Business by Janice

It’s been some time since I’ve written a post related to the language training sector in Madrid so I thought it was time to remedy the situation before my TEFL readers completely abandon my blog!

The beginning of a new academic year is always unsettling for everyone, especially  for teacherswho anxiously wait for  timetables to get confirmed, but this year seems to be flowing really well. All our company clients are confiming to restart classes, we have new clients on board and the best bit of all is the quality of teacher profiles that we’re seeing. There seems to be a boyancy in the market that is reflected in all areas;my contacts in the sector are saying the same.

Teachers are applying who are properly qualified, with exceptional experience and it appears that the tightening up of “illegal” teachers, (those without working papers) has had an effect as we rarely receive CVs from teachers without papers now.

Are we at last seeing the start of a period where more participants in this market are taking it serously? I hope so. Even the clients are getting in on the act and CARING about the profile of teachers who  are assigned to their classes. This is great news.

Or perhaps our school is seeing the fruits of the long term investment in a humane and professional culture which ultimately attracts the type of client and teacher we  want to work with?

Although many of the teachers this post could be dedicated to won’t read this, I would like to say thank you for your professional applications and communication, and to your dedication to improving your skills which ultimately raises the reputation of our profession.

One tip I would like to give to teachers still looking for work - if your CV hasn’t had a response from a school you’re keen to work with, send it again - even though I myself organise the CVs I receive into appropriate electronic files, it’s often about timing. If I’m running out of available teachers so decide to do another round of interviews and several CVs land in my inbox that day, it’s often those teachers who will be contacted for interview.

And be assertive; follow up with a phone call. We receive so many CVs that some slip through the net. A quick chat on the phone may be just what is needed to make the difference between getting invited to interview or not. It doesn’t always work, but you have nothing to lose.

Here’s to a great year in English language training! I won’t be around much longer as I make my move  to Business Coaching but it would be very satisfying to leave with the feeling of “we did it”; we survived the recession, we came out the other side stronger, more positive than ever before and with an improved skill set all round.

Last week I highlighted 5 common errors that many inexperienced entrepreneurs make when starting a business.  In this post I want to bring your attention to 5 more and finish with some personal observations from running my own business for 10 years.

Here are 5 more errors that new business owners often make:

• Rushing the process of setting up a business. Now, you may say that rushing the legal and administrative process here in Spain is impossible due to the  way our “functionarios” choose to work, and I totally agree! But that does give you time to consider carefully suc important factors such as your business partners,  your premises, your bank, your collaborators etc.  Take the time to  create and work on your business plan and ask yourself honestly, will I really be comfortable working with the people I have chosen?
• Selecting a business that is not aligned with your personality and values. Are you a person that despite having an entrepreneurial streak, actually seeks security? If this is the case, perhaps a franchised business might be a better option for you. Or are you a person who often experiences mood swings? In this case do you really want to open that restaurant where you’ll be dealing with the public for long hours? Besides considering the skills you have to bring to a business, make sure you consider what type of person you are and how this influences your decision on the type of business you might set up.
• Not knowing the exact costs of your business activity. The objective of a company is not simply to sell as much as possible. The overriding objective is to obtain profit - whether this is large or small is often the result of an overall specific strategy, but if we are not aware of how much it costs to produce our goods or services we can be heading for  financial problems further down the line.
• Neglecting to pay and neglecting to charge! An employee or supplier who is not paid properly and on time can cause a business a lot of bad publicity which over time can put the business in danger. On the other hand, if we don’t collect what’s owing to us, we are financing the operations of other companies and this can prove to be very expensive. Cash flow problems are the main reason why companies fail, not lack of profits. What good is having profit on paper if it is not in your bank account?
• Not looking after the details. Why is it that some shops selling the same products as others are full and others not? If your business deals directly with the public it’s extremely important to make sure that your premises are clean, furniture is not broken, the staff are well trained in customer service etc. The details DO matter. Customers see what we don’t often see, if they don’t like the atmosphere of a place they don’t come back but they don’t tell us why. Similarly, if your business doesn’t deal directly with the public, take a look at things like the quality of your stationnery, how you or your staff answer the telephone, even how quickly you respond to clients’ emails. Everything counts!

As your business grows it’s vital to keep coming back to your vision and values. Is the business evolving in the way you’r comfortable with? If not, analyse why not, if you don’t do this soon enough you’ll suddenly fing yourself highly stressed and unhappy.

It’s also necessary to be conscious of where the skills gaps are in your business. At the beginning we often have to do everything, and we can get away with doing those things that we don’t have previous experience of, in a rather of amateurish way. But as the business grows and you gain more prestigious clients, more professionalism is demanded in every area. For a long time in our business, we just let the sales grow by word of mouth as neither partner had specific commercial experience. I became aware of the immense danger of this after a business coaching weekend. If we hadn’t identified our skill gap and taken action to rectify it, we would have been in severe difficulites last year when the economic recession started to bite.

Once your business is set up, STAYING IN YOUR COMFORT ZONE is one of the biggest mistakes you can make as a business owner. You might not wish to grow, but it is essential for your business to do so.

