Vanquish Your Business Demons

As business owners, we feel we understand APR when we are checking out finance options, so it seems like a reasonable starting question. Apparently, we are all idiots and this is the most annoying question in the world to ask a finance broker.

In this latest series of the Business Demons podcast I have teamed up with veteran broker Mike Deacon to explore how business owners can improve how their business runs and make it easier for him to find us finance.

Bill & Julia talk about Sales & Marketing Strategy in this episode - why you need one and how to go about making it the best

Thi phrase is true of a lot of things, but it is particularly true when it comes to business strategy. Which is why Julia & Bill are talking about it.

Welcome back to series 4! Julia is being joined in this series by the other half of Be Astute - Bill Stock to talk about the various issues and joys of being a small business owner.

We got a great question from one of our listeners this week, and it turned into a great conversation about all things staff - including the role of hotpants in the workplace........

Everything in business is a choice. Some we feel in control of and some we feel pushed into. So why are we making the choices that we do?

This week Julia and Andrea are talking about the joys of staff training - why business owners don't do this, and all the benefits for your business if you do it well. And yes - raft building with a lady on a mobility scooter was discussed........

This week Andrea and Julia are talking about the joys of webinars - not to visit but to run as a way of generating more sales for your business. Why is this interesting? Because so many people run dreadful webinars! So pick up a bunch of tips from two experts about how to be a cut above the competition.

We have all had times when we decided to let things slide - and normally regretted them later when they turn into much bigger problems - so what is the art of bud nipping?

Julia & Andrea discuss an age old leadership question today. Some leaders deliberately recruit people to be better than them: leading to the questions - What value is the boss adding? Others deliberately recruit people who will never threaten them: So what is the plan for business continuity?

Andrea is very proud that she has started to set time boundaries - and they worked! Cue a wide ranging conversation about the difference between Leadership and Management, plus what you need to think about next. This seemed to involve toilets and the Kennedy Space Centre.......

Julia and Andrea decided to go all educational this week - looking at two key pieces of business jargon and why they might help business owners be less unintentionally daft with how they run their empire.

And the answer is yes - you do need these 2 things in your life.......

Andrea and Julia have both put their prices up and are loving the results. This week they talk about what they did and how it changed things in their business.

There are many different reasons why business owners lose the plot. Julia & Andrea decided to explore this topic because they both had these feelings. Given that most people do not enjoy feeling like this, and it impacts how the rest of the world see us, they thought it was a good topic.

Networking - sometimes known as not-working can be an incredibly powerful business tool.  It can also be a massive waste of time, effort and money.  Which is why Julia & Andrea decided to make it the subject of this weeks podcast.  And pretty much just managed to tickle the surface.......

Andrea and Julia spend this week talking about how our appetite to risk is actually is quite nuanced - we can be really brave in some parts of our lives and absolutely chicken in others.  Understanding this helps with our business and life strategy.  And in working out which comfort zones we should be pushing.

Andrea and Julia got inspired by a Linked In post they spotted last week from a business owner feeling guilty about taking her kids to work during half term.  Unsurprisingly they had an opinion about that........ 

Revenge is sweet!  Last week Andrea tormented Julia over her knowledge of how to manage teams.  This week it's Julia's turn to grill Andrea - on all the things businesses get wrong when trying to do their own PR.....

Andrea came up with what she thought was a brilliant plan this week.  Ask Julia a load of questions about managing remote teams and see if she cracks........  Since Julia has over 20 years experience of managing every type of team there is you can decide if Andrea was on to a winner.

We use IT to run every aspect of our businesses to one extent or another.  But that does not mean we are making good decisions about what to use or who to trust with something so business critical - to your customer service, reputation, and profitability......

All of which Julia & Andrea talk about.

Small businesses tend to be more than just about making money.  As business owners our values and passions get wrapped up in the values for our business.  And there is such emphasis on the climate challenge at the moment it is easy to think that a public commitment to this is a sure fire business winner.  But is it really? Julia & Andrea investigate.......  

