[00:00:00] Emma: Running a successful business isn't just about Big dreams and bold moves. It's about the non negotiables,
[00:00:07] the habits, the boundaries, and the principles that keep you focused
[00:00:12] profitable and thriving, because let's be real, without them, it's easy to get caught up in the chaos, the absolute chaos that is business and lose sight of what really matters.
[00:00:24] Question for you. What are the non negotiables that truly make a difference in your business? And more importantly, have you set yours?
[00:00:35] Before I talk about my non negotiables, I want to just touch on the values that we have at Emma McQueen PTY Ltd. the three values we hold very dear generosity
[00:00:49] Kindness results. they're the three values that we wrap everything around. Today, I wanted to give you some practical, actionable ways to outwork your non negotiables for running a successful business.
[00:01:06] And I'll tell you what mine are, and I'll unpack those for you. So our first non negotiable is a focus on customer service now, what that means for Emma McQueen is that we have Serena, the beautiful Serena, who is also my big sister. She's the nice one. She is, manages my diary. She is my business manager and she has beautiful rapport with all of our clients.
[00:01:32] I want my clients to be seen, feel heard, and feel valued, and Serena does that with absolute grace every single day, and I cannot thank her enough. You see, when Serena sets it up like that, it means that I can focus on the coaching and I can focus on delivering a really great service. So that is what a focus on customer service for me means.
[00:01:57] For you, it might mean you set [00:02:00] some response times to your emails. So if people inquire, you get back to them with 24 hours notice, or you might set up an order reply, or you might get back to them within an hour, depending on what your
[00:02:16] Another tip could be creating a customer service script. So having a go to script for handling complaints or refunds or common queries or FAQs, that way everyone is singing off the same hymn sheet, so to speak. Number three, you can do surprise and delight. It costs nothing to send out a handwritten thank you note, send a small Snail mail, lumpy snail mail.
[00:02:41] What I mean by that is like chocolate in the mail a little teabag or anything that is personalized. We love surprise and delight here in Emma McQueen. And we have just had the thriving women welcome kits. That's what I like to call them because I don't like to give away any of the things that are in there.
[00:02:57] And my hope when people open up those boxes is that they look at it and go, that's super practical, sustainable, and generous. And so I love surprise and delight. I love surprise and delight at its easiest, which is. Lovely text message telling someone you're thinking of them or a little bit tricky where you put a book in the mail with a handwritten note.
[00:03:19] And I love handwritten notes. Let me tell you a quick story. When I worked with, uh, my last, business, it was a 365 million business. And I was at a HR director level and I'd worked there for a long time. Anyway, one morning I was walked on my morning walk and I thought to myself, those ladies in payroll work their butts off.
[00:03:39] They never get any thank yous for people getting paid because it's just a hygiene factor. And. If someone gets their pay buggered up or do they hear about it? Anyway, I wrote them a note to say I see you. I hope you feel valued. Thank you for paying me each week. Thank you for paying everyone each week.
[00:03:57] Amazing, right? How [00:04:00] long do you reckon they had that pinned on their wall? 10 Years. And I was just like, holy dooley. And if I see them out and about now, they will say to me, opening line, Emma, do you remember that time you wrote us a handwritten note? La, la, la, la, la. We kept that thing on the wall for 10 years.
[00:04:18] That's all it takes sometimes to do Surprise and Delight. Now, There is a caveat here. Sometimes when you get good at Surprise and Delight, it becomes an expectation. So you either need to work out how you level up or work out how to do it differently. Another one around customer service is using a customer relationship management tool.
[00:04:37] So making sure that you track your interactions, your followups, you can use HubSpot or Zoho or Trello for simple tracking. So the first negotiable. Customer service, setting response times, creating a customer service script. So everyone's on the same page using surprise and delight and using a tracking system or a CRM.
[00:04:58] Number two for my non negotiables, money management tools man oh man. If I had a dollar for every time I talked about this, I would be a very rich woman. You need to separate your business and your personal finances. I know some of you are like, I'm just a sole trader. No, just about it. You are a sole trader who will eventually grow into a company if that's what you want.
