Today I want to explore with you why frustration and being frustrated is a good thing.

All of us as leaders, business owners and achievers are always striving. Always striving to do new things, to achieve more, to look at new strategies for winning work or for creating better client relationships, to lead our team better and in general just doing things more efficiently and better. 

Whenever we are trying new things, whenever we are looking to implement new systems or processes or strategies into our team or our business, or really anything new that we try to do - is us stepping outside of our comfort zone. 

And this drive within us for us to always be wanting to do more, achieve more, be better, and in general grow and learn - means that we are constantly stepping outside of our comfort zone. 

So today, I want to explore with you the place of frustration in this whole process. 

You see, we often get frustrated when we try new things. We often get frustrated when...

Hope you’re well. 

All of the work that I do with my clients in my coaching programs is based on three core pillars. These 3 pillars are called Your Growth Model. 

The first pillar that I work with my clients around is Attract. This is doing all the things that are going to help you win more work, help you attract better clients into your team or your business, generate more revenue and repeat business from your current clients and allow you to have more confidence in your project pipeline. 

The second pillar is Perform. In this pillar I work with my clients on the performance of their team and their business. Helping them improve their client relationships, getting their clients really happy with the work that they’re doing and turning their clients into what I call raving fans. We also work on their team performance - getting their team humming really nicely as well as looking at their leadership skills to ensure they are doing everything they possibly...

Today I want to explore with you when you should be talking about fees and getting paid for working with your clients. 

The simple answer is as soon as possible and as early as possible in the process. 

This week I was working with a client in my CLIENTS coaching program and they were in a bit of a situation with their client. 

You see - a whole bunch of work had been done on a project and they were then tasked with trying to get paid for the work that they had already done. 

Asking for money and trying to get paid for work once you’ve already started - or even worse once you finished - gets harder and harder the longer that you leave it.

A lot of the times we don’t like talking with our clients about fees and getting paid for work because we view it as an uncomfortable conversation and we don’t want our clients to not like us.

The simple fact of the matter is - if you don’t talk about fees and you don’t talk about getting paid for...

This week I ran a process with my clients in my coaching program around getting really clear on the key focus points that they need to work on in the next 4 to 6 weeks to really make the biggest difference. 

My coaching framework is built around three core pillars being – 

Attract - meaning business development, winning work and attracting new clients.

Perform - being the performance of your team, the performance of yourself as a leader and developing amazing key client relationships.

Grow - meaning focusing on the activities that will grow your team, grow your business and elevate yourself into a truly strategic leadership role. 

So 3 x 3 works out to be nine core areas that are key focus points for helping my clients win in these core pillars of Attract, Perform & Grow.

The activity that I ran with my clients this week was looking at these nine core areas and scoring themselves honestly out of 10 as to how they’re going in these nine areas. 

A...

 Today I want to explore with you a super interesting concept that I’ve been playing around with in my own life and in my own business. 

It’s called the 80 / 20 rule for getting ‘stuff’ done. 

This concept is all about being conscious, being intentional and accessing the appropriate energy and emotions within yourself to get done what you need to get done. 

Let me explain. 

You see most of us go about our days and our weeks not been hugely intentional with the energy, the state and the emotions that we’re in in order to get things done. Most of us stay in fairly comfortable emotions and a fairly comfortable state of being, acting, operating and behaving. We like being this way because it’s familiar to us.

And most of us, if we really analyse the energy and the emotions that we operate out of every day - it’s one of being nice to others, it’s one of been quite laid-back, it’s one of not wanting to do...

Hey! Hope you’re well. 

I’m having a lot of conversations with leaders and business owners in the engineering and construction industry at the moment around how to create amazing client relationships. 

There are a lot of amazing tools, strategies and techniques that you can employ into your team or your business to create amazing client relationships, but there’s one thing that trumps everything else and that’s what I want to explore with you today. 

I want you to think about business for yourself right now. Who do you enjoy doing business with? Who do you like hanging out with from a business point of view? Who would you quickly, readily and easily refer work to? 

Are your answers people that you like? Are your answers people that you share values with? Are your answers people that you enjoy being around? 

I guarantee that you answered yes to all of the above. 

One of the easiest ways to develop exceptional client relationships,...

Are you a perfectionist? Do you have perfectionist traits?

Engineers by nature have a deep desire to get things 100% correct and perfect. And don't get me wrong, this personality trait is completely functional and needed when it comes to de-risking a project, system or process. In fact the general population who use or are affected by the things you design and create WANT you to use your perfectionist so that nothing goes wrong! 

However, sometimes this perfectionist trait can cause friction within yourself as well as your clients and your team.

Let me explain. 

Have you ever had a client call you up and ask you to get your deliverables done more quickly? Or a client bring forward a project deadline by a week just because they can? Have you ever had a team member get frustrated with you that you're taking too long on the element that you're working on and it's delaying them getting started?

And when this happened, did you FEEL yourself getting frustrated, overwhelmed and...

I hope you’re having an amazing day. 

In my last couple of posts I’ve been talking a lot about strategy and strategic actions that you could be taking to grow your team and grow your business. 

Today I want to talk to you about something slightly different. And that’s the importance of managing your energy. 

You see, if you’re like most leaders and business owners in the engineering and construction industry at the moment, you’re super busy! There’s a fair bit of work on at the moment and everyone is scrambling and doing their best to deliver for their clients as well as generating new business and making hay while the sun shines - so to speak.

At the moment, there is a huge sense of overwhelm and a huge amount of busyness happening. 

This period at the moment is ripe for burnout. 

So today I want to talk to you about the importance of managing your day, managing your tasks and managing your energy. 

Right now, there...

Do you know whether your mindset and your thoughts are supporting you and where you want to take your career, your team or your business? 

Or holding you back? 

Do you notice that you have some thoughts and perhaps a mindset that at times doesn’t support you and where you want to be taking things? 

Do you notice sometimes that you’re just not in the right headspace to create great outcomes and that you feel flat or tired or just not with it? 

Do you just sometimes feel like you’re not dialled in and ready to make the most of each hour, each day, or each week? 

You see you can have the best strategy in the world. The best game plan. The best to do list. 

But if your mindset is not right, if your psychology isn’t supportive of your game plan and your strategy, then you’ll be spinning your wheels and going nowhere. 

I don’t want to repeat something that you probably already know, but I’m going to...

This week I ran a really simple but effective exercise with my clients in my coaching programs. 

Now the exercise only took about 20 minutes, but it was incredibly powerful and gave my clients some key insights into how to build, develop and deepen their relationships with their key clients. 

Let me explain.

You see, everyone is so busy at the moment. Most people I’m talking to have work coming out of their ears!!

The big opportunity I see right now is developing your key client relationships. 

All of us are working on projects with key clients. All of us have key client relationships that we are honestly not nurturing properly at the moment. 

So, as I said, this exercise is really simple and I want to walk you through it right now.

The first step is to look at what it’s like right now for you and your key client relationships.

What are your clients pain points? What are they frustrated about right now? What are the things that are annoying them and...