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Enterprise Leader Development Programme |

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Copyright © 2007 by Richard Parkes Cordock & Enterprise Leaders Worldwide All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmit-ted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior written permission of the publisher and copyright owner. Published in Bath UK by Enterprise Leaders Worldwide. This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed upon the subsequent purchaser. Email: [email protected] Web: www.enterpriseleaders.com


Table of Contents

THEY BELIEVE (the customer)

Day 1Day 1Day 1Day 1 Growth Through Innovation, Creativity And Change 17

Day 2Day 2Day 2Day 2 Gaining New Customers Through 'Word of Mouth Marketing' 25

Day 3Day 3Day 3Day 3 How To Maximise The Lifetime Value of Your Customers 37

Day 4Day 4Day 4Day 4 Why Everybody In Your Company Must Be A Salesperson 45

Day 5Day 5Day 5Day 5 The Six Fundamentals of Business That You Must Master 55

WE BELIEVE (the team)

Day 6Day 6Day 6Day 6 People! The Key To Unlocking Your Profit Potential 85

Day 7Day 7Day 7Day 7 7 Essential Steps To Make Your Team Believe 93

Day 8Day 8Day 8Day 8 How To Maximise Your Results Through Communication 101

Day 9Day 9Day 9Day 9 7 Proven Strategies To Get The Most From Your Team 111

Day 10Day 10Day 10Day 10 Motivation! How To Get Your People To Go The Extra Mile 119

I BELIEVE (the leader)

Day 11Day 11Day 11Day 11 Half-Way Review and Introduction To Personal Leadership 127

Day 12Day 12Day 12Day 12 How To Develop Unshakable Confidence & Self Belief 137

Day 13Day 13Day 13Day 13 The Unstoppable Twin Force of Passion & Desire 145

Day 14Day 14Day 14Day 14 How To Eliminate Your Fears, Doubts And Limiting Beliefs 153

Day 15Day 15Day 15Day 15 How To Create Endless Opportunities And Make Luck Work For You 163

Day 16Day 16Day 16Day 16 How To Achieve Extraordinary Results Through The Power of Goals 173

Day 17Day 17Day 17Day 17 The 5 Advance Payments You Must Make To Reach Your Goals 181

Day 18Day 18Day 18Day 18 How To Achieve Any Goal You Set For Yourself 189

Day 19Day 19Day 19Day 19 Why Experiencing Failure Is Essential For You To Succeed! 197

Day 20Day 20Day 20Day 20 Your Role as an Enterprise Leader 205

Day 21Day 21Day 21Day 21 Final Review & Final Exercise 213

Review


An Introduction to the Enterprise Leader Development

Programme

By Richard Parkes Cordock, Programme Creator

Hello! Welcome to the Enterprise Leader Development Programme. Before you start studying this 21 day course, I’d like to give you a little background on its origins.

Entrepreneurs are the forerunners to Enterprise Leaders

It’s important to know that the precursor to the Enterprise Leader Development Pro-gramme was an audio-based training course I developed called Millionaire MBATM Business

Mentoring Programme.

Millionaire MBATM was built by interviewing successful entrepreneurs and business leaders. In creating Millionaire MBATM, it was my ambition to analyse what makes them successful and to understand precisely how entrepreneurs achieve extraordinary results against all odds where others don’t. Through interviewing 50 self-made millionaire entrepreneurs and by asking each of them a series of questions, I used NLP modeling techniques (NNNNeuro LLLLinguistic PPPProgramming is the science of success) to decode and blueprint exactly what makes them successful. Millionaire MBATM presents this blueprint and is now used by thousands of entrepreneurs and business owners around the world. Millionaire MBATM also provides much of the under-lying framework for the Enterprise Leader Development Programme you’re soon to under-take. You’ll hear an excerpt of Millionaire MBATM on Day 5 of this course, when 22 real-life entre-preneurs share with you the Six Fundamentals of Business That You Must Master.

Entrepreneurs ARE Leaders!

It soon became obvious in creating Millionaire MBATM that entrepreneurs are often misun-derstood, and certainly they’re misunderstood in mainstream business. Most people only see entrepreneurs as ‘risk takers’, but in reality they’re business leaders who achieve ex-traordinary results—more often than not, against all odds and with little or no resources. It also became obvious that there’s a common bond which unites all great entrepreneurs, and that bond is their mindset and their attitude. This is a mindset of belief (in themselves, in their team and by their customers) and it’s a mindset of achievement and results. In short, it’s the mindset of an exceptional leader.

An Introduction to the Enterprise Leader Development Programme


Only entrepreneurial thinking will grow your company

In many companies the word ‘entrepreneur’ is still frowned upon, even though every com-pany ever created was first founded by an entrepreneur in some shape or form. Believing that entrepreneurial thinking is not relevant to companies is actually harmful. It’s a fact that ALL companies must be entrepreneurial in order to survive and grow and it’s only through entrepreneurial thinking and entrepreneurial leadership that this will happen. Companies must be innovative and creative to remain relevant to their customers; these in themselves are entrepreneurial words and it’s therefore essential that you have people with these qualities in your company. The world is too competitive to sit back and do nothing.

Designed specifically for you and your company

The Enterprise Leader Development Programme has been designed to bring the best of ‘entrepreneurial thinking’ and ‘entrepreneurial leadership’ to you and your company. The course will not turn you overnight into an entrepreneur, but it will give you the tools to become a modern-day business leader with an ‘enterprising attitude’. It will give you the tools to ‘think like a business owner’ and ‘make decisions as if you were the owner of the company you work for’. At the end of this 21 day course, you’ll be equipped with the tools to help dramatically grow your organization’s year-on-year results and, at the same time, accelerate your own career opportunities. By using the research from Millionaire MBATM as the backbone for the Enterprise Leader De-

velopment Programme, you can be assured that what you’re about to learn is a proven model for achieving extraordinary results. The Enterprise Leader Development Programme’s sole purpose is to unlock the potential of your company’s greatest asset. This asset is its people. Right now you are your company’s greatest asset and that is why you’ve been selected to become an Enterprise Leader. If you haven’t already read the introductory letter which accompanies this course, please do so now, as it contains important information on how to study this programme. If you don’t have this letter to hand, you can read it online at www.enterpriseleaders.com/readme. I wish you every success in your new role as an Enterprise Leader and look forward to meeting you at some time in the future. Richard Parkes Cordock Creator of the Enterprise Leader Development Programme

An Introduction to the Enterprise Leader Development Programme


Programme Overview

The Enterprise Leader Development Programme is a 21 day personal and professional devel-opment course designed to accelerate your skills and abilities as a business leader. Over the next four weeks, you’ll be introduced to the philosophy of Enterprise Leadership, a philosophy which is grounded in the world of successful entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurs are famed for ‘achieving extraordinary results against all odds with little or no resources – where others would fail,’ and it’s this ability to deliver results in the most de-manding of environments that you’ll learn and apply to your own work and career.

Three Core Modules

The Enterprise Leader Development Programme is split into three distinct modules: these are, I BELIEVE (the leader), WE BELIEVE (the team) and THEY BELIEVE (the customer). These core modules are broken down further into daily audio sessions and workbook ex-ercises. In total there are 20 audio sessions and accompanying workbook exercises which are designed to be spread over four weeks of study. Each audio session is around 15-20 minutes long. In total, you should expect to commit the following time to studying the Enterprise Leader Development Programme:

� Listening to (or reading) Business Upgrade – 4 hours � Listening to 20 audio sessions of around 15-20 minutes per day – approxi-

mately six hours in total � Completing 20 days of workbook exercises of around 15-20 minutes a day –

approximately five hours in total � Preparation and execution of the final exercises on day 21 – 2 hours

The total time you’ll require to study the Programme (spread over four weeks) is around 17 hours. Ideally, the course should be studied over four consecutive weeks, starting on Week 1 with the ‘THEY BELIEVE (the customer)’ module and its five audio sessions. In Week 2, you should study the ‘WE BELIEVE (the team)’ module; again, this has five au-dio sessions. In Weeks 3 and 4, you should study the subject of ‘I BELIEVE (the leader) — this has ten audio sessions. The final session on day 21 includes a detailed review of the entire programme.

Programme Overview


You may want to take a break between each of the three core modules. Please do not however rush through the programme and study more than one session per day. The pro-gramme has been designed to be studied little and often, using a compounding learning for-mat to reinforce the learning from the previous days of the course, and if you deviate from this suggested learning format you will not receive the full benefit from the programme.

Amroze Technology

The programme uses the backdrop of Amroze Technology, an international software com-pany, to explain many of the principles of Enterprise Leadership. Amroze has recently suffered many difficult business challenges such as poor sales, low staff morale, out-of-date products and services, customers leaving to go to their competitors, and a whole host of problems associated with a company in decline. You’ll hear in the programme how Amroze has turned its fortunes around with the help of Enterprise Leadership and, over the course of 21 days, you’ll learn the tools, techniques and strategies they used to do that.

Your Mentors

In the audio programme, you’ll be mentored by five executives from Amroze Technology. They are: Stephen FoxStephen FoxStephen FoxStephen Fox - Chief Executive. Stephen recently joined Amroze in order to turn the com-pany around and implement the principles of Enterprise Leadership. Lucy RobinsonLucy RobinsonLucy RobinsonLucy Robinson - Chief Enterprise Leader. Lucy will explain in-depth to you the principles of Enterprise Leadership and why it is vital for everybody in your company to see themselves as an Enterprise Leader. Michael RedfordMichael RedfordMichael RedfordMichael Redford - Chairman. Michael is an extraordinarily successful entrepreneur and busi-nessman who recently joined the board of Amroze with one thing in mind – GROWTH. Michael knows that the purpose of any company is fundamentally to grow and he can see the untapped potential in Amroze. Charlie GardhamCharlie GardhamCharlie GardhamCharlie Gardham – Founder of Amroze Technology. Charlie founded Amroze Technology around 10 years ago and sold his shares in it some time ago when he retired. It was Char-lie’s passion, belief and desire for his business idea, and seeing the opportunity to provide a product and service to customers, that actually created Amroze in the first instance. Charlie will share with you why he believes all companies must be entrepreneurial to survive and grow. Tom McMillanTom McMillanTom McMillanTom McMillan – External Mentor. Tom has been instrumental in implementing the princi-ples of Enterprise Leadership deep within Amroze and helped initiate the rapid growth and increased profitability Amroze has recently enjoyed.

Programme Overview


Business Upgrade

Before you start the Enterprise Leader Development Programme, you should first listen to (or read) the book Business Upgrade – 21 Days to Reignite the Entrepreneurial Spirit in You and

Your Team. This book will introduce you to Amroze Technology, the challenges they have faced in recent years, and will also introduce you to your mentors. The book tells the story of Lucy Robinson (one of your mentors) and how she had just 21 days to uncover why Amroze Technology was performing so badly. Included in your CD set for this programme are several CDs which contain the spoken-word audio version of Business Upgrade. If you would prefer a physical book to read rather than CDs to listen to, please contact the person who ordered this course for you, or, alter-natively, you can order Business Upgrade from www.amazon.co.uk.

Workbook and Daily Exercises

Along with the audio sessions that you’ll listen to each day, you’ll also be able to read a written summary of each session in your workbook. These summaries add another dimen-sion to the learning in the course and also reinforce your learning with the use of exercises. Each daily exercise offers you the opportunity to ‘personalise’ the course and apply the learning from the programme to your own circumstances. The final exercise in each day asks what you would do if you were ‘Chief Executive’ for a day, and what changes you would make as a result of new learning. At the end of the 21-day programme, you’ll have over 100 new ideas on how to dramatically grow the company you work for.

