THE UK’s chancellor of the exchequer, George Osborne, likes to make them. As does a butcher with a piece of lean meat. And in business, whenever there’s a gloomy forecast, cuts are on the agenda quicker than Usain Bolt taking on a 100m world record.

Business mentor and behavoural analyst Charles Helliwell believes that business development is a long-term sustainable investment for businesses and that it shouldn’t be jettisoned when the chips are down.

He thinks that owners should ‘recognise that business development is a clearly defined skill, with purpose, clarity and definition.’ Secondly, they should ‘view it as a long-term sustainable investment, which, over time, will pay a steady and ever-improving return.’

Here, Charles gives his personal view on surviving the current downturn. Let us know what you think via a comment linked to this article.

He says: ‘When doom, gloom and despondency reigns in business, the inevitable response is always to make cuts. No surprise here. The media resound with everyday stories of staff cuts, budget cuts and training and development cuts.
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LET the train take the strain. And we’re not talking about the 09.10 to Paddington here. As a business owner, don’t try and do everything yourself. You must delegate and to do that you must take training and development seriously. Training means helping your staff acquire additional skills to help them do the job. Development is ensuring they are able to move to the next level and beyond. Skills and experience gained in tandem.

As part of the staff member’s annual appraisal, you should identify training and development needs. This can involve courses, or perhaps sitting them next to a more experienced colleague, or maybe even temporary job swaps. Maybe a secondment would allow that individual to further their knowledge. Coaching, on a one-to-one basis, can also be beneficial.

While managing a team, don’t ignore problems between individuals. If there are strong differences of opinion on how things should be done, bring it out in the open. Discuss it as a team. Iron out the problem at the outset and there will be a greater chance of the group achieving their objectives.
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TONY Westwood’s golfing e-book, exclusively available through the Naked Leader website, is a big hit for anybody who wants to know how to better their handicap – simply, with the emotion involved. An extract from the book, Naked Leader Plays Golf, is included below. Fascinating stuff. Why not get your copy, here?

Tony says: ‘I did this one afternoon with my six-year old daughter, Hollie. We were in the garden and she picked up her plastic set of golf clubs. She got one of the clubs out and she aimed her swing at the rabbit hutch, which was not a wonderful proposition for the rabbit.

‘Why she aimed there I don’t know. But that’s where she was aiming. She got the club and she was swinging it – and missing it. And she’s not standing in what you would call the right way. But she’s standing the way she’s standing and the way she thinks is the best way for her to hit the ball. So she stands there and swings it, misses it, swings it, misses it, swings it, misses it.

Time to ask her the first question. I said, ‘what happened?’. She said, ‘I missed it’. I said ‘okay where did you miss it?’ She said, ‘over that side’. So I said to Hollie, ’see if you can miss it on the other side’. So she missed on the other side. Which was brilliant.

Time to set her another task, while encouraging her to discover for herself what is happening. I said to her, ‘now see if you can go in the middle and hit it. This time she hit the right side of the ball and hit it into our neighbours wall on the left.

‘What happened that time?’ I ventured.
She said, ‘Well I hit it’.
‘Where did the ball go?’
‘Well it went over there and hit Mary’s wall’.
‘Fantastic!’ Which part of the ball did you hit?
‘I hit that side, the outside, which sent the ball left’.
She knew, so this time she hit it left but not as far to the left. This time it hit part of the rabbit hutch. Brilliant!

I asked her to see if she could hit the ball and do something different. So she hit it and sent it in a different direction.
‘What happened that time?’
‘Well it was better, but that was too much on the left side of the ball because it went to the right’.

And there it was. She understood everything that she needed to do. She was having fun the whole time. And at no point in time is somebody telling her it’s wrong.

For instance, nobody was saying, ‘you should hold it like this or you should hold it like that’.  It is all about do something, then see what happens, then doing something else if that doesn’t work.

If it didn’t work the first time then do something else.
And if that didn’t work, do something else.

HELPING change young lives. There couldn’t really be a more powerful slogan than that and The Prince’s Trust is a youth charity that does just what it says on the tin.

It is an organisation that motivates, encourages and gives confidence to those aged between 14 and 30 who have struggled at school, have been in care, are long-term unemployed or have been in trouble with the law. Three in four people who have been helped by the trust have gone on to either work, education or training, with more than 600,000 young people benefiting since 1976. That’s fantastic.
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Wednesday 9th June 2010 -  At Birdcage Walk – London

Spend the day with International Best selling author, speaker and Leadership Expert David Taylor 

You will – Attend a fast paced interactive high energy day and  Network with like minded people

Receive a FREE signed copy of the Naked Millionaire

This is a special offer to you  for more details and online booking vist “The Naked Millionaire -  A One Day Workshop for entrepreneurs”