A big issue we see in the traditional consulting industry is how the consultants work with their clients. I personally have heard many horror stories where either the consultants took on themselves all responsibility and initiative and left the client out of the process, or the consultant left all the responsibility in the hands of the client, simply agreeing to whatever the client wanted without bringing their own experience and expertise to the table.

In order for a consultant/strategist and business/client relationship to truly flourish, it needs to be a relationship built on collaboration and open communication.

To ensure this is the case for your next consulting project, there are a number of things you can do to determine which consultancy firm will be best suited to partner with you and your business, and then maximise that relationship ongoing.

1. Ask the right questions before choosing a consultant

Before you choose who to work with, ensure you take the time to meet with the prospective consultants and ask them questions about how they would work with you and your team on the project. Ask them how they have worked with other clients on similar projects. What are their processes like? How do they communicate with their clients and how frequently? How do they engage their clients throughout the project? You also want to know that the consultants will be focused on achieving the best outcomes for your business, not just on getting another sale across the line.

Things to look out for during these initial stages include:

• Are the consultants asking a lot of questions about your business, its background, and your goals and objectives? This will indicate that they are trying to understand your business and what it is you are truly looking to achieve.
• Are the consultants open to collaborating with you from the very beginning? Are they happy to consult and refine the service proposal until you are happy? Are they flexible in adapting their service approach to match what you and your team need? If they are demonstrating that now, that is a good indication of what’s to come.
• Does the proposal show an understanding of your brief and your objectives? The proposed approach should be based on a deep understanding of what you need, drawn from the collaboration and discussion they have had with you.

2. Be available and accessible during the project

If you have chosen the right consultants, they will be engaging you and others within your business to draw an understanding of your business, market, objectives, and more. This may be in the form of consulting workshops and meetings, via phone or email, or even over Slack or other communication channels. To ensure that the consultants have all the information they need and to keep the project’s momentum, it is important that as the client you:

• Make yourself available for any workshops or meetings, and also ensure others within your business are available as needed.
• Keep across any communication channels being used and respond in a timely manner. Responsive communication both ways will build more effective collaboration and keep up momentum.
• Provide timely and detailed feedback. You should be seeing drafts of any deliverables and have the opportunity to be working with your consultants to refine any strategies or processes. Any delays in feedback can hold up progress and lead to project delays.
• Keep your consultant/s informed of any changes or updates to your business. If there are changes that may impact the project, now or in the future, it is in your best interest to keep your consultant/s informed. They should be flexible and willing to adapt the approach or deliverable if needed.

3. Be proactive in your engagement

A collaborative relationship goes two ways so to ensure you’re really getting the most out of your engagement with the consultant, it’s important to take a seat at the table. Although your consultant is expected to drive the project and probe with questions, you know what you need and want from the project and need to be contributing along the way.

• Come to any workshops or meetings prepared. Your consultant should provide you with an agenda prior to the workshop. If you’re not sure how best to prepare, don’t be afraid to ask.
• Feel free to ask any questions which may be a little ‘left of field’. There may be things which haven’t been considered or areas where you may need assistance outside of the scope of the project being worked on. Asking questions and raising these can help identify new opportunities or avenues to explore.

4. Maintain an open line of communication after the project has finished

If you have spent months working closely with a consultant on a big project, they will have developed a thorough understanding of your business. This can be an invaluable resource to call back on as you implement any strategies, or come across any challenges or changes in the business. Keeping an open line of communication means that if ever needed, you can go back to your consultant to seek advice or input, or event assistance with implementation or further strategic work.

A good consultant will value this relationship as well, and be willing to provide ongoing support and assistance.

Choosing a consultant can be overwhelming, but working with the wrong consultant can be detrimental. It is important to take some time and talk with the consultants, to find the relationship that will be better for the long term.

The post How to get the best value from your consultants appeared first on Reload Consulting.

As you may already know, competitor analyses are useful as benchmarks, but we really shouldn’t rely solely on them, especially when developing a business and brand. Your desire to simply outdo the competition shouldn’t drive your strategy. As business leaders, our aim is to be proactive in our strategy creation, not reactive; and to be customer-focused, and not competitor-focused. There is one major draw-card with having your focus on customers, not competitors.

The #1 drawcard with having a customer-focus is: not getting held back

Conversely (and to illustrate my point), the problem with a competitor-focus is getting held back. I remember running a 100m race back at my Grade 2 athletics carnival. An eager little sprinter back then, I knew I had the chance to take out that first place ribbon. Despite kicking off to a fantastic start and leading in first place for the first 90 or so metres, I suddenly realised I couldn’t glimpse another runner. Curiously, I turned my head to see how much I was leading by, when my friend Bethan swiftly darted past for the next 10m, unexpectedly winning first-place.

As business leaders, we can’t afford to make the mistake I did in the running race. We can’t fix our gazes behind us or to the side to see where our competitors are, what they’re doing or how they’re going with the race. If we do, we lose momentum, we slow down, we can get overconfident, and then end up discouraged as they leave us in the dust. ‘This sounds easy,’ you might scoff, ‘of course, I wouldn’t get too fixated on what other people are doing,’ yet, unfortunately, we see dozens of businesses of various sizes falling into the habit of hyper-focusing on competitor strategies.

Do you relate?

Let’s say you own a hairdressing salon and you hear that your main competitor is offering a ‘deluxe’ new experience. Google reviews reveal that the billing system of your main competitor is slow though, and repeatedly leads to confused staff and time delays of over 10 minutes. You conduct an informal competitor analysis and decide to combine the opportunity to improve your business, with their weakness.

