Making our Mission Possible

Inspiration from Asia

Whew - what a week!  Another one of the inspiring speakers at the WPO conference was Sung-Joo Kim, founder of Sungjoo Group, a retail group that operates franchise stores for Marks & Spencer, Yves Saint Laurent and Gucci in South Korea. She is also chairman and chief executive of MCM Group, the German luxury goods company that has stores worldwide. MCM handbags and luggage are favoured by Cindy Crawford and Geri Halliwell, and Ms Kim has turned the company into a brand with annual sales of over $200m (£100m).   

We received a great conference bag designed by MCM which was wonderful, but more than that, I left with the feeling that this woman was inspiring and driven to prove herself and her capabilities.  She told us about her upbringing in Korea where women were told to be seen and not heard, and whilst her brothers were given every opportunity to learn and improve themselves, she had to fight to get her father to agree that she could study.  Even after this it was not expected that women run businesses, so she was a real ground breaker in Korea.

Ms Kim had five key points to deliver:
1. Focus on woman-ness - recognise your female talents and maximise them, particularly our emotional intelligence
2. Go Global - don't be afraid to think big
3. Be an early adopter of IT - she gave the example of how competitive the business world was in Korea with all the big players being male owned businesses.  They tried to put her out of business but she used IT to her company's advantage, enabling flexible working and demonstrating openness in all communications.  This won over both her clients and her workforce.
4. Practice corporate and social responsibility - no matter how small your business is, think about the wider implications of your business on the world and give something back.
5. Have a clear vision and "succeed to serve" - the focus should be on serving others and not serving yourself.

She has a clear vision to build the first worldwide luxury brand owned by a Korean and is well on the way to achieving it!

Innovation: Malcolm Gladwell's comparison of Picasso and Cezanne

It's day one of the Women President's Organisation annual conference and its off to a great start.  The keynote presentation was delivered by Malcolm Gladwell, author of The Tipping Point and Blink which are two books that recently have changed people's thinking on big concepts.

Today he was in fine form tackling the topic of innovation by providing a comparison between the approaches of Picasso and Cezanne.  What he was really referring to was the issue of big bold ideas that make short term impact versus constant experimentation and small improvements over time.  It was fascinating and gave credence to all those in the audience who perhaps were thinking "should I give up or keep going?" with any innovation that they are working on that is not yet yielding results.

He referred to several other examples where the same principles apply.....It took Fleetwood Mac over 10 years and 15 albums until they created their 16th hit album Rumours which was one of the top five biggest selling albums of all time.  Compare this to the drive by the music industry these days for artistes to deliver instant results. 

Orson Wells directed Citizen Kane when he was aged 24 compared to Alfred Hitchcock who was in his late fifties by the time he directed Vertigo and had been experimenting and honing his craft for years.  Both films were hugely successful and yet were created using very different innovative approaches.

What Gladwell was really saying was that there are two approaches to innovation - one the short term bold concept that can be easily described in advance and will make a major impact, and the other is those in it for the long term, and who cannot easily describe what the end outcome will be, as its only through constantly experimenting and making small improvements that they realise the innovation in the end.  Both can yield great financial results, but one requires patience which seems to be in short supply these days in the business world.

I came away thinking that since Mission Possible has been going for 10 years and we are constantly experimenting and improving what we do that we are probably in the Cezanne camp - which means that Mission Achieved will be at some future time .....

First Impressions

Greetings from Boston!  I arrived here today for the Women Presidents Organisation (WPO) annual conference which starts on Thursday.  As a facilitator for WPO we have a get together and some training prior to the conference, so its great to catch up with old friends and to make some new acquaintances too.

Arriving in Boston I immediately felt at home here.  The sun was shining, clear skies and the drive along the riverfront was lovely, as I noticed boats on their moorings and people out jogging in the park.  In fact there were rather a lot of sports people around as the Boston Marathon happened this weekend so there was a multitude of coloured tracksuits and sports wear adorning the hotel lobby as I arrived.

All of this pleasant experience has set me in a positive frame of mind to enjoy the next few days and reminded me how important first impressions are in business.  Whilst we may not always feel like smiling or being friendly, your clients will notice how you come across immediately.  They may be thinking - will this business be good to work with, are they efficient and will they be thinking about their customers needs?   So think about the first impressions that people notice about your business.  Does your website convey the look and feel you want it to?  If they call you do they get an answerphone or a friendly voice?  Put yourself in the shoes of a customer and notice what they experience....it may give you a shock!

