How do you slow the pace of business without losing profits? This was the question I was pondering as I headed out on vacation. In looking through the airplane magazine on the flight I ran into an article on living slow. It had some great suggestions and I think many of them we can apply to our business lives as well.

Here are my takeaways that  I’m going to try to implement in my business:

1. Will it matter in a year? This is a great question to ask yourself when you’re prioritizing items on your checklist for the day.

2. What do you need?  Here’s a question that helps you cut to the core of the matter. When a coworker or employee is talking to you about something and you’re unclear what they need from you get clarification.  This is also a good tool to use with clients and customers.  We need to know what they need so we can give them the right service or product. Getting a clear understanding upfront about what someone needs helps us save time and provide a good service.

3. Do things well rather than fast.  We often try to convince ourselves that multitasking is efficient because we like to appear incredibly busy. The truth is our focus and efficiency would improve immensely if we took one thing at a time and did that thing well before we moved onto the next item.  Keeping this kind of pace also helps to keep frenzy out of our work environment and brings time to give our best thinking to our task at hand.

4. Things can wait.   There is no need to respond to every email, IM or text message as soon as you receive it. Consider setting aside specific times of your day to answer emails, messages & texts.  Are there some of these that someone else could answer and free up your time? Out of all the emails which ones do you really need to respond to now? Those that don’t need the response immediately, let them know when you’ll get back to them and then give yourself time to think about it and respond later.

These are some ways that I think we can bring the slowness into business that will keep our profits healthy and make our lives more happy and productive.

Join with me in giving this a try and let me know how it goes in a couple of months.

We are all bombarded by advertising messages.  Advertising is constant & everywhere  – the internet, billboards, magazine ads, pop-ups on your phone and Tweets.  We businesses get our sales message out in a variety of ways, and that’s good.  But we must never forget the value of a referral.

Think about your own business.  How much of your revenue is generated by referrals?  This can certainly vary by industry, but nearly every type of business can benefit from good referral relationships or a good word from a customer to a prospect.  Actually, this is the premise of “Angie’s List,” a business completely built around the concept of referrals.

Why are referrals so important to customers?  There are a number of reasons:

1.  Lack of knowledge.  Customers often don’t know much about the product or service they need to buy, especially if it is something they buy only occasionally.  Think about it.  Most of us only have a house built once or twice in our lives.  How qualified does that make us to pick a builder?  If we need a new dentist, how do we judge the quality of the available options?  We don’t know that much about dentistry.  We count on others sharing how well the builder or dentist performed for them, and from their stories, we draw conclusions about the competence of the provider.

2.  Concerns about service.  Companies can provide information about licenses and other credentials, but most customers are also concerned about the service they will receive.  Businesses know this—that’s why we often list testimonials from satisfied customers on our websites or in our literature.  But even that may not be enough for many potential customers.  They want to hear from someone they know and trust.  A story from a friend or business colleague about being treated well and served in a timely manner carries a lot more weight than anything you might put on your website.

3.  Lack of time.  While much information is available about various businesses, many people don’t have the time or inclination to research a variety of options.  They would rather streamline the process by asking a few trusted associates who they use for a bank, an attorney, a business advisor, or a lawn care company.  After receiving a few recommendations, they may research those, interview the providers and decide from there.  It takes less time for them, and increases their comfort level with all the options.

So how do we make sure we’re getting referrals from our customers and clients?

To view the rest of this article, pick up the April 12 edition of The Sacramento Business Journal, or visit online at:

http://www.bizjournals.com/sacramento/print-edition/2013/04/12/referrals-customers-invaluable-asset.html

1.            Being afraid to ask for help.

2.            Putting off hard conversations.

3.            Taking on too many projects.

4.            Second-guessing decisions they’ve made.

5.            Hanging out with negative people.

6.            Worrying about things they can’t change.

7.            Spending time on the wrong things.

If you recognize something that’s holding you back from success, quit it!  And replace it with something better.

1.  Increased productivity.  In today’s world, there are lots of tools that can make you and your employees more productive.  At a time when most businesses are trying to get the most from every employee, automating tasks and integrating systems can be a way to get much more from the same number of employees.  Do your software programs “talk” to each other?  Are your programs and equipment updated so that they move at sufficient speed?

 You might benefit from asking your employees to identify tasks that seem repetitious, or equipment issues that frequently cost them time.  Just making a few changes might yield big results.

2.  Competitive advantage.  Depending on your industry, your customers may be comparing you to others in your field.  Are you up to date in your offerings?  Do you make it easy for customers to do business with you?

 Take online ordering, for example.  If customers want to order online, they want it to work smoothly and be easy to navigate.  If they get frustrated with your site, they might just leave and try someone else.  It might be worth spending some money to update your interfaces and customer offerings.