Inspired, you create campaigns around how quick – yet luxurious – your salon is. You invest in an efficient point-of-sale system to ensure billing is seamless. You also decide to improve your first-class feel by offering extra treats, hot towels, and a complimentary hair product during treatment; all of which is ordered within days.

Two weeks later, you hear that your main competitor has now implemented a brand-new point-of-sale system, other efficiencies, hot towels, complementary offerings and sweet treats. New Google reviews prove that they are delivering an amazing experience for clients now. You’re competing on similar ground; overwhelmed, you decide to push more advertising and tell staff to emphasise how quick everything is becoming.

A few days later, you get feedback from a loyal customer saying they don’t feel like they should be paying ‘luxury’ prices for how quick your service is becoming, with less attentive staff. Your updated first-class branding hasn’t been effectively communicated; although they appreciate the hot towels. They don’t return, opting to try out your main competitor instead. Disappointed, you realise that although your competitor analysis provided a guide, you probably shouldn’t have based your new strategy on it alone.

So how should I analyse my competitors?

Competitor analyses are effective for benchmarking and gaining broad awareness of what your market is drawn towards. They are great to do as you’re setting up a brand, new business, launching a new product/service or if you want to simply revisit how you’re tracking in the marketplace to make improvements to your strategy.

Analyse your competitors by asking some key questions.

Given that a goal of ours as business people is to offer the market something that’s more competitive than other brands while meeting customer needs; we should be asking questions like:

• What do our target markets desire?
• If I was my target market, what would I prefer about my competitor’s brand, service, and offering than my own business’?
• How can we best serve the market needs and exceed their expectations throughout their customer journey /experience with our brand?
• Are we providing something that will offer more value in the long-run?
• Does our offering align with our value proposition? Even if they may not see it written down, would our customers know what our value proposition is through their experience with our brand?

If you remember one thing

While competitor analyses reveal ‘easy wins’ to overcome competitor offerings, it remains insufficient to base your marketing and business strategies on what you notice and know about competitors. Business and marketing strategies are usually composed of a myriad of major aspects, such as a revenue model, a human resources strategy, operational processes and procedures to align with your value proposition, goals and objectives, and your messaging strategy – to name but a few. The most overwhelming part facing strategy leaders and teams is often that these elements (and all the other ones!) must be integrated tightly and strategically for them to work. (Hey, don’t worry, my team can work with you if you’re in need of a hand!) Whatever industry you work in, you’re running a race, but whether you’re first or not; just keep on sprinting and improving your technique as you go. Know where those other runners are, but just don’t let them hold you back, don’t overly fix your gaze on them, and you might just take out the first-place ribbon.

What are your thoughts on basing strategies on customers instead of what competitors are doing? 

The post Our top reason why your strategy should be based on customers appeared first on Reload Consulting.

One of the most crucial decisions that a new business owner needs to make is selecting the most appropriate and feasible business model for your product, and for the market environment, it will be operating in.

There are several business models to choose from, many of which originate from the time commerce began. However, over time and with the development of new technologies, business models have evolved and there are have been many new options that have come on the scene to address the changing needs of the market.

When choosing which business model to go with, it’s important to know the options you have available and consider what each one has to offer. Below is a list of some of the most common business models, with a brief description of each one, the pros and cons and some well-known examples.

Manufacturer-Direct

Manufacturing involves the creation of products to be sold directly to the consumer. This particular model has risen from the evolution of e-commerce, as the ability to sell directly from a website has resulted in many manufacturers skipping the ‘middle man’ and selling directly to their customers rather than going through retail outlets.

Advantages of adopting the manufacturer direct business model include lower distribution costs, which also means the ability to offer more competitive pricing, as well as the ability to build a unique relationship with customers and the ability to directly receive customer feedback and input. On the flip side, this model does require the manufacturer to create an online store and then market that store across appropriate channels, all of which require sufficient budget.

Some examples of businesses that have adopted this business model include Dell and The Dairy.

e-Commerce/Retail

For a long time, the traditional retail business model has been the most common, however, it is now increasingly becoming threatened by rising trends such as subscription commerce, free delivery and returns, and direct sellers reducing product costs, all threatening the longevity of the traditional retail business. However, the traditional retail model translated into a digital environment can still be very profitable. The basic e-commerce retail model simply involves the selling of products to the consumer at a markup of the cost to purchase from the manufacturer.

The benefit of this model is that time and resources don’t need to be invested into the actual manufacture of the products, and by selling online, retailers can get away with very little overheads while being able to access a global market. However, the selling of physical products online does still present its own sets of challenges, such as inventory storage, shipping, breakage and insurance.

Examples of some well-known businesses operating a successful e-commerce business include Booktopia and Vinomofo.

Subscription Commerce

The subscription commerce model is shaking up the e-commerce space in big ways, offering convenience for customers by providing a regular supply of whatever product is being sold. This model offers many benefits to the retailer, such as a recurring revenue stream (only having to lead a customer through the checkout process once) and predictable cash flow, and the ability to easily predict the order volume that will need to be dispatched in a given time period. The reliance on long-term customers places high importance on customer retention, with retailers needing to provide excellent customer service and invest in customer retention to keep cancellations to a minimum.

The subscription commerce model is however susceptible to big issues, such as the high impact on the business should anything go wrong with stock or delivery, or should the product fail in any way. This model creates customer expectations of regularity and consistency, and living up to these expectations is important for success. There is also the risk that customers will become bored with the product after a while, cancelling their subscription.

