Mary is a typical small business owner, she keeps herself busy doing the ‘hands on’ work. In her case it is doing beauty treatments and she told me she keeps doing this because she really enjoys it.

Her clients constantly told her how great she was, which made her feel appreciated. However it trapped her into staying ‘on the tools’. Mary had 5 people on her team, and she struggled with letting them handle her clients.  She also complained that it was challenging finding competent people. Mary stayed up late most nights working on her business doing the basic administration and ‘trying’ to squeeze some time in for marketing. There was barely any time for her to spend with her husband.

Many business owners try something once and if it doesn’t work, they don’t usually bother again. A great example of this is sending out a newsletter to your database.It’s really important to stay in contact with your clients, prospects, associates etc. otherwise they can easily forget about you. Why do you think the big companies are always advertising on TV, radio and newspapers?  Sure you can get sick of seeing all this promotion, however when you’re ready to buy something, chances are you will choose someone or something that is constantly ‘in your face’.

When my son Trent was 11, I attended a presentation on “Raising Boys.” I already felt competent having a daughter and wanted more insight to the world of boys, which is much more simpler than raising girls!

Boys from the age of 6 -14 really need ‘time’ with their dads. That is the most influential period in their lives when they bond with him. And the type of time they need is not all thrown into a ‘once a week’ or ‘month’ block or some exotic holiday once a year.They need to spend time with their sons on a regular basis. Otherwise how can you build a strong and stable relationship? Commonsense, isn’t it?

For the single mums reading this, don’t despair. If you are estranged from your partner and bringing up your son alone, having a positive male role model in his life, i.e. uncle, brother, grandfather, teacher, tennis coach, etc. will work as well.

Do you have any favourite TV shows? I do and one of them is “The Biggest Loser”.  Any show that highlights health and fitness to the nation and how important it is to your well-being, has got to be a good thing.

Sure it’s an ‘unreal’ environment, the exercise regime is excessive and you’ve got to question some of the activities and challenges, however overall it’s very interesting. In an episode this year, one of the team members had to choose the main food supply for the week for his team.  The choices were between cabbages and unmarked tinned food.

Sometimes there comes a point in business when you need to decide to get serious about your business and pull out all stops to ‘make it happen’ or struggle along ‘hoping something will happen’.

Over the years I’ve coached many business owners. Some  had excelled with their results and there were others who had the same information but just couldn’t or wouldn’t follow through to achieve the results they were looking for.

For business to be better it all comes down to you and taking responsibility.

Follow these simple and easy to implement ideas consistently and you’ll feel better and achieve more.