Richard Branson Is Right: Time Is the New Money by Chuck Blakeman Founder, Crankset Group

In the Participation Age, a new form of payment is emerging: time.

Richard Branson gives Virgin employees unlimited vacation. He’s either nuts or knows something others have yet to discover: You’ll make more money if you give people their time back.

Why we trade time for money.

The Industrial Age taught us the only way to make money was to trade time for it. The deal was clear, and always the same: You give me eight to 10 hours of your day, and I’ll give you some money. But in the Participation Age, something new is emerging. Companies are realizing that when you give people back their time, they will make you more money. It seems illogical, but it’s really quite intuitive. As usual, Branson is moving on an idea that traditionalists will discover only by watching him and other early-adapters in action.

Why would unlimited vacation work?

Why give up on a vacation system that’s been in place for 170-plus years? Because it was a bad idea then, and with a workforce that did not grow up in the shadow of the Industrial Age, it’s an even worse idea today. Almost no one under 40 can relate to a time-based system that makes no sense in a results-based world.

Branson didn’t figure this out; he’s actually coming to the party late, which makes a lot of the work world archaic and completely out of touch with how to make money today. Fewer than 1 percent of U.S. companies give unlimited vacation. In fact, America gives the second-lowest amount in the world, behind only South Korea.

Many companies have been doing this for years. Semco is a great example of a Participation Age company, which started as an Industrial Age factory making pumps in 1951. It was taken over by Ricardo Semler in 1981 and transformed into a great workplace, including unlimited vacation as just one of many principles that brought humanity back to the workplace. In 1981, it was a $4 million company. Today it’s a $1 billion company and growing, and it’s in a myriad of industries that Semler could have never imagined. Stakeholder turnover is less than 1 percent per year.

Some technology companies have been operating this way for years, and a growing number of traditional as well as new industries are adopting unlimited vacation. Evernote and NetFlix are just two examples. They are all learning that anything that gives people back control of their lives is proving to be better for the company. Just the opposite of what our Industrial Age forefathers believed.

Pay raises that encourage more vacation.

Stakeholders become deeply invested in your company as you bring humanity back to the workplace. The downside? They can start acting like old-style business owners and have to be heavily encouraged to take time off. To combat this and put teeth into our unlimited vacation position, our company, Crankset Group, gives all of its stakeholders $1,500 a year in vacation money (Evernote gives $1,000 in vacation money and FullContact gives $7,500). But you get it only when you turn in receipts that prove you’re using it for vacation.

There are Industrial Age defenders. Articles likes those recently inTime magazine view this cynically. But they are like listening to someone who drew the short straw in a high school debate and had to argue the positive effects of indentured servitude. The arguments against unlimited vacation are tortured at best.

The reality is simple. Give people control over their time, and they will build a great company, not for you, but with you.

In the Participation Age, time is the new money.

Top 5 Reasons Your Business Needs a Strategic Plan

The concept of strategic planning can be daunting for many business owners. You may think strategy development is old school and be fearful that it won’t be worth the effort. While fighting the urge to overlook a strategic plan, you ask yourself, “Is this document even necessary?”  My answer to that is yes. A strategic plan is the ticket to preparing your business for success.

In this post, we will take a closer look at the top five reasons you should have a strategic plan in place to move your business in a positive direction.

1. A plan focuses on the priorities of your business.

It is easy to let the everyday tasks distract you from seeing the big picture of your business. With a strategic plan in place, you are consistently reminded of the most important aspects of your business. A strategic plan helps you document your priorities annually, over 90 days, or up to 3-5 years. Keeping your priorities in check through your plan will help your business stay on the right track toward its goals.

2. A plan governs your company’s underlying decisions

As a business owner, you make decisions every day. Sometimes the big decisions bring your stress to extreme levels. Having a well thought out strategic plan will ease decision-making while ensuring you are on track both in the short and long term. If you actively use your plan you can feel confident that you will not make hasty decisions or get lost in the day to day demands.

