The Business Growth Blog by Rob Cuesta

How much is your time REALLY worth

I was at a meeting of the mastermind group I belong to today (yes, even coaches have coaches. Or should that be "Above all, coaches have coaches") and one of the topics that came up was procrastination.

We were talking about ways of prioritising tasks, and how to spot the things that take us away from what we should be doing.

As I was driving home I was struck by a simple way of putting "busy work" into a new light. Want to know what I came up with?

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...

You owe it to your customers to close

At a networking breakfast this morning I told the group at my table a short story about one of my clients. Like many professionals, he hates to sell. I observed one of his sales meetings, at his invitation, and I was shocked to see him go all the way through flawlessly, explaining his unique value propositions, clearly differentiating himself from his competitors, and using all the NLP skills I'd taught him to get the prospect to the brink of signing, and then he opened his mouth and uttered that awful, awful phrase "well, I expect you want to take this all away and think about it".

Have you made yourself scarce?

Have you ever paid over the odds for a 'limited edition' of something? Have you ever felt an irresistible urge to buy something NOW because it was part of a limited offer? And what about those REALLY old (and rare) bottles of vintage wine that sell for thousands, even though everyone - including the seller AND the buyer - know that the wine is undrinkable after so many years?

The answer is simple...    

Personal Branding and the Accounting Profession

Even as far back as 2005, members of the UK's Institute of Chartered Accountants were being advised to work on their personal brand. Addressing that year's prizewinners and the Institute's annual awards, Steve Easterbrook (UK CEO of McDonalds) said: “Chartered Accountants are in such high demand due to their well-rounded flexibility. [Accountants] learn from and observe business management competencies, behaviours and soft skills - both good and bad. To be respected today you have to be authentic. You must understand who you are, your strengths, your weaknesses and your personal values. By being open about these and by being consistent you will be able to build and protect your own reputation.”

Always give 100%

It's happened to all of us: you wake up in the morning feeling tired or somehow below par. Maybe you couldn't get to sleep, maybe you were up late, maybe you're starting to go down with something. You go in to work and you think "I'm not feeling great; I'll put in 60% effort today, but it's OK, I'll make up for it tomorrow."

Starting a Social Media Team

Social can seem like a bit of a minefield in the corporate environment - after all, who wants their staff mouthing off online about their petty gripes in the workplace (at least that's how a lot of corporate executives still seem to view the medium), so I was pleased to find this post about how to set up a corporate social media team, though it's applicable to organisations of any size, and just as relevant in the not-for-profit sector.

Niche personal brands

As I sat the other day lecturing some undergraduates on corporate strategy, I started to think about Michael Porter, the guru whose business model I was explaining.

Probably 80% of the people reading this have just gone "Michael who?" And that's fine, because the chances are that if you've never heard to Michael Porter it's because you didn't need to. For the other 20%, though, he is likely to be a major figure in many professional conversations, or at least in their daily thinking at work.

Now, does that make him any less powerful a personal brand than, say, Oprah, Bill Gates or Richard Branson?