3.  Objective advice.  There is so much to know in today’s business world that it’s impossible to be an expert at everything.  Sometimes, it is worth the price to call in an expert and ask for their insights and opinions on your situation.  From technology to legal issues to business strategy, having another person’s eyes on the challenge can prove well worth the money you spend.

Sometimes the return on these types of investments is difficult to quantify, especially in the short run.  Even so, think carefully about the issues that are slowing you down or putting you at risk and evaluate whether spending a little money now might save you lots of money, time and headaches in the future.

We all know we need clear job descriptions, and that we need to match a qualified person to the job. It’s not that simple though, because we’re all people who bring our own wants, needs and desires to our jobs.  We’re people, not machines.

Here is what Gordon Bethune of Continental Airlines had to say about this:

“But I like to think that a lot of managers and executives trying to solve problems miss the forest for the trees by forgetting to look at their people — not at how much more they can get from their people or how they can more effectively manage their people. I think they need to look a little more closely at what it’s like for their people to come to work there every day.”

Think about the employees who come to your company everyday.  What do they want to give and receive from this work?  Whether this person is a full time employee, a temp or even one of your contractors who provide a necessary service to your business, they generally all want to do a good job and be appreciated for the job they do.

To be sure, there are some employees who simply work to live and are completely indifferent to your business.  These are the ones you hope to identify and weed out quickly.  Most of your employees though, while they may not “live to work,” are not indifferent about their work or your business.  These employees don’t come to work thinking , “I hope I can be mediocre in my performance today and get paid for it anyhow.” They really want to make a difference and make a positive contribution in their workplace.

If you are wondering why you as a business owner should care about the attitude your employees bring to their work, consider David Maister’s research as he reports in his book Practice What You Preach.  He states that the most financially successful businesses do better than the rest on virtually every aspect of employee attitudes, and those that do best on employee attitudes are measurably more profitable.  He further points out that employee attitude actually drives financial results, and not the other way around.

So how do we challenge our employees to bring their best attitudes in the performance of their duties?

I’ve found these ideas from The Principa Alliance group to be valuable guidance for bringing about the best attitudes and performance.

• Clear Vision – insuring that everyone in your organization knows the company’s vision in simple terms makes it meaningful and inspiring.  It should describe what the business does and what it looks like when it’s complete.  This is the business owner’s method of “setting the bar”.  It establishes the basis for giving employees a sense of winning – the thing to measure against to satisfy our own desire to win.
• Valuable Jobs – all of us want to know that our efforts add value to the company and its customers.  We want to be an integral part of winning!  Every job description then needs to be related to what we accomplish in our business and what we provide to our customers.  From the clean up crew who never sees the customer, to the salesperson who sees customers daily and all of those in between; each person needs to understand how their job relates to making the business successful.
• The Right Environment – it seems we shouldn’t need to even say this, but having a positive environment produces positive results!  I’ve been in offices where you can actually feel the tension, and if I, who am not prone to noticing such things, could feel this, then every  customer could feel it too!   Practice encouraging your employees publicly when you see them doing something well – and look for this on a regular basis.   Promote an environment where everyone is encouraged to speak honestly and know they will be treated fairly and with respect.  There are many challenges in this area for managers, as each manager sets the tone and must consistently act with integrity.  We all know that our actions speak louder than our words, so we must practice to correct our attitudes and be the encouraging employer/manager than we need to be.
• Encourage Team Experimentation and Innovation even though it means Change – Change makes many employees nervous and unsettled, which is not a great environment for a positive attitude.  Yet encouraging employees to think with other team members about how processes might improve, or what new technology or new innovation might make a more efficient or more pleasurable customer experience, creates an environment that encourages people to work together to achieve the vision and be excited about doing it.
• Be a Team Player – This is practically cliché now, yet it is critical in accomplishing goals.  In a leadership training class I attended years ago, we performed several decision making exercises on our own.  Then we formed teams and went through these exercises again.  Without exception in the whole class there was not one exercise that was better with one person only making the decisions when compared to the decisions produced by a team.   Until that time, I rarely asked for input from my staff on business decisions.  This dramatically illustrated why I needed to change and become a team player and allow my team to contribute on all of the important decisions that drive our business.

So while employees can be challenging, we need to realize that employees need to be challenged, just as we, the owners and managers do.  Jack Welch, former CEO of General Electric put it this way: “The essence of competitiveness is liberated when we make people believe that what they think and do is important – and then get out of their way while they do it.”

A version of this post was recently published in the Sacramento Business Journal : http://www.bizjournals.com/sacramento/print-edition/2013/02/22/help-employees-develop-can-do-attitude.html

What is most important in the grand experiment, the United States?   Not the election of its first president, but the election of its second president.  The peaceful transition of power is what will separate this country from every other country in the world.