3. Communicating your strategy engages your staff

Reaching success without a strong, goal-focused team is a challenge, if not nearly impossible. To incite passion in your team, your employees must be aware of the greater goals of the company. A strategic plan gives you the opportunity to share the vision, brand promise, goals and priorities of your company to the people that will get you there. Informing employees about the forces that drive particular tasks or projects will make them feel more involved in your company and the success you achieve. When employees feel invested and valued, they will go the extra mile to see those goals through.

4. Strategic timelines make tasks doable

Motivation declines as you face large projects with hefty workloads and short schedules. Implementing a strategic plan helps break projects down into smaller tasks with manageable time frames. Your plan will help you complete your projects by taking things one step at a time. It is not possible to change the business overnight. Give your team the tools and confidence that your big-picture goals are possible with a well thought out timeline.

5. Develop habits and rhythm

Creating and maintaining an efficient, running business is difficult. The one key component of having a successful business is effectively executing your plan. It is true you can design a plan a thousand different ways, but creating your perfect plan and following it will help you develop a routine. Executing your plan also establishes habits within your organization. Once everyone is on the same page with the strategic plan, it will become custom to keep the bigger goals in mind and work toward them every day.

A strategic plan is a document that can make or break your business. It is never too early to get a head start on next year’s plan. Start the process of completing one for 2016 now. If you need help, feel free to contact me today!

9 Essential Habits of Remarkably Effective People – BY JEFF HADEN Contributing editor, Inc. @jeff_haden

There’s a huge biggest difference between being efficient and being effective. (Just ask Stephen Covey.)

Efficient people are well organized and competent. They check things off their to-do list. They complete projects. They get stuff done.

Effective people do all that … but they check the right things off their to-do list. They complete the right projects. They get the right stuff done.

They execute and produce what makes the biggest difference for their business … and for themselves.

Here are some of the traits of remarkably effective people, and why they’re so successful:

1. They always start with goals.

Effort without a genuine purpose is just effort. Effective people don’t just know what to do–they know why. They have a long-term goal. They have short-term goals that support their long-term goals.

In short, they have purpose–and that purpose informs everything they do. That’s why remarkable people appear so dedicated and organized and consistently on-task. They’re not slaves to a routine; they’re simply driven to reach their goals and quick to eliminate roadblocks and put aside distractions that stand in their way.

Remarkably effective people set their goals first. So decide what success means to you. (Your definition of success is and should be different from everyone else’s.)

You’ll find it’s easy to stay focused and be effective when you truly care about what you hope to achieve.

Even so, once they establish a goal, remarkably effective people don’t focus solely on that goal; instead …

2. Then they create systems.

If you’re an entrepreneur, your goal is to build a successful business. Yoursystem consists of your processes for sales, marketing, fulfillment, operations, etc.

A goal is great for planning and mapping out what success looks like; a system is great for actually making progress toward that goal.

Remarkably effective people know a goal can provide direction and even push them forward in the short term, but eventually a well-designed system will always win.

Everyone has goals; committing to a system makes all the difference in achieving that goal.

3. They believe in themselves.

Diligence isn’t easy. Hard work is hard. Pushing forward when successes are few and far between takes optimism and self-belief.

That’s why busy people quickly give up and effective people keep going.

Remarkably effective people embrace the fact (and it is a fact) that the only way to get to where they want to go is to try … and keep on trying. They know that eventually they will succeed, because …

4. They believe they are in control of their lives.

Many people feel luck–or outside forces–has a lot to do with success or failure. If they succeed, luck favored them; if they fail, luck was against them.

Luck certainly does play a part, but effective people don’t hope for good luck or worry about bad luck. They assume success is totally within their control. If they succeed, they caused it; if they fail, they caused that, too.

Remarkably effective people waste zero mental energy worrying about what might happen to them–they put all their effort into making things happen.

They know they can never control luck … but they can always control themselves.

5. And yet they also embrace “random.”

When your nose is to the grindstone, all you can see is the grindstone. And that means you miss opportunities to spot something new, try something different, or go off on a fruitful tangent.

