Tag: organization

Unique Up Your Niche

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The Business of Being Unique

unique rabbitThere is an old kid’s joke:

Q:  How do you catch an unique rabbit?

A:  Unique up on him!

Silly, but perhaps it has some value for us.  For small businesses, entrepreneurs, and solopreneurs, there is a big emphasis on finding your niche – the market that is almost exclusively yours.  The principle behind it is that if you try to market to everyone or try to be everything to everyone, you end up being nothing to anyone.  In the highly competitive marketplace today, especially with the explosion of entrepreneurs, it becomes important to target what you do to a specific group of people.  That group becomes your tribe or niche that can be yours and you can dominate that market much more effectively IF you know how to talk to them so that your message resonates with them and presents a sense of urgency.

What I see happen a lot with small businesses is aptly described by Marketing Coach Robert Middleton as trying to run their small business as if it was a big business.  Trying to compete with the marketing and organization.  It can’t be done.  You don’t have their budget or their resources.

The Unique Solution

be unique - stand outSo stop trying to be a big business.  Instead take advantage of what you have as a small business.  Part of what you have is the unique culture of your organization.  Whether you are a solopreneur or have 50 employees, there are things that are unique about you and your organization.  Maybe even a little bit weird.  Instead of trying to hide that, celebrate it.  Emphasize it!  Go out of your way to point it out to your customers and friends.  Integrate it into everything you write and say about your business.  There are distinct advantages to doing this:

  • You stand out from the crowd.  In the competitive marketplace, you can’t afford to fit in or be one grape in the bunch.  You need to be the lone banana.
  • You become more appealing to your niche.  They don’t want cookie-cutter, they want someone with character who will be as devoted to them so they can become devoted to you.  They want special!
  • You will connect better with people, customers and friends alike.  There is a whole generation out there that values authenticity.  The more you and your organization embrace who you really are, the more people will relate to you and trust you.

So how do you catch a unique market?  

Unique up on it! 

Action Plan

  • What is it about you or your company that is unique?  What makes you a little weird?
  • In what ways is that appealing to your target market?  What are some possible dangers?
  • How can you leverage that to connect better with your clients?
  • How can you integrate it into every communication with people inside and outside your company?

Focus or Flurry for the Entrepreneur – Letting Go

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Letting Go – The Entrepreneur’s Dilemma

Having worked for many a small business in my day, and being an entrepreneur myself now, I have had the unique opportunity to see businesses grow and how the entrepreneur grows (or doesn’t grow) with it.  It’s a great example of a leadership lid because the business will grow to a certain point and then will either slow down drastically and stagnate completely.  It is not a factor of the economy or industry changes, but more a matter of the lack of changes internally.  The entrepreneur simply doesn’t grow his leadership enough to be ready for how the organization needs to change to accommodate corporate growth.

Wearing Many Hats is Heavy

letting go - too many hatsYou see, when you first start out you are quite often the only person doing anything or at the very least everything revolves around you.  It was your vision and your initiative that got things off the ground, so naturally you feel that you and you alone are responsible for success or failure of this venture.  And so you are the executive management, the accounting department, the sales manager, the fulfillment department, the development head, and perhaps even the janitor.

And then success happens.  Sales are up!  Customers can’t get enough of you.  You have to add staff, hire or appoint department managers, expand inventory, install processes, get more office space, create new products, adopt more formalized accounting procedures, and more!  You are spending more and more time in the office, being pulled in multiple directions, and things are bottle-necking because they have to wait for you to come up with a solution or put your stamp of approval on one.

THIS is the crisis moment.  It becomes a crisis because you haven’t yet learned to let go.  When the company has grown to the point where things are waiting on you, then it is time to decide what things you want to keep control of and what you want to let go of and trust others to carry the load.  When you can let go of things and trust the people you have hired to pick up the slack, then the pace of the business can continue and you can grow.  If you insist on keeping your finger in every pie, most of the pies will not come out right.  In addition, you will become weary and burned out and then……another small business bites the dust.