Programme Overview


Week 1—THEY BELIEVE (the customer)

In the course, the three subjects of I, WE and THEY BELIEVE are reversed in order, and the programme starts with THEY BELIEVE (the customers). This is because your business starts with your customer. If you do not have a customer, you do not have a business! The THEY BELIEVE module has five audio sessions in it, each lasting around 15-20 min-utes. These are:

Day 1Day 1Day 1Day 1 Growth Through Inno-Growth Through Inno-Growth Through Inno-Growth Through Inno-vation, Creativity and vation, Creativity and vation, Creativity and vation, Creativity and ChangeChangeChangeChange

You’ll discover today that ALL companies must be entrepreneurial, creative and innovative in their thinking. In a world that rapidly changes and does not stand still, having creative ideas focused on your customer (and the ability to execute them) can be the difference between success and failure.

Day 2Day 2Day 2Day 2 Gaining New Customers Gaining New Customers Gaining New Customers Gaining New Customers Through 'Word of Through 'Word of Through 'Word of Through 'Word of Mouth Marketing'Mouth Marketing'Mouth Marketing'Mouth Marketing'

The ultimate show of belief in you by your cus-tomer is when they recommend you to their friends, family or business associates. This is known as word of mouth marketing and really is the most effective marketing approach you have at your dis-posal. Today you’ll discover how to maximise your ‘word of mouth’ marketing ability, and ensure that every customer you have will ultimately recom-mend you, bringing a steady flow of new custom-ers to your door.

Day 3Day 3Day 3Day 3 How To Maximise The How To Maximise The How To Maximise The How To Maximise The Lifetime Value of Your Lifetime Value of Your Lifetime Value of Your Lifetime Value of Your CustomersCustomersCustomersCustomers

With the high cost of acquiring new customers, it’s vital that you maximise the lifetime value of your existing customers. Enterprise Leaders understand the need to ‘love and value’ their current custom-ers and explore ways to sell new products and ser-vices to them. Today you’ll learn the proven strategies and techniques to do this.

Day 4Day 4Day 4Day 4 Why Everybody In Your Why Everybody In Your Why Everybody In Your Why Everybody In Your Company Must Be A Company Must Be A Company Must Be A Company Must Be A SalespersonSalespersonSalespersonSalesperson

Ultimately, business is about selling. Although not everybody in your company has direct responsibil-ity for sales, everybody in your company must be able to clearly articulate your company's proposi-tion. Learn today how to make sure your custom-ers BELIEVE in you, and buy from you!

Day 5Day 5Day 5Day 5 The Six FundamentalsThe Six FundamentalsThe Six FundamentalsThe Six Fundamentals of Business That You of Business That You of Business That You of Business That You Must MasterMust MasterMust MasterMust Master

There are timeless, repeatable and consistent fun-damental rules of business which all Enterprise Leaders must understand. Discover today the commercial principles which ALL successful busi-ness leaders run their companies by.

Programme Overview


Week 2—WE BELIEVE (the team)

In Week 2 of the programme, you’ll examine the subject of WE BELIEVE (the team). In order for your business to be successful, it needs people, and it’s your role as an Enterprise Leader to provide direction and guidance to these people. Week 2 also comprises of five audio sessions of around 15-20 minutes each. These are:

Day 6Day 6Day 6Day 6 People! The Key To People! The Key To People! The Key To People! The Key To Unlocking Your Profit Unlocking Your Profit Unlocking Your Profit Unlocking Your Profit PotentialPotentialPotentialPotential

The success of a company is totally dependent on the performance of the people within it. Whether you lead a team yourself, or are part of a team, as an Enterprise Leader you must understand the in-valuable contribution people make for the success of your company. Discover today the vital ingredi-ents for creating successful teams.

Day 7Day 7Day 7Day 7 7 Essential Steps To 7 Essential Steps To 7 Essential Steps To 7 Essential Steps To Make Your Team Be-Make Your Team Be-Make Your Team Be-Make Your Team Be-lievelievelievelieve

Enterprise Leaders recognise the need to make people BELIEVE. A team that believes is unstoppa-ble. Discover today the principles of WE BELIEVE and how you can inspire a team to achieve ex-traordinary results – against all odds.

Day 8Day 8Day 8Day 8 How To Maximise Your How To Maximise Your How To Maximise Your How To Maximise Your Results Through Com-Results Through Com-Results Through Com-Results Through Com-municationmunicationmunicationmunication

Language and communication are the tools of great leaders. Being able to inspire teams (and cus-tomers) through the clarity and choice of your words is powerful. Discover today the power of communication and your ability to create extraor-dinary results – simply by the words you use.

Day 9Day 9Day 9Day 9 7 Proven Strategies To 7 Proven Strategies To 7 Proven Strategies To 7 Proven Strategies To Get The Most From Get The Most From Get The Most From Get The Most From Your TeamYour TeamYour TeamYour Team

Words without action are ultimately meaningless. Enterprise Leaders recognise that it’s RESULTS that count and that their ability to deliver results depends on the teams they lead, or are part of. Discover today how you can deliver results as an Enterprise Leader.

Day 10Day 10Day 10Day 10 Motivation! How To Motivation! How To Motivation! How To Motivation! How To Get Your People To Go Get Your People To Go Get Your People To Go Get Your People To Go The Extra MileThe Extra MileThe Extra MileThe Extra Mile

Having a passionate team who is motivated to achieve your company’s goals is paramount. Un-derstanding how to motivate people is an essential role for you as an Enterprise Leader. Learn today the tools great leaders use to achieve outstanding results.

Programme Overview


Week 3—I BELIEVE (the leader)

Lastly, in the final module of the course, you’ll examine the subject of I BELIEVE (the leader). This section examines the subject of personal leadership and explores what it takes for you to achieve extraordinary results against all odds. This module comprises of ten audio session or around 10-15 minutes. These are:

Day 11Day 11Day 11Day 11 HalfHalfHalfHalf----Way Review And Way Review And Way Review And Way Review And Introduction To Personal Introduction To Personal Introduction To Personal Introduction To Personal LeadershipLeadershipLeadershipLeadership

For the remainder of the programme, you’ll learn the subject of I BELIEVE. In order to lead others, leaders must first lead themselves. Discover today the principles of personal leadership and how you are ultimately responsible for the results you de-liver.

Day 12Day 12Day 12Day 12 How To Develop Un-How To Develop Un-How To Develop Un-How To Develop Un-shakable Confidence & shakable Confidence & shakable Confidence & shakable Confidence & Self BeliefSelf BeliefSelf BeliefSelf Belief

Today you’ll learn the first principle of I BELIEVE. The ‘I’ stands for ‘I believe in myself’. Without rock solid self-belief and confidence in yourself and your company, you will not be able to inspire others to believe in you. Successful leadership is all about belief, and at a personal level, this is where it all starts.

Day 13Day 13Day 13Day 13 The Unstoppable Twin The Unstoppable Twin The Unstoppable Twin The Unstoppable Twin Force of Passion & De-Force of Passion & De-Force of Passion & De-Force of Passion & De-siresiresiresire

Success in business comes from being passionate and obsessive! Discover today the need for you to love what you do and have a burning desire to do it. For you to succeed as an Enterprise Leader, you must be PASSIONATE with a BURNING DESIRE to reach your goals.

Day 14Day 14Day 14Day 14 How To Eliminate Your How To Eliminate Your How To Eliminate Your How To Eliminate Your Fears, Doubts And Lim-Fears, Doubts And Lim-Fears, Doubts And Lim-Fears, Doubts And Lim-iting Beliefsiting Beliefsiting Beliefsiting Beliefs

As an Enterprise Leader, it’s essential that you con-quer your fears and limiting beliefs and step outside your comfort zone. Discover today the techniques you can use right now to extend your comfort zone and continue to grow as an Enterprise Leader.

Day 15Day 15Day 15Day 15 How To Create Endless How To Create Endless How To Create Endless How To Create Endless Opportunities And Make Opportunities And Make Opportunities And Make Opportunities And Make Luck Work For YouLuck Work For YouLuck Work For YouLuck Work For You

Your success as an Enterprise Leader will not be dependent on luck. It WILL be dependent on you creating and acting upon opportunities and your ability to have total integrity with yourself and oth-ers. Discover today that ‘Lies and Luck Don’t Work’ – and learn what really does work!

Programme Overview


Week 4—I BELIEVE (the leader)

Day 16Day 16Day 16Day 16 How To Achieve Ex-How To Achieve Ex-How To Achieve Ex-How To Achieve Ex-traordinary Results traordinary Results traordinary Results traordinary Results Through The Power of Through The Power of Through The Power of Through The Power of GoalsGoalsGoalsGoals

Having a clear purpose and goal for what you’re working towards is critical as an Enterprise Leader. Whether you’re leading yourself or a team, the clarity of your goals will determine your success. Learn today the value of installing goals.

Day 17Day 17Day 17Day 17 The 5 Advance Pay-The 5 Advance Pay-The 5 Advance Pay-The 5 Advance Pay-ments You Must Make ments You Must Make ments You Must Make ments You Must Make To Reach Your GoalsTo Reach Your GoalsTo Reach Your GoalsTo Reach Your Goals

Success as an Enterprise Leader requires hard work, self-discipline and sacrifice. It requires energy and urgency. Learn today the cost of being a suc-cessful Enterprise Leader.

Day 18Day 18Day 18Day 18 How To Achieve Any How To Achieve Any How To Achieve Any How To Achieve Any Goal You Set For Your-Goal You Set For Your-Goal You Set For Your-Goal You Set For Your-selfselfselfself

Success in business can be a constant uphill strug-gle. More often than not, success comes as a result of continually chipping away at your goals. Learn today the role that persistence, tenacity and the refusal to accept no for an answer will have in reaching your goals.

Day 19Day 19Day 19Day 19 Why Experiencing Fail-Why Experiencing Fail-Why Experiencing Fail-Why Experiencing Fail-ure Is Essential For You ure Is Essential For You ure Is Essential For You ure Is Essential For You To Succeed!To Succeed!To Succeed!To Succeed!

There can be no success without first experiencing failure. Success and failure go hand-in-hand, and it’s only from failure that you can ultimately experi-ence success. Discover today how essential it is to see failure as a positive and to look for the seed of opportunity that comes from each setback.

Day 20Day 20Day 20Day 20 Your Role as an Enter-Your Role as an Enter-Your Role as an Enter-Your Role as an Enter-prise Leaderprise Leaderprise Leaderprise Leader

Today you’ll explore your own role as an Enter-prise Leader and discover how to bring the whole philosophy together. You’ll also discover today the role the Chief Enterprise Leader plays in the over-all success of your company.

Review Day

The course wraps up on Day 21 with a final review. This session is a little longer than the others as it serves as a necessary ‘recap’ to the whole programme and introduces you to your final exercise.

Day 21Day 21Day 21Day 21 Final Review & Final Ex-Final Review & Final Ex-Final Review & Final Ex-Final Review & Final Ex-erciseerciseerciseercise

On this final day you’ll hear from Richard Parkes Cordock, the course creator, as he reviews the past 20 days and shares with you in his own words how you can use the course to generate the great-est results for you and your company.

Programme Overview


Your Final Exercise

The final exercise on Day 21 requires you to move from being the student, to becoming the teacher. The greatest way to learn a subject is to teach it, and, therefore, in your final exercise, you’ll be required to give a short presentation to five of your colleagues. In this presentation, you’ll introduce them to the principles of Enterprise Leadership and summa-rise to them all that you’ve learnt over the past 21 days, starting, of course, with the princi-ples of I, WE and THEY BELIEVE.

