Chris Barrow’s Blog

Although Friday is normally a free day, I’m investing a bonus business development day today, because there is one important task that I must complete before I can clear my mind.

Over time, we have added more and more “features” to the way in which I deliver my business coaching – many of which have been innovated to allow me to leverage my time across increasing numbers of clients, without diluting the quality of our coaching or burning me out more frequently than normal (for a small-business owner).

We have developed a weekly email reporting system, monthly laser-coaching calls, monthly telephone conference calls, the coaching gym, the workshops, the workbooks, the assessment forms, the ezine, this blog, the podcasts and a growing “knowledge bank” of answers to frequently asked questions.

Problem 1 – the clients and prospective new clients can sometimes be overwhelmed with all this and

Problem 2 – I now feel ready to offer varied selections of these services, at different price points, so that prospective clients can dip their toes in the water, rather than just make a commitment to a full year’s programme.

So today is about creating a menu of the “features, benefits and outcomes” that we can deliver, at those various price points.

My mission is to create a one page document that summarizes all this information, in a way that can be utilised as a web page, emailed as a Word document or handed out at “gigs”.

I have the document in my mind and on various bits of paper – now to create the final version.

Next week, I will then be working with Team CB to start the back-stage activity, ready for a re-launch no later than 1st April.

Sometimes, the only way to respond to adversity is to laugh.

Yesterday morning I woke at 5.15am and drove 110 miles to attend a monthly management meeting with my support team. We normally start the meetings at 10.00am to allow for civilised travel but I was asked to attend early so that team members could move on to other meetings in the afternoon.

As I arrived at The Southgate Hotel in Exeter, I received a text message from my business manager to say that she was in bed with food poisoning. Ten minutes later, a text message from our mentor coach to say that he was in his own (separate!) bed with a similar condition. They were working together in Bristol on Monday and may have picked up the same bug.

My business development manager has driven over 100 miles from London the night before to attend – the two of us are sat there in the hotel reception with our meeting trashed.

We ordered coffee.

I switched on the brand new laptop and inserted my 3G data card to pick up emails – the laptop “blue screens” and I get a message to say that there has been a hardware malfunction and the system has crashed again.

We sip our coffee.

What next?

Well, after spending a few moments suggesting that this is all a conspiracy theory and my family and support team have decided to share my life insurance, we decide to make the best of it and begin a 4-hour conversation on business development and income generating ideas for the next 90-days.

Whilst chatting, we walk over to the Vodaphone shop and an extremely helpful young lady assists me in removing my datacard software, reloading it and the fixing the data card settings – as well as replacing a faulty booster ariel free of charge – good customer service.

From there, across the High Street into the O2 shop to have the picture and text messaging services fixed on my mobile phone – a toleration for the last 3 months.

Eventually, we finish our meeting over a salad nicoise and agree that we have had one of our best conversations.

I then drive over to PC World and, removing a further toleration, buy a new ink-jet printer and a USB hub for my home office.

My two hour drive back is filled with constructive follow-on phone calls and the evening concludes in an initial interview with an exciting potential new team member.

As I arrive home at 9.30pm I reflect that, today, I have pulled victory from the jaws of defeat and I’m proud of myself.

Dinner with a client last night in Farnham and, for a change, we decided to walk past Pizza Express and through the door of their sister company, Zizzis – their brand new restaurant opened in the town just a few days ago.

You have heard me say before that, when traveling, I mostly eat with good quality franchise businesses, so as to guarantee quality of food and delivery. I have even joined the loyalty card club at Pizza Express!

As my client and I discussed his business, we concluded that he already has a hugely successful practice which has plateaued in terms of profitability – and yet there is almost an absence of internal marketing systems – because the clinicians and the support team have never had it so good. We estimate that profits would rise (maybe double) if they were following systems.

We called over the restaurant manager and, after explaining that we were not mystery shoppers, asked what systems existed at Zizzis?

He explained that the management receive formal training and that there is ” a big book” that explains exactly how to run a Zizzis franchise.

Further, he explained that all staff – chefs (clinical) and servers (support team) receive on-site training at another successful branch before they are “let loose” on the local customers.

This made me think about dental practice:

1. is there a “big book” in your practice? Answer is always “no”;

2. do the clinical team get on site training? Answer is always “no”;

3.do the support team get on site training? Answer is always “yes” but there is no “big book” – it’s just word of mouth.

Again, I see the need for systems and for a franchise approach to dentistry.

