Working more with small businesses these days, I see similar problems. After all, problems at work all have the same root causes, people.  But for the small business manager the topic could be better titled as ‘learning to be competent in an incompetent industry.’ For example, what competencies do you need to deal with the supplier who doesn’t have the basic management skills to organize their own production schedules and deliver on the date promised? Or with the buyer from a business customer who doesn’t remember to communicate a change their boss wants in the specification until the day of delivery? Or with the industry ‘standards’ (dysfunctional norms? unwritten rules? abuse of power?) that say that 30-day payment terms for small suppliers actually mean ’90-days or maybe more, depending on whether my section has met its quarterly targets and I have my bonus, and don’t you dare whinge about it or I will never buy from you again‘? Or that an extra ‘fee’ is required to remain as a listed supplier? Or……?

Every industry has its own incompetencies; what are yours?

In addition to whatever job competencies are needed (or bought in) by the small business manager (job technical knowledge, marketing, selling, partnering, operations management, contracting, buying, costing and pricing, financial controls, etc.), the extra personal competencies that are required to deal with industry-wide incompetencies are, in plain English:

• Resilience and stress-resistance – staying unfazed by problems,  approaching a problem as something to try and solve rather than as a heart attack causing crisis, keeping cool and maintaining perspective and knowing when to accept that you can’t win them all (‘hey, stuff happens’), learning how to switch off and really relax in those few times off that are available to you, etc.

• Speedy and positive reaction – getting yourself (and other people) energized and positive, and focused on action and solutions rather than on reflection and blame (reflecting should be done but it should be done later), re-prioritising tasks and, if necessary to avoid delays and causing problems elsewhere, putting in the extra hours, etc.

• Problem anticipation – thinking ahead about what might go wrong (and asking questions of the other people involved to get them to think ahead as they or the systems that regulate them may not be as competent as they should be), working on the basis that the bread can fall butter-side down and building in slack (if possible) and contingencies, learning from problems and recognizing their potential in situations in the future, etc.

underpinned by agile company systems that provide the flexibility to make rapid changes (crisis management teams, key employees on call, computer-based production scheduling system which allows you to switch things around, friendly suppliers and partner companies who can back you up when asked, etc.), by having a customer base that is strong (where the trust is high and you solve problems together) or diverse enough to withstand losing the occasional customer (on those occasions when no amount of personal competence would have solved the problem), and by having financial robustness – yes, those very well known small business bogeys of sound cash-flow, and access to finance, whether you own reserves or to an external funder who will come through quickly when needed.

All these competencies, and the undelying systems, can be developed with good coaching! Find out more at bquest.

The problem for our client though was how to find the right marketing and sales people to connect with. As a small business, he has limited funds so, in my opinion, he should consider the social media route as this seems to give small businesses a good chance to compete in the market with the big players with big budgets.

But….. we are inundated with people promising all sorts of wonders if we buy their social media services. But the promises are often about the activities they will do (the inputs, the processes), and about intermediate results (such as, be on the first page of Google, or get your name in 10 forums, build a 1000 back links,etc.), but NOT promises about end results, such as great sales and riches!

So, how to choose?

This is the topic of our client’s ‘learning contract’. (Sample learning contract in Word.) His goal is to learn not to be an expert in social media, but to learn how to choose the right expert.

Our client’s learning will include:

• Speaking with other people about their experiences and to avoid making the same mistakes. (Why should we all individually have to learn from making the same mistakes as people who have gone before us? Surely we can learn to avoid the obvious ones by talking with others, by doing a little research.)
• Looking for a suitable checklist of good practice. From “The 10 things to remember…” and “The 6 steps to…”  and the many other guides on the web, you can gradually build a commonsensical checklist of do’s and don’ts.
• Developing a simple set of criteria – for assessing social media suppliers, one that you could perhaps use when dealing with any people from outside your own company (echoes of another blog posting):
  • What results do I want? Are these people offering activities and some intermediate results? Or are they offering me the end results I want?
  • Are these people credible? Do they have a track record or, if not (and don’t discount them if they don’t; everyone has to start somewhere and in newer sectors like social media it may be the new kid on the block who is the most successful), do their ideas make sense? Common sense? Real sense? Feet-on-the-ground sense?
  • Can I get on with these people?
  • Are these people flexible? Do they listen, will they adapt if necessary, do they have alternative options for me, can they solve problems?
  • Are these people prepared to share some of the risks if things don’t go to plan (and perhaps benefits if they do)? You are new to social media, they are new to you, so there will be some uncertainties. And where there are uncertainties, there will be some risk. They will show they are prepared to share these risks if, for example, they accept some or all payments based on end results and not just their activities or intermediate results.
• Inviting several social media companies in to present their ideas. Let them do all the work! Get them to ask you all the questions. To offer ideas. To propose a strategy for you. To ‘educate’ you. They are supposed to be the experts. (It should be as if you employed them as your in-house marketing team.) And as they talk, act like the CEO and ask questions based on your set of criteria above. It’s not a bad idea to have some colleagues involved; they don’t have to be experts either, just critical listeners who can help you by asking pertinent, thoughtful, challenging and probing questions.
• Making a systematic selection. Scoring each supplier as objectively as you can against the criteria. Just as you should do when selecting a new employee.