A Pocket-Sized Notebook

Over the next few weeks, make a habit of carrying with you at all times a pocket-sized notebook. Carrying a notebook is a common trait of successful entrepreneurs, and it’s also a common trait of successful Enterprise Leaders. You’ll never know when a good idea is about to strike, and, as you’ll hear in Day 1, it’s ideas that will grow your business and it’s your ideas which have value. Never let a good idea slip away by not of capturing it.

Your Next Steps

Before you start the full programme, you should:

� Listen to (or read) Business Upgrade

� Listen to the audio introductory session � Familiarise yourself with this workbook � Plan out your preferred study time, and complete the study schedule on

the following page

Programme Overview


Planned Date

For Study

Actual Date

Studied

Day 1 Growth Through Innovation, Creativity and Change

Day 2 Gaining New Customers Through 'Word of Mouth Marketing'

Day 3 How To Maximise The Lifetime Value of Your Customers

Day 4 Why Everybody In Your Company Must Be A Salesperson

Day 5 The Six Fundamentals of Business That You Must Master

THEY BELIEVE (the customer)

Planned Date

For Study

Actual Date

Studied

Day 6 People! The Key To Unlocking Your Profit Poten-tial

Day 7 7 Essential Steps To Make Your Team Believe

Day 8 How To Maximise Your Results Through Com-munication

Day 9 7 Proven Strategies To Get The Most From Your Team

Day 10 Motivation! How To Get Your People To Go The Extra Mile

WE BELIEVE (the team)

Planned Date

For Study

Actual Date

Studied

Day 11 Half-Way Review and Introduction To Personal Leadership

Day 12 How To Develop Unshakable Confidence & Self Belief

Day 13 The Unstoppable Twin Force of Passion & Desire

Day 14 How To Eliminate Your Fears, Doubts And Limit-ing Beliefs

Day 15 How To Create Endless Opportunity And Make Luck Work For You

I BELIEVE (the leader)

Study Schedule

Study Schedule


Planned Date

For Study

Actual Date

Studied

16 How To Achieve Extraordinary Results Through The Power of Goals

17 The 5 Advance Payments You Must Make To Reach Your Goals

18 How To Achieve Any Goal You Set For Your-self

19 Why Experiencing Failure Is Essential For You To Succeed!

20 Your Role As An Enterprise Leader

I BELIEVE (the leader) cont’d

Planned Date

For Study

Actual Date

Studied

21 Final Review

Final Exercise

Final Presentation To Five of Your Colleagues

Final Review and Final Exercise

Study Schedule


Day 1Day 1Day 1Day 1

Growth Growth Growth Growth ThroughThroughThroughThrough

Innovation,Innovation,Innovation,Innovation, Creativity Creativity Creativity Creativity & Change& Change& Change& Change


Today in Summary

� Business is all about belief

� For customers to believe in you (and to buy from you), you must be rele-

vant to them

� Being relevant requires you to be innovative, creative and adapt and re-

spond to their changing needs

� Innovation, creativity and change are entrepreneurial processes

� Innovation, creativity and change require ideas – your ideas have value

� Failure to change, or failure to be ‘relevant’ to your customers will result in

your customers leaving you and you running out of cash!

Growth Through Innovation, Creativity

and Change

We start the course today by examining the subject of belief - for in life and in business, be-lief is everything. As human beings we are guided by trust, confidence and belief. If we don’t believe in something, or don’t have confidence or trust in it, then we will reject it. For example, you would never do business with somebody you didn’t trust, you would never vote for a poli-tician you didn’t believe in, and you certainly wouldn’t fly with an airline you didn’t have confidence in.

Do your customers believe in you?

Belief is therefore everything, and in business it’s all about creating belief in the eyes of your customers. Belief is intangible; it’s a feeling and emotion—and it’s your job as an Enterprise Leader to make sure that your customers believe in your company. When your customers believe in you three things happen: firstly, they’ll buy from you; sec-ondly, they’ll buy from you over and over again (repeat business); and thirdly, they’ll be-come evangelists for your company telling their friends and family about your products and services.

Customers will only buy from you if you are relevant to them!

The way to make customers believe in you is to be relevant to them. You need to prove to them why your product or service is right for them—AND why your offering is superior or better value than your competitors.

Day 1: THEY BELIEVE—Growth Through Innovation, Creativity and Change


To be relevant to your customers you need to understand who your customers are and make sure you’re meeting their needs. You must remember that your customers’ own needs are constantly changing, so you can never stand still.

Only innovation, creativity and change will grow your business

Your company therefore needs to be entrepreneurial in order to innovate, be creative and adapt and respond to your customers’ changing needs. Any company that doesn’t embrace innovation, creativity and change and reinforce this with action and energy will sooner or later become ‘irrelevant to their customers’.

Ideas, Ideas, Ideas! Your Ideas!

Innovation and change are simply the generation and implementation of new ideas and it’s ideas which are the currency of growth companies. Ideas are not just the sole responsibility of management; they can come from anywhere, at any time, and the good news is that ideas are free! It’s your responsibility as an Enterprise Leader to constantly generate new ideas which can help you be more relevant to your customers and help you grow your company. During the course of this programme, you’ll be required to think of five new ideas each day which can help drive your company forward. At the end of this programme you’ll have over 100 new ideas to grow your business.

The closer you are to your customers, the better the quality of your ideas!

The closer you are to your customers the more attuned you should be to their changing needs and wants. As an Enterprise Leader, you should understand this and understand also that it’s all too easy to lose the belief of customers through neglect, complacency and dis-tance.

Standing still in business is not an option

The true risk in business comes from doing nothing and failing to change and failing to re-main relevant to your customers. Many people think that entrepreneurship is about risk. It isn’t, it’s about results—and results in business only come from your customers buying products and services which they be-lieve in and deem relevant to them. You can only be relevant to them through innovation, creativity and change. Without paying customers, your business will lack cash. Lack of cash is the number one reason for business failure—and as you’ve learnt today, lack of cash is closely tied to lack of customer belief. So business, really is all about belief.



Exercises

1.1 Do your customers believe in you?

To ease into today's exercises, we’ll start with an easy task. Simply fill in the blanks and com-plete the sentences. You’ll find the answers by re-reading the summary for Day 1. 1. Business is about creating _____ in the eyes of your customers. 2. Many people think entrepreneurship is about risk. It isn’t, it’s about ________. 3. When customers believe in you, three things happen:

� Firstly, they ___ from you. � Secondly, they ___ from you time and time again, so that you can maximise the ____ ____ value of them as a customer.

� Lastly, they do your ________ for you, telling their ______, ______ and business associates.

4. To remain relevant to your customers you need to practice innovation, __________ and ________ and ________ to their changing needs. 5. If you’re not relevant to your customers and they do not buy from you, you will eventu-ally run out of ______. Running out of _____ is the number one reason for business failure. 6. _____ are the currency of growth companies and your _____ have value. 7. The closer you are to your _________ the better your understanding of their needs and wants.


Exercise Objective: Exercise Objective: Exercise Objective: Exercise Objective: To understand the basic principles of Enterprise Leadership which form the backbone of the Enterprise Leader Development Programme


1.2 Are you relevant or irrelevant to your customers?

For customers to believe in you, you must be relevant to them. This means innovating, be-ing creative and adapting and responding to meet their changing needs. The world is changing at a dramatic pace and what was relevant to your customers yester-day may not be relevant to them tomorrow. Take a moment to think of the changes in the world you have seen in the past five years and complete the exercises below. Technological Changes: What three new products or technology are you using now that you weren’t using five years ago? This could include listening to MP3 audio on an iPod, watching videos on your mobile phone or talking over Skype. In addition, list three future technology changes you anticipate in the next five years.

Global and Social Changes: What three major changes at a global and social level have you witnessed over the past five years that affect the way you live? These could include global warming, floods, terrorism, low-cost flights, rise of personal debt, rise of internet use. List three global and social changes you anticipate in the next five years.


Exercise Objective: Exercise Objective: Exercise Objective: Exercise Objective: To illustrate change is constantly happening in your personal life, your business life and in the lives of your customers too.

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Changes in the past 5 yearsChanges in the past 5 yearsChanges in the past 5 yearsChanges in the past 5 years Anticipated changes in the next 5 yearsAnticipated changes in the next 5 yearsAnticipated changes in the next 5 yearsAnticipated changes in the next 5 years

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Industry Changes: Now apply the same thinking to the changes you’ve seen in your in-dustry over the past five years. Consider the effect these changes have had on the needs of your customers. List also three changes you anticipate in your industry over the next five years.

It should be clear from this exercise that change is an unstoppable factor of life. It’s your re-sponsibility as an Enterprise Leader to ensure that your company is always relevant to your customers. To make sure you’re always relevant to your customers you need to be innovative and crea-tive, or in other words, to be entrepreneurial.


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‘It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that

survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change.’

Charles Darwin


1.3 Great companies are innovative, creative and adapt

and respond to their customers’ changing needs!

The world’s greatest companies recognise the need to constantly innovate and adapt to meet the changing needs of their customers. Think of any leading brand and consider the constant stream of new products, product enhancements, new markets, and new ideas which they offer to their customers. These companies know that the only way to remain relevant to their customers is by chang-ing. Can you think of five companies which have not changed their products or services in the past five years, or haven’t improved their offering? It’s difficult to think of one, simply be-cause constant and never-ending innovation is the only way to remain relevant to your cus-tomers. Innovation and creativity are entrepreneurial processes, so in reality all companies must be entrepreneurial in order to survive and grow. The simple fact is that ALL companies at one point were started by an entrepreneur who lived and breathed the principles of I, WE and THEY BELIEVE. It’s these three principles which you’ll be introduced to in this programme. To prove to yourself that all companies were once started by an entrepreneur (even the large multinationals), take a moment to search in the internet for the entrepreneurs of the three companies listed below. A good tool to use is www.wikipedia.com. Note the date these companies were founded and think through the levels of change each company has undergone to remain relevant to their customers.

CompanyCompanyCompanyCompany

Microsoft

Harley-Davidson

Proctor and Gamble

FoundersFoundersFoundersFounders Date FormedDate FormedDate FormedDate Formed

Imagine what would have happened if these companies had not adapted and responded to their customers’ changing needs? It is most likely they would have run out of cash and ‘ceased to exist’.


Exercise Objective: Exercise Objective: Exercise Objective: Exercise Objective: To illustrate that all companies are entrepreneurial companies and to show that the only way they can remain relevant to their customers is through innovation, creativity and change.


1.4 What changes would you make if you were CEO for a

day?

If you were the CEO (Chief Executive or Managing Director) of your company for just one day, what five changes would you make to ensure that your products and services remain relevant to your customers (through innovation, creativity and change)?

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Exercise Objective: Exercise Objective: Exercise Objective: Exercise Objective: To identify five changes you would make in your company based on your learning in today’s session.

