TEN FAVORITE

BUSINESS TECHNIQUES FOR

GROWTH Tools for Small Business Success

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BUSINESS TECHNIQUES FOR GROWTH

New book by Tom Gray explains more than 60 techniques

Grow your business with prudence, not passion

Practical techniques for

Managing People

Growing Revenue

Improving Operations

Negotiating and Deciding

Selling Your Small Business

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MY 10 FAVORITES – ADD YOUR OWN!

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1. Breakthrough

Conversation

2. “Knowledge leads to

Behavior” Graphic

3. Segment your people

to boost team results

4. Is my business worth

doing?

5. Quick Wins

6. Growing through

“collectors”

7. Simple techniques to

remove waste

8. Negotiate with off-

target responses

9. Humility in decision-

making

10. Getting the business

ready for sale

1. THE BREAKTHROUGH CONVERSATION

1. “Show me how you do that”

2. “What gets in your way? What makes doing that harder

than it needs to be?”

3. “Which obstacle matters most to better/faster”

4. “How does that obstacle prevent better performance?”

5. “Why do you suppose we do it that way? Why did we think

that was good for us, at some time in the past?”

6. “What would be a better way, so you could do your job

better and faster?”

7. “How should I measure the change in your performance,

so we know that removing the obstacle is worth doing?”

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2. KNOWLEDGE LEADS TO BEHAVIOR

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Drawings

Work

Instructions

(Methods &

Procedures)

Training:

•Write: What, How,

Right/Wrong Photos,

When, Why

•Teach

•Practice

•They Demonstrate

Organize The Work:

• Schedule

• Job Aids

• Measurement

• Accessible references

• Timely parts/tools

• Timely inspections

Perform the Work

Feedback:

• Immediate

measure

• Visual progress

display

•Mgr observes

•Mgr’s personal

feedback

• Mgr makes

improvements in

preceding steps

Policies

3. SEGMENT YOUR PEOPLE TO BOOST RESULTS

Segment your people; choose one thing each could do

better for the most impact on results

A: Your star(s)

B: Potential to be an A with additional experience or

coaching; tell them what it would take

C: Steady and reliable

D: Marginal; requires supervision; work re-done too often

F: Substandard; negative influence on the team is an open

secret, sometimes acknowledged

C’s and D’s may be surprised; that’s productive!

You work with A’s and B’s; let them coach C’s and D’s;

exit the F’s

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4. IS MY BUSINESS WORTH DOING?

Wages/salary pays for your work IN the business

“Return” (profit) pays for your investment and risk of working ON the business

Compare your profit to returns on other uses of funds

3-4% on A-rated corporate bond; low risk

9–11% on S&P 500; moderate risk

6.5% return on 50/50 portfolio; one hr. per week vs. 80!

What return (profit) compensates you for risk, worry, and effort of owning a small business?

20% annually on your investment (including loan)?

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Copyright Thomas H. Gray Inc. 2014

5. QUICK WINS

Boost cash flow and morale

Step back; view business as an outsider to see

opportunities for quick wins

Opportunities:

- Raise price - Use technology

- Negotiate with suppliers - Change timing

- Process changes - Wages vs. market

- Hours - Support people

- Margin per product - Fix, paint, replace

- Ask your people - Standardize

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6. GROWING THROUGH “COLLECTORS”

Collector = one relationship to generate multiple customers: their members or users

Distributor, Association, Team, Agency, Prime Contractor, etc.

First, decide what you want Access to their members: list of email addresses; publication/website for

advertising.

Opportunity for personal presence, such as participation in an event, speaking engagement, sponsorship, or posting your articles on their website or blog.

Status as a preferred provider, such as an endorsement.

Then, decide what to offer the collector Fee to join the association;

Sponsorship fees;

Event entry fees or booth fees;

Pay for each use of the member list for email;

Pay for ad in website or publication;

Possibly, a referral fee, sales commission, or donation.

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7. SIMPLE TECHNIQUES TO REMOVE WASTE

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Standardize Define process; metrics; poka-yoke

Simplify Cut steps; subassemblies; offload, limit options

Balance the Steps Equal time; work cells; buffer stocks

Pull and

Continuous Flow

Trigger replenishment with signal from following

step; kanban

Visual Alerts Kanban; kitting; flags for help; color for priority

Optimize the

Bottleneck

Offload it; more capacity; no downtime; redesign

process; small lots

Continuous

Improvement

Reflect and apply elsewhere; move on to

second stage

8. NEGOTIATE WITH OFF-TARGET RESPONSES

Direct adversarial responses to the other party’s

position just make them try harder to justify that

position!

Makes progress more difficult

Instead, respond with a change

Don’t address what they said

Suggest a new basis for discussion, e.g., annual

volume commitment, or revised timing

Veer away from their position, seeking win/win 11

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9. CHECKLIST FOR MAKING GOOD DECISIONS

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1. Delegate

2. Decide

3. Understand timing

4. Use a Framework

5. Work hard at defining

the problem

6. Check your attitude at

the door

7. Test and quantify your

assumptions

8. Create multiple

alternative courses of

action, then assess

them

9. Ethics: “Listen at the

heart of the spider web”

10. Work hard at

“unintended

consequences”

11. Implementation requires

forethought – it’s not an

afterthought

10. GETTING THE BUSINESS READY FOR SALE

Goals: Highest valuation; most bidders

Method: Change the valuation’s critical discount factors:

1. Owner’s operating role

2. Concentration of customers

3. Growth prospects

4. Reliable cash flow; reliable financial reports

5. Key people committed to staying

6. Operations documented and quality of systems, facilities

7. Key customers/suppliers committed to staying

8. Barriers to competitive entry

9. Product diversity

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ADD YOUR OWN FAVORITES

Business Techniques for Growth explains 60 techniques…I chose only 10 today

Others you might like:

- Growth Machine - New Product Development

- New market segment - Process mapping

- Motivation/demotivation - BATNA

- Incentive plans - Decision Framework

- Selling process - Valuation

Order book then add your favorites to this list!

http://www.businesstechniquesbooks.com/books/business-techniques-for-growth/

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WHO IS TOM GRAY?

Small Business Consultant since 2001

Author: Blog and Books – Business Techniques in

Troubled Times and Business Techniques for Growth

Certified by SCORE, SBDC, Turnaround Management

Association

MBA Professor: Benedictine, Aurora, Concordia

Interim CEO and Director @ 2 Nasdaq firms

At Ameritech: VP, General Manager, Marketing Manager,

Operations Manager

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Copyright 2013 Thomas H. Gray Inc.