Posts Tagged ‘Employees’

Not to toot my own horn, but there are thousands of things that I know that you don’t. Not that I’m a know-it-all or anything, its just a simple fact. There is no way that you know all the things that I know. Simply impossible.

Okay, okay, as good as it feels to be able to say that, lets face reality. You can say the same thing about yourself. There are thousands of things you know that I don’t have clue one about. In fact, you can take any two people and be certain that both know things that the other doesn’t.

As a business person, you simply must embrace this fact. There are people who know things you don’t. You’re job isn’t to try to learn all of those things. Instead, it is to tap the knowledge of others for the improvement of your business.

What Other People Know

If there is a secret bit of knowledge needed to be a successful business owner, maybe its this: know how to find the right people. People, as a group, know so much more than you do.  Collectively, the knowledge of the readers of this blog dwarfs my knowledge. Its like comparing the Sun to a speck of dust. Beyond that, specific people have specific knowledge that is way beyond your own in certain areas. For instance, I can design a nice looking website, but my skill is dwarfed both by the graphic designer who is really an artist, and the coder who can make a web site do whatever she wants it to.

The point is, people know a lot. As a business owner, you should tap into this knowledge. Some of the standard people you need include a banker, a lawyer, and an accountant. But the list shouldn’t stop there. Depending on your business, you can benefit greatly from a vast array of specialized knowledge. Your job is to know where your business is going and then finding the right people to help you get there.

I Can Barely Afford Myself

Some businesses just think that they cannot afford people. Its funny, but the best advice for you if you are in this situation might be to hire someone to help you figure out how you can make more money. But, if you are not ready to put down the cash for people right away, start with a little self education. There are plenty of books and websites that can help you out. These will give you a basic knowledge, and will hopefully point you in the right direction. For specific knowledge however, you are going to have to tap people.

Starting off, work on building your network. If you have friends and mentors in business, you can often get some pretty good free advice. That’s a start.

The next step would be to hire experts in pieces. In other words, if you can’t yet hire a full time accountant, perhaps you can bring one in to consult for a specific period of time. Through that consultation, you can have the accountant look at your books, give you some tips, and show you how to better manage your finances (so that eventually you will be able to hire a full time accountant).

After limited-time consultations, the next step in paying for people knowledge is to outsource some work. This is for when you are not ready for full time or don’t need full time. In fact, for some jobs, having someone outside the business doing it may continue to be the best bet for the long term. For instance, you will probably never need to hire a full time landscaper so that you can keep your lawn mowed.

You can outsource almost any kind of work. If you are just starting out, you may want to work with a virtual assistant before you bring in a full time secretary. The professionals I mentioned earlier, banker, lawyer, accountant, are usually outsourced in small businesses. Outsourcing allows you to pay only for the work you need done.

Lots of times, it makes sense to bring in full time help. Employees are hired to get the job done. Sometimes, you don’t even consider their knowledge, and how it will compliment your own. This is, of course, a mistake. You need to hire people for what they know. You can teach people, it is true. But you can only teach them what you know. So, if you hire someone for sales and have to train them, you will only be able to take them as far as your own skills. If you want to hire someone with limited knowledge, make sure that they know how to learn and have a passionate interest in the subject. You may be able to get people cheap this way, but it can hurt you if they can’t learn the stuff.

The safest route is to hire people who already know their stuff. They should be able to teach you. And you should be okay with that. Remember, your skill is finding the right people to accomplish your goals.

What If You Are Super-Skilled

If you started your business based on your skill, you may be having a hard time with all of this. Maybe no one can bake cakes like you. While having a specific skill may be an obstacle to running a business empire, it can usually be overcome. I jest a little there. Go ahead and embrace your skill, especially when you are just starting out and when your business is smaller. As it grows, you will probably have to give something up. Perhaps you won’t be able to work with every customer. Maybe you will want to keep doing the skill work and will have to let someone else take the reins of the business.

Even though you have a super-skill, you still need to tap into what other people know. Maybe I should say especially since you have a super-skill. If you are an expert cake decorator, your business will suffer if you need to spend your time doing the books, or selling, or whatever. Find the people with the knowledge that you don’t have, and plug them in.

More Knowledge Means More Business

Do you have to pay for the best knowledge? Yes, of course you do. So you may have to take it in steps. Start by bringing in the knowledge that will give you the most bang for your buck. But here’s the thing. If you realize that you need a strong team, and start paying for one, your business will benefit.

Bring in the people who will take your business places. Be the person who gets these people together in a room and all focused on one thing, making your business a success. Do this, and you may not be the most knowledgeable person in the room, but you will certainly be the smartest!

photo credit: Ben+Sam

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Bradford Shimp is the publisher of All Biz Answers. He is also the co-creator of Idea Anglers, a place to see your ideas come to life through collaboration. Follow Bradford on Twitter @bradfordshimp.