‘Innovation is the ability to see change as an opportunity - not a threat’

Steve Jobs, Founder of Apple Computers



Gaining New Gaining New Gaining New Gaining New Customers Customers Customers Customers Through Through Through Through

‘Word of Mouth ‘Word of Mouth ‘Word of Mouth ‘Word of Mouth Marketing’Marketing’Marketing’Marketing’


Today in Summary

� The ultimate form of customer belief is when customers recommend you

to others

� Marketing through word of mouth recommendation is the cheapest and

most effective form of marketing

� For customers to recommend you, you must offer excellence in everything

you do

� Your job as an Enterprise Leader is to turn your customers into ‘passionate

raving fans’ who evangelize your company to others

� Taking your customers for granted, or being complacent, will be the death

of your company

� Customers will not recommend you if they do not believe in you

Gaining New Customers Through ‘Word

of Mouth Marketing’

The greatest show of belief a customer can give is to recommend your company to a friend or colleague. You most likely recommend things every day without even thinking about it. This could be as simple as saying: ‘Have you seen that great movie?’; ‘You really should try that new res-taurant, it’s fantastic’; or ‘You should speak to this person, they’ll be able to help you.’ In the same breath, you could give a negative recommendation for something you do not believe in. You may say: ‘Don’t go and see that movie, it’s very poor’; ‘Stay away from that restaurant, the food is tasteless’; or ‘You’re wasting your time if you speak to that person, they don’t know what their doing!’ In making these positive or negative recommendations, you’re showing your true level of belief.

The unmatchable power of ‘Word of Mouth Recommendations’

Word of mouth marketing always has been and always will be the strongest (and cheapest) form of marketing, simply because it leverages the trust the potential customer already has with the person making the recommendation. If your customer makes a recommendation, the independence and objectivity they have can create a powerful result that all the marketing money in the world could never achieve.

Day 2: THEY BELIEVE—Gaining New Customers Through ‘Word of Mouth Marketing’


When customers recommend your company to other people, it’s as if you have an ex-tended sales team working to grow your business. The endless value of this is something you should never forget as an Enterprise Leader.

You must give your customers a reason to recommend you

As an Enterprise Leader you must recognize the power of word of mouth recommenda-tions (both positive and negative) and make sure that your customers only have positive things to say about you.

Customers do not give glowing endorsements and recommendations if your products and services are not up to scratch. Just as you personally wouldn’t recommend something you don’t believe in, your customers will not recommend your products and services if they don’t believe in them.

You must offer excellence in everything

It’s therefore your job as an Enterprise Leader to make sure ALL customers believe in you. To do that, you must be relevant to them AND you must offer excellence at all times. Every ‘touch point’ of contact with your customers must confirm this quest for excellence. It’s this pursuit of excellence which will ultimately turn any initial customer doubt into confi-dence and belief.

Make your customers passionate, raving fans!

When you over-deliver, thrill and WOW your customers, they will become ‘passionate raving fans’ who are compelled to recommend you to their friends and family. By over-delivering to them, you’ll have developed the strongest and the cheapest form of marketing ever invented — word of mouth recommendation. Disappoint customers, take them for granted, be irrelevant to them and the force of their negative words will bring your company down (or will cost you a fortune to counterbalance their words through your marketing efforts). Your job as an Enterprise Leader is to make sure every interaction and customer experi-ence is outstanding. Your job is to ensure that your products and services are always rele-vant to your customers and that they only have positive things to say about you to their friends, family and colleagues. If you can make your customers ‘passionate raving fans’ of your company, then their words of recommendation will bring you new customer after new customer.



Everybody in your company is responsible for creating customer belief

Regardless of an employee’s official job description, everyone must know that they are al-ways selling and always influencing customers and prospective customers. They’re reinforcing the perception that an external person has about your company, build-ing or destroying belief, building or destroying trust and confidence. If you or anybody in your company takes your customers for granted or becomes compla-cent, this will be the death of your business. Customers have free choice to buy from whoever they wish, and if a competitor is able to secure your prospect’s belief, then that customer is lost to you; the lifetime value of the customer is lost to you, as are the recommendations the customer could have made on behalf of your company. That customer will now recommend your competitor who will enjoy their full lifetime repeat revenues at your expense. It’s your job as an Enterprise Leader to understand the subject of belief and set an example for others to follow, making sure that excellence is the only standard by which you work. Always remember, the power of personal recommendation is unparalleled—BUT custom-ers will not recommend you if they do not believe in you.



Exercises

2.1 When did you last recommend something to some-

body?

Word of mouth recommendation always has been and always will be the strongest form of marketing. When something is recommended to you, it comes with unbiased independence, as the person making the recommendation has nothing to gain other than having your best interest at heart. Personal recommendations are usually well received and often acted upon. The beauty of recommendations from a business perspective is that they cost nothing. Com-panies spend millions on trying to buy your favour, but no amount of marketing can ever be as powerful as a simple recommendation by a friend. Take a moment to think about the last three things you recommended to somebody (this could be a movie, a restaurant, a CD, etc.).

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What did you recommend?What did you recommend?What did you recommend?What did you recommend? Why did you recommend it?Why did you recommend it?Why did you recommend it?Why did you recommend it?

Flip this around and think about the last three things which were recommended to you (this could be a hotel, a babysitter, a shop).

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What was recommended?What was recommended?What was recommended?What was recommended? Why was this recommended to you?Why was this recommended to you?Why was this recommended to you?Why was this recommended to you?


Exercise Objective: Exercise Objective: Exercise Objective: Exercise Objective: To show the power of personal recommendation and to illustrate how recommenda-tions have been effective in influencing your own purchasing decisions.


Now apply this thinking to your own company. Do you believe your customers recom-mend you to others? Yes/No?Yes/No?Yes/No?Yes/No? If you said yes, what are the most common reasons customers recommend you to others?


If you said no, why do you believe your customers do not recommend your company to others?

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‘If you do build a great experience, customers tell each other about that. Word

of mouth is very powerful.’

Jeff Bezos – Founder and CEO, Amazon


2.2 Are your customers raving fans?

For customers to recommend you, they need to believe in you. They need to be ‘passionate raving fans’. Passionate, raving fans are your greatest sales people as they enthuse the benefits of your products and services to everybody they meet. They are fanatical, obsessed and truly evan-gelise your company. People who love music are often ‘raving fans’ of a certain group or singer. It’s this level of connection that you’re trying to create with your customers. Take a moment to think which companies, products and services you’re a raving fan of. For example, are you a fan of Virgin Atlantic, BMW cars or Prada clothes?

For customers to believe in you and to become ‘passionate raving fans’, you need to de-liver excellence in everything you do. You need to leave them with no other choice but to recommend you to others. Take a moment to think which companies, products, services you’ve dealt with recently that stand out for their excellence.

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Which companies, brands, products are you Which companies, brands, products are you Which companies, brands, products are you Which companies, brands, products are you a fan of?a fan of?a fan of?a fan of?

Why do you love this company, product, Why do you love this company, product, Why do you love this company, product, Why do you love this company, product, brand?brand?brand?brand?


Exercise Objective: Exercise Objective: Exercise Objective: Exercise Objective: To illustrate that customers will only recommend your company if they believe in you and are ‘passionate raving fans’ (or have experienced ‘excellence’ in your company).

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Which companies, brands, products stand out to you because of their excellence?Which companies, brands, products stand out to you because of their excellence?Which companies, brands, products stand out to you because of their excellence?Which companies, brands, products stand out to you because of their excellence?


Now apply this thinking to your own company. Does your company leave your customers with the feeling of excellence? Yes/No?Yes/No?Yes/No?Yes/No? If you answered yes, list three things your customers would say you provide excellence in.


If you answered no, what three things could you do (or what three areas of your business could you improve) to turn your customers into raving fans?

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‘The best way to measure loyalty is just to ask people one simple question, what I

call the ultimate question: “Would you recommend us to a friend?”’

Frderick F. Reichheld, Bain & Company


2.3 Does your company take its customers for granted?

The kiss of death for any company is to take its customers for granted. We’ve all experi-enced being ‘blanked’ by somebody on a checkout whilst they continue their conversation with a friend. This ‘complacency’ is guaranteed to send ‘negative recommendations’ out into the marketplace. Think of the last three times where you experienced poor customer service, or felt a com-pany was complacent and took you for granted. Would you ever recommend these companies to your friends, family or colleagues? Yes/NoYes/NoYes/NoYes/No

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Which companies have given you poor Which companies have given you poor Which companies have given you poor Which companies have given you poor customer services?customer services?customer services?customer services?

What single ‘negative’ factor stood out What single ‘negative’ factor stood out What single ‘negative’ factor stood out What single ‘negative’ factor stood out for you? for you? for you? for you?

In your own company, list three examples where you know customers have had a bad ex-perience and been disappointed.


Exercise Objective: Exercise Objective: Exercise Objective: Exercise Objective: To show that customers will not recommend a company they do not believe in or have had a poor customer experience with.

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Now list three examples where your customers have been thrilled with your customer ser-vice.

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2.4 Great companies understand the power of ‘word of

mouth recommendation’! Great companies never take their customers for granted. They know that it’s only through excellence and dedication to their customers that new sales via ‘word of mouth recommen-dation’ can come. The exercise you’re about to undertake is repeated each day in this programme in a similar form. It requires you to search on the internet for the founders who started the companies listed in this exercise. www.wikipedia.com is a good tool to use for this. It’s important when completing this exercise to acknowledge that all companies were once started by an entrepreneur who lived and breathed the principles laid out in this programme. You should also acknowledge that in reality ALL companies MUST be entrepreneurial to survive and grow. Failure to be entrepreneurial is failure to be relevant to your customer.


Disney

Honda

Marriott Hotels



Now that you’ve identified the founders of these companies, think for a moment about all the millions of customers these companies have sold to, and the opportunity these compa-nies have had for positive (or negative) recommendations. Think of the millions of pounds of marketing expenditure that word of mouth recommen-dations will save these companies and think of the future revenue these recommendations will bring in. You should also consider what would happen if these companies’ customers were not happy. Consider the ‘negative marketing’ their customers would do for them. How much lost revenue would negative comments have on these companies? If these companies had to counterbalance negative comments with additional marketing expendi-ture, consider how much these companies would have to spend.

Exercise Objective: Exercise Objective: Exercise Objective: Exercise Objective: To show that word of mouth recommendation plays a vital part in the growth of any company - even great international brands.



day?

If you were CEO for just a day, what five changes would you make to ensure that your customers ALWAYS recommended you to their friends, family and colleagues?

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Exercise Objective: Exercise Objective: Exercise Objective: Exercise Objective: To identify five changes you would make to your company based on your learning in today’s course.

‘Listen to the customer. Provide them with what they want. Appreciate the fact

that they came to your store, and do everything in your power to ensure they are

satisfied when they leave.’

JW Nordstrom, Founder of Nordstrom Department Stores



How toHow toHow toHow to MaximiseMaximiseMaximiseMaximise

The The The The LifetimeLifetimeLifetimeLifetime

Value of Your Value of Your Value of Your Value of Your


Today in Summary

� The true worth of a customer is their ‘lifetime value’ (or LTV)

� Customers will only continue to buy from you if they believe in you and

you’re relevant to them

� To maximise their LTV, you need to sell them more products and services

� To offer more products to your customers, you need to be innovative,

creative and flexible to change (i.e. entrepreneurial)

� When customers believe in you, you can enjoy multiple lifetime values by

building brand loyalty and selling to your customers’ children and grand-

children

� If you’re complacent and take your customer for granted, they will buy

from your competitor instead and you will loose out on their LTV

How To Maximise The Lifetime Value of

Your Customers

The true value of a customer is not in a one-off transaction, but in their full lifetime value. This means selling new products and services to them for many years. All great companies and brands follow this principle; just think of any leading company/brand you buy from and consider the number of times you have bought from them. How much money do you spend at your local supermarket each week? Now extend that over your lifetime; it’s likely to be a considerable amount. Very few businesses sell one-off products and services or have zero ambition to try and sell again to the same customer. Even a carpet sales person (a carpet is an infrequent purchase) would hope that you buy from them again when you redecorate, or when the carpet wears out, or when you move home. Remember though, you would only buy again from that carpet shop if you still be-lieved in them—AND they stocked the latest carpets and floor coverings which were rele-vant to you.

