“We’d punch in, then get lost!”

     I not so long ago interviewed two young men who were employed by a major hospital as administrative assistants, assigned to departments that were noted for transcience and frequent physical relocations. Both had been collecting paychecks and full benefits for more than a year. Neither ever did any work, and no one (including their assigned supervisors) knew who they were.

     They would punch in on the timeclock every day and then “get lost,” as they put it, in the corporate healthcare mechanism. They admitted to frequenting the hospital lunchroom; the neighborhood coffeeshop; and the hospital grounds, parking lot, and roof! Sometimes, they even went fishing!

     At day’s end, they would punch out and go home. My report to hospital executives was met not by astonishment as you might expect, but by ambivalance. “Oh, well. that’s to be expected in an organization this big and diverse,” said one of the financial VP’s.

     Well, you can certainly read all kinds of things into that little scenerio, but my first thought–once I got past the shock–was one of gratefulness at not having a business that was so chaotic and out of touch with reality.

     But then as I began peeking through other corporate keyholes, so to speak, I discovered an avalanche of disrespect and undermining “take-whatever-I-can-get” attitudes, from Fortune 500 boardrooms, to monster sales organizations.

     Oh, I’ve often thought, if only every entrepreneur could have seen and experienced the outright theft of time (and supplies) that happens every day in nearly every large company. If only entrepreneuriual types could have a realistic perspective of:

A) What they’re up against in competing with “the big boys,” they’d be a lot less intimidated and far less concerned with the idea of losing customers and prospects to such bumbling, self-absorbed organizations, and 

B) What they might expect to have to deal with as their businesses grow, so they could act now to prevent the kinds of lethargic and outright law-breaking attitudes that many large businesses breed.

     There are many things we as small business owners/operators and managers can learn by watching our big business brothers and sisters. One of these is to focus on companies known for productive motivation.

     You can expect to see heavy emphasis on management making small frequent rewards for good behavior–and even failures when they are achieved through earnest, good faith efforts. Such recognition policies keep good people, and keep good people on task!

     Keeping the best employees takes time, attention and effort. It takes the ability to maintain a sense of balance and good humor in each encounter each day with each employee.

     It takes an awareness–like it or not–that others see management (especially owners) as parents. They watch every move, listen to every word, and strive to please with words and deeds. What a great opportunity that just knowing this, presents as a pathway to enhance your (and their) prospects for business success.

     “Your People Are Your Most Important Asset!”

Good Night and God Bless You!  halalpiar     

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Here, Mr. President:

Take this and run with it!

     Okay, all you government and big-business corporate executives, take this! Everyone except you guys knows that small business is the lifeblood of America, and that small business is the single greatest and most important creator of jobs. For now, we’ll forget about why you don’t know this, and just move forward.

     Here is what we need to straighten out the crooked economic path that you folks all contributed to and nurtured and reinforced. We need to present every American small business (1-20 employees) with a choice of 5 stimulus options. Before you laugh up your respective sleeves, re-read the first paragraph.

Here’s the select-one-only choice that needs to be offered:

1) You choose OPTION A and receive an outright, no-strings-attached grant from the government for $5,000 to be used against pay off of bills over 60 days old from the date of application. I shouldn’t need to spell out all the resultant benefits; just think about it for 30 seconds!  OR…

2) You choose OPTION B and receive a $15,000 payment for $15,000 retail value worth of your products or services, which you deliver to any government agency you choose that can use what you sell, or any charity of your choice if no government agency can use your products or services. Surely you need not think about what this would accomplish.  OR…

3) You choose OPTION C and receive $30,000 in two $15,000 payments, six months apart for creating one new parttime (20-hours/week) job with no benefits, and—using pre-determined criteria—prove the job’s existence and value after twelve months.  OR…

4) You choose OPTION D and receive $70,000 in six equal payments for creating one new fulltime (40-hours/week) job with benefits PLUS one new parttime (20-hours/week) job with no benefits, and—using pre-determined criteria—prove the existence and value of both jobs after twelve months.  OR…

5) You choose NONE of the above, and receive a $10,000 tax credit.