Julia & Andrea are talking about loyalty schemes this week.  Something that as small business owners we always feel we should be doing - it is after all many times easier to get an existing customer to spend more than it is to find a new one.  So is it always a walk in the park or something we should be putting sa lot more thought in to?

New Year - new podcast host!  Amazing PR expert Andrea Sexton has joined the Business Demons team to give her really interesting take on being a small business owner - that everything you do comes back to reputation.  And she is totally correct.

To start off with we thought we would talk consistency.  It is the key to business success - and permeates absolutely everything

As business owners we all know we should be investing to grow.  So why do so many of us have a problems with doing just that?  Vicky & I see this a lot in the people we talk to, both at start up and at key moments.  There is a lot of head nonsense going on in the decisions we do and don't take - which is what we are focusing on in the episode.

As business owners survival mode is a real state of mind.  And it isn't a good one.  Often created by external factors - the state of the economy, external regulation, or even personal problems. Survival mode makes the world look grey, and reduces your own mental room for maneuver.   Both Vicky and Julia have been through it, and thought today was a good time to talk about what it is and how it impacts.  Plus most importantly - what you can do when you find yourself in it's clutches........

Vicky's back!  And Julia is still banging on about Customer Service.  So what are the mindset reasons why business owners minimize customer experiences?

And we all do this..... For a variety of reasons and to different levels.  

A sign of poor customer service?  When your potential customer is still whining about it 4 days later.....  Which you might decide is entertaining in itself, but being Julia & Bill from Be Astute they can't resist going beyond this to explore the reasons why poor service happens and what you can do about it as a business owner.

It happens to all business owners.  Your clients start bringing their own nonsense to your relationship and things start getting personal.  This is not the same as us taking responsibility for when things go wrong, but we have all had situations where we start to question why we are putting up with being treated like this.  As an employee things can feel more clear cut - and there should be more support in helping you to assert your right to not be treated like slime on the bottom of someone's shoe.  As a business owner there is more going on in your head.  But you ultimately became self employed in order to have more control over your life.  So what do do.......?

Start by listening to this weeks podcast as Julia & Vicky dissect what is going on and what to do with it.

Julia & Vicky are talking about training this week.  It is a subject that they are more than normally opinionated about.....  You might be able to tell that from this weeks episode.  

There is a lot of really dodgy staff training out there, and some really great stuff.  So how can you get what you do in your business to be the ...... well, business?

Julia & Vicky were inspired by Liz Truss today.  With all that is going on in UK politics it seemed fair to do a bit of deconstruction and apply it to the world of being a business owner.  Because there re lots of people who own a business who hate leading.......

How we set our prices and at what level are two big challenges for all business owners.  And the big question is "What is the competition doing?"

This can lead to you moving away from doing work you love or cutting your profits and standards to fit with something someone else is doing.

So how to get out of this rut?

While there are lots of people having a freak out about the current economic situation, there are plenty more who need to grow their business.  So what should we thinking about in order to make a success of things?

A recent survey of small business owners found over half felt unsupported.  Whether this statistic feels accurate to you or not, it raises an interesting question about why this should be so, when small business owners are so in control of their own destiny.  And a great topic of conversation for Vicky and Julia - who might be a touch biased......

Being British, Vicky and Julia have spent the last week living through the official grieving period for the Queen.  And it has inspired them to think about how many people will have felt excluded for having views, thoughts and opinions which could be deemed "inappropriate".  As a business owner there have been plenty of decisions to be made and there have been quite a few businesses who got those decisions wrong.

Now all the fuss is over, you could say we are a week late talking about this.  Except there are plenty of times when external events create a challenge - in the last couple of years we can think about Black Lives Matter, Extinction Rebellion,  even the war in Ukraine.  There are also smaller incidents which can create tensions in the workplace.  