The purpose of a business is to get a customer

Peter Drucker, the famous management writer, said, ‘The purpose of a company is to “get” a customer.’ It may be that your company needs to sell just one product or service to a new customer for them to start to build trust, confidence and belief in you. This may even be a low-cost transaction just to get the relationship established. From this initial sale you can demonstrate excellence in everything you do, eventually turn-ing them into raving fans who’ll buy more from you AND recommend you to their friends and family.

Day 3: THEY BELIEVE—How To Maximise The Lifetime Value of Your Customers


When you’re given the opportunity, you must WOW your customers and thrill them to the degree where they’re delighted with your company and they become a customer for life.

Real growth comes from the lifetime value of a customer

Selling to existing customers is much less expensive and therefore much more profitable than finding new ones, where the profit on the initial transaction could quite literally be wiped out by the marketing costs. It’s often cited that it’s 3-8 times cheaper to sell to an existing customer rather than to a new one. It’s crucial for your business to develop a philosophy of thinking about the ‘lifetime value’ of customers and to understand how to sell more to your existing client base.

To maximise the LTV of a customer, you need

more products and services to sell to them!

To maximise the lifetime value of a customer requires you to be innovative, creative and adapt and respond to your customers’ changing needs. It requires you to provide new products and services. This goes back to what we said on Day 1 about being an entrepre-neurial company and always being relevant to your customers.

When you put your customers first, you

can enjoy multiple lifetime value

When you think of the long-term value of customers, every decision you make has to be for their good. When customers believe in you at a deep level, their lifetime value can extend over multi-ple lifetimes and through to their children and grandchildren (think Nordstrom). When a family has a strong affinity to your brand, they have no immediate reason to want to change to any other (providing you maintain their belief through excellence and rele-vancy). If you do not put your customers’ interests ahead of your own, or if at any time you be-come complacent and take your customers for granted, they will simply go to your com-petitors and you’ll loose out on their LTV.



Exercises

3.1 Do you maximise the LTV of your customers?

You heard today that the true worth of a customer comes from repeat selling to them. In today’s audio session, the example was given of a person spending £100 per week at a su-permarket. Over the course of one year this equates to £5,200 and over a lifetime (50 years) this equates to £260,000. Given that most supermarkets are now extending their product ranges with clothes, white goods, electrical goods, insurances, petrol, etc., it’s quite likely that this total spend will well exceed £300,000. This is the true value of a customer, but they will only continue to shop at a supermarket if they continue to believe in it. If a customer feels they’re taken for granted, or the supermar-ket doesn’t stay relevant to them, then they will take their spending power to a rival. In doing so, the first supermarket has lost out on a considerable lifetime of revenue. In this exercise, write down where in your own life you repeat-buy and why. This could in-clude your hairdresser, dentist, local supermarket, petrol station. List three companies you consistently repeat buy from and estimate how much you spend per year with them.


Exercise Objective: Exercise Objective: Exercise Objective: Exercise Objective: To show the value a customer can have to your company over their lifetime—and to illustrate the impact of lost revenue if you lose that customer.

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Which companies do Which companies do Which companies do Which companies do you repeat buy from? you repeat buy from? you repeat buy from? you repeat buy from?

If you continued to spend with If you continued to spend with If you continued to spend with If you continued to spend with them over 10 years, in total how them over 10 years, in total how them over 10 years, in total how them over 10 years, in total how much will you spend with them? much will you spend with them? much will you spend with them? much will you spend with them?

How much do you spend How much do you spend How much do you spend How much do you spend on average with them on average with them on average with them on average with them each year? each year? each year? each year?

In the company you work for, do you know the LTV of your customers? Yes/No?Yes/No?Yes/No?Yes/No? If you answered yes, what is the average LTV of one of your customers? If you have multi-ple customer types, choose just one type and estimate how much they spend over 10 years. What would an average customer spend with your company over 10 years? £__________ If you answered no, make a point of finding out!


3.2 Do you maximise the ‘multiple LTV’ of your customers?

We are all massively influenced by our parents and often find ourselves attached to a brand or company simply because our parents bought these products in our childhood. The lifetime value of a customer could therefore easily extend beyond the lifetime of the ini-tial customer into the lifetime of their children (or grandchildren). Some of the biggest brands in the world work this way (Colgate toothpaste, HP sauce, Heinz Beans). List three products or services you still buy because of your parent’s influence.


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Which products/companies/brands do you still Which products/companies/brands do you still Which products/companies/brands do you still Which products/companies/brands do you still buy because of your parents?buy because of your parents?buy because of your parents?buy because of your parents?

Why do you still buy these products?Why do you still buy these products?Why do you still buy these products?Why do you still buy these products?

Exercise Objective: Exercise Objective: Exercise Objective: Exercise Objective: To illustrate the deep-routed impact that ‘brand’ can have on your psychology and pur-chasing habits.

‘We provide food that customers love, day after day after day. People just want

more of it.’

Ray Kroc, Founder of McDonald’s


3.3 Great companies know how to maximise the LTV of

their customers! All great companies understand the LTV of their customers. It’s simply too expensive to find a customer and sell just once to them, as most of the profit from that sale will be wiped out by the cost of marketing to them. None of the great brands exist today by selling just once to a customer; they need repeat revenues from happy customers to grow each year. In this exercise you’ll need to research the founders of the three companies below and con-sider how each one has been built on selling multiple times to its customers.



Heinz

McDonald’s

Colgate


Exercise Objective: Exercise Objective: Exercise Objective: Exercise Objective: To show that repeat selling and maximising the lifetime value of a customer is how great brands are built.




day?

If you were the CEO of your company for just a day, what five changes would you make to maximise the lifetime value of your customers? This could include extending your product range, improving your customer experience or improving the quality and frequency of com-munication with your customers.

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Exercise Objective: Exercise Objective: Exercise Objective: Exercise Objective: To identify five changes you would make to your company based on your learning in today’s session.

‘The definition of a perfect sale is a product that does not come back, but a

customer who does.’

Annon



Why Every-Why Every-Why Every-Why Every-body in Your body in Your body in Your body in Your Company Company Company Company Must Be A Must Be A Must Be A Must Be A Salesperson!Salesperson!Salesperson!Salesperson!


Today in Summary

� Everybody in your company is responsible for creating belief in your cus-

tomers’ eyes

� Everybody in your company is responsible for selling and influencing cus-

tomers

� To be able to sell, you must first understand your customer and be able to

talk to them in their language

� You must understand your own products and services and the benefits of

them to your customers

� Everybody in your company must understand your competitors, your mar-

ket and industry so that you’re able to instil belief in your customers – your

customer should never know more than you!

� When you can personally write a sales letter to sell your products or ser-

vices, you’ll really understand the benefits of what your company offers to

your customers

Why Everybody in Your Company Must Be

A Salesperson!

Everybody in your company is responsible for creating belief in the eyes of your customers. Whenever a customer speaks to somebody in your company on the phone, or receives a letter, or meets a member of your staff, that customer is either increasing their levels of be-lief or doubt in your company. In order to consistently build belief in the eyes of your customer, every touch point with them must be excellent. This requires every employee in your company to understand that with each ‘customer touch point’, they’re effectively selling—regardless of their job title or position.

In order to sell, you must first understand and believe!

In order for you to sell, you must first have a basic knowledge of your products, your cus-tomers’ needs and wants, your competitors and your market. If you do not understand or believe in your own offerings, how can you possibly make customers believe? Entrepreneurs have this depth of information at their fingertips, and as an Enterprise Leader, you too should have this understanding and be able to set an example for other members of staff in your company to follow.

Day 4: THEY BELIEVE—Why Everybody In Your Company Must Be A Salesperson!


The power of writing a letter

The most effective way to show you have an understanding of your products, your cus-tomers and their needs, your competitors, and your market, is to write a sales letter to try and sell your products and services to your customers. Professional sales people are able to talk about these subjects with ease, but the surest way for you to clarify the benefits, relevance and excellence of your products in your own mind is through the written word.

When you can write a sales letter which clearly articulates the benefits of your products to your customers, you’ll have demonstrated your understanding of your company. Writing a letter to your customers to sell your products is not an easy thing to do, but is an essential exercise for you to discover how much or how little you know about your com-pany.

Your main exercise today is to write a sales letter to yourself

To ease into this difficult subject, in today's session you’ll write a letter to yourself to sell YOURSELF your dream holiday. As you’ll discover when you get into this exercise, when you talk about a subject which you are passionate about (i.e. your dream holiday), you’ll be rich in emotion; able to describe your experience in detail; be positive about it; able to sell its benefits; and able to add col-our and depth to your vision. You’ll be persuasive and compelling; you’ll create mental im-ages, increase belief and convince others that it’ll be an incredible experience and one that should not be missed. Selling is much like this and you need to be as persuasive about your products and services as you are about your dream holiday. Through your choice of words, you’re trying to create belief in the eyes of your customers, so your words must be interesting, informative and compelling. There’s no room to leave doubt in the mind of your customer. It’s only by making the effort to truly understand everything there is to know about your products, your company and your competitors that you will really be in a position to make customers aware of the true benefits of your products. In writing a sales letter you’ll face the truth about the extent, or lack of it, of your own knowledge in this area of your company. Remember, with every communication and customer touch point, you’re either building or destroying the belief customers have in your company. You cannot fool customers: any sign of doubt or lack of understanding you have about your own products sends a negative ‘belief’ signal to them, AND gives them another reason not to buy from you BUT buy from your competitor instead.



Exercise

4.1 Design your dream holiday!

The first part of your exercise is to write a letter to yourself selling your dream holiday to YOURSELF. NB: If you do not have time to write a full sales letter, you can simplify this exercise by writ-NB: If you do not have time to write a full sales letter, you can simplify this exercise by writ-NB: If you do not have time to write a full sales letter, you can simplify this exercise by writ-NB: If you do not have time to write a full sales letter, you can simplify this exercise by writ-ing a headline and answering the questions 1ing a headline and answering the questions 1ing a headline and answering the questions 1ing a headline and answering the questions 1----16 below.16 below.16 below.16 below. Imagine you’ve just been given a bonus of 20% of your salary to spend on your perfect holiday. The only catch to receiving the bonus is that first you must write the perfect sales letter in order to get the money! This letter has to describe in rich, glorious detail why this holiday is just right for you. You have free choice where to go with your 20% bonus, but there must be no doubt after you have written this letter that this is the holiday for you. Before you start writing, take a moment to consider a few of these questions:

1. What is your dream holiday? 2. Where will you go? 3. Who will go with you? 4. How will you get there? 5. Why is this your perfect holiday? 6. Which hotel, resort, cottage will you stay in and why? 7. Who will meet you once you get there? Car rental, driver, guide? 8. How long will you go for? 9. Why is this location better than another one? (contrast it with another location) 10. What have other people said about this holiday? (customer testimonials) 11. What will be your day-by-day itinerary? 12. What food will you eat? 13. What activities will you do? 14. What places do you want to see? (museums, bars, shops) 15. How will you get back home? 16. Who will greet you when you arrive back home?

As you can see, before you start writing (or selling) you need a thorough understanding of everything that is relevant to you.


Exercise Objective: Exercise Objective: Exercise Objective: Exercise Objective: To show how much easier it is to write a sales letter if you’re writing about a subject you know and for a target customer you know. To illustrate the level of subject knowledge you need to talk or write with authority.


