Paying too much Tax? How to know and what to do about it.When we go to bed at night, we dream of a world where families have the freedom to of choice of what they do with their time, to have the freedom to put family first, and to be able to create a beautiful business and family that they’re absolutely proud of. Our Inspire TV channel, which you guys have taken the effort to sit in on and attend today is our means to educate the young family and small business community of Brisbane on all the different strategies and ways we can help you build that business that gives you the freedom to put family first. That’s our introduction to today’s topic and also today’s episode of Inspired TV. The very specific topic we have is about paying too much tax. The first guide is: How do you know if you are paying too much tax? I am sure we all, in business, may have that feeling or that inkling and the most important next step is to find out what the hell to do about it. We think that this is how an accounting firm should run: Imagine yourself as a business owner driving on the highway and then you’re in your vehicle. As the owner of your business or that vehicle, you’re in the driver seat. For an accountant to be able to do tax returns and financials, they’ll be looking in the rear vision mirror while you’re driving down the highway. Now if you were only to focus on this historic perspective, how far would you get? Not very far we think. That’s what makes Inspire different. We have that perspective about what’s going on in the past and the future – the bigger picture; looking through the front windscreen, for us to act as your co-pilot. We don’t want to break any laws or end up in jail but there’s definitely opportunity out there to implement some of these strategies we’re going to talk about today, which do end up saving many of our clients tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands over the years. In fact, this is exactly how we do it:
How do you find out your current tax rate, or what you might be paying?It’s a little bit complex to calculate it but you just add up all the, not the next net tax payable or refundable for the year, but the actual tax on your notice of assessment or your company’s notice of assessment and work out as a percentage of your total profit how much tax did you pay. What should someone be looking for out of their accountant nowadays?An open channel of communication. A couple of the key things that people usually get wrong and that we identify is, “Hey, had you gone and seen your accountant before you bought a vehicle or something like that, you could of saved five grand in GST or you could of structured it better so it’s less administration headache. Your loan could‘ve been different.” Basically, while there’s a tax implication of keeping close to your accountant, there’s also other cash flow benefits. Making sure you’re getting the right advice when you’re making key business decisions. You should definitely look out for someone who just keeps that open channel of communication and work with an accountant who doesn’t mind the odd phone call or an email – or actually gives you a call. One of the reasons people don’t call their accountant is because they think they’re going to get charged for it. Is that standard across the industry or is that an old school indicator that you might be with one of those the dinosaur accountants? What should we be looking for?The older business model is to start the clock every time the accountant thinks about you or talks to you and bills you by the hour. That means that if you do ring them up and ask them, “Hey, what entity should I buy a car in?” That you probably would get a bill for a couple hundred bucks to follow that call. That’s the norm of an old school accountant. With this sort of fresh breed of accountant, you see more value based models – a fixed fee or upfront proposal that lets you know what you’re getting yourself into before you accept. You know the … How much communication and touch points you have with them throughout the year and working with us, for instance, you’re able to call us and we’re not going to charge you unless you’re wanting some advice on a business merger or something like that. That’s obviously something we can’t do over the phone. Yeah. If you ring us and said, “Hey, I’m buying a car. How do I buy it?” That’s a call we won’t charge you for. What is a business structure?This is a massive, massive point. That if you don’t use a company or trust but you run a business, and this is one that’s very close to our heart. We love business structures and working with clients to map out the best and most suitable option for them. If you don’t use a company or trust, it only leaves you as either a sole trader or you’re a partnership. Both of those straight off the bat have a massive risk for your trading activities. You could get sued, and that could bring in your family house and your family assets to pay for that lawsuit. Also using a company or trust gives you flexibility of who pays the tax from your business profits. That could be your husband or your wife – but if you’re a sole trader you pay the tax on the lot, you don’t have a choice of spreading it out. |
Hiring your first employee – 6 Common Questions
Hiring your first employee in your business can be a very daunting task if you haven’t done it before.