The Simple Solution – 80/20

Apply the 80/20 rule here.  Eighty percent of your efforts should be directed towards the 20 percent of things that you and only you can do; such as visioning for the future and preparing your legacy.  Look at what you do now and think about the things you do daily and weekly.  If someone else in the company can do it at least 80 percent as good as you, let it go.  If it does not focus on the primary thrust of your business, let it go and let someone else do it.  This is an important step in your leadership growth, not only because of what it does for you, but also what it does for your business and most importantly for the people in your business.  It allows others to grow and become more engaged and take responsibility for the profitability of your business.

“The best executive is the one who has sense enough to pick good men to do what he wants done, and self-restraint enough to keep from meddling with them while they do it. “
Teddy Roosevelt

Half the Battle

Easy, right?  Not even close!  You will likely resist this vehemently.  After all, how can you let any of this go and let someone else do it!  You created this, YOU had the vision, and how can anyone else know enough to do it the way you want it done!

We will talk about THAT tomorrow.

Action Plan

  • Apply the 80/20 rule.  What are the 20 percent of things that you and only you can truly do?  Be honest with yourself on this.
  • Make a list of what you are going to let go of.  Next to each one, write the name of the person to whom you will release it.

 

Why Aren’t Your Employees Loyal?

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Loyalty Is…..

Loyalty Generations

loyalty - Boy Scout

Technically, I am a Baby Boomer, although I am right near the end of that generation and in some ways identify with Generation X‘ers as well.  So call me a Boomer X.  I mention that because early on, Baby Boomers were taught what the previous generation shared with them in terms of work and loyalty.  You left school, went to work for a company and stayed with them your entire career (at their discretion).  Very rarely did you have any control over what role you filled, whether or how you advanced, how you grew, when you retired, etc.  You were expected to be loyal to the company at all costs.  Very rarely was that loyalty returned.  Some organizations rewarded loyalty by returning loyalty to their people, but most focused on punishing disloyalty and showing very little appreciation for those who were loyal.  One of the reasons I identify with Generation X as well as the Boomers is that Generation X started to reject that.  Generation Y and Millenials even more so.
This topic is also covered in the Ah-Ha! Moment of the Week!

Changing Loyalty Landscape

The landscape of what loyalty means in the business world has changed.  Most people don’t stay with an organization more than about five years before they move on.  You can attribute that to poor work ethic if you wish, or lack of loyalty; but the reality is simply that today’s worker refuses to buy into the one-way street of loyalty.   They expect loyalty to be a two-way street.  If they are loyal to the company they expect some loyalty in return.  Since as a manager or business owner you will almost inevitably have to hire at least some people from Gen Y, you must change your thinking to follow that theme.   Change your focus on what you expect out of loyalty.  You have to be willing to commit resources to help somebody become better at what they do with the knowledge that they most likely will be with you forever and may eventually take what they have learned from you and go somewhere new.  That’s the gamble of investing in people, but the alternative is a bigger gamble with consequences even more significant if you lose (and you will).  So think in terms of how you can maximize your investment over the short term and long term.    If you can get somebody up to speed, maximize what they can produce for you, and maximize their potential over the time period they are with you, then it’s a win-win.

Encouraging Loyalty

So here’s some tips to help you along.
  1. Focus on Relationships — Building relationships with your employees.  Understand their desires, understand their dreams so you can help them move towards that.  Remember the three questions you must answer for them are do you care for me, can you help me, and can I trust you.
  2. Focus on Growth — Invest in your employees with formal training, modeling, mentoring, and providing them with challenges to push them out of their comfort zone.  The more you can help them and move them closer to their potential, the better they are going to produce for you.
  3. Focus on Empowerment — Equip them and authorize them to take the steps they need to take to produce for you.
  4. Focus on Communication — Communicating with them at all times.  ALL TIMES!
  5. Focus on NOW — Forget about forever.  Work on building loyalty for the time they are with you, allowing them to give you the best return while you are giving the best to them.