If this sales letter was written for somebody else, (i.e. for their dream holiday and not yours), it would have no interest to you. Sales letters need to be personal and address the needs, wants and desires of the reader. In this case, the letter needs to address your needs, wants and desires. Once you’ve answered the questions above, you need to start thinking about the ‘perfect headline’ which will capture your attention. It’s from this headline that you’ll start to shape the letter. A headline is a short sentence which captures the essence of your message. In your sales letter about your holiday, the headline should capture the biggest benefit which is relevant to you. It should speak personally to you, just like this:

‘Tom, spend 7 nights in Tokyo’s finest five star hotel and ‘Tom, spend 7 nights in Tokyo’s finest five star hotel and ‘Tom, spend 7 nights in Tokyo’s finest five star hotel and ‘Tom, spend 7 nights in Tokyo’s finest five star hotel and discover the neon lights of the big city discover the neon lights of the big city discover the neon lights of the big city discover the neon lights of the big city –––– and we’ll and we’ll and we’ll and we’ll upgrade your flight to business class for FREE!’upgrade your flight to business class for FREE!’upgrade your flight to business class for FREE!’upgrade your flight to business class for FREE!’

Alternatively, the headline could have read:

‘Explore cutting‘Explore cutting‘Explore cutting‘Explore cutting----edge Tokyo with a five star experience. edge Tokyo with a five star experience. edge Tokyo with a five star experience. edge Tokyo with a five star experience. Fly business class and stay in Tokyo's finest Fly business class and stay in Tokyo's finest Fly business class and stay in Tokyo's finest Fly business class and stay in Tokyo's finest

five star hotel for the price of a three star package.’five star hotel for the price of a three star package.’five star hotel for the price of a three star package.’five star hotel for the price of a three star package.’ The point here is that there are multiple headlines that would catch your attention, so try writing three different headlines to discover the perfect one for your own holiday.

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Now that you have the perfect headline and a full understanding of your dream holiday (from the 16 questions on the previous page), start to write a letter to sell this package to yourself. It should be the easiest letter you’ll ever write. Make the letter rich in emotion, rich in detail, rich in passion. Remember, you’re trying to create belief, so the more specific details you can show, the more believable it’ll be. There’s no limit to the length of the letter. Just think if somebody was speaking to you and trying to sell you this holiday, how long would it take to get the details across, answer all your questions and make you believe this was the perfect holiday for you? 1 minute? Unlikely! 5 minutes? Possibly. 10—20 minutes, or more? Most likely.



As this holiday is something you’re interested in, and it’s your own money you are spend-ing, you’ll want to know as much as possible; therefore, write as much as necessary to cre-ate the levels of belief which will allow you to buy into it. Once you’ve written the letter, print it off, put it in an envelope and mail it to yourself with a first- or second-class stamp. When you receive the letter, read it again and then decide if you really have written a letter which would sell you your own dream holiday. If you have, you should be tempted to go out and book it straight away!



4.2 Write a sales letter for your company!

Now that you’ve understood how to write a sales letter, and you’ve realised the level of de-tail you need, your job now is to write a sales letter to a new prospective customer to sell one of your products. If your company doesn’t sell products, you may want to sell the pro-spective customer on the benefits of using your company’s services over and above that of a competitor’s. Follow the same method to write the letter by first understanding the basic facts about what it is you’re trying to sell. Below are some questions to help focus your mind.

1. Who are your customers? 2. What are their needs, wants or desires? 3. Why are they considering buying your products? 4. What benefits do your products offer? 5. Who else could your prospects buy from instead of you? 6. Why would they buy from your competitors? 7. Why is your competitor’s product better than yours? 8. Why is your product superior to your competitor’s?

Once you’ve answered these basic questions, start to think of a headline to capture the at-tention of your prospect. In order to write the headline and the letter, you really need to step into the shoes of your prospect. You need to see their business through their eyes. You need to understand how they may view your company and think through how you can make them believe in you! From the headline, start to explain the benefits of your products, service or company in the same way you did with the sales letter selling your holiday. Once you’ve written the letter, show it to a senior colleague and let them review it. Ask them if they think a customer would have bought from this letter. Better still, show the letter to a friendly ‘existing’ customer and ask them if you’ve under-stood their needs and wants.


Exercise Objective: Exercise Objective: Exercise Objective: Exercise Objective: To highlight your level of knowledge about the company you work for and the products and services you offer to your customers.


4.3 In great companies everybody is a salesperson! Employees of great companies understand that they’re always selling to customers. With each customer interaction, employees are either reinforcing the customer’s belief in the com-pany, or destroying it. In other words, with each interaction employees have with customers, they are either increasing the customer propen-sity to buy, or decreasing it. It’s essential that ALL employees in your company see themselves as sales people and it’s your responsibility as an Enterprise Leader to lead the way in this. When you research the three entrepreneurs listed below (remember to do this at www.wikipedia.com), think about how many employees these companies have, and con-sider the tremendous potential each employee has to increase the company’s sales if they see themselves as somebody who is responsible for selling.



IKEA

Ford Motor’s

Body Shop


Exercise Objective: Exercise Objective: Exercise Objective: Exercise Objective: To show that everybody in a company must be sales focused and that great brands did not achieve their level of suc-cess without continually selling to customers and making them believe!


4.4 What would you do if you were CEO for a day?

If you were the CEO of your company for just a day and had just completed this exercise, what five changes would you make to ensure that ALL employees were able to sell your company’s products and services to your customers?

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The SixThe SixThe SixThe Six Fundamentals Fundamentals Fundamentals Fundamentals of Businessof Businessof Businessof Business That You That You That You That You

Must MasterMust MasterMust MasterMust Master


Today in Summary

� Enterprise Leaders are the natural extension of entrepreneurs

� The principles which make entrepreneurs successful are the same princi-

ples which make Enterprise Leaders successful

� To be successful in business, you need to follow certain basic fundamental

rules

� The fundamentals of business include sales, cash, passion, belief, people

and persistence

The Six Fundamentals of Business That You

Must Master It’s often said that success in business is simple, but it’s not easy. For most entrepreneurs, success can be found at the end of a journey filled with euphoric highs and crushing lows. It’s one littered with failure, mistakes and heartache. The good news for Enterprise Leaders who are responsible for growing a business is that they can learn from entrepreneurs who have taken this fateful path. Enterprise Leaders can learn the fundamental rules of business which are repeated by all successful entrepreneurs and business leaders.

There are consistent, repeatable rules of business

These are not complex principles, but simple factors such as focusing on your customers, creating a team who believes in your product, creating customer belief, having a passion for what you do and not running out of cash. They are not rules which are taught at business school and will seldom be found in any business text book. It’s these principles that you’ll hear in today’s audio session, and which you’ll be reminded of during the rest of this 21 day programme.

In today's session, 22 different entrepreneurs share with you in their own words what they consider to be the fundamental rules of business.

People and cash!

As you’d expect, each entrepreneur gives slightly different weight to what they consider to be the fundamentals of business. It’s interesting to note that the two major areas that are mentioned come up exactly the same number of times. They are people and cash.

Day 5: THEY BELIEVE—The Six Fundamentals of Business That You Must Master


Making a profit and not running out of cash are two of the most important and basic lessons of business mentioned by many of the entrepreneurs. Equally, they spoke about the impor-tance of people and the need to build teams of motivated people.

Belief and tenacity

They spoke of personal attributes, such as belief and passion, suggesting that all leaders must possess these traits. Without belief you would never chase your goals and without passion you would very easily give up as you wouldn’t have the tenacity and drive to push on to reach your desired outcome.

Customers!

The entrepreneurs also spoke about customer focus. They said you need to make sure that you know exactly who your customer is, what they want and why they’d want to buy from you, all subjects that we’ve touched on over the last few days.

The six fundamentals of business

Below is a summary of the six fundamentals of business introduced in today’s session: 1. Don’t run out of cash.

2. Know your margins. Running a loss-making business is no fun.

3. Focus on what your customers want.

4. Believe passionately in your product or service.

5. Surround yourself with the best people who also believe passionately in your product

or service.

6. Be persistent and never give up.



Exercises

Today’s exercise is to listen to the audio session again, but this time whilst reading the text below. With your second listening, take a highlighter pen and highlight ALL the key words that stand out for you. These should include words such as belief, sales, passion, teams, cash. At the end of each passage, make a note of the 3 main points you took away from each entrepreneur.


Exercise Objective: Exercise Objective: Exercise Objective: Exercise Objective: To learn first-hand from real-life entrepreneurs what they consider to be the fundamen-tals of business—AND to apply them in your own business.


5.1 Angus Clacher ‘It’s all about, “Will your business turn a profit?” There are so many other measures that people seem to have come up with—turnover, number of hits on your website, number of customers that you have, number of customers that you potentially have, market size, how much you’ve spent, how much money you’ve raised, all of these things—but what really defines a business is, “Does it make a profit?” ‘I’ve seen people who have been absolutely convinced that if they have more staff, their company will be more stable or will grow faster, and that is absolutely, irreversibly, incon-trovertibly wrong. Stability and growth come from profits. That’s what you need to have. ‘Common mistakes…Well, we didn’t have business cards for three years, and I’ve noticed a lot of entrepreneurs, the first thing they seem to spend money on is all the things which don’t matter. I only spend money on stuff which generates sales and profit. We, to this day, have offices that we hope no one will ever see. It’s got a great pool table. It’s got lots of chocolate and nice things to eat and do and sit around on, but we’ve spent most of the money on making sure we’re selling stuff and making a profit on it.

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What are the 3 main points you took away from this entrepreneur’s advice? What are the 3 main points you took away from this entrepreneur’s advice? What are the 3 main points you took away from this entrepreneur’s advice? What are the 3 main points you took away from this entrepreneur’s advice?



5.2 Sir Christopher Evans

‘Well, you’ve got to understand how a business works, and it’s what I call knowing your business. So when you start off with a concept, with an idea, it’s really good jumping right to the end game and saying, “Why are we doing this? Why are we inventing or building this product? For whom?” And when it’s ready—which usually isn’t overnight; it’s going to be in three years’ or ten years’ time—who are the customers? And these are the fundamentals: Who wants this product? And will they still really want it when it’s ready? And will they pay for it? And what will they pay for it? And are you sure you are listening to the feedback? ‘And that’s how you work up because most businesses that I’ve been associated with have disappointed because they’ve never sold enough of the product or technology or service that they were developing. It’s as simple as that—it’s not because the product was crap or the individuals, whatever it was. The business simply doesn’t sell enough and its forecast of making 20 million sales in two years, usually they make three, and they are woefully short of the mark. That goes in most areas: IT, telecoms, as well as biosciences, medicine… ‘It’s not that people are hopelessly unrealistic in the first place. They just may not have cal-culated exactly how something should work. So for me, the fundamentals are working back from what is the realistic appetite for your product and idea and what’s the market size and how much of it could you really get. Then you work back and say, “So who do I need, how do I do this, what are my tactics, how much money—blah, blah, blah—and what’s the quickest way of getting to that end point. ‘They’re fundamentals as opposed to P&L, Balance Sheet, cash flow. That, for me, that’s obvious stuff. That drops out of what I’ve just mentioned. But too many people focus on the P&L, cash flow, Balance Sheet, etc., and business plans, writing audited accounts. They don’t realise the business isn’t working because they’re not selling enough, they’re not mar-keting enough, they’re just not doing enough of the right things at the sharp end. They’re all fiddling as Rome burns.”