Some examples of successful business that have adopted the subscription commerce model include Dollar Shave Club and Bellabox.

On-Demand

The underlying principle in the on-demand model is providing goods and services to customers immediately and as needed. In order to achieve this, the supply of the good or service is driven by the implementation of efficient and intuitive systems and platforms. The key to success with this model is being able to satisfy the needs of customers in a cost-effective, scalable and efficient way then those that have come before.

Many of the successful on-demand businesses that we have seen so far take ownership of the marketplace, not the supply. This means that they have reduced operational expenses (e.g. Uber doesn’t have to own the cars, as the drivers bring their own). But most importantly, all the successful on-demand businesses are solving a real problem, such as inefficiencies in the current marketplace.

Examples of some well known on-demand businesses include Uber and Airbnb.

Franchise

The franchise business model offers a lower risk to someone looking to start a business, by providing a way to use an existing and working business model, meaning a higher chance of success (but not guaranteed), shorter wait-time before opening and access to training and support. However, franchisees do have far less independence than someone who starts out on their own and many aspects of how they run their business are dictated by the franchisor.

For those considering turning their business into a franchise model and becoming franchisors, the key benefit is the ability to access someone else’s money to grow their business far more quickly than they could on their own (through the collection of initial franchise fees and ongoing royalty’s). However there are associated risks, for example, if a franchise is not operating their business in line with the guidelines set out by the franchisor (franchise agreement), the franchisor cannot ‘fire’ the franchise.

Well-known examples of businesses that operate under a franchise model include Jetts 24 Hour Fitness Gyms and Boost Juice Bars.

Broker

Brokerage may sound like it is referring to a financial institution, however, this business model actually applies to a broad range of services. Essentially, the brokerage model involves connecting buyers and sellers and facilitating transactions. With the rise of online commerce, we see this being done more and more on some form of online marketplace.

The key to success with this business model is connecting customers to sellers of a product or service that would otherwise be difficult for them to find, therefore solving a genuine problem. The broker earns revenue typically by charging a fee to access their marketplace, or by charging a commission for each transaction that they facilitate. Brokers, therefore, benefit from not needing to worry about supplying the product or service, however, there is a high dependency on ensuring value is evident for both sides. One of the biggest challenges that new brokerage businesses face is the age-old chicken and egg scenario, they need to be able to show customers that they have enough sellers on board to create a wide range of choice, however they also need to be able to show sellers that they have enough customers coming to their marketplace to be worthwhile.

Examples of well-known businesses that have made the brokerage business model work in an online environment include eBay and Realestate.com.au.

Landlord

In the landlord business model, the owner of the property or space makes money from renting his or her assets temporarily to generate revenue. This business model also applies to the financial industry where lenders act as landlords in the sense that they charge a fee or interest for lending money to clients. In the services industry, the expertise of service providers is rented out for a fee. In the digital space, we see this model presented through the leasing of online advertising space, which when the traffic to that space is very high, can be very valuable.

A key selling factor of this model is the convenience that it offers to the consumer, allowing them to access the good or service for the time they need, without needing to commit to ownership or pay the high cost to own it.

Of course, this model comes with its own sets of challenges, for example, strategies must be in place to address issues such as product damage or failure to return a product, etc.

Video rental stores such as Blockbuster are a great example of a physical landlord business model, however, we now see these types of businesses becoming threatened by hybrid models such as Netflix, who have combined the landlord and subscription models to provide greater convenience and more competitive pricing for consumers.

Freemium

A combination of the words ‘free’ and ‘premium’. the freemium business model involves giving consumers a core product for free (in exchange for their details), then marketing to them in the attempt to ‘up-sell’ them to the premium products on offer. This model has gained increasing popularity over the past years in response to the changing market, starting in the IT world and now gradually making its way into numerous other industries such as music and publishing.

This model is well suited for a product or service that is new to the market to minimise barrier to entry and drive trials and word of mouth. The freemium model makes customer acquisition far easier and if they like the product or service, they can share with other consumers.

The freemium model, however, is not suited to every product or service. One of the key product/service requirements to make the freemium model work is that its value to the consumer increases over time (i.e. value increases as more people use it). This means that a lot of users are typically required in order for freemium to work and they have to be returning users. The freemium model can take a long time before becoming profitable due to a longer conversion process, however, if the product or service is the right fit, it can become a massive success.

Some popular examples of businesses that have made the freemium model work include Spotify and Evernote.

Determining which is the perfect business model for you will be dependent on a number of factors, such as available funds, the competitive landscape and market characteristics, potential legal implications, etc. The pros and cons for each potential model should be carefully considered, the potential risks carefully evaluated and the market being entered assessed before making a final decision.

Interested in discussing which business model is the best option for you?
Contact us today for an obligation-free consultation, or give us a call on 1300 714 146.

The post 8 popular business models – which one is right for you? appeared first on Reload Consulting.

In reality, if you build something, the chances are that someone else may have already built it or ‘they’ (being your market) may not, in fact, come knocking as they can’t immediately see the value of what you’ve built. This consideration, while unpopular for many visionary entrepreneurial types, is incredibly important to address early before significant resources have been invested.

So how do you ascertain the feasibility of your business idea and determine the existence of a market for it? The simple answer: Research. It takes time, but the more you know, the better placed you’ll be when making decisions about your idea’s future. Taking action on a business idea without knowing if it is feasible is a sure fire way to increase your risk and subsequently the risk seen by potential investors. Research will help you get a clearer picture of the internal and external factors that will impact on your business’ chances of success and a provide a rough idea of the potential market share available to you.

