Below is a great Article I read from Alan Weiss Summit Consulting Group on what helps you to make your ideas successful

As you might imagine, I've been asked repeatedly what my assessment is of the factors differentiating the highly successful from the less successful. The comparison isn't against the unsuccessful, which an entirely different dynamic, but against those who do well but aren't the best, the thought leaders, the champions.

You can easily read how it's a kibillion hours of practice (I find that to be nonsense), or heredity (perhaps appropriate in swimming or basketball), or IQ (I know too many smart failures), or education (I went to college and grad school with a lot of people who were no better off after the experience). Some people advocate coaching and some trial and error, and some sheer passion.

My general conclusions is that perseverance is the key, all else being fairly equal, and that perseverance is based on disciplined focus and resilience. (The closest work I'd recommend is Andrea Duckworth's excellent Grit).

Focused discipline is the ability to stay the course, to limit and overcome distractions, to handle multiple priority projects at once without sacrificing any. The operative word here is "priority." Focus requires the jettisoning of the non-priority, and if everything is a priority then nothing is a priority.

Resilience (see my book co-authored with Dr. Richard Citrin, The Resilience Advantage) is the ability to accept temporary, unavoidable pain without allowing voluntary, endless suffering to intervene. It's the ability to get back on the horse, to apologize, to return to the scene of defeat, to learn from failure.

I'll tell you here and now that most people aren't happy with my conclusions, because perseverance and resilience are within the control of the performer. They are not functions of DNA, or the right school, or particular life experiences. You can probably improve at both right now.

But do you choose to?

FARM MANAGEMENT DEPOSIT SCHEME

Some good new for primary producers with the following changes that came into effect on 1 July 2016:

1. The amount you can have deposited is now $800,000 per person, up from $400,000.
2. If effected by drought you can withdraw an amount after 6 months in the first 12 month period and not have to go back and amend the previous years tax return.
3. Financial Institutions (Banks) can now offer offset accounts allowing you to use the FMD to offset the interest costs of farm business borrowings.

If you want to know more about these changes and how best to use them please contact your taxation advisor at DHM Partners.

Brett Higgins
Executive Director

Does your business have any goodwill?

Below is a great Blog I read from DHM Partners external Chairman Andrew Geddes:

Every day I read about vastly indebted governments, bloated bureaucracies, rampant addiction to welfare, budget deficits, trade deficits, asset bubbles and global deflation!!!!

Resource prices have tanked too.

And wars seem to keep getting more entrenched in various parts of the world.

No wonder the stock market is volatile!!!!

Then the politicians keep their snouts in the short term troughs of getting re-elected.

And the baby boomers are going to sell their businesses to fund their retirements in ever growing numbers.

As a bloke who’s worked all his life with business owners, it makes me worry about the future.

What can we do to protect ourselves from this risk of not selling our businesses or no goodwill?

Here’s my 40 year’s take on it…

                *take some uninterrupted time to think about how you can make yourself redundant

                *list all the things you do and who else might be able to do them

                *list which things might be automated

                *list all the things to have documented processes (quality management concept)

                *get this done and delegate much of what you do

                *focus on creating quality products or services and do it better than your competition

                *focus on quality customers and ask them what they want, like and need

                *put examples of outcomes achieved for your customers on your website and in your eNews

                  and in social media

                *go on 6 weeks leave and see how the team handle it

If you can’t find an external buyer (big corporate or competitor), consider selling your business to your senior management team (SMT).

If you haven’t got a SMT, create one.

Have a planning day with them.

Set budgets and report monthly financial performance.

Identify three critical areas to improve in the next quarter (your strategic imperatives).

 

Establish project groups in your business to action these imperatives.

Exhibit contagious enthusiasm for these projects.

You might have to offer small percentages of equity to them at first and maybe vendor financed.

They have to sit around the board room table to feel the heat of decision making.

Send them to our “Leadership for Profitable Business”  workshop Nov 24/25 in Brisbane so they are further educated and their confidence builds.

Educate their spouses too!!!!

Then maybe you can create a succession solution for yourself in time.

Good luck with it.

Andrew Geddes

Federal Budget 2016 - more undermining of the superannuation system

The 2016 Federal Budget has again made changes to superannuation law.  For example it's proposed that the concessional contributions cap be reduced to $25,000 for everyone able to contribute to superannuation.  This constant changing of limits only undermines the general publics confidence in making contributions to superannuation.  If the general public can't be confident in the superannuation laws not being adversely changed over a one year period, why would they have the confidence to invest their money in superannuation for 10, 20, 30 years or more.  In addition retrospective changes are proposed to Transition to Retirement Pensions.  Where previously the investment earnings of these pensions were tax free, it is now proposed that this investment income be taxed at 15%, even for existing Transition to Retirement Pensions from 1 July 2017.  Again, how can people have confidence in the system and make long term investment decisions when superannuation has become a political football.  It's time for the politicians to provide confidence to the general public via ruling out any further adverse changes to superannuation rules.