Time Waster to Money Maker: How Small Businesses Can Eradicate Distractions

Starting out in business you are every job role to everyone – accountant, recruitment, marketing, administration, personal assistant, sales, CEO, CFO, HR, PR…and with very little chance of R+R! You live in your email inbox or on the phone – it’s simply what you have to do.

Then, as a small business grows so does the team – and yet somehow you become even busier. I’m fortunate to work with a few companies who are at this stage, all of whom are tech savvy and a few of which are taking some rather extreme measures to save them spending all their time buried in their inbox or on the phone…

Research Behind the Reasoning

Researchers from the University of California found that employees get just eleven minutes of work time between each distraction, after which it can take up to twenty-five minutes to get back to the original task at hand. This suggests a huge loss in productivity and signals the need to erase at least some of the daily distractions employees face.

But, But But…

BUT… you’re running a business, how can you do so without being on the phone or answering emails? As mentioned above, I’ve clocked on to some excellent ways in which some SMEs have saved time and maximised productivity.

Option 1: Set an Out of Office

Tim Ferris, author of best-selling business book The 4-Hour Work Week, suggests using an out-of-office style email which states that emails will only be checked at 11am and 4pm each day. With so much time wasted scouring through inboxes and replying to each and every tiny request as it comes in, enforcing just two inbox checks per day can encourage clients or employees to:

a) Find their own solutions
b) Wait
c) Pick up the phone if it’s urgent and sort out the issue far more quickly

One hesitancy might be if customers get angry at this arrangement, however evidence largely shows they are not likely to be offended by the choice – indeed, they know exactly when their email is going to be seen which is more certain than the alternative. A client of mine did this for a boutique hotel, and didn’t get a murmur of complaint – customers and employees alike had no issue and it’s still in place today.

Option 2: Remove Your Phone Number Entirely

Take a look at this contact page – notice anything interesting? No phone number! They have removed the telephone number from their website entirely and instead, everything is done by email and online chat. This company is an eCommerce brand and very technical – as such this works both for their productivity as well as their customers; their reviews are positive and 40% of their customers use their online chat facility before they buy.

Through live chat, email or via their ticketing system, customers can get in touch in numerous ways and don’t seem to miss the option of a phone number. For this to work however, with 40% of customers wanting to discuss their potential purchase online, having competent technical sales staff is vital.

Option 3: Hire Out

It’s increasingly common to hire an actor to make those dreaded sales or lead follow-up calls that eat up an afternoon, and it doesn’t cost the earth – some actors charge as little as £10 an hour. Additionally, Virtual Assistants (VAs) are becoming more and more popular due to their ease of use and the fact that you don’t need to sacrifice any professionalism to outsource your admin and sales activities. For example, Internet companies such as Voipfone charge just £2 per month for a professional phone number that feeds direct to your mobile – a small price to pay to communicate a professional veneer.

Personally, I find speaking on the phone makes you a human to your client, and even better than that, is seeing them face-to-face. However, it is a hectic and busy world out there and having less stressful alternatives – be this in the form of outsourcing, limiting your time online or limiting your time on the phone – can help boost your morale and that of your team. Startups and SMEs are the most frequent new type of business in the UK and small teams are expected to make big waves if they are to compete with larger and more established ones.

With so much to think about when growing a team, the smaller administration matters such as responding to constant emails and being distracted by phone calls can cause a great deal of stress and detract from more important aspects of business growth. The three aforementioned options all approach these issues in different ways and what works for one company may not work for another. I have seen several companies reach the same end with varying techniques, but the message remains the same: creating new paths for the distractions gives way to the more important things, and allows you and your small business to grow and succeed without too much stress.

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Help Available for Small Microbusinesses With InterTradeIreland’s ‘Elevate’ Programme

Exporting can seem like such a large step to the smallest businesses on our island, however, it can be less daunting with the help of InterTradeIreland’s ‘Elevate’ programme which supports micro-businesses as they make this move.  The sales development programme assists small businesses, in particular those with fewer than ten employees, to develop sales opportunities through first time cross-border exports.

