Champions Uncovered Pty Ltd is a personal leadership development company founded by Carla Wasserfall in South Africa. The vision is to encourage and to inspire people into becoming their best selves. Be it inspirational podcasts, wellbeing coaching, the online learning academy (launching soon), wellness solutions for business to keep you moving! Champions Uncovered believe an inspired growth mindset leads to you move with intentional action, and so is launching a new wellbeing personal coaching service.

The Champions Uncovered Pty Ltd service offering for the Lionesses is specifically the wellbeing personal coaching (strengths based and bounce back coaching) for entrepreneurial woman in business to develop their potential, facilitate thinking, keep the client focused on goals and on building strengths.

The services being offered at Champions Uncovered are unique because it is a wellness solution for individuals and business. The solutions are based on practical yet simple ways to start you moving and making intentional actions happen. The new service also harnesses positive psychology tools to inspire people to make their move.

Champions Uncovered founder, Carla Wasserfall, says the aspiration for the newly launched wellbeing coaching is to assist entrepreneurial women to focus on their strengths and bounce back with resilience. The service helps women entrepreneurs to focus on the goals of becoming the best version of themselves through a champion mindset. The wellness for business aspiration is to work with teams of 10 people on the 12 week program.

The coaching can be bought on the website www.championsuncovered.com/coachingforwellbeing.

Carla’s advice for women entrepreneurs is, “Move in the direction of your goals and do something today that your future self will thank you for.”

To find out more about the Champions Uncovered wellbeing personal coaching services for women entrepreneurs, contact Carla via email: carla@championsuncovered.com or visit the company’s website and social media platforms:

WEBSITE | FACEBOOK | INSTAGRAM | TWITTER

by Lionesses of Africa Operations Dept

Following on from our recent articles, you have tightened up your structure and processes, you have a decent team around you that understands and appreciates the direction you are taking the company. You have invested time and energy in training to motivate and keep your staff. You have ‘controlled the controllables”, and you have mitigated in part your un-controllables through partnerships or closer relationships in your supply chain. You have made it through the last two years with a mixture of grit, determination, self sacrifice and (yes) a bit of luck (to reread those articles, please visit our website here). You went online and now have an ever increasing demand for your products or services, not just from your local community, or your state, but from your wider country and even beyond (who knew that someone would find your website and click ‘Buy Now’ whilst sitting in Sweden!). You wake up one morning and realize that the time is right to ‘scale up’ and ride this wave!

So let’s take a step back. To scale is not something that automatically happens to companies just because the founder woke in a good mood and decided that is what she’ll do that day – this is a conscious decision with serious demands on time, energy and cash. An increased order book is a decent start, but that is what’s termed ‘growth’. To scale involves exponential growth that can only come from serious growth in your company. 

You have taken your company from a solo-preneur to a staff of 20, but each time you add a zero on the end of that employment number, it will feel like (and it is, believe us) a completely different company. Running a staff of 20 is very different from a staff of 200, which is very different from having a staff of 2,000.

You will need systems and processes in place that are watertight, along with a rock solid ‘no wriggle room’ for employees (and you as well – no shortcuts, just because you own the joint!). Staff must know that these are watertight and “No means No”! You as a founder must have processes that are stable, safe and secure. That is not to say that you cannot have flexibility, because processes and structure will change as your company increases from 20 to 200 to 2,000 employees across the globe, but each department must know the processes involved such as if they wish to go over their budget or increase the credit terms to customers. The applications that must be made, the structure and information you (or your budget or credit team) will require to sign off on an increase. To leave it to the last minute and then come running to you and say that unless we purchase that extra 40 foot container our biggest client will be let down and will leave – simply will not do. These are a big ‘No-No’ as you scale and such processes cannot be added as and when you feel like it. These should be imposed while the company is still small enough for you to be able to control the lack of knowledge, lack of understanding and lack of willingness on the part of your staff to (in their mind) play this game. Remember up until now they have had the keys to the sweet shop – they could at anytime corner you and expect to be able to persuade you on the spot to decide. If you are going to scale up properly, you simply cannot run your company in that fashion – your already impossible but current 36 hour day will just explode!

When you scale, as Ben Horowitz of a16z says in his must-read book ‘The Hard Thing About Hard Things – Building a business when there are no easy answers’ here:

“When an organization grows in size, things that were previously easy become difficult. Specifically, the following things that cause no trouble when you are small become big challenges as you grow: 

Communication

Common knowledge

Decision making” 

Communication because you are now not able to be on the factory floor for the same amount of time, so issues will take time to filter through to you. Indeed most issues will have to be handled on the factory floor without you even involved! – Scary eh?

