Your business is humming along; you have been doing well for over ten years now and are quite happy with the results. All of a sudden things change, overnight your staff morale seems to have dropped and before long productivity is suffering. In no time at all you are wondering why the sales staff are not drawing in the customers and the whole business is losing energy fast.

What do you do? Why has this happened, after all you are the model boss? Pay well, laugh and cry with the workers? What happened?

Try asking yourself this, and then survey your staff (the internal customers) to see what their answers are. What are the benefits of having a job? For most $$ will be No: 1. For others having a sense of purpose or a higher self esteem rate higher than the money. I guess it depends on how much they need the money!

This exercise allows people the chance to evaluate what they see as important and in time perhaps re evaluate their thoughts on the job. If nothing else it makes a great discussion point about why we work.

From this discussion point what have you learnt as the boss? Is your organisation able to provide adequate benefits for the workers so they are kept happy and enthused in the workplace? Did you think you were fulfilling their needs but missed the mark somewhere? Are the motivating factors different from area to area? If so what would you do about it?

The same can be said of the external customers, what if they see little benefit to shopping at your business? Why would they continue to return if there was little benefit to them?

Visualisation
For many this is a great way of providing alternative approaches to hoe they develop their businesses. Imagine being able to see what your business is like in the future, how is it achieving its aims, and who has been responsible for achieving these goals.

This can be done in reverse if not in a future situation, at least to begin with. Simply picture the way you got started in business, what was it like? Now take inventory of what it is like today. Who is still with you as part of the original staff you began with? Has this changed? Has it changed too often for your liking?

Now do the same, but in a future imagined setting. Lets say 12 months from now, does it still exist! If so what did you do right? How does it feel? What things are people saying about the business?

This form of visualisation can develop a vision for the business; let you know intuitively who are the doers in your business, and who needs further training or encouragement. If all else fails the exercise gives you a few moments of perhaps much needed stress relief!

Take notes after a session like this, plan out the perfect business for yourself and put it into action.

Affirmations
Coupled with effective visualisation techniques, affirmations become powerful options to assist you to develop your business and staff so they can perform at their peak.

Affirmations are statements we use everyday to express how we might feel about something. One I have often heard is ‘I always forget things!’ say it often enough and you will soon believe it even if it is not true!

Affirmations should be positive, personal, stated as if it has happened as well as being easy to use and remember. This way you can alter the statement to say ‘How unusual I just forget something!’ This reminds us that we do not often forget things and can set our internal strategies up for success, rather than failure.

Goal setting
Another powerful technique for getting positive results. For many this is not an alternative technique, but more of a standard they have always followed. These people are extremely fortunate and have the automatic focussing mechanism finely tuned after years of goal setting. For others however it is a struggle to plan and they need all the help they can get.

Create lists of daily to do options. This gets you started on small goal setting strategies and from here you can build up to setting solid goals.

Business planning is all about setting goals for the future, projecting income and planning for success. You would not build a house without a plan, as the builder would not know what you wanted. Get a plan of action and work it to get the results you want in your business. No plan could mean that you become part of another persons plan, and it might not be a plan you like.

Making magic happen
If you want your business to remain humming in harmony, consider carefully how you see it operating, what you say about it and how you plan for the future. Getting positive results rarely happens by accident, it happens because you have set it up to work effectively.

Stumble it!