We're excited to announce that we are piloting several new services to help people over the age of 50 to start their own businesses or get back into sustained full-time employment.

During recent focus groups, while we received positive feedback about our 'Preparing to run your own business' (PROYB) training course, it was felt that it was rigid and time-consuming and clearly wasn’t appropriate for everybody.

We therefore want to widen our appeal and help more over 50s into business, particularly those who perhaps don't need a full training course but who would welcome building their networks, receiving advice, or getting nuggets of training on specific issues, such as tax, marketing and social media.

These new services have been designed so you can pick and choose what you want do, as well as suiting whatever stage you are at. These include:

• #Over50sRock: helping you explore your options whether that’s returning to work or starting up a business or perhaps a blend of both.
• The Light Bulb Moment: working with you to formulate your business thoughts to reach that eureka moment.
• One Day to Day One: getting your business ideas in place so you can begin the first day of your new enterprise.
• Thrive: inspiring and motivating you to improve and grow your business.
• PRIME Business Club: lots of different events, such as networking, co-working days and mentor clinics.

Over 50s entrepreneurs feed into PRIME’s new plans

Over the past few months, we have been busy looking at how we can better help our clients, so that they become financially independent through starting their own businesses. And who better to talk to about developing new services than the clients themselves.

During March and April, we held six focus groups, two each in Manchester, Birmingham and London, with 54 people taking part. Participants ranged from those who had attended our three-day training course, Preparing to Run Your Own Business, to those who had relatively little contact with PRIME other than registering their name.

The Coaching Blog

How successful are you?

Rather, the question is, are you successful by your standards too? What do you define as "success"? Owning your own home? $100,00,000 in the bank? Funding an orphanage? Having all the free time you want? Creating houses for underprivileged people? Private jet or yacht? A portfolio of properties and investments?

The first challenge is: what is success for you? How will you know when you've achieved it? Most people have a vision of success that is false, and false for one crucial reason: it isn't their version of success. Thus, they may have the properties and yachts and money, but are still battling depression…because they aren't successful by their own standards.

When we do goal-setting, one thing I often hear is "I'd like to have … but I'm not / I don't want to sound greedy". There is a massive difference between being ambitious and being greedy. The former is noble, inspiring and motivating. If someone wants to be the President or team captain or "Entrepreneur of the Year", that's ambitious. If someone wants to have $100,000,000 to spend, that's ambitious. If someone wants to be able to buy a yacht or plane or build a school, that's ambitious. If someone wants $100 more because they don't want anyone else to get it, that's greedy. And that's not admirable.

If your goals are to achieve what you regard as being successful, it doesn't matter what others think. And once you know where you want to be, then we can begin planning how to get there. Once the roadmap is available is when the journey truly begins. In a week, a small group of dedicated and ambitious entrepreneurs will come together for the "Setting the Vision" session of ActionCLUB. If you're thinking about joining, now is a good time. If you want any more details, please look below.

To your continued success,
Murtaza

The Coaching Blog

The question should be: is it leaking?

Take the half-used glass in question. Say you're slowly filling it as we speak. 50% is either used or unused, depending on how you want to look at it. The question that we should be asking is: is it getting filled or is it emptying out?

There are three possible outcomes. Firstly, it's emptying out faster than you can refill it. It's a complete waste to put in the resources to try to fill it, and - eventually - it'll dry out. Secondly, you can refill more than is being lost over a given time. This is better, since it means the loss can be made up. It's still no good because, even after you stop filling, it won't stop leaking. This outcome would mean a never-ending cycle of fill - wait for some to be lost through leaks - fill again.

The third possible outcome is: seal the leaks first. Sure, you may not be able to fill as quickly if you're sealing too, but after you're done sealing, you'll never need to worry about a loss again. Even if you stop filling, you won't lose out on what you have.

If that glass is your business, and the capacity of the glass is the capacity of your business, the questions to ask are:

• What percentage of your capacity are you using right now? How much more could you do with what you have?
• Is there a "leak" of resources? Money, profits, time…all these are resources that companies leak on a regular basis, often without even realising it. And how do we even know if resources are being lost? Is there a measurement of activity and results being maintained? Are there KPI's (Key Indicators of Performance) in place? Does everyone know them and stick to them?
• What is the process for improvement? Is there a system of correcting mistakes found? Are team members hesitant to speak up for any reason?

Here are some common leaks that businesses have (and the questions that should be asked):

• How many leads are being lost? Why are they being lost? How can we improve conversions?
• How much money is left uncollected? Why has it not been received? What systems need to be in place to prevent this from recurring?
• How much activity are the team members doing, versus what they should be doing? How is this measured, and how can it be improved?

Sealing leaks is step 1, it's the Mastery level of the Six Steps. It's fundamental to the long-term success of every business that they get this right. It's also the one of the key areas we'll be covering in the upcoming ActionCLUB workshops (click here to view).

To your uninterrupted success,
Murtaza