If you are thinking of starting your own business or have just done so, I highly recommend the book “The E-myth revisited” by Micheal Gerber.

Many of us have often dreamed of starting a business. In a previous post I advocated “following your heart”. If we are passionate and persistent and we combine this with a good dollop of common and business sense, the chances are that we’ll succeed.

But what can go wrong? What are the main mistakes that inexperienced business owners make when embarking on their entrepreneurial dream?

A close friend of mine, consultant Roberto Menéndez, has kindly given me permission to use some of the material from an article he wrote on this topic. Below you will see details of 5 of the most common errors that are generally made:

1. Not having a business plan. A business plan is a fundamental tool to set you on your path. Financial and stategic objectives are set within a time frame to help you monitor your progess and to indicate when you are deviating from the plan in time to take corrective action.
2. Not  having enough money to survive the initial period. A very important question to ask yourself is “For how long can I cover my fixed costs with my current economic resources?” The initial period of a business before sales start to take off can be longer than expected. We need to be realistic about this and plan accordingly, being especially prudent with our day to day expenses.
3. Not wanting or knowing how to sell. Even though you have professional experience, it may not be in  a sales role. Sales are the life blood of a company. If you feel you don’t possess the skills to sell or are reticent about “doing sales”, get some training or coaching to overcome this obstacle, or employ someone to perform this task as soon as the budget permits.
4. Not consulting the professionals. You can’t know everything, especially when it comes to the norms and laws around taxes, employment, licenses and accountancy to name just a few of the areas where we have to be up to date as business owners. It’s fessential to contract the services of professionals in these areas, (unless that is your actual business). Stick to being the expert at what YOU know best, keep focused.
5. Confusing the till with your pocket. There is no doubt about it, the money in the till is exactly that, money in the till which belongs to the company and is there to meet its financial needs. Don’t ever be tempted into thinking it’s just money and as you are the sole owner, it is therefore your money. It isn’t. Make sure you account for every penny that comes in and goes out of the business via an accounting system however primitive in the first few months. This will avoid unpleasant surprises later.

Next week I’m going to write about 5 more common errors that many business owners make when starting out and share some personal experiences with you.  As I look back over the last 10 years of being with Windsor Idiomas, I can clearly identify where our weak areas were (and are), and where we made our mistakes.

As I’ve mentioned before on more than one occasion, running is a business is one of the greatest learning experiences you could ever have. We never stop growing and developing if we are to ensure the growth and develpopment of our baby, our business.

THE ART OF PROGRESS IS TO PRESERVE ORDER AMID CHANGE AND TO PRESERVE CHANGE AMID ORDER - Alfred North Whitehead

I have to admit I’m a bit of a time mangagement/efficiency freak and in fact part of my personal growth journey is learning to be ok with situations and results that don’t turn out as expected or happen within my imagined time frame.

Now the first challenge in this area has been living in a country where punctuality is not a strength. But surprisingly, I got a handle on that challenge quite soon, and in fact waiting 20 minutes for someone to show up for either a date or a meeting doesn’t upset me at all. I can either go into a meditative state of visualising my goals, feeling good about them, raising my energy vibrations to attract more powerfully etc, etc, so in fact I know I’ve made good use of the spare twenty minutes. (Yep, still the efficiency trait coming out there). Or I can turn to one of my many to do lists appropriately organised to take advantage of different types of free windows of time.

Which me leads me nicely to what I really wanted to talk about this week - If you haven’t read it already, you MUST  read “Getting Things Done” by David Allan. (the place I got my special, super effective To Do lists from). It is the most practical time management book I’ve ever read, going far beyond the normal sphere of conventional time management to help people achieve focus, control and perspective in their life. The basic tenet is that to be truly effective, we must have a system that gets every thought of things we must do out of our head and into a system that reminds us of when we have to take an action at just the appropriate time.

But what I’ve recently discovered, due to the comments of a friend who actually conducts David Allen courses, is that the whole book is essentially spiritual.  On reading “Getting Things Done” the first time round several years ago, I didn’t notice this at all, but now I can see it on every page. When we go beyond the obvious purpose of improving productivity, what we find between these pages is a 21st century way of “being”. Implementing Allen’s system allows us to be totally focused and “in the flow”, doing things which match our highest values and vision.  And what happens then?  We invoke the power of the universe to bring us what “we’re asking for” and to create the reality that becomes our lives.

In the follow up book to “Getting Things Done”, “Making It All Work”, Allen writes:

“Ultimately what we desire is more freedom, not more work. At the same time we want to be capable of dealing with surprise, which is occurring more frequently than ever before. What we have, in short, is a desperate need to learn how to manage - not information but rather what things mean and how they all relate to each other. I’ve often been asked, “What’s new David , in the world of technology , communication and information that’s causing so much stress?” My answer is pretty simple - “Nothing’s new except how frequently everything IS new”.

Trying to manage everything that fights for our attention is one of today’s greatest challenges. I recommend you check out both Allen’s books, they really are life changing.

http://www.davidco.com/what_is_gtd

Talking about time mangement, as any working mother will know, we have to juggle a lot more than most men to keep our lives on track.  To focus in on this issue and the special challenges that women have, I’ve created a new blog at http://www.janicehaywood.net/  (madre emprendedora) - when I work out how to insert a link properly I’ll come back to edit.

