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Work-life balance - what is it?

You hear the term 'work-life balance' all the time, but what exactly does it mean? Work-life balance simply means finding that healthy balance between your working life and your personal life. Work-life balance isn't necessarily defined as an even split between the hours you spend at work and the hours you spend on hobbies. The balance is more nuanced than that, and it also varies among different people. At its core, the work-life balance concept is aimed at bringing attention to the fact that a...

SME Survival in a Covid environment

Here is an updated personal perspective about Covid, the Economy, and a new financial year from John Cleghorn, one of the Prime Strategies Group partners.The government is talking a great deal about New Zealand getting vaccinated and staying on track from an economic perspective, however, in many circles, businesses are struggling to keep their collective head above the water line.Sure, we can all see the statistics put out by the press where “only” 1000 businesses have fallen...

11 Reasons to have a Business Coach/Advisor

As business owners there is only so much you can achieve on your own. You need a sounding board from time to time. Someone that keeps you in check and helps you and your business grow.Find out why taking on a business coach can make a world of difference.On our own, we lack perspective. A business coach will ask the right questions and test your ideas and assumptions.On our own, we get stuck in a rut. We all struggle to change things up and tend to revert to the same old actions, which...

Expanding the Prime Strategies Profile

I’m excited to have been invited to join our new Prime Strategies marketing team. We are tasked with expanding the Prime profile and developing strategies aimed at making our resource and services more accessible to SME business owners. Why? Because in this post Covid era small businesses in particular are still struggling. Business owners are confronted with challenges every day. Many have to adapt, pivot and explore new areas of opportunity.This is where Prime Strategies can and does help th...

Time Management - is yours causing unnecessary stress?

Time is a major cause of stress. Too little and we panic! Too much and we worry...worry...WORRY!Time management is an area many small business owners struggle with. The average person spends 45 minutes a day simply looking for stuff. This could be lost electronic files that you know you saved into a really obvious place last week, actual lost pieces of paper in all your seventeen piles of other work, or lost parts or tools in the back of your ute or van. A few of the following strategies can hel...

Business Owners - Dealing With Stress

I doubt that anyone manages to live their life totally stress free. If you do congratulations, you would be one of a very few unique people. Regardless of the position we hold or the work we do, most of us have stressful situations that we need to deal with daily.The Cause of StressLet’s look at some things you might be stressed about at work:Hard deadlinesDifficult co-workers or bossUncertainty about your jobUncertainty about whether you can succeed at a projectCompetition, office politics, i...

Seven Steps to Growth

If only 50% of new businesses survive more than five years and only one-third make it to 10 years, what’s the one thing you could do to ensure your company is sustainable?The answer is to create a growth strategy for your business.But a growth strategy involves more than simply envisioning long-term success. If you don’t have a tangible plan, you may be actually losing business — or you’re increasing the chance of losing business to competitors.According to an art...

The Business Owners To Do List

Most small business owners will have a ‘to-do’ list in one form or another, and for a select few it is all they need as they instinctively trade their way through their current business day, week or month. They manage to regularly achieve what they set out to do, set new goals and targets and make those little breakthroughs which make such a big difference to their bottom line.But for some owner-managers the to-do list has the wrong things on it – such as tasks which aren’t important and...

Theory X and Theory Y

What do you think motivates your people to come to work each morning?Do you believe that they get great satisfaction from their work and take pride in doing the best possible job? Or do you think that they see work as a burden, and simply turn up for the money?These assumptions about your team members can have a significant influence on how you manage them.In the 1960s, social psychologist Douglas McGregor developed two contrasting theories that explained how managers’ beliefs about ...

Planning for Success

In war, as in business, the victor is the one who uses superior strategy against their competition. There are three principles to military strategy you can apply to your life and work every single day. The first idea is called the Principle of Manoeuvre. You should be clear about your goal, but be flexible about the process of achieving it. Flexibility is the most important single quality that you will require for success in times of rapid change. And in case you hadn’t noticed, we are in...

