Do your competitors have a better business than you?

If you were asked “What is the single biggest issue facing you today in your business?” what would you say?

The vast majority of responses are often ‘people' related. How do you find the right staff, retain them, train them as well as maintaining their motivation or getting them to ‘buy in' to the philosophy of the business.

The problem isn't really a people issue. It is a much bigger problem – a business management issue!

What if your staff performed 10% less than the industry average? It would mean that it costs you more to earn your income. Your competitors would also have 10% more money to spend on things such as marketing, so that they can take your customers away from you.

I knew of a business which made fences. Their team would go to the job, but find they didn't have all their tools. They would then need to return to the business to pick up what they had missed and return to the job. Once at the job again, they find that the gate measurement is slightly out. This means that they need to rebuild the gate, get it powder coated and come back out to the job to have it installed. Meanwhile, all profit on the job has disappeared in wages and additional costs.

A successful business will put in procedures and policies to guide their team to understand what they need to do to ensure the work is completed as quickly as possible. However, this is the easy stage. The next stage is ensuring that the team ‘buy-in' to the process so that they are all working for the same goal and outcome that you are.

How do you get your team to ‘buy-in'? You need to work towards a culture which encourages this. Firstly, you should provide training to give them the skills to do the job. You should also have an open forum of ideas from the team. When they implement their own ideas about ways they can be more efficient and productive, you will find that it gets followed. You also need to report back to the team about how they are going and what caused the results. That way they can see the effect of everything they are putting into place.

You would be amazed at the difference a high performing team can make to any business. Start thinking about what differences your team could make to your business if they were running at their best.