There’s all sorts of worries that could be going through your head:
- How do I do the Payroll each week or fortnight?
- What do I need to do for Superannuation?
- What is WorkCover, and what I need to do for it?
- Do I need to let the ATO know anything?
- How do I know when I can afford my first employee?
- How should I cover myself from a legal perspective so my first employee cannot come after my house?
So we’ve put together this article which answers some very common questions when it comes to hiring your first employee.
Before we get into it though, we’ve found that the use of accounting software Xero, is a massive time saver in the process of hiring your first employee.
Xero integrates directly with the ATO – no paper forms need to be lodged, and it just makes light work of the payroll process moving forward.
If you enjoy the article, or have a question – please use the comments section below to let us know!
1. How do I do the Payroll each week or fortnight?
Payroll needs to be done each week, fortnight or month – depending on how often you’ve agreed to pay your new team member.
Each time this happens, you need to work out how much to pay them and also how much tax and superannuation to take out and set aside.
It can be daunting doing this, but we recommend you use accounting software to make this a piece of cake.
The one we recommend is Xero – and the payroll section of this is intuitively set up.
First you need to add your employee into the system, following the prompts for everything Xero needs to do so.
And then you can start processing your payroll.
We recommend getting the help of your bookkeeper or accountant who’s helped other business owners do the same in Xero – or even get them to train you on it if you’re going to be doing it yourself.
2. What do I need to do for Superannuation when hiring your first employee?
Superannuation is commonly referred as forced savings for retirement.
It’s a great strategy for business owners to boost their personal wealth (and a great tax environment if used well too) – so we love it here at Inspire!
You also have to pay superannuation for your team members when they work for you – so you’re contributing to their retirement.
The current rate for this is 9.5% of their gross wages, and needs to be paid to their super fund each quarter.
For instance, the superannuation on wages paid to the team member between 1 September 2016 and 31 December 2016 will be due on the 28 January 2017 (note that this is 28 days after the end of a calendar quarter).
New rules introcuded in 2016 by the ATO have also meant that businesses (regardless of size) need to use their new ‘SuperStream’ initiative.
SuperStream’s purpose is to make it easier for businesses to report and pay super for their employees.
Again, Xero makes complying with this nice and easy.
If you have it set up within Xero, and are using Xero for payroll, it actually does your SuperStream reporting automatically, and direct debits the amount you owe from the bank account you tell it to!
More information on SuperStream and a details on how to do this can be found here.
3. What is WorkCover, and what I need to do for it?
In most states in Australia, you’ll need to sign up for that state’s WorkCover or WorkSafe when hiring your first employee.
WorkCover is a form of insurance that is meant to protect employees (and you as the business owner) for accidents at work.
This is a mandatory thing in most states, not an option – and there’s penalties if it isn’t in place.
Say your team member has an accident at work, the purpose of the insurance is that it covers any medical costs of the team member, and also any loss to your business as a result (even paying that team members sick leave instead of the business copping it!!).
The process for signing up is fairly straight forward and can be done online on their websites:
– QLD – WorkCover Queensland – https://www.worksafe.qld.gov.au/
– NSW – SafeWork NSW – https://www.safework.nsw.gov.au/
– VIC – WorkSafe VIC – http://www.worksafe.vic.gov.au/
– TAS – WorkCover Tasmania – http://www.workcover.tas.gov.au/
– ACT – WorkSafe ACT – http://www.worksafe.act.gov.au/health_safety
– WA – WorkCover WA – http://www.workcover.wa.gov.au/
– SA – ReturntoWorkSA – https://www.rtwsa.com/
– NT – WorkSafe NT – http://www.worksafe.nt.gov.au/Pages/default.aspx
4. Do I need to let the ATO know anything when hiring your first employee?
When you hire your first employee, you need to register for what’s called “PAYG Withholding” or “Pay As You Go Withholding”.
This is the ATO’s words for the tax that you need to take out from the salary or wages that you pay your new team member.