Common Knowledge – suddenly the staff with you at the start of your journey and who rolled up their sleeves with you to do all work, now have specializations and departments to run. New employees will be brought on board specifically because they have specializations, so again the ‘Jack of all Trades’ role will disappear. Remember this is a good thing as growth and scaling require tighter role definitions. You too will just get in the way if you role up your sleeves and dig in as a ‘Jack of all Trades’. Indeed you could often make it worse. Give the warehouse manager the responsibility to run the warehouse and you turn up, sleeves at the ready just because a 40 foot container has arrived and you want to send off some products instantly to a few customers because that is how you have always done it? What a mess! Goods won’t be counted, the order flow will be disrupted and the carefully choreographed list of customers waiting for the latest goods (who had patiently waited their turn knowing the container was on its way) will be torn up because you have unknowingly pushed the customers who complain the most to the head of the list? In one company we have worked, the Founder was banned from entering the warehouse on such days and for very good reasons too! You have to let your team and their processes work.

Decision Making – well yes, there you have it. In order to grow, you have to loosen control in this essential area. Team leaders, Department Heads, even Directors will start to appear and have greater control. As you scale you simply cannot make all the decisions – you have to give such responsibility to others.

The good news is that as Ben says, these are not controls you should just hand over on Day1 – it is very important that they are handed over as if ‘grudgingly’. By loosening control slowly this becomes a controlled handover, which is far safer than an instant change. By all means put the processes in place, create the team leaders, but continue to slowly loosen control on the decisions. How fast you go on this depends on how fast your scale up progresses.

Of course you need to remain flexible. The processes you put in place with a team of 20 but designed for 2,000 will appear cumbersome, overweight and out of place, that is why these processes must adapt as you grow. So build for 200 when at 20, build for 2,000 when at 200 or increments in between depending on the speed of your ambitions. Each step requires accountability. This is important. It is one thing for you to know that the ‘Buck stops here’ with you – but as you build these processes there must be accountability with the team that is building these with and for you.

According to the Harvard Business Review (here), when they looked at accountability amongst and within teams: “Not only does this drive greater innovation, trust, and productivity, but also it frees the boss from being the playground monitor.”

This increases the speed of decision making and of trust within organisations:

“We’ve found that you can approximate the health of a relationship, a team and an organization by measuring the average lag time between identifying and discussing problems. The shorter the lag time, the faster problems get solved and the more the resolution enhances relationships. The longer the lag, the more room there is for mistrust, dysfunction, and more tangible costs to mount. The role of leader is to shrink this gap. And the best way to do it is by developing a culture of universal accountability.”

As Ben says: “Engineer accountability into the system. Which organization and which individual is responsible for each step? What can you do to increase the visibility of their performance?” 

Of course you are accountable for the entire company, but someone has to be accountable for putting in a screw straight and someone else (their team leader), must be accountable for that and the other 100 screws being put into your product daily, because otherwise sooner rather than later, no one will care…and then you as founder and owner have a far more serious problem.

Please note there is a huge difference between ‘Responsibility’ and ‘Accountability’. Responsibility is where ownership resides whereas accountability is where results have been measured and those with the responsibility are then held to account. To put it another way, when there is little or no accountability – performance, company culture, and morale suffer. To make people accountable is one of the hardest issues CEOs grapple with, which is why if you are serious about scaling up, accountability must be central to and at the forefront of your drive to scale.

Of course, scaling is not all about accountability. Accountability is what strengthens the backbone to your ever growing body. What increases the chances of your scale up succeeding is Team Work.

This is not only the team within your organisation, but the team you manage to wrap around you, such as your suppliers. Speak to them, explain your plans, encourage them to join you on this journey, explain the opportunity you see – they may be very happy to work with you, to help you grow and assist with (perhaps) better terms (who knows – if you don’t ask, you don’t get!).

This team also includes your Board – they have to be ready for the ride and support you in this. It would also be useful to have a Mentor who has been on the same journey previously. They are certainly part of the team.

Lastly the team that is your customers. Build them into a community, increase your network, jump with joy whenever someone calls and uses those magic words: “I am a Lioness, let’s do business”, this is a ready made network of over 1.3 million African Female Entrepreneurs willing you on and as we constantly see in various Whatsapp groups – eager to trade with each other.

