How to expect the unexpected

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"Adam, over the past six years, I've had the pleasure of 'bumping into you' on at least three business and marketing related forums. Your contributionsto discussions have always been courteous, astute, incisive and practical,delivered with good humour, and based upon 'real-world' business experience. You are clearly an experienced business professional who actually knows what he is talking about. I wonder if your clients know what a gem they have in you? As one business professional to another, I salute you.

Good Wishes,
John Williamson - The Wealth Coach
www.thewealthcoach.com
www.retaildisplaysecrets.com

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I just LOVED "7 Clues to a Profits Leak".

Steven Walker - Profit Improvement Advisors
Calgary, Canada

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You will be proud how your protégés are proceeding! We have expanded the business to Katherine and Alice (Tennant is also on the list). T he catering side of the business is far less stressful and is actually profitable, now that we only take the good jobs.
We will never forget the assistance you gave us in re-inventing our business!

Karen Sheldon

Managing Director

Karen Sheldon Catering

Darwin, Australia

+++++++++++++++++++

The chap is Adam Gordon whom I have known for many years. He is a former resident of Darwin having lived here for perhaps 25 years, is an excellent communicator and has a very good appreciation of small business, business plans and all that goes with it. In fact Adam is regarded as a business guru.

Charles Wright, QS Services, Darwin, Australia

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Thanks for the catch-up the other day. It's great to be working with a legend in the small business community.

AJ Kulatunga, BLKMGK ICT

Darwin, Australia

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The 7 Clues is a great.

What I like the most in the Seven Clues report is that it clearly explains that accounting is merely a subset of proper financial management and

that only the business owner can practise financial management. The accountant does the accounting, and in doing so supports the business owner's financial management. And the business owner uses the accountant's information, but relying on the accountant to do full-blown financial management is short-sighted.

The report nicely "grounds" an otherwise complex topic which many business owners are afraid of touching, so they often move ahead in blissful ignorance. The water hose and the soggy soil under the leak makes an excellent and easy-to-comprehend example, upon which the financial management concept is nicely built.

Tom "Bald Dog" Varjan, Organisational Provocateur Dynamic Innovations Squad
Personal and Firm-Wide Performance Improvement for Management Consulting Firms

Vancouver, BC Canada

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
You have played a very important role in my development in business.

You were there with the right information at the right time, I thank you for that.
By adding the next level of systems, and marketing knowledge that you brought to the table we able to identify our objectives, acknowledge the gaps in our business and put in place the planning so as to achieve those objectives. Within 5 years we achieved 9 of our ten stated objectives. In that same year we won the NT Telstra Small business of the year"

Greg Haigh
Director - Trade Group
Regional And Northern maintenance services
RANms

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Recent newsletters include:

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How turning away customers leads to profits
How to create Superior Value
How to win against your competition
Do you need to make changes to your business?
"Our customers are costing us too much!"
Why competition is good news
What makes a web site effective?
Most businesses have one, but...
How to improve your quotations
How to raise prices without losing sales
Is your business resilient?
How to develop a new product in your niche
How big is your profit gap?
How discounting destroyed value
Benchmarking for best practice
From all customers to some customers
How to take the guesswork out of growth
Should your USP be based on logic or emotion?
How to triple your quotation success rate
How to dramatically improve your quotations
How to make more effective decisions?
How to develop your USP
Do you want to make better planning choices?
Are youmaking these mistakes in planning?
How to use SWOT properly
Does your sales conversation balance the scales of justice?
The perils of profitless cash flow!
So what is more important, cash flow or profit?
Are you getting value from your pricing?
Do you report to yourself monthly?
Follow the money trail!
Performance also counts!
Get more bang for your buck!
Without measurement there can be no improvement!
Where would your business be without customers?
Using your monthly report to improve your profits
Just who is your customer?
And what do you know about your customer?
How branding can increase your profits!
Can branding make you more money?
How to balance the value equation
Tilting the balance in your favour
How to pin the tail on the donkey
Are you groping in the dark with your real cost of labour
Mastering core marketing principles
Building a 5P marketing plan
Profit leaking processes
Should you be trying to increase or decrease cash flow
At times it is folly to hasten
5 steps to create your future
What will be the X-Factor in 2009
Lies, damn lies & statistics
How to use a squad profit leak detectives
Confidence leads to action
Increase sales - so easy to say
So you want to know how to increase sales
Is selling a necessary evil?

How to expect the unexpected

That’s not as contradictory as it sounds

If there was one lesson we took from my wife’s conference and event management business was that no matter how thorough we were, in every conference or event there was that unexpected occurrence. Something completely unplanned coming out of nowhere that had to be handled, usually in a very short timeframe.

Sometimes such occurrences were not particularly important but others were critical, like the confirmed speaker who disappeared, not even arriving in town let alone at the conference, or the time the sound technician went AWOL on Day 2, with one of the country’s leading politicians due to open proceedings for that day.

Then there was the emergency call we got from an interstate conference organiser the morning their conference registrations were scheduled to open. One of their staff, the one with all the pre-printed delegate registrations, had neglected to tell his management before he got on a plane to fly to Darwin that he had a fear of flying. When he fled the plane he did so with all the registrations and ticket print outs.

So how do you successfully handle the unexpected? There will be times when you are caught off-guard.

Small business does not have the expensive high-tech options the military have. They can afford to spend money on very expensive simulators to practice all sorts of scenarios. The military simulation and virtual training market reached $8.4 billion in 2009; a market that is expected to grow.

Small business does have alternatives that cost a lot less than a simulator. Three tools can help:

1. Contingency planning - Brainstorm all the possible things that could go wrong in your market and in your business. Can you feel a matrix coming on? Matrices are always a good tool to sort out what is important and what is less important.

Likelihood and consequences are the vertical and horizontal arms of your matrix, from Low to High/Significant. What must be considered and planned for are those contingencies which have HIGH likelihood of occurrence and SIGNIFICANT consequences.

2. SWOT analysis is another tool to use. If you use SWOT properly in your planning you will be looking to see how your Strengths can be used to take advantage of the Opportunities you have, or how to overcome the Weaknesses you have if you are to take advantage of those Opportunities.

It is the final sector in the SWOT quadrant that must be considered in this context; what happens when your Weaknesses get in the road on an on-coming Threat? What will you do in that situation?

3. What-if analysis can be used to evaluate the financial impact of changes in your business. Spreadsheets are the tool to be used here. What is the impact of a 5%, 10%, 15% fall in sales for example? What happens to your Gross Profit margin in a discounting war? What happens if both occur together? What happens if there is a blow-out in expenses?

The benefit of expecting the unexpected is that you can plan for that eventuality and having planned for it, prevent the occurrence or be in a much stronger position to successfully handle it. So expecting the unexpected is not so contradictory after all.

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