Here’s the Bonus

goldWhen you invest in your employees and give them time, resources, training, caring, and influence –  show them loyalty – then many of them will be loyal in return.  Not all of them, maybe not even most of them.  But the ones who count.  Remember you are looking for the golden ones anyway; the ones who will yield greatest returns for you.  You are mining for gold.  As Dale Carnegie says,
“Developing your people is a lot like mining for gold.  You have to move a lot of dirt to get to the gold.  But you don’t go looking for the dirt, you go looking for the gold.”

Your Action

  • What will you do today to begin looking for the gold?
  • How can you best invest in your employees for the short and long term?
  • What are you willing to give up to reach that?

Why Survival Mode Won’t Help You Survive

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Focus on Survival

You see it and feel it out there.  It was panic for a few years.  Many organizations, particularly small business, watched the numbers on the economic recovery and bought into the doom and gloom of quasi-authoritative prognosticators.  They decided that “yes, Chicken Little, the sky really IS falling!”panic and survival

Panic.

A 2010 monthly report from the National Federation of Independent Business reported that businesses were panicking.  Severe cutbacks.  Layoffs, even laying off productive people, simply because we have to spend less.  Not spending money on things necessary to thrive.  I am always reminded of that line from the movie Ghost Busters:

“Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together… mass hysteria!”

But never to fear, things are getting better.  According to the latest report, businesses have advanced from panic to simply negativity.  In other words, no longer doom and gloom, just the gloom.  Business owners and managers still don’t feel very good about the economy.  The result is

  • Only a VERY SMALL PERCENTAGE of businesses are adding employees this year.
  • Very few project adding employees
  • Very few think sales will go up
  • Most don’t expect the economy to improve.

Side Note:  that’s not reality based.  According to Economic Expert Sean Snaith of the UCF Institute for Economic Competitiveness, while economic recovery is happening, even though it will be slower than what we have experienced in the past.  And things will be looking up starting as early as the second half of 2013.

Surviving and Not Thriving

How are businesses reacting to all this?  By staying in survival mode.  Focus on nothing but keeping themselves afloat.  Bare bones.

Big Mistake!

There certainly is something to be said for survival.  It’s the first order of business.  If you don’t survive the now, there’s not much to look forward to in the future.

The problem with only being in survival mode, however, is that it practically guarantees you will not make it past the short-term.  As things gradually get better (and they will!), new opportunities for businesses of all kinds will emerge.  Opportunities that will require quick action and quick results.  Opportunities that will require businesses that are agile and equipped to move on those opportunities.

In other words, businesses that are PREPARED!  You must be ready not just with the right equipment and supplies, but with the right people.  You need effective leadership, not just management.  You need effective teams who have been developed to be productive and work together.  If leadership is not prepared to see and exploit opportunities, they will pass you by.  If your teams have not already been developed past the initial phases of team formation and are ready to hit the ground performing, you will not produce results on time and opportunities will be lost.

Do more than survive

Your organizations prosperity more than anything else depends on your PREPARED LEADERSHIP and EFFECTIVE TEAMS.

If you don’t position yourself this way, you have a reason to be gloomy!

What actions are you going to take today to prepare yourself and your organization?  Share in the comments.

Zombie Nation Rises!

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Beware Your Workplace Zombies!

disengaged employees are becoming zombies in the workplace

Are you worried?  Even if you don’t believe in Zombies (and I don’t) you should be worried.  A Forbes Magazine article (http://www.forbes.com/sites/jacobmorgan/2013/06/26/most-american-workers-are-zombies-but-theres-hope/) released this week summarizes a Gallup survey recently conducted that found that 70% of US workers are “disengaged” from their employment. In other words, they have become mindless zombies at work, going through the motions of their jobs.  Now the poll defines engagement as being actively involved with the company goals and vision, feeling passionate about what they do, and working to innovate and improve the company.  I would add working to improve the company bottom line as well.  So by contrast disengaged means that they are simply doing the minimum; showing up, doing what is required and nothing more, not applying any creative thought.  And the extreme is worse; they are UNHAPPY in their job and more than likely exhibiting that in a variety of ways, including a reduction in productivity.  They estimate that this is costing us collectively HUNDREDS OF BILLIONS OF DOLLARS through lost revenue and lost productivity.  The real concern is that the trend seems to be growing instead of shrinking.  And it is not relegated to simply large corporations.