     Oh, but how would this ever be administered? Use the Energy Department which performs next to zero value services at any measurable level. They have enough personnel to oversee and monitor such a program. 

     You don’t like the details of this proposal? Then change them. Do anything you want with them, but do SOMEthing with them. Show small business the respect small business deserves!                                                                                                          

Here, Mr. President,

is the bottom line:

     You want to reverse the economy? You want people to be happier and healthier? You want to see new jobs created? Then stop asking other government employees with no business experience and corporate executives with no realistic sense of business operations how to do it.

(These people are corporate management operations experts; corporate management operations has nothing to do with the kinds of day-to-day small business activities that made this country great and that hold the key to today’s present need for economic recovery!)

     These people haven’t a clue. Their ideas are lethargic and unrealistic, and just plain won’t work because they don’t understand the down-to-earth dynamics of how to dig out of a hole. It takes a shovel and an I-can-do-it attitude.

     In our country, the only people with these tools are entrepreneurs and small business owners. Give them shovels (the 5 options above) and they will dig! All the corporate and government resources in the world will not get down in the trenches and get the job done.

Why? Because you cannot dig out of a hole while sitting

in a tower or the backseat of a limo or private jet.

     We are past the point of pretending. Politics aside for just one minute, if that’s possible, why is it that the people most capable of turning things around are not being given meaningful opportunities to do exactly that?

     If you, Mr. President, are willing to take what is a more-than-reasonable risk and charge small business with the solution, you will be astonished at how many of us will rise to the occasion and get the job done. I hope only that this thinking makes it to your doorstep while there’s still time to act on it.  

Good Night and God Bless You!  halalpiar     

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When the chips are down,

entrepreneurs switch to pretzels

     When a consumer product manufacturer or service provider needs to dig up more business–even in such a mainstream media created economic vacuum as we’re presently being sucked deeper and deeper into– there are literally endless resources spelling out a myriad of strategic avenues and approaches…not to mention equally endless tactical options, methods, and techniques.

     But let’s say you have a B2B business. You provide services to the product manufacturers and service providers. Maybe you’re a customer service training organization or a building custodial service or a website design and maintenance business. Where do you go?

     The big guys are choking. They’ve wiped out training budgets, they’re cutting back building cleaning frequency, and they’re making do with their internal IT people to keep their websites functionable.

     How do you get these corporate giants to stand still long enough to consider adding or extending your services when they are in this budget-slashing frame of mind? How do you tell a company that’s laying off employees that they need customer service training now more than ever because the best source of business is existing and past business, and they’d better step up those relationships? 

     The big product and service guyscan make it nearly impossible for the little B2B guys to survive. Ah, but that’s where entrepreneurial spirit rises to the top. When the chips are down, entrepreneurs switch to pretzels. And guess what? Entrepreneurial hi-tech-anchored businesses are not only breaking the communications barrier, they are pulling entire legions of small B2B businesses along with them…not very unlike the makings of the industrial revolution.

     So once again, it is small business to the rescue, even as big business is being rewarded with government trillions for having screwed up the marketplace beyond recognition, and then for having sidestepped the wiser path of bankruptcy

…wiser because it would have forced more efficient operations and more effective products and services

…wiser because it would have spared us all ten more years’ worth of beating our collective brains in, to raise the taxes and repay the debts that are being used now to feather union beds in return for their political support. 

     What a sad and sick commentary on society that we’ve come to this. How fortunate we all are that the entrepreneurial spirit does still live, and will ultimately bring us a return to respectability, assuming the White House doesn’t continue paying off political promises with our hard-earned tax dollars. But it’s what we must all want. We elected zero business experience.

Good Night and God Bless You!  

