Posts Tagged ‘career development’

Easy One Page Business Plan

Tuesday, January 12th, 2010

Here’s a quick and easy one page business plan format that you can use to set or update your company direction, focus and goals for 2010.  This is a great plan for small companies who don’t typically have time or money to do detailed planning.  It also works well for individual career planning.

Mission:

What is your purpose?  Why are you in business?  Why do you do what you do?  2 – 3 Sentences

Vision:

How does your purpose translate into concrete terms?  Paint a picture.   2 – 3 Sentences.

Objectives:

What by when?  What do you need to do this year to move your vision forward?

Strategies:

What overall approaches will you take to reach your objectives this year?

Plans:

The actual steps that you will take to reach your objectives.  Note that these may often be project that require plans in and of themselves.

Go ahead, schedule an hour and see what you come up with.   Keep refining your business plan until it meets your needs.  Then prepare to update it quarterly.  Business plans are useless unless they are looked at and measured.

Post what you come up with, and see what others have done.  If you get stuck, call me.  I am offering  a free coaching session to everyone for January.

Next week we’ll talk about how to measure performance against your plans.

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Posted in Career Development, Coaching, Leadership, business development | 1 Comment »

Stuck

Monday, March 2nd, 2009

Do you feel unappreciated or unrecognized for the job you do?  Do you have more responsibility without the title and compensation to go with it?  Do you feel like there’s no communication at your company?    Feel like you’re at a dead-end?  And things are not going to get any better at the company you’re at, but you’re afraid of ending up in exactly the same situation if you change jobs?  Are you really frustrated, stressed out and angry?  And no one can help you?

If you feel this way, you’re probably right.  No one can help you.  You built the box you’re in, and only you can get yourself out of it.  The only way out is to realize that the box isn’t really there.   You created it the minute you started looking for something to blame and being right was more important than anything else.

The great news is that there is a way out – and there is help.  The minute you accept responsibility for creating your experience, the box will disappear.  You will see that you have options and choices about what you do and lots of people to available to support you in whatever you choose.   Your options may be developing the skills you need to thrive in the new environment, evaluating the situation against your values and priorities and choosing something different,  just being happy and unstressed by the situation -  and so on.  The options are endless once you choose to be responsible for your experience.  You have reclaimed your power and are now unstuck.

Choose to be responsible!

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Posted in Career Development, Coaching, Leadership | 2 Comments »

The Power of Responsibility

Tuesday, February 3rd, 2009

I talked with 2 women on the same day last week.  They were in very similar situations.  Both owned their own businesses in very similar fields.  Both were in their 50’s.  Both women enjoyed what they did.  But there the similarity ended.

One woman had, despite suffering an extremely debilitating injury,  an air of joy and peace about her that was almost palpable.  She loved what she did and it showed.  It was a joy to talk and be with her.  And it was clear that this was the experience for her staff as well.  She had loyal employees who acted as her hands when she couldn’t do something.  They had been with her a while.  They clearly enjoyed working in her business.  Business was good, even in this economy.

The second woman was clearly resentful, unhappy and unpleasant to be around.   She spent most of the time complaining and the word I heard most often was “should.”  “I shouldn’t have to tell her that.”  She didn’t feel comfortable delegating to anyone and consequently was overloaded.    Her business, despite having a good base, was not anywhere near thriving.  She also wasn’t doing the things she needed to do to grow the business.  Staff turnover was one of her biggest issues.

The main difference between the two:  Responsibility!   The first woman clearly took responsibility for her choices and saw the possibilities.  She  did not let circumstances stop her.   She just adjusted how she worked.   The second saw herself as  a victim of her business and her staff instead of empowering herself.   She let her circumstances control her decisions and consequently couldn’t get ahead.  She let herself become a victim to her fear.

Which one would you rather be?  The choice is yours.

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Your Career is the Best Investment You Can Make

Friday, January 9th, 2009

One of the things I most often run into when talking to people about their careers is the statement “I can’t do any training.  My company won’t pay for it right now.” or the slight variation – “I don’t have any budget for training.  My company is cutting back everywhere.”  

Well, guess what – your career is your responsibility, not your company’s.   I am strongly in favor of taking advantage of any training and tuition reimbursements a company provides, but the lack of such a benefit is no excuse for not making an investment in yourself.   And the cost of giving up responsibility for your career to a company when you get hired is extremely high.  

The company’s first responsibility is to it’s owners/stockholders.   It cannot look at investing in your career unless it is also in the direct best interest of the company.  And unless training is properly managed and supervised very carefully to make sure that all training chosen directly relates to the employee’s job and is immediately applicable, it does not usually offer a positive ROI to the company in the short term.  It has the same impact that most employee benefits have and is usually treated the same way – i.e. cut back in a bad economy.

Let’s look at an example.  Let’s say that you make $60,000.00 right now and you are 35 years old.  You take a class or get a certification that costs $5,000.00, but increases your earning power by at least 10% annually.  That means that you will make at least  $281,362 in the next 25 years at 5%.  If you invested that same $5,000.00 at 5% now instead of spending it,  you will only have $17,406.   Now let’s say you are 55.  Even with only 10 years, the difference in the numbers is still staggering  $70,467 versus $8,235.  

(FYI – these amounts were calculated as future value of an ordinary annuity versus future value of an amount. )

The point is this:   Your career is by far the best investment you can make!

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