Welcome to the Bottom Line Top Line Podcast with Carol Bartlett, Jol Hunter, and Chris Spurvey.
This week on the podcast, we talk about
the importance of maintaining a healthy mind, body, and spirit and how doing
that can help you to bring do the best in business and in life. We also discuss
work-life balance and some routines that you can practice and habits you can cultivate
to make your lifestyle healthier.
Listen to the full episode!
To download the document, scroll to the bottom of these show
notes and fill in the form.
Being Mindful of Health
The healthier we are, the better our personal and professional lives are.
And we can do a better job of supporting others if we support ourselves. Healthy practices include diet, exercise, and meditation.
Ensuring That Development Programs Contribute to Employee Growth
If I’m feeling a bit down, physical activity brings energy back into my day, so I make sure to get moving.
Sometimes that means taking the dogs for a walk. A lot of my creativity comes after a walk with the dogs, maybe because I’ve been out in nature.
Benefits of Taking a Course Along With Your Employees
I focus on two principles in my life: gratitude and expectancy.
Gratitude means that I’m thankful for the things and people in my life and that I pay attention to them each morning as a way to start my day. Expectancy means that I expect the best from life. I notice when good things happen. People who don’t have an attitude of expectancy may not.
To learn more about these topics, please listen to the episode.
Welcome to the Bottom Line Top Line Podcast with Carol Bartlett, Jol Hunter, and Chris Spurvey.
Our episode this week is the second part of a series in which we talk about business development tactics and assessing your business development processes.
We walk you through some tips that
business owners and leaders should keep in mind and questions to ponder as you assess
your business development processes. We also talk about building brand and
reputation, how to protect your reputation, how to nurture client relationships,
and how to organize your business development efforts.
Last week, we talked about the mind-set
and principles to apply in assessing your business development efforts. This
week’s episode isn’t the end of our discussion of business development
diagnostics. Stay tuned for a question and answer forum in February!
To download the document, scroll to the bottom of these show
notes and fill in the form.
Avoiding a Salesy Culture
What we’re trying to get away from is a salesy culture. Who wants to be sold to? No one.
But if you’re offering a service, you shouldn’t hold back your solutions from a client who has a problem you can solve. Of course, you should lend a hand and say, “This is something I can do.”
Building Reputation and Creating a Brand
You’re creating both a personal brand and a business brand—whether intentionally or not—so why not be intentional?
Visualize what you want your brand and reputation to be and then create them deliberately by sharing in emails and conversations the right level of expertise at the right time. Be authentic and genuine. Intention and deliberateness are the two most important qualities to have in these interactions.
Committing to Proactive Business Development
Based on my own experience, I recommend that you put business development activities on your calendar and prioritize them. Be proactive.
Schedule an hour or so each week—maybe at the start of the week—to plan your business development activities. Then follow through by meeting new people, attending meetings, and so on. Otherwise, business development can get postponed or even pushed aside when seemingly more important things come up.
How committed are you to scheduling time
for business development on a regular basis?
To learn more about these topics, please listen to the episode.
Welcome to the Bottom Line Top Line Podcast with Carol Bartlett, Jol Hunter, and Chris Spurvey.
Today on the podcast, we talk about the principles we apply in assessing business development efforts. We also talk about ways that businesses can improve their development processes.
Check out the full episode!
To download the document, scroll to the bottom of these show
notes and fill in the form.
Assessing Business Development Efforts
We businesspeople tend to come out of the gate strong but then, later, slip. Maybe we forget or skip some important elements of the process. Regardless, somehow business development stalls.
Having a process in which you continually assess and improve is an important element of business development.
Tapping into Your Network for Business Development
Another theme I have seen in business leaders is a hesitation to put themselves out there by talking to people in their networks. Perhaps this hesitation is related to impostor syndrome, in which people progress in their careers but still have self-doubt. They’re a little afraid. They’re not confident. And they hold back.
But when we connect powerfully and confidently to the market—including members of our own networks—we’ll attract more opportunities.
