"Thriving in Uncertainty" Article by Tina Zawila

Last week I had the pleasure of presenting to 25 business owners in Rockhampton on behalf of the Department of State Development.  The title of the workshop was “Thriving in Uncertainty”, and the underlying objective was to improve the financial literacy of business owners to help them make better business decisions.   Our focus was on understanding the past to make better decisions in the future.

We started with mindset and leadership and we all took a moment to reflect on what is working in our businesses and what isn’t, and to accept that our businesses are a direct reflection of us.  We had to face the fact that our businesses will never outperform our leadership.  So if we want different results, we need to do things differently. 

It amazing how often business owners base their plans for the future on the past, and wonder why they seem to keep getting the same results!  We need to create our future from our future.  In other words, get clear on what it is you want, and then work towards that!  There is a reason why the windscreen is bigger than the rear view mirror – yes it’s important to check what is behind us, but it’s more important to look at what is ahead of us!

We talked about developing our Profit Plan, our Growth Plan and our People Plan to achieve our goals.  In particular, I reminded business owners that Profit is not something to add on to the end, it’s something to plan for in the beginning!  That’s why at Sothertons Gladstone, we promote the “Bottom-up Budgeting” approach – start with your desired profit figure and work your way up.

Now is the time to lock in your plans for the new financial year.  If you need help with your planning and if you want to budget for a profit in 2015/16, call the professional team at Sothertons Gladstone today on 497 1300.