New VAT Rate – why not to pass it on…

Posted on July 1, 2011 by Derek ODwyer

July 1st – new vat rate of 9% on a broad selection of  of services connected to the hospitality and tourism sectors. The rate drops from 13.5% to 9% as part of the Jobs Initiative and the Government hopes it will help to stimulate the struggling sectors.

There is pressure on businesses to pass this reduction immediately on to the customer. I’m suggesting that businesses should hold on to this saving and use it to grow their business as follows:

  1. It will give them an opportunity to improve service levels which will improve business.
  2. It will give businesses an opportunity to reduce debt
  3. It will give businesses an opportunity to invest more in marketing
  4. It will give businesses an opportunity to invest more in training
  5. It will give business an opportunity to gain a firmer footing – too many businesses are on the brink.

Passing on price reductions to the consumer is populist and while it would be better to be for the consumer to buy cheaper – it would be better long term if businesses stay in operation in a profitable way – It has to be ok for businesses to make a profit. Its not a crime and for too many years now, some businesses have not been in a position to do this.

 

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Book Buzz – Get it working for your organisation

Posted on June 26, 2011 by Derek ODwyer

We had the pleasure meeting with Ron and Alan from Book Buzz on Friday in Dublin – they shared their concept of new innovative thinking for businesses. Really good stuff. I look forward to applying it with my own clients..

Here is a clip of the lads on Newstalk…

Enjoy -

Reminder as well about GrowthCLUB on Friday July 1st at the Harbour Hotel in Galway…

Click Here to Register

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Suffering Sales Rejection – Build your “Rut”

Posted on June 20, 2011 by Derek ODwyer

As a professional, have you ever been rejected using the “time” excuse? Even if what you are offering seems way better than where they are right now. i.e.

Build your Rut - Attend the Next Growth Club

“I don’t have the time for this right now”

There are 3 reasons that you may get this excuse:

1. They genuinely do not have the time to consider an alternative – Thats a problem in itself.

2. The Time Excuse is a natural defence mechanism to new things and is often bandied about -

3. They do not think that you have something to offer them that would justify their time.

In any of these situations, the problems is yours because you have not made a sale. Here’s how to deal with these objection.

Build Your “RUT” first – and what we mean by RUT is your routine. We often call is a positioning statement. Many of your existing happy customers may also have felt this way prior to working with you. And working with you has been good for them. So you need to start your sales “RUT” with the following:

Before I was involved with this service, I was way too buy in my job, I did not have the time for anything, I used the time thing then as en excuse for myself so that I became untouchable and because the concept does take a few minutes to grasp, it was easy not to see value in something because I only gave it 30 seconds of my time. But what happened for me is this….

And off you go. Build Your Routine first, before you start to make sales…

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Growth Club July 1st – A Must for Business Owners

Posted on June 13, 2011 by Derek ODwyer

You are invited to join our group of like minded Irish Business Owners and their Teams, jointly committed to making the next 90 DAYS REALLY COUNT!

  • Reset your VISION…
  • Set some great GOALS…
  • Write yourself a great action PLAN…
  • Get CLARITY and FOCUS…

We’ll work with you to map out a winning game plan for the next 90 days. You will get back to your business with clear direction and new tools to achieve your goals faster.

 

You’ll walk away with…

  • Energy, vision, passion and focus for the next 90 days in your business and life…
  • New strategies to instantly build your profits and increase your cashflow…
  • A ready to implement simple time-lined Action Plan…
  • A switched on network of business contacts to work with…
  • The skills and tools to help you get more done in less time.

Register Here for the Event

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It’s a challenge to succeed…

Posted on June 3, 2011 by Derek ODwyer

I read this great article and knew straight away that I wanted to share this with the Irish Business community. Enjoy, Learn, Put into Practice – Derek

“It’s a challenge to Succeed” – Jim Rohn

It is a challenge to succeed. If it were not, I’m sure more people would be successful, but for every person who is enjoying the fruit from the tree of success, many more are examining the roots. They are trying to figure it all out. They are mystified and perplexed by what seems to be some strange, complex and elusive secret that must be found if ever success is to be enjoyed. While most people spend most of their lives struggling to earn a living, a much smaller number seem to have everything going their way. Instead of just earning a living, the smaller group is busily engaged in designing and enjoying a fortune. Everything just seems to work out for them. While the much larger group sits in awe at how life can be so unfair, complicated and unjust.