Mom’s are well known for giving advice, whether or not we want it. As a business owner, you need good advice, whether or not you want to admit it. So, if we marry the two, what your small business needs is a mom!

I’m not talking about a mom who will make you a nice meal just because you are feeling blue, although that’s not half bad. Your small business mom is actually more than one person. It is your network of people who you go to for advice. 

Here is how I break it down. MOM stands for Mentor, Officer, Member. These are the three levels of people who you need to tap regularly for advice. 

• Mentor – that’s a person who is not directly involved in your business, but who knows their way around the business world. Every business owner should have at least one mentor.
• Officer – that’s your management, leadership staff, including you. In fact, it may just be you if you are a one-person show.
• Member - these are the people you interact with day in and day out because of your business. There are basically two groups of members: employees and customers.

Does Your Business Have a Mentor?

When the going gets tough, it sure is nice to have someone to go to for advice. Heck, its nice just to be able to vent to someone in an unguarded fashion. A mentor who is outside the business brings a unique perspective and allows you to bare all. It might not be wise to talk about all your issues to your employees and partners, after all. 

A mentor should be well versed in the world of business, if not in your particular industry. Don’t get a mentor confused with a consultant, though. Your mentor may not be able to help you with specific business problems, and that is okay. Instead, he or she should be available to listen to you and should have the freedom to challenge you. 

Where do you find a good mentor? There are lots of ways, including the local chamber of commerce, SCORE, and your own network. It may be uncomfortable to approach a stranger and ask her to become your mentor. Instead, work on building a relationship. When you connect with someone you respect, don’t be afraid to ask for advice or to open up about problems you are having in the business. You will soon find out if you have made a good fit. 

You Have Officers for a Reason

No matter what size your business is, you have officers or managers who help oversee things. If you are a sole proprietor, you are that person. In larger businesses, you may have partners, executives, managers, or just some employees who you rely on for leadership. 

Beyond doing their daily tasks, you should include these people in on your future plans for the business. They can provide you with valuable insight. The larger your company, the more essential they are to you for connecting with what is happening on the ground. It is very important that you establish a relationship of trust with your officers. 

That trust should translate in to you being open with them and asking for their advice. Officers help set the strategy for your vision. You can also go to them when you are stuck. Get their ideas, choose the good ones, and then empower them to implement. 

Where a mentor can help you with some of the emotional load of running a business, your officers can help you with the strategic load. Unless you are the only officer, you do not have to figure it all out on your own. Utilize your team to help you build your business.

Your Members Have Dynamic Ideas

The last group of people you should be going to for advice is too often overlooked. That is your members. These are your employees. They are also your customers. They are the people who interact with your business on the ground level. In the case of employees, they live it out every day. For customers, they experience it as it affects their lives. If you are not tapping this group as a valuable resource of information and inspiration, you are missing something very big.

Some of the best business ideas come from employees and customers. This really makes sense. They are the ones who interact closely with the actual product. In the case of the customers, they know their own need best. 

Going to members for advice is different than going to mentors and officers. While you should still be transparent, you aren’t going to necessarily bare your soul. Be specific about the advice you need. Survey your customers and employees regularly. Always be asking, what can we do better? 

Employees and customers will love the chance to have input into your decision making. Be sure to be clear about the vision, and have the members help you fine tune the details. 

Get a MOM

So, does your business have a MOM? In order for these input sources to work effectively, you need to have a system for them. Establish the relationships and work on them continuously, even when you are not faced with obvious business problems. I suggest having regular meetings with the three different types. For your mentor, it may just be sitting down over coffee. For the officers, the meetings may be more formal, but why not do some fun stuff to just to build relationships. For members, you can communicate regularly via surveys, blogs, and suggestion boxes. I also think it is a good idea to appoint an advisory committee of members. Pull a few employees and a few willing customers together. Try to get together every month or so. Make it fun and make sure they know that you value their feedback. 

If you take the time to build this network now, you will know just what to do the next time you face a daunting problem. You can just ask your MOM!

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Bradford Shimp loves to solve business problems. Email Bradford with your business problem to see what he thinks. Follow Bradford on Twitter.

You’d like to think that every one of your employees handles your customers, products, and business with the same level of care that you do. This, of course, is not a reality. No one will ever care as much as you do. However, it is reasonable to expect employees to show some care.

Caring employees will handle your business with respect and go the extra mile when it is called for. Employees who don’t care, on the other hand, can sabotage your best efforts.

Here are some ways to spot employees who could care less:

• Show up late, leave early.
• Do a sloppy job.
• Miss deadlines.
• Spend too much time at the coffee pot, etc.
• Bad phone etiquette.
• Constantly taking personal phone calls, emails, texts, etc.
• Not performing up to speed.
• Unengaged in meetings.

