Successful Blog

It’s Your Business to Work the Right Schedule

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With the New Year off and running, did you make the standard resolutions that most folks make?

You typically hear things such as :

* I want to lose weight
* I want to exercise more
* I want to pay down my debts
* I want spend more time with my family

While those are all good resolutions to have, how many of them do you actually follow through on when all is said and done?

Unfortunately, too many Americans who work for or run their own companies do not make a resolution to enjoy more time out of their offices, be they at a corporate setting or at home.

With the economy still feeling like a ride on a rollercoaster, many workers feel they just can’t take the time from their busy work schedules to enjoy a little rest and relaxation. As a result, it is not uncommon for them to become burned out.

In order to lessen the chances of becoming burned out on the job in 2013, keep these things in mind:

* Work can be consuming – Everyone has to work in order to keep a roof over their heads and food on the table. That being said, spread out your work loads as much as possible. If you run your own small business, consider hiring some help if you have not already. The money you may be saving trying to do all the work on your own could end up being spent on medical bills down the road if you overdo it. If you have to handle it by yourself, set a goal for yourself each day to accomplish X amount of the work;

* Don’t procrastinate – One of the worst things you can do when working at or running a business is procrastinating. Especially in today’s Internet age, albeit with personal computers, access at work through an office machine, smartphones, apps and more, it is easy to get distracted in doing your job. Make sure you take a break or two during the day, but don’t let it turn into several breaks. Some companies prohibit employee access to the Internet while on the job for just that reason. There is time before and after work to shop online, talk to friends, and simply browse different sites. Make sure your work does not fall victim to wasted time on the job whereby you are left with major deadlines and little time left to meet them;

* Get away from the grind – How many times have you had a chance to get away from work for a day, a few days or even longer, yet in essence ended up taking your work with you? You could be at a plush resort or far off in the mountains and yet you have the desire to check your work email. While they do not want to bother you, you tell your coworkers that it is okay to interrupt your vacation with calls and emails. Finally, you take a project or two with you to “work” on while you are suppose to be relaxing. Everyone needs some time to recharge their batteries, so make sure doing so means turning the work answering machine in your head off;

* Don’t be a hero – Finally, there are only 24 hours in a day, so don’t try and get everything done at once. When you are rushing to get things done because your workload is too heavy, you tend to make mistakes. Always remember that it is better to take a little extra time to get a project or simple task done then to rush it through and have to go back to fix it. If you are working for someone, discuss with them what you feel you can handle on a regular basis. If the workload is too heavy, consider ways to lessen it without putting your job or company at risk. Taking on too much at once is oftentimes a recipe for disaster.

With the New Year upon you, make sure you work out a schedule that meets both your needs and those of your customers.

Photo credit: apartmenttherapy.com

About the author: Dave Thomas covers small business topics for a variety of websites, including finding the best Waikiki hotels when traveling for work or play.

How Passion Can Tranform Your Business

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By Chris Nosal

Today the world is more oversaturated than ever; on television you see insurance companies, retailers, car dealers, and pretty much every company under the sun all telling you they’ve got the lowest prices, and trying to compete by offering customers the best deal.

But, recently, I noticed there’s one thing missing from all these commercials, advertisements, and marketing pieces; something that would instantly make any company who used it stand out, so they could lead their industry instead of compete.

Want to know the secret?

It can be summed up in one word:

PASSION.

How To Apply Passion To Your Business

Imagine that you saw a car commercial, and while all the other companies were telling you about how they had the lowest prices, this company decided to innovate out of their passion, their love of what they do, and their desire to create the best experience in the world for their customers?

This company went a step ahead of all the other dealerships, found something they could improve (car buying is usually considered a pressure situation with a lot of hassle), and gave customers REAL BENEFITS that they could offer.

