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Do You Truly Get the Most Out of Your Employees?

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Business Man At Computer DeskWhen it comes to getting the most from those who work for you, what practices do you have in play to do just that?

For some business owners, a competitive salary and a strong benefits package will do the trick. Others, meantime, will tout the opportunities for growth up the corporate ladder. Still others will highlight the working conditions at their companies are second to none.

No matter which group you fall into (maybe you even have tricks not mentioned that woo potential employees), always remember that getting the most out of your workers not only benefits them over time, but it is also crucial to obtaining and keeping happy customers.

With that in mind, here are some tips to getting the most from your workers each and every day of the work week:

  • Right tools – Do you provide your employees with the right tools in order to get their jobs done properly? Some workplaces are well-suited with the latest in technology (computers, apps, printers etc.), while others are working with equipment from years ago. In order to present both your brand and employees in the best light to consumers, make sure you give your team technology that is equal to or preferably better than what the competition has. This also translates to items such as their desks, chairs, lighting, cubicles etc. Whether it is time to order new desks or conference room chairs, make sure your staff doesn’t feel like working in your office place is akin to being in prison ;
  • Positive reinforcement – Very few employees will want to work for an owner who is constantly negative. Yes, there are times when you need to be direct with employees and even correct them, but those times should be in small doses, not to mention done via one-on-one terms and not in front of other co-workers. Although the employee is getting a salary (perhaps benefits), giving them positive reinforcement when they do something exceptionally well never hurts. You can take things an additional step by having “fun” contests in the different departments in your office. Put incentives out there for your employees to strive for can do nothing but boost morale and likely results;
  • Periodic reviews – You should also do periodic assessments with your staff, letting each of them know what is working, what may not be working, and how everyone can improve (including yourself) as a team. Some businesses are spot-on when it comes to doing reviews, others all but skip them. One of the advantages of doing such reviews in your workplace is that they can correct any missteps taking place, along with giving employees a goal or goals to strive for sooner rather than later. Keep any reviews professional (no need to browbeat an employee) and reinforce such meetings with positives overtones.

In order to get top production from your employees, make this the year that you truly see what is and isn’t working in your workplace.

Photo credit: BigStockPhoto.com

About the Author: Dave Thomas covers business and marketing topics on the web.

Tips on Building the Confidence to Grow Your Business

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By Phil Buckley

My first experience with small business owners was in the late 80s. I was an operations manager for Zack’ Famous Frozen Yogurt, a franchise chain experiencing massive growth. My role was to set up new stores and help franchisees manage them successfully.

I was inspired by each owner’s courage, determination and passion to win. They tackled challenges head-on and typically took a glass half-full approach to managing problems.

However, when presented with opportunities to change or expand their businesses, I noticed that many owners lacked the confidence to get to the next level. They were comfortable with what they knew, and uncomfortable with what they didn’t know. Often, they’d forgo opportunities without fully exploring the benefits because their personal uncertainty was stronger than their desire for greater success.

As my career progressed into business training and then change management, I observed that most leaders struggled with change. Their confidence was tested most when their operational experience didn’t help them assess and pursue new opportunities or manage challenges. In those circumstances, what had made them successful had little impact on their ability to manage well.

Over time, it became apparent to me that the key to managing change (offering new products, entering new markets, opening a new location, etc.) is confidence.

Here are three ways that small business owners (and any business leader for that matter) can build their confidence when they uncover big opportunities to grow their businesses:

Make a list of the skills you used when making past successful changes

Small business owners will benefit from taking stock of past accomplishments and the skills they used to achieve them. Listing them in writing will help you build a playbook on how to manage new opportunities – steps to take, advice to get, behaviors to demonstrate, etc. Studying your past successes will help you create a path towards your goal and identify the capabilities you need to get there.

