Debra Jarvis

Do you currently spend 80% of your time Marketing and Selling what you do?

Yes? Congratulations, you either already have a successful profitable business, you soon will have or what you are selling isn’t commercially viable.

How do we manage time? We all have the same amount of time, we can’t save it, or accumulate it, we only have now and what and how we choose to use each moment. Once it’s gone, it’s gone!

So why do some people seem to use their time more effectively? In my experience they prioritise and have systems and the good news is you can too!

What value do you assign to all the different things you do? Value = Importance. If you are a parent the value of seeing your child perform in the end-of-year school play might be higher than having dinner with a prospective client. (In my opinion a prospective client who doesn’t respect this is not worth having.)

One couple I know own a mega successful Civil Construction company. At 20, their only son is well on his way to become Australia’s’ top motor sport driver. They work their business commitments around his racing calendar. Recognising your top values and implementing a strategy (that means system) will help you achieve what’s important for you and for your business success.

A system creates boundaries to help you act in your best interests and according to your values. Sometimes people who don’t like our strategies will use guilt and obligation to get you to change your system to suit them. Recognise this and stick to your system. Focus on high value tasks that provide the outcomes you have decided to enjoy and benefit from for your life and your business!

Successful business owners spend up to 80% of their working time on Marketing and Selling first.  They then allocate time and labour resources; their own or someone else’s, to order fulfilment.

Decide on your strategy, set some targets to test it’s viability, create a system to implement it and stick with it, until you have proved it’s not viable according to the parameters you initially set or it works. You can tweak, just don’t give up, get sidetracked or jump onto the next best way unless you have proven that your carefully considered strategy is not viable. Seems simple, it is – unfortunately many of us get sidetracked looking for complex solutions, promoted by slick operators, promoting vast and rapid wealth, whose primary interest is to line their pockets with your hard earned cash.

I urge you, stick to logical and common sense strategies you understand. Avoid anyone who won’t or can’t explain their strategy in a way you understand and if they attempt to embarrass you into buying their solution – Run away from them very, very fast! Find and engage professionals you can build trusted relationships with to help you, who speak in clear, easy to understand everyday English and whom you can speak to personally!

Debra Jarvis is a facilitator of Business Development programs. To learn more visit the website: DebraJarvisSpeaks.com

Even though I’ve lived in Australia for over 40 years, I still have a soft spot for two sports teams from my home city, Kingston Upon Hull in England.

I follow Rugby League team Hull KR  and Hull City ‘Tigers’ AFC. Hull City have been in the Premier League for two seasons and have struggled. This season their poor results mean they will be relegated back to the Championship League.

This video was posted on their website, it’s an interview with long term Tigers player George Boateng who discusses how the players feel about being relegated. I found it remarkably refreshing to hear that they themselves accept responsibility.

Take a few minutes to watch and listen for yourself.  It’s a great lesson in graceful acceptance of both defeat and responsibility. Here’s the video.

We were recently commissioned by a client to create a new logo for their business. Our graphic team created several initial designs and then we put our heads together to see which ones we felt were the most suitable to present to the client.

One design was head and shoulders above the rest. Clear, crisp, simple and quite striking. Confident that he would like it, we sent it off.

To our amazement, he came back and said it was too simple and attached a faxed sketch showing what he had in mind. His concept was complex, very detailed, very colourful and yes, while it did reflect some elements of his industry, it looked like a child’s drawing rather than a logo.

It was nothing like we had imagined from our initial briefing so we did as he asked and created it. He’s happy. And I guess at the end of the day, it’s his money, his business and his logo.

From our perspective the logo wasn’t one we felt would show his business in a professional manner. Certainly not one that the top end of town would see as representing a professional organisation.

To us, that matters and that’s what prompted the question, what is a logo?

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