Posted: March 20th, 2009 Category: Building A Culture for Success | No Comments »
Having run a small business with almost 50 employees, sometimes I was conscious of the thought, ”am I a good boss?” What makes a good boss? I felt we had a great environment with energetic, committed “team” members.
We were one individual part of a national company that I was a partner with, but in our local branch we were responsible for our own profit center. The partners in the company visited each office/showroom from across the nation each month to review financials and to be hands on.
We were always told, when partners visited, that we had a very good working environment. A great team of people that seem to be all focused on the “better good, big picture.” I called it building a “Culture for Success.” Building a culture of success is an integral part of creating a working environment that is productive. It doesn’t mean if your team is productive that they will always be productive. After all, success is not an event, it is a body of work that is maintained over a long period of time. To have sustained success, a culture needs to be developed. Building a culture of success is a body of work, not a single event.
Employees usually leave the company they were previously with for various reasons, but probably the biggest reason they leave is a feeling of spinning their wheels. Employees want to be valued, utilized wisely and have their ideas heard and implemented on occasion, or more often. Not only will the employees be appreciative, they will be more productive and have a better attitude. A better attitude is infectious and can lead to employee retention, while keeping a fresh outlook on your company.
As a owner/manager I always thought it was essential to empower your employees to think on their own, be creative and take accountability for our financial statement. Another key aspect, was to be involved and have information fed to you, the “man in the middle.” Most business owners and top executives understand time management skills and being fed QUALITY information is a great stride towards making good decisions.
Without good information, you can’t make good decisions.
Managing your time wisely to gather information on products, systems or accounts by holding meetings that are pre-scheduled and have an itinerary that you stick to is a great way to develop employees funneling of information to the business owner or executive.
Have the meetings on time, be organized and interactive with employees. Request input and acknowledge good input by using and implementing.
Another key component, is be organized. Organization creates flow, flow creates a purpose and a purpose creates productivity.
1. empowering your employees to be proactive
2. be the “man in the middle”
3. team meetings that are interactive
4. be organized and last but not least
5. hold everyone in your organization accountable.
Follow these steps and you’ll create an environment for a “culture of success” that not only you, but your employees will be responsible for. They will thank you for it. 
Posted: March 4th, 2009 Category: Building A Culture for Success | No Comments »
“It is a new era.”
Every day we realize that in fact each day is unique and uncharted waters, truly a new era is in front of us and all around us. I can look at these words” new era” in many different ways and apply the meaning in so many different aspects of our lives. We set goals to achieve, accomplishments we want to obtain and a life we want to enjoy.
For many of us small business owners, we started a business to serve our lives. A business that serves our lives enhances every goal and accomplishment and fulfills us. Our proud life. A business that serves our life is one that is dedicated to making our business function and trying to reach our goals. A life that serves our business consumes us and makes us reactive, not proactive. The difference between business serving life and life serving business could be the difference between succeeding and not succeeding.
It is a new era.
Gone are the days of having time to recover a business from bad decisions. Gone are the days of having the time to have a long learning curve trying to establish your business and reach your goals through trial and error. Proactive or reactive, which one describes you?
A proactive person is pragmatic, thinks about their business and plans strategy before tactics, but takes action to implement this plan. Good decisions are based off good information, but we will never know the fruit of our planning if we don’t take action. The worst plan is one that never comes to action.
A reactive person usually does not plan strategy before tactics and will put the cart before the horse. This type of planning or lack there of, requires timing and luck. If you miss your timing you are only left with luck and you will probably need plenty of it. It is hard to rely on luck.
I was partners with a very successful man that grew his business from one office and one truck to a national company with multiple factories. Needless to say he was a great business man. He always said a couple phrases to me over and over and they are worth repeating now. “Without sales, you might as well throw away the key to the front door, because without sales, there isn’t a business.” The second phrase was, “ If you aren’t marketing you don’t get the opportunity.” What did he mean I thought the first time I heard him say that. Opportunity? I found out quickly that opportunity meant staying in business to keep selling and creating revenue.
As small business owners it is time to get back to the basics that make small businesses so great. The new era is about small business and making good decisions. The new era is about taking action and responsibility for ourselves and refusing to fail. Zen philosophy says life is full of 10,000 joys and 10,000 sorrows. Small business owners are resilient, we bounce back realizing that any failure is just an event. The ability to keep focused on your goals, ability to keep building your dreams one step at a time, planning and putting strategy in place before tactics and taking action is a proactive approach to having our business serve our lives.
By being proactive and saying that I will market wisely and take advantage of my resources, we are developing an aggressive proactive approach to having our business serve our lives. Marketing isn’t about spending more than your competition in the marketplace. Marketing for small business can be simple, effective and affordable. There are resources if you are proactive. More importantly, operating a successful business is about doing all the little things properly and building your operation organically, one block at a time. The stronger the foundation, the stronger the structure. The stronger the structure the longer it will stand and weather any storm. Remember it is a new era and it is or time to shine. When times are challenging, it the successful ones that rise above, not by luck, but by taking action and doing the little things right one block at a time.
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