When was the last time you checked in with your business?

29 Mar

Description:

In this week's episode, I’m talking about this crazy rollercoaster ride that is running a small business, sharing some insights into the ever-changing and challenging world we live in and discussing the 5 key steps that make up my SPEAK formula to help you future-proof your business.

I want to help make sure that you’re in the best place possible to weather any storms and come out stronger on the other side.

Listen to the full episode where I discuss:

How we’re living in a VUCA world. A world that’s constantly changing and evolving, with new challenges being thrown at us every day.
Why people are looking for different things from their favourite brands now and what that means for you.
The importance of giving your business a regular MOT.
Sense-checking your goals, your plans and your priorities.
Why it’s important to Prepare for what’s up ahead and work out what you need to have in place to survive and weather any storms.
Exploring opportunities, finding new ways of doing things and thinking outside of the box.
How to anticipate and identify the likely scenarios that might impact your business.

And finally why you need to Know Your Business Inside Out. Making sure you’re in control of your business by knowing your numbers and listening to your customers, your team and checking in with yourself.

Hello and welcome to the Future-Proof Your Business podcast with me Lucy Rennie.
I’m a massive champion for small business and I’m on a mission to help you to love what you do and to build and grow your business in a way that works for you and feels good.
I’m convinced that the best way to create a successful and sustainable business is to do it from the inside out, which means that it has to start with you, the business owner.
In fact, I believe that business really is all about people, and if you want to future-proof your business and make an impact then you need to get really clear on why you do what you do, create the best experience and then build relationships and trust.
In this podcast, I want to share with you as much of my knowledge, expertise and experience with you, as I can, as well as some behind the scenes stories and strategies from my business, and I’ll be having conversations with and learning from some amazing business owners and experts so I can give you everything you need to stay focused, on track and feel more in control on this rollercoaster ride that is building a sustainable business.
Hi, and welcome to this week's episode of The Future-Proof Your Business Podcast . I'm Lucy Rennie and today I'm going to talk to you about my new acronym, which is called speak, and I'm going to take you through it. But basically it's came about as I was delivering my quarterly masterclass that I basically deliver for free for all the people who have read my book and want to hear a bit more about it, hear my thoughts on it, go through the framework a little bit more and to ask any questions. I deliver a free masterclass pretty much every two or three months, so that I can invite all those people who are interested in my future proof framework, they get to come along. I literally spend a good 90 minutes taking them through the different concepts. And and then we have a discussion. And we look at examples and what I mean, and I give them questions to ask. It's actually really lovely, because I get to meet lots of new people and share my thoughts and my experiences, but also hear, you know, what they think about the book and what they think about the framework and their experiences. It's really valuable, I really enjoy doing it. And it's a topic that's really close to my heart. Anyway, to cut a long story short, as I give that presentation, I also set the scene, which I do in the book as well, but I can make sure it's up to date and relevant to where we are now. So obviously, we're in March 2023. This was the masterclass I gave literally last week of February.
I take people through the fact that, the world is changing, we're living in a VUCA world, which you've heard me talk about, you know, it's this is constantly changing. Now, we don't know what normal is anymore. In fact, normal is VUCA, isn't it? So there's volatility, uncertainty, complexity, ambiguity, there's all sorts of things going on. And I talk about the fact that people, are looking for different things from businesses now. So it's not the same as it used to be where it was very much about the big brands, and the names and the status and all those things actually now, from generation Zen, but also from, I think, a lot of the population and we expect a lot more from brands and from businesses, whether that's, what they stand for, what you know, what their values are, where they come from, or what they're made of, and what you know, what kind of goes into their products and services, and all those really, really good things that I think are unbelievably important, and that as small businesses, we can really embrace and I genuinely believe it's a massive opportunity for us All for you to get it right and to stand out from the crowd and to kind of, be the one that is shouting about what you what you care about, and is doing things properly and adding value and going above and beyond. So you know, me and I could get on my soapbox about this forever. And it's something I'm really passionate about. So in the master class, this is what I talk about, I take people through these things, and I'll update this as we go along. And I give people different examples and things. And then before we can start to go into the clarity, communication and connection framework, which is in the book, I also want to give you some real specific things that you can go away and audit or implement or look at within your business and it's a little bit like an MOT. So a bit like, you take your car or your vehicle in for a service and they check everything's working and they tell you they might change the oil and they might, put some windscreen wiper fluid in or they might tell you to blow your tires or change your brake pads, that kind of thing.
