Dec 12 2011

The Holiday Stress Express

Alllllll Aboard!

 

 You been takin’ the train to less stress and strain, but the holidays got in your way? An’ now you’re just tired, maxed out and wired… and the bookkeeper tells you you’re broke? Just cha-ching up the big bucks on Visa and PayPal then go find an invisibility cloak!

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Yes-sir-ee-bob! It’s that time again, only this year most small businesses (maybe 20,000,000 or 25,000,000 out of 30,000,000?) are juggling numbers just to stay alive. And if that sounds even a little bit familiar, it may be time to seriously consider changing your usual holiday habits . . . modify them or let ’em go! 

If you thought you were headed into a blog lecture on cutting back your food. beverage, tobacco and drug intake, and that you were going to get another speech on yoga, deep breathing, egg whites, broccoli, sleeping eight hours, jogging in place, and counting to 10 when you feel upset, rest assured you can keep reading.

Let’s say you’re one of those hot-shot entrepreneurs who feels the need to go to exorbitant lengths to prove your business prowess by doling out a few tons of gifts to relatives, friends, employees, and customers you want to impress. Ha! Stop right there! Rein in your fantasyland generosity. Replace it with reality. Get your brain in gear!

Reality is: misappropriated gifting and charity (however well-intentioned) can strangle your ability to be truly giving and charitable. In other words, give from a position of strength. And if you’re not there, don’t push it!

If you choke off or compromise your own resources, you limit your ability to make a difference. Yes, everyone wants or needs more. But the more you give, the more you’d better have to start with, or you end up with no more.

First off, giving is not about dollar value, it’s about thoughtfulness. Gift cost doesn’t impress people as much as gift matching the recipient. This is kind of the Maslow’s Hierarchy of gift-giving. Every great leader will tell you that–on the job– nothing motivates as well as matching rewards with true needs of each individual.

Well, with gift-giving, nothing pleases like a gift that “fits” the receiver. Giving something that’s INexpensive but that fits somone’s personal interests makes a statement that you care more than a gift that costs ten times as much but has no personal appeal. [Where do you store all those old wedding gift bowls and vases and . . .? ]

There’s never a need to try to buy your way into the favor of others (if there is, you might want to start trading off friends and family for others who simply appreciate you for who you are). This is especially true at a time when the only positive economic indicators are coming from the White House and media talking heads.

Don’t let limited financial resources limit your wisdom, or your ability to expend more effort pleasing others than trying to impress them.

                                             

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Hal@Businessworks.US   302.933.0116

Open  Minds  Open  Doors

Make today a GREAT day for someone!

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Aug 23 2011

Who’s Your Glue?

Here’s a “glue clue” for you!

 

 

Someone in your family or on your business or advisory team is the one who most holds you and the million little pieces of your business enterprise together. Who? How? Why? What have you done for her or him lately?

Did you know that small, frequent rewards (and typically inexpensive ones) are at least twice as effective as one large one? Did you know that cash –even in this struggling economy– is not always the best reward? Have you discovered (or been reminded lately to re-visit) Maslow’s Hierarchy?

After many decades, Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs Theory continues to be business’s most effective tool for motivating employees, partners, referrers and sales personnel, among others. No need for a degree in nuclear reactor dynamics to put this classic theory to work for your small business.

It simply takes a sense of diligence 

and a little detective-type methodology.

                                                      

When you make a habit of taking ongoing temperature readings of, for example, employee hot and cold buttons, you gain a sense of what makes each one tick and how various life changes impact attitudes. This gives you leverage for better motivating because you can reward someone’s performance with what that person values.

All of us are located somewhere on the Maslow Hierarchy ladder (or pyramid as many management textbooks illustrate it. At any given moment in time we are either at a level of basic physiological needs, or safety needs, or social needs, or esteem needs, or we are at a point of self-actualization.

We move fluidly back and forth between these different need levels according to our daily (sometimes hourly)changing life circumstances. A person who has achieved a state of self-actualization, who is feeling self-fulfilled could tumble back down to a basic needs level in an instant.

Consider how fast your brain snaps back to basics as the result of a family death, a bankruptcy, an accident, a job-firing . . . from really, any kind of loss.

