To be honest my internal dialogue has been in over drive on this subject peppered with frustration laced pronouncements such as:

• Yet another piece of overbearing bureaucracy from non-elected mandarins in Brussels who do not have a clue about real world business!
• I’ve got enough on my plate in helping to grow the business to spend time on this!
• I thought the Government campaigned on reducing red tape for businesses not increase it?
• Oh so much jargon: Data Protection Officer, Data Controller, Data Processor, ICO, NDAs, Systems Audits, The 6 Tests, Legitimate Interest, Clean Desk Policy, IT Security, Privacy Policies, Cookies, the Balance Test, 4% of Global Turnover, Consent…but I doubt that this new found knowledge would impress Jeremy Clarkson in his recreation of “Who Wants to be a Millionaire?”.
• Why do we even need these rules in the first place, doesn’t everyone respect the personal data they have? It’s basic business ethics isn’t it? Surely everyone does the right thing when it comes to their customers’ and prospects’ data?

…Or do they?

And then there is the other voice, you know the one, the one of calm, professional reason “the only reasons the legislation is in place is to protect people like you and me from the questionable actions of some who don’t respect the privacy of data and help protect us against those intent on stealing data for criminal gain.”

Looking at GDPR from this alternate paradigm has helped me to entertain the alternative view that doing what is necessary to achieve compliance has helped us become more effective and secure in doing the right thing in terms of the data we hold.  After all, we would want the same of those who hold personal data on us such as Google, Facebook, ISPs, mobile phone carriers, and big retailers etc.

If you would like to receive my blogs directly to your inbox, click here.

The post GDPR: Unnecessary European Bureaucracy Or Doing The Right Thing? appeared first on GavinPreston.

After a couple of days, I observed the manager at the ‘morning’ bar directing his staff to move us inside to the back corner and away from tables with the best view.  Then throughout that morning the service I received was less friendly to the point that I started to feel less than welcome.

In contrast, the guy serving us down at the other restaurant was very happy and friendly, grabbed the high chair whenever he saw my wife arrive and delivered friendly service throughout the afternoon.  On the same day that I had received a less than warm welcome at the ‘morning bar’ the waiter at the other place turned to look me straight in the eye when I paid the bill, and said smiling “we will see you tomorrow won’t we?” A small and yet genuine gesture in stark contrast to his peers a few hundred yards away and one which secured our business morning and afternoon for the rest of the week.  We had spent approximately the same amount of money with him as we had in the top bar in the morning but he secured all of our business for the rest of the week and the other bar encouraged us to leave.

Of course, I understand that some tables are ‘prime real estate’ in restaurants/bars, particularly those with the best view, and any bar/restaurant manager would want to maximise occupancy with a high turnover of big spending groups. But during the morning the bar was all but empty and I had left before the lunch time rush so his presumed reasoning of freeing up premium tables to higher paying groups was not found to be true.

For me, the business phrase that came to mind was ‘life time customer value’.  The guy in the ‘afternoon’ restaurant made us feel very welcome, made a point of letting us know how welcome we were and over the week secured more business from us than the short-term view of the other bar manager moving us from seats surrounded by many other prime seats that were empty.

It is often the little things that make such an impact and get the customer coming back. A few years ago I did some work with a sizeable Ford dealership group, owned by Ford GB.  I remember a story of a dealership that used to give a type of cuddly bear with every car purchased.  One year the dealership had run out of bears and a disappointed customer wanted to know when she would get her bear as she had been back 7 times over the years to buy a new car from them and had got quite fond of her bear collection.  Pay attention to the little things that make the customer experience remarkable.

More and more in business I am hearing the language of ‘partnership’ whether that be our customers looking for suppliers they can partner with over time or suppliers looking to achieve the same quality of relationship with us.  There is a genuine desire to build strong mutually beneficial relationships that deliver value and last.

Always look to build the relationship. Encourage your team to do the same.  Bring your best to those business relationships and you will maximise the value to both sides over time…and of course will be getting people saying positive things about you.

