My name is Toby Garbett and my background in the world of health and fitness originates in the cut-throat world of Olympic rowing where the time and effort you put in is precisely what you get back.

The margins for success and failure in the world of sport come down to hundredths of a second. This can be likened to the width of an apple and in 2002 it cost me a gold medal, this equated to just 0.02 of a second! I was world champion in the preceding years and went on to represent Great Britain at the Athens Olympics.

In business, you may or may not be accountable for business being won or lost by fractions of a second but being as fit as you can be, mentally and physically, could help you win, or stop you from losing that important contract.

I now thoroughly enjoy bringing my experience, understanding and motivation to assist others in the office or at home as a personal trainer.

Tips For Success

With a Olympic Games rapidly approaching I have been looking back at the types of questions I used to ask myself regularly in preparation for competing at world-class level. This is what our current Olympic hopefuls will be doing in the run up to the London Olympics.
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To get to the top of your chosen activity, profession or business it is important to adopt a winner’s mindset and believe you deserve to be there. Too many sales or business people position themselves just below the status of potential customers – and wonder why they get messed about. A business relationship should be an equal exchange where both parties benefit and both are on the same level.

1. Make sure every deal makes a profit

Never place or accept orders that don’t make enough profit, unless you’re gaining customers at a loss because your back-end processes generate profits to outweigh the acquisition cost. If necessary, renegotiate existing trade terms to ensure your business remains sustainable.

If your existing supplier won’t change their terms, find a new supplier. You’re always the final judge in any selling/buying conversation and you always have to choice to walk away from the wrong deal or the wrong client.

2. Only ever deal with people you like

This is my golden rule of business. Is this a hard stand to take? Yes. Is it the only stand to take? Yes! Why? Because here’s the truth of the matter. When a relationship just doesn’t work, all the minor problems become major – but when you deal with people you like and respect, all the major problems become minor.

3. Don’t sell. Allow people to buy.

True professionals will always find out a customers needs and wants before they present their solutions, because during the ‘information gathering’ stage you will find out the problems your potential customer is experiencing and the level of pain they are feeling.

Focus on offering a cure for the pain first. Then, and only then, do you start talking about features, benefits and advantages of the product or service.

4. Charge for your experience as well as the work you do.

The significant factor when pricing a service that provides advice, consultancy or coaching is your level of professional expertise. Your biggest asset is your work experience. Too many people charge only for what they do, rather than getting paid for their lifetime of working experience.

5. Do what successful people do and you’ll have what successful people have.

Mistakes can provide a valuable learning experience – but it’s crazy to make them if they can easily be avoided. The way to do that is to learn from others. Listen to an audio programme; go to a seminar. Invest in listening and consulting those who are a success at what you want to do.

6. Tell your customers ‘why’ you are doing what you’re doing.

Everyone is bombarded with sales and marketing messages on a daily basis to the point where they barely listen to the pitch. Which is why it is important, if you are offering a client discount, to tell them why you’re offering it or why the product is scarce.

For example: ‘We’re clearing out the warehouse to make room for our latest product, and so we’re offering 20% off core stock for a limited period’; or ‘I am giving away a free consultation so you can get to know how I work, and I can better understand how I can help your business grow’.

7. Always ask for referrals. It is one of the best ‘retention strategies’ you could ever use.

Asking for referrals or ‘personal introductions’ is the best way of checking your relationship with your customer. If they refuse to give you referrals you know that something is amiss and you have an ideal opportunity to find out what’s wrong and take corrective action. On the other hand, how can a customer stop buying from you when they’ve just recommended their contacts buy from you. They can’t.

We all know if we fail to plan, we are planning to fail – but there are now some signs that planning isn’t all its cracked up to be.

Is planning Successful?

Well, it seems possibly not. When we assess long term business success and look at the top US companies in the year 1900, we find that only three of the top 10 companies still maintained their position 100 years later in the year 2000, and the rest had either failed altogether or dropped out of the top 100.

This is strange. Surely large successful companies plan don’t they? Well if they do, it doesn’t seem to help their long-term success.

But what about more recent businesses? The results there are even more disturbing. When In Search of Excellence (Peters and Waterman) was written in 1982 it identified 43 successful companies and their characteristics, which, included, of course, the ability to plan for the future of the business.

However, just two years later 14 of the 43 ‘excellent’ companies were in financial difficulty.

Now this may have been for a variety of reasons, but if these businesses were so successful at planning, why didn’t that help them survive?
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As a specialist in refinancing and restructuring companies that are in financial distress, I am acutely aware that the majority of business in trouble will wait until it is too late ask for help. Entrepreneurs often set up a business on a shoestring because they don’t have much cash to start with.

They aim to grow as fast as possible without realising that the more their business grows, the more cash they will need to put into it. For most business owners it comes as a surprise that larger contracts and high turnover are not in themselves a route to success.

In our experience at RCapital there are three key areas of weakness among business owners: a lack of understanding of the meaning of cash flow management; a tendency towards over trading; a reluctance to ask for advice from those who have had practical business experience – until it’s too late.

With this in mind here are my key tips for a successful business:

Ask For advice at an early stage

There are huge benefits in seeking expert advice before embarking on any kind of financial venture. Fortunately, it is now much easier to find business mentors from all walks of life who have been there, done it and have grey hairs to show for it.

Why wouldn’t you want to learn from others’ mistakes? If you can find out in a few weeks or months what it has taken a successful businessperson 10 or 20 years to learn the hard way, you would start out with a huge advantage.
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Charles Darwin was quoted saying:

“To change is difficult, not to change is fatal!”

Living in a world where innovation cultivates how we will live in 5- 10 years time, we must allow ourselves to be predisposed to new technologies and ideas.

Innovation is about doing things that produce an enhanced effect. If I had not listened to a passionate girl, who I backed to develop the way companies head hunt through an outsourcing process, I would have not sold that division of the business (AMS) that her idea helped grow three times the size of Alexander Mann.

Now thanks to her developing a competitive edge over rivals, the outsourcing industry is now worth billions.
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