How fortunate we are to be able to carry on in every aspect of our lives as a nation, even when we have a transition of power.  That is truly amazing!

I thought about our businesses in this country.  We have to deal with the same issue on a much smaller scale – transitioning power and responsibilities.   This happens almost seamlessly on a national political level, so why is it so difficult at the level of our own businesses?

I think of all of the congruent systems within our governmental institutions that make this transition possible.  On a very basic level, we have set and established branches of government, agencies within branches, appointed and elected leaders in these positions, and detailed duties and responsibilities that each of these units are tasked with achieving.

Are these same basic structures established in our own businesses?  How can the next leader that steps in know what to do and how to accomplish it if we don’t provide them with a structure in which they can accomplish the job the prior leader vacated?  We often find that detailing processes and procedures is a tedious and often annoying function that simply keeps us from doing our “real job”.  Yet, until we’ve documented what we do, we’ve done nothing to create a business – we’re just doing a job.  If we want to be able to transition power in our businesses, to let them flourish under others’ leadership, then we must firmly establish the structure that enables the transition.

While I like figuring out the general structure, putting together the detailed instructions sucks the life out of me.  I completely understand when other owners grumble at the need for such procedures.  We should seek out those talented colleagues who actually enjoy lining out the details.  We should first give them the tools and authority they need to successfully complete this function for us and then review it every year or so to make sure we’ve incorporated the changes that happen as our businesses age.

All of our businesses will come to a point of transition of power.  It’s up to us to make sure that transition occurs successfully and peacefully.

Did I make the right purchase? Was that expensive software worth the cost? Will I see the return on it in one year, or will it take two or more? Is it wise to take so much of our cash reserves to invest in this new venture? There’s terrific potential and definite risk. How do I know what balance is right for all involved? While I feel confident in the value, the cash requirements and additional need for cash infusion scare me.

Fortunately, I’m rarely awake at 2:45 or anytime before the mental morning alarm sounds in my head. When I am, though, I realize that I need some outside perspective, especially when it’s business worries keeping me awake.  I need to talk to my partner, get more information on the subjects, and sometimes get outside advice so that I can quantify my risks. Then I can objectively review those and make reasonable decisions. If it takes 2 years to see a return on my expensive software purchase, then I might need to postpone some hardware upgrades for another year. If the value of the new venture can be substantiated as is, then with improvements, and the cash infusion needs solidified and scheduled, then I can determine if that will fit in my budget.

With the right information and advice, I can then make decisions that give me the peace of mind to sleep soundly.  While I need to get some more information to help me quantify a few of the risks I’m worrying about, I realize I know who I need to consult and how to go about getting the information I need, so I think I’ll go back to sleep now. If you’re one of the folks that needs advice from to help you get the answers that will let you go back to sleep, call us… But, wait til morning!

While they haven’t tackled major tax loopholes, or determined ways that we must deal with Social Security and Medicare costs, they did provide some guidance in the tax arena which allows us some room for more precise planning for the coming year.

For business owners, here are some of the changes for 2013 that might impact you:

• Research & development credit is extended through 2013, although modified
• Employer tax credit for employees who are active duty members of the uniformed services is extended through 2013, as well as the work opportunity credit
• Exclusion of 100% of gain on certain small business stock acquired before 1/1/2014
• Depreciation modifications include bonus depreciation being extended through 2013 and section 179 expense election deduction limitation of $500,000 is extended through 2013.
• AMT relief – which affects individual taxpayers, so many business owners with pass through income are affected by this.  The AMT correction is now permanent and amounts are inflation adjusted annually.

For individual taxpayers, the key changes are:

• Tax rates remain at 2012 levels except for a new bracket of 39.6% added for joint filing taxpayers with taxable income of $450,000 and above/  $400,000 and above for single filing taxpayers.
• Phase out of the personal exemption & itemized deductions are back in place for joint filers with incomes above $300,000/ $250,000 for single filers.
• Capital gains & dividend rates are increased from 15% to 20% for taxpayers with incomes exceeding $400,000 single/ $450,000 joint filers.

Estate Tax provisions:

• The act keeps the estate tax and gift & gst tax exemption amount at $5,000,000 (indexed for inflation)
• However the rate increases for those with estates in excess of $5,000,000 from 35% to 40%
• The portability provision continues allowing the surviving spouse to receive any unused exemption amount from his/her spouse.

While Congress will be making more changes during the year  that will hopefully address long-term fiscal concerns, we at least have some guidance with this new bill.

http://m.sacbee.com/sacramento/db_269929/contentdetail.htm?contentguid=9CaTQRtG

Wishing everyone a healthy and Happy New Year.