“I am a nice person,” the man says to himself. “How come this other guy is happy and rich, and I’m always struggling?” He asks himself, “I am a good husband, a good father and a good worker. How come nothing seems to work out for me? Life just isn’t fair. I’m even smarter and willing to work harder than some of these other people who just seem to have everything going their way,” he says as he slumps into the sofa to watch another evening of television. But you see you’ve got to be more than a good person and a good worker. You’ve got to become a good planner, and a good dreamer. You’ve got to see the future finished in advance. You’ve got to put in the long hours and put up with the setbacks and the disappointments. You’ve got to learn to enjoy the process of disciplines and of putting yourself through the paces of doing the uncomfortable until it becomes comfortable. You’ve got to be prepared and willing to attack the challenges if you want the success because challenges are part of success. Now that may sound like a full menu of activities, but let me assure you that the process of going from average to fortune isn’t really all that difficult. Thinking about it is the difficult part. Anticipating all the effort and the changes and the disciplines is far worse in the mind than in reality. I can promise you that the challenges you’ll meet on the road to success are far less difficult to deal with than the struggles and the disappointments that come from being average. Confronting and overcoming challenges is an exhilarating experience. It does something to feed the soul and the mind. It makes you more than you were before. It strengthens the mental muscles and enables you to become better prepared for the next challenge.

I’ve often said that to have more, we must first become more, and to become more, we must begin the process of working harder on ourselves than we do on anything else. But in addition to gathering new knowledge, new skills and new experiences; it is also important to discover new emotions. It is how we feel about what we know that makes the biggest difference in how our lives turn out. How we feel about the chances we have and the choices we have determines the intensity of our effort. Whether we try or don’t try. Join or don’t join. Believe or don’t believe.

I’d like for you to discover some strong feelings about your life and about what you want to do with that life. You probably have much of the knowledge and a lot of the experience and perhaps most of the skills that it takes to become successful. What you may be lacking in are the strong feelings about what you want and what you want to do. You may be one of those who have become so involved in the process of earning a living that you’ve forgotten about the choices and the chances you have for designing your own life.

Let these strong feelings help you take a second look at your life and where you’re headed. After all, you’ve only got one life, at least on this planet. So why not make it an adventure in achievement? Why not discover what all you can do and what all you can have? Why not discover how many others you can help and in the process how that can help you?

Why not now take the Challenge to Succeed!

 

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Why your team needs more structure

Posted on April 30, 2011 by Derek ODwyer

As the saying goes – “the fish is rotten from the head down”.

If you are an employer, it is your responsibility to have the correct structure in your business to ensure that you employee perform to the best of their ability. Before you can really work on the culture of your business you need to have the following:

1. Contracts of employment – each team members needs to have a contract of employment with you and they need to receive it within a month of joining. This is for your benefit as well.

2. A job description – each team member needs to understand what their job is and how they will be measured in that job. Most small business owners do not provide these because they fear the “that’s not in my job description” retort when they ask someone to do a different task. That response can be avoided.

3. Your employee handbook – you need this because it contains all the working rules that you have in your business. It explains what you should do if there is ever a problem with a team member and it also outlines expectations for the team.

As business coaches, we work with business owners to ensure that these are in place. With the right structure in place we also work with business owners to build their business based on these firm foundations.

Call Derek O’Dwyer today to discuss the structure of your team and how best to get renewed momentum in your business.

 

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How consistent is your sales effort?

Posted on April 11, 2011 by Derek ODwyer

Business resembles sport in so many ways. While talent is important, its the application of the talent, coupled with the right attitude and the right level of work that win out every time. In the first instance we have to practice what we do through classroom training, on the job training, role playing, feedback and review.