Effective people stay almost totally on-task. Remarkably effective people build in time and opportunity to experience new things, try new methods, and benefit from happy accidents.

They’re not always trying to reinvent the wheel. But they’re more than happy to adopt someone else’s perfectly functioning wheel.

6. They find happiness in the success of others.

Great teams win because their most talented members are willing to sacrifice to help others succeed.

That’s why great companies are made up of employees who help each other, know their roles, set aside their personal goals, and value team success over everything else.

Where does that attitude come from?

You.

Focus only on yourself and ultimately you’ll be by yourself. To be remarkably effective, find fulfillment in helping other people succeed. In the process you will succeed, too–in more ways than one.

7. They use their goals to make decisions automatic.

In a podcast, Tim Ferriss described how Herb Kelleher, the CEO of Southwest Airlines, makes so many decisions every day. Kelleher applies a simple framework to every issue: Will this help Southwest be the low-cost provider? If so, the answer is yes. If not, no.

Remarkably effective people apply the same framework to the decisions they make. “Will this help me reach my goal? If not, I won’t do it.”

If you feel like you’re constantly struggling to make decisions, take a step back. Think about your goals; your goals will help you make decisions.

That’s why remarkably effective people are so decisive. Indecision is born of a lack of purpose: When you know what you truly want, most of your decisions can–and should–be almost automatic.

8. They don’t multitask.

Plenty of research says multitasking doesn’t work. (Some research says multitasking actually makes you stupid.)

Maybe you don’t agree.

Maybe you’re wrong. Try to do two things at once and you’ll do both half-assed.

Remarkably effective people focus on one thing at a time. They do that one thing incredibly well … and then they move on to whatever is next. And they do thatincredibly well.

9. They freely ask for help.

Busy people ask for help getting something done. Remarkably effective people ask for help not just because they need help but also because by asking they show respect for the other person and trust his or her experience, skill, or insight.

Mutual respect is the foundation of every solid relationship–and the best way to create mutual respect is to first show respect.

Want to be remarkably effective? Surround yourself with people who trust and motivate and inspire you–and in turn are inspiredby you.

Even if you don’t achieve all your goals, your life will be infinitely richer.

THE TRAITS THAT LEAD TO SUCCESS—AND HOW TO TELL WHO’S GOT THEM by Laura Vanderkam

BEING A GOOD LEADER OFTEN MEANS APPROACHING SITUATIONS WITH A ROOKIE MINDSET. HERE’S HOW TO TELL IF YOU ARE UP TO THE CHALLENGE.

Technology changes quickly. Companies implode and people switch jobs every few years.

If 30% of information in some fields becomes obsolete in a year, how long does expertise last? says Liz Wiseman in her book, Rookie Smarts: Why Learning Beats Knowing in the New Game of Work.

It’s not that expertise isn’t helpful, but success comes from constantly approaching work as a “perpetual rookie,” Wiseman writes, someone who is “living and working perpetually on a learning curve.” People who can do that will thrive. Here’s how to recognize someone who’s always in back-to-school mode:

1. THEY ASK GOOD QUESTIONS.

Rookies have the ability to see things differently than those with too much skin in the game. They can “step a layer out of something and question it,” says Wiseman.

Of course, in a job interview, people ask the questions they’re supposed to ask, which is why it’s great to meet people in other situations, like at a conference, when someone you’re talking to asks questions about your business that you’ve never thought of.

You can encourage this mindset in more veteran employees by allowing those who’ve taken new roles to spend a few weeks really talking to everyone and asking what people think. Sometimes organizations do things for good reasons. And sometimes, they’ve simply stopped asking why they do what they do.

2. THEY ARE INTERESTED IN OTHER PEOPLE.

We’re all fascinated by ourselves, but we only know so much. “Other people’s brains, other people’s thoughts—that’s where learning is going to come from,” says Wiseman.

One way to judge this? How long a potential leader can talk about her colleagues and her team before talking about herself.