Taking this tax out and setting it aside to pay the ATO is a non-negotiable.
Give your accountant a call and they can walk you through the process of registering for this PAYG Withholding or do it on your behalf. It’s a simple process either online or a quick phone call to the ATO.
You’ll also need to let the ATO know that you’ve hired someone.
The form to use to let them know is a “Tax File Number declaration” – but this can be done online through Xero’s payroll software, another reason to use it!
5. How do I know when I can afford my first employee?
In the first few months of starting in business, I found myself with way too much to do, wearing so many hats in the business.
We’d grown about 10x in revenue in the first four months.
Great problem to have! But I wasn’t doing well from time management or a work life balance perspective.
I navigated my way through that time, and now have helped many other business owners do the same too.
One of the questions that crossed my mind during that time is how do I pay for them?
My recommendation is to make sure you have enough cash set aside that you can pay for the first 3 months of salary with no additional revenue.
Also I strongly encourage you to expect there will be quite a few hours, even days training the new team member, so you need to see this coming.
6. How should I cover myself from a legal perspective so my first employee cannot come after my house?
I recommend that you do two things to protect yourself here when hiring your first employee:
1. Get a watertight employment agreement; and
2. Make sure you’re set up in a Business Structure that protects the risks in your business (like employees) from your personal wealth and assets.
Make sure you use Employment Agreements
A mistake I see a lot of business owners make (even on advice to get one) is not having an employment agreement for every single one of their team.
The employment agreement can come from a good lawyer, or from software that provides this service, like Enable HR (we use this internally).
And a well written agreement sets expectations on both sides from day one, starting from when hiring your first employee.
They should cover:
– How much and how often the team member gets paid
– How much superannuation they’re going to get paid
– How much leave they get each year
– How much notice either party needs to give to terminate the agreement (and what conditions this needs to be)
– A confirmation that the team member connect take any of your clients, team members, intellectual property etc when they leave
And many other things (this list is not exhaustive, but gives you an idea!).
Get the right Business Structure
Another common problem I see is that business owners haven’t paid attention to their business structure when hiring your first employee.
A good business structure should protect your personal wealth and assets from the risks of your business.
If you’re trading in the business structure of a ‘Sole Trader’, you’re playing with fire. If your business is sued, then your personal assets are also included in this.
We recommend looking at companies or trusts to run your business. If they’re set up properly, then they will protect you from most threats!
If you enjoy the article, or have a question – please use the comments section below to let us know!
Now for the three quick educational stories about Parkinson’s Law, The Size of Your Dinner Plate, & Toilet Paper.
They’re three lessons you won’t forget that reinforce why becoming a Cash Rich Business not only is a good thing, but it works because it works WITH human nature not against it.
Perhaps you, like me, in my previous businesses, would look into your bank account to see how much sales had accumulated. Then I’d see on my desk a pile of bills that I could need to be paid, so I’d extract from the sales to pay these expenses.
Because that’s what the formula says to do.
After that, I would look for the leftover. The profit. But unfortunately, there was barely ever a leftover.
There was the only leftover when I had a big moment like selling a business, or a huge customer coming in. Then there’d finally be some profit, momentarily, until my expenses would expand to fill it.
There a principle called Parkinson’s law.
It states: When a resource is made available, we will use it up. All of it.
For example, if we are given four weeks to do a task, it will take four weeks. If we are given 4 hours to do a task, it will take 4 hours to do.
While this Accounting formula is very logical, it doesn’t account for Parkinson’s Law.
Changes in Human Behaviour is very hard. Working with Human Behaviour is easier.
This relates to plate servings, which describes our behaviour to see what’s on the plate and consume it all.
The same principle applies when it comes to cash and profit, our human behaviour is to see what’s on the plate and consume it all. Or, see what’s in the account and consume it all, until there’s nothing left.
I want to propose a NEW formula. Mathematically, it’s the same formula, but according to Human behaviour, which you’ve now learned, it’s radically different!
What if from today every time you made a sale, you FIRST took out a portion of profit and put that away.
