The runaway train came over the hill and she blew or so the song goes and its a familiar metaphor for the owner-run business. (Note: I use the term owner-run business because even if you are technically classed as a small business it might not feel small to you).

What started out as a wonderful, exciting journey full of new discoveries and opportunities can turn into a feeling of intense overwhelm.

You first client undoubtedly gave you an absolute thrill. Doing something that you love, are good at and perhaps can do better than anyone else you know, is rewarding enough but when someone values that service enough to pay you it launches you into a new unknown world.

Chances are that as an owner-run business you are very, very good at what you do and have a desire to get up in the morning to go and do that thing, so much so that in the beginning you didn’t even know if you would be rewarded for doing that thing you just loved it so you did it. If you are good at something that few other people can do and deliver a fabulous service to your first client it’s only a matter of time before you get another client or two or ten or sixty. At this point you are still excited and enthusiastic if a little un nerved as to how you will meet all of this demand never mind manage the background tasks of administration and bookkeeping to name a couple. The train has started to run, you notice but it’s still ok. You decide take on or contract with people to support you and your growing business, you put more coal on the fire and let it rip.

“The train has started to run, you notice but it’s still ok.”

Now you are on a runaway train, let me explain. Does any of the following sound like you?

Your coffee, by the time you drink it is always cold?

You have so many windows open on your computer it bewilders you as to how it still works?

Inevitably you need the loo but its been the case for the last two hours you just haven’t got around to it yet?

Once home you would love to tell your partner, family, cat about your day but you have lost the power of speech?

A 40 hour week is a wistful dream and not in the realms of reality?

People; employees, collegues, clients, wife, husband, partner, family, contractors, delivery drivers are kicking off and it usually feels like it’s directed at you?

The big idea is still there but constantly appears clouded over by numerous issues so much so that you feel your focus and clear vision has been lost?

You are still in love with the destination but you are having some serious doubts about the state of your train?

It’s ok. That’s normal. In fact it’s a great sign that you are on the right track. You have recognised that something else is needed. You are an expert in your chosen field. The trouble is that now you are trying to rapidly become an expert in another field, the minefield of managing people. Managing people, their reactions and emotions towards things connected to you and your business can be the stuff of nightmares.By ’people’ I mean any human that is touched by or touches your business in any way. Everybody from suppliers to accountants, your family and friends as they can all be impacted by and impact your business. The thing is that, this little area of managing people with all of their own hopes, dreams and aspirations, is actually highly highly complex and requires an expert that’s really really good at it in order to get it right. Uh-oh, that’s not your right?

“You have recognised that something else is needed.”

Never fear. Read our blog for weekly insights on the most prevalent problems of business owner overwhelm and solutions that you can use today, right now and certainly before you coffee goes cold.

Boil potatoes. Remove from pan and Peel. Whoa that sound wrong. Paint woodwork, sand down and leave. Whoa that sounds wrong. Sometimes we just have to do things in the right order. If it is the first time we have done something how do we know what the right order is? Well we can guess like proper trial and error. We can ask someone else. We can read about it. Generally we would never do something we have never done before unless we do a bit of research and take some advice. Jamie Oliver makes money out of doing things by trial and error and then telling others the sequence of events. The recipe.

“Paint woodwork, sand down and leave.”

Business is the same. Owner run businesses face all sorts of problems which they have never seen before. They can adopt the strategies outlined above and hope for the best or they can adopt a strategy tried and tested by many. Do nothing!

Our experience has shown us that when owner run businesses ask for help in solving a problem they are asking because they do not know what to do. Or they have asked others and they are not happy with the solution. Having an opinion of course doesn’t mean you are right.

The difference with us is that our approaches are not guesses, How do we know? Well if we haven’t seen it before we say so. All our solutions have been tried and tested in real life solutions. And they work. The stuff we don’t know about we never go near.

“And they work.”

So the point of this blog is: If you ask for help make sure the solution offered has been tried before and trust it. Don’t trust anyone who has an answer for everything. Ask for evidence. Oh and if you ask for help and a solution is provided make sure you use it. Remember Jamie Oliver. Do any of his published recipes go wrong? No, but the ones he doesn’t share definitely have and he has the sense to share the working stuff not the failing stuff.

“Ask for evidence.”

Firstly, invoicing. No matter what you do in order to create income, unless you are in the enviable position of being paid at the point of sale every single time, there is ground to be gained here. I recently read the blog by gardener Laetitia Maklouf (Nothing Important) where she described the wonderful sense of fulfilment gained from clean windows merely by calling the window cleaner. I see invoicing in a similar way. It can be a laborious and murky job, forever in flux between sign off and payment. For a moment imagine a world where, whatever you sell (service, goods or wisdom) is signed off (by which I mean the customer accepts your work and that it is complete) within five minutes of you delivering your thing. Meaning that as soon as your very important person who sends out invoices hears of this, they can do their thing. Essentially in an ideal world you could be receiving payment from your client within 10 minutes. How nice would that feel? A lovely sense of rounded off business with a happy customer and money in your bank.

