Business Growth

What does it take to succeed? It takes more than you think to survive and thrive and running your own business is not for the faint hearted. After the initial excitement starts to diminish, business owners swiftly realise that for survival you need to build great relationships, solid teams, systems and processes.

Teamwork, Discipline & Accountability

Like any goal you set, you need someone to hold you accountable. Good accountants are like good personal trainers. They are there to help you with goal setting – working on your ideal “weight”, they’re there to assign “exercises” and they are there to measure results.

To grow in business you need discipline and direction to help you set objectives and goals, and most importantly, be held accountable. How else do you measure success? It’s one thing to hand over your financials; it’s another when you have a team to work alongside you picking up on what’s going wrong, what’s going right and then helping you do something about it.

Opportunities are everywhere but if you’re not focused and you’re not disciplined to stay on track, it’s easy to lose your way. With good accountants, not only do you get sound advice and support, you get fresh business ideas. These fresh business ideas could relate to new products or services you could offer, it could advise you about your organisational structure and a whole range of options to address. There is no one size fits all so it pays to listen to the experts.

Good accountants, like the McCarthy Advisory, having years of experience around systems, processes and ideas. Walking into a business growth consultation is half therapy and half business planning. Plenty of friends and family will have ideas – you can guarantee that, but if they’re not based on realistic data – you’re really just wishing your ideas work.

Accountants, who are also your financial mentors, understand the day-to-day running of a business and how to drive successful outcomes. They have the capability and the access to ensure your business will thrive. Yes, there is number crunching involved, but that number crunching is appraising your business performance. Without it, you’re really blind.

Financial Mentoring?

Mentoring businesses is sharing business wisdom, helping businesses map direction, set goals, develop influential networks and relationships. This is key in any successful business whether you are as big as Google or as small as a sole trader.  You never know where collaboration and collective thinking can take you so it pays to listen and listen to the right people.

Don’t go it alone in business, being “mentorless” is not nice. What is the most challenging question about your business growth you have on your mind? Write it down and then ask us at McCarthy Advisory.

A business planning session is a great way to generate successful business ideas & outcomes and sustain growth.

A planning session starts with gaining a sense of purpose. When we understand the WHY in business we can create a clearer vision or sense of direction, for oneself and the whole company. Everyone knows in business you can’t accurately predict the future, but you can visualise what your future growth looks like to you.

Success comes in all shapes and sizes – breaking into new markets, increasing revenue by x %, building a strong leadership team or designing an exit plan are just some examples.

These planning sessions help you identify the steps you need to take towards your future success.

Increasing profit and maximising revenues can come from looking at new opportunities and identifying new or potential threats. These new opportunities then inspire people, helping them be better prepared to evolve and grow.

Subsequent actions can be anything from on-going training and development to closely monitoring & measuring outcomes (KPIs) compared to objectives. Having these actions in place facilitates effective decision-making, helping the business pay close attention to what is going on around them.

Progressive accountants are masters of business strategy. Increasing revenue is driven by purpose, planning, inspiring and connecting.

We’re on a mission helping business and people grow and succeed.

Ever wondered what good governance looks like?

Think about governance in the same light you would about bringing a good AFL team together and getting them to win. Both involve dedication, preparation and outcome focused selection to put the right players in the right positions.

For every AFL team, there are different things that need to come together on the day of a match if the team wants to play its best and win.

But, before the big match, the team also needs to practice hard, develop its skills and fitness, know the rules of the game, and learn to work together on the field. It’s more than a game of 4 quarters. It needs a strategic coach, and a skilled captain who knows how to put the coach’s game plan into operation. If all of these things come together, then the team has a good chance of playing well and winning the game.

The team also needs to maintain its performance over the whole year, not just for one game. The players have to keep working on their skills, and if something goes wrong during a match, the coach, captain and team have to work together to fix things on the run so they can get back to their best form for the next match.

There are a lot of parallels between the way a AFL team works and the way governance and good management works in your organisation.

1. Strategic Coach

AFL Coach sets the strategy, objectives, timing and direction. They know what game to prepare for, who needs to improve their performance and what needs to happen to succeed.

The Coach has one eye on the conditions and one eye on the scoreboard. Their job is to look at how they can learn from the past to put into practice strategies and actions to improve future results. They need to have a firm grasp of the laws of the game and work within certain constraints but also make the most of every opportunity. For good governance you need a good Board/ Directors to set great strategy to drive business growth and monitor performance regularly.

2. Captains Can Teach Us a Lot

Take a look at the best captains there ever has been. These are the guys that know about vision, values and about keeping there team focused and motivated. They don’t need to say much, but demands respect because they “walk the talk”.

They don’t try and do everyone’s job thinking they are the best at everything. They proudly excels at their role, implements strategy, gets team buy-in and leads the way. Do you have a captain on your team who does the opposite? Do they think they’re experts at everything constantly changing organisational structures (or the team plan) regularly? If you do, it’s time to replace him with the best or help him or her to become one!

3. Creating A Game Plan

The most essential component to any team, be it AFL or good governance, is that everyone has an understanding of where they stand. This includes clarity around every role and where each individual’s responsibilities lie. This allows you to move swiftly “past a free kick” or a “dropped mark”. It means your defensive and offensive systems and processes are in place to drive growth and success. The strategy lies with the team but the success of the strategy relies on the whole team playing their part and putting in the hard yards.

Better still, at selection phase, ensure each team member hits your criteria and you know exactly where to place them when it comes to game day.

4. Teamwork

Last but not least, is understanding that teamwork is what will drive good performance. You have to know your strengths and weaknesses, threats and opportunities. You’re not going to put a rover in as a full forward in your AFL team, why would you do any differently when it comes to running a successful business?

You can’t afford to carry anyone. Play to each individual’s strengths and drive it home. Lay down the ground rules and the laws of the land but remain flexible enough to switch out players if you need to.

Appraisals and reviews are there for a reason. They’re critical observations to be done regularly so you’re focused on what your players can and cannot do. It’s up to you to take advantage of your team’s talents and minimize their weaknesses.

Good business relies on the same things a good AFL team does when it comes to winning. You need a strong team, clear vision and values, rules and laws, assigned positions and tactical strategy.

With McCarthy Advisory whether you want to win ‘your AFL Grand Final’ or the local league we’ll keep you firmly on track to take home the final prize.