That’s great, what they need to ask themselves is whether it’s realistic at the current stage of their business.

There’s nothing wrong with aspirations at all. However, using goals to try and achieve them in the short-term (by that I mean a year) can be counterproductive.

After all aspirations by their very nature tend to be out of our comfort zone and more difficult to achieve.

So in order to get around the problem of mixing aspirations with goals I like to use a 3 year target so that I can show my aspirations developing over three years.

Aspirational Target

For example maybe I want to have an office in Australia. However, there are a number of things I need to do before I can achieve that. So it makes sense to put the project "opening an Australian office" into year 2 of my target. Year 1 might contain things like increase profit by £250,000 to £750,000 and recruit a new sales person.

So in the target picture the numbers 80 to 60 would represent year 1 (this year), 50 to 40 year 2 (next year) and 30 to 10 year 3 (the following year).

Then on the target you’d write down your aspirations as a line leading from the centre. Then along that line you’d write what could be achieved in each of the 3 year rings.

The net result is that I can show my aspirations being achieved over three years. And obviously each year I create a new aspirational target.

The good thing about doing it this way is that it’s a visual prompt to your brain that reinforces your aspirations and what you want to achieve over the next three years.

Vital Few Goals

Now I have my aspirational target I can look at those I believe can be achieved, or part achieved, this year. Then I decide what are the 3 or 4 Vital Few Goals I need to meet to move forward on those aspirations

I list those down and then brainstorm projects that can help move me forward on one, or preferably more than one, of the vital few.

I assign project deadlines for each project and also a measurement of how I’ll know that I’ve succeeded.

Then I breakdown the projects into steps I need to take to achieve each one.

As I work on each of the projects I know I’m working towards completing them. In completing them I’m meeting the Vital Few Goals and in doing that moving forward with my aspirations.

Ultimately those aspirations are what makes a company grow and prosper.

And this approach is part of what is incorporated into my time management workshops.

Whenever I conduct management training I always make sure that there is a continuing programme of contact to make sure that the training is being absorbed.

And I don’t just mean giving delegates my phone number and suggesting they phone if they have a problem.

Often the problem with implementing management training is implementing it back in the office. Equally the manager might think the training doesn’t work if they can’t use it and will avoid phoning for help.

So using a more active approach with training is a much more successful way of getting a habit formed.

In particular I’ve noticed that time management and projects management  tend to go west most quickly as often just one or two from a company are sent to learn the techniques and tactics for success. That means when they try to start using them in their business people are resistant to change. After all they’re “doing OK where they are, why should they change?”

With outside support it makes it easier for the delegate to continue using the techniques and tactics successfully.

Although to be fair I always recommend that a company puts everyone through projects or time management training so they all know how it works and get the same benefits from implementing the techniques. It also makes overall implementation much more effective.

They often expect me to say, “more sales staff” or “increase your marketing” or “increase your sales activity.”

The truth is, you need to really look at your whole business and view it as a sales and marketing machine. That way you can implement processes that will peg the sales you’re getting now and enable you to refine those processes to increase your sales.

There are at least 10 steps to increasing your sales.

The 10 Steps To More Sales

Obviously you can have as many steps as you like to get a sale. What I’ve done is try to summarise the key ways of making sure you’re maximising your business’s efforts to get sales.

• 1) Create a business marketing strategy which covers the products you sell and the people you want to sell them to
• 2) Decide which companies, people, markets you want to sell to
• 3) Make sure your personality, ability, uniqueness appears in every communication you have with your market
• 4) make sure your web site works for you and not against you
• 5) When asked to meet prospects listen, listen again and then decide whether you can help them – do not simply sell because you’re there
  6) Implement a sales process with stages that can be measured or estimated
• 7) Testimonials, testimonials – get lots, get good ones, get them published
  Continue to build relationships with current clients
  9) Find out why previous clients left and (depending) get them back
  10) Sack customers you don’t want

Is it that simple? Yes and no…

If you truly want a bigger business you just have to take a step back and see what you’re doing now.

