Just a quick reminder – you should declare all of your business entities to your insurance broker.   You need to let them know all of your company, trust, registered trading and domain names that are associated with your business.

Don’t take a punt on the policy wording picking up all your entities.

Remember to declare all previous activities on your Professional Indemnity and other liability policies to ensure that you have protection in the unfortunate event of a claim.  Some policies require all of your activities, past, current and possible future ones to ensure the policy is correct and responds to a potential claim.

If you would like to discuss this, please let me know and I can introduce you to some great professionals in that field.

Does your business structure support your long term business goals?

Do you really understand the use of Companies and Trusts in achieving these goals and ultimately achieving your exit or succession plans?

Start with the end in mind! Realistically nearly all of us get into business because we are great at what we do…  When reality strikes, we are usually not that great at the non “my stuff” functions of business.  It is never too late to align your business structure with your long term personal and business goals.

If you would like to discuss this, please let me know and I can introduce you to some great professionals in that field.

As your business grows you will be faced with challenging functions that you either have no or a limited skills set in. This could be marketing, accounting, financial invoicing, form design or any other business function.

A basic thought process for good outsourcing is looking at whether you can delegate, eliminate or leverage the function.

A good starting point is asking yourself where your skills set places on a 1-10 scale for the function required to be most effective and efficient.

Secondly, are you wanting to do this function?  Is it something that you wish to learn more skills for?  Is it something that having that skills set will be part of your long term role and business goals?  Do you need to know just a little more before you delegate or outsource the function?

Answering these will quickly show you your attitude to the function and will allow you to emotionally move past “hanging onto that function”.

Delegating

Can you delegate the function to someone else within your business? Is this time and resource effective?

Can you delegate to outside contractors either within the local area or via ecommerce outsourcing such as ODesk or eLance?

Are you prepared to be very specific as to what you expect and to set the boundaries and KPI associated with that function?

Eliminating

Can you eliminate the function altogether?  Scary thought, but sometimes we do things because that is how they have always been done and no-one has ever questioned if it is necessary to the end product/service or if there is a better way of doing it.  There have been cases of 12 page documents being reduced to 2 pages and obtaining the necessary information to do the required task.  Sometimes we just have to get out of the forest to see the trees.

Leverage

The most common way to leverage is by allowing someone with these skills sets to do the function much more effectively and efficiently that you ever would.  In doing this you pick up a larger time period, reduce your stress and actually make money to offset the outsourcing or delegated tasks.  The most common example is bookkeeping, artwork and form design.

The effective use of your skills set to concentrate on your passion and talents will quickly be rewarded.

Should you create an entire system, HR support etc for functions that aren’t the core of your business or leverage your time and resources by contracting a business who specializes in that area. e.g. Information Technology, Marketing, Graphic Design etc.

John Burkhardt – Amplio Business Solutions

If you are a client or prospect of mine you will have recently received an invitation to unsubscribe off my newsletter list if you wished.

Sounds like it is in reverse? Well not really, like so many other businesses we gather all types of information from our customers and associates and then only later attempt to collate it into a usable tool for updating people on our business, products and other important information

One of the most important results in customer relationships is that the majority leave as “the business didn’t care about me”, this is also because they never kept in touch.

The key points to note regarding customer contact is:

• Keep the content relevant
• Be regular with your contact, usually every 10-18 days
• Allow the unsubscribe link, better to have clients on your list that want to hear from you
• Be spasmodic if you have a great offer or discovery to share with them, but keep it short, sharp and to the point.
• Cover 3-4 items and save the rest for the next newsletter
• Collect as much information from your client as possible; it helps you identify with their challenges and offer relevant information
• Encourage feedback

This is a great start to developing a relationship.  As with most business’s they haven’t done this for quite some time, so just go through the steps one at a time, plan it and start sending the Newsletters even if you don’t have everyone on the list yet.

Happy Marketing

John Burkhardt – Amplio Business Solutions

I am your greatest helper and heaviest burden

I will push you onward or drag you down to failure.

I am completely at your command.

Half the things you do, you might just as well turn over to me and I will be able to do them quickly and correctly.

I am easily managed – you must merely be firm with me.

Show me exactly how you want something done and after a few lessons, I will do it automatically.

I am the servant of all great men and women; and alas, of all failures as well.

Those who are great, I have made great.  Those who are failures, Ii have made failures.

I am not a machine, though I work with all the precision of a machine plus the intelligence of a woman or a man.

You may run me for profit or for ruin – it makes no difference to me.

Take me, train me, be firm with me, and I will place the world at your feet.
Be easy with me and I will destroy you.

ANSWER – I AM YOUR HABITS. Anonymous

One of the most satisfying processes we come across as coaches is the ability to move the coachees thinking to the point that they illuminate with the answer to their own thinking.

