12Faces.business

Send us Fan MailThere are many ways to generate interest from potential customers.  These are referred to as marketing channels.  Listen to our quick introduction to the topic to build your understanding.  Link to more 

Send us Fan MailMoving from Solopreneur to a Micro (1-4 staff) business owner is a huge step both financially and how you work.  You are going to need in the order of 3X your present revenue to pay for your first hire!  Learn more with this podcast and the associated article.

Send us Fan MailHiring your first couple of staff can be very traumatic for a business owner.  Everything is new and you face all sorts of problems with funding the new salaries, hiring the people and getting them productive as fast as possible.  This podcast introduces our resource bundle that reduces your growth stress and builds your business momentum.  Read More

Send us Fan MailMulti Tasking is almost the norm in a work environment.  But that doesn't make it a good thing!  In fact it can damage both your overall productivity and your business's finances.  Hear more on this podcast and read on our website 

Send us Fan MailAt every growth stage of a small business the owner faces new management problems.  You trained for and are great at your professional skill but management is something new for you.  And it keeps changing and new fires popup demanding your attention.  12Faces has been there, done that, and this is our solution.  Simple repeatable Routines that create reliable habits for you and your staff so all those routine jobs get done well and are off your back.  They are graduated by degree of difficulty just like martial arts "belts" so you will never be out of your depth.  Learn More 

Send us Fan MailA business strategy runs the risk of being some overwhelming, multi page, document that you, and your staff, find hard to visualize.  So a Strategic Plan is often put on the shelf and rarely looked at. We show how to do a comprehensive, one page Strategic Plan you can just visualize as a "tree'  Read more 

Send us Fan MailDescribe your business intentions to both your staff and your customers quickly and easily so everyone is approaching your business with a clear understanding of your "North Star" that guides where you want your business to go. Read More

Send us Fan MailThe 5 Why Technique lets you and you team work through a list of possible reasons why something is not working to narrow down on the few that are the main cause of the problem.  Then you can fix just those principal problems rather than dilute your resources over trying to fix a lot of less likely causal factors.  Read More 

Send us Fan MailToo much or too little inventory of any particular stock item means profits forgone (under stocking) or cashflow tied up in slow moving stock.  Either way, inventory control is vital for the health of a inventory-intensive business.  Read more

Send us Fan MailTough as it might be to imagine, there is ample evidence that the 80/20 Rule or Pareto  Principle can improve outcomes up to 16 times more with little extra work.  Read more 

Send us Fan MailAll your business runs on Routines.  Poor Routines mean extra work and stress for you.  It also makes it difficult to delegate the Routine.  Or if you do, staff simply execute those wasteful routines.  See our simple Yellow Belt method for initially creating and then periodically overhauling Routines.  https://www.12faces.business/minimum-effort-management/

Send us Fan MailThis video outlines several of the ratios or metrics that you can use to monitor the health of your business. Watching these as they change over time will alert you to any worsening situations before they catch you completely unaware.  Read More

Send us Fan MailWhen we are considering possible business activities, it is very likely we just focus on what we already know.  But that overlooks other options that might be great but we have just not opened your thinking to consider them.  This technique lets you generate 1,000,000 potential ideas in under 30 minutes and shows how to reduce them to a set of feasible options for further thinking. Read More

Send us Fan MailUse this prefabricated 12faces 90 Day GamePlan to choose a business nice you like and which is tested for profitability before you launch.Read more on this link 

Send us Fan MailUse the Minimum Effective Routines (MER) technique to reduce stress and complexity by overhauling and streamlining the most critical Routines in your business

Send us Fan MailGet an introduction to our 90 Day GamePlan system.  A longer Sprint to help guide you towards your business Goal.  Takes under 30 minutes to learn and start implementing.  More on this link

Send us Fan MailThis podcast also appears in the article describing how you can start using 1-2 week Sprints to better manage the host of jobs outstanding.It shows how to prioritise outstanding tasks and then wrap-up when done to learn as much as possible from each Sprint cycle.

Send us Fan MailThis podcast explains GamePlan Sprints.  These are short (1-4 week) steps towards competing a quarterly GamePlan major project.LID12

Send us Fan MailPodcast of an introductory Lesson on the 12Faces Monthly GamePlan System.LID11

Send us Fan MailThis is the podcast of a video lesson on how to develop the Destination part of your 12Faces GamePlan Business Planning Strategy

Send us Fan MailThe "GamePlan System" offers a practical, adaptable routine designed to help small business owners "work smarter, not harder" and achieve sustainable business success. Unlike traditional, rigid five-year plans, this system advocates for setting a clear three-year "Destination"—a vision of success that defines what the business should deliver for the owner. This long-term vision is then broken down into manageable quarterly "GamePlans," which focus on the most crucial improvements needed. Each GamePlan is executed through short, one-to-two-week "Sprints," utilising a Plan-Do-Check-Adapt (PDCA) cycle to ensure continuous progress, learning, and the flexibility to "pivot" when circumstances change, saving time and money. The system emphasises making this structured approach a consistent routine and encourages team involvement to leverage collective ideas and effort.