If you’re not getting the business growth you want there’s a good reason for it. Go through the 10 steps, preferably with someone who’s been used to doing exactly that.

When I talk to businesses the number one reason why these steps are rarely addressed is often time management. People cram so much into their day they don’t leave anything for improving their business, and their life!

After I deliver training on time management (see working as a project director paid off) companies really start to focus on what needs to be done and not just fire fighting all the time.

In fact now is the time that enables you to concentrate on polishing the way you do business so that you’re ready for the upturn. Don’t think there’ll ever be one? There always is…

Plus looking at ways you can improve your lead to order ratio and reduce your customer loss.

To help businesses I’d like to offer these 10 tips to continue to grow your business.

1. Stop working so hard on tactics, step back and look at your business strategically
2. Implement a joint venture partnership to access your particular prospects
3. Use the Windows of Opportunity matrix to see if there are products you believe your current clients need that they don’t yet get from you
4. Improve your current sales processes, do it for an hour every week, until it works brilliantly
5. Innovate to create new, or better products
6. Use strategic marketing to get your message to your key customers and prospects
7. Look at your whole business with your entire staff. Improve one process at a time
8. Manage your time more effectively (I’m currently writing a book on this as it’s a subject particularly close to my heart as an ex IT Project director!)
9. Institute regular weekly staff training, it doesn’t need to be for more than 60 minutes, but it does ensure your staff learn the best ways of doing their jobs
10. Look at the assistance you can get from government bodies (I’m currently going through accreditation as a Business Link supplier – I’ll let you know how I get on)

Above don’t let the fear the rest of our economy is showing affect your attitude. You need to be confident that your business will survive. Follow these tips and you’ve got a much better chance of doing that than people who don’t!

If you’ve got a particular low, or no cost, tactic or strategy you use let us know by making a comment.

The issue with project management is that these 3 main factors impact on each other:

1. Quality
2. Time
3. People

The Impact Of Increasing Deliverables

For example increasing deliverables but delivering in the same timescale will mean that tasks will need to be done more quickly or given to more people. If tasks are completed more quickly then you may have a problem with delivering the right quality.

Giving tasks to more people runs the risk of communication between the team breaking down or becoming more time consuming. The first will increase the risk of reduced quality. The second means that your timescales increase.

The new team members need to take time to learn about the project and their task before they can begin to be productive. There is an impact on the previous team members who are still trying to provide their part of the deliverable. They need to train or assist the new members to become productive. That means their deliverable timescales are affected too. Which means the likely delivery date will slip back.

What Happens If You Move The Deadline Nearer?

As sure as night follows day your deliverables change, either in quality, or in the number of deliverables that you can deliver if you make the deliverable due sooner.

As before you can increase the number of people allocated to creating the deliverables. Then you run the same risks as before, with the impact that you may still overshoot the new deadline.

The only way to deliver sooner than originally planned is to drop parts of the original deliverable or deliverables or to reduce the quality level.

Changing People During A Project Can Be Disastrous

If you’ve come to rely on the team you’ve built up to deliver the project changing any one of them can become a major issue. And it’s the same for you if a supplier changes the person they’ve provided for you as a liaison.

If a team member is taken off the project, for whatever reason, you’ve pretty much lost all access to the knowledge they’ve built up during the project. They may be willing to give you some time, but it wont be enough and any handover is unlikely to cover areas that come up later in the project!

What To Do About Project Issues

It’s not all bad news though there are some strategies you can implement to minimise these sorts of problems. And I’ll talk about these in a later post.

And by the way if you think you don’t run projects you’re not in business you’ve a hobby!

If you do you’re not alone. In fact you’re making two time management mistakes which aren’t even your fault.

The first is that simply filling your day with activity is the wrong way to do it. After all simply doing stuff is a waste of time if it’s not achieving your own, or your company’s strategic objectives.