Makes sense right? However, a surprising number of businesses fail to take this crucial step before diving into a venture headfirst. We feel this largely comes down to the ambiguity of what’s involved in feasibility research and the fact that very few know where to start. For specific research requirements, many will engage a market research expert to carry out primary research. Whereas for broader research requirements or those on a tighter budget, some may take the option of conducting secondary research themselves by looking online or accessing research reports.  If the latter rings true for you, we’ve compiled this article to outline the key research areas to get you started and to highly some tough questions you (as the idea owner) need to ask yourself (and others) to help determine whether your business idea has legs.

Industry Performance and Outlook

Understanding what industry your business idea falls within and having a clear picture of the performance and outlook of that industry, aids in highlighting whether there are opportunities and/or red flags early on. Some questions to ask when researching industry performance and outlook online are:

• Which industry does your business idea fall within?
• What is being said about the current state of this industry?
• Is the industry performing well in terms of revenue and growth?
• How is it projected to perform in the years to come?

Key External Drivers and Trends

It is important to take a look at the people, knowledge, political, social and environmental conditions and trends surrounding your business idea. This is carried out to discover how these factors can potentially impact the way your business will operate. Being aware of these will allow you to better prepare for any changes brought about by external drivers and trends. The questions below provide a starting point for assessing these considerations:

• What are the political, social and environmental conditions in the market you’re entering? What are the implications of these for your idea?
• What is the present state of the economy in which you are entering?
• Will your business idea be greatly impacted by a change in Government or upcoming legislative change?
• What are the industry trends and how can these trends potentially affect your business performance?

Threats and Opportunities

Knowing the threats that your business can possibly face will allow you to devise a strategy to either combat these threats or avoid them. Meanwhile, identifying and understanding the opportunities that are available can help you prioritise and map out exactly how opportunities will be taken advantage of in future. A Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats (SWOT) Analysis (or even better, a TOWS analysis) is a useful model used to list out and plan around the key internal and external factors influencing your business idea. The SWOT Analysis starts as a table of the four areas to visually list out your internal strengths and weaknesses and your external threats and opportunities. From there you must assess the next steps to build on your strengths, minimise weaknesses, take advantage of opportunities and mitigate against threats. A TOWS analysis allows this extension of a SWOT, whereby the identified opportunities and threats are attached to the points you’ve identified for strengths and weaknesses in order to create a plan for maximising the potential of strengths and minimising the impacts of weaknesses. Applying these models to your business idea early will help you get a picture of where it stands and can aid in understanding the primary influencing factors for its success or failure.

Competitors

Investigating who you will be competing against is an essential part of predicting the feasibility of your idea. To get started, the answers to the questions below will allow you to start evaluating whether or not your business idea can compete with these businesses.

• Who are your competitors?
• How established are they?
• What are their strengths and weaknesses?
• Are they likely to respond to your market entry?
• How are you different?

Consumers

The next critical element is detailing exactly who your business idea will be providing value for. Before this point you’ve probably got an idea of generally who your market will be, but to obtain realistic details of the market size/potential, your research needs to dig a bit deeper and start looking at the overarching market, the segments within that market and sometimes even down a level further to segments within segments!  Profiling your target market properly (geographic location, demographics, behavioral characteristics, decision influencers, path to purchase etc.) will allow you to determine exactly who will be the most viable group of consumers to target, how much of a market is available to you and also helps in getting to know your potential customers and what will entice them to buy – All of which forms the basis when developing your tailored marketing strategy.

Market Testing

If the above secondary research doesn’t answer enough of your questions, conducting primary research on a sample of your target market/segment will help you to obtain feedback on your product/service and the likelihood of uptake within that group. Through market testing and research, you will be able to see how a portion of your target market responds to your product/service idea. The results will enable you to gather information towards improving your product and/or define if there is no appeal at all. The answers to the questions below will aid in providing a basis for this information.

• What did the sample like about the product/service?
• What did customers dislike about the product/service?
• How can the product be improved?
• How did the customers respond to the price of the product?

To summarise; little good can come from putting the cart before the horse. The well-conducted research will help you to get an idea of the viability of your business idea and aid in determining if it, in fact, serves an attractive market. If from the above exercise you find that your business idea has potential and that an attractive market exists for it, then the next step is to craft a business plan. A well-crafted business plan will define the actions that need to be undertaken to ensure the commercialisation of your business idea is well considered and has the greatest chance of success.

The post Is There a Market for Your Business Idea? appeared first on Reload Consulting.

“…responsibility of an organization for the impacts of its decisions and activities on society and the environment, through transparent and ethical behaviour that

• Contributes to sustainable development, including health and the welfare of society.
• Takes into account the expectations of stakeholders;
• Is in compliance with applicable law and consistent with international norms of behaviour; and
• Is integrated throughout the organization and practised in its relationships.”
• A good CSR strategy engages in a holistic approach with the organisation at the centre and incorporates seven core subjects; human rights, labour practices, the environment, fair operating practices, consumer issues, and community involvement and development.

In most cases, incorporating a CSR strategy is voluntary, however, there is increasing pressure to make a positive contribution to society. In Australia this pressure is primarily ‘societal’, however internationally, governments are starting to push for enforcement of certain CSR elements.