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READY . . . SET . . .

Security? Check. Employee I.D. badges? Check. Food and beverage service areas? Check. Trash pails? Check. Entertainment and sound system set-ups? Check. Parking? Check. Clean up? Check. Handouts? Check. Prizes for drawings? Check. News conference agenda? Check…

     Tonight’s grand opening of a new (years-in-the-making) BMW and Mercedes-Benz dealerships state-of-the-art-one-of-a-kind building sets the stage for an entire regional business community journey into economic recovery.

     But nothing about coordinating two diverse and highly competitive luxury car-makers interests under one single roof has been easy or accidental. Tonight’s event promises to host over 700 people. Many of the RSVP’s came from BMW and Mercedes-Benz owners who want to see the new sales and service center firsthand because it is such an exceptional facility.

     The owner/customers will get a better understanding of the fiber optics communication systems that allow this unique building to be in instantaneous purchase, service, and repair communication with car-maker headquarters in Germany.

     They’ll see the green process that recycles used car oil into heating the huge service-bay area. Building tours will also highlight owner observation windows and closed circuit TV system that allow owners to monitor technician work on their vehicles, among many other features.   

So what are you getting from this special event announcement? 

1) Businesses that plan ahead for better customer service capabilities AS they continue to manage day-to-day activities, eventually come to the day of reckoning, and economic conditions need not have and negative or delaying impact on that day, or days that follow

2) Regarding the invitations, keep focused on the truism that the best source of business is existing and past business, and continue to knock yourself out to please your past and present customers above all other marketing targets

3) If you think this kind of razzmatazz is only worthy of pursuit by abandoning other functions like customer service, think again. Cherishing and nurturing long-term customer and community relationships all the while is what makes it all work. 

4) When you have something new and exciting to bring to market, turn your tendancy to brag into a commitment to share and show appreciation to the community that supports your business. What goes around comes around.  

BOTTOM LINE? Don’t let exaggerated media reports get you so focused on business survival tactics that you start to overlook the need for planning. Planning needs to stay in the mix. It will give birth down the road to those big “15 minutes of fame” type moments when your business can step into the spotlight and get the boost it deserves. If you’ve dropped this ball because of economic woes, pick it back up and run with it . . . before your competitor recovers the fumble!  

God Bless You and Good Night!  halalpiar     

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Put this on your wall…

     Effective communication is commonly attributed 80% to listening and 20% to speaking. Experts report that as much as 87% of communication is nonverbal. So where does that leave us, besides all tangled up with sign language?

     Martin Yates, in his best-selling, well-on-the-way-to-becoming-a-classic business book (KEEPING THE BEST…And Other Thoughts On Building A Super Competitive Workforce; published 1991 by Bob Adams, Inc., Holbrook, MA) says essentially–among many other A-1 working management concepts–that your effectiveness as a communicator is as heavily dependent on the follow-up actions you take, as it is on what you say and don’t say, and how you move or don’t move.

     Yates advises, for example, that after soliciting input, the boss needs to “make a visible effort to act on it and credit its source. It is counterproductive,” he says, “to solicit good input from team members, then put it into action with no accredidation (or worse still, with incorrect accreditation).”

     Yates proceeds to suggest (to owners/operators/managers) to praise creative ideas whenever they surface. This, he says, “encourages innovation and success-oriented thinking.” Yates paraphrases the old standby message to praise in public; criticize (when it’s absolutely necessary) in private.

     His emphasis on “accentuating the positive” [See also my Prentice-Hall Action Report article, “Theory A” (for “Attitude”)  published a decade earlier on the same topic] “build(s) positive behavior. It cannot be repeated enough: whatever behavior you recognize [positive, negative or ambivalent] will be reinforced” [and will produce more of the same]!

     So, the bottom line here is that if you are managing others and not getting what you want out of them, you must look first to your self. Ask yourself if you are paying more attention to scolding, belittling, and taking people to task than you are focusing on searching out the good behaviors and publicly rewarding those?