All Revenue Grows Through Relationships
Many times when I talk with people about this, they say, “That’s applicable to you. You’re in a service-based business.” But I believe that relationships are important in driving revenue for any business. And by business relationships, I mean all relationships—clients and customers, partners, investors, employees, and any other stakeholder.
Business flows through relationships.
To learn more about these topics, please listen to the episode.
Welcome to the Bottom Line Top Line Podcast with Carol Bartlett, Jol Hunter, and Chris Spurvey.
In this week’s episode, we talk about annual goal setting. We share with you our goals for 2019, how we were able to achieve our goals in previous years, and how we plan to achieve our goals this year.
We also talk about how passion fuels us to achieve our goals and remain open to the opportunities that are presented along the way.
This episode is a gold mine for tips about goal setting. Listen to the full episode!
To download the document, scroll to the bottom of these show
notes and fill in the form.
Fueling Goals with Passion
I’ve been told by reliable sources that at one point our business school tracked 4,000 graduates during a 30-year period. The graduates were divided into two groups. One group was composed of those who were very deliberate, set specific goals, and made decisions that they expected would help them to achieve those goals. Graduates in the other group followed their hearts, their passions, didn’t necessarily have direct objectives in mind, and took a more values-based approach rather than a goal-based approach. At the end of the 30 years, the school found that graduates in the second group reported happier lives and larger bank accounts.
But does that mean you shouldn’t set goals? Not necessarily. But it provides evidence that goals are more easily achieved if they’re driven by some fundamental passion.
Having a Work-Back Schedule
We recommend using a work-back schedule—a plan in which you decide what you want to achieve and then work backward to plan the steps that you have to take to get there. In putting together a work-back schedule, you may find out that you don’t know the steps. That’s OK. Somebody has done it before, and you can find out the steps from them.
Surround yourself with people who have done what you want to do.
The Path to Achieving Your Goals Is Not Always Direct
I prescribe to the idea of acting on intuitive impulses along the way to achieving goals. And I don’t find that to be incompatible with using a work-back schedule and being methodical. I simply recommend that you never close your mind to opportunities or impulses that might set you on a different track.
Airplanes go off their calculated paths 90% of the time but still arrive at their destinations. What I’m saying is that, like airplanes, we need to be adaptable.
To learn more about these topics, please listen to the episode.
Welcome to the Bottom Line Top Line Podcast with Carol Bartlett, Jol Hunter, and Chris Spurvey.
In this week’s podcast episode, we discuss the importance of family councils for family-run businesses, how such a council can benefit the performance of the business, and some tips for maintaining open dialogue among family members.
If you want to know more about this topic, listen to the episode!
To download the document, scroll to the bottom of these show
notes and fill in the form.
Setting Agendas for Family Council Meetings
To fully engage the council members, meeting agendas should be fresh, dynamic, and interesting.
Particularly when multiple generations are involved, no two agendas should ever be the same. But the agenda should always relate to the family council’s purpose—the value that you expect to gain from the council’s existence.
The Importance of a Family Council
You should set clear rules for your family council—both its purpose and how it will operate.
These rules must be set up early and with input from not only members of the family but also non-family who are leaders in the business. The point is that everyone have a solid understanding of the council, including what to do when something unexpected happens.
What if the business’s leader gets hit by a bus?
I’ve worked in the leadership of family-run companies, and the senior executive and I weren’t allowed to travel on the same flights. We weren’t allowed to go to the airport together. Those are the types of procedures that the family and the Board of Directors put in place to secure a smooth leadership transition if the worst happened and the flight crashed.
What Makes Family-Run Businesses Different from Other Businesses
In a typical business, senior management
reports to a CEO, the CEO reports to the Board of Directors, and the members of
the Board report to the owners.
In a family-run business, senior management may be owners or members of the Board of Directors. The CEO may be an owner, a member of the Board, or neither, and he or she may or may not be a member of the family.
Given these potential complications, the way in which family-run businesses report to their owners and other stakeholders may differ from other businesses. For example, the head of the family may work for the CEO if that approach is best for the business.