The Bottom Line series – 4. Commonly asked questions Building a Cash Rich Business
Commonly asked questions about Building a Cash Rich Business:
I built up some debt over the years trying to keep things afloat. How do I get out of that debt while still building my War Chest?
At the Cash Rich Business workshop, we’ll give you a plan to rapidly pay down your debt that works WITH your human behaviours not against it.
What if after making a contribution to my war chest, there is not enough money leftover to cover expenses?
This is your business screaming out to you saying that you can’t afford these things. At the cash-rich business workshop, we’ll do an assessment on your business so you know exactly how much more or less you should be paying in 4 areas.
- How much more (or less) you should be paying yourself as Profit.
- How much more (or less) you should be paying yourself as an Owner’s Salary.
- How much more (or less) you should be paying in Tax.
- How much more (or less) you should be paying as Operating Expenses.
In fact, in the Cash Rich Business workshop, you’ll walk away knowing exactly how every dollar coming in should be distributed to these four areas (Profit, Owners Pay, Tax & Expenses) in order to become a Cash Rich Business.
Which brings me to the next question…
But I’m just starting out in Business, is this Cash Rich Business methodology still appropriate for me?
Which I’ll answer with another question, what do you think would be easier, to do things the old way. The Sales minus Expenses = Profit as leftovers way. Or would you like to start with your ideal allocation from day 1?
If you’re not in a position to come to the Workshop but you love what we’re about, I’d love an email to hello@inspireca.com with feedback on today’s session.
Now that’s the logical part out of the way. That all makes sense.
What would happen now is your expenses would become a smaller plate. We’d have less available. And we could continue our original behaviour of consuming it all.
It would force us to be more innovative. It would force us to return to our entrepreneurial roots, and we’d figure out how to get it all done with fewer expenses.
If we take our profit first, we can use Parkinson’s law for good, instead of for bad. All we need to do is spend less than we make! But we don’t do it… We have to exploit our natural behaviour. We have to leverage how we naturally behave.
Starting today, put your profit first, always.
The benefits of becoming a Cash Rich Business:
1. The War Chest is a rainy day fund, a backup when storms hit but this fund is specifically for those really bad storms. It is not something to be accessed unless it is an emergency. When storms hit it can trigger a panic of trying to scrape together money that belongs to another important part of the business this is called stealing from Peter to pay Paul, which NEVER works out in the long run. This is why setting up a War Chest is so important so you have enough funds to go around!
2. You will adjust the spending and build a healthy business using the money leftover AFTER you withdraw the War Chest percentage.
3. The Cash Rich Business model is a simple monitoring system. Once you have an established habit of donating to the War Chest for a year or so, you can watch the trend of the Equity Distribution every quarter. If the 50% you take from the war chest every quarter is growing, so is your business. If the drawing is flat or going down. So is your business. You don’t need an Accountant to tell you that!
4. A company that shows a consistent profit, quarter after quarter is much more valuable to a prospective buyer since when you sell your company, that’s when you make some REAL money.
5. Being a Cash Rich Business is a great way to get access to major lending. The more you have in your War Chest, the more you have willing to lend. Good luck trying to get a bank line of credit if you have no War Chest. But as the reserves in the War Chest grow, the bank lines of credit will increase and so will others.
It’s simple, and it works.
Here are the steps to take –
First –
Research financial trends to find out what industry leaders make as profits. Calculate industry profits as a percentage of revenue. e.g. I surveyed many Accounting firms and discovered that 30% is a healthy profit percentage and is achievable amongst the top performing companies in our industry.
30% is our target War Chest percentage.
That being said, 30% may be too much for a young business.
So initially, your company may be best served by having 5% of revenue going to the War Chest.
Then we might look at adjusting contributions to 8% in the following quarter. And 11% in the next, and so on.
Continue to ratchet up the War Chest deposits slowly, quarter by quarter until you are at the optimal amount determined by your research.
