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THE ASKER OF DIFFICULT QUESTIONS !
By Paul Holmes , Founder , PCH Business Consultants
A recent comment from one of my clients made me laugh ! He was describing me as a part of the process of working with his already successful company as we are now planning the next phase of growth , without the sense of overwhelm that the recent growth had generated . He labelled me as the “ Asker of Difficult Questions ” Am I ? Yes I am ! That ’ s part of my job and part of what PCH Business Consultants are supposed to do - challenging established thinking , norms and practice , to deliver something different for any business to move forward with confidence . We focus on “ thinking differently ”! “ If you always do what you ’ ve always done , you ’ ll always get what you ’ ve always got ” said Henry Ford Guess what – it ’ s so true ! The purpose of the hard questions is to think about what you really want from the business ? Is it really likely to happen if you are doing what you have always done ? It ’ s not about exposing failings but to make you think , to help you really embrace thinking differently and identifying opportunities as a result .
Identifying your goal is often not the problem , you have an idea what you might want to earn from the business or what you might want to sell it for in the future – working out what that actually means for the size of the company in the future is often the real shock ! Your goal may be miles away from the reality !
A recent client when faced with the idea that he would have to sell 100,000 units a year to achieve his sale price declared “ that ’ s just insane !!”
Thinking differently allowed him to see there was a very different way !
Another client - told me that there wasn ’ t any scope for changing what they offered , that there was a ceiling on what people would pay …
Within a couple of hours he had mentioned twice , things that he was paying a premium for , for convenience in the business …….. eventually the penny finally dropped .
We revisited their offer and were able to quickly create a series of packages for customers to choose from , that included convenience as a premium option .
The overall revenue increased but more importantly so did the profitability !
Tracking customer value and working out ways to maximise it , is a great way to increase margin for roughly the same amount of time and energy .
The difficult questions for a business owner or a director , typically go along the lines of :
“ Why are you doing that … ( insert here the relevant operational task in the business , programming a machine , knife and forking an order out of the door , planning building repairs or fixing a problem that seems to happen once a week !)…?
“ That ’ s not your job , you are the owner of the company , you employ a team of skilled people to sort that – why are you still doing it ?”
“ If I said from the 1st of September that you are never allowed to do it again , what would need to happen before then ?”
Then the magic happens – the owner goes into solution mode , a person to hire , to train or simply to hand it to . Even this small step forward saves a few hours for the most important person in the company … the business owner .
You as the owner are the most valuable person in the company , especially outside its walls ! You are the person with the most opportunity to see problems , threats or opportunities .
In other words , that time you spent working out why there were not enough M10 bolts on the shop floor , could have been negotiating a £ 1million order !
If you are flat out busy in your business , then you have become the bottleneck to future growth – like it or not ! Would you like that to change ? What are you going to do about it ? Are you prepared to ask for help ? If you are answering ‘ yes ’ to any of these ‘ hard ’ questions please get in touch .
PCH Business Consultants is a Business Growth Consultancy with a difference , with almost 30 associates and experts , focussing on £ multimillion Engineering , Manufacturing and Technology companies , but with experience across most sectors . www . pch-consultants . co . uk
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