Business Strategy - Page 15

1. A good Relationship (Personal) Banker will want to be very involved with your business, keeping up with the daily happenings of the business, and working to be an advisor for the business owner.

2.  The good Relationship Banker will aid the business owner through all stages of business: Growth, Sustainability, Succession Planning, and Exit Planning.

Sue Blattner, Blattner Accounting Services Business owners need to see their accountants as partners.  Over the years she’s seen clients that want to abdicate their financials, but that often leads to losing money.  Sue noted that even if they don’t like financials business owners need to be aware of the...

In the June 3^rd article, we talked about leveraging your professional service relationships such as your Accountant, Insurance Agent, and your Bank or Relationship Banker. Rather than give you more of our own ideas and experiences, we thought we would go straight to the service providers themselves for their thoughts on what business owners need to know and how they need to approach the relationship.

Click on the professional service type to see what the experts had to say!

Last week we discussed the importance of leveraging strategic business partners. This week we ask you to question how to use this advice in your own business.

Relationships are the keys to most successful businesses. The more obvious relationships are those you hold with your customers and your employees. The less obvious relationships are those you hold with the other businesses and professionals that provide you and your business with important services, such as bankers, attorneys, accountants, and technology providers. In larger businesses, these disciplines and services are often provided through in-house dedicated departments, because they are so essential. In smaller businesses, this group is most often not leveraged properly and therefore never develops into a relationship that maximizes the value for your business. Yes, your CPA can do more than just prepare your annual tax returns, and your local Banker does more than loan money. There is a possibility you are not asking the right questions, or avoiding the questions altogether.

 

So, what if you began to think of each of these providers as essential departments within your business, all working as strategic partners towards a common set of goals? To work, all participants in the relationship must be engaged and working towards the same results. You have to be as involved as your strategic partners, and that means taking responsibility for your part and holding your partners accountable for theirs.

In last week’s article, “Planning to Have a Life Outside Your Business,” we discussed the need to schedule your time away, to have a Paid Time Off (PTO) Policy, and to support your business and employees by creating Systems and Training that enable PTO. This week we are presenting a listing of PTO Systems that your business should have in place to support your employees, clients, and company:

Now that the C.A.T. (Communication, Accountability partner, and Take action) is out of the bag  regarding the importance of accountability, how can you create a structure of accountability?  Ask and answer the following questions and you will on your way to creating an accountability structure that will help ensure you gain the results you desire.

It’s the time of year when you start to think ahead to your goals for 2013.  Your inbox starts to become filled with newsletters such as ours that talk about the importance of setting goals.  Putting goals on paper is an important step.  They provide you and your business with direction for the upcoming months, but before you set those goals, there’s an important step that many business owners overlook.  That step is looking at the accountability structure you need in place to meet your goals.

Many businesses owners feel as if they are isolated from the rest of the world and believe that accountability within the business stops with them.  They feel there’s no one to talk to when things are not working as planned.  There’s no one to vent to when they are frustrated or to encourage them to take that next step.  There’s no one to celebrate the many small steps they take each day to reach their goals.  Were you surprised the last time you did not meet a goal? The scary answer is probably not. Did you want to meet your goals? Of course, but by not having that measure of accountability in place, the journey becomes long and lonely.  There are a number of ways to establish accountability for yourself with in your business.

We are thinking of our clients that are facing the complications brought on by Hurricane Sandy.  We hope that those of you impacted are hunkered down and safe.  This storm obviously has the potential to impact all of us as travel and suppliers are impacted.  While you might not be in the direct path of the storm we encourage thinking and preparing for the ways that your business might be impacted.  Preparing for a natural disaster is hard on a personal level, but as business owners you have more complications to deal with than the average person.   Preparedness and communication with customers, employees, and vendors is often the key to surviving a natural disaster.  Whether you are impacted by Sandy or not, below are our “Air Force One” tips on being prepared and keeping in communication during business interruptions. 

According to a Chinese Proverb, “The best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago.  The second best is now.”  How often have you found yourself wishing you had started something much earlier than you did; that you had given yourself more time to do a better job or to get a better result?  “With an earlier start and more time”, you reflect with regret, “I would have had so many more options and wouldn’t be scrambling so much as my deadline approaches.”  And yet, this is not the first time you’ve found yourself in a last-minute rush to get something done…you’ve been here before.  Haven’t you?

So, wouldn’t this be a good time to ask, “When is the best time to establish year-end goals and begin to meet them?”  In the last quarter, or the first?  When there is only a month or two left, or eleven?