Mistake number 2 is piling more and more stuff onto your to-do list for today. In the end it’s unlikely that you’ll actually get done what your to-do list shows you need to do. So your subconscious gets a little despondent when you don’t finish it. As the days go by it become used to not finishing the to-do list. Then it begins to think that you never need to complete a to-do list. That means the urge to get things done (prompted by your subconscious) begins to ebb away. Until one day you wake up and you get very little done. Your to-do list is as big as ever but it still doesn’t get done.

These are ways that you’re told to manage your time. And yet have you ever been asked to look at how you work, what your work rate is, what your best hours are. What your own rewards system is?

If not you’re not making the best possible us of your time and I blame the people who’ve taught you time management.

I used to take the view that business coaching was all about business. However, as I’ve continued to coach people I’ve realised that sometimes there are areas that need to be worked on that aren’t business, they’re more personal.

And the personal areas vary from person to person. Yes it’s OK to agree and allocate actions to be taken in a business. However, if the person you’re coaching is concealing a problem that means they wont deliver on the agreed action continuing to coach is pointless.

Or at least continuing to coach without bringing the issue out into the open is pointless.

Once an issue is exposed there are often steps that can be taken with the assistance of the coach as sounding board and mentor.

The other problem many, many business people have is that they are so busy that they feel they don’t have time to do any coaching or to get involved in the actions that need to be taken.

That view is simply because they don’t know what they don’t know.

For example, as a coach I’m willing to bet that I can free up at least 2 hours per week of real time for anybody I coach. Think about that for a minute…

If you work 48 weeks per year that means you save 96 hours a year. Think what you could do with an extra 3 weeks per year?

And that is only a minimum. There are plenty of other skills that a coach can teach that make things easier, let stressful and ultimately more profitable.

And the best thing of all is to invest in life coaching for your business when you’re starting a business.

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I’m sure you’ve heard of that nice little time management analogy which represents a large pickle jar as the time you have available in a day and then asks how you’d get a bunch of rocks, pebbles, sand and some water into that one jar without it all overflowing.

The rocks representing big tasks, pebbles less important tasks and sand much less important tasks and the water, stuff that needs to be done one day.

Of course when this was first demonstrated people used to put the little pebbles or sand in first followed by the rocks. And the real way to get everything in is to put the big stuff in first (rocks), then the smaller (pebbles) then the smallest (sand). The sand grains trickle into the gaps between the rocks and pebbles. Finally water can be added as it gets into the minute gaps between the sand grains.

In standard time management practice this represents getting your big tasks (rocks) into your day first, then fill the day with smaller, less important tasks and finally use fillers that are trivial but need doing at some point.

What’s Wrong With The Time Management Analogy?

The problem is in the assumption that big tasks are important and therefore should be placed into your daily to-do list first.

For example setting up an event could have a bunch of rocks, such as:

• Find the venue
• Sort out the catering
• Organise guest speakers
• Send invitations
• Confirm attendees

And yet the smallest task would be to confirm the budget we have for the event. If that was left to the end of the day as a filler task you could waste the day on the big tasks like finding the venue. You could have made a list of venues, driven round to each, had the tour and ended up not returning to the office. That means if you selected a venue that isn’t within your budget you’re going to have to repeat the day of driving to venues. A waste of time?

Now that was an obvious thing. However, there are more important examples that happen and cost company’s thousands. As another example I know a company which manufacturers aircraft. The whole build is mapped out using planning tools and a process for every step in the manufacture. However, one step was to install all the aluminium floor panels and another was to inspect and certify a part that is below the flooring level. And the inspection step was scheduled after laying the flooring step. That wasted a lot of time as each aircraft in the manufacturing line had part of it’s floor taken up again so that an inspection could be made. Inspection – small task, a pebble. Laying the floor – a major rock.