     I know a highly skilled healthcare practitioner and prominent researcher who maintains a “Wall of Shame” where he posts representations of every manner of employee screw-up, from dumb memos and emails to photos of his people caught in embarassing moments or doing the wrong things with patients. He laughs about it, and says his people all laugh at it too, that it’s become a “company culture kind of joke.”  

     Well guess what? The wall that started with 2-3 isolated pieces of incriminating paper is now covered with the evidence of a steady stream of bad behavior. And not only does that “company culture wall” speak for itself, so to speak, but so does this organization’s employee rate of turnover.

     People leave there–rapidly and happily–for lower paying jobs. Is he successful? His research is successful. As a businessman, and a professional, he’s earning just a small fraction of his potential… because his reputation for emphasizing the negative now precedes him.

     It’s a much easier, more enjoyable, and more productive thing to reward positive behavior than negative, and if you don’t agree, I’ll print out your comments and paste them on my wall!     

God Bless You and Good Night!  halalpiar  

Special thanks to my friend Doyle Slayton www.salesblogcast.com for the indirect inspiration   

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HOPE SPRINGS ETERNAL.

OH?

…time to examine both the cause of business failures and the solution.

The cause is something like a one-two punch:

1) For the past 18 months, mainstream media have been delivering a staggering succession of doom and gloom jabs to keep professional practices and businesses off balance by focusing one of every three headlines on how bad things are, and then beating the economic woes into the ground. 

[And guess what, mainstream media? — Professional practice and business owners and  operators and managers, are sick of your negativity! We have stopped buying your poor excuses for print and broadcast news, and many of us have withdrawn our advertising dollars. And so now you are starting to suffer. Time magazine’s list of top ten newspapers that are about to go under is startling to say the least, but, unfortunately, well deserved.]

2) The federal government‘s pitifully naive and sorely misdirected “bailouts” and “stimulous package” reactions (note “reactions” not “responses”) that actually fail to bail out or stimulate anything of any consequence in the direction of economic revitalization, have done their damnedest to deliver the knockout punch!

     Only trouble is that the entrepreneurial spirit lives on, and will never be destroyed wherever free-thinking people exist. Small business people know that it’s small business people who produce the vast majority of jobs in America. And small business people know that the ONLY way the economy gets stimulated is with incentives for small business to create jobs. And small business people know that there’s not a single penny allocated for this purpose in government’s (almost laughable were it not for the fact it’s our taxes being fed to those who choose not to work!) stimulus guise.

So here’s the 2-way solution:

1) Mainstream media pulls itself up and starts pounding our ears and eyes with positive, inspirational, motivational messages, and

2) The federal government hires a team of independent small business management consultants and proven entrepreneurs to show the corporate giants how it’s done (economic survival) with no cash and no bailouts and no stimulus, and how to take that survive mode into a thrive mode with 6-7 days-a-week of hard “lean and mean” work, networking, some reasonable risk-taking, some tough ROI due-dated venture capital, and the rallying support of familiy and friends.

Yeah, right. And how sick is it that reality renders this solution not even worthy of dreaming about? Oh, right, I almost forgot, times have changed.

Besides, who needs dreams now that we’re up to our ears in “hope”?       

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Aloha Hal!

What better way can I say thank you for such an earnest and thoughtful response to my 3/11/09 blog post criticizing the U.S. Postal Service, than to reproduce the complete (as received, with no editing) comment… and extend my heartfelt appreciation to Postmaster Tom McCarthy? THANK YOU, TOM!

(Special thanks too to my good friend Judy Vorfeld for facilitating this exchange.)

Oh, if only our government could practice this kind of give and take which helps achieve both improved productivity and improved customer relations!    

