The Accidental Entrepreneur

by Janine Allis

  Education is important, but you should never lack confidence because of any formal education you feel you've missed out on. Education comes in all different forms, and people learn in dozens of different ways. I can confidently tell you that I know more about local and international trademarks than most lawyers — not because of a course, but by actually working out the issues in practice and learning along the way.

  As you get older, you do get more comfortable in your skin. I still, to this day, listen more than I talk, and I will continue to ask and ask my questions until I believe I truly understand. Knowledge gives you confidence.

  Pro tips

  Here are some tips for building your confidence:

  Having the confidence to use your knowledge is critical. Knowledge is pointless unless you can back it up with decisive action.

  Confidence is contagious. I focus on solutions — solutions that my staff believe in. Their belief means they also catch the ‘I am, I can' attitude.

  Instil confidence in others through delegation. Make sure they feel your total trust and support. Give them the tools they need to complete the task and ensure they have all the knowledge they need. Allow them the space to ask questions without losing face if they don't know something. Make yourself into the kind of boss who inspires loyalty and hard work — your staff members will naturally feel that they don't want to let you down.

  Ramping up

  Make sure your confidence is unshakable with the following:

  Confidence is everything in a team because it eliminates uncertainty. If people in management are insecure, it will suck the confidence out of those around them. You will know people who lack confidence by the following traits: they hold onto power by not sharing their knowledge with colleagues and staff, their moods are as changeable as the weather, they lack communication skills (which leaves their colleagues wrong-footed most of the time), they manipulate and/or turn people on each other, they find it hard to make decisions and they may out and out lie. There are varying degrees of this behaviour, but if someone is guilty of these traits, you have no choice other than to remove them. Remove people like this quickly, because they do enormous damage that can take months to repair. These insecure behaviours are cancer in your organisation.

  People who feel good about themselves have confidence. Here is a simple exercise to boost self-confidence and build a positive team environment. Get your people together and have everyone write their name at the top of a sheet of paper. Hand the papers around, and ask everybody to write an affirmative statement about the person whose name is on the top of each sheet. Each person ends up with a list of positive attributes. As an extension, you can have each sheet framed and presented to your team members. On those ‘all too hard' days, they will be able to get out that list to help reinforce their self-belief.

  Solid reputation

  Ask yourself: Would you do business with you? Many doors will open or close for you depending on your reputation, which will precede your presence every time. The people with whom you're doing business will have made it a priority to learn about you before you meet. What they discover — usually through the filter of other people — will either give you an edge or create early difficulties for you in your dealings with these new associates.

  A ‘firm but fair' reputation is the best one to have. What is yours? Does it need work? Try this exercise: Write down five attributes that you'd like people to say you have. Stick that list in the front of your diary and refer to it often. Are you achieving your desired reputation?

  I strongly believe that the presenter is more important than the presentation, the messenger more important than the message. If you have a good reputation, guard it with your life. However, if it has been tarnished in some way, now is the time to work on it. The only way to get it back on track is through action, not words. Don't tell me that you've changed — show me.

  I remember dealing with an advertising agency that promised Boost the world but didn't deliver. In fact, it dumped us at another client's request. The ad agency rep claimed that he wasn't responsible, but he should have been honest about the process. If he'd kept me informed about what was happening, instead of blaming others when it was over, the situation wouldn't have been such a disaster. That rep is still trying to win me back over. I'm listening, but I'm cynical. He'd have to do (emphasis on doing, not talking) something amazing to win back my trust. All this is not to say that I don't believe in giving second chances. After all, everyone makes mistakes — just make sure you get it right the second time around.

  Remember: every person and company has a reputation for something. It is the core of what you are. Jeff had a reputation for being a tough guy in radio and, even when he became a father and got a bit older and wiser (and a bit less tough in his core), he kept up his tough-guy behaviour because it suited his role at the time. I have worked with many businesses and suppliers over the years and have found it's usually no surprise why companies have the reputation that they do. What type of business it is and what type of reputation it's creating is usually highlighted when something goes wrong.

  If it's a great business, managers and staff will go above and beyond to fix the problem, regardless of who is at fault. These types of businesses focus not on short-term losses but on the long-term reputation that they're developing — and so they thrive.

  The other side is the type of business where, when things go wrong, managers and other staff put their heads in the sand and go into blame mode. This is a short-term view and often these types of businesses are the ones that don't survive — and the owners are left wondering what they did wrong.

