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Andrew Palmer
Group Editor
12:00 PM 5th September 2020
business

Saturday Essay: Improve Your Business In A Day

 
It can be done! Turning your business around in a day depends on many things: recognising the problem, friendly advice and help, coupled with patience and will power.

Would you be able to recognise if there were any leaks in your business getting in the way of your growth projections?

It’s an important question as there are so many things happening in the world today that could knock a business off its course.

The impact of coronavirus has forced business leaders to reframe and look at the world through a different lens. This is felt more acutely by entrepreneurs who, according to Simon Abbott, in a new book, are looking for that magic bullet and pretty darn quick.

Simon Abbott
Simon Abbott
He is offering advice and help in Improve your business in a day, which takes a realistic look at where the focus should be if things start to unravel.

Simon Abbott sets the clock ticking with his framework to transform any struggling business in just eight hours.

Knowing how pressed for time new business owners are, it’s refreshing to see that at just under 50 pages the author has managed to distil everything he has learnt over three decades, cutting through much of the theory and providing readable chunks of text that are easily understood.

There’s also a set of resources to help the reader pinpoint the problem, and get to a solution quickly.

“I know today’s entrepreneurs are impatient and strapped for time, just like I am,” Simon Abbott says. “I wanted to create a guide that can literally be read and put in place the same day. That’s why I’m sharing proven advice, templates, videos and an email sequence to amplify results. It’s all about helping entrepreneurs pinpoint where they need to make meaningful changes, and help them do it right away.”

Quite a lot of it is common sense but how often do we need someone to point out the obvious and identify the problem?

You may have heard some of it before, but it is all under one cover, the difference being, Simon Abbott has applied and combined his insights and knowledge to produce a pragmatic guide, sharing personal case studies to demonstrate how to achieve cost savings, more sales and boosted productivity.

“Everything is cherry picked from the many years I’ve spent helping businesses in all industries multiply their value and find meaning in their work. The main issue with affecting rapid change is the lack of planning; business owners need a blueprint. With this book, I’m putting it directly into their hands, helping them follow it and even offering to connect with them after they’ve made the changes, if they want to work further with me. I encourage every business owner to pick up a copy. In these trying times, it’s all about the right changes, at the right time, in the right way.”

It’s a systematic canter through the issues businesses should be thinking about.

There are eight steps to simple performance improvement which will take no more than an hour:

Identifying areas for improvement
Commit to taking action
Create a baseline
Create a data development agenda
Identify problems and causes
Identify and prioritise solutions
Test your solutions
Measure review and reflect.


The reference to leaks at the top of this article comes from a chapter where a leaking boat is used as the metaphor to drive home how important it is to get to grips with performance, often the difference between profit and loss in a business and in some cases business survival.

Process, continuous improvement and measurement should not be underestimated and understanding how to implement and procedures and get buy in, is crucial in turning a company round. That’s why, for example, applying good measurement analytics is vital but know what your information and statistics are telling you and be wary of false measurements.

Set realistic performance indicators and KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) so that you and your teams can see what needs to be done and importantly how to use the data to get the right solution. The quality of data is an imperative.

Prioritising tasks and your to do list are often overlooked so Simon Abbott goes back to basics with a red, amber, green (RAG) system.

He also introduces readers to his 3s Success System™

I think Simon Abbott could have been more creative with the graphic at the top of each page, a clock set at 8 o’clock representing the time he says it can all be done in. It’s also an easily digestible book thanks to the author’s writing style speaking directly to the reader.

One of Simon Abbott’s favourite sayings is ‘success leaves footprints’ and there is no doubt that to have success there are a lot of issues that have to be considered.

Once read it’s up to you to implement and commit, as only you know what has to be done.



Simon Abbott’s background is in IT, business improvement and digital transformation has given him a broad range of experience and knowledge that he shares with his clients and readers.

He is an expert on process improvement, having helped a public sector organisation save over £340k in year-on-year savings without a single job loss. He has also developed an easy system to turn non-salespeople into successful sellers, a method for improving customer satisfaction, and the Project Success Canvas that helps to make every project a success.
To find out more and to order the book visit https://thecoachingcouch.co.uk

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