Well, It’s good to see we have customers who care enough about the Postal Service to offer their ideas on how we can become better. [RESPONSE AND REFERENCE IS TO 3/11/09 BLOG POST BELOW, OR IN MAR ’09 ARCHIVES ON THIS SITE]

Here’s my spin—point by point.

1. Wasting time and money on surveys? Totally agree. We spend an enormous amount of money on surveys. However, the real problem is that we do not act on customers’ comments, or for that matter, lack of comments. For example: We have a Voice of the Employee survey that goes to each of our 650,000 employees every year. Although employees are paid on the clock to take the survey, I believe our response rate has never gone over 72%. Non-response says a lot.
2. Because most district managers have little-to-no background in sales and marketing, they fail to realize the other side of the budget equation—revenue generation. Most managers were promoted because of their ability to cut workhours. They really haven’t a clue about sales and marketing. Fortunately that mind-set changing. But we are so far behind that it’s going to be hard to catch up.
3. I’m not exactly sure what you are referring to about bad products. There are some products that not very popular, and the Postal Service is constantly evaluating them. Some customers feel we shouldn’t sell retail merchandise, that it’s a waste of time, and we should concentrate on selling stamps. But in 2007, Official Licensed Retail Products generated over $70 million. However, I will agree that often we fail to take innovation to completion.
4. I don’t know any FedX or UPS driver that has the time to market and sell. They constantly under the microscope. FedX even has wireless video tracking their drivers and making sure they are under a strict time schedule. A few years ago the Postal Service initiated Carrier Connect, Business Connect and Carrier Pickup. These programs encourage city and rural carriers notice what businesses use our competitors and then forward those leads to our Business Development Team, who will then contact customers to sell our products and services. A few years ago the Postal Service created the Postal Ambassador program. In each of our 80 districts across the nation, a select team of city carriers, clerks, and postmasters were sent to Chicago for intensive training in media, marketing and sales. I was fortunate to be selected as the Hawaii district Postmaster Postal Ambassador. The idea was to have districts take advantage of Postal Ambassadors to market and sell products and services to businesses, train clerks, and act as a public relations person for the media. But as you stated in #3, we failed to take it to completion and as a result, the program fizzled, mostly due to managers who could only see value in cutting costs.
5. Email delivery service sounds something like a service we offered years ago with fax. A customer could fax a letter to a post office, and then the letter would be placed in the customer’s mailbox. It didn’t do well, so the service got axed. But I certainly would like to hear your idea.
6. Social media is powerful but I can tell you this: Most postmasters are fried by the end of the day. We are micromanaged to the tenth degree. There is little room for innovation or creativity, and many must endure 2, 3, and 4 hour telecoms that are unbearable.
7. Customer service training is where we really fail. We desperately need sales training. But the powers that be see it as a huge expenditure. We actually have a number of web-based training, but for the most part, I feel they are useless. There is nothing that compares to real-life class situation with interaction and Q & As.
8. PO box in every box? Hmmmm do we charge double???
9. Recruiting community groups to garden and landscape sounds great until the lawyers look at liability issues that come with it—not to mention contract issues with employee unions. However, here in Hawaii we have had a post office on Kauai have a grammar school paint a beautiful mural on the post wall. But we needed all sorts of approval from higher sources.
10. I’m all with you on community events. It is one of the best ways to network and connect with customers. And here in Hawaii we do those type or activities. Many postmasters across the nation are involved in community events such as the American Cancer Society’s Relay for Life, Marrow Donor program, and many, many other events, including community fairs, parades, and business expos. I personally have manned marketing booths at conventions, Kona coffee festivals, Ironman World Triathlon Championship in Kona, and given workshops to coffee and mac nut farmers here on the Big Island of Hawaii. I know of many other postmasters who do similar kinds of sales and marketing in their communities.
11. Most of us would love to sell advertising space—especially on postage stamps, but we are regulated by the Postal Rate Commission, Postal Board of Governors, Congress, and some very limiting laws—lobbied no less by our competitors.
12. Same as above.
13. Every office should have some type of table for customers to rest their heavy parcels on. If your office doesn’t have one, I suggest you request the postmaster to install one. Tell your post office that if they can’t afford one, you’ll go to the competition—if nothing happens, write to the district manager. .
14. Music? Don’t you love hearing the clerks singing their song: Is there anything fragile, liquid, or perishable? Would you like to send it Express? Would you like insurance or delivery confirmation? etc, etc. Did you know that some offices have a television set to keep customers mind off the wait time in line. Many offices do have music but I’ve experienced situations where the customer complained about the music. Maybe we should hand out iPods while waiting in line to listen to your preferred music?
15. Our goal is to make it a positive experience. That’s why we hire Mystery shoppers and put a huge amount of pressure on offices who do not achieved the 5 minute wait time in line goal. There are all sorts of other things that an office is evaluated on, too.
16. A little note slipped into a mail box? I’ll tell you a story. One of my carriers had slipped a letter into a customer’s mailbox and the customer complained because there was no postage stamp on it. They said we were violating our own law—that anything in a mailbox must have postage on it. Strange but true. However, we have many carriers who very much care about their customers. I had a rural carrier who would deliver mail to one of her customers, and then after work go shopping for groceries for her, because the customer was elderly and could not drive or go outside. If you only knew the good and heartwarming stories, you’re thoughts would surely change.
17. Barter? That could become dangerous. Besides, we’ve got rules and regulations regulated by red tape regulators.
18. We do direct mail training workshops. You can also go online to our website and practically get a masters degree in mailing. We also have a small business development team in each district. Ask your postmaster for more information or go on usps.com website and search for direct mail….coffee not included.
19. We have over 7 million customers visiting our retail outlets every day. That’s real-time blog. And if you consider we have something in the neighborhood of a million hits a day on our usps.com website, that would be one big blog.
20. USPS.com has the whole spiel. If you want more information, ask your postmaster to give you the phone number for the business development team in their district. They’d be more than happy to help.
21. We have publications with direct mail information, rates, and tips on how to use direct mail to grow your business. I regularly order these pamphlets and place them in our business customers’ mailboxes.
22. For years Congress and postal laws had our hands tied. We could not give discounts. Fortunately, a few years ago, congress passed the Postal Reform bill. We now have more freedom to offer discounts and make special deals. Unfortunately, we are not moving fast enough.
23. This could possibly be under consideration. We do offer discounts for business customers who prepare their mail properly and comply with automation requirements.