 

Elevate

The Elevate programme provides sector-specific sales support of up to £5,000 across a range of sectors including food and beverage, ICT and Engineering as well as many others.  The programme has already helped 245 small businesses and since 2013, those businesses which have been surveyed following completion of Elevate have generated new cross-border sales of approximately £2.6million.  In addition, over the same period, 31 new jobs were created and 52 were sustained.

 

Specialist support

Small businesses participating in Elevate can choose from a list of more than 100 experienced industry specialists.  These experts can then help them to identify sales leads in the cross-border market, negotiate deals, share relevant market insights, identify market research requirements and offer advice on the development of marketing materials.

 

Programme success for Antrim company

A shining example of what can be achieved through the Elevate programme, is the achievements of Advance Machinery Installation Ltd, a micro-business from Antrim. The company specialises in the relocation of single pieces of machinery right through to complete factory moves and re-organisations.  All of Advance’s clients are large manufacturers and customers in Northern Ireland include Bombardier, Diageo, Ryobi, Coca-Cola and Kerry Group.

 

Before the Elevate programme, Advance carried out around 90% of its business in Northern Ireland with the remaining 10% in the Republic of Ireland.  Alistair Carson, director, believed that the cross-border market could offer new leads but he didn’t have the time or resources to investigate properly.

 

Potential cross-border leads

In the past the firm had approached the cross-border market periodically and had never proactively searched for new business. They knew that there could potentially be leads but with a small team, the micro-business was busy focusing on the clients they already had.

 

Results of the Elevate Programme

Advance Machinery was delighted with the Elevate programme and said that what they had achieved within six months of taking part would have taken them years!  Where the firm had previously relied on the phone ringing to get jobs in the south, the Elevate consultant had turned this approach on its head and now the business was actively pursuing business.

 

This targeted approach has been very beneficial to Advance Machinery and it has highlighted that there really are opportunities out there if you go looking for them.

 

Since taking part in the Elevate programme, the firm has increased the level of business they do in the Republic of Ireland from 10% to 30%.  They have secured orders in Ireland in the region of £240,000 through Elevate, including major contracts with Sonoco, Manninckrodt and Norland with several other leads to take forward.

 

Support necessary to expedite success

As small companies make up 96% of businesses on the island it is essential that they receive the support they require to expand and flourish.

 

The cross-border market is often an underutilised but logical first step to wider export markets, giving experience of varied legislation and working with a different currency but has the comfort of being more accessible. Once mastered this makes looking at European markets a more realistic prospect.  The Elevate programme was designed with simplicity in mind to remove as much bureaucracy as possible.  As such, a relatively simple and straight-forward application process was devised and put in place. I would urge all interested small businesses with less than £1million turnover to register their interest and apply to Elevate today.

 

Like to know more?

For more information on the Elevate programme, including full eligibility criteria visit www.intertradeireland.com/elevate.

Making the right move: Thomas Hunter McGowan, chief executive of InterTradeIreland joins Alistair Carson, director of Antrim-based Advance Machinery Installation, to encourage all micro-businesses across the province to take advantage of the Elevate programme which is now open for applications. Advance, which specialises in the relocation of machinery, believes the fully-funded initiative by InterTradeIreland, enabled them to grow their cross-border business from 10%-30% in around six months and is urging other small firms to benefit from this growth opportunity. For more information, visit www.intertradeireland.com/elevate.

Making the right move: Thomas Hunter McGowan, chief executive of InterTradeIreland joins Alistair Carson, director of Antrim-based Advance Machinery Installation, to encourage all micro-businesses across the province to take advantage of the Elevate programme which is now open for applications.

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Startup Strategy: How to Cultivate Customer Loyalty

Customer acquisition and retention are probably the top focus for any startup. Without word-of-mouth referrals, it’s very difficult for a startup to stay in business long. Fortunately or unfortunately, the Internet and the prevalence of social media have made customer impressions rapidly publicized the instant a customer sends out feedback. This means that startup ventures need to be more careful than ever to cultivate customer loyalty.