[00:05:22] So many women do not sit down and talk to their. other half about what the family needs. So when I first went out on my own, I said to my husband, right, what does the family need? And he said, we need X. I'm like, great. So at a bare minimum, I have to pay myself X for the family. And he's like, yep. I'm like, great.
[00:05:40] So many of us don't have that conversation. We just take money out willy nilly. Don't do that. Open a dedicated business bank account with Xero or QuickBooks or MYOB for tracking. And please, If you are using a spreadsheet and you are running a business, it's time to level up. All that a spreadsheet is telling [00:06:00] you is that you are not a businesswoman.
[00:06:02] Hashtag sorry, not sorry. Here's the thing. When you open up a spreadsheet, it can feel like a hobby business. There's something about leveling up into a Xero which is my choice, or a MYOB or a QuickBooks that makes you feel like you're actually running a business. I also just want to talk about those bank accounts for a moment.
[00:06:21] I follow Profit First. it's a great book. It's really helped me. They talk about opening eight bank accounts. I do not have eight bank accounts. I opened three. One for daily expenses, that's money coming in and going out of the business. Two, profit. I take out a certain amount of profit before I do any of my daily expenses stuff.
[00:06:38] And three, GST or tax. You need to have at least three bank accounts. so on money management tools, separating business and personal, very important, finding a way to make that happen for you. Number two is setting up automated invoicing and reminders. You can do that really easily using Stripe or PayPal or Square for easy, easy payment processing.
[00:06:59] And three, tracking cash flow weekly, reviewing income. Versus expenses. I do it every Friday, but this is the secret. I didn't love it, but then I worked out I'm the CEO, so I need to dive into the data. So I made myself look at my accounts, understand where my money was going and once a week, every week I sit down for one hour and go, right, what does that look like?
[00:07:25] One of my other, suggestions is to save for tax automatically. So as soon as money hits your daily expenses, you put the money away for. Your taxes, because so many women I know get caught with big bills and we want to make sure that we've got money. So we don't feel stressed about that. my third point is an effective follow up system which kind of could be blended into number one, which is a customer service focus. But the fortune, the fortune is in the follow up. So have you got a follow up schedule? Do you follow up after two days, one week, one month in terms [00:08:00] of clients, potential clients and invoices?
[00:08:03] What is your follow up method? How can you automate those? Can you use email sequences using ActiveCampaign or MailChimp or Kit? and how do you follow the 3 2 1 rule? The 3 2 1 rule is
[00:08:16] Engage with three people per day.
[00:08:19] Nurture two warm leads. And
[00:08:22] Close one deal a week. I don't know if you know, but I do an hour of business development a day, and that 3 2 1 rule can fit beautifully into that hour a day.
[00:08:32] And then I think the fourth one is that we really need to track leads and conversions you could use this in a simple spreadsheet or a CM, but are we tracking the conversations we're having? Are we tracking the number of follow ups we're doing? Are we looking at some kind of customer nurture sequence and going, yes, that's where that person is at?
[00:08:52] Are we being helpful? Are we adding value, all the things, right? So today we have covered off three things that I think are really practical ways, non negotiables that help you run your business. Focus on customer service which for me means hiring a Serena, setting those response times, creating a customer service script, surprising and delighting your clients and using some kind of customer relationship management tool.
[00:09:21] Two. Money management tools separating business and personal finances, setting up automated invoicing and reminders and tracking your cashflow weekly and saving for taxes automatically, if you can. And then a follow up system. So using a follow up schedule, automating your follow ups, following the three, two, one rule and tracking leads and conversions.
[00:09:43] There's a lot of things to do. There's a lot of non negotiables in there, but if you have some of those already in place, which one do you need to level up in your business? I personally love tracking leads and conversions. I love tracking how people come to find us.
[00:09:58] It's probably the first [00:10:00] question I ask them. How did you find us? are we having this conversation? Why are you here? And that gives me so much rich data and information for where I'm being seen and where my positioning is. So I'd love to hear from you. What are your non negotiables that already exist and what do you have to do to level up some of them?
[00:10:21] You know where to find me Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, career pigeon. I'll see you next week.
