superjob4u.com

(Annie’s Mailbox is the continuation of “Dear Ann Landers” that is a syndicated column that runs in many newspapers in the US. After I read a “Dear Annie” letter and the response in the paper, I stepped in to provide my own advice).

Dear Ken Keller:

Thank you for your letter offering advice to one of our readers. We would like to print an edited (for space) version of your letter on Friday, August 3, 2007, along with your name and city. Here is what it will look like:

Dear Annie: “Sayre, Pa.” wrote about her struggling restaurant business and said she was depressed. You told her how to find counseling, but you didn’t give her any business advice.

To help ease her financial pressure, she can:

1. Raise prices. Inflation is running close to 8 percent and this is one of the reasons she is feeling pinched. She should plan on regular quarterly price increases. Her customers buy food at the grocery store and understand prices have gone up.

2. Negotiate better terms with her suppliers. Or find new ones.

3. Make it easy for her customers to pay her by taking credit cards, cash and perhaps personal checks.

4. Revise her menu to eliminate items that take too much time to prepare, are seldom purchased, or are otherwise not profitable.

5. Develop a customer loyalty program so regular customers will come back more often.

6. Meet for free with representatives from the local Small Business Administration

About fifteen years ago the number of chain restaurants operating in America surpassed the number of independent eating and drinking establishments. Since that time the gap between multi unit restaurants, franchised and corporate owned, versus independents, has dramatically widened.

I have traveled all over the country, to large cities and small towns, and this trend away from independently owned and operated businesses is going to continue. It doesn’t matter if the business is a gas station, a manufacturing plant, a hospital, a non profit, a motel, or a local retail outlet.

Why this trend is taking place is simply stated: chains have standards of performance that are enforced.

As an example, the other night I stopped at a local independent restaurant to pick up something for dinner. This particular establishment provides good food at reasonable prices and I have been a client for years. The vast majority of the business it does is done during the business day, as it is near many commercial and industrial facilities.

There were four employees working behind the counter when I placed my order. I paid my money, received my change and turned to find a place to wait in the seating area. The eating area was not horribly filthy, but there were some napkins on the floor, several tables needed to be wiped down and the beverage area needed to be straightened up and refreshed. I am sure it wouldn’t have hurt to have the floor mopped either.

Perhaps all of this is not such a big deal after all; it was at the end of the business day, so perhaps these shortcomings could be excused. Maybe I am over reacting. Maybe so, but it was well after 7pm, there were four people standing behind the counter, talking with one another and the dining area was in need of attention. My visit to spend money was, on second thought, an interruption to their conversation.

On the way home I stopped at a unit of a well known national chain to do a comparative visual analysis. I did not see the same things in need of attention there.

Could my visit to this independently owned restaurant be an isolated incident? Could it be that I visited the restaurant on an off day or an off time? Could I be unduly harsh on this restaurant? I don’t think so. My observational research suggests that chains have in place standards of performance that are enforced at the local level, during all hours of the day. This restaurant may have similar standards, but I don’t know for sure. If they exist, they were not enforced at that time by the manager on duty.

Why have standards of performance? Why set expectations? The primary reason is to have the business live up to its potential.

Take Southwest Airlines versus any of their competitors. The expectation is that you will enjoy dealing with the flight attendants who will do what they can to make the trip fun. Compare that with a recent US Airways flight I was on where one of the flight attendants should have been sent to charm school. Compare the financial results of Southwest to any other competitor and you can verify which airline does consistently better.

Not having clear and measurable expectations is, in my opinion, the primary reason so many organizations under perform. Without clear and measurable expectations people do not know what to do specifically (what, when, how, why and to what level) and when I say people, I am writing about individuals at every single level from the highest to the lowest; from the owner to the receptionist and everyone in between.

People want to know that they will be measured. It all comes back to getting a report card. With clear expectations, people know what to do and how they will be evaluated versus objectives. It takes the guesswork out of evaluations.

Expectations help leads, supervisor and managers become better at managing people. They no longer have to wonder if people are doing their assigned tasks or not. It positions the manager as someone who verifies that the work is being done as expected. Note that the manager is not doing the job; they are making sure that others do it according to specifications.

If you wonder why things are not getting done in your organization they way you’d like them to, start by asking what the expectations are for answering the telephone. In most organizations, something as basic and yet critical to the success of the organization has never been discussed as needing a standard of performance. Yet, this may be the most used method of communication for prospects, clients, vendors and shareholders communicate with the organization.

Joe Girard’s book “How to Sell Yourself” is a must have and a must read for anyone working in or for an organization.

One chapter of the book focuses on going “the extra mile” and what a tremendous difference it can make in your life and in the lives of those around you.

Here are ten rules for achieving success.

Rule One: If you are in sales, make one extra prospecting call each day. Or two.

Rule Two: Work a little longer at the office or shop than you need to. Or, come in a little earlier.

Rule Three: Do something useful around the office or your house without being asked.

Rule Four: Give a little gift to someone special even though there is no occasion for it.

Rule Five: Give a gift to someone not-so-special; it may make them feel special for the first time.

Rule Six: Go out of your way to help someone; just be there when he or she needs you the most.

Rule Seven: Pay a compliment to someone each day.

Rule Eight: Take a load off of someone’s back instead of putting it on someone’s back.

Rule Nine: If you are a student, put in a little more time with the books. If you are a business professional, try opening a book and reading about something you don’t know about. You might learn something.

Rule Ten: Do something for someone, or some cause, without expecting any pay for it.

Try these for a week and see if the condition of your business doesn’t change. Chances are, it will.