So, to scale is not a fearful thing, you are already halfway there – you have an incredible global community given our ever growing African and Diaspora Network (Shout Out! to our American membership, now well over 100,000 strong). Use it.

We shall leave the last words to our Founder and CEO from one of her GML Blogs (here):

“If I look at the women entrepreneurs in the Lionesses community who have built really successful businesses, they have all taken a long-term approach to their growth strategies. They have started by putting solid foundations in place, built up and trained great teams, established good networks and relationships with customers. They have taken the time to get things right, to build their business reputations and trust with customers. Importantly, they have spent time on developing and refining product offerings. When I ask any of these successful women entrepreneurs to share their advice on what it takes to build a great business, their responses are always the same – it takes time! You have to be passionate about what you do; stay focused on your vision; persevere through the tough times; spend time developing solid relationships on a business and personal level; and above all, deliver on your brand promise to your customers.”

Amen to that!

Stay safe.

by Robyn Keet 

As a big-hearted Creative, I would run from negotiations. It’s made me feel uneasy and uncomfortable. To avoid this feeling I would take what was offered to me as “fair” instead of facing the throw-down that negotiations can bring. All I want to do was to create and deliver great work. Sound familiar?

After a few less-than-perfect projects, I realized that if I wanted to grow my business and amplify my creativity, I would need to at least learn the basics of negotiations. What I discovered led me to a new way of looking and approaching the negotiation table. An approach that a big-hearted creative like you and I can use daily and feel good about. This approach embraces partnerships and collaboration towards a common goal. No wasting time on the battle. No unmet expectations. No games. Only great work and harmonious relationships.

It’s investing time together in determining if we have the same goals in mind and if we are the right collaboration to make magic happen. When big-hearted creatives enter a relationship where trust can be fostered, everyone wins. We define negotiation as “to successfully travel along or over” (Merriam-Webster). It’s being transparent, curious, and proactive about our desired results. Allowing both parties to place what they want and where we are heading on the table.

The approach: Asking for more.

Alexandra Carter’s book entitled, Ask for more gives us 5 questions that we need to ask ourselves and our potential collaborators when coming to the negotiation tables.

Let’s walk through them together.

“We make our significant by the courage of our questions and by the depth of our answers” – Carl Sagan

Question 1: Tell me more

The first and most vital part of our process is to define the problem or pleasure point you would like to solve. Why are we here?

It’s defining the direction of your collaboration and negotiation. Without properly defining what you want to create and solve upfront, you waste time spinning your wheels trying to find the best course of action. Ask yourself: tell me about this issue. Continue the “tell me more” question until you can’t go any further. It’s like deep diving, you don’t know you have reached the bottom until your feet are on the ground. 

“Defining the problem helps you create a solution” – Alexandra Carter

Question 2: What do you need?

Regardless if you are aware of it or not, we are influences by our needs as a human, creators and business owners. We negotiate based on the desired outcome that can quench our needs. We thrive within the autonomy of our creation and therefore we negotiation based on our deepest need. When done right it reflects our ability to find clarity and strength at the negotiation table.

Our needs can be tangible or intangible in nature. Tangle needs are things we can physically touch like money or art supplies whereas intangible needs are those are you feel like respect or a commitment to something bigger. Understanding exactly what we need and in some cases, don’t need allows us the ability to be transparent, curious, and proactive about our desired results.

It’s a deep dive into a collective discovery and understanding of what this collaboration and partnership could look like once our needs have been covered.

Question 3: What are your concerns?

Our concerns are driven by our feelings. How does this collaboration feel within our body? Really sit with it. When we feel expansive, we know that we are in a good place. Otherwise, if we retract, we need to go further in our discovery of what is possible for each party. Walking away at this point is always an option.

The process will be filled with questions, strategic pauses to reflect, feedback on what’s possible for us. Covering our concerns before they happen gives us a plan on how we can approach them, if or when they come up.

Question 4: How have you handled this before?

We are more likely to approach the negotiation table when we have experienced something familiar than when we have not. Experiencing something new is always harder. We have no knowledge to draw from. In negotiations, it’s exactly the same. When we have the experience to draw from we can predict what to expect and how to steer the conversation to a mutually beneficial result.

So, how do you approach a new experience? Alexandra recommends that we find two familiar experiences and use that information or seek out someone who has approached this topic before and learn from them.

Our aim is to foster transparency, curiosity, and trust in our discussion.

Question 5: What are our next steps?