Now, imagine this commercial said:

“We want to make your car buying experience most pleasurable, simple, easy, and fun. We have a commission-free showroom, so that our focus is specifically on helping you, educating you, and making sure that you have all the unbiased information you need from our experts to make sure you get the perfect car for you… we also employ extra team members to make sure that you can always get helped right away when you come to our dealership; you’ll be welcomed the moment you walk into our dealership, because we believe our customers are people too, and people should be treated like family… we want to create the best car buying experience on the planet for YOU.”

Now, while this might be good for customers, it’s also good for your team of workers…

Your Business Needs A Bigger Purpose

People with a common goal connect with each other.

While the desire to make money might motivate the boss of most companies, it doesn’t often motivate the salaried or hourly people working for you.

So what does motivate people?

A PURPOSE

If you ask most people why they come to work each morning, you typically get a common answer, “because I need to make money”.

There is rarely, if ever, true loyalty to a company or business.

But why?

Simple.

Because your company lacks a purpose.

Imagine if you asked someone why they came to work each day, and they said:

“Well, I do need the money, but the job I do is also focused on helping people make important decisions in their lives, and my focus every day is on putting smiles on people’s faces with the service I deliver, making people happy, and enriching lives by giving customers the best car buying experience on the planet… and my every day my work helps me learn something new and grow as I connect with more and more people.”

Now, when a company pressures with sales deadlines, quotas, or commissions, that doesn’t give people a sense of purpose, a sense that they’re having a positive impact on people’s lives, or a sense of true purpose that goes beyond making money for the customer.

And if you give your employees a common goal that involves creating the best experience in the world for your customers, it’s good for your customers, it’s good for your employees, and it fosters loyalty all around, which usually also means many customers referring additional business to you.

The benefits of this are:

  1. You don’t have to play the price game… you play the “providing the best customer experience in the world” game.
  2. Your business grows as a result of customer referrals, because you provide the best service in the world.
  3. Your team members actually care about their jobs, and will work harder, longer, and even turn down other offers for a job that actually has meaning, and is focused on improving people’s lives.

The Key To Success Is NOT Competition

For years, the game of competing on competition has worked. But the world is growing more than ever before, and it’s becoming increasingly clear that competing on price or consumerism is NEVER going to work again, it’s time to start defining ourselves in a different way, and focusing on enriching lives, and creating amazing experiences for people.

If you make this your focus, give an actual purpose to your business that extends beyond simply selling something, and you share this vision you have of a better world with your customers; whether it’s creating the best breakfast restaurant on the planet, the most amazing online shopping experience, or just putting a smile on someone’s face, make your focus on something that has meaning to others, and you’ll be amazed at the transformation that will take place in every area of your business, and your relationships with everyone you work with and serve.

At the end of your life, the amount of money you made isn’t going to matter… but the legacy you create, and the ability of what you created to enrich lives, and make people happy, will love on long after you’re gone.

Author’s Bio: Chris Nosal is a marketing expert who writes at his blog http://chrisnosal.com, and gives private consultations. You can visit his website to download his free eBook, and read more free articles. You can also find him on twitter as @chrisnos, and on Facebook

Thanks Chris, great thoughts to start 2013!

Do You Want to Work for Yourself in 2013?

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By Peter Grant

If you’ve been contemplating running your own business but think that the economic climate means you can’t start it yet, think again. The financial slowdown has made it difficult for some businesses, yes, but if you can find a niche to work in, you could make a real success of your fledgling business.

Many people who want to work for themselves start out by opening a franchise business. Running a franchise can help to provide the support you need because you aren’t thrown in at the deep end but rather, are given support by the franchisor. By running a franchise, you essentially buy the rights to trade under a certain brand and use its logo and other intellectual property. Here’re some tips to take on board if you want to start your own business.

Thinking like a businessperson

There are so many franchises available that you can afford to think about what really interests you and what you think you’d be good at. How could your personality help you to run a business? With any business venture, you’ll need to have strong motivation and enjoy meeting people and giving them good service. This is, after all, what makes your customers want to return to you again in the future.

Choosing a franchise

Think about the experience you have and how you could best lend this to a franchise. If you’ve worked in a restaurant before and helped to manage the business, you could think about running a food franchise. Or, if you enjoy graphic design and have good attention to detail, you could contemplate running a print franchise.