  Your business reputation is everything — it is why you will get repeat customers and referrals. A personal reputation is the same. I believe that my reputation is firm but fair — if you commit to me that something will be delivered by a certain date and you do not deliver it without any communication, I definitely have a reputation for not accepting this for too long.

  Pro tips

  Guard, or improve, your reputation with the following:

  Treat your reputation as an important part of your business arsenal. It will get you through doors — and also close them on you.

  If you've made a mistake in the past with someone, fix it. Win back this person's trust before a tarnished impression of you loses an important opportunity in the future.

  Discipline

  Self-discipline is the most common trait of great and successful leaders, while a lack of restraint can create big problems. Commit a few undisciplined acts in politics or business and soon you're being asked to drag yourself around the chat-show circuit.

  Take alcohol, for example — just one alcohol-fuelled stupid instance at a work function and you could lose hard-won respect. As I've mentioned, one of my first jobs was working for an advertising agency as a media assistant. Back in the 1980s, the Christmas party where I worked was legendary. One year, a senior executive was absolutely blind drunk. He made a pass at anything in a skirt, threw a typewriter through a window and assaulted another client. He was fired the next day. The shame of it was that this guy was a good, solid executive who was simply a nasty drunk. If he'd had the discipline to respect that it was a work function, he could have had an amazing career in advertising.

  In other words, if you drink and work, you're a bloody idiot! Nobody gets smarter after a few drinks. As a rule, I never have more than two drinks at a work function. Whether you're drinking with colleagues or suppliers, anything you say, can and will be used against you the next day.

  Set aside time each day for exercise. If you have the discipline to look after yourself, you'll feel better, look better and function better. As an added bonus, fit-looking people seem to garner greater respect from others, probably because others see that personal discipline will carry over into business.

  Being self-disciplined doesn't mean being self-denying; it's not about working harder, it's about working smarter. Self-discipline is getting to your children's sp
orts days, being home when you told your partner you would be, keeping appointments and being on time. Self-disciplined people aren't the ones in the office from dawn to midnight — they're organised enough to get their work done within a reasonable time frame.

  Pro tips

  Here's how to choose the right elements for self-discipline:

  In all aspects of life, control yourself before you influence others.

  If you are serious about career growth, say goodbye to alcohol and drugs and focus on your goals. You'll be amazed at how much more clearly you're able to view opportunities.

  You've heard it before — work smarter, not harder. Disciplined people aren't distracted during business hours, which means they get the job done in time to have a social life. How much time do you waste each day?

  Keep fit. Not only will you have more energy and be ready for any challenge, you'll evoke a great response in others.

  Ramping up

  Here's how to take your self-discipline up a notch:

  Do you know your weaknesses? List the top five character traits that you feel may hold you back or be your undoing. Keep this list in your diary and tackle one issue at a time.

  Are you a slave to your email inbox? Set aside an hour or two each day to organise and respond to your email, and stick to it. Don't let it distract you outside that designated time. If you do, you will only spend each day reacting to emails.

  Listening skills

  No-one learns anything while talking. Everyone has ears and using them to listen might be the most underrated quality of all. It goes hand in hand with asking questions, which is one of my favourite pastimes.

  Are there people you admire? People you consider successful? If you get the chance, talk to them. If they're not immediately accessible, perhaps send an email to their corporate website or attend a public presentation they're giving.

  Asking questions of successful people helps to remove the aura of achievement that surrounds them. You could ask them how they got started. (Usually you'll find the start point was a very basic opportunity, perhaps something available to many — only successful people have the foresight to grab opportunities with both hands.) You might ask how they find the best people, how they motivate their staff, and whether there is anything they'd do differently if they had their time again. See if they have one or two pieces of great advice they could share. Generally, most people like helping others — why not let them help you?

  When I started out, there wasn't one particular person whose success I aspired to emulate, but there were two people who helped me. Geoff Harris (co-founder of Flight Centre) had a profound effect in assisting Boost's growth. After he came on board, the business was able to go to the next level. Lesley Gillespie from Bakers Delight has also been very generous with her time and insight. She is an amazing woman who has been a great help to me.

  At Boost and Retail Zoo, we're constantly looking for great talent on every level. A few years back, we were in search of a great board member — we felt that we needed more experience in international expansion on the board, and were recommended a man who had run a successful franchise business in the United States. We decided to try him as a board member. We paid for his first-class flight over from the United States and put him up in a five-star hotel. We then put him on the road with our senior company-store and franchise managers, so he could understand and learn about our business and get a feel for where he could contribute.