                                                                               

After years of having no financial worries, putting food on the table can become a sudden challenge. Having a neighboring home or business robbed can immediately cause someone at an esteem level, who is excited about winning recognition, into a security needs frenzy, shopping for insurance, alarm systems, new locks, a fence. 

If you can be aware enough of changing need levels for individual “glue people” who help hold you and/or your business together, you can reward each –at her or his personal level– for maximum impact. An esteem-needs person will often be more receptive to a plaque, a news release feature, or a certificate than to a cash bonus.

Someone struggling with car issues will appreciate new tires, an oil change or gas allowance. One successful business owner covers the cost of braces for a low-salaried employee’s teenager. Another sends top sales people on limo trips with spouses to shows and dinner (less expensive than permanent salary and commission raises).

The point is to pick out rewards that fit the person and the circumstances instead of making across-the-board judgements about what you think will motivate best. And don’t automatically assume it’s money. In fact, by targeting rewards to individuals, you can save huge amounts of money and earn great appreciation in the process. 

                                              

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  Hal@Businessworks.US   302.933.0116

  Open Minds Open Doors 

   Thanks for your visit and God Bless You.

  Make today a GREAT day for someone! 

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Apr 17 2011

Set Your Assets On Fire!

Before you throw all your

                                     

  tech stuff on the BBQ . . .

                                                                                                    

 

Recognize, first and foremost, that your greatest assets are your people. If you’re a one-man-band, maybe “your people” are a loving spouse, partner, children or parents who assist you, or a reliable friend or two who consistently refer(s) others to you . . . or a hotbed of talented interns.

If you’re the owner of a small to medium-size business, perhaps “your people” are account or department or office or branch managers.

The point is that I am NOT suggesting you run around torching these folks, or even giving any of them a baseball-dugout-style “hotfoot.”  I AM suggesting that you ask yourself (and answer) the following questions:

                                                                              

Can you readily identify and easily separate your internal and external customers?

What percentage of each day are you actively marketing to each group?

In other words:

  • How much and how often are you (externally) marketing your people?

  • How much and how often are you (internally) marketing TO your people?

  • How much and how often are you (internally AND externally) marketing THROUGH your people?

                                                                               

Do you think the meaning of Customer Service is to have a Customer Service person or department?

  • If each and every one of your internal customers know how to relate to and respond to external customers, why would you have to pay someone or a group to perform this function?

  • Ideally, anyone in your organization whom I might reach by phone or meet in-person should be able to handle my customer service needs.

                                                                  

Your marketing people or your own marketing sense tell(s) you how to motivate external customers. You surely have a strong idea of what sells and what doesn’t sell them on your product(s) and/or service(s). Do you have a sense of confidence about the best ways to motivate internal customers?

Do you apply Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs?

                                                     

If you try (or have tried to) apply Maslow’s Hierarchy, are you (or have you) doing (done) it from a position of strength — by first being a detective to understand individual “hot spots”? Has this approach helped you to realize that the best internal customer rewards are not (in spite of all popular beliefs) not always cash, raises, and bonuses?

As a leader who is heavily invested in growing the loyalty, respect, and receptivity of both internal and external customers, are you making a conscious effort to breed entrepreneurial thinking accompanied by reasonable risk-taking behaviors? Or are you breeding investment in the status quo?

Are you fostering and nurturing innovation. Do your people come to you with just ideas, or do they fully exploit the ideas they propose with well thought out paths for implementation that include all possible operational, financial and marketing applications? Do you get a thorough and complete picture instead of just a quick sketch? 

Having great people behind you is great for your ego. Having great people behind you who are inspired and highly motivated, who deliver comprehensive plans of attack, is great for your business.

Which is more important? 

 

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302.933.0116 or Hal@BusinessWorks.US

Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals! God Bless You.

“The price of freedom is eternal vigilance!” [Thomas Jefferson]

Make today a GREAT day for someone!

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Oct 07 2010

SPEAK LEADERSHIP?

The right words

                                  

at the right time.

When you use ’em and you mean ’em 

AND you act on ’em, you got leadership!