The following are some useful techniques for establishing customer loyalty amid the immediacy of today’s online communication channels:

Meet Customer Needs

First and foremost, it’s necessary to provide customers with what they need to meet their needs. Don’t simply provide customers and potential customers with the information you have; instead, seek out the information they need. This should be part of your content marketing campaign. Every interaction with a customer counts. If an interaction takes a turn for the worst, you probably will never have the opportunity to get that customer back again, so act accordingly.

Strive for Absolute Transparency

Customers value honesty. This is especially important to customers when they are dealing with a new company abut which they may have some uncertainties. It’s easy to spread false information on the Internet, but it never pays off. Honesty should be the most important focus on any interaction with a new customer for a startup company.

Go the Extra Mile

What’s going to put you ahead of your competition? Sometimes, it may seem easier to just meet the bare minimum when it comes to your interactions with potential customers. It will seem easier to your competitors, too. A machinist from an online machine shop says it pays, in the long run, to make the extra effort when meeting your customers’ needs. You’ll be guaranteed success if you can provide customers with an offer that can’t be beat. Such an offer might cost you extra effort at the outset, but it will pay off as word gets around.

Establish Authority

When you make a purchase on a particular item or service, you want to know that you’re dealing with an authority on the subject. Likewise, customers want to do business with the authority in your industry. This means that you need to make yourself an authority to enjoy the success that you seek.

A loyal customer is thousands of times more valuable to your startup company than a disgruntled customer. Focus on cultivating customer loyalty and you will grow and prosper with time.

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Start-up Story: Grant & Leng

Our Business

Grant & Leng is a Chinese business services company. We provide startups and small businesses in the UK & Ireland the services need to do business in China. The services we provide range from translation and localisation of documents, software applications, sourcing and selling products in china, setting up a business in China, investment sourcing, visas, market research, marketing, language and cultural training.

The benefits we bring to customers is an easy, hassle free way of doing business in China and engaging with a 500 million consumer market (same population as the EU). The main barrier we find is the language and culture. So we provide custom training to organisations to help in this area as well as using market research to help our clients on the ground in China find out if their business is viable there. We target startups and SMEs as we provide competitive prices that will not break the bank.

Why did we start it

We started up as within the UK & Ireland the governments in all regions are pushing businesses towards China. China is seen as the next big economy after the US. Most products we use today are made in China and the economy there is moving from a manufacturing to services economy. This may take 10 years but now is a good time for foreign companies to adapt to the Chinese way of doing business.

We also have in our strategy to help adapt markets such as the tourism industry in UK & Ireland towards Chinese tourists. The Chinese government themselves estimate there will be around 500-600 million Chinese tourists globally per year by 2017. We therefore need our hotels, tourist attractions and restaurants to adapt to this market and attract them. Simple things such as website and leaflets translated into Chinese would make tourists more likely to visit. The UK & Irish governments have helped in this manner by agreeing a joint visa scheme to allow Chinese tourists to get one visa and visit each others countries.

Where do we see it going

We see our business developing and expanding through the UK & Ireland. We have setup in Belfast to access the Northern Ireland market but also have obtained clients in the Republic of Ireland and Great Britain. Our position in Northern Ireland allows for this flexibility. We see ourselves opening offices in the future in Dublin and possibly London.

We are continuously partnering with Chinese companies that help startups and do work in IT and manufcaturing. We hope for this to increase so we have a wide range of contacts in China to help all types of business expand there or source products there.

How to grow

To grow we need to change attitudes. Talking to businesses there is an attitude that China is too far away to do business there and its too corrupt. In today’s global world no where is too far away. Businesses tend to focus more on the EU and US market as they are safe in their view in relation to culture and language in most cases. We want to break this attitude. With the required help from our company we can take the language and cultural elements out of the equation and get the businesses right in and working with China. Being there to support our clients we hope they will change their mindset towards doing business there.

What have we learnt

As we started the business we learned that the new methods always mentioned in the media such as facebook, twitter etc maybe a good way to advertise your business and get clients. But having events and talking face to face with potential clients is still the best way. You need to be seen to get your name known, just sitting putting tweets out and creating facebook profiles will not show the true business.