Then we have to really implement what we learn and also do this on a consistent basis.

This is where many businesses struggle. While they know what to do and they know how to do it, the fail to implement it on a daily consistent basis. Any that is what leads to problems for so many businesses.

Business owners forget to embrace the “sales cycle”. They fail to understand the gestation period that exists from  initiation of lead/enquiry right through to cash in the bank. Therefore it is important to keep the marketing machine in operation 100% of the time.

By default, very few business owners choose to be salespeople and therefore, its often the area that gets neglected when the business gets busy (or quiet) and this leads to the see-saw effect in business.

To avoid the see-saw effect, call your business coach Derek O’Dwyer today on 087 222 0720.

 

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Discipline turns into Habit

Posted on April 5, 2011 by Derek ODwyer

How many bad business habits do you have? 

Not setting targets for yourself, your team and your business?

Forgetting to communicate with your team?

Focusing on the minutiae of administration at the expense of customer care?

Focusing on yourself and not on your team?

Neglecting to do any marketing week after week?

Sticking to old sales tactics when clearly the do not work?

Failing to take action and procrastinating instead?

Developing new habits for your business is a must in 2011. To develop a new habit, we must first be clear on what this habit will do for you. To develop a habit, we need discipline and the discipline is required until the activity/habit becomes second nature for you. It is suggested that you must do something repeatedly for 21 days before you could consider it a habit.

The best way to ensure that a habit sticks and is worth pursuing is to measure the benefit that you receive from it. In business, it is very important to continually look at the habits that you have and assess whether they are helping you are hindering you.

Make a list today of your business habits and identify some new ones that you need to introduce. Contact me if you would like to discuss your business in more detail.

 

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Culture eats strategy for breakfast…

Posted on March 27, 2011 by Derek ODwyer

Have you ever wondered why so many business fail, even though they seem to be doing all the right tings to grow their business. The answer very often lies in the culture of the business – or lack of it.

At ActionCOACH we use the word culture to encapsulate the combined values of a business – the things that it stands for, the things that drives it on and the “rules” by which the business is run. The culture underpins the Vision and Mission of the business.

Take the time in your business today to really understand your culture – If you need help – please contact me.

Once you understand exactly what the business holds dearest, use this to communicate with your team. The culture of the business must challenge people to be better and have higher standards – If you need help doing this, drop me an email.

Over a period of time, communicate your vision, your mission and  your culture to your team by what you say and by what you do every day. Sustained and consistent focus on developing a culture is what allows it to exist and flourish. Remember there is always the gravitational pull of negative forces to work against to the culture has to be strong and empowering for you and your team. If you need help with this – call me.

 

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Need More Sales? Look internally first…

Posted on March 19, 2011 by Derek ODwyer

It’s fair to say that most businesses in Ireland today would like more customers. It’s also fair to say that when we do get new customers, we do not look after them well enough and they leave.

So whats the point in spending money getting new customers if you make no effort to keep them? Thats what I call wasting time and money…

Here are some simple tips to make sure that your customers stay and pay…

1. Make sure that the customer experience is consistent, irrespective of team member, day of the week, week of the year. People like consistency and will leave you because of inconsistency – even if your service is good.

2. make sure that you know who your customers are and have a means of communicating with them. Email is free, facebook is free, text is inexpensive. As long as you respect their privacy and communicate information which is relevant to them.

3. Train yourself – make sure that you know the value of a customer to your business over their lifetime. Make sure that you learn how to communicate this value to your team and make sure that your customer knows that you appreciate their business. A simple thank you is often sufficient.

4. Train your team – You team must understand the importance of each customer to the business. Its too easy to assume that they will be the epitome of positivity – they wont unless you lead them and demonstrate by example. Then train them again and again.

5. Go the extra mile – There is very little traffic on the extra mile. Customers appreciate and expect satisfaction but they talk about getting more than they expected. When you think about it, you need to turn your customers into your best salespeople.

To get the most from your team, call Derek on 087 222 0720 today…

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