In-Cumbria's Business Doctor has some advice for you as you try to make your dreams and plans for the future a reality.

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Are your plans materialising? Fantastic if you’re on plan, however the chances are, you still have the same challenges and working as many hours as you did last year!

Henry Ford once said:

"If you always do what you've always done, you'll always get what you've always got".

As follows are some tips to help you get your business working for you to achieve your vision:

1. Ensure that you set a personal aspiration , be that a special holiday, more time off work with the family, a new car, a skiing trip with friends, a holiday home or even early retirement.

2. Put a number on it! A holiday say £4,000, car £24,000 or that retirement holiday home £250,000. Then set a realistic time scale to achieve this goal, i.e. 1 year or 10 years.

3. Visualise your dream. Have a picture of your dream on the office wall, fridge door or screen saver on your phone or computer. Imagine this goal is within reach and keep sensing the feeling of achievement! This will help you focus on the tasks at hand and remind you why, you’re doing the long hours and when you’re going through any pain!

4. Break the value down into sizeable chunks , say by months over the period you set. Then stretch this monetary target by 10-20%. For instance, if you need to generate an extra £1,000 net profit per month over the next 24 months to buy that new car, set yourself a target of £1,200 per month. With a stretched target, you may well achieve our goal early. Now that would be a good feeling and sense of achievement!

The next task is key and the most important! "Get your business working for you"

5. Create actions which are S.M.A.R.T. to achieve the financial goals. Such as completing 2 extra sales calls per day generating an extra 2 orders per week, or producing 5 extra products per week or reducing manufacture cost or time by 5% by month end.

6. Ensure you get all your employees involved and share your vision, plans and the challenges with them. As ultimately it is your employees who will deliver your objectives and therefore help you achieve your personal aspirations.

7. Delegate tasks to who is best suited, therefore giving responsibility and ownership for the actions and activities needed to increase the sales, improve productivity or gain efficiencies to drive additional bottom line profit. If you have capability gaps within the business, then consider retraining existing staff or recruit externally for the skillset and knowledge you require.

By introducing and sharing change and by supporting your staff to deliver objectives, you should start to see business improvements, resulting in increased net profit. This will allow you to reward your staff and reinvest in the business, thereby securing a solid foundation to allow you to realise your future personal aspiration.

One note, you do need to achieve a balanced approach. If the dream and target is too easy you will never push yourself to drive change and if too stretched and unrealistic the chances are, you may even give up.

“Achieving a goal is nothing. The getting there is everything.” Jules Michelet

Attending Kendal Growth2016 Event? - Castle Green Hotel, Thursday 6th October

11:40 – 12.00 noon, Peter Fleming is presenting “ Breaking Big ”

Want to know more? Join Peter Fleming at “6 steps to Freedom” Clydesdale Bank, Kingstown Road, Carlisle, 11.45am – 1.45pm, Wed 12th October. http://www.businessdoctors.co.uk/event/611/6-steps- to-freedom