Make sure the franchise you choose offers support. Contact existing franchisees and ask them what they think about the franchisor. Use this feedback to help you in weighing up the risks and benefits of each particular franchise you’re interested in.

Your business plan

The very nature of a franchise means you’ll get much more support than if you were going it alone in a start-up. You will need to write a business plan though, to give yourself direction. Your franchisor and any finance lenders you meet with may want to check this.

Start by describing your business and the service you are going to offer. Mention the competition you believe you’ll face in your area and how you will navigate around this to be successful and one step ahead of them. Include a conservative estimate of what you expect to make in your first, second and third year of operation.

How to anticipate your customers

Whatever service or product you want to offer, and however unique you think it is, potential customers won’t come near you unless you can persuade them why they need your product – and why they should choose you over a competitor. You need to focus on unique selling points, or USPs. Which USPs do you think you can offer, and how will these benefit your customers? You might find it easier to come up with USPs by thinking first about the lives of your customers. For busy mums who work full time, can you offer a delivery service in the evening to suit them? Can you do a quick turnaround? Think about what convenience you can offer your customers, including a competitive price.

Money, money, money

One question that will certainly need answering before you jump into a franchise is – how are you going to fund it? While it is certainly significantly cheaper to start a franchise than your own stand-alone business, you will need some funds up front.

If you’re thinking of getting finance to get the franchise going, banks are usually quite positive about lending to franchisees because there is much less risk involved.

Regarding the everyday running of your franchise, remember to set yourself a budget for everything – from phone providers to stationery providers – and stick to it. For a healthy cash flow, make sure your customers pay on time. You can encourage this by asking them to pay a deposit or signing a contract.

Advertising your franchise

Thankfully for franchisees, marketing isn’t as tough as it could be. Due to the awareness of the brand you’re joining already being in the public arena, you’ve got half the battle won.

Don’t forget though that people will still need to know your particular branch of the franchise exists, so it’s often a good idea to focus on your local market, demonstrating local knowledge.

Make sure the area you want to open up in has a market for your business, otherwise it’ll be an uphill battle from the offset for you to win customers.

You can advertise in a number of ways, and don’t underestimate business cards for networking – keep them on you at all times. Doing a little market research could be very helpful too, giving you an insight into what makes your customers tick and what they think about your competitors.

Legal stuff

As you’re running a business, you’ll be able to access your customers’ details so you must be careful with them – and make sure your staff are too. Train them consistently and make sure they check details each time a customer contacts you. Consistency helps to reassure customers and will also help you build a great reputation.

Author’s Bio: Peter Grant is a franchisee at Minuteman Press International, a printing franchise operating throughout the US, Canada, UK and Australia. Minuteman Press provides a wide variety of printing services, from full color printing to graphic design. Minuteman Press has been voted #1 within the printing industry for 2012 – its 20th time overall. Visit http://www.shop.minutemanpress.com for more information.

Did You Picture a Successful 2012 for Your Company’s Employees?

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With Christmas in the rear view mirror, many thoughts now turn to New Year’s Eve and the New Year that will be here in less than a week.

For many small business owners, that also means looking back at the past 12 months and determining what worked, what maybe did not work, and what needs to be done over the next 12 months to make 2013 an even better year for one’s company.

As noted last time, how did you treat your customers over these last 12 months?

As some small business owners have discovered, this last year meant gaining some and losing a few customers. The ultimate question many of them will be left asking, what could they have done better to cement these relationships with the very people that keep them in business?

While business owners will agree that customers are a vital part to staying in business, employees prove just as important if not more a key component to keeping the doors open. Without quality workers to keep things running smoothly, a business owner can see their dreams go down in flames rather quickly.

Along with reviewing what you did for your customers this year, take a few minutes at this time and review what you did for your employees.

