The Business Growth Blog by Rob Cuesta

The Three Questions you have to ask yourself every day

If you're a business owner, then - if you're anything like me - you spend quite a lot of time thinking about how to grow your business. That begs a question: what do we mean by "grow"?

Think about why businesses exist, and especially yours. You probably have a lot of "higher" reasons for doing it, which are about helping people to solve a particular problem and avoid a particular "pain" in their life, providing a certain experience for your clients and customers, maybe changing the world in a particular way. However, no matter how much you try to hide from it (and some people hide more than others),there is no escaping that starting and running a business brings with it a lot of pain and sweat and heartache, and only one thing can make us accept all that happily:

Why recruiters have it all wrong - part 2

Have you ever worked with someone who, on paper, looked like the perfect person for a job, but over time it turned out they just didn't have "what it takes" to be successful in the role?

In the previous post we looked at some of the pitfalls of the traditional hiring process, and why it can be fatal for a company that is hiring in order to grow. The reality is, most interviewers are great at spotting people with the right skills for a job, but not necessarily the few who have "what it takes" - especially if the interviewer hasn't, themselves, done the job they're interviewing for.

So what can we do to avoid those pitfalls? How do we know if someone will have "what it takes"?

Why recruiters have it all wrong

Whether you're an entrepreneur hiring your first employee, or a corporate manager filling a new post or backfilling a gap created by the departure of an existing memebr of your team, recruiting the right people is essential to growing any business. You need to know that the new person will fit in the organisation, and you need to know they'll be able to do the job. Hiring the wrong person isn't just a potentially expensive mistake: put the wrong person in the wrong place at the wrong time and it could kill your business completely (RIP Barings Bank!).

The problem is, most recruiters - even agents, whose job is solely to find candidates for other companies - have their focus all wrong when it comes to finding the right person. And the reason for that isn't hard to find.

Is this the worst business card ever?

I was at a show for startup businesses a couple of weeks ago in London. Taking a break from the stand I joined some fellow exhibitors for lunch. At one point we were interrupted by the arrival of a shadowy figure who walked up to the table and - without a word - dropped a single business card into the centre of the table then walked on to the next table.

Now, I could probably write a whole blog post just discussing his method of approaching us, but let's look at his business card...

The passing of a legend - farewell Jim Rohn

I was deeply saddened to learn of the passing a few days ago of one of the great figures of the Personal Development industry, Jim Rohn. I have been a subscriber to his newsletter for many years, and have learned much from his seminars and recordings. Indeed, it was one of his recordings that kick-started the recovery of my business back in 2005.

He was also an inspiration to other "greats" in the industry such as Tony Robbins, Les Brown and Brian Tracy. His death leaves a gap that will be hard to fill, as befits one of the great personal brands in his field.

A tribute site for this unique and inspirational character has been set up for his friends and students at http://tribute.jimrohn.com/

Farewell, then, to one of the masters. We will not leave you behind; we will take you with us in our thoughts and in our hearts.

Schrodinger's Lunch - does business networking work?

At a recent workshop I ran, one of the attendees asked whether networking works.

I know people in business who swear by the power of networking meetings in growing their business. I also know people who swear just at the thought of going networking. The reality is that for some people it works, and for others it doesn't.

It's a little like Schrodinger's cat. Schrodinger imagined a thought experiment that goes as follows: imagine a cat in a sealed box. In the box there is also a piece of radioactive material that is decaying and will ultimately kill the cat (remember - this is an imaginary cat, not a real one!). How do you know the cat whether the cat is alive or dead? You can't know until you open the box¹.

Networking is much the same: you won't know if it works for you until you try it. And whether networking will work for a particular person is down to two things.

Stand for something. Anything. But stand up and be noticed!

For a while I've complained that there is no truly neutral news service here in the UK. All the newspapers have their own slant, and so do the TV news bulletins. Even the newspaper "The Independent" has it's own opinions. We just can't get unbiased reporting. It struck me as a gap in the market.

Until today.

What do you have to do to get customer satisfaction around here?

We seem to live in a world where fewer and fewer companies are willing to do something for their customers out of a sense of service. Instead they have to be cajoled, coaxed and ultimately threatened before they'll take action.

A few months ago I suspended my membership of a subscription music site while I decided whether to continue. I'd forgotten about this until I got an email advising me that my latest payment had gone through successfully. I was understandably err "peeved", as it had happened without any warning. At the very least one would expect a reminder saying "your holiday period is ending soon. Do you want to renew?"

Changes

I've made a few alterations to the blog. FIrst off, you may have noticed the change of title - this is now The Business Growth Blog, reflecting the fact that personal branding is a tool for achiving just that: business growth. The content of the blog will also broaden to reflect this new focus.

Second, I've added a new Amazon bookstore in the links on the left hand side. I realised that a lot of my readers are in the US, so I've created a bookstore on Amazon.com alongside the existing Amazon.co.uk store. So now, if you're visiting from the US feel free to visit the new store.

OK, it's 1.24 am here - time this blogger was off to sleep!

Before you get into social media, what does your audience look like?

I just found a new online tool that could just be ESSENTIAL for any business that is serious about using social media to reach its target audience.

Forrester Research's Groundswell Consumer Profile Tool will give you a "technographic" profile (think demographic for the internet age) of your audience based on country, age and gender. There are 8 categories of user and a link to an explanation of each category. More detail and analysis can be found in Forrester's new book "Groundswell".

Unmissable :)