And all the time, bquest will be there to coach and support.

The approach we have taken is firstly to get our client into the same room with the intended partner. Face-to-face contact is essential. There have been exchanges of emails and telephone calls beforehand, so the first face-to-face meeting had an agenda of working together on a particular task, in this case the development of a new product. Focusing firstly on a joint task makes it easier for both sides to interact as they are both in their comfort zones.

During the meeting, actually a series of meetings held over two days, we started mixing work on the task with social activities, like having chats over coffee about family and having dinner together, and also with ‘prompt questions’ (from bquest) to elicit:

1. Shared goals and values. Do both sides share a core set of goals and values? Are there any differences which are deal breakers?
2. Each party’s vision of their own future, and what their vision of a relationship might look like. Are they more or less in alignment?
3. Can they get along together. Working on a task gives both sides a common history, itself a powerful aid to a long-term relationship, but can both sides laugh together? A shared humour is so powerful.
4. Their degree of trust in each other and, importantly, can they grow that trust? Are they prepared to open up, to be transparent?
5. Practical actions, the concrete next steps to take to progress the task. Relationships work better when there is a common task to achieve and when both sides can see real progress being made.

The above forms a simple framework to measure the potential for a sound long-term relationship. If you can put a tick next to each one, you have the basis for progressing and deepening the relationship.

A sixth need, once both partners agree to progress the relationship, will be to develop:

1. Some more or less detailed ground rules for managing the relationship and the differences (conflicts) that may emerge as circumstances and actors change. ‘Rules’ may be out on the table or they may be undeclared and only assumed; if assumed, they may need to be checked, and rechecked periodically, to avoid later misunderstandings.

The above model isn’t rocket science. Isn’t this the basis for most strong business (and personal) relationships? But do you use such a model in a conscious way? Do you use prompt questions carefully and purposefully to investigate and confirm that both sides are in agreement about the relationship?

If you are not an expert in asking the right prompt questions, maybe bquest can help you.

In my experience, failure is more often caused by internal factors over which management have control than external factors over which they don’t. There seems to be much ‘shooting oneself in the foot’.

Here are a few examples of the research into reasons why businesses fail:

• 10 reasons why businesses fail
• The Seven Pitfalls of Business Failure and How to Avoid Them
• The Untold Reasons Why Businesses Fail
• Why so many start-ups fail
• Causes of Failure in Bankruptcy and Compulsory Liquidation
• Top 15 reasons of insolvency

and Jim Collins’ interesting book How the mighty fall where he looks at formerly successful companies which failed.

In bquest, we also often see businesses making the same sort of mistakes and, while they may not actually fail, they miss all the opportunities to be more successful; they just seem to bumble along the bottom, their owners seem to tolerate the status quo and accept survival and mediocrity.

In How the mighty fall Collins remembers the advice of his mentor, Stanford professor Bill Lazier: “Don’t try to come up with the right answers; focus on coming up with good questions.” This seems to me to be excellent advice!

So, with some of the problems of current bquest clients in mind, here are a few (perhaps commonsense but definitely not common practice) questions to get you thinking……

• Which of your customers’ needs or wants are you really satisfying? What other of their needs or wants could you consider satisfying?
• Are you getting the best price for your product or service? What can you change to get a better price?
• Are you making a real profit on all your offerings? Are there some things you do that actually lose you money?
• What are your competitors beginning to do that might capture your customers? What can you do to capture customers from your competitors?
• Are you getting satisfaction (energy, motivation, pleasure, rewards, work-life balance, sense of purpose, security, reputation, ego, growth, family heritage, stress free, permanence, whatever) from your business? What could you change to really get the most out of your business?

In bquest, we help you ask the right questions.