Identify who you can call upon for help

Peer support is a key enabler of evolving a business. Wise small business leaders ask for help, especially when opportunities require a departure from their current business model. Learning about how similar situations were managed, both successfully and unsuccessfully, will provide practical guidance on what you need to do, what to watch out for and how to act.

Write a solid plan

Business plans help small business owners stay focused and manage time and resources productively. They provide a means against which to track progress and a working tool to adjust as new information becomes available. A wise person once said, “Create the plan, work the plan, change the plan.” A growth opportunity business plan provides a map to confidently navigate.

It can be difficult to manage and grow a small business. With the right skills, knowledge, advice and plan, the small business owner can take the next step on their businesses journey and reach the next level of personal success. Have confidence!

Author’s Bio: Phil Buckley is a senior change management professional with nearly twenty-five years of experience helping individuals, teams and organizations deliver change in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom. Phil writes about managing change at www.changewithconfidence.com. He is also author of Change with Confidence: Answers to the 50 Biggest Questions that keep Change Leaders Up at Night (Jossey-Bass), where he provides complete, actionable answers to the fifty burning questions that leaders routinely ask about how to manage change successfully. Follow him on Twitter @philbuckley01.

Is It Time for a Business Partner?

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If you are a sole proprietor, there may come a time when you begin to wonder if it is a good idea to take on a business partner.

Getting a business partner can bring many changes, and you have to be prepared to adapt to a whole new way of running your business. It is important to make sure that your new business partner will contribute positively to the growth and success of your company.

So, when is the right time to bring on a small business partner?

You are unable to solely manage business growth

 While a growing business can bring more profits, it also requires you to invest more time and effort.

If you are running your business all by yourself, you probably have to oversee every aspect of your business and do all the decision-making yourself. Even if you are a very capable business person, there may come a point when you will not be able to cope with the growth.

Taking on a business partner is a good way to manage growth, because it enables you to share your management responsibilities with someone who truly wants your business to succeed.

A partner who has extensive knowledge and experience in certain aspects of management can be an invaluable addition to your business. He or she can also help ease your decision-making burden and contribute new business ideas.

You need to team up with another business to compete with the big players

If your ambition is to become one of the major players in your industry, joining forces with another company can help you reach your goal.

Partnering with another company can be beneficial in many ways. It enables you to obtain additional expertise and knowledge of your industry, increase specialization, access valuable assets and funds for new development, reduce costs and expand your market share. With a greater market share, you will have a more significant influence on market trends.

Your business is on the verge of closing

Getting a business partner does not only help you manage and stimulate growth; it can also be an effective defensive business strategy. If your business is in serious trouble, it may be better to form a partnership with a strong company than to close it down.

A business partner can provide the necessary expertise and resources to get your business back on its feet. However, one disadvantage of entering into this kind of partnership is that you will have less control over your business.

If you want to gain back full control of your business later on, you can make an agreement with your partner to end the partnership on a certain date.

Taking on a partner can be a great business move if you do it at the right time.

To ensure that the partnership will be harmonious and successful, it is essential that you select an individual or company that has the same vision and values as you.

Photo credit: kclink.com

About the Author: John McMalcolm is a freelance writer who writes on a wide range of business topics, from small business management to biographies of famous entrepreneurs such as Richard Branson, Mark Cuban and Steve Wynn.

The Sure Bet: 4 Reasons Putting Profits Back Into Your Business is a Sound Strategy

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By Angela Freeman

The ultimate goal of any company is to generate profits. This leads to an important question: what do those companies do with the profits they create? These 4 reasons should convince you that putting profits back into your company is a sound strategy that will improve your business’s future success.

1. It Gives You the Opportunity to Grow

Your company thrives at what it does right now, but will it continue to thrive in the future?

All companies must grow to experience continued success. When you put profits back into your company, you can use the money to explore new industries or improve on the services and products that you currently offer.

For instance, you could use the money to purchase new lab or tech equipment that will let you conduct more of your own research. That reduces the amount of money that you have to give other companies to conduct research for you. It also gives you more control over the quality of your research.

