Have You Had an Awakening of Your Business Mind?

I guess with this type of a question, I must first give you a definition of the word awakening. It is the act of waking from sleep or a sudden shift into a new state of awareness, realization, and consciousness.

It is the second part of that that I want to address with this post. That is the sudden shift into a new state of awareness, realization, and consciousness.

You may be asking why do I want to enter a state of awareness, realization, and consciousness?

It is very simple.

By entering into a state of awareness, realization, and consciousness. That you begin to see with new eyes. Which means that you begin to notice things that are happening in your business that are robbing you blind.

Are you asking what could be robbing you blind?  It is my opinion that the general drains on a business are;

• Employee Theft: which could be like petty cash stealing, inventory reduction, and stealing supplies or even equipment.
• Internal Fraud: this could include fake vendor invoices, payroll padding (paying employees that are not part of your staff), and unapproved expense account claims.
• Embezzlement: this can happen when a trusted financial manager is manipulating books or redirecting funds directly into their own personal accounts.
• Time Theft: to me this is a big one in that employees are slacking off, lying about the hours they work, or doing personal work on company time.
• Scope Creep and Waste: this is the uncontrolled and unplanned increase of a project’s requirements, goals, or deliverables after the work has started, without any matching adjustments to the budget, timeline, or resources.

I want you to pause from reading right now and consider the following question; what is the impact of any of the drains that I just listed.

Why do I mention this? It is because I believe there are 2 ways that lead to these major financial drains. They are;

• when a business begins to become a financial success, many times the owner/manager starts to look in other areas that they can expand or use the profit to expand their business or even to expand into different areas, and
• what has been called the ‘plateauing trap’. The structural plateauing occurs from the lack of a higher position in the company where the staff members can advance. This creates a restricted opportunity for promotion. Expectancy theory suggests that many salespersons are not motivated to achieve when favorable possibilities for advancement are not available (Gray & Gray, 1999). On the other hand, content plateauing occurs when a salesperson knows a job so well that it does not hold any challenge. And finally, plateauing takes place when staff members are just bored, and the work is dull and routine. All three of these can exert a negative impact on the business.

While I can’t help you with many of these drains to your bottom-line, I can help with one particular area. That is ‘plateauing trap’.  If you’d like speak about the possibilities, contact me at 519-539-2267.