While I am an avid reader of books, magazines and periodicals, I also enjoy watching movies as a vehicle for learning. Not every movie made for Hollywood was created for teenagers; there are plenty of movies that have lessons for working adults. Once you start to look at a movie as a learning tool, you might not ever see it as pure entertainment again!

“Wall Street” is one of my all time favorites. It tells the tale of a young man who loses his moral compass in his quest to be more than his education, background and skills allow. Charlie Sheen stars as the young hot shot who demonstrates his tenacity and street smarts to ruthless tycoon Michael Douglas. Douglas buys and sells companies without remorse focusing only on the profits because that is the only game he knows or wants to play. “Greed is good” symbolizes not just the time that the movie was filmed and still applies today, unfortunately, to many disgraced so-called leaders of business.

“Glengarry Glen Ross” is the ultimate sales training movie. Once you see this movie you will forever remember what the contest prizes are for the salesmen in an under performing real estate office. When Alec Baldwin departs the office at the beginning of the movie, you will always know what “ABC” stands for in the sales process. This is a movie rich with talented performances by Jack Lemmon, Al Pacino, Ed Harris and Alan Arkin.

Back in the dark ages when movies were filmed in black and white, “Twelve O’ Clock High” conveyed the story of a young general with a mission to turn around a struggling bomber group in the dark days of WWII. While the movie takes place in wartime, it isn’t a war movie, it is the saga of how an organization that has gotten off track can get refocused but can lose its way if improperly led. Gregory Peck stars as the general assigned to turn things around, only to get caught up in his own success. He ultimately fails, and this is not a typical Hollywood ending.

I’ve long admired George C. Scott’s performance in “Patton”. You can watch this movie from the perspective of history, or you can see the performance of someone who believes and practices the basics of leadership. As an example, his staff wakes the general to advise that the enemy is going to attack; he had fallen asleep doing competitive research, reading a book authored by his opponent. While Patton comes across as human and makes mistakes like everyone else, his leadership moved more men across more miles with fewer casualties than any other general in that war.

“Titanic” is a case study in poor management and non existent organizational leadership. Instead of watching the romantic side of the main characters develop, keep an eye on the ship’s captain and his conversations (almost filmed in passing) with reporters, the ship’s builder and the owner. You can watch the movie and learn how not to run an operation in just a couple of hours. Once the ship runs into the iceberg the lack of front line management and their failure to deal with a crisis can serve as a reminder to anyone in business to prepare for the unexpected. Because it just might happen!

There are many other movies to review, but allow me to suggest that there are lessons that can be translated to business by watching: “Remember the Titans” (leadership under adverse conditions), “Cast Away” (overcoming obstacles to achieve a goal), “Apollo 13″ (failure is not an option), “Hoosiers” (teambuilding), “12 Angry Men” (consensus and decision making) and “Jerry Maguire” (creating a mission statement and seeing it come to fruition).

I recently ran across an article I had clipped and saved from The Wall Street Journal

(www.WSJ.com) with the title “The Cheater Principle.” It described in great detail how individuals, many of them with the full ability to pay, and possessing the full knowledge that they are doing wrong, are cheating like never before. People were running tollbooths, sneaking into movie theaters, leaving restaurants without paying the tab, returning merchandise to stores soiled and dirty, from stores where it hadn’t been purchased.

For many years the American public has held business in very low regard. Poll after poll indicates that the leaders in business rank somewhere in the neighborhood of politicians. With a slow economy, and even in a good economy, everyone focuses on the bottom line. The greater the profits, the greater our individual share.

However, this comes at a high price. Long ago the scariest words in the English language were “Mike Wallace of 60 Minutes is here to see you.” Now, to criminal, crook and hero alike, it is a badge of honor to appear on a television show where we “bare all” and we do so without regret. We have become a society of the celebrity. As a society we no longer believe in doing the right thing. Our “honor,” if you can call it that, comes from being noticed, from being caught even though we tried to “get away with it.”

During the Tylenol tampering scare years ago, the leader of that company explained his case for dealing with forces outside of his control that threatened to destroy the reputation of his company. That leader received high marks for quickly going on television and asking that the public maintain confidence in Tylenol. The company immediately found a way to solve the problem through tamper-proof packaging, now the norm in consumer products.

Doing the right thing each and every day is an issue that needs to be addressed, not just for those of us in business, but for our customers and clients, and for all of those that look to us as examples. The tone of our business begins and ends with the person in charge. As business owners, we have to make a stand. Doing this may not win any popularity contests, but will benefit all in the long run.

There are four general rules to follow when you are trying to determine if something that you are doing or thinking about doing is the right thing.

The first is whether or not you would enjoy seeing your action exposed on the front page of the local newspaper. How you would face your family, neighbors and business colleagues if your activities were laid out for the world to read in Time magazine? Or see you on “Dateline?” Or on CSPAN in front of a congressional committee as you testify under oath?

The second is whether or not a jury of your business peers would favorably review your activities. Would people in your industry or in business in general approve of your actions?

The third test is whether or not you would like to tell your story to your mother or your minister. The love and affection that they give you is unconditional, but they may also be disappointed in you.

The fourth test is whether or not your actions are legal, within the spirit and letter of the law. While some may argue that this is not a valid test, the truth is that our system of laws and justice, despite flaws, is the best on the planet.

I can’t tell you what to value; I cannot tell you what is right. When I was growing up, my parents used to ask me if I was willing to jump off the Golden Gate Bridge just because “everyone else was doing it.” Once I figured out how high the bridge was, how far the drop was, and how cold the water was and what it would feel like to hit something akin to concrete going very fast, I was able to make up my own mind. I have, with all the courage that I have, charted a course of action for my life to do the right thing. How about you? What course of action are you taking to do the right thing?