Everyone is talking about Quiet Quitting - a new name for an age old problem.  How to get the best from your team and what to do when people under-perform.  So absolutely tons for Julia and Vicky to talk about from their different perspectives and experiences.  We hop e you find it useful!

We spend a lot of time as business owners focusing on increasing demand in order to grow.  But what about the times when the restriction is on the supply side not demand?  This is what Vicky & Julia are exploring this week - and coming up with some surprising suggestions.

We have a guest presenter this week - IT God Bill Stock.  Continuing our theme of how business owners can thrive in challenging times, this week we are looking at how innovating how we run our businesses can be a really powerful tool.

Anyone else fed up with the constant barrage of negative headlines about looming recession and increasing energy prices?  And all the people shouting "We're DOOMED!!!"  Julia and Vicky are - so this week they are talking about how to take advantage of all the lovely opportunities out there to grow your business.

We often chuck technical language into our speech - it is a great way to show our intelligence and knowledge.  But what if our audience don't really understand what we are talking about?  At that point we just sound like a poncy idiot.  So this week Vicky and Julia are covering some words that we hear a lot as business owners and really delving into what we mean, and how they are all related.

Inflation is a key business challenge sweeping the world right now.  And it pushes a lot of buttons for business owners.  Which is why Vicky and Julia are talking about it this week!

Our attitude to business risk sits behind pretty much every business decision we make.  So we thought we should talk about it, and what we can do to understand it.

In the last couple of pod casts we have been talking about the joys of planning - and making the theory sound so easy.  Just write a plan and miraculous things will happen.

Bu the reality is not like that.  The world is littered with plans that have never been implemented.  And there are business owners across the world with a plan that did not motivate them in any way.

So that is what we are talking about in this recording - what is going on when our plans are not coming together

We know, sounds really dull.  And many of us hate planning - so why would you want to listen to a podcast talking about something so dull?  But the point of planning is to plan - and that involves dreaming and scheming - and that is not dull at all.  So Julia and Vicky are imparting their knowledge of the subject - to help you be better at this important business success skill

We know we should - everyone tells us that having goals helps us to achieve business success.  But what they don't talk about is all the reasons why having formal targets can make business owners feel queasy.  And this is what Vicky and Julia are unpacking this week. 

It's summer!  Yay!  But for business, summer can be tough on the motivation.  The weather is tempting you outside, your customers are all on holiday, and no-one wants to say yes.  But if your order book is not full it can also be a time of stress.  And if it is full, a time of guilt.

This week, Vicky and Julia are exploring the different things that could be going on, and giving some useful tips for how to overcome them.  

So last week we talked about Performance Management.  And gave the impression that if you did this bit right everything would be rosy in your staffing garden.  Sadly life does not work out like that, so this week Julia and Vicky discuss what comes next and how to handle it - the Disciplinary process.

Sounds scary, and risky and horrid - and it doesn't have to be.

Getting the best out of your team is an art - a combination of rapport, development, trust, and accountability.  And whether you like the analogy or not, it is a lot like dealing with a toddler.

Some of us hate it, some of us can cope with it, and some of us love the challenge.  Julia is one of those weird people who love it, and Mindset Revolutionary Vicky knows some great ways to go about getting better at it.

We hope you enjoy it!

Julia and Vicky set out to talk about plateauing business performance this week, and how to go about moving forwards with your goals when you get stuck in once place.  This coined the brilliant phrase "Rocking on my Hamster Wheel" to describe those times when you are trying but just not succeeding in achieving your goals.

So if you are fed up of rocking, and would like to get your wheels moving again, please listen to get some great tips and insights to help you.

Julia & Vicky are being slightly opinionated this week.  No surprise there then.  And the subject?  Can you drop everything to go on holiday.  Should you even try?

Well yes - you should.  And yes you can.

Over the last 3 weeks Vicky & Julia have explored the mechanics of great recruitment - those steps which can have a big impact to making the right hire.  This week they explore the impact of getting the right personality mix in your business and how psychometrics can be massively helpful.