Those who can go for a while—who find other people genuinely interesting—can better tackle different situations. They are oriented toward the unknown, rather than the known.

3. THEY ARE WILLING TO BE (INTELLECTUALLY) UNCOMFORTABLE.

“Learning is painful,” Wiseman says. “All true learning comes with some form of discomfort. We learn when our scripts fail us, when the world doesn’t work the way the world is supposed to work.” In someone’s work history, has she sought out jobs that challenged her? In someone’s personal life, it can mean “a willingness to go into foreign territory,” says Wiseman.

Does someone vacation in the same place yearly, or venture around the world? News feeds can be revealing too. Someone who looks only at news sources that confirm what she already believes is willingly missing out on a lot. The world is messy, and truth can come from many places.

4. THEY ARE AGILE.

Leading is good, and building something that works is good, but Wiseman recommends looking at “how willing is she to back out of it and let someone else take the lead?” In the corporate world, there’s often a mindset that “Once you take a leadership role, a management role, that it’s kind of yours to keep.”

But someone willing to work on a start-up brand, or to move across functions, probably has a rookie mindset. “Does she have a track record of not only taking those roles, but being successful?” Sure, there have been high-profile cases of executives entering new industries and failing, but those who succeed realize that “you need to approach this the way you approached work when you were 23 and right out of school,” Wiseman says. In a way, you’re young again—and eager to learn.

How to Increase Your Impact While Reducing Your Effort by Kelly Studer Career Stylist, Coach and Personal Ba

I can’t help but shake my head when people say, “You have to work hard if you want to be successful.”

Really? The most successful people I know are doing something that most others are not — and it’s not putting in the longest hours at the office. These top performers know what their natural talents are and use them as much as possible in their daily work. They work smarter, not harder.

By tapping into your natural abilities, your work will have more flow and ease. Your chances of being a high performer and attracting opportunities to do work that excites you will skyrocket. Entrepreneurs, in particular, can maximize the success of their companies by being clear on their talents and using them while running their companies.

The challenge — and the opportunity — is to unearth your talents and systematically apply them at work. This is harder than it might seem, though, because many people are unaware of their talents: Exercising certain skills comes as second nature to them. So they think if something comes easily to them, it’s just as easy for everyone else.

How to unearth your talents. 

When you combine your talents with your skills, knowledge and experience, they serve as multipliers. This combination can mean the difference between being an average performer and a rock-star one, without even having to work harder.

First, identify your specific innate abilities. To understand what sets you apart, get the perspective of others. Ask family, friends, colleagues and former managers to share with you two to three things that you seem to do better than anyone else they know. Or inquire about what you appear to do much easier than others. Request examples.

Get feedback from at least 10 people and look for themes. What do these responses have in common? What is the impact you have when you use these talents?

If you’re uncomfortable polling friends and family, bring in the pros. A career coach can help you tease out the talents that you can’t see by asking questions and offering perspectives that unlock what isn’t easily visible.

For a self-guided assessment, try Gallup’s Strengths Finder 2.0. This will provide a highly personalized report that details the top five talents.

Most people hear their talents reflected back to them and think, “Yep, that sounds like me” and don’t go any further. Take extra time to think of examples (from your personal and professional life) for each talent and how they made a difference. This will help you as you start to brainstorm to find ways to use your talents at work.

Put your talents to work.

Now it’s time to ask, “Am I using my talents on a regular basis in my work?” Think about what you can adjust to shine a brighter light on them.

You might find certain of your talents are needed or required to succeed at your job. You may have uncovered your gift for putting the right combination of people together to create collaborative, high-performing teams. Maybe you never before realized that this sets you apart in your workplace because it was so obvious to you.

With this new knowledge, you might take on more opportunities to shape the staffing of projects or participate in interviewing potential future employees. Using your natural ability to its fullest, you could reduce your company’s voluntary and involuntary turnover and increase team morale and productivity.

What if a newly discovered talent isn’t needed for your current role?Set up a meeting with your boss and discuss what you’ve recently discovered. Be prepared to share ideas about how you could start tapping into your talents more and ask for opportunities to leverage it.

