Ignite Your Business Mojo

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

It’s been a wonderful experience working with so many fabulous experts who have come together to deliver this book to you, the reader. There are a large number of people who have helped bring me to this point in my life and turn my vision into reality. I want to take this opportunity to say, thank you!

Firstly, I would like to thank Kylee Legge and her team at The Publishing Queen, who ‘held my hand’ through the process of putting together my first book. Without their guidance I am sure this book would have taken far longer to become a reality or may not even have been produced.

A very special and heartfelt thanks to the thirteen experts who joined me in this project. Their willingness to share their expertise is what makes this book such a fabulous resource for business owners across the country. It has been a privilege to work with each one of them. Getting to know each of them, both personally and professionally, has been a true gift.

Words cannot express my love for and gratitude to my gorgeous sons, Ryan Tomkins (9/3/1986-28/8/2007) and Bryce Tomkins, who gave me a reason to strive and grow into all I could be, both personally and professionally. My love for both knows no bounds.

To my life partner, Glenn Stuart Beatty, whose unwavering faith in my ability to ‘make things happen’ in business and in life and who patiently supports me through any and every project I undertake without question or judgment. I am truly blessed to have his unconditional love and support -how did I get so lucky?

I want to thank my extended family, and my mum and dad, to whom this book is dedicated. My sister and friend, Rhonda Miller, who claims she missed the ‘entrepreneurial gene’ has always offered love and practical support wherever possible, no matter how difficult or challenging. So has my brother, Craig Miller, who inherited many of our father’s best traits and definitely has the ‘entrepreneurial gene’. It’s exciting to see him create and grow his own successful business too.

And finally, to all my friends, colleagues and mentors in business who have shared their experience and wisdom with me, encouraged me when the going was tough, provided a sounding board or advice, and joined me in celebrating my successes, I am truly grateful for their contribution.

INTRODUCTION

As a business owner have you ever wondered where all that energy, enthusiasm and excitement you once had for your business disappeared to?

Somewhere, between setting up or buying your business and the day-to-day running of the operation, you lost your business mojo. Would you like to know why, and more importantly, howto regain it? Perhaps you’re ready to embark on a new business venture. Either way, this book is for you.

I’ve been in business or self-employed on and off since I was nineteen years old. Some of my enterprises have been very successful and others barely got started before I pulled the pin. One of the things I started to notice about my own pattern in business, and of those around me, was the cycle in our relationships with our businesses. Sometimes our relationship with our business seems like a love/hate affair.

Imagine if you had a fuller understanding of your own business cycle and a deeper understanding of what it took to start, build and run a successful business. What difference would that make to your income, relationships, and the overall quality of your experience of business and your life?

This book is the start ofthatjourney.1 have brought together a team of experts who will inspire you to take a good look at where you’re at in your business cycle and where you want to be. They will also offer solid advice, experience and information in line with their area of expertise. Included in this book are chapters covering: you and your business, business strategies to grow and build a successful business, as well as business purchasing and exit strategies.

You and your business

There is no doubt in my mind that the most important measurement in any business is the six inches between the owner’s ears. What goes on in our own head can make or break our results in any area of our lives. Dr Wayne W Dyer says, ‘The state of your life is nothing more than a reflection of your state of mind.’

In line with this saying, we have included chapters that will help you identify where you feel you’re up to in your business cycle. Success Mindset expert Rob Mason and I will help you explore what obstacles there are between you and the success you desire. Linda Rowley will help you identify your strengths, and Sharyn Swan your passion for business. All this is to support you in moving forward successfully, no matter what your starting point is. After all, you don’t drown by falling in water, you drown by staying there.

Offline business strategies

There are a few areas in business that I hear over and over from business owners as being real challenges. The first is generating new business and the second is staff. I have to admit, I would rather deal with a customer complaint than a staffing issue.

So, we’ve included an expert, Sonia Burgess, who is a multi business award winner. She specialises in team engagement and human resource strategies that are practical and get results. Once implemented, your human resource management will no longer be reactive; you’ll be firmly in the driver’s seat.

We’ve provided a couple of chapters on low cost marketing strategies, including how to gain free public relations (PRJ for your business, worth thousands of dollars, with Sue Papadoulis. She is a PR and media veteran who now shows business owners how to do it for themselves. Then Glenn Kirkwood will share the secrets to successful marketing using networking and referral strategies. Although many business owners know about the online marketing world, their foray into online marketing, at times, has been less than stellar. Therefore we have included chapters by experts who will assist you in this area as well.

Online business strategies to enhance your business success

Many offline business owners know at some level that to propel their business forward they need to be using online strategies and have either tried with limited success, or just thinking about it made their heads spin. This is why we have included chapters designed specifically to show you how to leverage your current business expertise in the online world.

We start with Charly Leetham, who will help you decide what strategies and options for online representation will best work for you -this is not a one size fits all strategy.