Well, there it is. And I agree. It would be a terrible waste of assets, resources, and some super-nice people if we don’t listen to our customers and become better at what we do.

Thanks again for your thoughts.
Tom McCarthy tmpm@mac.com
Postmaster
Holualoa HI 96725

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Having grown up a mailman’s

son, maybe I’m just sentimental

(or simply as stupid as the PO?) 

     On top of their idiotic, money-wasting, survey last December [Click on December Archives in right column and go to DEC 15 “NO MORE ROOM FOR “SNAIL MAIL – Gutless, Incompetent, Greedy, The US Postal Service” for the ugly details], the amazing U.S. Postal Service management team has been making some astonishingly whacko business decisions.

     Since revenues are off, they’ve cut back hours, increased postage prices, increased their elaborate sample mailing campaign to entice more small businesses to do more mailings with (you guessed it) stuff that’s prohibitively expensive to the typical small business to even think about mailing anyway.

     I’ve received two personalized t-shirts, a metal hinged and color-labeled box filled with expensive die-cut printing samples, and the list goes on. And now. Now they’re pulling the blue drop boxes off the sidewalks!

     How utterly brilliant! Hey, nobody’s using them, so take them away. How many things can you think of that those boxes could be used for if YOU had them for YOUR business? I’ll bet there are at least 10,000 ideas.