To learn more about these topics, please listen to the episode.
Welcome to the Bottom Line Top Line Podcast with Carol Bartlett, Jol Hunter, and Chris Spurvey.
This week on the podcast, we talk about how advisory boards can help get you further in business and in life, as well as what being a member of an advisory board is like. We also give some tips on how to choose the right people for your advisory board and how to get the most out of your time with your advisory board.
Make sure to check it out!
To download the document, scroll to the bottom of these show
notes and fill in the form.
Choosing People for Your Advisory Board
As a business owner, I may look at a potential member of my advisory board and ask myself why that person would want to join my advisory board when he or she is already very busy. But I challenge myself and anyone who is listening to this podcast to ask the person anyway.
Many successful business people are looking for opportunities to help others who are perhaps a few years behind them in terms of the growth of their businesses. They’re looking for ways to share their experiences and help others in their journeys.
Benefits of Being a Member of an Advisory Board
Being a member of an advisory board is a learning experience for that person as well.
When I’m on advisory boards, I always try to add value—to give back—but I also learn what those organizations are doing and then share what I take from that experience with other business owners who I mentor.
In this way, being part of an advisory board works both ways. I don’t think there’s a downside in having an advisory board or being part of an advisory board.
Operations of an Advisory Board
At the outset, the advisory board and the person who convenes it should discuss the range of issues that are on the table for discussion, the typical meeting agenda, how often the meetings will take place, and who will be the chairperson. Each advisory board needs a chairperson—somebody who leads it and keeps the ball rolling by creating meeting agendas, staying in touch with the person who convened the advisory board, and ensuring that progress is made and follow-up occurs.
An advisory board that isn’t set up with some structure and then proactively managed won’t be effective.
To learn more about these topics, please listen to the episode.
Welcome to the Bottom Line Top Line Podcast with Carol Bartlett, Jol Hunter, and Chris Spurvey.
In the first five episodes of this show, we take a deep dive into a manifesto that Jol Hunter wrote a number of years ago about his 500 or so visits with leaders of organizations throughout Atlantic Canada, the rest of Canada, and parts of the United States.
In that manifesto, Jol Hunter describes the four factors that cause that gap between businesses’ current performance and potential performance: CEO time, process discipline, relationships as the source of all revenue, and members of the senior leadership team being on the same page.
To download the document, scroll to the bottom of these show
notes and fill in the form.
In the previous episodes of this podcast, we
discussed the four underlying reasons that we don’t fulfill our potential and
our businesses’ potential. So far, we’ve focused on being on the same page with
our teams.
This week, we take a deep dive into building relationships with clientele as a way of growing revenue. We talk about having diagnostic conversations that build strong relationships, and we explore the six types of questions you should ask during these conversations.
You’ll gain a lot of value from listening
closely to the episode while following along with these notes.
If you have feedback on the show, by all
means reach out to any of us. Enjoy!
What Makes a Successful CEO
A diagnostic conversation is built on the premise that, if you go to a doctor’s office, the doctor doesn’t open his or her big book of pills and ask, “Which one would you like?”
Instead, the doctor asks a series of
questions in order to better understand the circumstances—what is going well and
what isn’t—so that together you can decide how to deal with the situation.
That’s a diagnostic conversation.
Trust
Trust is critical. All three of us (Carol, Jol, and Chris) are in businesses in which people open up to us in very personal ways. And it’s not a matter of us meeting a potential client and learning that everything is roses. It’s not usually like that.
But if we ask the six types of questions,
people open up. They say, “Hey, this is what I’m doing wrong” or “This is
what’s not going right.” They open up about their sales processes or their
competition or whatever else. Confidentiality is vital to these diagnostic
conversations and to the relationships that you’re building with these people,
because they’re relaying things that are deeply personal to their organizations.
It’s vital for us to maintain confidentiality and never ever mention anything out
of context. That’s how we earn respect.
Be upfront about your integrity, that you’d
never say anything that would jeopardize them or their businesses. And, if you
can establish that very early on, every time you have a conversation it will be
open and honest.