“I see invoicing in a similar way.”

So what small things can you do to move your payment terms towards 10 minutes or less?

Identify your blockage points, what points in your process are causing the delay? If it is human, and it usually is, then something can definitely be done. If your invoicing is being held up because you need to physically type up an invoice and send it out one Saturday morning, when you have time and inclination to do so, then that is actually a very simple and easy fix. It doesn’t have to be that way. The options involving good technology are endless and not necessarily expensive.

“It doesn’t have to be that way.”

Secondly, team. Does it feel like you are constantly trying to herd cats? Do you feel that you have asked your team to do something but somehow, as soon as you leave them, they do something else? Don’t get me wrong, they are great people and like a second family to you but is sometimes, if they could all just point roughly in the right direction and do what it is you think they should be doing, all at once, well, do miracles happen?

“Don’t get me wrong, they are great people and like a second family to you but is sometimes, if they could all just point roughly in the right direction and do what it is you think they should be doing, all at once, well, do miracles happen?”

Yes and the reason they don’t is that they are missing the why. People don’t engage with the what: ‘Hand me that bucket of water please’ they engage and get on board with the why ‘because my car is on fire’.

If you have exhausted you cat herding skills then ask yourself if your why is truly obvious. If it isn’t then make it really clear, and by clear I mean it should be able to be contained within a single sentence and passed on easily.

And finally, duplication. The wicked witch of efficient businesses but you would be amazed (present company included) as to how many times we duplicate things that already exist in another form. If you are wasting an hour a week on things which are actually the same thing done twice then work out why and then find someone who can tell you how to get rid of that pesky wasted hour (or more) without ruining your processes or spending a fortune on an enormous software package.

If sorting out any of the above would make you jump with joy then please feel free to get in touch and let us support you in gaining some quick wins in your business.

I am sure I told you

We have all been there, that situation where you are certain that you have told somebody something only for them to swear blind that you haven’t. Take my husband for example who was certain he had told me that he was travelling to Canada. I am quite certain he hadn’t and as such had arranged a couple of friends to pop round for supper that evening. Concerned as to his lateness I made a call and was surprised to hear the long drawn out ring tone of a phone abroad. What happened next did not break the relationship but strong words were had on both sides. What happened? Who was right?

“Concerned as to his lateness I made a call and was surprised to hear the long drawn out ring tone of a phone abroad.”

This week’s ramble seems to be more about home life stuff than the actual business end of the owner-run business. However the same telepathic tendencies happen between all humans so feel free to pick this up and apply it anywhere you like. It’s one thing that makes Monecosse stand out; we see managing people as not just something that happens inside business walls, its everywhere and yet it all has the ability to impact you and what you are trying to achieve in your business, therefore it’s really, really important to get it right.

The thing is, we all have an endless internal narration going on inside of our head, every waking moment (unless we are meditating and even then we are usually screaming silently to our mind to shut up or are whisked along for a ride on it before realising that we are suppose to be meditating). We may pick up and roll the same thought around our mind many times without so much as a word about it leaving our mouth. We might put that thought down for a few days whilst something else shoots across our bow (See ‘Crackerjack’ Nov 2022) only to wonder “now where did I get to with this?” when we return to that original thought waiting for us patiently in the chest of drawers of prevailing thoughts.

This is the point where the seed that will likely set off fireworks at a later date is sown. That pesky little thought will seem so familiar to us, we have picked it up several times and had huge internal chatter about it that it is likely to feel like common knowledge, not just to us but in fact the whole world. How on earth could anyone have failed to hear that he was catching the 10.15 flight to Ontario on Thursday when he had been stressing about it for weeks?

At this point it’s quite easy to have some empathy with my husband. After all he was absolutely convinced he had told me, not just once but that in fact we had spoken about it several times. Thankfully it isn’t just him that suffers from this side effect of being human and yes I have ‘made up’ for it with my own slips in communication many times since. It is a very human thing to do and yet, it can cause utter chaos. Let’s leave some spice at home, the unexpected keeps relationships alive does it not? Perhaps we could just be a little more understanding when we are on the receiving end and, when caught out by our own lack of telepathic powers, be willing to accept that it is perfectly possible to land in this situation.

“It is a very human thing to do and yet, it can cause utter chaos.”

In business however it is as well to make things explicit. If its a really important thought marble running around our mind that could conceivably cause chaos for others, how about we write down our thought in our diary/phone/calendar/ gadget that I’ve never heard of, and put a question next to it: “Did I communicate this to everyone who needs to know this?” It’s then worth checking to make sure that at the time we communicated to them (business partner, colleague, wife, husband, partner, child, mother) that their own brain wasn’t swamped by something else (‘Reaction’: next blog and the cause of the world’s problems-no joke!) in which case they couldn’t possibly have heard the message anyway.

Oh the joy of human thinking! And you thought you just had to get on and run your business doing what you do best. Don’t worry, this is our bag and we can help you to get all of that human wibble wobble straightened out so that you can get on with the real job at hand.