Did you see the current economic storm coming? Were you listening to what the reputable commentators were saying and reviewing the likely impact on your business?

If not, its time to raise your eyes from working in your business and look at what is happening around you.

Upheavals in world financial markets caused by the US sub-prime mortgage problems has made many business owners very nervous.  Every day the news seems more gloomy as world stock markets tumble and yet another banking icon declares losses that are incomprehensible to mere mortals who occupy the small business world.

When economic sentiment turns from optimism to caution cutomers tend to close their wallets and wait for the air to clear. As a result, business owners are forced to review sales forecasts, marketing strategies, production plans and cash flow projections to ascertain the best course to survive the storm and identify new opportunities.

What should you do when the world seems to be closing down?

• Review your customer and product profiles - Is you business concentrated on a range of customers who are able to survive economic storms and do you provide the products and services to help them survive?
• Review your marketing strategies - Do your customers, and others like them understand understand the total solutions your business provides? How are you making this information available to them and what mesages are you delivering? Are your current marketing strategies still appropriate? What new opprtunities present themselves in difficult times?
• Review your production plans and processes - What is the balance between production and inventories? How does production align with current market conditions? Are your production processes producing the best output for the least appropriate cost and minimum waste? Are you producing what your customers actually want and at a price they are willing to pay?
• Review your cash flow projections - When times are tough, cash is king. Are your credit and cash collection policies current, appropriate and complied with? Are your inventory holdings in line with current customer requirements (inventories can be one of the hidden stores of cash in your business)? Do you have other assets which are surplus to requirements and could be sold for cash? Will projected cash flows allow you to ride out the storm?

Any good sea captain uses all the resources available to him when storms arrive. He not only relies on his own knowledge and information provided by his instruments, but also on his navigator, engineer, and the rest of the crew , as well as advice from outside his vessel to help steer a safe passage through the storm.

By all means use the institutional knowledge within your business to plan your way through the current economic turmoil. Remember though, there is advice available from outside of your business also, and often the perspective from outside is clearer than from within. Your banker, lawyer, accountant, trade association and business coach can help you steer a course to new opprtunities and/or safe havens.

It's only after the fact, after you've accomplished something, that you can call it a success. Before the fact it's a hope, or if you do it right, a goal. Setting goals is actually defining success before it happens. Goals give you something to aim for, something to direct your efforts, something to motivate you, and something to keep you on course.

The first point about defining success is the simple act of doing it. The mere fact that you define success before leaping into an activity goes a long way toward insuring that you will, in fact, be successful. So look ahead and consciously decide what success means to you and to your business.

Stripped to the essentials, success is nothing more than setting a goal and achieving it.

There's a deeper experience of success. Each of us has an inner drive that motivates us. It's something that was shaped in our earliest days, that's so basic to us it seems inborn, part of our characters that operates mostly at an unconscious level. It needs to become a part of our conscious awareness so we can factor it into our decision making, and use it to tap into our passion and motivation.

We call it "Core Purpose" because it is core to your personality and it shapes your sense of purpose in your life.

Core Purpose 

The main point about Core Purpose is that the goals you set for yourself and your business can't conflict with your Core Purpose or you're setting yourself up for failure or an unfulfilling life and career.

What is success for your business? Again, success is what you say it is. And again, it's not quite that simple. Defining success for your business should be done in a way that actually launches you toward that success.

Goal-setting is an important part of that, so are setting a vision and mission for the future of the business and deciding on how it will operate and how the people in the business should behave. In our Full Spectrum program, we ask you to define something called "Strategic Intent."

Strategic Intent 

Strategic Intent is a clear statement of what the business will become in the future when it is successful. Strategic Intent sets the stage for success and puts your business on the right path to succeed.

So, success is what you define it to be - both for yourself and your business. If you don't define success, how will you know whether you have achieved it, or not?  Part of the business development work you do on your business is setting goals.  Don't limit those goals to just financial goals - look at your business as a whole and set goals in non-financial terms also.

One of the great experiences of my life happened when a friend who owned a café created an Opera night.  This night was made memorable by not only the food, wine and ambience that was created, but also the absolutely spine tingling magnificence of the singing.

One of the Opera singers that night was Simon O’Neill.  At that time he was waiting tables to pay for his singing lessons.  Today he is understudy to Placido Domingo at New York’s Metropolitan Opera.  Simon is due to perform for one night in Auckland and todays New Zealand Herald features an article on him http://www.nzherald.co.nz/topic/story.cfm?c_id=274&objectid=10456588.

In the article Simon talks about his conductor for his latest production Wagner’s Ring.  Simon talks of his relationship with the conductor for this production, Antonio Pappano.

An excerpt from todays New Zealand Herald:

“It was Pappano's baton which guided O'Neill as Florestan two months ago.”

"He's terrifying," is the answer when asked what the high-flying conductor is like to work with, "but he is also so kind. He wants more than you feel you can give, which is a good thing ultimately. He wants more legato, more tone, more piano, more dolce, more depth, more declamation.

"He is with you all the time."

What is the relevance of this? 

Well as coaches we aspire to be like Pappano, where we are a stand for our client’s success, and we are asking more of our clients than they believe they have to give. 

We want more insights, more systemic thinking, more inspiration, more excellent execution, more learning and growth.  Our role as coach is to set high standards and continue to demand that of our clients so that often they surprise themselves by producing results that they never thought possible.  Our role is to “be with you all the time”.

It takes something to set the standards of Pappano.  It is much easier to go with the “good enough” which is comfortable. To get to the highest level however, requires you to get out of your comfort zone and to push the boundaries.