The Fundamentals Are NOT Sexy!

By Jay Chapman

This is your opportunity to have complete clarity on where the $$$$ is hiding in your business, and you might be surprised with the answers.

In order to build a house, you need a frame, a roof, fittings, and fixtures. Although I am far from be-ing a builder, I do know that if you don’t have solid foundations, all you need a gusty wind and it’s all over! (I would look great in tradie gear) that you set. Otherwise, they simply won’t remember!

Having my nose in a 100’s of salons and clinics allows me to see trends that all successful busi-nesses have in common. I refer to the 5 areas’ below because time after time I find myself coming back to these ‘foundations’ that need to be nailed in order to thrive.

Numbers: Firstly, we need to talk about the numbers. Yes, I know! Here I am again banging on about knowing your numbers. How I like to explain this to my clients is that you need to imagine you are at a football game and you are trying to keep score without a scoreboard. Sure, by the end of the game it can be quite obvious who the overall winner is, but if you were to try to replicate that success again without knowing the recipe of how you got there, you would be using guesswork.

Knowing your KPI’s and sharing them with the team is not set aside for the advanced entrepreneurs in our industry, this is a business basic that allows you to make smart informed decisions based on facts, not guesswork.

One-on-one meetings: Once you have complete clarity on your numbers you need to communicate your vision with the team. Whether you have 4 or 14 on the team, you need to be having Weekly, consistent 15-minute meetings with everyone on your team. This is so important that if you cannot commit to doing this, I will not work with you as your business mentor.

Communication is the response you get, and if you are not growing in business you have to ask yourself, “could my communication and leadership the better?” Always start with you.

Think of it like this, if I was to ask you what you had for breakfast one week ago from now, there’s a chance that if you dug deep enough you could remember, right? But if I was to ask you what you had for breakfast last month your chance of remembering is next to zero! So, let’s get one thing abundantly clear, monthly GROUP team meetings is simply not going to cut it!

Sure, still have your Group team meetings to set the goals for the next four weeks, but you also need to beat meeting with each team member one on one every week to checking to see how they are going with the focus

You need to make your communication specific to the person that you are meeting with and focus on the areas that are relevant to them.

Default Diary: When you think about how you organise your appointment book, it’s quite often planned and scheduled within an inch of its life. But when it comes to working on our business and also having time off, the structure, consistency and accountability all goes out the window. If you wouldn’t run your client diary like this, why on earth would you not give your business and yourself the same level of respect? It just doesn’t make sense, does it?!

The first thing you need to do is group all your business activities together, so you are aware of the actions that you need to take to keep your business thriving. The second step is to book them into your Smart phone calendar on repeat, same time, same place, every single week.

Lastly, but certainly not least! Is making sure that you have read sources that allow you to re-chargeable batteries. Yes! Booked these in your diary, because how are you meant to give 100% of yourself to your family, friends, client send team when you haven’t exercised self-care?

It could be as a simple as a morning ritual, going to yoga 3 times a week or even taking your dog to the dog park, whatever fuels your soul.

Retail: When I look after a beauty salon or clinic and then retail figures are healthy, by default I of-ten find that client retention and spend is also healthy. You see, when you solve your clients’ prob-lems not just in the salon but also at home, that’s when the real results show.

It’s just fact, the therapists with exceptional retail figures perform better quality consultations that a more in depth and return better results for them, their clients and

There’s a gap between what we deliver and what the client expectations are, the ultimate service that you can provide for your client is to not only fill that gap, to exceed their expectations by show-ing them what is possible. Retail is largely the solution. Period.

Four hours on growth: We all want growth in our business in some way, shape or form. Whether that is a larger team, more profit or even to have more balance in your work life. These things don’t magically appear all get a lifted and dropped into your lap! The truth is you need to work on the growth of your business for a minimum of four hours every single week.

Like the old saying ‘you have to be in it to win it’ the same goes with the growth of your business. If you’re not focusing on your next steps and the actions that will take you to where you want to go you will simply stay the same.

Don’t get caught in the trap of working on the business and just completing admin tasks, you need to be working on marketing, systems, team motivation and incentives, perfecting the client experi-ence and breaking down your numbers. All the things that I just mentioned inch you closer to growth.

If what you’re working on today for your business doesn’t make you or your team smarter, faster, or happier, it’s probably an admin task and not contributing to your overall growth.

Have you heard all this before? yes, probably…. But the real question here is are you absolutely nailing these core fundamentals? If you can’t give me a very confident yes, then my advice is sim-ple. GET BUSY.

Jay Chapman is a senior Coach at The ZING Project. For more industry wisdom and a good dose of honesty, email jay@zingcoach.com.au or visit www.thezingproject.com.au