And this is really a few things that I want to share with you that I believe, if you can look at these things and have this regular mot within your business, then you're gonna make sure, ultimately that you're in the best place possible to weather any storms to future proof your business, to be there tomorrow to show up and, just to give you that extra chunk of vitality to make sure that you are in the right place, and that you can build something that really is wonderful. And that is going to make a difference. So, and it's quite interesting, because as I was preparing it this time, I suddenly realised as I was, preparing this slide, with these five different points on I had this weird Rain Man moment where my eyes suddenly went, you know, like in the James Bond films were suddenly or in Sherlock Holmes, when the puzzle suddenly makes or comes together. And makes sense, I realised that it was an acronym. And so I twiddle it around a little bit. And now I've got this acronym, which is, ‘it's time to speak’. I want to give you an opportunity to allow your business to speak, or for you to speak with your business to, to go through these five different points and really check in with yourself and your business and make sure that everything is really relevant and appropriate, and that you are up to date. And that, you're in the best place, with the best foundations in place, ready to move forward and build on on all these different opportunities that are going to come your way. So today's episode is quite a short one, I'm just going to take you through these five points which spell out the word speak. So it should be super simple to remember. And to, to check in with yourself. And I would genuinely set this as a kind of a quarterly reminder as a quarterly task to spend some time with yourself and your business, speaking about these different topics, and not just speaking about it, once you've actually, checked in tweaking them and updating them and making sure that you know, you are up to date with everything, like you would an MOT on your car. So the first one, the first thing that I'm encouraging you to do is to sense check. And this is where I want you to sense check your business as a whole. So sense check what you do, your products and services sense check that they're still relevant, sense check that they're still the most appropriate, or the right products and services to suit your clients that there's not, an updated version or a better version of this, or maybe times if something's going on outside at the moment, it's not very appropriate or it's not relevant.
So sense check what your selling sense check the goals or the objectives that you've got. Sense check, whether they're where you want to be this time next year, or the end of the quarter or by Christmas is still relevant, compared to when you were creating those targets or those objectives. Maybe three months ago at Christmas sense check that it's realistic, you know, maybe with the cost of living and everything that's going on, maybe actually, the demand for your products and services have gone down slightly. Sense check where you are with that, and then identify what that gap is, so that we can then come on and think about how we're going to fill that gap. But knowledge is everything. So by sense checking all these different areas of your business and all the different things that you have in place, you can ask yourself the question, is this still appropriate? Is it still relevant? And is it still timely. And that also fits with the language that you're using sense check that you're speaking in the right way to your customers, maybe your customers have changed, maybe something's happened, or maybe something's keeping them awake at night at the moment. So sense check everything that you're doing in that sense. The second part of this is prepare. And this is where I actually can't stress the importance of this anymore in the fact that by
Lucy Rennie 09:04
being prepared or preparing for what might happen, it's allowing you to be in the strongest place possible. So an example of this is thinking about when you go on an expedition. I'm always laughing because I always called my husband bear rennie as in Bear Grylls, but bear only because he literally prepares for weeks about what we're taking, wherever we're going, even if it's a weekend, or we're going away for six weeks, he will prepare to the point where he literally has everything for every scenario and he will have thought through where we're going, what we're doing what we need to do even to the point of how he's going to pack the boot of the car or whether we're taking two cars or what we're doing. So thinking through in your business, preparing that might be in terms of numbers. It might be in terms of cash, it might be in terms of sales of customers of resources of skill. Have people whatever it might be, but thinking about and recognising understanding, questions like, what's the minimum that you need to survive? What's the minimum that you need coming in to make sure that your, business survives, even in the toughest of times, what's the minimum cash, you need to come in? What's the most that you need in terms of staff or resourcing or supply, preparing for all those things that might come is really, really important for you to be able to then manage whatever gets thrown at you. And sometimes, it can be quite scary understanding or getting to grips with, with what you need. It's a bit like sometimes we say, Don't worry, but you know, there's, bills coming through the door, but you don't open the envelopes, you just kind of put them to the side or bury your head in the sand. And this is where I'm inviting you to lift your head up at least once a quarter and really check in with yourself and prepare for, what's coming, what might be happening, and listening to what's going on in the world outside.
