive friction. It’s invaluable in helping you to seamlessly maintain and fuel alignment of people, purpose and to engage the highest potential of individual passion and talent. And, by the way, aligned people hold themselves and each other accountable to results, actions and attitudes.

5. Improve productivity. Clarity and alignment, combined with the addition of accountability will launch productivity to new heights. To maximize productivity, it’s human nature to know what is considered good, bad and outstanding. By setting clear targets, goals and bench marks, you can establish better team collaboration, alignment, and productivity. Make sure that your culture insists everyone checks their egos at the door, and watch them soar. Productivity can be remarkably improved when the company culture supports accountability, where people know when to step up and when to step back, when to own their mistakes, and own their victories.

6. Attract right fit business. When you engage your valuable resources in ‘wrong fit’ contracts, customers or markets, you run the risk of wasted efforts which not only contribute to increased costs, but distract people and materials from more profitable work and potential. You will best gain forward momentum by engaging your team (and company advocates – which includes loyal customers, subtrades, suppliers etc) in a collaborative culture for mutual improvement and success. Get clear on what ‘right fit’ is, and go for it! Ignore ‘wrong fit’. It took me years to learn to stand my ground so to speak, and realize that some work would turn out more profitable if not acquired at all. There have been memorable occasions in my career, when I’ve realized (and on occasion, articulated to a client) that the company would make more profit if it were to send staff and equipment ‘home’ rather than engage with the customers’ project on their unreasonable terms. Know what you do well, who you sell to that appreciates your offering, and do what you promise to, and when. That’s right fit. And Profitable.

HR Strategies: Building Employee Loyalty

Fri, 03 Feb 2017 00:00:00 GMT

At the start of every calendar year, every business manager and owner I've ever met leaps enthusiastically into the new year with renewed enthusiasm for improved results.

One of the most challenging, and yet, most effective way to create sustainable 'next level' success in your business, is to focus on Company Citizenship.

In this, our first issue of the CBH Newsletter, I've some great tips to get you on to the Company Citizenship fast track!

To get you thinking, check out this quote from Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz: “You can’t expect your employees to exceed the expectations of your customers, if you don’t exceed your employees’ expectations of management.” Read that quote slowly again.

Here’s a great checklist I've created to help you start building your Company Citizenship program:

1. Recruiting and hiring: Look for learners when you hire; the people who have a desire to grow. Hire people who are keen to take advantage of the resources your company provides them to excel. Bake this into your culture before they step through your door.

2. Benefits and incentives: Offer benefits, training, bonuses and perks when you can. Have a clearly defined policy, levels, goals and rewards, and communicate them. Create inviting career paths.

3. Onboarding: This new term describes how new employees acquire the knowledge, skills and behaviours to become effective organizational insiders. Not to be confused with ‘orientation.’ Accept that it will take nine to 12 months for a new employee to reach peak performance. The fact is, if you skip this process, you’ll lose approximately 60 per cent of your workforce within a year. Provide orientation, create confidence, a trusted culture, ensure training, welcome questions and walk your talk.

4. Inclusive environment: A hallmark of Gen-Y is their desire to extract more intrinsic value out of their employers: Millennials want to connect. We are heading into an era of total complete transparency of information. Learn to embrace and shift your paradigm.

5. Frequent feedback: Give honest feedback in real time. Conduct assessments often, even if informal. Highlight positive contributions — especially for Millennials.

6. Invest in employees: Many employees exit companies because they feel underused — engage their potential. Without a clear career structure and proper socialization, new employees will disengage. Consider hiring ‘higher’ to lower your training and onboarding costs and inefficiencies.

7. Retention: Provide smart and focused goals, positive leadership, growth opportunities, autonomy and a collaborative environment. Put equal emphasis on personal development and professional development to ensure a work-life balance.

8. Separation: As more Millennials enter the work force, they are changing the concept of turnover and career fluidity. We have to work harder to retain talent and change the way we look at turnover. When Millennials inevitably leave, remember it is a part of growth — for both of you. Celebrate and get excited for next steps.

Virgin Group founder, Sir Richard Branson, is renowned for saying, “Train people well enough so they can leave, treat them well enough so that they don’t want to.” We all know training is expensive, but the cost of not training well, including the company mind set, is even higher.

As entrepreneurs, our default mode it to simply do things ourselves and to keep tons of important information crammed in our head where no one else can access it. In order to properly train people and fully engage their true potential contribution on your team, you have to download much of your knowledge to the team and communicate it clearly to the right person at the right time.