While many SMEs may not have the resources required to incorporate all seven core subjects, a ‘leaner’ approach can still have a positive impact on your business. Taking into consideration which elements will have more meaning for your market and your brand, you can determine which elements to focus on strategically in line with your business objectives. The benefits that can come from this include:

Strengthened brand reputation

Contributing positively to the good of others or the environment is always highly regarded and businesses that can show they are doing so can achieve a positive boost for the reputation of their brand. People buy from or work with businesses that they know, like and trust, and are more likely to buy from businesses that they see as being reputable and community focused. Investors are also partial to enterprises whose reputations are in good standing.

Enhanced trust and participation from stakeholders

Having open communication lines with internal and external stakeholders allows a business to understand how to better enhance its relationship with them. This allows for strategic focus on programs that will jointly benefit the business and the stakeholders. For example, creating programs that show concern for employee well-being can decrease employee turnover costs for the business and boost employee morale.

Reduced cost from efficiency improvements

Ensuring a more efficient use of resources saves money and has a less negative impact on the environment. Improving environmental practices such as reducing pollution and improving waste management within the business can lead to better financial performance through both increased revenues and lower costs. SMEs can incorporate simple programs such as recycling or upcycling to help mitigate their environmental impact.

The impact that socially responsible actions have for an SME may not be as all-encompassing as those initiated by larger corporations, however incorporating a well-planned CSR strategy can potentially make a positive impact where it matters most – in the SME’s own backyard.

The post The value from investing into CSR appeared first on Reload Consulting.

Starting a business on a shoestring budget is becoming one of the most popular ways for entrepreneurs to launch their dream ventures. Shoestring Startups, also known as Lean or Bootstrap Startups, are based on the concept of cutting costs and eliminating waste while maximising their existing resources.

We’ve outlined some of the key considerations to take into account when starting on a shoestring below.

Managing Several Hats

When your resources are tight, you have to be willing and prepared to wear a number of different ‘hats’ and take on a variety of job roles within the business. One morning you’ll wake up as the Sales Director and by the afternoon you’ll have changed hats to the Recruitment Officer – if that sales meeting went well!

Of course, time is a largely limiting factor to this, so looking for alternative and affordable options to resource your business needs and also free up the founder’s time is extremely valuable. The internet and globalisation are opening a lot of doors in this space, with websites like Fiverr and airtasker providing shoestring startups with access to freelancers all over the world and a new means of managing their day to day tasks. Handing over the hat to someone else can be daunting, but if communication is clear and flows both ways you’ll likely be surprised at what you can achieve.

Get Creative with your Marketing

Marketing the business is not about throwing bucket loads of money into broad-scale advertising tactics. It’s about having a can-do attitude and creatively looking at what your objectives are before researching and leveraging the variety of new methods available to achieve them.

One of the most popular startup objectives we hear is the need for brand awareness and audience building. This is a valuable objective to achieve as having your name on more lips equates to more traffic to your site/store/office and hopefully more sales.

This objective fits well with the shoestring approach as we now have 24-hour access to a global audience via digital means. As long as you know or are willing to learn how to leverage non-traditional means of marketing and get really targeted with your approach, you’ll be able to build your brand on social media, nurture your contacts via email marketing and direct them to take an action on a website you built for free, on a platform such as WordPress – all for little or no cost! And that’s just the start! There’s a plethora of tools, information and resources available to the budget conscious entrepreneur. You just need to start looking.

Set Clear Goals, Plan and Track

With any project, it’s always critical to ensure you know why it is you started out and what you want to get out of the process. This is especially true for Shoestring Startups as the more limited the resources, the more planning needs to go into the allocation of their use. This planning needs to have your business goals front of mind to ensure every investment decision, big or small, is moving you closer to delivering on a sales promise, promoting your brand, improving your product or whatever it is that contributes to why you are in business.

The other side of this coin is tracking performance. It’s great to plan for things to work and research the chances of success, but only once you’ve commenced that activity can you truly evaluate how that translates within your unique situation and market. Tracking the success of different initiatives or investments and the return on investment will ensure you are armed with the information to abandon the activities that didn’t work and adjust your budget for those that did.

In the end, having the dexterity to focus on what you can do in and outside of your business, getting creative in your resourcing and marketing techniques and keeping your goals front of mind, will all help towards getting your startup off the ground – on a shoestring budget.

The post Getting Started on a Shoestring appeared first on Reload Consulting.

1) Was it worth it?

2) What’s the number one thing you learnt?

The first question is easy; absolutely. The connections, discussions, and critical thinking you get from undertaking an MBA in the world’s top 15 makes the result well worth the investment.

The second question is harder to answer because as many people will know from undertaking any sort of formal education, it’s very rarely “one thing” you take away that changes everything. That’s why I’ve decided to answer that question by putting together my top ten things I learnt from my MBA.

As a caveat to the points below, it’s worth pointing out that many of these takeaways are not necessarily “direct” lessons. You won’t find a slide on many of these points that happened to be buried somewhere in a PowerPoint deck, nor do they necessarily relate to one specific subject. And, as in many cases with formal education, many of these learnings were formed whilst doing the MBA but were only realised because of what was happening in my own work and consulting experience outside of the classroom over those three years as well.

With that in mind, let’s dive into the list.

1. There is never only one answer

This one seems obvious but it’s uncanny how often I hear business owners talk about a problem or issue as though there is a “fix” or “solution” that will make the problem go away.