Janet Beckers will show you how to turn you expertise into online information products that will build your credibility and help increase your business income.

Michelle Allen will show you how to leverage the appropriate social media to support the growth and retention of customers and income in your business.

Launching your business or product online is a specialised area and can reap enormous financial results. James Klobasa is an expert in launching offline businesses online, having turned his own offline business into a national success story. He will be sharing his strategies for launching online.

Starting with the end in mind

At some point you might want to exit your business. Perhaps it’s time for something new or time to retire. Wouldn’t it be great to know you were building a strong valuable business that would be readily saleable for a great financial return when the time comes? Or, would you perhaps like to be able to identify valuable additional businesses to build your business portfolio?

Many business owners neglect some of the most important aspects of being in business, the need for a great professional team to advise you throughout your business life. This would include both great legal and taxation advice. So we have included chapters by Pauline Tregenza and Geoff Roberts to ensure you know why you need this and what questions you should be asking your legal and accounting professionals.

Finally, when it’s time to buy another business or sell an existing business, you need expert support there too. Liz and Matt Raad are experts in buying and selling businesses for profit. Their chapter is a must read for any business owner.

Regardless of where you’re at in your business cycle, new to business or seasoned operator, I am sure you will find something that will ‘speak’ to you and make a difference in your business and your life. It’s never too late to re-ignite your business mojo!

How to put the spark into your business

Lenore Miller

Lenore is passionate about helping business owners create a great income and lifestyle through their business. Having been both a corporate warrior and an entrepreneur since she was nineteen years old, she readily admits that some of her enterprises were extremely successful while others barely got started. Those businesses taught her that building a team of professional experts to outsource, manage and grow a profitable satisfying business are probably the most important steps a business owner needs to take.

She is a sought after keynote speaker and success coach who inspires business owners to think differently and achieve the results they desire from their life and their business. The mind set to make any business, online or off, successful, and retain your sense of passion and enthusiasm even when the going is tough, is what sets those who are successful apart from the rest.’ she says.

Lenore hopes the business experts throughout this book take you on a journey of personal and business growth that helps you find new solutions for maintaining your business mojo.

* * *

I am pretty sure that my love for business began when I was a child standing in my dad’s shed, chatting to him after school as he worked on his customers’ cars. The benefits of Dad working from home meant that, even though he worked long hours and often returned to work after dinner in the evening, we got to talk to him pretty much anytime we liked. My dad, sadly, would often describe himself as ‘just a dumb motor mechanic’, but in reality he wasn’t that at all.

My dad was a hard worker, some would say a workaholic, and no matter what other job or business he had, he always retained a motor mechanic business from home. He bought, successfully ran and sold a couple of milk runs until his foray into the school milk delivery business ended dramatically when, in the early 1970s, the Whitlam government abolished the school milk service. Dad was left holding the biggest run in the country, which was suddenly worthless. There was no income to service the business loan, and a long wait ahead for a meagre compensation payment. At this time my dad did what he always did – he filled his days and nights with work. While he built his mechanical repair business to a fulltime operation, he worked at night driving taxis, in the early morning he delivered newspapers to newsagents, and then worked all day in the garage.

As his back yard business now needed to become a fully fledged commercial operation, my parents bought a few acres where we would build a new house and Dad could have a large purpose built shed at the back. The shed was the first part to be completed and our family of five moved into the incomplete house, living between a caravan in the yard and a downstairs rumpus room with shower and toilet. It was a bit of an adventure for us, but I’m sure it was very challenging for my parents – especially my mum.

My mum was Dad’s ‘Girl Friday’, answering the phone, running to get motor parts and dropping clients back to their home or place of work. Whilst many would have seen her as ‘just a housewife’ (is there ever such a thing?), she was way more than that. Over time my dad’s reputation grew and soon he had more work than he could manage. The constraints of working from home included people knocking on our door or calling my dad at all hours wanting him to ‘fix their brakes so they could get away on their holiday in the morning’ or an SOS when they had broken down. This took its toll, and it was decided to separate home and business.

In the preceding years my folks had bought, renovated and sold several homes. For example, they bought the property next door, subdivided it, renovated the house and sold it. They were good at spotting opportunities. The next one was an old Golden Fleece Service Station my parents purchased in an effort to move the business away from our home. My mum and her mother took on the day-to-day operation of that business, until such time as we could cease pumping petrol and just use it as a mechanical workshop. My mum’s parents were always supportive of my parents’ ventures, and this was no different.

By this time my dad had moved into an emerging growth area – automatic transmissions. This technology proved difficult for many mechanics, but not Dad. He became one of the most sought after automatic transmission specialists in the city and the business boomed. This necessitated Dad taking on another mechanic and a labourer just to keep up with demand. I think the responsibility of ensuring there was enough work for staff, managing the quality and quantity of their output and not having control over every aspect of the business sat uneasily with Dad. By this time we had moved out to a farm in an idyllic location on the Hunter River, and Dad travelled sixty minutes each way between work and home every day. I can only imagine that after having a thirty second amble to work for so many years, and then a ten minute drive when he initially moved the business to the station, that this took its toll.

