Super Jobs for You

Albert Maslow is credited as saying, “If you only have a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail.”

Every owner needs a set of tools to use as a leader and to manage the business. A single hammer, or a set of them, simply doesn’t work.

Most owners have some tools that they use frequently. Sometimes a tool sits in a toolkit gathering dust and dirt and is seldom used, but when the time comes, the user is relieved it is available. Now is a good time to examine your existing set of tools and here are few you might want to add to your toolkit:

Vision Statement

Owners set a vision which is then articulated in writing and verbally. All organizations that are on the path to somewhere should have a vision. Does this tool exist in your company? Do you share it? Often enough so that everyone is clear as to what it is? This tool needs to be used at least once a quarter and more frequently when meeting with managers.Mission Statement

Owners determine the mission for the firm. A mission is what sets you apart and states what your organization does. Everyone should know what it is. It is not to “to make money” for the owner. This is a tool that should be repeated daily.Daily Huddle

Just like a football team meets before every plan, having each department meet once a day to check in on goals, issues and obstacles should be a tool every business should use. There are many different ways to hold these meetings but the most effective ones are short, stand-up and have a tight agenda.

Daily Cash Flow Report

It never hurts to let everyone in the organization understand that cash is king in the world of business. The content of the document is not to be announced to everyone; but the fact that the owner is getting this critical information daily will stress to employees

Continuing Education

Everyone in business should be continuously improving themselves. To get better, you have to get better and better, continuously in search of constant improvement. This could be as little as spending 15 minutes a day reading an article or a short chapter out of a book, or asking a colleague in another industry how they handle problems similar to ones you might be dealing with.

Sales Power Hour

One of the best ways to power out of slow sales is to improve the sales abilities of everyone on the sales team. The devotion of a single hour once a week to teaching new sales skills and brushing up on old sales skills is time well worth spending. It is a tool that will certainly bring a return on investment almost immediately to the company. If you want a faster return, do this daily.

Visual Management

When Larry Bossert was leading Allied Signal he posted in the company cafeteria large graphs that indicated the performance on key indicators in the various business groups. Every day the numbers changed and that focused employees at every level on what needed to be done.

The Six Questions

Marcus Buckingham’s best seller, “First, Break All The Rules” provided a wealth of information on how managers could improve the performance of their employees.

What if every manager in your organization was required to meet with every employee for 30 minutes once a month to discuss their performance?

What if those sessions were started by asking: Do you know what is expected of you at work? Do you have the materials and equipment that you need in order to do your work right? At work, do I have the opportunity to do what I do best every day? In the past seven days, have you received recognition or praise for doing good work? Do you believe your supervisor, or someone at work, seems to care about you as a person? Is there someone at work who encourages your development?

Take these questions and put them on a laminated card, and provide one to each manager. Require that the manager leave the card on their desk and use it as a starting point for a monthly discussion with each employee, individually.

Having an empty toolkit does no one any good and having the wrong tools doesn’t work either. Add these tools to your toolkit and watch how focus and productivity improve!

Super Jobs For You gives information on how to get a job and how to hire good people. If you are looking for a Die Casting Job look at this website. This Die Casting Blog will give you more information you can use for manufacturing.

Three Barriers Between Owners and Employees

You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to know that there are profound differences between children and adults. I recently spent time with my two year old granddaughter, and had time to observe her. As I played with her, read to her and watched her, it struck me that within an organization there are substantial barriers between the owner and employees.

I want to make clear that I don’t consider the “adults” in the organization to be the owner and I certainly don’t want anyone to misconstrue that I think employees are the “children” in the relationship. I am using these only as examples to demonstrate the similarities and differences between groups of people in the same unit.

Speak a Different Language

My granddaughter has started to learn sign language, a language I do not know. This became evident to me when she saw me eating crackers. She began tapping her elbow, the sign for crackers. Until I asked my daughter in law to interpret and learned what my granddaughter was trying to communicate to me, I must have appeared like an idiot to her.

Just like a two year old speaks a different language then their parents, two different languages are spoken in most businesses. Owners think in terms of “cash flow,” “profits,” and “balance sheet.” Those are terms used often and with a known definition to those responsible for running an operation.

Employees speak in another language, and includes such vocabulary as “payday,” “vacations,” and “time to go home.”

Many running a business would like to change employee attitudes so that employees think and act more like owners. There are many possible answers, but one way to start the process is to make sure that everyone is using a common language.

Have Different Priorities

My granddaughter, like most little ones, has her priorities. They include laughing and playing, learning, eating, running around, talking and sleeping. Crying doesn’t appear on the list, but it happens once in a while.

Owners have priorities too. They include finding and keeping clients, billing and collecting money, and managing all the other millions of things that keep the business running on a daily basis. Because of there are so many things on the priority list, often times, very little gets done.

The priorities of employees depend on whether or not they are engaged in their work or not. Engaged employees more often than not put their employer first. Disengaged employees put time in on the job, but don’t do more than asked. Actively disengaged employees are considered to be internal terrorists, so their priorities are whatever they can get away with doing, or not doing.