The fusilli Gorgonzola was wonderful.

Its not often I get a dose of this – I love the work I do and the people I work with – so why have I been attacked by the blues this morning?

Ezine was written before 7.45am, podcast recorded before 8.15am and I’m now looking at 49 emails that arrived over the weekend and thinking “beam me up Scottie” as another busy week swings into action.

I think its just a touch of overwhelm – so much to do and so many issues to deal with, both professionally and personally.

The danger is that I will slip into “poor me” syndrome – so I’ll need to watch that in the next few hours.

I have a 4 hour drive later this afternoon and I’m going to make sure that there are some uplifting conversations whilst traveling. Speaking to other people is what I need to do – I’m my own worst company when I’m like this.

Its quite funny really – my alarm call was at 4.15am this morning, so that I could travel to Edinburgh and deliver a presentation to a group of Scottish dentists that will include references to time management and the cliche of “work/life balance”.

Life as a road warrior can be taxing and my plan for 2006 was to spend far less time moving from one location to another. However, I’m only a few weeks into the year and the barriers are being tested already.

It can be very easy to make promises in pursuit of business and cash flow, only to discover that the price paid in terms of physical and mental stress is too high.

I need to keep an eye on this over the weeks ahead – and make sure my personal coach keeps me on track.

It’s the last time I’ll mention it – but the new Sony S5 is cool and small enough to fit on the shelf of the aircraft seat in front of me, with room to spare for a cup of tea.

I’m looking forward to the day ahead – a Scottish Independent Practitioners Group who have invited me to speak on The Perfect Patient Journey and an introduction to Ethical Selling. These days are often a lot of fun, especially if there are plenty of team members there and I can use some humour in the proceedings.

I have to admit that, public speaking is one of my favourite activities, even though the travel can be a bind.

The expectation of a room full of new faces is always a pleasure.

My local geek shop managed to reactivate the sick laptop yesterday afternoon and, hearing this, I rushed across the road under a steady rain storm and was whisked behind the scenes into the “room at the back” where a variety of PC’s and laptops lay with their insides hanging out – all rather like a scene from an early Star Wars movie.

“I managed to get it going again without the Windows XP operating system” said my geek (a big bloke in his mid-20′s, all heavy metal t-shirt and hair).

“Can you repair it?” I asked like a worried parent.

“Impossible to say at the moment, it’s a hardware problem obviously and we will have to spend some time looking into it.”

At which point I asked permission to take the limping machine back home and link it to my new laptop using a software package called “TransferMyPC”, which does all the thinking for me.

I hook up the two machines with a fancy cable and press the right buttons to begin an 8 hour file transfer that ends just after 2.00am in the morning.

How do I know? Because I’m sat there watching, unable to get to sleep.

Its 4.30am before I manage to fall asleep and my alarm call is at 6.00am.

Today, I look like my grandfather did when he was 75 years old.

The last time I had so little sleep in a week was waiting for babies to be born and watching them afterwards.

The good news is that most of my files are now safely restored and I’m geared up to be working back at full speed.

Sleep deprivation has kicked in today and I don’t feel like doing very much.

Luckily, its a business development day – so no clients were harmed in the making of this insomniac coach. I intend to rest, really take it slow, because tomorrow I’m travelling up to Scotland to speak at a large dental conference and I want to be as chirpy as I can.

As a friend commented yesterday, in an ideal world we would all have 2 laptops, both fired up and ready to go, so that when the crashes occur (this is 3 in 3 years) we can carry on working and pass the repairs on to a team member.

Monday morning I make a 7 hour train journey to get to where I want to work this week.

Normally I would drive 6 hours but I decide to reward myself with a train ride so that I can catch up on emails, ezine and have a chance to think.

The financial argument is that the train will cost about 100 pounds more than the petrol for my car but the virtual office time will be invaluable.

So far, so good.

About 30 minutes into the train journey my laptop crashes.

I spend 2 hours rebooting and receive repeated error messages, telling me that the hard disk cannot initialize and the laptop cannot find ts own operating system (Windows XP).

Eventually, and after many whirrs and clicks, the darn thing works but is noticeably slower than usual.

I immediately back up as many files as possible (and my diary and contact list) to our office intranet and then answer all my client emails.

As soon as I arrive at my destination, the first port of call is Micro Anvika to purchase a new laptop (a Sony S5 with upgraded RAM).

