General Business Talk

Why is it that some employees can’t seem to get anything right? You think back and you know you gave clear instructions but for some reason the output does not match your request. Did you ever consider that your instructions are really not that clear? Or maybe that the employee is afraid of you and can’t think straight when they have to complete a project for you? Or worse, they don’t really care about their output and don’t spend the time researching for accurate results. It could be any number of reasons. Let me give you a scenario.

One afternoon Sally told Bob that he would be receiving some invoices in the next day or two. Sally sent an electronic copy of all the invoices for his reference. Now these invoices were all from the same vendor for a particular service that had been provided to the company. Bob was required to process the approved invoices once they arrived and send payment to the vendor as usual. About four or five days later, Bob reached out to let Sally know that he never did receive the approved invoices and furthermore, this vendor could not be paid unless they were added to the company database as a vendor/payee. Sally was furious because this particular vendor had been doing business with the company for 4 years and had received payment just 4 months prior to this occasion. She explained this to Bob but he insisted on getting the required information to add the vendor to the database. In the end, after numerous emails and follow-ups from Sally, Bob had to apologize to for two reasons, the vendor was indeed already in the company database and the invoices had been received and paid. If only Bob had spent some time researching.

Here are some things you could do to help your employees get things done right the first time.

Provide detailed instructions for complex tasks. If there is no room for creativity on a task then you need to ensure that your employees know exactly what you want them to do. For example, let them know what parameters you want them to use when running a report and how you want to see the results; table, graph, chart all the above.

Avoid the fear factor. Because I said so is not a sufficient way to get through to adults. As a manager you need to be focused on how to manage adults. It is not the same as handling children although, you must admit, sometimes it feels that way. Keep in mind that you want your employees to respect you rather than fear you. Respect draws out positive attitudes and results from your employees. If they respect you, they are more likely to do things right in order to gain your approval. They will care about their output and will ensure that they give it their best effort.

Train your employees to research. It’s important to give your employees ample time to complete a task whenever possible. Even with a time crunch you should encourage your employees to verify any information they compile and provide to you or anyone else within the company. They need to use the documentation you have in-house or use the Internet. Teach them to realize the importance of accuracy; nobody wants to be caught with their foot-in-the-mouth. In Bob’s case above, all he had to do was research what Sally said concerning the previous payments to the vendor.

Understand that you are not always right. This is true and we know it. In so many situations employees’ thoughts, suggestions and ideas are undermined as unimportant or incorrect while you as their manager expect them to take direction without question. Service and Sales representatives have been taught that ‘customers are always right’ and that there is a proper way to agree with the customers and then go on to correct or clear up any misconceptions they may have. In reality you are the customer is some situations and in others, your employees are the customers. Respect each others knowledge base and learn from each other.

There are no stupid questions. Finally, if you want something done right you have to be able to allow your employees to ask anything they need to ask to ensure that this is case. Be patient even when the question seems silly to you – you know, those questions that make you want to say…”Are you kidding me?” Patiently reiterate what you need done and then let the employee handle it from there. It is better to take a deep breathe and go through this step than to have the employee do the task over. Get it done right the first time!

The first feature of a high-quality green directory is an abundance of content and information. It is important to provide the name, number and website of a business, organization, or event on a directory. However, a good directory will have additional information about the business, organization or event. This information includes the address, why they are included in the green directory, and a map to view the location.

The second feature of a high-quality green directory is the simplicity of finding the business, organization, or event that you are looking for. Some directories make it very difficult to find the correct information. A high-quality green directory will have a number of different search options like a quick search, map search, and advanced search. If you can’t find what you are looking for with one search, you will find it with another search.

The third feature of a high-quality green directory is a good support staff. There are many directories that don’t answer questions or help out with problems. If they ever get back often times it is weeks later and the subject has already moved on. A good support staff will respond within a day or two and businesses, organizations and events will be added into the directory when requested.

The final feature of a high-quality green directory is achieving an abundance of traffic. If there are no visitors to the directory what is the benefit of having all that content and information? The high-quality green directories will have high search engine rankings on Google, Yahoo, and MSN.

As a Business Coach, I talk to a lot of business owners in my day. Business owners are people who started out with a dream, an idea for what they’d like their business to become. But relatively few of them “feel” successful, regardless of how their business is performing.