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5.3 Chris Hughes ‘Well, cash is certainly essential in getting it going. Clearly it depends from industry to indus-try, but for us, having a vision, a commitment to it is obviously important but the energy around your people is probably the most important tool. ‘Certainly in our business, the difference in a good or a great business is a lot about the pas-sion of the people. Someone gave me Alex Ferguson’s autobiography just before we started our business, and I came back, kind of day one of our business, having read this story of a man who spent his whole life trying to blend groups of people together and wor-rying about people’s talents and how they fitted together. And that made me rather ob-sessed when we started with finding great talent and who’s going to be our Ryan Giggs, and who’s going to be our Beckham and our Paul Scholes and all that kind of stuff. And to be honest, I think that obsession is the right one. It’s about blending great groups of people, but it’s also about giving them energy and making them be themselves. ‘My business partner, Nicola, she had this thing about how businesses stopped you being yourself, and we were obsessed with trying to just be us when we came to work, and we’ve managed that. I don’t know how, but being yourself is quite powerful. Incredibly simple to say and hard to do, but it’s very powerful.”


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5.4 Chris Rucker ‘Believe passionately in what you’re going to do. Work at how you’re going to do it, and do it, and don’t take too long, deciding how you’re going to do it because…You can go round in circles and find all sorts of reasons not to do something, and the best thing is to just get on and do it, but set yourself a limit. If you don’t achieve your goal within that limit, then stop. ‘I meet so many people who have great ideas of businesses they want to start, then they start on the business plan, and they hit all the dead ends that you do hit, and I think it’s just important to get out there and to do it if you really believe in it. If you don’t believe in it, then don’t do it. That’s crucial.’


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5.5 Duncan Bannatyne

‘The fundamentals are, to start with, make sure you believe in the product. Don’t have a hare-brained scheme. I see a lot of people with hair-brained schemes because they come to me and say, “Can I borrow?” but all the hair-brained schemes have got a facility where they’re using somebody else’s money completely and putting nothing up. And they’re getting paid to put this together, and it’s not going to work—for the basic fundamental is to believe in the product and to want ownership of that product. And you can only do that by borrowing money. And once you start on that, it’s having your finger on the pulse, knowing what your customers get. ‘I used to walk into the nursing homes. I’d visit some of my nursing homes on spec – I didn’t say anything to the nurses or the health club. I would just walk in; nobody knew I was coming. I did find, in the early days, that if I said to my secretary, “OK, this is the plan. I’m going to go here, here,” give her an itinerary, I’d arrive at the nursing home or the health club or the nursery, and people knew I was coming. So what I do now is I don’t let them know at all. I just go to the office; I just go. I just visit premises and walk in. ‘So the fundamentals are making sure your product is right, and you can only do that by going to check yourself, after you’ve started. And then the fundamentals of making sure you’ve got the best people, the best staff, and rewarding them. You’ve got to reward them properly. You’ve got to give them bonuses, and they’ve got to believe in the prod-uct. And if you’ve got someone who doesn’t believe in the product, it’s a fundamental requirement for you to get rid of that person as fast as you can.”


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5.6 Debbie Burke

‘Well, just don’t give up because there’s always got to be an option; there's always got to be a get-out somewhere. You’ve got to be realistic, but you can’t give up. ‘You’ve got to know your product and believe in your product; got to know your cus-tomers. You’ve got to recruit and train the right staff, get your finances in order, and then it’s the other personal issues we mentioned earlier – hard work, focus, organisation, drive, determination, vision.’


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5.7 Elena Souto

‘The fundamentals of being an entrepreneur—I think you really have to hold on to the pennies because it is about making money, so you’ve got to really think about when you spend a penny, how you’re going to do it. ‘And, number two, you have to believe because in my experience there are more knock-backs than any other job I’ve had. When you’re an employee, someone else takes the worry, but this time you’ve got to do it, so you really have to be passionate about what you’re doing. ‘Also, don’t expect to make millions straight away. It’s about planting the seeds and just keep working at it, and one day you’ll look back, and you’ll have made lots of money. ‘Sales is definitely very, very important, but if you offer an excellent customer service, keep speaking to people, and creating brand awareness—which is what it’s all about—you’ll get the sales. It’s not about hard sales, getting a telephone call, “Do you want something else?” It’s not like that, it’s about just being nice to people, meeting them, hav-ing a chat, I do this, I do that, and they’ll come back. ‘When a customer places an order, they’ll say silly things like, “What’s that bra like?” And I go, “Oh, you can run down the stairs in that one; I’ve got it.” Silly things like that, but you have to show them—how do I explain this?—not, “Oh, it’s a pretty bra. It comes in blue, and it’s got black lace.” “It’s a lovely bra that’s going to make you feel sexy. It gives you excellent plunge so they’re not going to jump up and down.” You’re telling them what it’s actually going to do for them.”


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5.8 Ivan Massow

‘There are anecdotes; they say, “If it doesn’t sell well within seven days, then it’s not go-ing to work.” I don’t know quite what that means, but if you really are doing this in the way I’ve talked about, starting small, you have no overheads—it’s very difficult for it not to be successful. Let’s say you only sell one pie that cost you £0.20 to make, and you sell it for £0.70 to your local hotel, you still made a profit, you’ve still been successful, and you haven’t, luckily, taken NatWest Tower as your main head office in advance. You’ve done it slowly with no overheads, so I think it’s actually quite difficult not to be successful. ‘But, of course, the key has to be to find what people want. It’s so obvious, but Mother-care should not target the gay community specifically. There are gay people who will have children—fantastic, the executive spotted that, maybe they can broaden their brand to make them a little bit more homo-friendly—but on the whole, it’s not their core mar-ket. ‘Understanding your market—which is when I say, understanding yourself, which is your fastest route to market—is essential. What businessmen can do, real businessmen, grown-ups, they can come up with a product suggestion, and they can spend between £100,000 and £200,000 getting their company to hold research groups, to do market tests, to do all this, to do all that, and at the end, they’ll probably have a relatively good idea of what works, and they might actually build quite a good business as a subsidiary of ICI or something like that. ‘Entrepreneurs can’t afford to do that. Their cheapest route to market is to do the one thing they know, and the one thing they want, and if they want what they’re selling and reckon there are quite a few people who also want what they’re selling, then it’s likely to be successful. Sometimes I wonder… occasionally people take this to extremes; so they’re living, they’re quite rich—let’s say, Londonesque rich—living in a deeply rural area and fancy going to a posh restaurant or a posh shop, where quite clearly no one in the area can afford to buy those pillows or to eat at that restaurant. So a bit of common sense. You need to make sure... ‘I lived in Bristol, but I wanted a niche in gay people who had issues getting cover for in-surance, and there were more in London. I knew there was a problem, I knew I could solve that problem, so therefore I’d have a product, and people would come to me, but I should actually make sure that from a location perspective, I had customers. ‘Sometimes people just miss that one thing. That doesn’t mean their business was flawed in any way; it’s just they couldn’t get off their arse to go to where the people were. The Internet has really helped solve a lot of this, and I’m now staggered by the way the Internet has really started to change buying practices and the way people can sell their businesses.” Cont’d over...




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5.9 James Minter ‘Initially, the most important thing is marketing and sales because you’ve got to get your punters in, so you have to have a good understanding of how that works. Make sure your sales team—who will inevitably tell you how well they’re doing, whether they are or not, because they’re sales people—are actually doing the right job and reaching the right peo-ple and getting out the right story. And that every time someone rings your receptionist, she is selling your place as well and realising that the whole marketing runs through the whole business. ‘You’ve then got the management side, so you need to make sure you’ve got a good manager, who’s just organising the whole place. Human resources… Nowadays with legislation, you’ve got to know so much about how to employ people, how to sack peo-ple, sick leave, maternity leave and all that sort of stuff. ‘And there’s the financial aspect of everything as well, which—you start a business, which is full of nice, up-in-the-air ideas; you make those ideas happen and get clients, and you’ve got a business, and eventually it becomes a numbers game, and it’s a mathematical problem. So you need to have someone who really understands that and can present the information in a way that your staff can understand, so they can see where the weak ar-eas are, where the good areas are…You can identify areas where things are costing far too much, you’re not making a profit… ‘So, the initial thing is sales and marketing and getting the right staff on board. And then later on, from a business point of view, you’ve got to have a really close handle on costs and see where your profits are and see where your weak areas are. And get a system where you’ve got a reporting structure that tells you what’s going on – because if you don’t know where you are, you certainly won’t be able to make yourself get to where you want to go.”


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5.10 Julie Meyer ‘You have to understand financial statements. If you don’t, can’t read cash flow, P&L, and a Balance Sheet, you need to learn. You don’t need to be a monster accountant; you just need to be able to interpret financial statements. That’s a fundamental of business. ‘Then maybe a sub sector about cash flow; people always make overly optimistic expec-tations about when people are going to pay their bill, across the board. So being a tight-wad when it comes to spending, managing cash in a really tight way is a fundamental, and people don’t necessarily know that. ‘One of the things I love about my business partner is he is a big tightwad. He is the world’s biggest tightwad, and that’s great because that’s just a good discipline to have, somebody always saying, “Oh, we don’t need to spend that money on that.” ‘Other fundamentals of business is just—you’d be surprised at how many times people are willing to irritate their clients because the clients are something which is rude to you, they’re in a bad mood, and you’re in a bad mood, you had a bad day, too, and you can’t absorb it and just let it go—and so you say something rude back. And then you stop and say, “Oh my God, how did I do that? I was rude to my client.” So that client service… Constantly the customer is king. That’s just a fundamental. It just is, it is, it is. It just does not ever go away. You don’t need to make them your client, but once they are your cli-ent, once they’re your customer, you’ve got to treat them well, or you made a mistake, and you need to discontinue the relationship. ‘Business is about managing people. There are very few businesses where you don’t have people to manage, and if you think you can do that, evenings and weekends, you’re wrong. It’s day in, day out, making sure people are motivated to do the job. Mapping the individual – What’s this person want to do? How could they help me with my business? Incentivisation, management of people is just critical. ‘It gets back to the scale thing—you can’t do it yourself, so you’ve got to have a team of people, and are you going to build the best team of people? If so, you’ve got to give them the confidence, optimism, persistence that they want to do what you want to do and that they follow your leadership, so even though it doesn’t seem like business, management is intricately tied to business, and so if you are poor at managing people, your business will suffer.”


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5.11 Karan Bilimoria ‘The key is getting the product right—not only producing the right product but then con-tinually producing that product on an consistent basis thereafter. So you have to focus on that product, and be absolutely passionate abut your product and proud of your product, and never cut any corners with the product. It is that quality of your product that is going to drive things forward. ‘And then you’ve got to have that right team. Building the right team is crucial—having the right people and creating the right atmosphere where people can flourish. As you grow, you realise the importance of training, of personal development—not just for the man-agement team, for everybody in the company. And you’ve got to encourage people to go out, go on courses. ‘Also, you’ve got to encourage the team to be outward-looking. We encourage members of our team to sit on charities’ boards, to go out and do courses at business schools. You’ve also got to be outward-looking as a company and as individuals, that really helps. ‘And then, of course, with finance, there’s no shortcut to it. You need finance to grow a business. What never ceases to surprise me is with finance, so many entrepreneurs, so many business people just look upon finance as either it’s an overdraft, or it’s giving away shares, and they don’t realise there’s a huge raft of options in between. We have raised money in just about every way you could imagine—bank overdrafts, loans, government small firms loans, EIA schemes, bills of exchange, letters of credit, factoring, invoice fi-nance, preference shares, redeemable cumulative preference shares, you name it. We’ve done these different forms of finance because we’ve believed that our brand is building in value all the time. And it’s the ordinary shares that are crucial to hold on to because they’re increasing in value. I own 72 percent of Cobra, and we do want to float our com-pany. The two forms of finance I’ve never raised, to date, are venture capital and institu-tional money. So even with raising finance, you have to be innovative, and you have to be creative.”


