It’s Time to Get Excited

I came up with the phrase, “It’s time to get excited” purely out of necessity after being asked to speak on ‘something a bit different’ at the Inspire Business Networking event a few weeks ago. But, really, where it ultimately comes from is where I’m at right now, which got me thinking about a few things that I hope will strike a chord with some of you out there.

At that same event, I asked the representatives of the many different types of business attending how they were feeling about the current business environment. As expected, I received answers ranging from opportunity and excitement, to nervous, frustrated and unpredictable. One delegate mentioned feeling shattered, which if nothing else, is one thing I’m sure we can all relate to!

The funny thing is that, at the moment, I regularly feel all of these emotions within one working day. I can be nervous and have my head in a muddle one instant, and be smiling both inside and out at the fantastic opportunities arising out of this recession the next. We certainly are experiencing a rapidly altering, extraordinary business landscape.

The last time we saw such massive upheaval was back in 1991, which just happened to be the year I left my job to set up my own business. I made every mistake there was to make in those difficult early days and only narrowly avoided insolvency. But here I am, still going almost twenty years later, and it has to be said that my ignorance that first time ‘round was blissful. Move forward to April 2008 and my eyes were fully open to the fact that the recession was crashing into my business like a wrecking ball, doing its best to rase it to the ground.

Having said that, and with the recession still going on, I haven’t been as excited as I am now in nearly ten years. The reason being that out of such upheaval comes great opportunity. What this recession has given me, in the same way as back in 1991 (although I didn’t know it at the time), is the chance to re-invent, to start again and to do something different. What I hadn’t realised is that I was actually a little bit bored!

The fact that my business has now moved from loss to massive profit forecast in 2010 is something of which I am very proud and which has relied on a willingness, on my part, to adapt and diversify in a constantly changing environment. As my mother once told me, “If you want something to change, then you’ve got to change something”. And how right she was. Over those two years I have moved my offices from a large business park in Loughborough to my beautiful home near Leicester, reduced my employees from twenty to six and written a book aimed solely at women when previously I’d almost exclusively worked with men!

I’d like to bring in the phrase “suits-to-shorts” here because it sums up this changing mentality to business that is essential to getting through hard times. Back in the 80’s, when I was cutting my teeth as a young woman in the corporate world, you had to be fully suited and booted for EVERYTHING. Now, my employees have been known to come to work in shorts! How times have changed. And I like to think that I’ve changed with them.

So, like me, you’ve made every commercial change possible. You’ve cut your staff, your rent, your heating bills, you’ve worked hard to bring your overheads all the way down. And you are surviving. But I’m not a big fan of simply surviving! I want to move forward and flourish. After the bad times come the good and you must be prepared, both commercially and personally, to embrace change and to look on these difficult times in a more positive, productive light conducive to ushering in those good times sooner rather than later.

So what I want to pass on to you is not so much practical advice about how I managed to survive this or that recession, but more some beneficial ways of thinking that will help you to overcome the challenges you are facing.

To make this easier to digest, I’ve broken these ways of preparatory thinking down into five easy steps:

Step One: Motivate everyone you come into contact with, trying to bring them excitement and energy. Like our current environment you must be dynamic and constantly moving to draw people and business to you. This creates a synergy between you and those around you, energising you and making you more attractive to those whom you provide those feelings of energy and excitement. When you are more energetic, your brain will work better and you will be more productive. The old adage that you “think faster on your feet” does not exist for nothing.

Step Two: Be Influential. Help everyone in areas in which you know your stuff and stroke everyone, not literally (that sort of thing has been known to get people into a lot of trouble!), but by paying genuine compliments and hi-lighting a person’s positive attributes. Through this influence you can become the person everyone wants to do business with, not solely due to the quality of your product but incidentally, because you exude excitement and energy. People need bright lights in their lives during these dark economic times and will be drawn towards them!

Step Three: Solve people’s problems so that you become invaluable to them. Take the example of a heckler shouting you down during a presentation. You have a choice, in that moment, whether to accept the problem as an opportunity or reject it as a threat. If you start to view any problem as an opportunity through reacting positively to other people’s difficulties you are working on building trust that is invaluable in any business relationship.

Step Four: Create more time by developing your own time management process. Time is often so elusive isn’t it? Sometimes a minute can seem like an hour. Other times an hour can seem like just a few moments. Try to get some sort of control over this phenomenon we call time because, ultimately, it is your life! This is about reducing waste. Learn to spend as much time as possible doing the things you really want to do. This will make you more productive and efficient and will alleviate some of that pressure we have all experienced an overabundance of in recent years.

Step Five: Promote peak performance in others by providing incentives and a little bit of slap and tickle (see my previous blog entry below). By this I do not just mean to say that you should encourage productivity in your employees and colleagues. That goes without saying. What I really mean is that you should encourage all the people in your life to pursue peak performance. The people you are surrounded by wield an incredible level of influence on your time and mental state, and by encouraging them to be efficient with their time you will find yours stretches out experientially. Once again, the way you treat others reflects positively back on to you.

 This is how I work and what I encourage from my team and I know it works for me. So besides all the commercial changes, the current climate calls for doing these things I’m talking about and making a change for the better, for yourself.