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Why should I join a Peer Advisory Group?

team-training

A Peer Advisory Group, also known as a Peer-to-Peer Advisory Board or Peer-to-Peer Advisory Group, is a group of business owners or executives who meet regularly to share their experiences, challenges, and insights with each other. Here are some benefits of joining a Peer Advisory Group:

  1. Peer learning:  Groups offer a unique opportunity to learn from the experiences of other business owners and executives. Participants can share best practices, strategies, and solutions that have worked for them in similar situations and learn from each other’s successes and failures.
  2. Accountability: Your group members help each other to stay accountable to their goals and commitments. Participants can set goals and action plans and receive feedback and support from their peers to help them stay on track.
  3. Networking: These groups provide an opportunity to build relationships and network with other business owners and executives. Participants can expand their professional network, develop new partnerships, and gain new business opportunities.
  4. Perspective: Other members can provide a fresh perspective on business challenges and opportunities. Participants can gain insights from other industries and perspectives that they may not have considered before.
  5. Confidentiality: Advisory Groups should provide a safe and confidential environment to discuss sensitive business issues. Participants can share their challenges and concerns with their peers without fear of judgement or negative consequences.
  6. Personal and professional growth: Peer Advisory Groups can help participants develop new skills, knowledge, and perspectives that can help them grow personally and professionally.

Overall, Peer Advisory Groups can provide valuable support, insights, and resources for business owners and executives who are looking to grow their businesses, overcome challenges, and achieve their goals.

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Time for the Holidays!

It’s interesting that you see this phrase used so often during the holiday season. Because this is the season that most feel they are time starved – lacking the time to get everything done.  This is what started me thinking about your time as a business owner.  A business should be more of a lifestyle than a job!

I want you to think about that for a minute!  A job is something people do to make money and it usually requires a strict schedule of working hours.  Although in the new post covid virtual work world that is more and more not the case.  A business is an asset that you, the business owner decided to build using your cash and sweat equity.  Make no mistake that building that asset is going to take time and a lot of energy.  But you are or should be in control of that time and how it is spent.

My wife had a saying she would throw at me whenever I forgot this.  “No one ever dies saying I wish I spent more time at the office.”  When your business is in its early infancy stage you will have a little less control due to the financial risks involved.  But you have control none the less.

Managing your time effectively can change your life.  If you allow others to steal your time, then you have lost control.  Even customers understand you have a life outside of your business and will more than understand your schedule might not allow for that call that they are trying to book during your son or daughters’ basketball game.

Workload

A study by www.gallup.com found that small business owners work as much as 60 hours per week.  That’s 50% more than the average employee.  Now I am not saying you should work less than your employees because that usually isn’t the case at least not until the business is in its mature phase.  But when you need time off to vacation or just recharge you shouldn’t feel guilty about it.  There is no reason you should not be able to cut out early on occasion to do something for you or the family you love.  I had a routine when my business was growing where I split my time between the office and home.  I would go into the office and work more normal hours, but I would then break so I could have time for dinner with the family.  After dinner many nights I would work at home to complete what needed to get done but I always tried to be there to share the days happenings with the kids and the wife.  My wife was right I never regretted taking that time to watch my children grow and the business never suffered at all.

Delegation

No this isn’t a dirty word, and your staff are not all idiots.  I was complaining one day at a business lunch about my shipping and receiving department and I had a CEO of a larger firm tell me that if they did the job as well as me then they would be the CEO.  He was right!  I didn’t hire an MBA graduate to run the shipping and receiving department – I hired a shipping manager for $75,000 a year.  The problem was mine; I expected too much and gave too little of myself to the person I hired.

In an article from www.americanexpress.com they summed it up well – “If everything in your company depends on you, it can only grow as large as your personal capacity allows.”  The problem is when you are starting out you are a solo entrepreneur, and everything is done by you.  As you grow things are moving too fast to start training people, so you still do it all yourself because the result the team is producing is just not up to par with your standards.

Delegation starts long before you hire your first person.  How can that be you say?  While you are developing the business you personally determine the best way to get things done and what the result should be.  Take the time to template the process so when you do hire someone you can easily train them on your way of doing things.  Spend some time before they start to orient them to the company and your way of thinking.  Listen to feedback because they might just have a better way of doing things.  It’s important to remember that there are tasks in the workplace that you should not be spending your time on.  Delegate them to people who are better at them than you.

The Team

Nothing is more powerful than a team of people aligned around a common goal.  If you can surround yourself with people smarter than you who buy into your vision for the company, you are well on your way to finding more time for yourself and growing a company with a great future.  The team will do the things you should not be doing in the first place, and they will make you proud of the results.  Your mission from here is to develop strategies that will allow the business to thrive into the future and provide your team the opportunity to grow in their careers.  Nothing will kill the spirit of a company quicker than stagnation.

So, take the time this holiday season to think about your business and your life.  Are you living your best life?  Has your business taken control of you, or do you have control of it?  A business has a personality of its own.  It needs to be fed with work and money, it is demanding, but it’s yours.  You are in control of its growth and its cultural development.  Think it over and make sure the business delivers you the life you were hoping for when you started it.

The team here at TEC Resource Center wishes you and your family a happy and healthy holiday season and a year of improved work-life balance.  Now Get It Done!

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Am I speaking English?

how to speak in a way your employees will understand

 

Do you constantly feel like people are not doing what you told them to do?  Are you frustrated with the results you are getting from your staff?  Do you ever wonder if you are speaking a different language than everyone else?  Well….stop doing what you’re doing.  I don’t even care what you are doing.  It’s time to do something different.  When you reach that level of frustration, you have to pause and think about an alternative approach.  I’m sure you know the definition of insanity……doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.  So stop the madness.  Try something else.  Here are some tips on how to get your staff into alignment with you and make sure you get the results you want on a daily basis.

#1 – Set a clear expectation.  That means it’s clear to your staff, not just to you.  How do you know?  Ask them to summarize the expectations.  It may sound like that would be condescending, but not if you use phrases like, “Let’s make sure we’re all on the same page……”  or, “I know sometimes things are clear in my head, but not so much when they come out of my mouth, so someone run through the process as you understand it…..”  This lets people know that you are open for questions or clarification before people start running off in different directions.

#2 – Make sure they have what they need.  Set your people up for success.  Take the time in the beginning to ask open ended questions so they have to think about how they can be successful instead of just yessing you to death.  So don’t say, “Are we good?”  They will probably say yes, especially if they think that’s what you want to hear or they know you are really busy.  Rather ask, “What resources do you think you will need to accomplish this.”  “What do you think could stand in the way of accomplishing this?”  Let them know that failure is not an option, and that you are there to help.

#3 – Listen.  Be prepared to make your staff succeed.  That’s your job.  They fail; you fail.  Check in before it’s too late.  Depending on the level of your staff, set reminders for yourself to have a brief touch point meeting to find out if they are experiencing any roadblocks along the way, but let them know that it’s their job to keep you updated.  If things are not running according to plan, listen to what your staff has to say with a truly open mind.  Help them get back on track, but let them know that the task still needs to be accomplished as discussed.  If you need to make adjustments to the deadline, that’s ok, as long as it is not because the staff was not doing their job.  If that’s the case, then your problem is not alignment, you need to do some performance management.

Creating alignment takes open and honest two-way communication.  You may think you are very approachable, because that is your intent, but are you?

Thoughts…….. Contact me at abbe@TECResourceCenter.com

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