Virtual Assistant conference

I am always interested to speak at a conference in a sector that i have not experienced before and today was one of thoese days.  It was the national Virtual Assistant conference which was lots of fun.  Imagine a room full of people who are much more organised than me, are always thinking ahead to what needs to be done and are there to fufil your every need.The people I met were very efficent, enthusiatic and energetic  -a joy to work with!

Mission Growth launches

As you probably know, before I founded Mission Possible, I skied to the North Pole. It was a long journey which was really difficult at times, but I found the best way to get support was from my peers. It's just the same in business because no-one understands the issues that an owner of a growing business faces with the same clarity and immediacy as does another entrepreneur.

With this in mind, we have launched Mission Growth™ as a way for women to connect with their peers so that they learn, share and help each other achieve business success.

Mission Growth™ brings together groups of women who are running businesses with annual turnovers between £75,000 and £500,000 to address their business issues on a monthly basis. Each local group has up to 15 members from non-competing businesses and is run by a highly experienced facilitator. The facilitator uses our Mission Growth process to ensure that there is a structured way for you to share experiences and help one another to focus on the "bottom line".

We have teamed up with Barclays, Kleinwort Benson and hyro Online to deliver this service, which eventually will be available across the UK. Our first three groups are launching in Swindon, Newbury and  Oxfordshire so download our brochure (pdf document) or look at the website to find out more.

Mission Growth is nearly here

It's very exciting because we are almost at the stage of launching our new service for growing businesses called Mission Growth.  We have been planning it for ages and everything seems to be falling into place so I will be able to say more in the next few days.

All I can say at the moment is if you run a business that has an annual turnover between £75,000 and £500,000 then watch this space.....

Why small businesses should act like big businesses

This week I attended the WE Connect workshop which explained how majority women-owned businesses can connect to corporate contracts by becoming certified as a women-owned business.  This initiative has been set up to increase supplier diversity amongst the multinationals and to create a method of giving them assurance that the businesses they may wish to trade with are bona-fide and have the capability to support a corporate contract.  This means that the small businesses have to act like bigger businesses in order to give the corporates confidence in trading with them.

Changing from "I am the business" to "this is a business that I lead"
One of the observations I made at the workshop was the need to help some businesses make the leap from being in the category of "I am the business" to "this is a business that I lead".  To overcome this gap, business owners need to change their mindset to view the business as an entity that has a structure, a business model that could be scalable, and then use different language to describe it.  When you talk about your business - do you say "I do this" or  "we offer that"?  Even if its just you, by saying "we" can make you appear bigger in the eyes of the customer.

Size matters
Most large companies want peace of mind if they are trading with a small business in order to minimise risks and to ensure they will get the service they want.  For example, if the business is "you" what if you are sick, who delivers the service?  They want to know that if you have associates or employees that they will deliver consistent quality. So they want to know what systems or processes you have in place to make sure this is possible.  This is an investment that many small businesses fail to make in portraying themselves as a larger business.

Tips to help you act like a big business

Some ways that this can be done are:
- creating a strong logo and brand for your business that has a "corporate look"
- using a telephone messaging service to take your calls when you are out
- creating systems for the work you do even if its just you that does it currently, so that the job can be replicable by someone else
- being VAT registered (in the UK) can give an impression of your business being bigger than it might be
- being clear about the business model that delivers revenue - so that you know the business does not just rely on you - but can be scalable
- create policies for your business (health and safety, environmental, diversity etc) because if you tender for any government or corporate contracts they will want to know these things).
- consider the language that you use to describe your business, do you make it sound big or small?

- invest in a proper domain name for your business

Establish global partners
If you want to change your focus from a local to a global perspective think about finding some global partners to work with.  You might find that there are some great companies in other countries offering complementary services or products that you could partner with to get a foot in another market place.  Now that WE Connect has launched in the UK, several women-owned US companies are looking to find out how they can become certified in the UK, so if those companies can think globally why can't you?  A similar certification process already exists in the US and is called WBENC.