6.15pm Monday evening I set about the process of reloading software on to the new laptop and I’ve also bought a transfer software package. At midnight Monday, the old laptop finally dies, before I have had a chance to start the final file transfer.

At least I am live on email and have synchronized my calendar and contacts with the intranet.

1.00am to bed and up again at 6.00am to continue the recovery process all Tuesday morning.

My main back-up hard drive will have to wait until the end of the week – at least I know that 2500 photographs and all the contents of “My Documents” are there.

So that’s my third laptop disaster in as many years – two hard drive crashes and one theft.

A testament to effective back up systems:

1. a portable hard drive that I back up at least once a month;

2. an office intranet that automatically syncs with my calendar, contacts, tasks and contains all my important documents. See www.weboffice.com

I will not be fully backed up until early next week and the whole process has probably cost me a full day’s work – but it could be a lot worse.

That was the question from a coach who attended my workshop last Friday.

“Chris. Forget the marketing funnel, the pie slices and the back-office team – I need to make money NOW – so what do I do?”

Now, of course, there is an element of bed-wetting going on here – the answer may provide a short term solution to a short term problem but eventually you are going to have to do something more permanent about the issue. But a direct question deserves a direct answer, so this is what I said:

1. Make a list of your top 20 professional relationships – people who can really influence and move your business forwards (credit to Dan Sullivan at The Strategic Coach for that one);

2. Arrange to have breakfast, lunch, dinner or just coffee with them all in the next 90 days;

3. Ask them all “what’s the biggest single challenge facing you in your business right now?”

4. Ask them all “what’s the biggest single obstacle that is getting in the way of you addressing that challenge?”

5. Ask them all “how best can I help to remove the obstacle and address the challenge?”

6. Ask them all “if I could do that would you hire me right now?”

7. Ask them all “irrespective of whether you would hire me would you recommend me to at least 3 others to address the same challenges and obstacles?”

And so I challenged my client to make the calls, arrange the meetings and ask the questions.

I took my Land Rover Discovery into a dealership in Leeds, Yorkshire a few months ago to have a headlamp light bulb replaced.

Never been there before or since.

Yesterday they left a message on my voice mail asking if the existing vehicle was OK and enquiring as to whether I would like to upgrade to the new Discovery 3 model.

A pleasant phone call from “Graham” who introduced himself and wasn’t at all pushy – in fact, he didn’t even leave his number and just asked that I would find him if I were interested.

They have a lead generation and lead conversion system and they are leaving no stone unturned in their search for business.

If you think they sound desperate you will never be successful at sales yourself.

I think it was excellent.

Will I buy a new Disco from them?

Most likely not as I’m about to change the Disco for my Pontiac GTO (nearly here) – but I’ll retain a soft spot for Land Rover and tell all my family, friends and colleagues about them.

In fact, Graham doesn’t know it – but 4000 people will hear about him in the next week – and each of them knows another 200 people. Do the math.

Are your systems as robust?

My “listening” goes on.

Yesterday I endured a 5 hour drive to position myself for this week’s workshop tour and decided to use the time to chat with my business family on the telephone (hands-free I hasten to add).

I’m turning over a new leaf at the moment and recognising that trying to be a business-owner, leader and recluse all at the same time isn’t working.

It’s just that, over the years I have developed a real dislike of the mobile/cell phone as an intrusion into one’s privacy.

It drives me mental when other people are in restaurants, movies, shopping malls – and meetings with me – and their phones start to ring. I swapped accountants a few years ago because he insisted on taking endless calls during our meetings and either told the callers he would get back to them or asked me to wait. It made me feel like one of his least important clients.

So my dislike of that 24/7 interruption has caused me to go too far in the opposite direction and just keep my own phone switched off the majority of the time.

Result?

My business family feel neglected.

So my new leaf is to start becoming more approachable, more sociable and to make the effort to call as often as I can.

Actually, there has been a turning point in all of this.

Looking back, part of the problem has been that when I call, I ask “how are you/things?” and then they tell me.

I’m a coach – and after a day’s coaching I don’t want to coach any more – so asking “how are you/things?” is actually setting up more coaching. That’s why I haven’t done it – duh.

So I’m going to change my approach – make the call but ask them how they can help me. It fits in with my listening campaign of the last 7 days, which has been immensely helpful.

I’m going to explain my challenges and choices to my business family every day I can – and ask them how they can help me.

We’ll see how that goes.

The recluse is going to pop his head out of the shell a little.

I’m nervous.