Send us Fan MailMost textbook business planning is unsuited to the realities of small business.  Expecting detailed financial projections in 3 to 5 year's time is totally unrealistic when a small business can barely see 6 months ahead.Instead of planning methods developed for large and fairly stable big businesses, we have developed a flexible, low workload, business planning system for small business.It is based around a financial quarter GamePlan where you decide what to achieve in this quarter.  Generally, a small business can see three months ahead and have some hope of projecting financial data.Each quarterly Gameplan has a built in StrategyTree which identifies the 4-6 Critical Success Factors (CSF) that must be addressed for the GamePlan Destination to be achieved.  Things like key staff and required revenue.  Then the several Necessary Conditions for that CSF to work are identified and factored in We then show how to prioritize these Necessary Conditions so you move quickly and thoroughly to the GamePlan Destination for this quarter.Next quarter, you look at the current realities and develop a new GamePlan to suit.This is simple, fast and structured planning that suits the realities of small business.Video on Realistic Small Business PlanningBusiness Planning ResourcesTranscript on Realistic Small Business Planning Podcast

Send us Fan MailJust like an iceberg only shows 1/8th of its mass above water, your accounts have many more things they can tell you if you go looking.But many analysis tools assume a fair degree of experience and management and accounting training.  That's not common with small business owners.So 12Faces has developed several tools that can give useful insights to your accounts but are easy to use and understand.For example, we have tools for;1. working out how much to increase your prices to counteract the costs of inflation in wages and inputs to your business - a Gross Margin Ratio analysis2. building a 'model' of the economics of your business that then lets you plug in a proposed change to e.g. prices, revenue or wages to see  the impact on bottom line profit.  Then you can play with "what if " scenarios in your model to find what works best.  We call this ChangeBoard because it measures the impact of change3. conventional accounts are a mass of numbers and it is hard to make a great deal of sense of them.  Our TrendBoard shows your changes over time in your accounts as graphs.  Then you only have to work on the principal "up sloping trends are good and down sloping are bad" to quickly find any trends that might impact on your business.Don't wait for your annual tax accounts to see how you turned out for the year.  Take control of your future profits with the 12Faces Business Analytics tool kit.Transcript of Business Analytics Nugget podcastYoutube: Business Analytics Nugget videoMore information on Business Analytics for Small Business

Send us Fan MailIt is often hard for business Founders to "brainstorm" business issues with others.Friends and family may not have much business management experience.  It might not be appropriate to discuss some topics with staff.  Professional advisors can be helpful with their specific skill area but maybe less so with whole-of-business issues like business planning.  And they can be expensive.12Faces fills this gap with three services.  First there is our wealth of useful articles and our training packages.  Second, our Business Diagnostics System helps you identify solutions to problems you feed in.  Both of these are like virtual Business Coaches.  We also have a third service of 1-to-1 live Business Coaching. You use this on an hourly basis with no fixed period or obligation to continue. Transcript: Business Coaching for Small Business TranscriptYoutube: Business Coaching for Small Business Video More Info on Business Coaching for Small Business

Send us Fan MailUp to 1 in 5 businesses are failing at any point in time.This is a sad loss of time, money and effort and generates a lot of stress on business' owners.With small businesses, the owner is generally good in the area of their professional skills but may lack business management experience. Every manager that ever there was started in this position.12Faces has assembled a DIY and self-paced business training to help business owners with their turnaround. We call it Turnaround90 or T90 for short.  Specialist advisors will generally only offer advice in their particular area.  This might not cover your main problems and so diverts you from the most important fixes.  It can also be expensive at a time when money may be short.Turnaround90 covers the 12 aspects of your business (hence our business name 12Faces) that all need to be minimally operational for your business to be stable and turnaround.  That covers revenue, operations, admin systems and people management.If you struggle at some point, we have optional business mentoring support available on request on an hourly basis.Youtube: 90 Day Turnaround for Failing Business VideoTranscript: 90 Day Turnaround for Failing Business Nugget TranscriptMore Information on 90 Day Turnaround Training

Send us Fan MailLocal Services Businesses are those that draw customers from a few towns or suburbs around the business's office location.  Examples include building trades like plumbers, health professionals like dentists and professional services like lawyers and accountants.These business face different major issues when growing from Solopreneur though Micro Business (1-4 staff) to Small Business (5-19) staff.  This video introduces the typical issues at each size step and headcount.Especially early on, these are critical as up to 50% of startups fail in the first year.  That means a personal blow and a loss of money and time for the Founder.  A sad outcome for 'having a go'.The 12Faces Mission is your Sustainable Business Success.  We have many resources catalogued by growth stage that will reduce the stress from each grow stage and the new issues each introduces.Youtube: https://youtu.be/13GsxiLPz7ITranscript:  https://www.12faces.business/growing-local-service-business-various-headcount-nid48/