Any given problem could have a million ways of responding, all with various positives and negatives and varying resource commitment requirements. Weighing up all the alternatives, as well as the flow-on effect of those changes to other areas of the business is key to arriving at the best course of action, but it is in no way the only course of action. Likewise, sometimes the best course of action isn’t the one that “fixes” the problem but lessens its impact without negatively affecting other areas. Sometimes the “fix” actually makes the whole situation worse.

My Tip: Come up with at least 3 different alternative responses to a problem before deciding on a course of action.

2. Think Multi-Discipline

Continuing on the last point, we have a tendency in business to diagnose issues based on what we know. For example, an accountant may look at a struggling business and see a cash flow issue, an HR professional may see the problem to be a lack of staff training and a marketer may see the problem as a lack of sales volume or market demand.

In reality, everything is connected. Very few problems can be solved in isolation. Good business thinkers are able to synthesise all these differing viewpoints, identify where there are overlapping themes and understand that it’s likely to be a combination of varying issues. The course of action they set is therefore likely to address each of the issues identified as branches of one overarching plan.

My Tip: Draw a business decision flowchart, where the outcomes of various decisions are mapped out. Eg: If we choose option A, customer Y might get upset. If we choose option B, customer Y is happy but our staff might not be.

3. Approach problems from multiple angles

Taking this line of thinking one step further, successful managers are able to analyse business challenges from multiple angles. They don’t fall into the trap of diagnosing from their professional viewpoint but can approach a problem from many angles.

For instance, the HR professional who can spot a marketing issue or the marketer who can identify a cash flow issue is infinitely more valuable to their organisation than the one-dimensional thinker. This isn’t necessarily about being an expert in all these fields, but having enough knowledge to notice when something is awry and follow up on that with someone else who can help rectify it.

My Tip: Practice responding to business problems as though you are someone else. Ask yourself, “what might Jim from accounting do to solve this problem?”

4. Learn to ask the right questions

These first four points are quite clearly linked, and the final point that ties them together is the ability to ask the right questions. What that question is varies depending on the scenario but the underlying theme is that it gets those around you thinking differently.

For example, if a company’s product engineers are debating which way to approach a new product feature, and the rhetoric is going back and forth about varying design standards and best practice, a key question may be along the lines of “what do our customers think of both options?”

This forces others to think about a problem from a whole new angle. Likewise, if someone’s asked to rate the success of a new initiative and gives it a 2 out of 10, the astute question may not be “why so low?” but “why not a one out of ten?” This allows you to identify what was good about the initiative and expand on those areas rather than beating the idea to death. (H/t to Daniel Pink for this particular line of questioning)

Learning to ask the right question is, in my opinion, the final outcome of succeeding at the first three points above.

My Tip: Build a list of “challenging” questions you can ask people in certain situations and start using them in business discussions.

5. Attitude still trumps ability

Moving onto the people-side of the business, one of the things that stood out even in an MBA classroom was that the seemingly biggest determinant of success for those in business is still attitude, not ability.

For example, watching career engineers approach HR and marketing subjects, and whether or not they dismissed those subjects as “soft” or “not important to their industry” was an interesting exercise. Those who allowed their preconceived notions about certain topics to be challenged fared much better in those subjects than those who took a defensive stance.

This translates massively to the workplace, where those who “buy in” to an organisation and have an attitude of “what else can I do, even if it’s outside my normal role or area of specialty” are the ones who succeed, get promoted and make more of their careers.

I always believed in attitude over ability, but the three years of MBA has made me cement it as my number one hiring criteria.

My Tip: Next time you find yourself responding cynically (eg: “well that just won’t work”), stop yourself and try to work out what’s driving that response.

6. Business is still all about people

Continuing the theme of the previous point, it can be easy to make the mistake of thinking that with technological advances (in areas such as robotics and automation) and the emergence of mediums such as the Internet that the reliance on “people” in business may be lessened.

Whilst there’s no doubt these advances have benefited businesses in a number of ways, what they haven’t done is reduce the importance of people. Regardless of industry, it is still ultimately a person that purchases your company’s final product, people who work for it and people who supply the various raw inputs required. People buy from other people, and that market fundamental hasn’t changed.

Over the course of the MBA, this was constantly reinforced in examples of failed technology roll-outs (where employees weren’t engaged in the process), struggling International venture establishment (where face-to-face time wasn’t prioritised) and supplier mismanagement (where suppliers were treated so poorly that they stopped caring about certain customers) highlighted how no matter what sort of business you’re in, burning or just not caring enough about the people involved is a recipe for disaster down the track.

My Tip: The next time you’re talking with a client, customer, coworker or supplier, ask them how their work is going, and whether there’s anything you can do to improve it.

7. EQ over IQ

Naturally, this focus on people means that the skills required by managers and businesspeople also reflect this. In my opinion, therefore, Emotional Intelligence (or EQ) is subsequently more important that Intellectual Intelligence (IQ).

How often do we hear of people who have been promoted on the back of technical proficiency (particularly in fields like law, accounting and engineering), only to find that within a few months of being handed team leadership responsibilities, half the team has resigned or the performance of previously effective team members has severely diminished?

The issue nearly always lies with the inability of the manager to understand their own behaviours and motivations, as well as how they differ from those they’re managing. If “attitude over ability” is my general hiring mandate, then “EQ over IQ” is definitely my management hiring philosophy.

My Tip: Undertake personality testing on yourself, understand your own motivations and reasons for behaving a certain way. This will help you interact with others.

8. Watch out for business cliche traps

This is a bit of a “catch-all” for those pieces of business “advice” you get from blogs, popular business books and some business coaches that sound great on paper but actually provide no use in making business decisions.