Now that we are heading into the 2017, why not carve out a couple of hours for a meeting with yourself? The agenda for this meeting is to review the eight areas listed above and assign a score for you or your company for each. Make some notes as a reminder for this year as to how and where you can best focus on building better loyalty.

Unexpected Steps to Improved Team Results

Sun, 01 Jan 2017 00:00:00 GMT

In last month’s column, I introduced my concept of the Invisible Business Arena. This is the place in which the communication-disconnects, drivers of cohesiveness and missed opportunities dwell in most businesses. This intangible space lies in between your metrics, kpi’s, apps and company specific procedures. It’s where collaboration trumps coercion and making sustainable change can be a dream come true. It’s also where frazzled entrepreneurs can find ‘aha’ moments when they least expect them. The Invisible barriers that are blocking your next-level success can be transformed into your best advantage, given practice and the right tools.

Based on my experience coaching countless industry business owners one-on-one, the following are just a few of the simple steps that you can take to strengthen your team. When done consistently, these will help to accelerate results, and improve your ability to focus on what YOU need to:

1. Show them what it looks like

Attention to detail. Accurate completion of tasks to the company standard. Sequence of work flow. Pace. Efficient processes. Safe work practices. Proper equipment operation. Materials handling methods. Proper use of apps and systems for flow of information.

All of the above (and many more) can most effectively be conveyed by demonstrating first hand what is required and expected. If a picture is worth a thousand words, then demonstration is worth a million. We work in an industry of people who like to be on the move, and who, on average, prefer to learn by doing, seeing and hearing all at the same time. The reality is, that if when the pressure is on (and you are very pressed for time), you force yourself to clearly demonstrate what’s required just once, then you will get a far better end-result, over-and-over-again on that task. Quick verbal instructions rarely work, and texts are even less effective in conveying critical (and often visual) details.

2. Explain the importance of their role

The days of finding reliable, loyal labourers who are willing to work tirelessly day after day without a sense of future opportunity or valued contribution are pretty much over. My advice: get used to it. As employers, we are now in an Era when our labour force is looking to have different (and additional) basic needs met than the entry level or moderately skilled labourers did a generation ago. Our workforce today is looking to understand where they fit, and in what way their contribution matters. This trend has become an important part of successful onboarding – and a key component in employee retention.

The more you can articulate and demonstrate ways in which employees can be successful, the better. This includes providing a clear job description which includes ‘accountabilities’ – these are simply a list of what the successful employee accomplishes. This list can be baked into a performance evaluation template. Performance evaluation!?! Yes, that’s the meeting you have with every employee two or more time a year to identify where they are and are not performing as expected and as required… here’s an example of accountabilities I created for a Contractors Crew Lead-Hand:

Excellence in leadership (proactive, motivational, team building), communication and interpersonal skills
Manages project budgets effectively
Follows and enforces the company employee manual, and safety program
Applies exceptional plant care knowledge proactively
Ensures safe, timely and professional completion of crew tasks
Manages conflict within the guidelines of Company violence and harassment policy
Provides clear direction and responds to crew member questions with respect
Prioritizes, delegates and plans effectively (use of time, materials and equipment)
Demonstrates keen focus on Customer Experience and proactive communication
Operates company vehicles in a safe and professional manner
Practices good housekeeping of tools etc. on all sites at all times
Brings concerns re safety or staff issues promptly to the attention of the Management Team
Follows and engages staff in Company procedures and policies as outlined in the Handbook
Punctual, dependable and “steps up” in peak season when needed
Attends all mandatory meetings, contributes appropriately and collaborates with peers.
Actively contributes to effective management of resources (schedule, logistics, etc.)

3. Listen to them

If your door is open, they will come. And you will build inclusivity in your company culture. If your door is closed, (ie you project yourself as being authoritarian and unwilling to change your ways) they will most probably bring neither their creative ideas nor their full potential to their work.

Some of the best ideas I ever built into my company operations and systems came from my staff. The sooner I realized that what was best for my business came more often from listening to the growing collective wisdom of my team, than from an outsourced system, the sooner I saw sustainable changes made to improve efficiency and effectiveness. When new ideas come from them, you need not worry about gaining ‘buy-in’.