Tips for other businesspeople starting out

Make sure and have your business planned out. Don’t be starting your business then make up what your doing along the way. As when your talking to potential clients in meetings they will get the feeling you haven’t thought your business through very well. Always have a clear aim and stick to it, read it through in your head everyday to keep that aim a priority. When you reach that aim you will know you have succeeded.

Written by Davy Grant. For more information about this business please visit http://www.grantleng.co.uk. You can share your start-up story too – follow this link.

 

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Creating a Successful Branding Strategy for your Small Business

Small businesses need to devote a lot of time and energy to creating and reinforcing their branding strategies; perhaps more than the ‘big brands’ out there, whose only job is maintenance. This is the age of the small business – in fact; many corporate brands are re-engineering their style to resemble smaller brands in order to appeal to consumers who prefer to promote the up-and-coming brands.

As a small business owner/entrepreneur, you probably know that branding is vital for business success, but do you really know why? There is a direct link between marketing success and strong branding, but until you fully understand exactly where this is, the best you can do is try to copy what’s been done before by successful brands.

Strong and successful branding extends beyond just having a nice logo and improving brand awareness and external perception. Strong branding must permeate every aspect of the business, so much so that the word ‘business’ can be seamlessly substituted for ‘brand’.

What is branding?

Branding is the vehicle through which you define the business not only to external parties, but also to your team and even yourself. It defines the ‘identity’ of the business and is an embodiment of the values, objectives and core competencies of the business.

However, this is different from advertising. Today’s customer can tell when a business is just glossing over or trying to charm their way into higher sales revenues. Branding must be the real deal; reaching out to customers in much the same way a young man trying to woo a lady might do – honest, but impressive.

Having a strategic brand definition will help your potential clients to connect with your brand on an emotive level, since they share the same beliefs and values espoused by your brand. This in turn increases sales, improves loyalty, memorability and advocacy and improves brand differentiation. It can also help you protect your pricing should competitors resort to discount offers to drive sales.

Creating a successful branding strategy

  1. Brand definition

Review products/services offered by the business and identify the niche you serve within the market. Conduct research on the rational and emotive needs of that niche and how your brand character can help you connect with consumers in a distinct way.

  1. Characterization

Imagine the brand you’re building as a person with values, beliefs, purposes and a unique character/personality. This directs behavior, presentation and communication. For human beings, this comes intuitively, but for a brand, all these aspects must be carefully engineered to provide an accurate picture.

  1. Business drivers

You should have this by now, but if not, consider the values and beliefs of your brand, the core objectives for which it exists and who you consider to be your brand heroes. This will establish a brand positioning platform and drive character and identity for improved brand communication.

  1. Consistency

Finally, aim to create a long-term relationship with consumers. This means that you cannot raise expectations beyond what you can offer or embellish your real picture that results in broken promises and broken trust, things you cannot afford when building a brand. Create an honest brand by speaking with a consistent tone of voice and acting consistently with the message you transmit. This will reinforce who you are in the minds of consumers.

Bio: Lalit Sharma is an SEO consultant who runs a SEO house called Ranking By SEO. He is specialized inlink building and other SEO related activities. You can also find him on Twitter, Google+ and his personal site.

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What we can learn from young entrepreneurs

Last week I had the pleasure of judging the Foroige National finals. OMG! to use the language of the people we were judging. The quality, attitude, talent, ambition and chutzpah was amazing. The quality of their pitches was better then I have seen from some professional entrepreneurs. Their business plans were superb. And most important, their attitude to sales is something a lot of the start ups I work with can learn from. A lot. No fear, can do, picking up the phone, making sales, negotiation with retailers and securing distribution. Local, national and international. Alex, Craig, Aisling, Erica, Mary, Aimee, Rebecca, Linda, Clare, Tom and Dane were all amazing. These young entrepreneurs will go places. They will go far. And it shows the value of running entrepreneurship programmes in secondary schools.