These are just a few red flags, and some of them could also have other meanings. Sometimes, people just don’t know better and have to be taught. But when an employee has been told, and still has a disregard for the business, you need to act sooner rather than later.

The “I don’t care!”s can hurt you no matter where they are coming from. In the end, it will all get back to the customer, whether through shoddy packaging, a defective product, bad customer service, a non-responsive sales rep, and more. You need to nip them in the bud.

In some cases, you can fix the problem. Take the initiative and sit down with the individual. Find out what is going on. As I stated before, maybe the employee just doesn’t know any better. Maybe they are not engaged because they are bored. Maybe they are overwhelmed with their job and need more training or a position move. In some cases, they just need to know that you care enough to give them a kick in the butt.

There are other cases. If the employee is obstinate and unwilling to change, even after you have talked to him, you are going to need to let him go. You may think you can just let it pass if it is something small. But consider what something tiny, like an employee being 5 minutes late every day, means to your business as a whole. Sure, maybe your production isn’t hurt too much by this. But what about your employee morale. What do other employees think when they see one person getting a free pass? The “I don’t care”’s can spread like a virus. And even those people who would never dream of doing anything to hurt your company will start to develop bad attitudes that will eventually spill out. First, they will be mad at the individual. Eventually, they will grow frustrated with you that you are doing nothing about it. From there, they will quickly start to resent their job.

You don’t need any of this. You have to deal with employees who don’t care. If you can’t get them to care, you need to let them go. If you don’t, it shows that you don’t care, and that is a road that you do not want to go down.

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Bradford Shimp loves to solve business problems. Email Bradford with your business problem to see what he thinks. Follow Bradford on Twitter.

Kristi Daeda is an HR Professional, Consultant and Career Coach.  She writes about careers and professional effectiveness at http://www.kristidaeda.com.  Contact her at kristi@kristidaeda.com for more information on engaging your workforce.

Businesses can be fiercely protective of their customer base, and rightfully so.  You invest time, money and sweat equity in connecting with, relating to and building solutions for these people.  Customer satisfaction drives your success through revenue and referrals.

So, who’s handling your customer relationships?

The minute that you hire people, you are relying on them to help prop up that relationship through their customer service.  But let’s be honest — rarely does an employee have the same passion, drive and investment as an owner.  A paycheck can motivate them to do what they’re asked, but how do you get them to go above and beyond?

Employees are best-equipped and most likely to give award-winning service when they have high satisfaction. To increase employee satisfaction provide them with the following:

• An understanding of the big picture. Share with your staff the “why” behind the “what.”  When you ask them to do something, help them understand why the task is important, who’s relying on it, and what the next step will be.  Help them prioritize.  Over time, they’ll start putting the pieces together on their own and deliver better results with less instruction.
• Regular, non-threatening feedback. Get into the habit of talking regularly about their work.  Praise when it’s warranted, and offer gentle correction when necessary.  Your guidance not only helps them better meet expectations, but also shows that you’re interested in their success.
• A safe place to fail. Mistakes are part of life, and though they can be costly and irritating, they’re necessary on the path to mastery.  Have controls to keep things from getting out of hand, but allow your staff to make mistakes, identify them, and correct them on their own.  Unless they arise from extreme carelessness or malice, keep the feedback focused on solutions.
• A measure of responsibility. Everyone likes to feel like they’re making a meaningful contribution.  Show you trust them by letting them exercise some control over their work.  As they prove themselves, allow them to widen the scope of their authority.  Challenge them by holding them accountable.
• Training and equipment necessary to succeed. If you try to save $5 by not purchasing a calculator, every time someone finds themselves doing long division by hand, they’ll be thinking how cheap the boss is.  Don’t be extravagant, but do make sure that your staff has basic equipment, in good working condition.  And don’t leave them floundering for answers: train them on their job, and expect them to succeed at it.
• A genuine interest in their lives. Your employees want to be wanted.  They want to feel like you care about them as individuals.  Ask about their families, their hobbies, their weekend, whatever.  Be genuine.  Genuine caring engenders genuine loyalty.  Loyalty is priceless.
• Recognition. This doesn’t necessarily mean a fancy plaque at a catered lunch.  Understand how each staff member likes to be praised.  Some will want the spotlight, some will vastly prefer being recognized in private.  Some want a cash bonus, others will be best motivated by new projects and interesting work.  Know the difference, and praise when you can.
• A goal. Short-term, long-term, doesn’t matter.  Create one goal, or more, for each employee.  Make sure that it’s something they can achieve that is directly related to the business’s success.  Then cheer them on, and help them get there.  Everybody wins.