Needless to say when we go back to the same resort next year we will be frequenting the lower restaurant/bar….life time customer value.

The post The tale of two bars at 1850m. A reminder about maximising long term value. appeared first on GavinPreston.

Being required to sit down and right this 2/3rds of a page statement with a colleague made me realise the progress we are making.  In an environment where we are pushing hard for growth and there is a heck of a lot going on it is often difficult to get a sense of whether we are making progress or not.
Writing this statement was a brilliant acknowledgement of the progress we are making.

I encourage you to sit down and write a one pager reviewing the progress you have made in your business in 2017 and what you have put in place to pave the way for success and growth in 2018.

To hear more about this insight, click here to watch this short video.

The post How an Accounting Standard can make you feel good about what you have achieved in 2017 appeared first on GavinPreston.

We say we want something. We dream. We set goals.  But how often do we do what is necessary to achieve those goals?

I was reminded of this, this week.  We have been emailing some of the people on my list, as part of our preparation for the GDPR legislation that kick in next May, who haven’t engaged with my blog over the last four months to see if they wish to carry on receiving my blogs or not.

I have had a couple of people who have said: ‘I haven’t got time to read your emails, I seem to remember that you laid out a strategy for that in a previous email a while back but I guess we didn’t change’.

Following a strategic planning session some clients are voracious action takers. They increase their activity levels and action levels. More and more things improve in their business, everybody’s pace picks up, all adding up to game changing progress and results.

Others, open the Strategy Action Plan, read it in between the same old busyness, start to implement but quickly get distracted and do not follow through.  Suddenly they realise a year later that they are in the same place as they were 12 months ago.

Don’t fear failure….fear being in the exact same place next year as you are today.

In order to break out of doing the same things and getting the same results, you have to break out of your old habits.

You probably know the process:

1. Get enough reasons why.  What will it cost you if you don’t do anything different? What will you get/could you get if you change your habits and start taking action and implementing voraciously? Do not tolerate standing still. Be acutely aware of the days, weeks and months ticking away and get moving.
2. Set very clear goals and visualise them regularly.
3. Build a team of A grade players and spur each other on to higher levels of focused effort.
4. Take action each day/week towards your goals.
5. Celebrate the wins.

Knowing is one thing, doing is another. Catching yourself in the moment of (unconscious) decision as you are about to hurtle off down the circular path of your old behaviour is harder still.

I was having a chat with a friend this week about this challenge, in the context of cleaner eating after getting into a naughty-but-nice holiday pattern of good food and good wine.  This prompted her to tell me that at the point of going for the high carb or sweet tooth option she trained herself to ask herself: “Does it taste as good as skinny feels?”.

I love that! Catch yourself in the moment:

“Does it taste as good as skinny/healthy feels?”

“Will this distraction feel as good as the fulfilment of a life-long goal?”

“Will being right feel as good as nurturing a strong happy relationship?”

What is your equivalent question that will stop you in your tracks for engaging in your old habits and prompt you to make better choices so that in one year’s time you are in a very different place than you are now?

Create your own phrases and post them in the comments below and be sure to use them regularly.

The post How Badly Do You Want It? appeared first on GavinPreston.

Whilst I love the promise of spring and the daylight and the, all too rare, good weather of the UK summer; there is something to look forward to between now and early December: increased activity and results in your business.

There are two times a year when the business world seems to go on pause: late July until the end of August and mid December until early January. During those periods people are on holiday, those that aren’t on holiday psychologically slow down.  Decisions are deferred until the appropriate stakeholders are back from holiday. UK plc productive output plummets.

Indeed a 2016 survey by small business procurement specialist Approved Index suggests that during the summer, companies could miss out on £8bn courtesy of a holiday season slowdown.  28% complained about the difficulty of doing business during the summer due to the lack of availability of suppliers and customers.

In my experience in my own business and that of my clients, people return from the summer and whilst the ad companies attempt to drag attention to Christmas, people in business are focused on what they can get done before the end of the year.

For many, the next 13 weeks will be the most productive in their business year; the defining months of the business year.