From questions 1 to 4 we have collected some valuable information. Now it’s time to put the puzzle pieces together to see what image emerges. The magic of collaboration is birthed in this question. It’s inviting all parties to contribute to the future-focused ideas and solutions. It’s the final step to form a foundation of trust, productive and lucrative partnerships.

“The best negotiation, relationship, or client interaction start with you — a process of self-discovery that helps you get clarity on who you are and what you want” – Alexandra Carter

As big-hearted Creatives, we have the ability to grow our businesses and amplify our creativity when we embrace Asking for more and advocating for transparency, curiosity, and being proactive about our desired results.

Now I would love to hear from you

Take a few minutes to do your internal check on your current negotiations — How would Asking for more help you in foster trust and building lasting relationships with your clients, suppliers and partners?

by Nkemdilim Uwaje Begho

Most companies that provide professional services typically do one of two things. They think that social media or any form of digital marketing offers no results and therefore do not embrace it; or attempt to, but are extremely inconsistent and in turn see less than optimal results.

In my experience running a digital marketing agency, this happens for a few reasons:

• Seasoned professionals usually get their clients via existing relationships or referrals that flow from those existing relationships.

• Secondly, there doesn’t appear to be much a need for an updated website with high SEO, an excellent user experience, or social media when they’re already managing things nicely through relationship management and a few sporadic direct marketing efforts.

But here’s the thing!

Companies that embrace inbound marketing today are head and shoulders ahead of nearly all of their competitors. The rewards include greater credibility, as well as high website traffic and engagement compared to their competitors. In any industry, you can still be the early adopter.

Here are a few tips to help you along as you navigate the somewhat murky waters less travelled by many:

1. You Need A Strategy

Don’t be alarmed! It doesn’t have to be a twenty page document — it’s simply an exercise. Put aside some planning and thinking time to answer a few critical questions. The answers will give you purpose and focus for your digital marketing efforts. It will provide guidance when you’re struggling to create content, or finding something relevant to converse with your audience.

A strategy can be as simple as answering these core questions;

• Who is my audience?
  This may be different for each channel. Go where your target audience is most comfortable.

• What is my message?
  What themes, topics or narrative will I create content around?

• What channels can I realistically commit to?
  Don’t try and do them all. Optimise

• What am I trying to achieve on each of these channels?
  What will look like a win for you?

• How will I measure my success?
  Evaluation is critical.

It’s quite obvious at this point that your social media strategy has to be part of a greater digital marketing strategy.

2. Ready, Set, Target!

It’s a fact that one of the greatest differences between traditional and digital marketing is the ability to target more effectively and efficiently.

Each time you take out an advert out in a newspaper or any other print publication, you are paying for their entire distribution/reach — but the thing is that your message is really only relevant to 1% of the audience who constitute your ideal target market.

Digital is different. You can decide that you only want your message to reach the 1% and be relevant to them. There is no need to waste time, content or money reaching out to anyone else. For example, on Facebook, it is now possible to target your audience organically by location, gender, relationship status, education, interest and age. Organically means social media attention you earn based on the quality of your content, without having to pay to promote that content.

Essentially, the more narrow and targeted your message is, the more relevant it is to your audience and the better engagement you will get.

3. Don’t Be a Stereotype

Are you a lawyer? Put all your lawyer jokes away!

Are you a doctor? Put all your doctor jokes away!

Are you a tax consultant? Put all your tax jokes away!

You are smart, enlightened and well-informed people, why do you always sound like your job every time you ‘do’ social? When you communicate on social, post about subjects that your clients will find interesting using a tone that isn’t overly official or downright boring. Show your clients that you are regular people. This allows your clients -and those they refer to you- to relate to your content, thereby evoking an emotional connection. The goal is to have your client think “ah, he understands me.”

For many professionals, this means going outside of your comfort zone by showing your personality. Discuss topics that interest your clients (like ‘The Best Vacations for Families with Young Kids’ if you are targeting young married professionals or ‘Lean Business Model Tips’ if you work with startups). Those professionals that commit to being approachable and consistent do very well on social media.

Important to note is that social is a two way channel. Being social means that you won’t just be focused on continually pushing out content, but you will be actively listening, responding and engaging with your audience.

If you want to understand digital marketing better and be able to run your own successful inbound marketing campaigns, follow us on social media and sign up for our next inbound marketing training for CEOs and business owners. You’ll learn the exact steps you need to take to keep your existing clients, and attract more of your ideal ones.