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5.12 Lena Björk ‘You have to remember that the shit pours from the top, and you can’t blame the staff for not being motivated because it comes from yourself—and have fun. That is also so im-portant. You’ve got to make sure that the staff has fun because that reflects on the whole business as well. ‘You have to have the different systems in place. You have to have proper accountancy; you have to have proper internal support. It is very important to do everything profes-sionally. If you’re trying to sell a professional business, then everything has to be linked up. You have to have a professional website. You have to answer the telephone profession-ally. You have to have professional letterheads. It’s important that what you’re trying to sell, you’re living up to within the company.’


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5.13 Lord Harris

‘Looking after cash, there’s no question of that. There’s no point making a profit if you’re running out of cash. So cash is king. ‘People—and I’ve said it may times—have a clear distinction of what you want to achieve. I think there are as many opportunities out there today as there were when I started or there were in ‘88. Decide what you want to do in life, set yourself a goal, and get to it.’


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5.14 Luke Johnson

‘You’ve got to know that you need to generate a profit to be able to fund growth. And running businesses that are loss-making is not much fun and not worth doing. ‘You have to understand things like financial gearing so that you can borrow suitably to take advantage in this current climate of low interest rates; I think that’s very important. ‘I think it’s important, also, to find an idea or a business that can be scaled. I don’t think many of us are interested in very small, niche businesses that will always remain small and niche. Some people are, someone in the craft trade, but as far as I’m concerned, I want an operation that can be replicated or expanded, and I like things that can potentially grow quite large. So I don’t like business models that are very self-limiting. ‘You’re totally dependent on the people who work for you, so you have to be able to try and motivate them, and you have to be able to find them and work with them, and that’s easier said than done. ‘They are very important; they’re not the only factor. You require the right premises, the right technology, the right margins. A lot of people, for example, are very ignorant about margins. They go into business where the margin’s too low, either at the gross or the net level, and the business doesn’t make economic sense. You need to make a sensible re-turn for all concerned—be it lender, investors, proprietor, whoever it may be. ‘Most businesses that I’ve ever been involved with are repeat purchase businesses, and they’re not one-off, big capital items. So it’s about making sure your customer walks away with a good feeling, and it’s not a rip-off. I prefer personally consumer businesses, where you’ve got thousands of customers; you’re not heavily dependent on one or two people or one or two companies. So, for example, I’d be very unlikely, again, to go into the busi-ness of supplying the car manufacturers because you’ve probably got fewer than 10 cus-tomers, and you’re probably heavily dependent on one or two of them. And if the key executive within that customer changes, they may have another pet supplier, your rival. You lose 25 percent of your business overnight, and you’re out of business.”


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5.15 Mark Marsland

‘Never, ever give in. Never, ever take no for an answer. There is no such word as “no.” There is no such word as “can’t.” ‘Know your product inside out. How on earth can you expect to sell something or mar-ket something if you don’t know what it’s all about? Know your marketplace. Where are you going to sell it? Where are you going to market it? How big is the market? In what ways can you market it? And where can you market it? Make sure that you know what you’re letting yourself in for. Make sure that you under-stand that this baby that you are giving birth to will take up all of your time and all of your resources and all of your effort, and by God, if you don’t feed it, it’ll take you for every-thing that you’ve got. It’ll take you down with it, mate, if it’s going to die, and you’ll hit the earth with an almighty bang, and then it’ll be the measure of your character as to how you get up from that and what you do next.’


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5.16 Michael Smith

‘Cash flow is extremely important, making sure your employees are well looked after, and you treat them with respect, and then, I think, everything flows from that. If you are treating your employees with respect and paying them decently and giving them the cor-rect incentives, then they will look after the customers. Keeping he customers happy is extremely important as well. Those are probably the three key things; everything else is just filler, so to speak. ‘Employees, first of all, keeping them happy and respecting them and so forth, and then they will look after your customers, and then the third, most important thing is cash, obvi-ously, which is the lifeblood of the whole company. As long as you’ve got cash, and you keep a very careful eye on it, everything should be fine.’


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5.17 Nick Wheeler ‘I would probably seek out and take other people’s advice more. And the other thing is…One of the big questions is whether I should have started earlier or even possibly later. I went into it when I did two years’ consulting, but I still went into it and spent my entire—you know, when I’d made my ₤75,000, I went out to Hong Kong at the time and bought a container of loads of shirts at ₤75,000, not really thinking how I was going to sell them. I was not really thinking it out properly. But it was still quite a good learning process. You learn a hell of a lot more when you’re making your own decisions. ‘The really important thing is you just have to believe in yourself. You have to have confi-dence in your own ability, you have to put in the grind when you need to put in the grind, but you need to enjoy it. If you don’t enjoy it, it’s just not going to work; you’re never going to be fully committed. You’ve just got to love what you do. And in a way, that’s what I’ve done for the last 14 years. ‘I think the biggest mistake, the biggest problem entrepreneurs have, is getting the busi-ness beyond a small business. It’s letting go. That’s the cliché that’s applied to many entre-preneurs. They just cannot let go, and they cannot delegate responsibility and allow other people to take on their baby and to do things with it they wouldn’t necessarily do them-selves. The secret to having a good business is to find people who can do things better than you can do them. And you have to give them the free rein to go and do it. And that’s what people can’t stomach.”


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5.18 Stephen Streater ‘The key thing is to have enough money because things always take longer than you think, and you never make as much money in the first year as you thought because there’s always something that doesn’t quite work. ‘And you make your amazing product, which takes longer than you think, and then every-one says, “But we don’t like the colour of the button. We want a red button; this is a green button. We aren’t going to buy it.” And you think, “Ah, I have to change it all again.” ‘And you make it all again, and they say, “Yeah, but the button’s too big”—obviously de-pending on your product—but things always take longer. So always have more money than you had thought.’


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5.19 Simon Woodroffe

‘Honesty, if you are fundamentally honest, and you’re a man of your word, and you do things that you say you’ll do, and you’re going to follow up, and you don’t try an be too clever with people, and you’re straightforward, and you build a reputation. Life is too short to go through crossing the t’s and dotting the i’s. Good judgement, to be able to deal with other people, who are also honest. When we’re talking about fundamentals of running a business, honesty is probably the key one. ‘Hard work, to have the passion to want to do, to put the work in. Honesty, hard work, some imagination and understanding, a realism for understanding of how money works. And a realism about needing to get money in and earn more than you’re spending.”


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5.20 Stuart Wheeler ‘Have a product which people are interested in and persuade them to use it and pay for it. Some people with a very good idea just think, “This is a good idea; I must go ahead and do it,” without thinking what the expenses are, at all. I think I avoided that. ‘Think clearly, and think things out for yourself. Don’t trust other people’s views too much. You should know why something is right or why you believe it’s right and not just because somebody who seems to be very knowledgeable or important says it’s right. I think you do need to think things out for yourself.”


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5.21 Tim Etchells ‘You can break the rules a bit in your first year of business. You can do some fairly maver-ick things because people kind of expect that from you. ‘I remember an occasion when this particular exhibitor got very upset, couldn’t get the stand he wanted, and he pulled out. And he was a major person within the industry, and it was very important we had this company in the industry. And he wouldn’t see me. He said, “I’m sorry, but I can’t have the stand that I want, so if I can’t have that, I’m not going to do it, and there’s no point calling me or whatever—that’s the end of it.” ‘So one day I went to his office at 8 o’clock in the morning, and I sat in his reception until he came to work. And about 9:30 he came in to work, and he saw me sitting in his re-ception, and he said, “What are you doing?” So I said, “I’ve come to see you. I’m going to talk to you about the show, and I want a conversation with you, and I don’t mind if at the end of the day, you don’t want to do it, but I think we need to have a longer conversa-tion than the one minute we’ve had on the phone.” And, sure enough, an hour and a half later, he signed up and was committed, and he was one of our best-ever companies. ‘And I think that in that first year, you can do—well, anytime, but certainly the first year—you can think outside the circle, and I think it’s really important in business, in that early stage, to think outside the circle. And those are all part of the building blocks that bring you the success of your business. ‘I said earlier, and I keep saying it, I think strengths and weaknesses, really understanding what you’re good at and what you’re not good at, both personally and in the business. There are some things that, as a business, you may not have been able to do because it just doesn’t work for you and the business. Don’t try and do it again. Really understand. I think the fundamentals, no doubt, are staying, do what you can do. ‘Very interesting, I heard Phillip Green, the retailer, speak; he came to one of our events, in fact. And someone asked him about what he thought his main strength was, and he said, “I’m a retailer. That’s all I do. I don’t do anything else, to the extent,” he said, “that any of my investments, my stocks and shares, are in retail.” He said, “Why should I invest in an engineering company, even buy a few shares? I don’t understand it.” So everything he does is very focused on what he’s good at doing. And I think that is so important. It’s fundamental to any business, to stick at what you’re doing and get good at that.

Cont’d over...



‘Be honest with yourself. Often people think you can wheel and deal and duck and dive—yes, you can, a little bit, but I think honesty for life is very underplayed. And be straight with people; they actually admire you for it, even if you screwed up. The number of times I’ve had to call a client and apologise for something that’s happened to the company…But if you’re completely honest with them, it’s amazing, how suddenly, A, you feel better—you communicate better because if you’re trying to bullshit something, it’s not really clever. So I think honesty is key in every sense. If it’s not going very well, be honest with yourself, don’t delude yourself that actually it’s going better than you think it is because you can always do something about it. ‘And share information with people. I’m a great believer in brainstorms and debriefs and so on and letting everyone know about it, and I’d like to hear other people’s opinions. My opinion is by no means the final one, and I like to hear it from the people who are actually in the engine room, actually on the phone talking to the customers or the problems the accounts department might have had. I think that’s pretty important. ‘There’s an inbuilt part of me that I always have an idea about what this event is going to produce in terms of finance, whether on track or not. As I said earlier, I’m very lucky—it’s something I’m not good at, so I’ve hired someone who is good at it and he would keep me constantly informed. I think I said earlier that I haven’t opened a bank statement in 10 years; I haven’t got a clue. I say to people, “I earn it, I spend it, and he does that bit in the middle.”


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5.22 Sir Tom Hunter ‘I think it’s about, one, understanding the business you’re in, so immersing yourself in that business, but being able to stand back and say, “Here’s three key things that make that business work.” ‘Then having a plan, having a focus, and then setting the goals for yourself and your team along the way. And being able to measure where you are against those goals. ‘These are the nuts and bolts things, but obviously you can’t be successful without these. But most entrepreneurs are not very good at them, so recognise that, and recruit some-body who is better than you at these things, and recognise that they are better than you at these things. Task them with it; let them go in with it.’


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5.23 All great companies practice the fundamentals of

business Each day in this programme you’ll be asked to research the entrepreneur behind leading multi-national companies. When you research today's entrepreneurs, take a moment to think how important the ‘fundamentals of business’ have been in growing these companies from an initial idea to a multi-national brand. None of these companies would have achieved their success without passionate customers who believe, or teams of people within the company who were creative, innovative and focused on their customers.



Amazon

Virgin

Google


Exercise Objective: Exercise Objective: Exercise Objective: Exercise Objective: To consider how the fundamen-tals of business are essential in all companies—and that even the largest world-wide brands must also follow these principles.




day?

What five things have you learnt from the entrepreneurs today that you could apply to your own business if you were CEO?

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workbook (pdf) - amazon s3€¦ · enterprise leader development ... day 2day 2 gaining new...

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