The Future of Business

97% of consumers search online for local businesses and 12% do it daily. Are you ready for the future of business in New Zealand? The future is both exciting and challenging at the same time. At Prime, we are confident that we can work with you to overcome the challenges and take advantage of the exciting opportunities that lie before us!  Recent events have highlighted the importance of an online presence and are likely to hasten the transition of businesses throughout the econom...

Is your business strategy ready for tomorrow?

The markets of today move very quickly, often leaving SME’s stranded in the past, as they fail to “keep up” with the changes. In today’s COVID-19 environment, we need to move even more quickly, understanding the difficulties and nuances of our particular market and what to expect around the next corner. We all have a need to reinvent ourselves more regularly, creating new business opportunities as we go. Often this may seem insurmountable as we try to manage the day-to-day parts of our b...

Why did you go into business?

One of the first questions we ask of any client we are about to work with is why did you go into business? The second question is, has it turned out like you thought it would? There are many reasons why people want to have their own business and today, we want to concentrate on one of them. Many business owners tell us that their reason was: “That they wanted to be their own boss”. This is generally because they either did not like their current boss or thought that they could do it bet...

86,400 seconds each day, invest them wisely!

For those amongst us who use Apple products such as iPhones, have you ever wondered why the snooze function on the alarm is set at 9 minutes? Why not 5? Why not 10? The answer on the internet, according to most experts (usually self-proclaimed), is that Apple is paying some sort of tribute to mechanical clock makers of days gone by. Those people were aiming for a relatively logical 10-minute snooze time but due to the way in which the gears inside the old-style alarm clocks worked, couldn’t ac...

Breton has been the only reason my business has progressed past a start-up!

"I can't thank Breton enough. He has helped me not only start my new business, he's helped me progress my business past the point of 'start-up' and into a viable business that is succeeding. With his full advisory engagement, he has taken me through business finances, best practice, marketing, business plans, cashflow, customer relationship management and business communications.  Again, I can't thank Breton enough for the work he has done for me, and the fact that thanks to him I am n...

10 things to be learnt from 2020

You can’t predict change but you can prepare for it.So much happened last year that was unexpected that at times it was quite overwhelming. In the early stages of the year, much activity was reactive and decision making was made on the “fly”. Looking forward, it is now a case of feeling much better placed to cope with whatever “curveball” is thrown. The businesses most likely to have a fantastic 2021 have already planned for it!It takes years to sell a business.Many owners said to me t...

What gets measured gets done!

The reasons for monitoring KPIs in your business are well known, but it is surprising how many businesses large and small don’t monitor any KPIs other than cash in the bank, or at best profit. And the timing is often sporadic. While these are important measures, they fall well short of painting the true picture of a business’s performance. It’s a bit like sailing a ship in the fog with only the fuel gauge.To quote Bryan Travers;“We have distorted the meaning of measurement by continually...

5 Tips for writing your next financial budget

Have you started your budgeting process yet for the 21/22 financial year?  Every business should have a financial plan for each year and now is the perfect time to start putting this in place.  Here are five tips to putting together a successful budget. Work out where you are going to end up in March 2021.  Now you have 7 months of actual financial figures from your business, you should have a reasonable feel for how the next 5 months are going to look.  Forecast these last 5...

Have you got an ‘Elevator Pitch’ ?

Have you ever heard of the terminology ‘Elevator Pitch’?An elevator pitch is a brief, persuasive ‘pitch’ for your business, lasting less than 30 seconds, and being interesting, succinct, and hopefully memorable.We believe, it never does any harm to revisit the basics, don’t start thinking that tools such as the ‘Elevator Pitch’ are just for those starting a new business. That’s not the case, an elevator pitch is just as important for someone who’s been in business for decades a...

Revive Your Business

The adage “before we can thrive, first we must survive” is quite well known. However, I feel there is a missing step. Once we have survived, then we must Revive.  This is particularly important for businesses that truly want to get out of constantly scrapping for survival.So if you are feeling that there has to be a better way of existing beyond the month to month fight to “live another day” then this might just be the step you need to consider.To revive your business, you need...