Gene Mark published Drilling Down: Is Any P.R. Good P.R.? on You’re the Boss, in which the following questions were answered:
Please keep his advice in mind as you enter tryout season and customers are comparing your gym to your rivals.
As tryout season get closer and closer we wanted to remind everyone it’s important to remember your existing customers as you spend more energy trying to attract new customers. Michael Essany wrote 5 Ways to Tell Your Customers You Love Them to give you a couple of ideas on how to keep your current clients around. His advice:
Owners, Bosses, Managers, and Everyone Else,
Please remember the people that work for you have the best interest of the company in mind. They are working to improve the company and leave it in a better spot than it was yesterday, a week ago, and a year ago. If at any point you don’t think this is the case you should get rid of them.
Please realize they are going to make mistakes and do things different than you would have. This is going to happen everyday, probably several times each day. If when it happens you approach them as if they had your best interests in mind and coach them on how to do better, you’ll see the best results imaginable. If you approach with the idea they have poor intentions you are going to push them away.
Please keep this in mind each and every day, as people make mistakes and reveal insights you never could find on your own.
MP Mueller published Holding the Business Owner Accountable addressing problems business owner have holding themselves accountable to deadlines and tasks when there is no one above them to keep them on track.
Part of the problem, of course, is that there’s no one to tell me that if I don’t get those tasks done, it’s going to affect my annual review. After all, I am the one giving me a deadline or ultimatum, and I have found that I can almost always cajole myself into an extension or distract myself with another “look over there!” But this seems to be changing.
Kathryn Hawkins published How to Choose Which Conferences to Attend on the Intuit Small Business Blog and it seemed fitting as companies are promoting their summer conference. Her 3 bits of advice are:
Glenn Llopis published Leadership Success is No Longer Measured by Money or Power on Forbes. This article asks “What is Leadership Success?” and begins to answer it.
Historically, leadership success has been associated with money and power. The more you have, the more successful you are. This is a false idea of success. How many people do you know that have money and power that are also happy, ethical, and purposeful? Sure, there are a few – but only a few.
Jay Goltz published Doing the Math on Disappointed Customers on the You’re the Boss blog. The article talks about the cost of not taking the time, effort, and money to fix a customer’s problem.
And that was O.K. Of course, the next time someone asks me which company coated my floor, I will be giving a different answer. Here is the simple math. The touch-up kit can’t cost more than $10, including shipping. The cost of coating a garage floor is now, I’m sure, around $4,000. I almost certainly would have had occasion to recommend this company to a couple of other people in the coming years. Which means this will probably cost him $8,000 in lost business. And then there are all of the referrals from the referrals. Maybe $20,000? $50,000? Nice letters and warranties might get a sale, but standing behind your product or service will get the repeat business and referrals that make the business.
Role Power is the power you, as the owner, have over your staff because you have the title of Owner. Have you ever told an employee to do something they didn’t want to do or tell them to do it a certain way with the only explanation being “because I said so” or something along those lines. That is a version of expressing your Role Power. The use and misuse of Role Power can have a long standing impact on a relationship, and if that relationship is a business one, a long standing impact on your business.
The use of Role Power needs to be as limited as possible. Some would say limit using it to when you are in crisis mode only and once the crisis is over you should go back and explain why you had people doing the things you had them do. If you have to resort to using Role Power, something broke down along the way. Employees that believe in their company’s leadership, mission, and direction don’t have to be “forced” to do much. Getting them to believe in the company involves having excellent direction and communication coming from the top, hiring the correct personnel, and getting rid of employees that don’t buy in.
Donald DeSantis published Everything I Need to Know About Startups, I Learned From a Crime Boss on GigaOM, in which he talks about lessons learned via organized crime. Those lessons are:
Jay Goltz published How to Diagnose What’s Wrong With Your Business in You’re the Boss, outlining the things he takes a look at when a business is struggling. The first 3 relate to Marketing, the next 3 to Management, the following 3 to Accounting & Finance, and the last one stands alone:
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Marcel