Both of these advantages will help your company succeed in the future.

2. It Lets You Spend More on Advertising

If your company is earning profits, then you know it has something special to offer clients. Putting money back into the company could help you pay for advertising that lets you reach even more consumers and businesses that want to use your services.

No matter what kind of advertising you choose, it will take a sizable amount of money. Radio, print, and Internet advertising can quickly add up to thousands of dollars.

Spending that money on something intangible might feel like a waste, but it’s the only way to get a bigger segment of your target market. If people don’t know you exist, they can’t choose your services.

3. It Helps Improve Training for Employees

Without properly trained employees, you can forget about continued business success. Every person working for your business plays an important role, so you must place an importance on making sure every person receives good training.

Good training costs money. Depending on your company’s size, you might decide to build your own HR department to handle training, or you might hire an outside contractor to do the training for you. Regardless, you’re going to need to put your profits into the training program.

In the long-run, you’ll see good results, because you won’t have to worry about employees who don’t know how to do their jobs.

4. It Means You Can Avoid the Pitfalls of Debt

Many companies borrow money when they want to expand, investigate new opportunities, or upgrade their training programs. Borrowing money, however, means paying interest. That can weigh your business down for decades.

Even if you get a good interest rate of six percent, which is really quite good, on $100,000 that you pay back within ten years, you still end up paying over $13,000 in interest. You’re better off putting your profits back into the business so you can avoid that extra expense.

What have you done with the profits your company made in recent years? Have you put the money back into your business, or have you made other decisions?

Author’s Bio: Angela is a freelance business, tech and travel writer. When she isn’t writing she is being a science nerd, messing around with her lab equipment, and attempting to bake. Follow her on Twitter @Ang_Freeman3.

3 Avenues to Safe, Reputable Business Advice

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Safe Advice for Smart Business Decisions

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If you already have your own small business you probably know that finding sturdy, credible business advice can be a tricky task. If you’re just looking to start a business, beware, for there is an endless sea of websites and business “professionals,” willing to give you the “latest and greatest” advice on how to start and run your company. The following tips should help lead you to some safe advice, or at least get you started down the path of making smart business decisions.

Personal, Real-life Advice

Although this can be a bit more expensive than the do-it-yourself route, the quality, personal poignancy, and accuracy afforded by this option is often well worth it. Hiring or meeting with a personal life coach or business coach is an effective way to get good personal business advice without wasting your own precious time searching high and low for it. These professionals will take the time to sit down with you and go over virtually any business concerns or questions you may have. They’ll make sure that the advice they offer is specific to your personal needs and take much of the guesswork out of the equation.

Good Websites

Much like the site you find yourself on now, there are plenty of trust-worthy business sites out there offering quality information. Finding them in the midst of all the clutter now on the net is the tough part. Here is a link to a helpful website offering a top 20 list of the best business websites for Entrepreneurs and CEOs in 2010. The list is still quite relevant for us here in 2012.

Friends and Relatives

If you know any personal friends or family members who’ve started their own successful (or unsuccessful) business ventures in the past, absolutely solicit some advice from them. This is as good an option as any, and one that usually casts a safety net over any intellectual property and personal business ideas depending on your level of trust with said acquaintance. People are usually very willing and often eager to discuss their personal models for success and business experiences with a fellow entrepreneur, especially one they already know. Don’t overlook the enormous potential that your personal connections may hold.

In this dog-eat-dog world, which currently hangs loosely in the balance of a delicate economy, sound advice can be the difference between a successful idea coming to fruition, or fading back into the ethos for someone else to find and successfully develop. Make sure you take the necessary time to research before embarking on any financial endeavors. You never know when or where that last missing link may be hiding. Using the right tools, in any case, surely gives you a better chance of finding it.

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Author’s Bio:
Alex Brown: Alex is a prolific writer with specialization on various aspects of financial finance. His articles on debt, mortgage industry and personal finance are offer valuable guidelines to the readers.