Preparing is really important. The third one is exploring. I was just chatting about this earlier. But I genuinely believe that tough times or uncertain times can be a real opportunity for us as small business owners. And that just simply sometimes by being the last man standing and keeping going, and just being the one that's still there, and that they're still showing up and still trying and still doing the thing can make you stand out from the crowd, because there's so many people about, it's not for me, or it's too hard, or I'm just, I'm tired, I'm going to, you know, and give up too easily. And so,I genuinely believe this is me, but through the experience of lockdown and the community that we've created, and seeing the stories and examples of businesses that have not only survived, but have actually flourished because they came together because they explored opportunities, they explored new ways of thinking outside of the box of doing things differently, or finding new people of changing how they do things of communicating differently of collaborations oh gosh, there's so many different ways that you can create opportunity for your business and get yourself out there in different markets, or bring in new customers or improve the way you do things that we have to have that as a regular check in with our business, we have to have that mindset of constantly kind of being optimistic and looking and listening and capturing ideas or asking questions and being curious. And it's really, really important. And we even talk about that in times of recession, you know, there are still opportunities there, even when the the larger population is kind of being careful with the money, there are still opportunities there. Because there are still ways that in a recession, people are still going to focus on certain things, people are still going to invest in certain types of, aspects of their life. So whether it's about wealth, and how to help them make more money, whether it's about health and well being and looking after their family or their pets, whether it's about creating a cosy space at home, because that's where you're going to spend most of the time and you want that cosy familiarity, or whether it's about gifting and the joy of giving when we don't necessarily have money to buy ourselves things, will still find ways and get great pleasure from gifting to others. So I'm sure we can apply one of those four things to your business in a different way, just by thinking a little bit outside the box. Another opportunity that comes up in times of hardship or recession or cost of living or crisis is that people are much more likely to stay loyal to their favourite brands, they're much more likely to remain with something that they already know. So they crave that sense of familiarity, they want to know what's going to happen they want, they don't want surprises, they want to be able to trust that, they're going to get the same product or service to the same standard, or it's going to be the same taste or the same environment or the same people etc. So, again, there's a real opportunity there to really work on your customer retention and go above and beyond to make sure that you are delighting people, and really reinforcing the fact that people will stay loyal to.
The fourth aspect is about anticipating, and this is linked, you know very closely to preparing. But if you can prepare for things that are going to happen, and then anticipate what could happen, then, you will put yourself in such a strong position. And this is what we used to do a lot of into in my corporate life. And this is what I work with a lot with my SME clients is about scenario planning. And this could be for crisis communications. So this is about preparing ahead of time thinking about what if what could happen, what are the likely scenarios that might impact my business, whether that's, something quite negative, like an accident or protesters or an explosion or something that went wrong or you it could be snow, it could be things that are going to impact us adversely. And so we think about what that could be, and then at what would we need to do to make sure that we manage that in the most appropriate way. So that's anticipating what could be happening, and then putting in place a plan and having things ready preparing things to be able to manage it the most effectively for your business. And it doesn't always have to be negative things. It might be okay, so what happens if this product suddenly goes viral, and we haven't got enough, supply to be able to supply demand? Or maybe I'm an ice cream seller. And suddenly, there's a heatwave that wasn't expected. And people everywhere around the country are wanting my ice cream, how can I make sure I'm harnessing the power of that, and the benefit of that to business. So anticipating as much as possible, what could happen? What might happen, you know, thinking of all the different scenarios that might happen for your business, and then preparing for it to make sure that you can get the most out of it or minimise the disruption as much as possible.