     Okay, here’s where I’m stupid. I’m going to give away my consulting expertise for free to the U.S. Postal Service. Right here. Right now. Think they’ll take it? Not a chance, but I’m going to put it out there anyway just because they are chewing off their own arms and legs and I hate to just stand around watching them self-destruct.

SO… Here’s what the U.S.P.S. needs to do:

1. Stop wasting time and money and effort on useless dumb surveys. Just listen to your customers!
2. Stop with the radical cost-cutting methods and ideas that only serve to prevent future sales and revenue streams. You can’t make money by turning off lights! Only sales make money!
3. Stop throwing good money after bad with products and services no one wants. Stick to your knitting, and remember innovation is taking an idea all the way to completion! 
4. Take some pages from FedEx and other competitors who train their drivers to go beyond being just drivers and to become account managers– as responsible for promoting and selling and customer servicing as for driving and delivering.
5. Start an Email delivery service (Call me for details!).
6. Learn how to use and promote via social media options. Visit Twitter for two hours!
7. Initiate customer service training at ALL levels. When was the last time anyone got a thank you note from the U.S.P.S. when it wasn’t a thinly-veiled give-me-a-tip-for-Christmas card?
8. Put a P.O. Box in every P.O. Box (Call me on this one too!).
9. Recruit community groups to garden and landscape your ugly buildings (inside and out).
10. SPONSOR community events; get out there and mix with your customers! They don’t bite! Show them you’re (like State Farm) a good neighbor! 
11. SELL AD SPACE ON THE INSIDE OF EVERY P.O.BOX DOOR!!!! 
12. SELL AD SPACE ON STAMPS!!!!
13. Provide shelves for the poor souls with heavy packages standing on lines waiting for the incompetent counter clerks to finish their coffee. 
14. PIPE IN SOME MUSIC!!!
15. Make it “A POSITIVE EXPERIENCE” to go to the post office!
16. How about an occasional (NON-Christmastime) slip in empty mailboxes that the carriers sign that says: “I noticed you didn’t get any mail today, but I wanted you to know I was thinking of you anyway. Have a great week!” 
17. Barter some direct mail advertising for media time and space… other services! 
18. Run direct mail training sessions for small businesses in P.O. lobbies – serve coffee for free! 
19. START A REAL BLOG that actually addresses real customer situations on a daily basis! (If you actually read this far, definitely call me on this one!)
20. Teach small business owners/operators how to tie direct mail to website and other ad and promotion programs.
21. Offer (Put in all business P.O. Boxes) detailed info on direct mail programs with package rates for use of postcards and self-mailers, with sizes and deals and discounts and coupons!
22. Offer quantity discounts!
23. Offer and arrange shared delivery discounts (to same office or building, for example).

     NUTS, huh? Well, I’ll tell you what: If you continue the course you’re on, YOU’RE NUTS BECAUSE YOU WILL END UP KILLING YOURSELF and that would be a terrible waste of assets, resources, some super-nice people who work for you and bring about the demise of a still much-needed service.

     God Bless and Good Night!  halalpiar     

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Survey this, doubters!

(GRATEFULNESS, LIKE FLATTERY,

WILL GET YOU EVERYWHERE) 

I know there’re places in Maine with 9-10 feet of snow. But they know how to deal with it up there. Here, the “near blizzard conditions” that dumped 4-6 inches of immobilizing snow on America’s second biggest peninsula (unless you count Florida as a peninsula, which I suppose…) has given me cabin fever. And when you read the results of some of my phone calls this week, you may think I’ve gone completely off the deep end. But here goes: my unofficial telephone survey shows —

     9 out of 10 business owners from 9 different industries in 6 different states who I’ve spoken with in the last three days (including one with 50 locations, and another with 400 employees, and yet another with three employees) have ALL said the most important thing about the bad economy is that it has made them “grateful” for what they have. 

     All 10? Yup, all 10. They all said the word, “grateful”? Yup, all 10. In fact, in each discussion, gratefulness was underscored as a dominent factor in keeping business growth steady while neighboring businesses were crumbling.