I plan to write each blog once a fortnight to keep both readers happy  - and to keep my life appropriately balanced!!

So what are the attitudes that guarantee you success with your business?

In my last post I made reference to the book “How to be an Entrepreneur” by Steve Parks and one of the secrets of success he outlines is that of attitude.

From a simplistic point of view (and I love simplicity), if you start off thinking, “I’m not talented enough” or “there’s so much competition out there”…  that’s an attitude that will lead directly to failure.  So yes, a POSITIVE attitude is a must to begin with.

However, Parks claims there are six main attitudes that successful entrepreneurs share. They are:

• being principled
• openess
• passion
• versatility
• resilience

I’m going to  talk about the characteristics which I believe to be particularly important.

A business owner is responsible for everything that happens in their company. Even if you are empowering your team by encouraging them to use their initiative and creativity, if something goes very wrong, you accept responsibility and immediately look for the action to take to solve the problem and move on from it. Time is not wasted apportioning blame.  Employees respect and feel secure with this attitude and it creates an atmosphere of trust and cooperation.

You need to be passionate about what you are doing. It might be passion for your product, it might be passion for growing your business, it might be passion for the learning experience that running a business gives you, but passion has got to be in there somewhere. Perhaps the area where passsion is essential and will really make a difference to the bottom line is in sales. If you can’t get passionate about what you’re selling how can you expect the client to?  I’ve often heard it said that selling is a transfer of enthusiasm, and that’s so right. Passion is what gets you up in the morning,  what makes you pull out all the stops when the company hits a crisis. By the way, a crisis is a great learning experience, I believe every business owner should have several along their journey.

Which brings me to the third characteristic which I feel is important in an entrepreneur - resilience. How a business owner deals with a crisis is very revealing. It’s natural to want to panic at first, that’s a natural human reaction when we feel out of control. Entrepreneurs may feel pressured to act quickly by their staff, but giving yourself space to think and reflect, and assess the situation is essential. You need this space to collect your energy and determination to then move forward.  If you have demonstrated the other characteristics of being principled, open and responsible and now demonstrate the resilience to pull through a crisis, your staff, clients and suppliers  will be with you all the way.

I remember when we opened the extra classrooms to our academy 6 years ago. We did it quickly so as not to miss out on the start of the new academic year never thinking that we wouldn’t get the support of our bank. Unfortunately this move coincided with the scandal of the “Opening” chain of schools and for that reason(!) our actual bank wouldn’t give us any money to finance the project. It was only by negotiating wih our suppliers and employees, borrowing from our families and going without a salary until we signed agreements with additional banks that we avoided the business from grinding to a halt. If you have been conducting your business up until then with integrity, any action you decide to take is easier as people are prepared to collaborate to help solve the problem.

Entrepreneurs come in  all shapes, sizes and profiles, but there is no doubt that when it comes to having the attitude that brings business success, the attitudes mentioned above have got to be in the mix somewhere.

http://www.steveparks.co.uk

There’s thousands of books been written about how to start your own business -  what sort of person you should be, the sort of plans you should make, how you should select your business partners, how you should finance it etc. etc.  And of course, most of these books talk about the risk factor.

If we are offered an opportunity to go into business, should we take it or not?  At the risk of being over simplistic (which I love to do),  I would say, if you have to think about it too much, no , if it gives you a  rush of positive feeling, go for it.  Nowadays, with all the information there is on the internet, all the people we can connect with who can help us, we can get all the information we need to launch our business. In my opinion, it’s all about mindset and passion.

Let’s take the case of an internet business, perhaps the least risky of all.

There’s never been a better time than now to start an internet business because people are hungry for information and as I mentioned above, all the info you need is at your fingertips. You can set up a simple web site on a subject that you’re passionate about, write lots of articles, give away free downloads, promote it using internet networking sites, start selling ebooks once you’ve established credibility and there you have your business. All it requires is to  write about what you’re passionate about, take the time to learn about internet marketing and a  smidgen of technology and there you have it.

Everything comes back to being aware of where circumstances, events and people are taking you, and if  a business propositon gives you the rush of feeling, that’s the push from the universe trying to bring you what you want (even though you may not be fully conscious of what you want yet).

For those of you who like to be more practical and are still reluctant to leave everything in the hands of our favourite universal law (the Law of Attraction in case you hadn’t already guessed), I would like to recommend an excellent book I’ve just read. It’s called “How to be an Entrepreneur” by Steve Parks.  The book suggests there are 6 factors which are necessary to become a successful entrepreneur.

• Attitude
• Opportunity
• Focus
• Talent
• Buliding
• Communication

Over the next couple of posts I’ll be spending some time outling the main points that Parks in each of these categories and adding my own insights from the experiences I’ve had running my own business.

If you’re the type of person who embraces change and growth, running your own business is an exciting ride. A successful business takes on its own personality and hungers for (personal) growth. Balancing your own growth with that of your business is the real challenge.