June 26, 2009
In a famous scene from the movie Braveheart, William Wallace has his men facing the enemy and commands them to HOLD until he gives the order to attack.
He was providing courage to his men, so that they could overcome the enemy provided they remained in unity and moved together.
How many times in your business have you had to stand and HOLD when everything seemed to be against you?
Were you able to draw on your inner strength and courage to stand firm.
From today be the Braveheart in your business.
June 16, 2009
In the famous stories of Doctor Dolittle there was a strange animal called a PUSHMI-PULLYU. They had no tail but a head at each end and were very difficult to catch or sneak up on.
Made me think about how profit and cash flow push and pull against each other in a business.
- One month the profit seems to be great but there is no cash.
- Next month the profit falls away but there is cash in the bank.
- The struggle is getting both profit and cash flow working together and heading in the same direction.
If you relate to this challenge in your business you will understand how the ‘pushmi-pullyu’ must have felt all the time!!
June 9, 2009
Today we’re talking about a GREEN day.
I personally love GREEN days because they often set the direction for great future SKY BLUE days. If you never step back from your business and look in from the outside then you can find yourself caught in a vortex of day to day running which can overwhelm you over time.
GREEN days are the days when we do strategy and forward thinking. They’re when we work ‘on the business’ and have a day off from working ‘in the business.’ Sound great?
Having a day off?
They are great but you simply can’t have one every day because the business can’t run itself while you’re having a day off!
GREEN days need to be planned wisely and preferably in advance. Get your business ready for you to have a GREEN day. Make sure you have plenty of good solid SKY BLUE and ORANGE days before you have a GREEN day. Otherwise your great GREEN day will quickly turn into a black day.
Our GREEN day happens once a quarter when Lindsay (my business partner) and I go to the top of Mount Dandenong and spend a day working on the next quarter’s goals and objectives. There is a restaurant there and we can reserve a table looking out over the whole of Melbourne and its surrounds for the day. We only have to pay for drink and food for the day so we get great surroundings to do this at an affordable cost.
This sets the tone for a great GREEN day each quarter and one that we both look forward to. It is a day of accountability to each other, accountability to the goals and objective’s of the last quarter and the pleasure of planning what we’re going to achieve in the next quarter. A great GREEN day for One Sherpa.
June 3, 2009
Today we’re talking about an ORANGE day. Every one has to work on administration in their business. It’s a part that many people don’t enjoy and often leave it up to others.
They don’t really delegate it. They simply give it to someone else and hope that it goes away. More often than not this does not lead to a good result. If you are delegating administration to others then you’ll still need to check that it is done correctly and you should also review the results and reports produced to make sure you know what is actually going on in your business.
My suggestion is that you do this on a particular day of the week. Set aside a day, or half day when you say to yourself ‘I’m having an ORANGE day today.’ This will help you focus on a job many business owners don’t like doing. So what happens when we have no ORANGE days?
A black one is just around the corner because your business will get into a mess administratively and then something major will go wrong because you forgot to do something.
May be the phone or power gets cut off
or you get a letter from the tax department
or you get an eviction notice from your landlord because you forgot to pay the rent.