So often, it is that you already know the answer but have not had the time or energy or ability to un-clutter enough to see what is actually going on and more importantly what is the learning about what you are doing and the implications of:

1. Doing it the same way

2. Doing it a better way

Once you start to explore this thinking (as apposed to the problem, details or drama) then you are able to reflect enough on the process to realise where simple improvements or alterations can have tremendous impact.

As we move coachees through this journey, the benefits of thinking for them become more obvious.  It is a great experience to empower someone to think about something, identify their feeling and emotion with the item, learn from it and think through the implications of doing or not doing it.

A recent example was of a coachee who identified a needed to increase their sales.  This was multi layered but through insights, the client was able to identify that half of their stock sold in a certain time period when they had the stock loaded to a website.  The insight was to load up more stock after identifying which were the more popular stock items.

You guessed it, sales started to increase immediately by adding popular items and more of them to the website.  The turnover has taken off.

I trust that this gives you some insight in the benefits of having a coach (or mentor etc) beside you.

John Burkhardt – Amplio Business Solutions

Yesterday I had the immense pleasure of attending a workshop called “Marketing Magic” by Tony Melvin of The Knowledge Centre fame and other great ventures. (More about that in a later post)

During the day it became increasingly evident that Tony Melvin not only has a sense of humor but is able to create great analogies and draw upon personal experience to explain different methodologies.

His latest book is “From Red to Black” and is available at www.solvencymakers.com

It is a great book, easy to read being written in plain english with plenty of practical examples and graphs to visually impact the message.

Here’s a taste of what’s inside:

1. How to maintain a good credit rating

2. How to control your money

3. How to communicate with creditors

4. How to deal with legal firms

5. How to avoid going bankrupt

6. How to organize your life and minimise stress

7. How to achieve your financial goals

8. How to develop successful money habits

9. How to play the Game of Investing and WIN!

(c) 2009 Tony Melvin

I was blessed with a train ride back to the Gold Coast and opened up the book during the trip.  Last night came and went and yes, the book is great. It has very relevant and easy to understand information.

Do yourself a favour and learn how to manage money.

Have fun out there!

John Burkhardt

Recently I volunteered to present a short overview of Organisational Planning to a local business group.

I love this type of analytical business stuff, but was looking for a worthy quote which would reflect the need to plan organisations.

Well I found it reading the Peter Sinclair book “Memories, Thoughts and Photographs”.  A book written by him as a father to leave a legacy to his 3 children.

Quote ” Children, my desire is to help build into your lives some solid foundations.  The two most important things I can help you discover are wisdom and understanding.  Many lives look alright on the outside, but true strength of character is unveiled when a tragedy or a challenge strikes.  It is much easier to prepare, than it is to repair.   It is so much better to build, then it is to rebuild.”

The great thing about this quote is that it explains first the reason for planning to achieve solid foundations.

Reread the quote and look at some of the key words: build, solid foundations, important, discover, wisdom and understanding, strength, character, prepare.

What inspired me about this quote was the need to constantly look at what our “legacy” will be.  Is this what drives you in life?

The whole process of Organizational Planning evolves around the organisational goal and its reason to exist.  This is mostly the realization of someones dreams and goals.  This is then reflected through the plan to ensure that the underlying ethos, values and purpose for the organisation are intertwined through out everything that the organisation does.

The process gets much easier as it moves on and like most things, the first time is always the longest and most difficult to endure.  After that key learning and passion takes over.

The process then underpins all of the strategic movement of people, resources, systems design and implementation and much more!

There are so many worthy books out there, do yourself a favour and explore something a little different.

P.S. The Amplio Business Solutions website is about to have a major makeover.

John Burkhardt – Amplio

I have had the pleasure of working with some great people this week.  Part of this journey was working on Goal Setting and yes my mind immediately switched to SMART goals and how they have helped me along in life to achieve certain things.  But there was something missing!

I was focusing on the detail of the goal. The when, how, by whom etc and basically I just turned it into a glorified task list.

I was forgetting something important.  These are my goals and they have to inspire me.

The most important thing was getting rid of all the smart goal thinking until I got to the nuts and bolts of my goal.  When I concentrated on the Vision behind the goal, my goal changed.  It went from being all fluffy to being a feeling to being an emotion that I wanted to embrace.  The details didn’t matter at this stage, it was all about something I could see, feel and get emotional about.  Something that every time I read it just transported me to a place of seeing, feeling and getting emotional about it.

As an example one of my goals (so I thought) started out as:

Cruise, family time, fun together.

This quickly moved with the technique to exploring what they looked like and what they were.

Fun together, cruise/holidays, interesting, regular, different, adventurous, away, 2-3 days minimum, exciting, challenging.

The visualization that came with that included thinking of the types of activities and what the feeling was of doing these.

This identified carefree, exciting, different, spontaneous, adventurous and moved into liberating, no confinement, life changing experiences.

My goal statement after this became:

Our Family Holidays are Life Changing Experiences.

Later I will discuss moving this goal headline into your action list.