As you unearth your combination of natural abilities, if you realize that they would not be regularly used in your current job, take it as a sign that it may be time to investigate a new career direction. Don’t waste time languishing at a job that has you focusing on improving weaknesses (things you’ll never be talented at). That’s a lot of hard work only to end up as an average performer.

If an entrepreneur undergoes this process, it can become more obvious where it’s necessary to outsource projects or bring in additional talent to fill roles. Many entrepreneurs struggle to be well-rounded, but it quickly becomes clear they can’t do it all. Business owners would be best off by bringing in help for accomplishing tasks and projects that don’t come naturally to them.

Leveraging your talents for your career will let you to increase your impact and value and help catapult you into opportunities that will make you feel successful beyond belief.

5 Reasons Why You Need a Business Coach Now

What is the big deal about business coaches and why do you need one?  Well, do you sometimes feel overwhelmed as a business owner? Do you wish you had someone to bounce ideas off of? Are your cash flow and profit where they need to be? Do you like your company’s culture? All of these questions deal with elements of business that a coach can help you with.

Running a business is not easy. In fact, it is very difficult. Those that have tried and failed will tell you as much. Successful business owners will tell you the same thing. Decisions are tough and mistakes are easy.  How do you fix the things that are going wrong without taking your foot off the gas?  Here are 5 things a business coach can help you with to get your business headed in the right direction.

1. Get a Handle on Financial Management – Making money is one thing, managing it is a totally different ball game. Where are you spending your time and money? If your various business departments are not careful, they could easily be flushing money down the drain! The most four common areas of expenditures for companies are:

• Technology
• Human Resources
• Marketing and Sales Lead Generation
• Office Procurement and Operational Cost

With the right approach, these expenses can be reined in – and turned to your advantage.

2. Avoid Ineffective Marketing – Many businesses put marketing on the backburner because it is an expense that they are unsure will contribute to overall success. However, it is hard to grow in business without imple
   menting strong marketing strategies. To bring your marketing efforts back into focus, reevaluate customer needs. What is the most important thing your business needs to communicate to your customers that will give them the most value? If you aren’t sure of the answer, talking it through with a business coach would be beneficial. They can bring a new perspective and make the expenses spent on marketing worthwhile.

2. Correct Under-Performing Sales Teams – The most common reasons for poor performance are unclear focus, a lack of a system and poor time management. Additionally, there is no clear understanding where, how or why sales “happen.” Often, interestingly enough, everyone in the company is in “sales.” People need to know how they contribute and increasing sales should be on everyone’s mind. Identifying all of the steps in the sales process from lead generation to creating a loyal customer is the first step in revitalizing a sales system. A business coach can help you map out the various processes, institute a tracking system and then systematically work to improve each stage of the process.

4. Pay Attention and Cultivate Capital Management – Massive worker shortage, widening skill gaps, and disengaged employees are all problems facing HR departments. Employees across North America will have had an average of 10 jobs between the ages of 18 and 38. Every year, about one-third of our workforce changes jobs, largely to take advantage of better opportunities. Most companies are totally unprepared to meet the challenge of this continually revolving door! Be strategic about your hiring and retention processes- it is vital to the success of your business.

5. Address and Improve Poor Leadership – The number one reason cited for failure to meet business goals is ineffective communication. A sure sign of unproductive business is when the chain of command becomes “managers” instead of “producers.” The unfortunate cycle results in poor communications and stagnate productivity. This standard rarely brings out the best in a talented team.

“Command and control leadership styles are obsolete; instead, leaders must learn to identify, focus, and release the power of the entire organization.” – Effective Use of Power course at Stanford Graduate School of Business.

If any of these issues keep you up at night, I encourage you to investigate partner
ing with a business coach.  Coaching starts with a 30 minute initial call and then if agreed upon, a second 90 minute complimentary coaching session. From there, decisions will be made in regards to the scope of issues and the timeframe of the engagement. Call a coach and invite them to have a simple discussion about your business. I am certain you will leave that conversation more informed and better prepared to take your business to the next level.