But here is the difference: my granddaughter’s parents have only a few priorities for their daughter, and they have only a few rules for her. Those priorities are cast in stone, and those rules are repeated often, and enforced. There aren’t daily disagreements about what to do, when to do it or who is going to do it. Things just get done and the unit, their family, flourishes.

Want Respect and Attention

Babies and children want the attention and approval of their parents. We laugh at onset of the “Terrible Twos” but that is when children start to show independence on the long road to adulthood.

Many owners seek the approval and respect of their employees and sometimes forget how easy it is to lose it. Employees also want the respect of coworkers and their supervisors.

I noticed is how much more engaged my granddaughter became when I got down on her level (on the floor) and saw what she saw; played with what she was playing with; and took the time and had the patience to be a part of her world. I was glad I did this. I have a better understanding of how I can help her even if I don’t see her as often as I would like.

Owners want employees to understand the world they live in. This world consists of liability, cash flow, profitability, making payroll and taking care of clients. This is a world where watching pennies matters, where every employee needs to be a profit center, contributing to the financial health of the company and not being a drain, of making a contribution to find and keep happy clients and to live up to the values laid out for the company to fulfill the mission to the best of abilities.

Employees want their owners to know that when they are working hard, doing the right things, they want to be noticed. No employee wants to simply be known as a “worker bee” or “a cog in the man’s machine,” they want to be recognized for the contributions they make. And just like the owner who should know right where things are with the company, using Key Performance Indicators, employees want to know “what the score is” and how they are doing versus what is expected of them. The hard workers know who the lazy employees are and want ownership to terminate them because lazy employees kill morale and productivity.

Closing the gap between owners and employees is hard, perhaps even difficult. But for an organization to be successful, having a common language, the same priorities and providing respect and attention for all who earn it is a great way to get started on the road to long term success.

Super Job For You gives information on how to get a job and how to hire good people. If you are looking for Cast Parts Jobs look at this website. This Castings Blog will give you more information you can use for manufacturing.

Many companies today have two problems. The first is that they are not consistently generating enough qualified leads. Put another way, whatever is happening in marketing is not working as well as it needs to be.

The second is that company sales department, consisting of one or many, is not making enough presentations to qualified leads to grow the client base.

If you are an owner reading this column satisfied with your client base, revenue, cash flow and profits, read no further. On the other hand, if you are not happy with the size or makeup of your client base, believe that having more revenue is a good thing, desire and want stronger cash flow, and will gladly use more profits, read on. This column is for you.

Back to those two questions. Answer them truthfully and what you learn can change your business for the better for years to come. Play with the truth and you will continue the status quo.

The first question: Are the current marketing efforts for new clients generating the leads needed to grow the client base in a suitable timeframe?

Marketing is everything done to “make the phone ring.” Within this definition are all forms of advertising (print of all types, electronic, outdoor, internet), direct marketing (mail, cold calling), public relations, networking, referrals, trade shows, website inquiries and so forth.

The first step to answer the question is to make a list of how each current client came to do business with you. Next to the client name list the marketing method employed. Estimate the amount of marketing money spent to acquire the client.

The second step is to put a dollar amount to each client in terms of revenue and compare that to the cost of client acquisition. This calculation provides return on marketing investment. Make a list of what is working and what is not based on the numbers. Start eliminating marketing activities that don’t work and start investing more where they do.

The “sales department” takes over when prospects contact the company. This leads to the second question, which is: Is everyone in a sales function presenting to qualified prospects as often as they could?

The answer is a resounding “NO” for 99.9 percent. Many in sales make few prospect calls on Mondays or Fridays. Many in sales don’t make calls before 9am or after 4pm. Research suggests that the first call on any given day for many sales people doesn’t take place until 11am.

A rumor about sales people: Apparently they have to be in the office on Mondays and Fridays to do expense reports, attend sales meetings and push lead sheets around. This rumor continues that sales people engage in unnecessary chit-chat; surf the Internet; take long lunches; and golf whenever possible.

2009 is a new time; unchartered waters for many companies. It has always been tough for those in sales but this is different. A change in the external environment means things internally need to change: sales people have to do things differently.

If you are the owner that needs more clients, better clients, more sales, stronger cash flow and more profits, you need to change the sales paradigm. Now is the time to create a new work ethic for sales. You can start today.

The old ways (see rumor above) has to go. The rest of your staff is working their behinds off to deliver to the company’s clients with fewer people and reduced resources. And they see you, the owner, letting sales people not just believe in the above rumor but living it.

Your sales people can sell any day that ends in the letter “y.” They can start seeing prospects before 8am and after 4pm. Your sales people can do paperwork on the weekends or during the evenings.

Let your sales people surf the Internet, golf and chit chat on their time. Start holding sales meetings at 6pm at night. Demand your sales people be out of the office calling on prospects every day of the week all day, every day. Start tracking activities instead of just the results. Demand change in activities to secure a different, better, result.

Neal Boortz gave a commitment speech at Texas A&M University, his alma mater. He told those graduating was that if they wanted to succeed in life, they had to be willing to work long, hard and smart; to “drive home in the dark.” It’s a lesson we should all learn if we want to make headway.

No more wasted marketing programs that don’t yield prospects. No more excuses, no more short days, no more believing in rumors for sales people. It is a new day with new realities and it requires doing things differently. Starting today, right now.

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