And then finally, the last one is k, which is k for know your business inside out. And this, I can't stress this enough, this is about you being in control of your business. This is about you, knowing your numbers, this is about knowing exactly. Now, if I said to you, okay, so how much cash Have you got? What are the sales for this month? Where are you up to compared to budget or, you know, is there a gap in terms of profit and loss, all those key numbers that aren't rocket science, and you don't have to know hundreds of them. But at least those key, KPIs, those key numbers that are really going to help you to make informed decisions and decide what's the best course of action, or what's the best path to take for your business, or even just being a red flag that, if you know that certain maybe your cash funds or your cash allocation, if it gets to a certain point or below a certain point, that's when an alarm goes off. And you know, you need to kind of turn the taps off or go and find extra work or manage your supply chain in a way that allows you to get that buffer back up again. So knowing your business inside out, and knowing your numbers is really, really important. The same can be said for your market and your customers. So really making sure that you're keeping your ear to the ground that you're asking questions that you're listening to feedback to comments to what's going on in the world so that you can, again, anticipate what's happening and prepare for that, those eventualities. So we always use the blockbuster analogy, don't we where they were, my age, I remember a blockbuster store, who didn't see things coming and Netflix took over, because obviously, it moved on to the online and, people didn't want to or need to go to the video store anymore, the DVD store, they could actually do it all through, their own TVs. So it's about being aware of that and thinking constantly out of the box or thinking constantly about, am I evolving? Am I keeping up with the times am I ahead of the times, ideally, because that's where we want to be in terms of the competition, to keep your business relevant.
And I've talked about that, listening to what's going on. So making sure that you know, you are aware of any trends or anything that's happening or checking out what the competition are doing to see, where they're up to what they're thinking, and, maybe there's things that you can learn from that, whether that's, by seeing things that they're doing, that's good, but also things maybe that you don't agree with, or that you don't like the way they've managed that and how can you, learn from that, or how can you implement different things in your business off the back of that, to move you forward. And then finally, which is what I talked about, in my 13 steps to communicate effectively podcast episode a few weeks ago. But all of this as a business owner is so incredibly important that even if you have a team, even if you have people that come and help you, and suppliers, and partners and freelancers and all those, amazing experts that that can come in and advise you or have your back, or do the things for you. Even if you have all that, it's incredibly important to remember that your business starts with you. And that you have to lead by example, that you set the tone, you set the standard, you set the course of where you're going in the direction, and that, if you're not there, or you look like you're not in control, or that you don't necessarily know where you're going, then that's going to have a massive impact on the rest of your business. And that's going to start on the inside but also then have that ripple effect on the outside because believe me if you're not in control, that's when things start to go wrong. And that's when then, the customers can hear it people can can feel it. And it's a downward spiral from them. So it's incredibly important. If there's one thing you take away from today, it's about the fact that as a business owner, this starts with you and you need to be in control of this. So creating your quarterly MOT you're giving your business time to speak, is really, really important and allows you to have the knowledge, make sure you're up to date, be aware of what needs to happen. Anticipate. But also get yourself in the strongest position to be able to weather the storms and take advantage of all the different opportunities that are out there.
So on that note, I'm going to leave you for today, I would love to know what you think I would love to know if you give yourself some time to have that time to speak with your business. And let me know if there's anything you notice any questions you have anything that came as a surprise, when you did check in maybe something that you weren't expecting, or you didn't think was there or, or maybe there was a positive thing that came out of it. I'd love to hear from you as to how you get on with this. I'll pop some resources in the show notes to help you as well with that and some questions to ask yourselves. And if you want to get the replay to the masterclass workshop that I gave a few weeks ago, then just ping me a message. And I will send you the link to the replay. And, again, be nice to get your thoughts on that. My only ask is that if you would be really kind as to subscribe to this podcast and leave me a review. That really helps me to get the word out there and spread the word and encourage other people to listen and hopefully get the value that that you get each week. So on that note, I'm going to leave you, would just like to say thank you again for listening. And I will see you this time next week for another episode of The Future-Proof Your Business Podcast. Thanks for listening. See you later.
Thanks for listening to The Future-Proof your Business podcast. I have been your host Lucy Rennie.
I want to help as many business owners build a business that works and feels good, and the best way for me to do that is to get this podcast out to as many people as possible. You can help me do this by sharing it, clicking subscribe and especially leaving a review.
If you want to get more of my insights and resources then head over to my website IamLucyRennie.com, and come and join me and lots of other small business owners like you in my FREE Facebook group, Communicate with Purpose. All the links are in the show notes.
Thanks again and I’ll see you next week for another episode of The Future-Proof Your Business podcast.