Thank you, Alex!

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz on your business!!

How to Find a Mentor for Free

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In my life, it seems as though I’m pretty “successful.” I’ve interviewed 50 millionaires; I’ve been on CNN, Yahoo, MSN Money and more. Plus I’ve been in Success Magazine so I suppose that I must be a success right?

But the truth is I’m just Jaime, a gal from a town of about 2,000 people in Maine. I only consider myself “successful” because of the amazing people that have helped me get here along the way.

How did I find these amazing people and who are they?

They are Kurk, Nathan, Pat and Chris. I consider all of them like mentors to me, and they have spent hours of time to help me without me paying them anything.

How did I ask these amazing people to help me–AND get them to say Yes?

How to Find a Mentor

Don’t just pick someone and then ask them to be your mentor. That usually doesn’t work and it often comes across as weird.

You want to form a relationship with them that makes them think, “Wow, this person really has a ton of potential.” Successful people like to help others, as long as you don’t waste their time.

When I started coaching, I was green. For some reason I thought it would be a good idea to email my “competition” and say Hi. Kurk was a business coach with tons of experience, who had also sold a million-dollar business. When I met Kurk, he said that he could see I was eager and willing to learn, and hours later he emailed me asking for another meeting to discuss working together more.
I ended up helping him with all of his computer tasks and networking, and worked for free a few hours a week while he taught me everything he knew. He pushed me to my limits. We formed an amazing relationship and he helps me to this day. I consider him my business godfather. 🙂

When I decided to bring my coaching practice online three years ago, I found two amazing online entrepreneurs, Nathan and Pat. With them, I offered up my expertise as a trade for theirs. I had a lot of valuable skills, and leveraged them to learn their set of skills. I now consider both of them good friends.

Chris is a millionaire and serial entrepreneur. We started chatting shortly after I interviewed him. He has been so helpful, and has asked nothing in return. Chris is like the trusted adviser. I’m not sure why he decided to help, as I didn’t offer any expertise, but I am eager and want to help him in any way that I can.

1. Form a relationship. It all started with forming a relationship. If you have a meeting and feel the synergy between you and the other person, just start to feel out how you could work together more.

2. Ask if you can help them. Ask if you can help them in their business, or save them time by doing something for them. Tell them you really respect their expertise and would love to learn about what they know.

3. Keep helping and gradually ask for their input. If you have been an asset to them, they will start to open up and become an asset to you as well.

How to Find a Role Model or Advisor

Instead of finding someone who will officially mentor you, you could also find a role model. This can be simple, like an email with a question every few months that gets a response.

Derek Sivers, a millionaire I interviewed and founder of CD Baby, was able to get an open channel with Seth Godin, and through that they became friends.

Derek suggested this:

“You’d be surprised how effective a simple, quick-pointed three-sentence email can be.
I’ve sent emails off to my favorite authors and they have no idea who I am and I don’t include my website. They’ve never heard of CD Baby and I’ve been amazed how well the three-sentence email can get a reply.

Just a one-sentence qualification like, ‘I’m a huge fan of your books’ or, ‘This one changed the way I think.’ Sentence two is a simple direct question. Follow with ‘Any reply appreciated. Thank you.’

I think if you send somebody a simple direct question, not trying to dump the weight of your life on them or anything, sometimes you can go back and forth like that a few times. Then if you include a URL in your signature, they can go there, explore your company and possibly see interesting posts or your philosophies, which it may lead to more interaction.”

Action Item:

Look for people who have the skills you want to have, and start a relationship with them. Email a potential role model like Derek suggests, or take a local business person out to coffee.

Commit to one action this week that will help you find a mentor. It could drastically improve your business.

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Author’s Bio:
Jaime interviews self-made millionaires and talks business and life at EventualMillionaire.com. You can find her on Twitter as @eventualmillion

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz on your business!!