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Client Success Story

Management

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Look Matters is the coolest company that I’ve worked with because they create and enhance a company’s brand and identity: they tell you who you are and show you how to become your potential.

I’ve helped them to quadruple their revenues, change their perspective to focus on their unique value, and build a more profitable and valuable business.

I’m also an example of their work. They’ve created my company’s name, SYMCO & CO., and our logo and visual identity, and they’ve done the same – and much more – for many businesses, organizations and entrepreneurs. Looks Matters is a full service marketing consultancy, advertising agency, website developer, online brander, commercial photographer and ideas generator.

Here is what the owners, Zlatan Fazlagic and Andrew Rathwell, say has propelled their growth and success.

According to Zlatan

• “We don’t ‘sell.’ We help our clients to be more successful.”
• “We focus on our core competence and we say ‘no’ to potential work that isn’t consistent with our focus on building long-term relationships with our clients and helping them achieve success.”
• “We are continually attracting great talent and great customers.”
• “Some staff turnover is healthy because it makes room for more great people.”
• “We’ve cleaned up. From the broom closet to our production and accounting systems, everything works as it should.”

According to Andrew

• “We’ve built up our culture from being ‘factory workers’ to being ‘first among equals’ where everyone is engaged on providing creative solutions to our great clients.”
• “Our quality is higher due to the quality of our people. This attracts better work which attracts better talent.”
• “We have a culture of profitability. One person challenged me for printing a text draft in colour because it cost more than black and white. I love that.”
• “We have healthy hygiene. That is, we manage cash flow and receivables and focus on our weekly metrics, as a team.”
• “We have our staff measure outputs and results, not just inputs and activities. This helps us to create great value quickly.”

Both Zlatan and Andrew agree that they have a great group of talented people who think and act like owners, and keep focused on taking great care of their clients while creating strong results for the company.

If you need help developing powerful brands, creating marketing strategies and raising your business or organization to the next level, I recommend that you call Zlatan and Andrew at Look Matters.

“Profit Resolutions” will probably have a more dramatic impact on your life than the typical-and frequently short-lived-New Year’s Resolutions. Here are 14 powerful ideas that you can implement to improve profits in your business.

1. Develop two or three powerful and clear strategic goals for the next year, such as: diversifying your service offering, entering new markets or increasing the market’s awareness of your business.
2. Create metrics to help you measure your progress towards your strategic goals. Measure these at least monthly so that you know you are making progress towards your goals. Examples include revenues from new service lines and inquiries from new prospects.
3. Don’t confuse activities and inputs with results. Keep focused on results. Measure how many things get done. For many office tasks, quantity is more important than quality, because perfectionism just becomes a waste of time and money. Examples would be writing a press release or developing a new business process.
4. Ensure that your business structure – legal, organizational and management – all support your strategy. For example, what does your organizational chart look like now, and what will it need to look like in five years (what if your name was removed from most, if not all, of the boxes)?
5. Develop formal systems and processes for everything that you do in your business. This will help you to improve your quality and increase your speed. These include marketing, sales, production, delivery, accounting, collection, how you answer the phone and how you speak to customers.
6. Focus on attracting and retaining talent. In some industries and busy economies, it’s more difficult for the business to attract employees than customers. Make sure that you are paying competitive wages and include performance-based compensation to incent the right behaviours (and attract the right talent in the first place).
7. Ensure that you continually increase your operating capacity. Measuring your key production output will help you to hold people accountable for improving your capacity. Examples would be measuring billable time or square feet of production or sales dollars or units shipped.
8. Do something every week that will strengthen your brand, increase awareness about your business, and help to attract new and repeat business. Examples include writing a blog article on how to use your product, obtaining customer testimonials, asking for and receiving customer referrals, and acting like a strategic business partner with your customers instead of just a vendor.
9. Know your numbers. All of your customers, products and services generate different gross profits and different cash flows. Focus on your most profitable customers, products and services in order to dramatically increase your profits. Examples include gross profits on specific products, contribution margins and cash flow generated by products, and sales and profits for your top 20% of customers.
10. Keep it all together. Track all of your important information and share it with your entire management team on a regular (at least weekly) basis. Focus on the key performance indicators that measure and predict sales, production, delivery and cash flow. For example, you could have a weekly dashboard that shows cash balance, accounts receivable, accounts payable, sales pipeline in dollars and weeks of production, production pipeline and days to cash.
11. Talk to your customers and your employees regularly. They have an important perspective on your business and great ideas on how to improve without spending lots more money. For example, you could meet with customers or employees on alternating months to obtain their feedback over coffee or lunch.
12. Lather, rinse and repeat. Management is about doing the right things over and over. Don’t just do something once and expect great results. Persist until you get good results and until everyone realizes that you are serious about focusing on results, not excuses.
13. Position your people for success. Let them know that you are there to help them be more successful. Reward failure, because then you can see that they are taking risks and learning. Celebrate successes, even small ones, because everyone likes playing for a winning team.
14. Smell the roses. As an entrepreneur, you take huge risks and work very hard to support your customers, suppliers and employees. Make sure you take time to reward yourself along the way. These can include little rewards like going to lunch with friends or taking your kids to the movies, and major rewards such as vacations.