The client company has 12 people (‘key employees’) participating in the bquest system. They have done a year of Personal Development Plans, implemented either through structured formal Learning Contracts or through a loose rolling program of coaching sessions. The original ‘theme’ for their development was ‘reducing costs’ – in effect we said at the start ‘While you can develop whatever is needed for you to raise personal performance, we want you to think carefully about how your development can help reduce company costs.’ This theme provided sufficient alignment of personal and company interests without acting as a straitjacket. Also, allowing participants to go for more structure or loose coaching or a mix of the two allowed them to find their own preferences when it comes to development.

At the end of the first year, each participant has been able to show how they have individually developed and what improvements they have achieved. The financial payback has been significant. From our observation, in addition to the expected benefits of any good development system such as raised confidence and motivation, we saw a growing energy and momentum for company innovation and change; we saw the beginnings of a new culture.

There were three new themes that emerged:

1. lean manufacturing
2. linking the company through an ERP IT system
3. rebranding and improving marketing/sales

Production improvements can raise productivity between 30-50%. To achieve this, the production planning system needs better information about demand and supplies. The marketing team need to increase dramatically the quality of their forecasting and to improve their decisions about what will make for an optimum product portfolio. And they and their sales colleagues need to find customers for the increased production.

In the second year of the bquest system, participants will continue their personal development, but they will now be working more together, cross-functionally, on joint actions in those three themes to improve the company. Very exciting times!

What does this have to do with a blog about employee development and business growth?

From this experience of exhibiting bquest, I have a few observations firstly about exhibiting your business effectively, and, if you are a visitor to an exhibition, about how to make the most of your time when walking round. As a busy manager, you don’t often get time out from the daily pressures of work, so make the most of them.

For exhibitors at trade fairs – connect with visitors!

1) Watch the eyes of visitors as they walk around. Some people can walk around without apparently seeing anything. Others walk around looking at their mobile phone. Some don’t look up, keeping their eyes down and
looking at what’s on the table displays. Others seem to look at you but actually look through you. Only a few actively make eye contact and look carefully at what you have to offer!

From this I conclude that you have to have something about you that will catch visitors’ eyes. A knockout banner stand? An interactive table display? A snazzy suit? Or maybe you can stand out in front of the table and approach people as they walk past? Whatever, you have to get eye contact with them to connect with them!

Of course, you can’t spend a lot of time with everyone. Ideally, you only want to engage with potential customers, so you should do some mental filtering and profile the ideal customers you might want. As this is very difficult to do accurately, I first try and connect with anyone and everyone who passes by, with a few words, and only when I have a few clues about who they are, what they do, what their interest is do I then
decide whether to try and engage more deeply with them and progress the conversation.

2) My work involves ‘developing people’. Almost all visitors will have preconceived ideas what this means. They are not experts in people development. So I try and have a five second description to help visitors understand me. In answer to the often asked question “What do you do?” I say “I am a specialist in developing people to develop their business. I am not a trainer or academic. I focus on coaching owners and managers to solve problems, to implement important change projects, to grow the business and to make more profit. For some companies, I also provide a complete system of continuing development at work for key employees.”

And I have a handout that repeats this ready to give out.

If they show signs of interest at this point, I then continue by asking them what their interests are. If they show no signs, I don’t say any more and I let them decide whether they want to continue talking with me. In a trade fair, you have to be tough on time but friendly with people.

3) After any conversation that I think should be followed up after the exhibition, I make a few notes, usually on the business card they give me. If I don’t, I can never distinguish one person from another at a later date. My notes are ‘triggers’ which, when I read them the next day, trigger memories of the person and why they are interesting to me.

These observations are by no means a comprehensive guide; maybe though they trigger some thoughts about what might work for you.

For visitors to trade fairs – be selective and purposeful!

1) Honestly, this is so mind-numbingly simple…….. Prepare before you go! What are your concerns, goals, interests, etc? Who do you want to see? Plan your route around the fair to optimize your time. I don’t know about you but after a couple of hours of walking round anything (fairs, museums, galleries, shops) I have had enough, I get banner-stand blind.

So use your time budget wisely.

2) When walking round, stop and look ahead as far as you can see and scan each exhibitor. You should be standing in a neutral place, not connected to any exhibitor. Pick the ones you want to take a closer look at, and walk past the others, avoiding eye contact, to get to them. This way, you can usually avoid being sold to by people whose products or services you don’t want. (If you pass an exhibitor who, out of the corner of your eye, looks like they maight be interesting, you can always come back.) Of course, if you pass an exhibitor who has taken my advice to exhibitors above, you might still get collared; then you have to have a simple script to politely decline, for example “I’m sorry, but I am tight for time and I have few key people I must meet. If I have any spare time I will come back.” And walk on.

These observations seem to me banal and obvious. They are common sense, But, sadly, from the exhibition today it is clear they are not common practice.!