  The feedback from our senior managers was horrific. They told us that all he did was talk — telling them how good he and his business were. He did not ask any questions on the financials, the product or the Australian market; he just talked and criticised. When I was told this, I initially thought that they may have been exaggerating a bit — until I got into the board meeting with him. The meeting opened and so did his mouth, and it just kept going. People were polite for a little while, but pretty soon I'd had enough and told him to shoosh. Yes — I said, ‘Shoosh. That is enough'. He looked at me in shock and then told me his wife tells him the same thing — at which I suggested he listen to this wise woman.

  When he was quiet enough that we could ask questions of him, he didn't have any answers. We asked him how the Australian model and his model compared, what the differences in the systems and processors were, how our labour rates compared with his and what he'd discovered during his time on the road. He did not have one answer to the questions that we put forward — because he hadn't cared to listen and find out or to gather enough knowledge on our business to be of any value. He was shocked and mortified that we did not add him as a board member.

  As I said, you never learn anything from talking.

  Pro tips

  Improve your listening skills with the following:

  Listen to other people, and take notes. It's a great feeling to capture someone's full attention.

  If you can, create an opportunity to talk to someone you admire. Find out what worked for this person in the early days, and what didn't. Listen carefully to the advice. Although not everything this person says will be appropriate for your situation, much of it will transfer. Business is business, whether you are selling insurance, sofas or juices.

  Ramping up

  Here's how to really become a true listener:

  Make a conscious effort to ask more questions than you usually do and to say 50 per cent less for a day. Evaluate what you learn from that exercise.

  Don't assume you have all the answers, even when in a situation you're familiar with. And don't think you're the most interesting person in the room. Make it your goal to find out one new thing about another person each day.

  Solution-focused

  Albert Einstein once said, ‘It's not that I'm so smart; it's just that I stay with problems longer'. You may not have all the answers to every problem you face. You just have to believe that you have the resourcefulness to find the solution to any problem — rather than asking your boss or mentor to come up with the answer.

  If you're going to shine in the business world, you must be the person who presents the solution, not just the problem. I like it when a staff member comes to me and says, ‘We have a problem and I think we should do this to solve it'. Like solving a puzzle, finding the right solution is a big reward in itself.

  We all have problems, but not everyone tries to come up with the answers. The employee who just sits there, looking like a puppy that needs rescuing and waiting for me or someone else to save the day, will not win Employee of the Month. In fact, if employees do that too often, I might start questioning if they're the right people for the job.

  Think about it — don't you find that people tend to spend far too much time talking about the problem and not enough time finding the solution? People moving into ‘protection' mode is one of my pet hates — when a problem occurs, they care more about not being blamed for it than about finding a solution and then putting a system in place so that the problem does not occur again.

  In 2002 we were opening a store in Hornsby, New South Wales. The store was built in South Australia, shipped by truck and then put together in the shopping centre. Every store created is specially designed for each site, so we can't just move one store to fit another site if there's a problem. The Hornsby store had cost us about $100 000 to build, and this was very early in the business when funds were at their tightest. Sharryn, my manager at the time, was on site making sure everybody was doing what they were supposed to. She called me at 10 pm on the night that the whole shop was meant to arrive and told me that the shopping centre had made a mistake and that they would not be able to get any services to the position, ever. If we could not open this store and had to write off $100 000 in shop fit, the business would be in a financially stressed position — one that we might not be able to recover from.

  To her credit, Sharryn was on the phone to everyone and anyone for a solution. She managed to raise the centre manager and the construction manager for the site — and just would not take no for an ans
wer. The store arrived and the so-called impossibility of getting services to the spot suddenly evaporated. We had services and all was good.

  This is one of the biggest thought processes to learn in business — there is always a solution to every problem; you just have to stay at it longer. The person with the answers is you!

  Pro tips

  Here's how to stop looking at problems and start finding solutions:

  Believe in yourself and consult with others to confirm your thoughts.

  Knowledge, experience and research are the secrets to finding solutions. I have worked in every position at Boost Juice from the ground up. I use what I know about the business to come up with the answers; I then use the people around me to make sure they are the right answers.

  Don't fake it. If you're a manager and you profess to have all the answers, but really don't, take cover! People may listen while you're in the room but, as soon as you exit, the knives will be out. Instead, open up the problem for discussion and get everyone working together on a valid solution; your staff will respect you for it. However, the buck stops with you, so make sure you own the final decision.

  Honesty

  Honesty is the bravest path you can take, and it is an essential element within a company's core integrity. It takes a brave person to be honest — in work and in life. Nobody likes to hurt another person's feelings, but most of us hate finding out that someone has been dishonest with us.