The Right Way To Approach Time Management

Rocks should be considered as projects, or major phases of a project, or major tasks. When you smash a rock you get pebbles. So each rock breaks down into a set of pebbles. And the pebbles are the activities that you need to complete before you can say a rock is complete. To help with scheduling you need to get each pebble to be less than 4 hours to complete. There will still be smaller activities (the sand and water), however these have much smaller timescales- 5 to 15 minutes.

All the rocks should be broken down into pebbles, at the very least. That way you’re in a position to decide which pebbles are important for that day.

So stop trying to fit rocks into your day and juggle them with a bunch of pebbles.  Instead you can fit a bunch of roughly similar sized pebbles in instead. And apart from making it easier to schedule (and I’ll explain why another time) it also means you can shift pebbles around within a day as you progress.

Surely, that has to be better?

Time Management Turned Evil

If you use some of the tactics of time management without integrating them with your business strategy you can end up in trouble. The reason is that you can truly grab more productive hours for your day using  these tactics.

However, it’s rather like a builder chopping down trees in a forest to join a road on one side to a road on the other. If the builder simply chops away at trees without any other tools he can achieve more with his extra hours. Here’s what he could achieve:

• Every tree in the forest pulled down, although a straight line between the two roads only needs 120 trees removing
• 120 trees are pulled down as required but he doesn’t go the shortest route so needs to pull down more trees
• The builder doesn’t know where the other road is and keeps chopping down in the presumed direction only to find that he goes in a circle and ends up back at the starting point

From just those 3 examples you can see that the builder didn’t use his extra time well.

He certainly was able to get much more done in those extra hours. However, getting much more of the wrong thing done is plainly going to cost you more money and time.

So releasing those hours by managing his time better never really helped him build that road more quickly or better.

Time Management Used For Good!

What the builder should have done is take a step back from the forest and say, “I’ve got these extra hours from better time management. I should sit down and plan what to do with them.”

Then he could have looked at his road joining project and asked the strategic question:

How do I join these two roads together with minimum effort and wastage?

From asking that strategic question he would have asked himself further detailed questions about how he could join them with minimum effort. How could he ensure that he stayed on the minimum distance line and how could actually chop the trees down faster than he had been.

Time Management Strategy

Once you’ve identified the ways time management releases your time for other activities you need to decide whether those activities relate to your business’ strategic direction. Because like the builder you can work very, very hard or go round in circles or wander aimlessly and go bust doing stuff.

If you haven’t applied time management principles to yourself, your business and your staff I guarantee that you can release a minimum of a day that will enable you, your staff and your business to move forward more quickly.

And if you haven’t applied time management strategy you’ll be amazed at what you achieve.

Maybe you find that you’re simply rushing through the office to your next appointment and you don’t see any of your staff. You don’t see the employee who you wanted to congratulate for a piece of work they did. Or the employee who’s just had a new addition to the family. What about your colleagues who are lining up to speak to you as you promised you would.

You’ve no time!

Of course the reality is you have the same number of hours as everyone else. The difference is that at the moment you’re letting your must urgent task overtake the hours you have. And that means you’re letting yourself, your company and quite possibly your life down.

The next question is how do we get round it?

Better Time Management Is Possible

There are so many, many books that give you hints on time management. In my previous life as a project manager I bought, read and applied so many techniques and methods of managing time that I’ve found many ways to make managing time better. I’ll give you a couple of book references later.

In the meantime, there’s a professor called Randy Pausch from Carnegie Mellon University in the USA (remember I blogged about his Last Lecture yesterday?).

He’s got some quite succinct things to say on time management. The video is great as a reminder.  And hey, maybe some of these principles are new to you!

There’s also a write-up of the time management principles detailed on the video.

Enjoy the video, there are a few further things to help help you manage time and I’ll cover those in a later post.

Update, Friday 25th July 2008:  ABC in America has said Randy died from the pancreatic cancer today

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