Month: September 2024

The world is now obsessed with recycling stuff but happily places people on the scrap heap all too quickly.

While they are still full to the brim of potential, energy and passion, or at least they could be if given half a chance, people repeatedly report to us at Monecosse a sense of ‘stuckness’, of being at a certain point or stage in their life where societal pressures expect them to be but they want something else and sometimes they have no idea what that something else is. This isn’t an age related thing. I see it in young people who have decided university isn’t for them and they are not yet quite sure what path they want to follow in life. There is an unspoken pressure of ‘waste’ simply because they don’t seem to be quite on track for a mortgage and 2.4 children by the time they are 30. I see it in fifty and sixty year olds who have had successful careers but, as that comes to an end for one reason or another, listlessness sets in and a mistaken belief that ‘that’s it’, or worse a panic about who and what they are. I see it in seventy and eighty year olds who, with a few physical issues, are resigned to boredom because culturally that seems to be what is expected of them. I hear forty-somethings declare that it’s too late for them to do anything else and so they settle into their current job and lifestyle and hunker down for retirement.

There are of course those who seem to shift from one thing to another throughout their life. Their path seems to be one of continuous adventure where they flit and float from one amazing story to different one on a yearly or bi-yearly basis. There are others who relish routine and love the familiarity of their lives finding flow, happiness and energy with each new day, continuing to do what they do with a spring in their step forever.

If neither the flitty-floaty adventurer nor the routine-relisher sounds like you and you feel a bit rudderless, stuck or washed-up then perhaps it’s time to have a really big think about things.

For a start people often turn quickly to qualifications to break out of their current doldrums but who ever met a world wide traveller with a hugely interesting life that had a National Certificate in world wide travelling and having an interesting life? Yes, granted if you chat to them long enough they may be taking an online course in Philosophy or you discover that they seemed to jump tracks from a dentist to a yoga teacher several years ago (or vice versa) but that qualification isn’t the full story.

The amazing teacher Dr Wayne Dyer said that we shouldn’t let our music die within us. He said that we should find a way of discovering our song and making sure we let it out into the world during the course of our lifetime. In short, our purpose and I believe it’s possible to have more than one.

There is a burning ember inside of everyone. Discovering what that is is tough enough but working out how to create a life around it is something else entirely. At Monecosse we are increasingly working with individuals to help them to achieve both. Our music, our passion is to help others to soar, run, glide, globe trot, wheel and deal, invest, research, write, paint and play no matter where they currently find themselves.

If a bag for life can do and be 100 different things then why can’t you? To help you get started you can claim for yourself (or give to someone who needs it) a free Monecosse 45 min thinking session – available to the first 3 people to message the word ‘PURPOSE’ to us any which way that works for you.

Unless you are in the enviable position of being in a position to fly solo while your business grows in other ways, chances are you will reach a point where the question of recruitment looms. Whereas larger organisations have the resource within them to decide what the role actually is, define it carefully, spec out the skills and experience required, the contract on offer as well as the on boarding process and ongoing reviews, for the owner run business, all of the above falls to you. If you happen to have been a recruitment consultant in a former life then, some of this will appear easy. If on the other hand the thing that you do best is fixing tractors then this list will likely feel like unnecessary nonsense. Why can’t you just employ your brother’s eldest daughter straight from school? Surely it’s family and it will be fine right?

Perhaps one of the biggest issues within a growing business is that traditional roles don’t exist. Starting off in business usually means that you do everything from thinking of the concept in the first place all the way through to invoicing the client. The likelihood is that you will also mingle this with other elements of your life like, picking kids up from school, having a car MOT’d, your dog, your mother and the latest news that hits the economy. Without the luxury of employment that offers defined working hours, paid holidays and possibly flexi-time as well as the whole responsibility ultimately on someone else’s shoulders, you navigate your way through this as well as take on the multiple roles in your company. From marketeer to cleaner you are it!

So how comfortable will a new person be in this ‘go with the flow’ situation?

The first person after you to enter your business will be the most crucial. They will need a strong desire to learn and at least some of your excitement about what it is you are doing. They will really need to be able to think for themselves and yet be open to new and ever changing situations. It’s easy to think that this ‘wisdom’ can be found in the most experienced people and sometime is can, especially in those who have a entrepreneurial spirit themselves. However most people would like to know the role they are going to be doing. Are they an engineer? a foreman? a marketeer? customer account management? safety officer? Ah, actually its more like all of the above. How do you find one of those?