Best Practices for Tracking and Maintaining Relationships
There are oodles of CRM products that can
help you track and maintain your relationships.
The key is to be deliberate and forward-thinking
and set aside time to work at whatever system you choose. That way you’ll know
when you’ve lost touch and can more easily decide on your next move.
To learn more about these topics, listen
to the episode.
Welcome to the Bottom Line Top Line Podcast with Carol Bartlett, Jol Hunter, and Chris Spurvey.
In the first five episodes of this show, we take a deep dive into a manifesto that Jol Hunter wrote a number of years ago about his 500 or so visits with leaders of organizations throughout Atlantic Canada, the rest of Canada, and parts of the United States.
In that manifesto, Jol Hunter describes the four factors that cause that gap between businesses’ current performance and potential performance: CEO time, process discipline, relationships as the source of all revenue, and members of the senior leadership team being on the same page.
To download the document, scroll to the bottom of these show
notes and fill in the form.
Today we talk in detail about the first point – the importance of CEO time and the four areas successful CEOs invest their time in.
We also discuss these topics:
CEO personality types
CEO as salesperson
what makes a successful CEO
Is humility important for a
CEO?
You’ll
gain a lot of value from listening closely to the show while following along with
these notes.
If you
have feedback on the show, by all means reach out to any of us. Enjoy!
If you have feedback on the show, by all means, reach out to any
of us. Enjoy!
What Makes a Successful CEO
There are certain characteristics that make successful CEOs. Certainly, the ones that build a good team around them and depend upon that team—and how they do that—is one of the most effective things that they can do.
We always say, ‘Hire people that are smarter than
you.’ Not everybody does that. Not everybody’s comfortable in doing it.
I find the quickness of CEOs in their execution is
very telling.
If you sit with business owners and you are able to
articulate a savings of however much per year if they just modify this one
process according to corporate performance and best practices, and they’re
like, ‘Well, we’ll think about it,’. . . A very successful CEO won’t. That will
be executed in the afternoon.
The characteristics of timing, who they [the CEOs]
put around them, and the gratitude that they exhibit are very telling. When you
walk into a room, you know who you’re dealing with.
CEO Time
The most successful CEOs tend to invest their time in four areas. However, not all of their time will necessarily be characterized as CEO time. A CEO may have multiple hats that they’re wearing, but some portion of their time—and, in larger organizations, perhaps 100% of their time—could be described as CEO time.
He may be the VP of Production as well, so he’ll be doing some time in production. However, successful CEOs also have some very dedicated CEO time, be it part-time or full-time. Inside that, they seem to invest their time in four distinct areas in order to ensure the success of the organization.
Four Areas Successful CEOs Invest Time In
1. Ensuring that the business is ready for tomorrow. This involves two aspects:
Looking out the front window, deliberately, to seewhat’s coming
Doing what needs to be done to be ready for what’s coming
CEOs must gauge the market, stay on top of trends in
the industry, connect with other business leaders, and ensure that their organizations
are doing what needs to be done to prepare for the future.
2. Guarding the business’s values. An organization’s values are the agreed behaviors by its member which creates the organization’s reputation.
A CEO is the guardian of the organization’s reputation.
He or she needs to understand how employees, customers, and members of the
community experience the organization, review whether those experiences are
aligned with the organization’s values, and then make adjustments accordingly.
001 Four Factors That Cause the Gap Between Actual and Potential Performance
Welcome to the Bottom Line Top Line Podcast with Carol Bartlett, Jol Hunter, and Chris Spurvey.
Carol Bartlett is a
senior level executive with broad experience in Oil and Gas and Transportation
industries managing $200M+ annually in sales.
Using a combination of proven techniques, Ms.
Bartlett focuses on growth results. She bridges theoretical business principles
and philosophies to strategic actions that give profitable results. Deploying
integrated proven strategies, she adds value to companies looking for sales
growth and increase in profits.