I have written before about the benefits of 12 week sales campaigns and the use of week 13th as a reward for smashing those targets.  Attention, activity and action is focused with an impressive impact on results.  I have also written about setting MTO goals (Minimum, Target and Outrageous goals) where the Minimum goal is what you would easily expect to achieve at your current run rate, the Target being your stretched goal and the Outrageous being a truly amazing and outrageous goal to achieve.

Using this very strategy of a 12 week sales campaign, with an impressive bonus for the sales team in week 13, I got a text this morning from one of my ‘Double Your Business’ clients announcing that they had smashed their Outrageous target with two weeks to spare!

What do most people do when they hit their target? They take their foot off the gas.  These guys won’t make that mistake.  They are making the last two weeks of their 12 week campaign really count so as to deliver an Olympic gold medal standard result.

What can you and your teams achieve in the next 12 -13 weeks?

Up your sales activity and deliver sales that will transform your 2017?

Develop a new key strategic relationship?

Launch in a new territory?

Deliver an innovative new marketing campaign?

Put the rising stars in your business on a development programme that will raise their game and lift the performance across the whole team?

Invest in Research & Development of a new/enhanced product (remember those attractive R&D tax credits)?

Make the next 13 weeks the defining weeks of the year.

Turn an average year into a good one or a good year into an extraordinary one.  Set you and your team MTO goals and put in place an impressive incentive if the Outrageous goal is exceeded.

Impressive results can be achieved in a short period of time when you rally the troops and point them all towards an engaging and compelling target.

Track progress on a graph for your MTO goals and put that on the wall to keep the progress front of mind to all.  I have seen this little strategy work wonders many times.  I wish the same for you for the next 13 weeks.

To help your teams to win the inner game and develop a killer strategy for the next 13 weeks I have some powerful resources for you.

I have two killer DVD training products ͞The Business Accelerator and The Strategy Compass which combined provide about 8 hours of first class content to equip the rising stars of your organisation to grow your business.

They normally sell for £97 and £197 + VAT respectively.

I ran a summer offer in August:  both for just £97 + VAT.  I know a lot of people were away whilst this offer was on judging by the number of out of office emails!

I would like to extend this offer until 30 September.

Click this link to find out more about how these two programmes can help the people in your business deliver the best 13 weeks of your year and give you a very strong RoI on these video trainings.

If you would like to receive my business growth strategies and tips direct to your inbox, please click here.

The post Fresh autumnal winds: time to get productive appeared first on GavinPreston.

RS1:  “Hey RS2 I’ve just downloaded the Audible App to my phone yesterday and during my drive to and from work I have started to listen to ‘Think & Grow Rich’ and I am loving it. You should try it”.

RS2: “Cool. I am just finishing off listening to ‘Rich Dad, Poor Dad’ and the next on my list will be ‘Breeding Gazelles’. After that I will listen to ‘Think & Grow Rich’.

Much has been written about the millennial generation and how to manage and lead them in the work place. To me, that little conversation provides some clues: engage, captivate and lead.

I believe that a business is either growing or it is dying. The same is true for the people that make that organisation.  Give a few minutes’ thought every week to the question ‘how can we create an engaging culture where people want to show up and give their best?’

Create a culture that cultivates learning, curiosity and ambition. Build a vision of a compelling future for your business and put the rising stars in your business at the centre of it.

Use a tool such as the Talent Dynamics profile to see what activities your employees should be doing that will add the most value to the team and the business.

Stoke the flames of ambition by building their self belief, provide them with a mentor and recommend them to read/listen to books that will inspire and educate.  Audible’s library of audio books and the vast amount of valuable content in podcasts and on You Tube are great ways of learning whilst in the gym, walking the dog or on the commute (other than watching You Tube whilst driving!). Deepen the learning by encouraging discussions about their key learnings from these learning resources and the insights they are going to implement.

Fertile, curious and inspired minds working to achieve a common goal leads to delighted customers and a high performing business.

The post What are you doing to engage the enthusiasm, ambition and energy of your rising stars? appeared first on GavinPreston.