Second –
Establish your War Chest, so it’s not easy to transfer money out of your account. We recommend a separate account, with a separate bank to your usual operating account.
Most business owners have one account where everything goes in, and everything goes out. In this case, if too much goes out, and not enough comes in, you run out of money.
Third –
Immediately begin transferring your starting War Chest Percentage from your very next sale. And I do mean EVERY sale into your War Chest. It’s not about the money that goes there just yet; it’s about building the habit of paying your War Chest.
Fourth –
Use the remaining percentage of money to run your company and pay your salary. This way, you’re covered. We encourage you to celebrate and enjoy that money. Even if it’s just $50, you never have to feel guilty for spending it. The best part is, as you get better at putting money away, you get better at paying yourself!
Fifth –
Distribute 50% of the War Chest balance to equity owners on a quarterly basis and leave the remaining amount for back up.
Logic vs Human Behaviour
I was talking to a good friend of mine recently who I know regularly donates blood.
I know that because he posts on Facebook whenever he does it. So yesterday, I asked him, how much blood have you donated?
He said about 40 L.
I said holy crap, the human body only has 5 L’s Chris!
He quickly said “I usually give about half a litre every time.”
Clearly it would be impossible for Chris to give 40 L in one sitting. He would be a gonner.
Even if Chris only donated 1 / 3 of his blood, say 1.5L, in one sitting he might suffer some tough consequences.
But since he donated half a litre of blood per visit, his body hardly notices it and he can donate several times a year without missing it.
After years of deposits to the blood bank his donations have piled up, and now he’s donated a stunning 40 L or 8 x what he has in his body right now.
The moral of the story is this:
Cash is the lifeblood of your business.
Shouldn’t you treat your money like the blood of your business?
Just like blood is often required in a medical emergency, a business in financial trouble often requires an infusion of capital.
You never know when a patient will need a donation of blood, but with a pool of easily accessible blood reserves, the chance of survival dramatically increases.
Sometimes your business problems are predictable. Other times they will blindside you.
With a source of easily accessible cash the chance for business survival dramatically increases.
Do you see the value in regularly donating business cash flow to your reserves?
The best system is to become a Cash Rich Business.
What do I mean by this?
Every time money comes in to your business (and I mean every time) automatically transfer a percentage of the money into a separate account.
Just like with half a Litre of blood, a healthy business will hardly feel the withdrawal. In fact if you do it first you will never miss it. I like to call this reserve a Profit War Chest, just like Pirates of the Caribbean and a parrot on your shoulder.
Creating a powerful culture worth being a part of begins with you!
| I believe we each have a responsibility as individuals to be the culture that we want to see around us.For instance, if we walk into work and we’re grumpy and have had a bad morning and just happen to get up on the wrong side of the bed, we are creating a culture around us that is either negatively or positively affect those that we come in contact with.
When you smile at someone, you attract a smile back. If you’re grumpy at someone, people are just going to react to that and be grumpy back. Who wants to live like that? That’s stupid. Just my two cents. So here’s my challenge to you…
If we approach situations and people to see the true nature of who they are inside and call that out of them even despite what they do, despite if they yell at you, if they scream at you, if they just are rude or whatever, going back to culture, it’s our responsibility to create the culture that we want around us. If you respond in love to someone that’s reacting in a negative way, you have automatically put water on the fire, because they expect for you to be rude back, but you, again, have the responsibility to create that culture.
Ask yourselves these questions:
If you can see that potential in them and call it out, they are going to radically change the world and you’re going to be a part of their life. They’re going to owe it to you. They want to owe it to you because you’ve been able to bring something out of them that is just incredible and they didn’t realize maybe that it was in them. Bless you xo
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⏰⏰⏰ The ugly truth about TIMESHEETS – what old school accountants don’t want you to know about how they charge when they bill you by the hour ??
You may not realise this but ‘Old School’ Accountants charge by the minute.
They are driven by timesheets.
What’s the problem with your accountant charging you using timesheets?