If you want to support any of these amazing entrepreneurs, drop me a line (ron@smallbusinesscan.com) and I will facilitate the introduction

Alex and Craig

Alex Conroy and Craig Lynch, both students at Chanel College in Coolock, set up their festive log candle holder business in October 2014 as part of the NFTE programme. From their market research the students found that competitors were charging a premium price for similiar products.  They decided that they would produce designed wooden holders that are affordable. Their mission is: “bring the festive feeling home at special times of the year”. The students have decided to give 20% of the profits to charity.

Aisling

Aisling Farrell , from Coláiste Pobal Setanta in Clonee, offers personalised grips for hurls as her business product. The inspiration for her product came while shopping for a hurling grip. She noticed that none of the grips available were unique or colourful. Unique Hold offers customised hurling grips to match club or county colours. She also sells grips that are designed to the customer’s needs. Aisling aspires to eventually sell Unique Hold grips to local GAA clubs and hopes to donate 20% of her profits to the Irish Lung Foundation.

Erica

Erica Masterson completed her her NFTE programme with Foróige in Phibblestown, Blanchardstown. Her product is an organising shelf for school lockers. Suitable for most locker types, the shelf allows you to seperate bigger books from smaller copy books. Each shelf is designed with a range of well known emojis that adds an element of fun to the school day. The idea from this product came from her own personal experience when trying to organise her school locker. Through market research, She found that there was a gap in the market for a product like this.

Mary, Aimee, Rebecca

Mary Kate Carr, Aimée Byrne, Rebecca McShane and Ronan O’Hare students from Coláiste na Carraige’s NFTE programme which is supported by Foróige. Their business “Milseog na Mara” offers healthy and tasty alternatives to jellies, cold remedies and chocolate mousse using carrageen moss as the main ingredient. They got their inspiration for these products when Mary Kate fell ill and was given a cold remedy using carrageen moss. Through market research, the students found that there was a huge gap in the market for a product like this which is afforadable at €3 per jar.  “Milseog na Mara”  currently trades at local country markets.

Linda and Clare

Linda Dolan and Clare Dolan, are Transition Year students at St Clare’s Comprehensive School. Their business “MURE” was born when the students were working on their local farm. While discussing the large amounts of cow manure their family farm produced, the students decided to turn the cow manure into euros by making fuel from the free natural resource. “MURE” produces a fire log consisting of seven briquettes made from cow manure. They currently sell their product at €4 each or €10 for 3 briquettes. The students hope to roll out their product nationwide.

Tom and Dane

Tom Williams and Dane Fogarty are Leaving Cert Applied students from St Joseph’s School in Clonmel. The inspiration for their business Tom and Dane’s Kitchen came from their enjoyment of catering and woodwork classes. Their business produces a range of homemade savoury jams and chutneys including red onion jam, apple and orange chutney. The jams and chutneys are available in a range of sizes. Tom and Dane launched their business at the RDS Arts and Crafts Christmas Fair 2014. Tom and Dane plan to expand their product range further to increase their customer base.

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Social Entrepreneurs Ireland: Think Big, Act Now, Change Ireland

Social Entrepreneurs Ireland: Slow down. Take stock. Decelerate.

Not the typical thing you’d expect to hear from an organisation like Social Entrepreneurs Ireland perhaps. We are set up to scale the best solutions for social problems around Ireland. We support projects that have the potential to take an idea and replicate it elsewhere. After all, if we have found a solution to a problem in Wicklow, shouldn’t we be implementing this in other counties around Ireland? If we have found a more effective or more efficient way of doing something, shouldn’t more people benefit from the positive impact?

And it is a core trait of all entrepreneurs that they want to grow and develop their idea, to reach as many people as possible, to impact upon the world. As Steve Jobs said, entrepreneurs want to ‘make a dent in the universe’.

Social Entrepreneurs Ireland

At Social Entrepreneurs Ireland we love that attitude. Our slogan is ‘Think Big. Act Now. Change Ireland’ and it is because of this passion and the potential to significantly impact Ireland that we work with social entrepreneurs.