These things are fairly simple in concept, but terribly hard in practice for two reasons: (1) you’re probably very busy, “too busy” to spend time on chit-chat and back-patting, and (2) it’s very hard to cede control to others when the success of your business relies on customer satisfaction.  But the alternative is riskier: leaving your customer service in the hands of the disengaged.  Which would you rather have representing you to your clients: a peon or a professional?  A servant or a star?  Or perhaps the better question is, which would your competition prefer that you have?

photo credit: the_moog

As a small business owner, you are so busy running the business, you just don’t have time for everything.  Here are the top ten things you probably ignore, but shouldn’t.

1. Business Structure

Is your business structured properly?  Should you incorporate or form an LLC?  If you are incorporated, are you running things correctly and taking full advantage of the benefits?  You really should spend some time learning about business structures and how they can benefit your business.  Check out Incorporate & Grow Rich! to learn more.

2. Employee Morale

Don’t just assume everyone is doing alright.  Actively engage with your employees on a regular basis. Your employee might be dealing with a difficult situation at home.  Maybe he is getting bored at work and needs more of a challenge.  Consider taking time out to recognize employees and show them that you appreciate them.

3. Building Appearance

Look at your building through the eyes of a new customer.  Is it appealing?  It doesn’t matter if you never have a customer on premisis, you and your employees have to come to work every day.  A little paint, some plantings, and maybe some office renovation can go a long way towards making work more enjoyable.  Plus, it gives employees the confidence that you are paying attention to the details.  On the other hand, if you let your building decay and fall apart, what are you doing with your business?

4. The Numbers

Okay, I hope this is not you, but a bunch of small business owners don’t really understand the numbers that make their business work (or fail).  You absolutely need to gain a working knowledge of the numbers for your business so you can know where you are at and where you are going.  If you don’t know your gross margin, your net profit, your free cash flow, and more, you do not know your business and cannot make accurate decisions.

5. Employee Suggestions

Ignore these at great peril.  The thing here is that you don’t mean to ignore them, you just don’t have time for other ideas.  You are too busy with other things.  What you need to do is create a process where you can not only hear, but you can act on employee suggestions.  This is not only about keeping employees happy, this is about making your business better.  Do you really think you are the only one with good ideas?  Employees are at their job every day, and they often have insight and ideas that would never occur to you.  Swallow your pride, open your ears, and improve your business through employee suggestions.

6. Your Sales Process/Marketing Material

How did you come by your presentation and our marketing material?  In many cases, these things are thrown together over time, in response to a need.  What you need to do is revisit the sales process, the presentations, the scripts, and all of the marketing materials and find out if there is a solid message across the board.  If you rely on your sales staff to make up their own things, you are asking for trouble. Control your message, hit your customers with the same one at every stop along the way, and embed it into your sales staff and everyone else.  

7. Customers

No one ignores customers, right?  Well, do you have a consistent process for guaging their happiness with your product or service? Do you constantly get referrals and testimonials?  Do you ever just send a note to say hi?  Your customers are a gold mine for a lot of reasons. You can find out where your weaknesses are, as well as your strengths.  You can get new ideas.  You can get a lot more business, through up sells, repeat sales, and virally through referrals and utilizing great testimonials.  If you do nothing else from this list, engage your customer on a much deeper level.  

8. Education/Training

Most larger businesses have active training regimes.  The same is not true of small businesses.  Yet, if you want to stay ahead of the competition and have the best employees around, you need to train.  Training should happen on an ongoing basis.  It can cover anything related to the business. Humans have an amazing aptitude to learn, but many won’t do it on their own.  So do yourself and your company a big favor; train.  This goes for you too. Keep your mind working and always seek out ways to learn more about your craft.  A little education can go a very long way.

9. Fun

You take your work seriously.  That is fine.  Your employees should too.  Still, from time to time, everyone needs to have a little fun. Why not at work?  Have birthday parties, go on outings, have holiday parties, and more.  Beyond that, what fun can you institute into the regular work day?  Sure, it can get out of hand, with employees spending too much time at the dart board (the one with your picture attached to it).  Done right, however, it can make work something everyone looks forward to.  Consider having ongoing games and contests, along with work-related rewards for everyone.  One idea: hide a prize somewhere around the office.  The person who finds it gets to keep it (one great place to hide it is at the bottom of someone’s inbox, especially if they are notorious for not getting through it).

10. Yourself

Many business owners are so busy with everything else, they have no time for themselves.  Don’t let this be you.  Treat yourself with kindness and respect.

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What about you?  Is there anything you ignore that you need to get better about?  What else could be on this list?  Leave a comment bellow.  

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Bradford Shimp is a reader, writer, and thinker on business issues.  Follow Bradford on Twitter.  

To further your business education, you should be reading relevant business books.  Check out Books Unwound to learn more about great titles that can really help you in your business.