Sadly this is where my Dad’s entrepreneurial exploration ceased. In September 1981, when he was 38 and I was just 18, my Dad took his own life. I didn’t just lose my dad; I lost the opportunity to ask him a million unanswered questions that I didn’t yet know I needed to ask him. I missed him sharing my adult journey and his presence as a mentor. I have also certainly missed him in the years since, on significant occasions like the birth of my own boys, and on many other occasions during my own exploration of property investment and business.

It was shortly after Dad’s death that I launched into my first experience of self-employment. At nineteen, I started with a direct sales company setting and achieving sales and business growth goals, and growing a team of consultants. I eventually walked away, not that I can remember why, only to return again in my early married life, hungry for additional income. This too came with much success; however, I lost momentum with the imminent arrival of my first child. At this stage, I didn’t yet understand what was required to run a successful business, and I would go forward and make the attempt many more times before I found my way in the business world.

My desire to be successful and financially independent continued, although I didn’t know how to get from where I was to where I wanted to be. I completed an undergraduate degree, had a second child and then divorced.

It was at this point that I found my drive really kicked in. I was now responsible for two small children, and I wanted to give them a good life and be a great example to them. I wanted to show them that we are all responsible for making our own way in the world.

I gained a position in a bank and really started learning about money and more importantly how to leverage assets to buy property and eventually businesses – this was a real boon. I also met my first business partners in that workplace. With two others, a married couple, we set up a vendor financing business assisting people who had the capacity to pay, but could not secure, bank finance to purchase their own home.

So here I was off into another business idea, but this time I was not alone and that proved to be a great step forward. So here I was growing a business, still working in my day job with the bank and raising my two gorgeous boys as a single parent.

I am forever grateful for that business and the lessons I learnt, which were many. Firstly, we were in a fairly new industry which meant we had to educate our market or at least our prospective clients. We had set up a business with a three-way split and none of us really knew each other very well, so as you can imagine, there was conflict that needed to be resolved.

Part of the problem was our differing expectations about how the business would play out, and when we would start drawing money from the business. Then there were our differing personal and business values. Finally, the three-way business arrangement ended with one of the directors leaving and taking a third of the business with her. This, of course, was not as easy as it sounds and came at both a financial and personal cost.

We next had to deal with one of our investors deciding to breach their joint venture agreement with us to go with the exiting partner. Once again, we found ourselves faced with a legal challenge to which we rose. We sort appropriate legal advice and were successful with the investor having to pay us the lost income brought about by their actions, in addition to all our legal expenses. It appears they had not sought legal advice prior to severing their agreement with us, nor did they bring legal representation to the hearing.

This business taught me the value of having a team of professional experts. They no longer felt like an evil expense but more like an investment in the viability of my business. I have been using the services of the same business lawyer for at least ten years, and my business accountant has been with me for even longer. I would not be without either of them. They have both written a chapter for this book.

When the market changed, I decided it was time to move on and take up a corporate role for a while. Our vendor financing business continued; we did not, however, add additional properties to the portfolio. That business returned us a generous income over time and we assisted our last purchaser to refinance with a traditional institution just as I was buying my next business.

If I had observed my own behaviour, I would have now been noticing a pattern in my approach to business. And yes, while the market had changed, all we would have needed to do was adjust our approach and continue on. I had, however, ‘fallen out of love’ with the business – it was no longer interesting or exciting and I wanted a new challenge. In hindsight, I realised what had happened and used this information to plan ahead when setting up my next business.

I had loved the recurring income of our vendor finance business which had paid us regularly month after month. So when I tired of the corporate world, once again hearing my business mojo calling, I went looking for a business that would bring me a regular monthly income. The idea of selling single items over and over again to different customers left me cold.

I purchased my next business because I liked the business model and I saw a trend in the market. The women’s fitness industry was raging. I knew nothing about the fitness industry but I had found a great product, and after much demographic research, a great location. I knew this market because my ideal client was just like me. So I set up the kind of gym I wanted to attend and the women came, liked the experience, and brought their friends with them.

In 2005, I was the first Contours Express franchise to open in the Hunter Valley. We became the first in NSW to reach 500 members, and I had it running at arm’s length within eighteen months. I had reached these two goals quickly with my ultimate plan being to hold it for 3–5 years and then sell. I was using my past experience to inform business choices now. However, some things you just can’t plan for in advance.

It was at about the two year mark that I took my eye off the ball. I was living a great lifestyle, my business was thriving, and I was in the process of purchasing and setting up a second site, when personal tragedy struck. Overnight, my business mojo vanished when I lost my eldest son, Ryan, to a serious asthma attack when he was just nineteen.

Nothing seemed very important. In the coming months, I just wished my staff would get