But over the last 10 years we have learned that all of this should come with a small note of caution. The rush to scale projects, to work with more people and to increase your impact, while totally understandable,  is potentially counter-productive. Our experience has taught us that often what some of the most exciting projects need is a period of deceleration before they can think seriously about acceleration.

Getting the Model Right

Before you can deliver a solution at scale, it is vital to delve deeply into the core service, product or solution that you are delivering. And once that is clear, the scaling model needs to be clearly developed and defined before starting to roll it out. We have seen it many times that early success is seized upon and attempts are made to replicate something before it is ready. And the danger is that a really powerful idea might fail and as a result be written off.

Is your model scalable? Is it sustainable? Can you replicate the core elements of it or is it dependent on the actions of a few key individuals? Do you have the capacity to deliver at a bigger scale?

At SEI we now take a lot of time at the beginning of the Awards Programme to work through all of these things with the entrepreneurs, and only move to scaling conversations once the fundamentals are in place.

Demands

Another challenge that we have seen in recent years is that big, exciting ideas often receive a huge amount of attention very quickly. In particular, projects led by young social entrepreneurs can receive a lot of interest from media, potential partners and supporters. While this support and coverage is potentially transformational for the entrepreneur, the risk is that they may become over-exposed, they may burn out, or they may just be distracted by all of the noise, events and attention, to the detriment of their projects. In these cases they may not fulfil the early potential that their projects have.

Learnings for SEI and for Social Entrepreneurs

Indeed, this is a challenging issue for us in SEI, as our Awards Programme celebrates these social entrepreneurs quite publicly. It is a constant challenge for us to find the right balance between protecting the social entrepreneurs and showcasing their work. I’m not sure we’ve always gotten it right but we are constantly working on it.

Over the years at SEI we have changed and adapted our approach and now have a much more nuanced approach to how we work with social entrepreneurs. We are very conscious that sometimes the best thing we can provide a project is to give thempermission to decelerate for a while, to take a breath, to take stock, to slow down, so that when they do choose to scale, they are ready to give it absolutely everything.

Darren

Darren Ryan, Chief Executive, Social Entrepreneurs Ireland

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What Does a Conservative Government Mean for Small Business

For better or for worse, the Conservative government achieved a majority vote this election. For business owners, it will probably come as no surprise that things are about to get a lot easier for us financially and legislatively. But just what have the Conservative party promised for small businesses? Let’s take a look at how their policies will help us in the coming years.

Conservative Government Boosting Start-Ups

The Conservative party are aiming to boost the number of start-ups every year to 600,000 by 2020. They will be reviewing the benefits available for the self-employed and trebling the start-up loan programme. Also, to encourage entrepreneurs further, they are aiming to invest more money into superfast broadband, so people can easily conduct their business from the comfort of their home.

Slashing Red Tape

Many businesses complain that red tape, such as regulations and paperwork, costs them time and money. The Conservatives are planning on drastically reducing the regulations restricting business, in the hope that it will save billions of pounds every year. Businesses will have more freedom to do what they like.

Hiring and Firing Rights

With a Conservative government in power, the rights and power will move from employees to employers. It’s likely that companies will be allowed to hire and fire at will, without fear of ramifications, under a proposal called Beecroft, which was previously quashed by the Liberal Democrats. Employment tribunals will become even more obsolete, and it will mean that any employees that aren’t pulling their weight can be quickly replaced.

Europe?

There is a big question mark over whether we will remain a part of the European Union or not. This subject divides business owners, so you may think that this is actually a negative, depending on your company and its goals. Either way, Europe is going to be a big deal after this election – do you want to stay in, or do you think we should leave?

Late Payments

Late payments are a huge problem for small businesses in the UK. It massively interrupts cash flow and can cause serious issues – in fact, many companies go out of business because of late payments alone. The Conservative party will look at ways that we can legislate against late payments effectively. It isn’t doing the economy any favours and it should tighten up our fiscal processes.

Although this is an important governmental step, if you have experienced cash flow problems and you are unsure how best to react, this getting paid on time guide should help provide clear guidance on how to deal with such a scenario.