I’ve found there are two major reasons that people feel unsuccessful:

1. Not having worked out measures to determine when you’ve attained success.

If you haven’t sat down and really planned where you’re going, in life and in business, it’s hard to know when you’ve “got there”. Many people have vague ideas of what “successful” is to them – ‘being rich’, ‘having time to do what I want’, or ‘being the best in my field’, for example.

You need to define what those things mean to you – are you rich when you have a million dollars in the bank? When you have an income of $200,000 a year? $100,000? Break your goal down into small, achievable steps, and celebrate them when you attain them.

It’s no fun feeling like you’re not “successful” every year that you don’t make $200,000, but what if your goal was instead to increase your income by $25,000 every year until you got there?

2. What’s going on outside you and what’s going on inside you don’t match.

You might have made your million, and achieved what you defined as success. But something’s wrong: you still feel unsuccessful. Maybe, in making your million, you neglected some other area of your life that was important to you. Maybe what you wanted all along was more time with your family, not a million in the bank. Maybe your definition of success includes both, and you need to work on that.

The important thing when setting your business and life goals is to be true to what you really want, regardless of what you think someone else might call success, what you “should” do, or even, sometimes, realising that your goals may have changed.

What you wanted five years ago might not be what you want now, and that’s okay. Be ready to change your goals when they’re not working for you any more.

Bottom line…

If you know what you want, how you’re going to get there, and celebrate your wins along the way, you’re much more likely to know when you’ve “got there”, and you’ll get there faster as well.

I recently watched a movie titled ” Fireproof your marriage”, after viewing the movie, I remember feeling how this could easily apply to your business. I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about the similarities that exist and some apply and some don’t. I think what the movie did was to stimulate my thought process and make me examine my business from a whole new prospective.

You hear about all the business’s crumbling and closing down and your first thought is how terrible it is. When you take time to consider the facts, you realize that no business crumbles in a day. It’s more of a slow fade that takes place over an extended period of time. Now I’m speaking in general, there are always exceptions to every rule. For instance if a military base closed in your town, or a major business, it could cause a number of business’s to close. For the rest of the businesses, there are more concrete reasons to be examined.

As business owners, we are exposed to a number of privileges, with privileges comes accountability. It is easy to get carried away with taking liberties and privileges when your business is booming. Unfortunately, we tend to overlook the parasites that lodge themselves into the heart of our business while we’re playing and living the good life. These parasites are greed, obsession and power. Sometimes it’s never enough, we make a hundred thousand dollars and think, ” I could make two hundred thousand”, and our focus is constantly on more. It’s natural to want to grow your business; you just don’t want to grow it at the expense of your staff and life. As business owners, we obsess over our competition; we’re always checking on them, trying to one up them. Lastly, power, we’ve all spent time reading our own press and believing it. It’s not intentional; it happens over a period of time, it tends to erode our thought process. We forget about our team, our staff, we feel as if it’s all about us. This is a very dangerous path to forge; it’s the path to the slow fade.

I think the key to every business is the heart, without heart and soul; a business is nothing but a shell. You as the owner represent the heart of your business, as you go, so goes the business. You have the ability to guide your business in any direction you choose. It’s not easy holding yourself accountable to a higher standard than everyone else. Leading is hard work and requires discipline and dedication. All eyes are on you; being off your game is not an option. Every day presents a new opportunity to shine and grow your business. You provide the foundation that your business is built on.

There are two paths we can choose from, one is wisdom and the other is consequence. Wisdom is a huge front-end investment in time, obedience and consistency, while consequence has a huge back end, consisting of pain, lack of discipline and regret. Devoting the time to properly train your staff, where you work together as a team, sharing a common goal. Where your staff works with you and not for you, contributing to the shared goal of being the best. Many people run the race, only one wins. It takes discipline and integrity to compete and win. Anyone can win the race once, maintaining a winning level is an attitude in discipline. Holding onto the title is a feat not often achieved by most. It takes strong leadership, and a strong will. How does your team stack up in the race? Do you have the staff in place capable of maintaining a standard of excellence? It all starts with you, and your commitment to excellence.