This is not a new story to me and every time I hear a story it like it I get emotional.  No, I don’t burst into tears.  My heart goes out to the person I am talking to.  Not in a ‘there, there it will be ok” pat on the back kind of way but in a determined caring way to want to help them get the fire burning in their belly again, get the energy and passion for the business back again, to get the thrill of the chase back.

Without energy we have nothing.

With energy and inspiration we can achieve almost anything.  It becomes a mission of mine to bring that back.

Inspiration on its own is nothing…we need to take action.

We, of course, know that but too often we are held back with confusion about ‘the how’.  How to achieve the goal/target/objective.

This is the second way in which I help by building a strategy action plan that drives growth and profitability.

Then, as the military are fond of saying: “no plan survives the first contact with the enemy”.  The implementation is rarely all smooth sailing.

It is during those times that I am by your side, watching your back, providing those small course corrections or as a friend of mine says…. being your ‘critical friend’ and coaching you through the good times, the tough times and those in between.

To find out how you can get more inspiration, clarity on the how and a critical friend to keep you on course, then click here.

The post Is it Inspiration you need or the How to? appeared first on GavinPreston.

Being a secret is not very helpful in your marketing efforts to let more people find out about your business.

Have you ever noticed how an alleged leak of secrets can have an explosive effect on the attention you can create for your new product or service?

Labour have used this very strategy this week with the alleged leak of their manifesto several days early.  Apple is a true pro at this.

In this video I explore how leaking your secrets could be just what your marketing needs.

The post Are you the best kept secret? appeared first on GavinPreston.

This week with the formal issuing of the Article 50 letter to Brussels there is a lot of debate in the media, and inevitably the voice of concern chimes louder, increasing worry and uncertainty.

When things don’t go your way, when you don’t win that new client, you lose an existing client, lose a key member of your team, a supplier lets you down at the worst possible time, a customer is late paying your invoices or doesn’t pay your invoices, when raw material prices increase and your profit margin is squeezed, when bit by bit you see one of these factors building on top of one another like dark storm clouds building on the horizon it is understandable that your level of anxiety may rise.

In my blog “Good News, Bad News, Who Knows?” last week, I led with an image of a quote “What does it mean?”. The key point of the blog was that you not only have a choice about the meaning you associate to things, you absolutely need to consciously choose a meaning that will serve you.

I have seen this happening with a number of businesses over recent months.  Before they know it they are calling for a reduction in spend in marketing, training and travel to client meetings and other cut backs.  Before they know it they are in survival mode. Then, as they look around, they notice other businesses in the market place are doing the same.

Yes, there is a time to retreat, regroup and come out with renewed vigour but do so purposefully as opposed to retreating into a dark corner hoping the storm will pass.

If you are at sea and the storm clouds are building on the horizon there is nowhere to retreat to.  You need to prepare your vessel and the crew for the storm clouds barrelling your way and ready yourself to safely navigate through the passing wind, waves and rain.  You need to grab the wheel, grab the tiller and be the steady, skilled and determined hand on the tiller as you sail the fine course between safety and progress.

My point is that the answer has to be more than just cut costs and retreat.

The answer has to be to proactively go out there and chase down leads, talk with your customer base, look for ways to innovate, to deliver more value and to come up with a solution that no one else in your market has thought of. Lead not cower.

The answer has to be to think!  I don’t know if you are like me but I think best when bouncing ideas off others. If so, gather the creative, positive, can-do people around you whenever you have a setback.  Choose the meaning to the setback….think of it as a “call forward”, a call for you to come up with innovative, purposeful solutions that will move your business and customers forward.

There is a great story that the day Gandhi’s advisors told him that he had twice as much to do, so there was not time for him to meditate. Gandhi replied that if he had twice as much to do, he had better meditate for twice as long.

Whether your meditation is walking the dog, taking a walk around the block with a coffee cup in hand, going for a run, listening to a piece of uplifting music or sitting in your favourite chair and looking out of your window (or indeed meditating!)….take the time to do two things:

• Tell yourself that everything is going to be ok. Nobody is going to die from this.
• Ask yourself the question “what are the ways in which we can turn this into the best opportunity for our business and a time of growth?”