Investment in Infrastructure

Infrastructure will receive some much needed funding, to make it easier for businesses to meet up with their clients. In particular, a rail line will be built from Birmingham to London, which is great news for anyone living there. This will also help to spread the wealth from our capital city, out towards other cities in the UK. Freelancers and the self-employed will particularly benefit from this.

Cut Taxes

Wealthy business owners will rejoice when they hear that, yes, Osborne plans to cut taxes for businesses, in order to help them flourish. This will also encourage other large companies to set up shop in the UK, further boosting the country’s economy.

Are you happy that the Conservatives were elected? Let us know in the comments below.

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Ultimate Human Performance; Using Flow as a Business Tool

In this post we’ll investigate how using flow (ultimate focus) can be useful in business and how it can lead to the ultimate human performance.

We have always had an interest in the power of the human mind. Which goes beyond being mindful, but moves also into the paranormal, spirituality, neuroscience, hypnosis, auras, chakras, Tao, physics., science fiction, gaming and more relevant to business, performance, decision making and strategy.

Vision and decision making

Core elements in business are always visioning (=strategy) and first, second and maybe third stage thinking (=decision making). Both impact on performance. Inspired by Jack Black’s “Mindstore” and after reading “Bold”, I decided to pick up “The rise of superman”.

Flow

Which is all about finding Csikszentmihalyi’s flow. In flow, we are so focused on the task at hand that everything else falls away. Action and awareness merge. Time flies. Self vanishes. Performance goes through the roof.

The advertisement for flow

Flow naturally transforms a weakling into a muscleman, a sketcher into an artist, a dancer into a ballerina, a plodder into a sprinter, an ordinary person into someone extraordinary. Everything you do, you do better in flow, from baking a chocolate cake to planning a vacation to solving a differential equation to writing a business plan to playing tennis to making love. Flow is the doorway to the ‘more’ most of us seek.

More advertisement for flow

From a quality-of-life perspective, psychologists have found that the people who have the most flow in their lives are the happiest people on earth.Flow directly correlates to happiness at work and happiness at work directly correlates to success. A decade of research in the business world proves happiness raises nearly every business and educational outcome: raising sales by 37 percent, productivity by 31 percent, and accuracy on tasks by 19 percent, as well as a myriad of health and quality-of-life improvements.

Extreme athletes and flow

Yep, it is an advertisement for flow. Steven Kotler uses the extreme athletes as the medium to tell the story of flow and what we can learn. In their case it is very simple. Extreme athletes take huge risks. Risk narrows the focus very rapidly. It’s flow or die. Literally. But what these athletes do, is showing what flow can do. Performance goes through the roof and it is iterative. One builds on the other. In between a lot of those athletes die. But they don’t care. Because they live life by the fullest. A fantastic quote from the book; “It is not often that Death is told so clearly to fuck off.”

You don’t have to be an extreme athlete

You don’t have to risk life and limb to achieve the same. The book itself is a rush. And you can learn how to get in your own flow. Like being mindful, flow is another route to happiness. Csikszentmihalyi discovered that the happiest people on earth, the ones who felt their lives had the most meaning, were those who had the most peak experiences.

Getting into the flow

So what do you need. You need risk, you need a rich environment, you need novelty and unpredictability, you need self knowledge, you need purpose, you need a challenge, you need skills, you need clear goals and you need action. Which where flow is different from meditation. You can only get into flow by doing something. It works on individual as well as collective level. This leads to focussed activity. Focused activity produced a significant reward: it alters consciousness, creating experiences very similar to “mystical.”

Goals

Goals are particularly important. When the brain is charged with a clear goal, focus narrows considerably, the unimportant is disregarded, and the now is all that’s left. Just as important, in the now, there’s no past or future and a lot less room for self — which are the three intruders most likely to yank us to the then.When goals are clear, metacognition is replaced by in-the-moment cognition, and the self stays out of the picture Applying this idea in our daily life means breaking tasks into bite-size chunks and setting goals accordingly.