In addition to gaining right-fit solutions to improve productivity, a better, more cohesive team can emerge. The bottom line is when people know that their opinion counts, they try harder. A cautionary note for clarity: this concept doesn’t mean that your employees are given permission to ‘drive the company bus’… or that in any way you create an expectation whereby you would adopt every suggestion they make. Rather, you encourage their ideas, discuss benefits, weigh cons, and adapt where beneficial with an open mind, but a sharp eye on outcomes.

I suggest that you identify where your business is truly performing and contributing to profit, where it isn’t… and then consider what ‘invisible’ factors may be contributing to your results. I can pretty much guarantee that the true drivers of your success (or lack thereof) are hiding in the ether between your systems, policies and productivity.

What’s lurking within your invisible boundary?

Fri, 25 Nov 2016 00:00:00 GMT

Using my own 27 years of experience as an entrepreneur, contractor and as a certified business coach, I believe there are actually two distinct areas in which business owners must excel in order to fully realize their goals. Success in only one area could doom you to failure.

Within the Visible Business Boundary reside the metrics, budgets, checklists, CRM and tactical strategies. It’s where entrepreneurs can continually challenge their business management skills and develop deeper financial acumen, and focus most of their time and available resources.

Within the Invisible Business Boundary lurks the more elusive drivers of total success (what we can’t see that we want all want to improve): company culture, attitudes, accountability, engagement, loyalty and brand management. This area truly is the elusive glass ceiling limiting every entrepreneur with whom I’ve ever worked. This is where entrepreneurs who have a willingness to learn the underlying reasons for outcomes and performance can exponentially increase their business horsepower with the right resources and focus.

In all professions, exist the tools available to succeed in the visible business boundary thanks to industry trail blazers, whom over the years have created sophisticated, convenient resources and systems for managing profit. By utilizing these invaluable tools and resources, many entrepreneurs profession have taken their business profitability to new heights — proof of success in the visible arena. Yet, even many of those who engage with top recommended business tools still struggle with the performance that takes place in between the numbers and metrics — within the invisible business boundary.

The Pain Point

There are places in every business where we can see the visible and invisible boundary connect. For example, where poor accountability (invisible) wreaks havoc with efficiency metrics, elusive sales targets and brings budgets and profits crashing down (visible). An employee who perceives they are being treated unfairly (invisible), can erode productivity rates of themself and other team members (visible). Even for those business owners fully engaged in a corporate style of best business practices, many still struggle with intense stress, misaligned people, miscommunications, low accountability, and even lower self esteem. Why? I believe they have hit the wall of their invisible business boundary.

When a business hits it's visible business wall, tactics and resources are deployed (such as spending money on software or systems) to deepen the company’s business acumen in an effort to make even more profit than ever before. Given the wide range of resources currently available online and the many others developed for various industries, it’s easy for a business owner to focus only on the visible wall and ignore the invisible wall. Doing this will surely result in the company getting sucked down the drain to financial ruin. Simply focusing on the numbers, results and summaries will not give you all of the answers.

When a business hits its invisible business wall, then what? (And, it’s not the business that hits the wall, it’s the owner and typically the leadership team follows closely behind). By the very nature of the intangible invisibility of what’s not working, it’s tough to articulate, let alone know where to go to find solutions.

How do you search for solutions to something you can’t see or even put a name to? The truth is you can’t. Goals remain elusive, change seems unpredictable, results are erratic, uncertainty prevails, and enthusiasm becomes depleted. Sleepless nights and stress are dominated more by why people didn’t behave as expected or asked (invisible), than by bank balances and time sheets (visible).

What? So What? Now What?

The ‘What?’ is the fact there’s undesirable activity within the invisible boundary. ‘So What?’ means it’s affecting every aspect of your business results. ‘Now What?’ means you need to shift your focus and expand your resources for dealing with the invisible factors. This process starts with patience. You can’t fix it overnight. The first step is for the business owner to dive deep into learning new personal performance tools. It requires a bit of vulnerability, a bit of open mindedness and a lot of courage. It’s not black and white, but it could keep your business out of the red.

A redefined strategy is in order. Focus on aligning people with procedures, policies, profitability and purpose. It starts with creating a VERY clear business vision, a renewed behaviour strategy with tangible goals and visible guidelines for accountability, delegating and following through. Raising your invisible glass ceiling includes envisioning an internal brand that will inspire a strong team, plus an intentional shift of attitudes toward your external brand (what your customer sees, hears and feels about doing business with you).

When your invisible business boundary is as solid and robust as your visible business boundary, stress melts away, people engage and get along with each other and that elusive wall you keep hitting launches to new heights.