What is exciting is every time I see this goal headline, I own it, I can feel it and it excites me!

Good luck reconsidering how you approach your Goals.

John Burkhardt – Amplio Business Solutions.

Last week I attended an International Coaching Federation meeting whose guest speaker discussed and helped us assess our own Genius.

What an extraordinary exercise.

With the methodology used, it crystallized who I was and what I was meant to be doing (this of course), but it allowed me to think of the other opportunities that aligned with who I am.

Even for us in the coaching industry, we need to constantly stop, rethink , realign ourselves and our mindset with who we are and what our passion is and move forward.

Everyday my focus is living my genius so that I fulfill my destiny assigned to me by God.

John Burkhardt – Amplio Business Solutions

Activity is vital to achieving goals, however the right activities are required for you to achieve your goals.

So what should we as Christian Business owners be sowing?

Invest in your mind, turn yourself into a living, breathing knowledge base (an information library)

Associate with successful people and business’s

Learn why the other people and business’s are successful and model their strategies and results.

Make sure you invest in your people with time, money and training.

Monitor your expenses and treat each as an investment in your business.  Invest wisely.

Planning time outweighs designing strategies.

Keep strategies simple, measurable and able to be monitored.

Implement test and measure.

Learn when to respond and when to react.

The seeds you sow across each aspect of your business will influence how people deal with you and your business.

“You may make plans, but God directs your actions”

Proverbs 16:9

John Burkhardt - Amplio Business Solutions

Ever noticed that as habitual people, we don’t step outside of our comfort zones to enable us to move forward?

Then complain when we don’t get what we deserved!

How often do we a Christians in business or our personal life, fall into the trap of blaming God or satan for our misfortunes, without having a good hard look at what we have done to get those results.

I listened to a great short video today which talked of the process (or law) of cause and effect.  If you are not happy with the result you have, then look at what you did to influence the cause.  The result is always an action of what we have done with our thinking, feelings and actions that precede the results we have achieved (or not achieved).

Start learning how to change the cause.  If you don’t like the fruit on the tree, don’t get upset with the fruit or the tree; Plant a different seed!

What seed are you planting?

Set a goal.

Work backwards: what do I have to do to think, feel and action to achieve this goal.

Organize the information in the correct order and then focus on this thinking, feeling and actions required.

No amount of cussing will change the fact that the orange tree has oranges on it.  If you want apples, plant an apple seed!

And finally be patient about it.  We don’t learn everything overnight and we sow what we reap.

“Let us run with patience the race that is set before us”

Hebrews 46:10

John Burkhardt – Amplio Business Solutions

However, if you ask the owners why they originally started the business and what motivated them, money usually if very low on the list.

Most will describe to you phrases similar to:

I had an idea for a product and was so passionate about it I turned it into a business.

I needed freedom from my job and by starting my own business, I was able to control my time more (give time to my family, spouse etc)

I couldn’t get anyone to come into business with me, so I did myself.

I knew I could give better service with this product than what the other business’s were giving.

I was able to help people and the money was a bonus.

I needed so much to do something for myself and my family.  This gave me the opportunity to prove myself.

The list goes on……….

Most will not mention money.  The focus on money is well down the list and usually the only consideration was that they had enough to pay the business bills and provide for their family.

I will talk further about balance in my posts, but this Proverb from the Bible is a healthy reminder to us all:

“Be wise enough not to wear yourself out trying to get rich.  Your money can be gone in a flash, as if it had grown wings and flown away like an eagle”

Proverbs 23:4

Have fun out there!

John Burkhardt – Amplio Business Solutions

One of the most common queries regards when we start to talk with clients about what platform their business has and how they manage the business systems to get the most out of that platform.

All too often there is a blank look and I have found the best explanation comes in a visual form.

All businesses have a platform which operates holding the business together.  This governs the amount of clients and work a business can handle and all too often is unstructured and not recorded.  The platform is the people, the equipment, the marketing and all the things that hold a business together.  This platform can only handle so much work before it breaks, bends or just gives up.  Depending on where the strains are this can be in your equipment, your people or other aspects of your business.

The way you operate currently will define a turnover platform. i.e. without changing any thing you are doing at the moment, your business can only handle a certain amount of customers and work flow.  This eventually will put a ceiling on your income before it starts to decrease (by not changing and keeping up with cultural and economic changes)

This image best describes the above comment.

Platforming systems 1

This is the current situation and all too often the current expenses looks like the following image.  Keeping up with the business growth and turnover and taking up 80% or more of the current platform.

Platforming systems 2

Graph 2

These expenses have their own platform. i.e. there is a certain amount of work that can be put through that same platform with little or no increase in the corresponding expenses.  e.g. ADSL monthly costs remain the same until you use your quota for the month.  So that expense for the time being is fixed. (in true accounting and insurance terms it is viable)

Part II will go into systemizing this platform to maximize your resources.

John B. – Amplio Business Solutions

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