Send us Fan MailEvery business operator faces nagging problems from time to time that might be challenging to think of how to solve them.Many managers are professionally trained in their operational area but less experienced with the management side of a business.  Small business owners  in particular have to be good at every aspect of managing their business operation.It can be hard to get useful feedback from your professional advisors and business networks.  And some things you might not be able to discuss with friends and family.12Faces has developed a Business Diagnostic Funnel System.You start with a gut feeling about the problem and then drop down through several stages in the funnel; getting more and more specific about the possible solutions to the problem as you go.Eventually, you end up with a proposed Solution to your problem.  You can read more about that on the 12Faces. business website (https://www.12faces.business) and search on the topic in Google.Transcript:  https://www.12faces.business/business-diagnostics-reduce-stress-nid47/Youtube: https://youtu.be/Btah9Wa2iKE

Send us Fan MailMost business owners and managers have nagging issues in their business that they are not sure how to resolve; so they tend to just stay there and build up.The 12Faces Business Diagnostics system is a user-friendly way to narrow down the problem and arrive at possible solutions.This is just what a doctor does when you visit.At the start, you just pick the option that seems to best express the nature of the problem.  You click on that and drop into a second set of more specific options related to the first chosen one.  You choose the best in the second layer and drop into a third layer; and so on.Eventually, you arrive at a plausible reason for the problem and can request our Solutions page to help you see how to remedy the problem.It's quite quick and should present possible solutions in under 30 minutes of  your time.Youtube video:  https://youtu.be/71Af8s9lY74Transcript: https://www.12faces.business/introducing-business-diagnostics-nid46/

Send us Fan MailAnyone who might become your client moves through several stages in what has become known as the Buyer's Journey.  Your marketing needs to cover each stage so that you get the best outcome from your marketing.We say the stages are; Awareness - thinking about starting to buyConsideration - choosing what product to buyDeciding - what supplier offers the best arrangementsRetention - after the initial purchase, you want to keep the new client for as long as possible and,Advocacy - getting reviews and other social proof from your customers to be used as a marketing asset in the early stages of the Buyer's JourneyYoutube: https://youtu.be/Y9egXRwglT0Transcript: https://www.12faces.business/tracking-the-buyers-journey-nugget-nid45/

Send us Fan MailMany businesses draw customers from a catchment area around their location.  Example business include building trades, health professionals, lawyers, architects. This podcast introduces Local Area Marketing as part of a series on how to grow this type of business.  The Local Area Marketing series covers ways of boosting sales in your catchment area systematically and with long lasting success.  Local SEO is covered in detail in the series.Youtube: https://youtu.be/NUw-lls6BIsTranscript: https://www.12faces.business/local-area-marketing-blog/

Send us Fan MailThe Mission of 12Faces is your Sustainable Business Success!  This podcast introduces our approach to your Success and how to make that Success Sustainable.  ID31Read More: https://www.12faces.business/nugget-31-sustainable-business-success-transcript/

Send us Fan MailAlthough a sales funnel is a very busy place, you can dramatically improve sales while reducing your consumption of time and other resources by identifying and focusing on just one part of the Funnel. Listen for more.  ID18More Info: https://www.12faces.business/dtn1-1-2-2/https://www.12faces.business/dtn1-1-2-2/

Send us Fan MailThe HIPPO effect in meetings can greatly reduce participation and contribution. Learn how to avoid its adverse impact.  ID28More Info: https://www.12faces.business/staff-input-meetings-hippo/

Send us Fan MailMaking every step of your service or production workflow produce as much volume as possible seems like a sensible idea. Hear why that is faulty thinking that may damage your profit.  ID16More Info: https://www.12faces.business/local-optima-problem-small-business/

Send us Fan MailA tiny increase of just 1% in your prices can lead to an average 11% increase in profit research at 1,200 businesses has shown. Hear how to tap into this profit boosting idea. ID27More Info: https://www.12faces.business/pricing-to-increase-profit/

Send us Fan MailHaving no clear destination in mind for your business means you will get lost! Discusses several timeframes for business planning and the characteristics of a well designed SMART Goal.  ID 14More Info: https://www.12faces.business/gameplan-system/

Send us Fan MailIntroduction to the Theory of Constraints and the dramatic impact it can have on your business productivity. ID32More Info: https://www.12faces.business/theory-of-constraints-menu/

Send us Fan MailDo less work but still be 16 times more productive! This is the promise of the Amazing 80/20 Rule AKA Pareto's Principle.  ID26More Info: https://www.12faces.business/the-amazing-80-20-rule-fast-growth/

Send us Fan MailEvery child understands piggy banks make sure money is available when needed. This is the the grown up version for business operators.  Reduce the stress of finding money when payments fall due.  Smooth out cashflow. ID25More Info: https://www.12faces.business/lesson/profit-piggy-banks/