 

You came here looking for something new in leadership? There’s nothing new. There are probably a thousand different management leadership theories. They all have different subtle twists and focal points, but they all say the same thing.

Jumbled together, we have Theory X, Theory Y, Theory Z, MBWA, Maslow’s Hierarchy, Weber’s Transformational Leadership, Goldman’s Trait Theory, Hersey and Blanchard’s Situational Leadership, Fiedler and Garcia’s Cognitive Resource Theory, and the works of Lewin, McClelland, Blake, Mouton, Skinner, even Carlyle in 1841 and in Plato’s Republic…plus many hundreds of others

There seem to be as many different ways of

slicing up leadership as there are followers.

Personally, I am hard-pressed to come up with any better guidelines than Eric Berne’s Transactional Analysis as a practical guideline for leadership communications, Maslow’s Hierarchy, as a realistic guideline for leadership motivation , and Rudy Giuliani’s book Leadership, as an example of outstanding leadership action and conduct.   

The problem is that business owners and operators and managers keep trying to stay on top of all the latest management leadership developments, revelations, steps, methods, and approaches. A lot of time (plus energy and money) can be expended on this pursuit.

Are you constantly on the lookout for management leadership solution advice and information in business journal and news publications?

In media-based success stories?

Are you participating in one webinar and seminar and blogcast after another?

Are you taking endless courses and management leadership training programs?

Do you find yourself surfing Internet information sources instead of spending time with family?

That’s a problem? Absolutely. Not just by-passing family, which is definitely not a life-productive avenue, but the fact that too many businesspeople don’t accept these information options as the refreshers and boosters that they are. They instead view each exposure as THE answer to their dreams, as THE solution to their problems when –in fact– none of these theories are that.

It’s one thing to get reminded of leadership stuff you once knew and forgot, or to learn a new app for an old method, but to cling to some new theory with the expectation that “leadership” is now just an arm’s distance away, is evidence of a fantasyland mindset. And true leaders are grounded in reality, and focused on the here and now present..

What’s new is simply the attitude you bring to bear on your leadership responsibilities, the words and emphasis you choose to use to inspire and motivate yourself and others, and the action steps you take to deliver the goods!

If you’re thinking there’s more to it that, there’s not. You don’t need a PhD in leadership to produce consistent results. You need only to fine-tune your personal strengths. And you can only know what they are by studying yourself. Oh, and one or two semesters of BASIC YOU and ADVANCED YOU won’t cut it. Figuring you out is a DAILY, LIFETIME commitment you must make to your self.

Are you ready?

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Hal@Businessworks.US

Open  Minds  Open  Doors

Many thanks for your visit and God Bless You.

Make today a GREAT day for someone!

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Sep 29 2010

OWNERSHIP ROI

ARE YOU ALL YOU HAVE?

You can hire (even borrow) others

 but you can only bank on your self!

Whether you function out of a home closet, garage, kitchen table, 100,000 sq. ft. factory or warehouse, a fancy corporate center, a retail storefront, or a truck, it’s one thing to find people or a person you can trust to help you with your business, and quite another to translate that find into responsibility you can bank on.

Reality check: No matter how much you love someone who works for you, no matter how conscientious an employee may be, you are ultimately the one who has everything on the line, and you are the only one who has to answer to investors, lenders, suppliers, and — in the end — customers.  

Short of turning to your family (and even that rarely works), it’s probably close to 100% true that people only accept responsibility commensurate with what they think is merited by their compensation. In other words, only business owners and partners practice an ownership sense of responsibility. This goes beyond turning off lights and taking out the garbage.

If you’re not ready to make your support team owners/partners, then consider these options:

  • Teaching others to have ownership attitudes and sense of responsibility is not the same as cultivating it or making it happen.
    • Leadership by example is one way.
    • Small frequent rewards is another.
    • Reliance on Maslow’s Hierarchy as a guide for rewarding people at their need level is yet another.

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 302.933.0116          Hal@BusinessWorks.US

Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals! God Bless You.
 “The price of freedom is eternal vigilance!” [Thomas Jefferson] 

Make today a GREAT day for someone!

One response so far




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