Mid-Year Assessment: Are You Where You Need to Be?

So here we are in the second month of the third quarter, more than half way through the year! As a business person, now is the time to make an assessment of where you are.  Are you ahead of your plan? If you are, what will you do to maintain positive momentum? If you’re right where you need to be, how do you avoid having a bad week throw you into a panic? And if you are behind on your plan, what are the proper steps to reroute and have a strong finish in 2015? Below are some tips to help keep you moving in the right direction to accomplish the goals you set out to achieve.

Which of the following situations do you find yourself in?

1. We are behind on our goals. How do we turn things around to meet our objectives before the end of the year?

First things first, take your strategic plan off the shelf and take a good look at it. What does it say? If you haven’t already, pick out the five highest priorities that you need to accomplish over the next two months. From those five priorities, select the targets that need to be achieved first. If you need more sales/clients, then you need targets that measure leads generated and lead conversion. If revenue is a priority, select a revenue target that is realistic. From there, outline a process to complete your priorities. This will help you establish a structure while effectively moving in the direction of completing your goals. Once you reach the end of September, create a fourth quarter plan that you can execute to see your goals through the end of the year.

2. We are on track with our goals, how do we keep the momentum going?

Ask yourself what has been working for you and your business over the last seven months. Once you have identified what it is, keep doing it! Many times we stop doing the things that have made us successful because something else comes along and distracts us. We get involved with a new strategy and forget the actions and plans that were working. Once you understand what has been successful you can more easily continue those tactics.

If you haven’t looked at your strategic plan in a while, take it out and inspect it. While it may not need drastic changes, make sure what you have in place still makes sense. If there is a process or two that can improve, go ahead and refine them.  An effective monitoring process will help show if the changes make have a positive impact.

Don’t be afraid to get your plan out and inspect it for consistency. Tweak processes to see improvements, and make sure to continue to monitor where you are on a weekly basis. To maintain your success, prepare a 90 day plan during the last week of September for an outstanding close to the year.

3. We have blown past our goals and are growing at unexpected levels. What do we do now?

Congratulations! Business is booming, but there are still things that you should keep in mind. Go back to the basics, get your strategic plan out! It is likely that one or two goals have changed, and you need to reestablish the top five priorities you see for the rest of this quarter. Once they are finalized, you can make good decisions on what to do with your growing business. You will need to make new goals and targets for next quarter. These goals still need to be realistic, but they may be much larger than in the past. Continue to assess what processes are working and keep doing them. Understanding your plan at this point can help with important decisions like new employee responsibility, additional staff and expansion plans.

It’s also important to think of how you want your business to run in the future. If you are an owner, do you need to remove yourself from the day to day activities to help the structure of your business operate? Is it desirable to slow the growth of the business? Are you the right person to lead this business going forward? Some of these questions are hard ones to answer and mistakes are easy to make. By monitoring your activities on a weekly basis, you can quickly make corrections if needed.

Your business is doing great, so dust off your strategic plan, decide the new top five priorities and targets for this quarter, and make any major decisions that are needed. During the last week of September, create a fourth quarter plan and keep up the execution!

With five months left in the year, there is time to achieve so much, but the time to act is now. Regardless of your situation, you have to get your arms around everything that is going on, and plan and execute your priorities and goals to see success in your business. Make this year count!

All the best,
Thomas

17 Things Extraordinary People Do Every Day By Bill Murphy, Jr., Inc.com

News flash! Being extraordinary is no longer reserved for the lucky few – now all of us can achieve much more than we ever thought possible. The key to success lies in the daily mastery of these simple habits.

3 Business Secrets to Learn from Listening to Your Body By Eric Schiffer, Entrepreneur.com

It’s no coincidence that many leaders of successful companies are also in top physical shape. They’ve recognized the correlation between a healthy body and a healthy business. By applying the strategies in this article – now you can too!