There is always a way.

Trust. Innovate. Make a difference.

p.s. We are running a one-day event on 3^rd May in Cardiff.  This is a day around Growth, Technology and Finance.  You will hear from me and other leading experts in the fields of Data fuelled growth, Cash & Funding, Strategic Trends and options for exit.

There will also be a Growth Panel where you can pose your questions to every day business owners like you and what they have done to overcome challenges and deliver growth.   We are calling this day “G Day”…….Growth Day.  You will be educated, inspired, have renewed focus with clear strategies and make some good contacts.

Save the date and join us on 3^rd May in Cardiff and join us for “G Day”.

The post Be the steady hand on the tiller. Lead. appeared first on GavinPreston.

We easily slip into patterns of thinking and behaviour. Each time a new thought occurs, new connections (dendrites) are made between brain cells creating new neural pathways in the brain.  The more we have that thought, behave in that way, the stronger the connection and the wider the neural pathway.  Our thought processes then default along the most used pathways (the widest neural pathways).

That is why too many discussions in business are the same discussions.

You may have seen this in your own team/board meetings where the same people sit in the same seats around the table at the same time of the week, following the same agenda, agreeing the same actions that don’t get followed through on and where everyone leaves feeling the same way.  No wonder they call them ‘bored’ (sorry… ‘Board”) meetings.

To keep our business growing we need to keep our thinking fresh and challenge the status quo.

Here are three questions that you should ask of yourself and your senior team at least quarterly:

1. What are we not doing?

We spend time focusing on the things we are doing and are going to do.  How often do we question what we are not doing?

The things that you are not doing are often the things you should be focusing on.

2. What are the assumptions we are making/constraints we are accepting that are not true?Every business has their own version of “that is how things have always been done” or “you can’t change that, that is just how things are”, “they will never agree to that?”. They start off as assumptions and they soon become, as Vishen Lakhiani calls (in his brilliant book ‘The Code of the Extraordinary Mind’) “Brules” ….Bull**** Rules…The moment we accept them as the way things are, is the moment we drive a stake into the ground and and attach a tether that will hold back our business and our own growth.

   One of the first things I look for when working with a business to develop their strategic growth plan are the assumptions that the business is holding as steadfast and true – which are invalid assumptions.  Every business has them.  Every industry has them.

   In a fast changing market place it is critical that we stay alert to these assumptions and the limiting beliefs or ‘Brules’ and then challenge them.  Things that were maybe true at some time in the past are not necessarily applicable now and yet many businesses accept without question those assumptions as being the way things are.

3. What are the things you take for granted that you do that are unusual & brilliant in your market place? The second thing I look for when working with the management team/owners of a business to develop the Strategic Growth Plan of a business is to look for ‘The Acres of Diamonds at the Bottom of the Garden’.  ‘Acres of Diamonds’ is the title of a great short book by Russell Conwell in which he tells the tale of an African farmer who had heard stories of farmers who had made millions after discovering diamond mines.  He sold his farm and spent years roaming the lands in search of diamond mines, never to find one and ending his life in a stream.Meanwhile the man that had bought the farm from the farmer noticed a bright sparkling stone in the stream at the bottom of the farm.  He discovered what turned out to be one of the largest diamonds and largest diamond mines, right there at the bottom of the garden of the farm that the farmer had sold.

We all have acres of diamonds at the bottom of our gardens.  I find that in every business there is something that you do that you think is normal, you take for granted and assume everyone does it like that when in fact they don’t.  The very things that you do that you take for granted, experience or training you have had that you take for granted or disregard as being relevant could be the very thing that differentiates you in your market place.  It is always a source of great delight to help clients see the acres of diamonds already at the bottom of their garden and help them polish them up and position them as a differentiator in their market place.

Would you like a no obligation ‘£10k Call’ where I spend 45 minutes asking these and other questions to find £10k to put on the bottom line of your business?  I have space for only three of these calls each month so if you would like one of these calls click here.

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