Groups

In a group setting these goals need to be shared. You need familiarity, blending egos, a sense of control, close listening and an always say yes rule, our final trigger, means interactions should be additive more than argumentative.

Group flow

Group flow is a social unifier and social leveler, creating what cultural anthropologists call “communitas” — that deep solidarity and togetherness that results from shared transcendent experiences. That’s why people who seek out group flow often join startups or work for themselves. Serial entrepreneurs keep starting new business as much for the flow experience, as for the additional success

What happens in flow

You develop a high degree of concentration on a limited field of attention. A loss of the feeling of self-consciousness: The merging of action and awareness. From the explicit brain system to the implicit brain system. Extremely fluid brain control. Gamma brain waves. The appearance of the Voice, the voice of intuition — the center of the zone’s mystery. Carl Jung defined intuition as “perception via the unconscious” and the Voice is the end result of that perception — the unconscious mind broadcasting its perceptions to the conscious mind.

The amygdala (fight, freeze or flight) switched off. Transient hypofrontality and quieting of doubt. The unstuck in time. Ultimate focus. This is also why the Voice comes through so clearly in a flow state. With self, time, and space erased from the picture, all explicit complexity is edited out. It’s not that the Voice is turned up louder in the zone, it’s that everything that stands between us and the message is removed from the picture. The ultimate experience and in some way connected to “Infinite possibilities”, which is all about creating the ultimate experience.

Dopamine, norepinephrine, endorphins, anandamide and serotoninThese five chemicals are flow’s mighty cocktail. The same cocktail mentioned in “Out of our minds” and the cocktail created by immersive games. Video-game players get into flow so frequently that Csikszentmihalyi’s ideas have become the most widely accepted theoretical framework for explaining the lure of the joystick. Studies have shown that the amount of flow generated by a video game directly correlates to everything from player engagement to overall product success.

The business case for flow

“Because flow involves meeting challenges and developing skills,” explains Csikszentmihalyi “it leads to growth. In the state, we are aligned with our core passion and, because of flow’s incredible impact on performance, expressing that passion to our utmost”. In 2007, South Korean researchers looking at e-learning (electronic games, Web-based learning tools, and electronic tutoring) discovered significant correlation between flow and positive learning attitudes and outcomes.

Neuroelectrically, flow’s baseline brain-wave pattern of low alpha/high theta also boosts creativity, which is the essential skill for CEOs. McKinsey established that executives in flow are five times more effective than their steady-state peers.

Researchers at Vanderbilt University have found that from the marketing side of this coin, online flow experiences attract customers, mitigate price sensitivity, and positively influence subsequent buying behaviours.

Creativity and cooperation are so amplified that Greylock partner venture capitalist James Slavet, in a recent article for Forbes.com, called “flow state percentage” — defined as the amount of time employees spend in flow — the “most important management metric for building great innovation teams.” Because flow is the hallmark of high performance. When we watch a live concert or a traditional sports event, we’re essentially paying to watch people in a flow state.

When performance peaks in groups there is a collective merger of action and awareness, a group flow. As a result, in group flow, spontaneity, cooperation, communication, creativity, productivity, and overall performance all go through the roof

Time-based accounting (paying people for hours worked) needs to be replaced by flow-based accounting (paying people for the amount of time they spend in flow at work). What matters is not the amount of time you’re present, but the amount of time that you’re working at your full potential.

The ultimate reason

Flow helps you learn faster. And the ability to learn faster than your competitors is the only sustainable competitive advantage.”

Bookbuzz

From a Bookbuzz perspective reading “Thinking fast and slow”, “The future of the mind”, “Coherence”, “Carrots and sticks don’t work”, “The shallows”, “Out of our minds”, “Bioteams”, “Reinventing organisations” and many, many other books, it seems that it is all coming together.

Flow will become the ultimate motivator. It captures everything. Purpose, meaning, learning, happiness, productivity, creativity, speed, left brain, right brain, product and service design and ultimately business success. Companies will not only get Klout scores, they will get flow scores. Helping and training to achieve and apply flow. Very happy companies, with very happy staff with very happy customers.

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