Any of these profit resolutions will help you to generate more profit in your business. Pick the one with the highest potential impact in your business. Then, pick the next one. By the end of the year, your profit could be (and should be) a lot higher.

I just read Seth Godin’s Poke the Box. It’s a short manifesto and a quick read on instigating new things in our businesses. It’s about starting AND finishing new initiatives that will make an impact on our customers and our businesses.

Seth Godin is one of the world’s most brilliant marketers. In Poke the Box, he tells us that we need to quit trying to fit in to the status quo. We (yes, you and me) need to create something unique, and, therefore valuable, in order to improve our companies and ourselves. We need to start something new, finish it and ship it.

This simple advice is what every entrepreneur knows because it’s what they did when they first started their business. It’s also what every successful business, organization and individual needs to hear in order to continue to grow their company and themselves.

If you are already at the top of your game, how are you going to stay there? Time reduces all advantages. Seth’s advice helps people and companies to reinvent themselves because the factory mindset that worked for the last century won’t work anymore.

“Dad, do you want to play tennis?” asked Julia, our youngest. “Sure, but it’s winter,” I advised, using my ‘wise dad’ voice.

Back in high school, I thought I was a pretty good tennis player and I was also a certified instructor. When we first got our Wii computer video game and hooked it up to the television, the kids were exposed to many ‘sports’ and activities. After some Wii time, my youngest daughter, Julia, decided to challenge me to a game.

“Well, Julia, I have to warn you, I used to be pretty good,” I cautioned her.

“Sure, Dad,” she acknowledged, while lying on the couch, somehow avoiding the eye rolling.

“Are you going to get up?” I asked.

“No, I’ll be fine” she said.

So, I was jumping around the room, swinging this silly little plastic thing, and Julia was lying on couch, moving her wrist, and, occasionally, her arm, very efficiently. And, she just killed me.

“Dad, didn’t you say you used to be good?” she asked.

Move ahead to the summer, on a real tennis court, with racquets and a fresh can of tennis balls.

We began with the basics: how to stand, turn and hit the ball. And then, chase the ball. After a short session of watching someone a quarter of my age run all over the court, red faced and frustrated, I asked her, “Not the same as the Wii, my dear?”

I’m concerned that we’re preparing our kids for reality – very poorly – by giving them virtual experiences. Maybe Wii should invent a computer game called “Life’s Not Fair.”

The good news is that my two daughters and I have spent more time on real tennis courts at Fort Qu’Appelle, during our camping excursions, and no more time on Wii tennis. They haven’t beat me yet.

Check out our weekly feature called Phil's Profit Points which has ideas and tips on how to improve your profit.

You can follow us on twitter at: @PhilSymchych

Phil is an expert in business growth and has helped a variety of entrepreneurs in different industries accelerate their speed to success, increase control, and enhance their business value and personal wealth. He is the founder and president of SYMCO & CO. Management Consultants and his firm specializes in strategies for dramatic growth.

Phil's credentials include B.Comm. and M.B.A. degrees, and designations as a chartered accountant and certified management consultant among others. He is a certified Master Mentor with clients in North America and Australia. His clients typically include successful privately-held small and medium businesses who want to dramatically grow their business, enhance their leadership and achieve life balance.

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To find out more contact Phil by email or call (306) 569-9111.

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