Business survival and success 111115

About Phil Parramore
 Live with Stephanie and her son
 Three daughters of my own – one with a mental
health disorder; one with incurable physical disorder
 Makes reasonable attempts to provide guidance
 Socially Inclusive / treat everyone fairly values
 Belief that being mentally or physically active
promotes positive wellbeing and improves
quality of life

Phil’s World Of Skills and Work
 Masters Graduate of Leeds University
Business School
 Member of the Institute of Leadership and
Management
 Project Management Practitioner
 SFEDI qualified (skills for business growth)
 Equality and Diversity qualified and practise
(Well!) over 30 year of public, private
and third sector experience
Started GuideDotYou via
Government’s New Enterprise Scheme
and Wakefield Business Support
Programme
Approved Growth Mentor

Work Experience
 Civil Service – Operations; Consultancy; Policy and Projects
 School Governor
 Business Mentor – “I Know I Can”
 Favourite Flavours CIC – Director
 Condita Group – Interim Director
 GuideDotYou Change Solutions
 8 Business Networking Group Leader
 Creative Communities Group

Resilience and Determination
Resilience –
the capacity to recover quickly from difficulties; toughness.
Determination –
the quality of being determined; firmness of purpose;
resolute
How do you rate yourself for each of these (out of ten)?
Business Survival, Growth and Success

Data courtesy of our partners,
Business On, Ltd
50%
Are at risk of failure within the next 12 months.
80%
Could significantly improve the financial performance of their
business
25%
Could radically improve the way the business works within the
next 6 months

According to world class research there are a few
common reasons why businesses do not survive or
why they don't grow as quickly as they would
hope.
This 15 minute session provides a whistle stop tour
with some hints and tips about what organisations
can do to stimulate survival, growth and
success.

9 Reasons Businesses Fail!
1. Uncertainty about the long term
2. Negative cashflow
3. Failure to create long range plans
4. No competitive edge
5. Lack of a motivated team
6. No clear lead generation strategy
7. Weak sales
8. Lack of focused leadership
9. Not retaining customers

But firstly have a think……
For the next minute or so think about your
own business and consider one thing you can
do differently in your business to help it
survive, grow and succeed
Answers on a postcard

Research Sources
Including:
• Management Today
• U.S Chamber of Commerce
• Institute of Directors
• Small Biz Trends
• Harvard Business School
• Et al!

Uncertainty about the long term
• Problems
• Global economy
• Credit availability
• Cashflow
• Government Regulations
• To stimulate survival, growth and success
• Reduce short term thinking
• Increase your long term planning
• Live, breathe and encourage optimism throughout
your workforce about the future

Negative Cashflow
• Problems
• Poor cashflow
• Bad credit rating
• Stage your growth to protect valuable
resources
• Visioning of your growth track to secure cash/
investment

Failure To Plan
• Problems
• Failing to plan after start up
• “Failing To Plan Is Planning To Fail”
• Do great strategic planning
• Design your goals and objectives
• Review and measure your progress / outcomes
• Plan to implement, manage and realise your
targets

No Competitive Edge
• Problems
• No competitive advantage
• No Unique Value Proposition
• Have fantastic belief in your products and services
• Creatively differentiate from the competition
• Bring high quality products and services to market
• Be wary of differentiation by low price alone

Lack of a Motivated Quality Team
• Problems
• How to motivate your team
• Poor or moderate performance
• Find the right talent, get them onboard and keep engaging
them from recruitment process onwards
• Inspire and motivate your people - they produce competitive
work when committed and engaged
• Trust and empower them to innovate and deliver great
results
• Ensure staff always understand the vision and plan, so they
can execute it brilliantly
• Satisfied staff = great customer service = increased revenue

No clear lead generation strategy
• Problems
• Products and services not being discovered
• Low chance of stable revenue
• Rely on your direct marketing, not only referrals
• Good choice of marketing funnels
• Strong range of offers
• Equals better conversion into paying customers

Weak Sales
• Problems
• Failure to overcome many other challenges
• Ultimately this is the problem likely to hurt most!
• Create your competitive edge
• Design and implement your clear marketing funnels
• Get yourself a superbly motivated sales team
• With clear sales outcomes and targets
• Which are well monitored and measured

Lack of focused leadership
• Problems
• Loss of team direction and focus
• No spearhead to the business
• Leaders with empathy, social awareness & emotional
self control
• Leaders with character and with vision and the capability
and desire to implement well thought through strategies
• Creating and embedding cultures that are performance
led and innovative

Not retaining customers
• Problems
• Missed opportunities for new business
• Follow up with your customers
• Keep up and don’t let drop your levels of contact with
prospects and customers
• Design and use great mechanisms for keeping customers
• Always remember that only 2% of sales are made on first
contact; 80% of sales are made on the fifth to twelfth
contact.
• So that means persistence (in a non aggressive way)

I would like my networks to consider these
hints and tips because, if they don’t….
• They risk:
• Running out of cash before they open their doors because
they haven’t anticipated their start-up costs
• Missing sales projections because they don’t really know who
their customers are and what they want
• Losing customers because their quality or service falls short
• Becoming overwhelmed by too many options because they
never took the time to focus on a mission and vision for their
company
• Going bankrupt because they don’t have a rational business
model or a plan for how to make money

And External Influences As Well!
Burke Litwin Causal Model Of Organisation Performance and Change

Handling the demands of business and the
demands of our personal lives
 Is a subject of life coaching
 And is one for another day!

What Does This Mean For Your Business?
So for the next five minutes think about your
own business and consider what else you can
do in your business to help it survive, grow
and succeed
Now It's Your Turn!

Obtain your FREE Business Fast Track
Business Review when you register with
Business-On
"Every MD should get the Review. It really
helped me refocus and improve the
business". Sue Goldberg Apollo Lighting

For workshops, mentoring and business plans to explore
these issues in depth, tailored to your individual business,
please contact:
Phillip Parramore
Business Growth Advisor
T: 07766 543356
E: info@guidedotyou.co.uk
W: www.guidedotyou.co.uk
: @PhilParramore

Business survival and success 111115

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