Among the items to look at:

* Making sure their needs were met – From the little things like benefits to making sure they had all the tools necessary to complete their jobs (see below), did you meet their needs? While many small business owners have had to scale back on benefits due to the economy, others still continue to offer things like health insurance, 401(k)’s and more. If you are not offering these, can you change that in 2013?

* Setting the scene – Whether you operate out of a spacious office or one the size of your home living room, what were the conditions your employees had to work under during the last 12 months? Did you make the office environment as comfortable as possible, making sure simple things like office space, lighting, ventilation, safety etc. were in place? Office workers tend to thrive in environments that are both comfortable and secure. If they are currently working under strenuous conditions, there is a good chance that their work performance suffered at times. What do you need to change in 2013?

* Taking time to reflect – While the goal of any company is to be as productive as possible, did you recognize your workers during the year? Such occasions can be things as simple as office happy hours, a party from time to time, birthday celebrations, awards for a job well done etc. If you offer a year-end party, did you record the last 12 months and show off all the success via things like an office video or blurb photo album? By reminding employees of all the successful things they did over this last year, you not only make them feel better about their efforts, but you also give them reminders of what can be accomplished. Lastly, videos and photos of the office team working together, solving customer issues, and celebrating office milestones (birthdays, anniversaries and more) helps make for a more unified staff;

* Staff improvement – Finally, you always hear coaches and many athletes talking about there is always room for improvement with their teams. The same holds true in the workplace, especially when you run a small business with a small number of employees. As noted a moment ago, everyone there is part of a team, a unit that must function as one for the entire company to succeed. While you run the company and have the final call, get input from your workers on the company’s efforts these last 12 months. From the administrative assistant on up to your top employee, everyone’s feedback counts.

As you get set to run your business into 2013, always remember that without your dedicated employees, you could be hanging a permanently “closed” sign on the front door.

Photo credit: blog.parago.com

About the author: Dave Thomas covers small business topics for a variety of websites, including www.verybestsoftware.net.

 

 

 

What to do when you are dealing with Humans?

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by Shashi Bellamkonda

I have been in the people business for many decades. First in the hospitality industry and now in the small business technology space. Some of the companies I love are for their ability to make every employee of theirs “human.” I find it odd that I have to use the term “human” to describe living things that are already human. Such is the cost of the pressures of economy, technology and pressures of the world we live in.

We hear that mobile is the next big thing. Of course the effect of it is that a pair of otherwise loving human beings now take walks and instead of holding hands, hold their phone feverishly typing as they walk. Family dinner outings become shorter, with dad’s addiction to checking in to every possible location app and show the virtual world that he is alive and well while kids and spouse lovingly tolerate crazy dad ( Guilty here!)

How does this apply to business?

Rule No 1: The Human in front of you is better than a Byte

When I worked for the hotel industry we learned to give preference to the “Human” who was in front of us rather than the one on the phone. Are we now driving away “humans” and making them communicate with us virtually? I don’t know if you agree or not but face to face is still the best way of communication unless you are talking about a couple breaking up.  Train your employees in thinking of customers as humans and communicating with the same friendliness that they would expect. Assign clear rules to follow when faced with situations where your staff may be faced with a face to face customer versus one on email or the phone.

Rule No 2:  The Human needs help not your computer

This is an incident closer to heart when a few months ago my 10 year old niece was flying back from India and was travelling 3 legs of the journey on different airlines. In Bombay she is told by Swiss Airlines that the computer shows that she has already flown the flight which has yet to take off. How ridiculous does this sound? Luckily she was with her parents, but they were forced to buy a ticket for that part of the journey even though they had already paid for it. So in this case this was a total failure of making the situation human.

An experience that was nice was when I was flying back to DC on SouthWest and realized that I had made a mistake and my return flight was to Dulles instead of Baltimore where I had parked my car to take the flight in. Thinking about the horror of trying to get to Baltimore from the Washington Dulles Airport and the time I would waste making the journey, I approached the SouthWest counter  and the lady listened to my story, called a supervisor and changed my booking to Baltimore and did not charge me for it. I will always remember SouthWest fondly. I could give you countless examples – the ticket counter at Silja Line in Helsinki where to my horror I had booked a cruise the next day and had no hotel and they changed the booking without any fuss. The lady at the London Eye in the UK who agreed to let us take an earlier ride.