The problem is this…
If the accountant wanted to make more money out of you, what does he need to do?
“Take longer,” you say?
And you would be correct … he could take longer.
But the ugly reality that I’ve seen is this –
“an accountant who does timesheets could either take longer to make more money out of you, or he could just “SAY” he took longer.”
It’s like a dirty Donald Trump locker room secret that most accountants don’t want you to know about – a practice called “TIMESHEET PADDING.”
I’m guilty. I’ve fabricated some pretty spectacular timesheets in my time.
But I was expected to by my employer in order to ‘meet budget’.
That’s why I went out on my own to start INSPIRE CA and why we price our jobs UPFRONT and GUARANTEE that your investment in our fees will pay for themselves many times over in tax saved.
So next time you receive a bill from your Accountant ask him or her if they use timesheets to charge and if instead, they could move you to a fixed price or upfront fee so that you know exactly how much your bill will be.
Got a burning question about using Business Structures to save tax and create a family vault?
Book in, to TEST DRIVE AN ACCOUNTANT – a 15 min rapid fire Q & A session with an Inspirational Accountant.
How To Stay Motivated & Achieve Your BIG Goals
It’s Monday morning; you’ve just finished a fantastic weekend. You’ve played the sports with the kids. You’ve gone to the beach, had a beautiful meal, and it’s just been wonderful. When you wake up, and it’s Monday morning, you check your emails, and you’ve got a hundred new emails that have come in over the weekend. On top of that, you have received a ‘big problem’ email from that annoying client that we always have has there’s a big problem with one of those emails. All you think about is, “Man, I just want to go back into bed, and I just don’t want to face the world.”
It’s now crunch time to be clear about your goals for business & life and stay motivated to achieve them!
The first question to ask yourself is thinking about my audience, the people that I get out of bed to help and serve, whether they are already existing clients or prospective clients, why do I want to serve them, what is the impact that I get out of bed to impact to impact in their lives.
For us, we help young families who are in small business achieve big goals.
Every day, when we get out of bed, our whole team thinks about what are the great outcomes we can achieve for this group, and so too for you.
Is it the holidays you can help those clients achieve?
Is it the peace of mind?
Is it the time you’re giving back in their life?
Is that feeling of satisfaction in the service that you’re providing to them?
These are all the motivating factors, these things that get you out of bed every morning that is going to help to remind you of why you’re here in the first place.
The second questions you need to think about is who are the mentors that inspire you?
Now, we live in a beautiful world these days, when you can have mentors. They might be friends. They might be family members. They might be co-worker or bosses that you’ve had in the past. What’s also amazing is that we’ve got this world of YouTube, and podcast, and the internet, where we can get access to some of the world’s most beautiful minds. Think about the second question.
Who are the mentors that inspire you, and how would you go and hang out with them?
If they’re local and if they’re in contact, could you call them up and have a coffee? Could we go out and have some lunch together? Could you give them a call, like a lifeline, to say, “Hey look, I’m really struggling with something? Can you help me with this challenge?”
“What I do every morning is I spend every morning with a global mentor that really inspires me. This morning, for example, I signed up to a podcast, and I listened to Tony Robbins. We had 45 minutes together and walked along the river. When I’ve come into work today, I felt amazing because I spent an hour with Tony Robbins. Who gets to do that?”
The third question to think about is what is the environment that best inspires and motivates you?
If you work from home, I encourage you to get out of your pajamas and get into some clothes that make you feel that you’re in control, make you feel like you’re a boss. Also, don’t sit in your bed and sit in the lounge and have the laptop on your lap. Go into a dedicated space, whether it be a study area, or to a dining room table, make that your space. Also, think about the visual cues that are around you. Can you have flowers? Can you have cool music that’s playing? Can you have inspirational quotes that are on the wall that can give you that inspiration to get you in the right space?
Another great tool that’s available these days for small business owners is co-working spaces.