In short you need to recruit the right thinking rather than what looks to be the right CV or best interview. The right thinking is not reliant on age, nor necessarily previous experience. It is a lot to do with personality and intrinsic qualities. This is not to say reach for the first psychometric test you can find but rather who is your person? How do they show up on the rugby pitch at the weekend? Do they stop to help and chat to the elderly person in the shop who drops something? Do they thoughtfully park their car? Do they automatically make you coffee and toast when they walk in noticing that you have been in for hours already? Do they make every client feel special, listened to and heard? In the 20 mins before finishing time on a Friday do they clean the van out or tidy the stores? Because these are the things that make a business successful, and of course a very good sense of humour.

For more information on getting your first recruitment right contact us hello@monecosse.com

Also take a look at this great article on recruiting School leavers:

https://www.aspirationtraining.com/articles/top-reasons-to-recruit-a-school-leaver-into-your-business-this-summer

At times the world of the owner-run business can feel like a jungle. You may find yourself wanting to throw the towel in or sell the ship to the highest bidder. As multiple challenges intertwine, it can be difficult to see what is truly within your power to change and what must be overcome or accommodated. Well-meaning opinions and advice from friends and family who can only grasp a certain perspective, can actually be more exasperating than helpful. As your thinking runs away with you like a steam train what can you do to think clearly and make progress?

Firstly, do you already have an exit plan? It may seem strange but even as you depart on your adventure in business its a good idea to have rough idea of how you will extract yourself and when. Knowing this sets the tone and timing for your project. Of course it would be wonderful if we could all maximise our efforts in a sell out to a larger organisation or hand the reins over to the younger generation. This however isn’t always a viable (or enjoyable option). The sheer amount of work to make a business saleable is largely underestimated and often, even when completed barely breaks even on investment. On the other hand handing a business over can also be tricky business as its always mixed with healthy doses of pride, love and family tension; not a super recipe for calm sailing. An option less often is to achieve a particular goal, level or turnover and sell assets, extracting dividends and reward as you wind down. Beyond, a consultancy to similar businesses may continue to ignite your passion for what you do best.

But for now you are in it, up to your neck sometimes.

For every challenge (within your control) that is impacting you, what is the strategy that needs to be in place to minimise the time you spend on it but effectively deal with the problem? Often the challenge is embodied in a person or group of people. What is the behaviour pattern that they follow which continually brings this issue to your door? What is it about them that competes for your time? What strategy do you need to adopt so that this becomes less emotionally draining for you but still manages the issue?

Now for the things out of your control. Legislation changes, economic down turns, pandemics the list goes on. Things that you have never seen before require a different type of problem solving, a different way of thinking. A great coach or mentor will be able to pose questions to get you thinking about your issues in a different way. They won’t just give you an answer – you are the expert in what you do after all so its the contents of your own head that will bring about the Einstein-Like solutions. But thinking in this way without this mental trampoline is tough, rather like trying to jump clean out of quick sand. We all need a hand sometimes!

We are Monecosse and we regularly help owner-run businesses tame tigers, swallow frogs and work out the seemingly impossible. Get in touch with us via our contact page to set up a one hour free consultation without obligation: hello@monecosse.com

When we worked in the corporate world we worked with people and their thinking. We captured their words verbatim and then studiously analysed the words for context, repetition, emotion. phrases etc. We literally stuck the data to the walls of our office and had a multitude of highlighter colours to colour code the insights.

It wasn’t long before the data outgrew the office and we had to look at another way. A key employee at the time had computer programming skills that were not being used. Well make lemonade when you have lemons. We loaded all our textual data onto a database and began to analyse the data in a multitude of ways. We reduced the processing time from days to literally minutes. Our on-line data analysis tool set was born. But like a new born baby we didn’t really know what we had given birth to in terms of what is was to become.

Fast forward 6 years and we were building data structures, back ends, front ends and interfaces for clients who had data in multiple places, paper being a popular location, and did nothing with it to gain advantage in their business.

One of our great successes was reducing the work completion to invoice cycle from four weeks to 24 hours. The new target being developed was “invoice as we leave the workplace”.

So what is this wee blog about? Well lets have a look at the insights.

1. It is likely you are perfecting inappropriate and inefficient processes.
2. You have people in your organisation who’s skills are not being used.
3. A new internal process could become a revenue earning external process.
4. You never know what the new “child” will emerge into.
5. Oh and your data has value if you handle it well.