Humans have a good memory for both good and bad experiences. The important  thing to remember for companies when things happen is to “humanize” the situation immediately. Worry about the Human in front of you and how to help them rather than your computer that gives you an impossible answer.

Rule No 3: How to retain your customer even if you disagree with them.

A conversation with a customer should never be carried to an extreme. I fought my insurance company all the way to the State Attorney’s office and I lost. Yet  I still am a customer and think they provide the best customer service insurance companies can provide. I disagreed on a rate increase that I thought was not justified and the company stood its ground but always kept me in the loop, listened to me patiently looked for other ways to help me reduce my bill. All this comes from a inbuilt spirit within companies to help the customer and not engaging in a conflict that leaves the customer unsatisfied.

As your business grows , think about your customers as members of your friendly neighborhood. Think of them as humans first and not as 140 characters or bytes in an email. Your business will flourish when you “humanize” it.

What do you think? Do you have any tips for businesses to humanize themselves?

 

Author’s Bio: This guest post is by Shashi Bellamkonda, senior director of social media and public relations — employees call him Social Media Swami — at Web.com, a company that helps small businesses establish an online presence and conduct online marketing. He is also an adjunct professor at Georgetown University.

Do Employees Get Credit for Being Honest?

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While it is not a common day occurrence, you also are not entirely surprised when you pick up the newspaper, turn on the television, or go online and hear about an employee who was stealing from their employer. Specifically, using the office credit card for their betterment.

As noted, while the cases may be in the minority, they can still be devastating to a small business, especially one that is having trouble making a go of it or is just getting its feet wet in the business world.

Some examples include:

* The office manager who is in charge of ordering supplies suddenly gets the urge to go on a small shopping spree of her or his own. While ordering stuff for the company, they conveniently order some items for themselves. Before you know it, they have spent hundreds or even thousands of company dollars, leaving a blotch of red ink in the company’s finances;

* The employee who travels often for their company gets a business credit card to book flights, hotels, rental cars, meals and more while conducting business on the road. The next thing you know, they have run up multiple purchases that should have come out of their own wallet.

When such instances occur, employees may be caught immediately by someone else in the company who is keeping an eye on expenses, or they could go for some period of time before their game is discovered. Either way, the potential is there for businesses to not only lose money, but also the trust of customers who view such actions as a lack of overall leadership.

 

Losses to Small Business Add Up

According to a report from the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners (ACFE), it takes on average more than a year for a business owner or co-employee to nab the in-house criminal who is stealing from the company. Meantime, ACFE reports that small businesses (those with less than 100 employees) on average suffer a median setback of $147,000, compared to $100,000 for those businesses with 1,000 or more employees.

Some of the reasons losses at smaller businesses can go unseen for a while include:

* Less oversight because the small business owner is occupied with dozens of other responsibilities to keep his or her business running;
* The person in charge of the office credit card is oftentimes the person who is also doing the office books;
* Fewer employees means less chance of getting caught.

In order to lessen the chances of such crime at your small business, make sure you:

* Check the books yourself or have someone outside the company do it on a regular basis to look for any irregularities in spending;
* Make sure even the smallest of expenditures are accounted for and documented. Whether an employee is buying new ink toner for the office copier or spending a weekend in Las Vegas to meet with new clients, everything needs to be properly recorded;
* Do a thorough check on each employee you hire to make sure they have no criminal past, especially where it involves money (do not just assume that everyone who checks off they have never been convicted of a crime on their application is telling the truth);
* Have a meeting with your employees once or twice a year to inform them of the consequences of such actions, including possible loss of employment and/or jail time (meaning you will press charges).

With all that you potentially have to lose from even one serious incident of credit card abuse in your office, are you willing to take that chance?

Photo credit: insuranceproviders.com

Dave Thomas covers small business topics for various websites, including processing credit cards.