The types of statements I’m talking about are things like:

• People are our most important asset
• The customer is always right
• We have to value-add
• We need to be innovative

Now there’s nothing inherently incorrect about these statements, so let me explain why I have a problem with them. The reason is that these sorts of statements are truisms, and are therefore typically used to justify poor decisions elsewhere.

For example, customer feedback might indicate that they’d like to see the widget in a range of new colours. This may be a good business decision, it may not be, but justifying the decision to offer it using a business cliche such as “well, the customer is always right” is taking the easy route. It’s a bypass to a real analysis of market demand for colour options, as well as the logistical issues and profitability of actually delivering such a range.

Likewise, no-one sets out to not add value for their customers, and no-one sets out to be the least innovative. So using these sorts of truisms as a justification for business decisions and investment is a dangerous path.

My Tip: Stop yourself every time you justify a business decision with a cliche. Go back to the facts of why a course of action is the right one.

9. One size does not fit all

This one is an extension of the previous point. For every case study, you can find on a successfully implemented initiative, I can find one where the exact same initiative was an unmitigated disaster.

A policy or initiative such as an “open plan office” may work brilliantly well for one company in an industry, but cause all sorts of chaos in a competing firm. The reason is that no matter how alike two businesses may look, every organisation is a product of its history, customers, office, structure, owners, management team, processes and employees. Every organisation has its own unique “culture” that has built up over time, meaning an idea that works remarkably effectively in one company will backfire in another.

My Tip: When looking at case studies, interviews or testimonials from other businesses, don’t just look for the similarities as to why the idea might work for you. Spend more time understanding the differences between the two and what might derail the idea.

10. Never stop learning and challenge yourself repeatedly

My final lesson was one that was rammed home almost immediately after commencing the degree. After undergraduate study, I fell into the trap of relaxing my pursuit of “extra” knowledge and skills that were outside of what I required to do my job.

With a very sudden jolt, I was required once again to read up on business frameworks, theories and industries that had no direct bearing on my position. But, as you discover the longer you’re in business, often times you “don’t know what you don’t know” and the only way to discover that is by continually pushing the boundaries of your knowledge.

This doesn’t have to be informal education and can be as simple as maintaining magazine subscriptions, reading blogs, watching TED talks or following thought leaders on social media. Regardless of the methodology, the day you stop pursuing more knowledge is the day business will start to leave you behind.

The easiest way to illustrate this is with the rise of the Internet. Those who remained stagnant when email, video conferencing, collaborative documents and online marketing started to become mainstream found themselves well and truly out of their depth in the business world.

Nowadays, a skill like the proficient use of an email program is considered a given, but just 20 years ago this may have been the difference between getting a job and missing out. Today, that skill might be in “big data” or in “social media management.” Regardless, those who stop pursuing this sort of learning will find themselves behind.

My Tip: Find 5 blogs or social channels right now that talk about issues or topics that are complementary to what you or your business does, but aren’t required, and follow them.

So that’s it. Three years of hard work, with many late nights and weekends spent reading academic journals and writing essays and it all boils down to one piece of paper and a “10 point” blog post.

The ten points above are a sample of what I took from my MBA, and the learnings obviously go much deeper than can be outlined in a simple blog post, but hopefully, it gives a taste into the type of thinking it encourages.

Completed an MBA yourself? Got other lessons you think I’ve missed? Let me know in the comments below.

The post 10 Things I Learnt From My MBA appeared first on Reload Consulting.

I was one of two delegates representing Australia on behalf of the Australian Institute of Management, with attendees from Malaysia, Singapore, Nepal, Mongolia, Macau, Hong Kong, Sri Lanka, India, Pakistan and New Zealand also participating.

After a week of fascinating business visits, in-depth discussions with Chinese business leaders and some brilliant cultural experiences, I’ve put together my top five business lessons from China.

China is no longer a cost-leader

This was probably the thing that stood out the most. Of the four or five manufacturing facilities we visited, all of them mentioned that on the back of increasing minimum wages (which have risen by around 15% a year for the last decade), China’s cost advantage over the rest of the world is diminishing. Countries such as Indonesia, Thailand and Brazil can now manufacture products at considerably lower prices than can be achieved in China.

As a result of this diminishing cost advantage, the second finding was…

China’s focus is moving from price to quality

With their own cost-of-business going up, to maintain its status as the “world’s manufacturer” China has had to put a much greater emphasis on quality. Increased focus has gone into supplier selection and management, input testing, product durability testing and more as it tries to compete against lower-cost manufacturers from other parts of Asia.

This shift from simply focusing on cost-minimisation to now caring much more about the quality of the final product results in the third finding….

Western management practices are becoming the norm

If I had a clicker for every time I heard a mid-90’s management buzzword I would have broken it by the end of the week. “Lean manufacturing”, “continuous improvement”, “work-life balance” were just a few of the typically Western management constructs that were dropped into presentations and discussions by nearly every business we visited.

From my perspective, it seemed as though the application of some of these ideas were still a few years behind ‘best practice’ elsewhere, but the intent was clear; China’s businesses are getting serious about being globally competitive on their own, not just as a supplier to someone else.

Because this was also a largely “young manager” themed program, plenty of questions regarding Gen Y talent were asked, which led to the fourth finding…

Gen Y stereotypes are just as prevalent in China as in Australia

In fact, I was quite surprised at just how similar the (in my opinion incorrect) stereotypes of the younger generation were between China and Australia.