Jol Hunter has spent
a lot of portion of time as a partner with the national firm of chartered
accountants and business advisors. In the last few years, he has been a
business owner of a fairly substantial Atlantic Canadian business with three other gentlemen, and is currently
experiencing the joys and challenges of ownership and operation of a medium-sized
business.
Chris Spurvey spearheaded the growth of Plato
Consulting to
the point it was acquired by one of the largest management consulting firms in
the world (KPMG). In the process, he sold over $300 million in consulting
services.
Following the
acquisition, Chris turned his focus to helping other “non-sales sellers” find a
way to grow their revenue in a consistent, stress-free manner. He published It’s
Time to Sell: Cultivating the Sales Mindset, founded Make Sales
a Habit University and today is a growth advisor to business owners and their management
teams throughout the world.
The Manifesto
In the first five episodes of the show, we deep dived into a manifesto that Jol Hunter had written a number of years back, following his 500 or so visits with leaderships of organizations throughout Atlantic Canada, the rest of Canada and some in the United States.
In the manifesto, he talked about the four factors/themes that cause that gap
between current and potential performance in businesses.
In this episode we gave an overview of the manifesto that you can download when you scroll down to the bottom of the show notes. And in the next episodes we talk about each point in detail.
There’s a lot of value to gain a from listening and listening closely, and also following along the document. You’ll find some excerpts from the show below.
If you have feedback on the show, by all means, reach out to any
of us. Enjoy!
Growing Business
Manifesto
So over a period of 4 years I had the immense
privilege of visiting approximately 600 businesses across Canada. A little
while into that journey I clued into the fabulous privilege that was and in
most cases included very intimate conversations with the owners of those
businesses.
After a little while I started to pay more attention
to the themes that were coming out of those conversations.
I essentially came to the conclusion that, collectively, we are not performing to our potential. To put more positively, there’s a bunch more upside potential in our businesses, and the gap between our current performance and potential performance was essentially wrapped up in four themes/areas that perhaps if there was more attention paid to them, that gap would close.
Digging into the findings
Let’s think in terms of four creators of a gap between
actual performance and potential performance.
Of course, not all of these exist everywhere. And this isn’t the only potential four gaps, but it’s four creators of the gap that seem to recur, and therefore perhaps it’s helpful for folks to be thinking about them.
So number one is all wrapped up in how the CEO invests his or her
time in the business.
It’s my belief that the single biggest determinant of how a business or an organization will perform rests around the behavior of the CEO, the nature of investments the CEO makes with his or her time, and the shadow culture created by the behavior and attitude of that CEO.
So it really behooves the CEO to be thinking in
terms of what is the best use of my time, how do I apply it? What’s the culture
I want to create through that time? And really thinking about that
strategically.
There’s a couple of
offshoots to that. One is, in small businesses a person
may not be a full-time CEO. They may be a CEO and also a production manager, or
a CEO and something else. However, a portion of their time is CEO time and that
CEO time needs to be thought through very strategically.
The second thing that flows out of it is many CEOs have not really thought it through and they’ve just been tossed hither and yon by whatever comes along, versus thinking deliberately about being in control of it – both the nature of the time and the culture they create through how they interact through various things.
That was the first gap creator that rose to the surface through these conversations.
Averages of how we spend time
We are the average of what we spend time on as an
accumulation of every day, that wraps up into a week, that wraps up into a
month, that wraps up into a year.
It’s everything from what we eat, how we exercise,
how we learn and who we interact with.
If we can average up the quality of that time then we lift the whole organization with us.
I think that can be done very simply by doing one thing at a time. I don’t even think that it has to be a dramatic change. I’ve just been experimenting in my own life by just adding one extra thing and the compounding effect of that is just amazing.
When you look at the averages of that coming out, I
think it would be phenomenal to implement that throughout an organization. It
would really be phenomenal if we implement that in the organization.
Looking at organizational performance you would want to take it as a whole but if you’re just looking at just one thing and incrementally effecting that everyday then you would have huge effect over the year. People will notice that there’s something different about the organization and that will start to have a compound effect on their time and performance.