There’re some brilliant spaces around that have all of these environment factors in place. Plus, the best thing about them is other people who are on a roll. They can give you motivation because you see them making phone calls. You see them getting work done. That whole environment around you will help keep you motivated.
The fourth question you need to ask yourself is how clearly can I see the goals that I’m achieving towards, that I’m striving towards, and have them motivate you.
It’s a really cool strategy that I learned. Every morning, I have these cue cards. I’ve gone through a process of writing down my top 10 goals or things that I’m working towards in business and life.
With daily habits, a really good thing I’ve learned is to associate them with things that happen every day.
I know that every day I get a coffee, so that’s my cue to go down and think about the goals that I’ve set. Having them, tangible means that I can have a moment to think about the fact that I’m so happy and grateful now that I’m surrounded by a strong group of friends and family. I’m so happy and grateful now that I’ve got a buddy like Sonny Bill Williams. These are the types of motivations that we would need to keep front and foremost.
Now if you’re not the paper kind of person, what I encourage is to take things another level, and have pictures, have images that represent the goals that you’re striving towards. As you know, we always have our mobile phones on us. Save a little album on your phone with all the photos that inspire or represent all the goals that you’re working towards.
Every day, whether it’s when you have your coffee or whether you’re having breakfast, or you’re driving into work, have a flick through and think about what are the things that motivate you, why you’re here in the first place, trying to achieve these goals, and working so hard.
We hope you have been Inspired and motivated today! At Inspire we help young families use their Small Business’ to achieve big goals and are here to help in any way!
Book in, to TEST DRIVE AN ACCOUNTANT – a 15 min rapid fire Q & A session with an Inspirational Accountant.
How To Set Company Goals That Your Whole Team Will Buy Into
Learn how to set a big goal for your company and have your team actually buy into it and not just roll their eyes like every other time you’ve said this.
It’s really important that we engage our team from the start with our new ideas and business aspirations. This is, so they can catch the enthusiasm and jump on board with this new company goal. On the other hand, if we fail to capture the team from the start we will not only have a disengaged team, but the company will have no chance of achieving that new exciting goal.
You may have read a book, or you’ve gone to a weekend conference or a retreat, maybe it was the partners who went to the managers or just the executive team. What are the other team members back in the office thinking? They’re thinking, “Oh my gosh, he’s read another book or he’s gone to another conference. We’re going to have this big change off, and he’s seen the light and all we need to do is to hang out for the next two weeks while that initial desire burns off.” This is a common situation in businesses who love to continue their professional development and are always learning.
The question is, how do we get our team members really excited and on board about new initiatives and new goals for that business?
Step number one:
Understanding where your employees are coming from.
Yes, you’ve read this book. Yes, you’ve gone to the conference, but only you were there during that experience. Here’s where you are and here’s where they are. You absolutely have to, before you go out and buy twenty-seven copies of that book and insist that the whole team go ahead and read it, you need to slow things down and talk to them one on one. There’s a brilliant book called, Crucial Conversations, and it talks about talking from the heart. Being able to have an opportunity to understand what are the motivations of your team members? What drives them?
What you need to remember, while we may be busy running our own businesses and feeling the pressures of owning a business, our team members actually want to do a good job. They want to succeed in their job. They want to be able to ring the bell, and they want to be able to hit and exceed their KPIs. We need to have a conversation with them to connect the ideas about what your new goals are, what the new strategies are that you’ve learned and what are the motivations and goals of the team members and find out how we can connect them.
Now, unfortunately as busy business owners, we are indeed that, very busy, but we need to prioritize the time to one on one, talk with these team members and connect their goals and motivations with where we want to head as a business.
Step number two
Set aside time to workshop the goal with the team.
You had a time, one on one with your team members to understand their own goals and aspirations. Now it’s time to help get your team up to speed with whatever it is that you’ve learned in this workshop or in this book, to be able to help the team get behind this project. This takes time again, to be able to explain to them the context around whatever it is this business or company goal or process is, and ask for input or get their input into how we can actually achieve this together as a team.
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