• “Gen Y are lazy and self-absorbed.”
• “Gen Y don’t want to work and just get money wired from mum and dad.”
• “Gen Y aren’t loyal to their employer”

Sound familiar?

At one company, the HR team ran scenarios that were designed to train managers on how to deal with Gen Y staff. The scenario involved a company dinner where the individuals born in the respective decades acted as follows:

• Employee born in 1970’s – “I’ll sit next to the boss to make a good impression”
• Employee born in 1980’s – “I don’t want to sit next to the boss, that will take away the fun”
• Employee born in 1990’s – “I am the boss.”

Believe it or not, that scenario was how this particular business was training its own managers on how to deal with Gen Y staff.

And finally…

The speed of business progression is mind-blowing

I believe it would be a great mistake to think that China’s businesses will continue to finish runner-up to Western business over the coming years. The speed of progress from the last decade is phenomenal, and the growing Chinese middle-class evident everywhere you look, with many of these businesses now reporting a doubling of their domestic demand in just the last few years.

With improved management practices, and a more affluent domestic consumer buying its products, it might not be long before we start seeing China in the same vein as Japan or Korea when it comes to innovation, product quality and business leadership.

Been to China? Agree/disagree with my observations? Let me know in the comments below.

The post 5 Business Lessons from China appeared first on Reload Consulting.

Regardless of whether your source is a professional business consultant, International case study, management book or scientific study, in business, there is never just one answer.

But surely there must be some business rules that are universal, right?

Innovation is good for business.

Your staff are your most important asset.

Well, let’s put those to the test. In the case that “innovation is good for business,” everyone knows the stories where innovation has triggered business success (Apple being the poster-child for this) and where a lack of innovation has proven a company’s downfall (Kodak versus the digital camera, Borders versus Amazon, the encyclopaedia industry versus Wikipedia, etc).

But, there have been countless occasions were companies have over-innovated, stretching their capabilities and losing touch with what is their core competency, often leading to major issues or substantial cost blowouts.

Boeing’s recent 787 project over-extended their capabilities as they attempted to overhaul too much at once (battery cells, electronics, fuselage and more), and an aggressive attitude towards innovation (as a knee-jerk reaction to losing the number one plane builder title to Airbus in 2003) on the design of that project lead to a change of battery technology to save a grand total of 16kg across an entire plane.

Not only was there a considerable cost attached to that ultimately negligible weight saving, the batteries have a tendency to catch fire, leading to the grounding of many of their planes, as well as millions of dollars in cost blowouts. Too much innovation, or in layperson’s terms, “biting off more than they could chew,” will see the 787 go down as one of the company’s biggest failures.

Harvard Business Review no less also talks about balancing innovation with complexity, ensuring that innovation projects are not over-extended (you can read that here).

But what about staff being the most important asset in a business? Surely everyone needs great staff?

Well, Australian company Freelancer.com works on a model where it makes money by not employing anyone directly but acts as a technical platform allowing others to find “freelancers” themselves. Even those who use the platform aren’t actually employing anyone, but merely using them on a project-by-project contract.

This sort of model has led to a rapid increase in the number of businesses that are essentially “shell” companies, employing contractors on a project-by-project basis depending upon their needs.

What we encourage all our clients to do is take this “challenging” approach to business. Just because a competitor has successfully implemented something, or just because a business consultant told you to do something a certain way does not mean it will work for you.

For every piece of business advice or cliche, you will find 50 businesses that have successfully followed that methodology and 50 where it has failed.

What this leads to is the ability for business owners and managers to synthesise multiple different theories, approaches and pieces of advice, and apply these in the context of their own business, not someone else’s.

Then they are in the best possible position to arrive at the decision that is best for their business.

[Image by Kentaro IEMOTO@Tokyo]

The post In Business, Be Prepared to Challenge Everything appeared first on Reload Consulting.

Whilst there’s no doubt that business plans can sometimes fail, the reasons for this are usually linked to the development or execution of the plan, rather than the notion of business planning itself.

By the same token, we also see business owners “scared” into writing a business plan, pushed along by the old adage that “businesses don’t plan to fail, they fail to plan.”

So the question then becomes, why do some business plans reap great outcomes for the company, and others fall in a heap?

Reload Consulting’s IMF approach to business planning looks at three core elements in determining whether a business plan will be successful or not.

Innovation

Arguably the most critical element of any business plan is innovation. If the business plan you’re writing doesn’t change anything if it doesn’t propose something that sets you apart from your competitors, then why did you bother writing it in the first place?

Innovation also doesn’t need to involve massive R&D expenditures, or involve a complete company-wide shift in market alignment, but can simply be something that is different. This can mean something different to what you’re doing now, or something different to what your competitors are doing.

Momentum

The second part of making a business plan successful is momentum. Even whilst you’re still writing the plan, there needs to be “quick wins” that occur along the way to create momentum.

If you sit around waiting to completely finish the plan before starting to implement anything, then it’s more than likely it will never be fully implemented.

Flexibility

You’d be surprised by the number of times I’ve heard business owners say the words “but that’s not what it says to do in the business plan” or “the business plan says we don’t need to do that until later this year.”

A business plan is normally written at a given point in time, using the best available information to lay out the game plan for the business moving forward. However, sometimes things need to change, either because an opportunity comes along that’s too good to pass up or a new threat emerges that must be dealt with quickly.

Either way, the successful business plans are those that are flexible enough to be modified if the game changes.

The post How to Make Your Business Plan Work appeared first on Reload Consulting.