Don’t Let Emotions Stop Price Increases, Reading Business Books Earns You More Money, Emails & Meetings Impacting National Productivity

27 August 2023 Newsletter

Motivation pushes you for days. Intention pushes you for years.

 

Hope you’re Thriving!

It’s been a good week with two quarterly planning workshops, a speaking event, and a few meetings. We also sent my next book, ‘Onboarded for Managers,’ to the printers and have set a release date for 1 October 2023.

Also, this week, I calculated the number of business plans I’ve built.

712.

That’s how many one-page plans I’ve built with leadership teams over the past ten years. It’s an average of 1.4 business plans per week.

It’s a relentless focus on mastery, knowing it’s impossible to reach a mastery destination, but you keep getting better and creating more impact for mid-market businesses.

It’s humbling to see the impact this has created, and as we look to the future with new coaches across Australia and New Zealand, our rolling average right now is 2.6 plans per week.

Last week, our small team went offsite and established our own BHAG “To become Australia’s centre of excellence for ambitious mid-market companies who are looking for a coach to help them scale”.

Yet it’s not about more plans; it’s about more impact, and that’s why the goal focuses on becoming a ‘centre of excellence’.

Because then we’re helping more leaders to confidently build enduring great companies.

Reading Business Books Helps You Earn More Money

This week, I came across an interesting article that should come as no surprise to you as a reader of this newsletter.

One of the major habits that successful founders and CEOs have in common is that they read. A LOT.

In fact, 85% of ‘rich people’ read two or more education, career-related, or self-improvement books per month. That’s compared to only 15% of ‘poor people’.
Also, those who read at least seven business books per year earn 2.3 times more than those who only read one book per year.

Below are some examples of why reading business books can better position you to earn more and succeed.
• You’ll Learn Actionable Techniques & Strategies
• You’ll Keep Your Subconscious Mind Focused On Your Goals
• You’ll Boost Your Vocabulary
• You’ll Improve Your Memory

Read the full article here: Why Reading Business Books May Actually Help You Get More Money

 

Reading In Bed Improves Sleep

Not only can reading business books help you earn more, but it can also help you sleep better.

Our phones and tablets are designed to engage and stimulate and keep us engaged. Between the blue light and the algorithm, these devices can work against our bodies’ need to slow down and prepare for rest.

In a research study from SleepJunkie, reading before going to sleep, even for a few minutes, shows some impressive benefits.

Overall, 76 per cent of bedtime readers were satisfied with their sleep quality versus 64 per cent of non-readers. The percentage of bedtime readers saying they were ‘very satisfied’ was almost three times higher than for non-readers.

E-book readers provided the highest percentage of people satisfied with their sleep quality and quantity, with around a 15 percentage point improvement over phones or tablets.

Also, there was about a 12 percentage points difference between bedtime readers and non-readers when asked whether they are getting the most out of themselves and living their lives to the fullest.

Read the full article here: Books and Bedtime

 

Don’t Let Emotions Stop Your Price Increases

This week, I came across the image below showing the price increases for streaming services in the USA in the past year.

The increases are approximately;
• Disney +75%
• Netflix +55%
• Hulu +20%
• Paramount+ +20%
• HBO Max +6.5%

This reminded me of a discussion I was having with a leadership team the week prior about the Power of One and how they could turn their business from breakeven to $400k profit this year. See, they had ‘absorbed’ cost increases through the pandemic and had yet to increase their prices, and subsequently, their profit evaporated.

But, like so many others, their emotions about losing customers prevented them from increasing pricing and acting on their business imperative. So, to combat these emotions, we ran the report and went through a scenario where they could increase pricing by 30%, AND lose 40% of their revenue and still make $240k profit and cashflow (instead of $0).

Pricing increases are a normal system in business, and you should regularly consider how and where to increase.

You may be interested in the podcast we recorded on this recently entitled “We need to increase pricing but the sales team is resisting” – link below.

Episode 148 – The Growth Whisperers: We Need To Increase Pricing But The Sales Team Is Resisting

 

Emails & Meetings Are Impacting National Productivity

Productivity is falling, and the governor of the Reserve Bank, Philip Lowe, has effectively warned that if it doesn’t improve, there would have to be more interest rate hikes.

But this is nothing new.

It’s been falling for decades, and in this 2-minute video, Alan Kohler looks at two things contributing: the soaring number of emails we all receive and the increase in meetings.

 

 

Slow And Steady Gains

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Keep Thriving!

Brad Giles