     Hard to believe, right? I thought so too, but the more I probed, the more that I was reassured of the importance of being eternally appreciative on a day-to-day basis as a leading factor in keeping associate, employee, vendor, and customer attitudes positive. And positive attitudes beget positive business!

     “When I look around me at other companies in our industry, I’m really grateful to be where we are right now,” is the kind of comment I heard over and over. “I’m grateful to have such loyal people working for me!” and “We’re grateful to our customers that they trust and support us during these tough times,” and “I can’t tell you how grateful we are to the bankers in this town who have stood shoulder-to-shoulder with us and are helping us to get through this recession.”

     SO, take a good hard look at yourself. Go ahead. Go to the bathroom mirror if you need to; lock the door if you need to. Look yourself in the eye. Have you been appreciating what you have? Can you act, think and talk more grateful?

     Maybe you can’t relate to the millions of people without food or clothes or a roof or healthcare because they’re not in your neighborhood, or on your street, or in your back yard . . . because the success you’ve had has served to insulate you from the anguish, poverty, hunger, and ill health.

     But it’s out there, and you need to be grateful that you are not. You need to be grateful that you have managed to be in the right places at the right times and have kept your life and your business on track. It didn’t happen by itself. It didn’t happen by chance.

     It happened because you built a reputation for trust and integrity by demonstrating trust and integrity. Be grateful you had the good sense and judgement and abilities to follow that path.          

     Appreciate who you are and what you have. Appreciate your self!                    halalpiar

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No, you don’t need to move

  your business    

to the Caribbean!

(aaaah, but it might be nice to try for awhile, eh?)

Here’s a 6-Point Approach to creating a more positive climate for your business that comes partly from The Management Analysis Center and partly from my firsthand experience. it works:

1.  BUILD KNOWLEDGE. Know the capabilities of your staff as well as their weaknesses. With the understanding that Heraclitus the Greek philosopher said over 2500 years ago that “the only thing that’s permanent is change,” and that Thoreau once said “all we ever have is limited knowledge,” use what you know to determine (or update) the fundamental goals of your business.

GOAL CRITERIA REMINDER: A goal must have all four of the following criteria, or it is merely a “wishlist,” and not a goal. It must be 1) Realistic, 2) Specific, 3) Flexible, and 4) Have a deadline or due date.

2.  DEVELOP A SHARED VISION OF YOUR BUSINESS GOALS. Let employees participate in the process. Tell them the problems. Listen to their ideas. Take notes. Encourage others to take notes.

3.  DETERMINE WHAT SPECIFIC CHANGES SHOULD BE MADE. Should changes be made in job descriptions or physical layout to improve working conditions?

4.  SET THE EXAMPLE. As an owner/operator or manager, you are a role model whether you like it or not. People pay attention to everything you say and do. You will not be fostering teamwork if you rule by threats and intimidation. Praise in public; criticize in private. Act, talk, and think consistent with the goals you establish.

5.  REASSESS YOUR OWN FUNCTION to make it consistent with the changes you are making. If, for example, you want to establish better communications, you may need to establish a more open door policy, listen more, and listen more attentively! To get more good work from people, seek out and reward the things people do right, and try to overlook those they do wrong. (Remember that small, frequent, one-time-expense rewards motivate best and cost less than permanent ongoing pay raises with accompanying tax and benefit increases)

6.  DEVELOP NEW METHODS AND SYSTEMS for enhancing a more positive climate, such as instituting weekly status review meetings (with set time periods, a clear agenda circulated ahead of time and follow-up report focused only on decisions made and who will do what by when) to evaluate progress, or a reward system for improved performance.

In an optimum positive climate, people know exactly what it is that is expected of them and where they fit in. Everyone shares the same goals. They know how they can be effective and what kinds of behavior will be rewarded.    halalpiar

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