Cure for Zombie Nation

The good news is that there is HOPE!  There is a CURE FOR ZOMBIFICATION!  And it begins with the LEADERSHIP of the organization; whether the executive level of a large corporation or the owner of a small business.  You can re-engage your employees and turn this around.  The secret lies in FIRE.  No, not firing them all and hiring someone else; you are simply getting rid of a known in favor of an unknown; not to mention the expense involved in recruiting and hiring a new employee.  It also doesn’t lie in lighting a fire under them.  Threats and intimidation has proven time and again to be highly ineffective in both the short and long-term in today’s workplace.  In fact, I don’t think it was ever truly an effective tool.  The real solution lies in LIGHTING A FIRE IN THEM!  The employee who finds their own motivation and passion will awake from their zombie slumber, re-engage, seek performance excellence, improve their productivity, and as a result positively impact YOUR BOTTOM LINE. In fact, the Gallup poll strongly suggests that the highly engaged employee leads to the kind of growth you desire for your organization.  But you cannot provide this motivation, it has to come from within the person.  All you can do is provide the environment in which an employee can find that motivation.  Employees find motivation and passion when the feel hope; hope for their future, hope for the future of the organization.  If you can provide that, you will begin curing the zombification process.

Administering the Cure

So how do we get there?  Here’s a some things to consider that have been proven over time in many situations to provide the right environment for employee engagement.

Communication

For too many managers and business owners, the extent of their communication with their staff consists of mumbled good mornings and “how are sales today?”  Employees respond to open communication; this is especially true if you employ GenX and GenY people.  You need to do more than just acknowledge their presence, you need to acknowledge their impact….to them directly and also indirectly by going public with it.  You need to communicate your vision to them.  How can they have hope in their future and the organization’s future if they don’t know where it is you want to go with it?

They also need to know that the door is open for two-way communication.  They need to have confidence in the knowledge that their opinion and input is valued.  They need to know they have room to make mistakes and to take responsibility for those mistakes and learn from them.

Mostly, they need to hear that they matter to you and the organization.  If your attitude is that employees are a dime a dozen, be prepared to set aside those dimes because it will be all you will be able to pay because it is all you will have left.

Connecting

Confidence in open communication occurs when you have made a connection to your employees.  When you take the time to talk with them, learn about them and their situations and their hopes and dreams, then you are able to connect with them and build that confidence in a relationship.  Building that relationship does not necessarily mean going out for beers together, but it does mean recognizing that there is, beyond all the titles and roles, a person there who feels things just as personally as you do.  You are invested personally in what you do which is why YOU are productive; how is that any less for your employees?

Focus on Strengths

This was mentioned in the article but has been a mantra of mine for some time.  In job interviews and performance evaluations, the topic of strengths and weaknesses is brought up and then never addressed again.  In the evaluation, we identify what we think their weakness is and then tell them to work on it.  STOP!  If you make an employee focus on their weaknesses you are creating two negative situations; one is that you have placed focus on their deficiencies instead of on where they make a positive impact and the other is they will ignore bolstering their strengths to focus on improving their weaknesses.  Where are they the most productive for you, in their strengths or in their weaknesses?  And let’s say they do work on their weakness, by how much?  At best, they move from poor to mediocre.  Meanwhile, their strengths are not improving and their productivity is lower and they are unhappy because they are not in their sweet spot.  Find ways to increase their strengths and team them with others (inside or outside) to overcome their weaknesses.

Reward the Behaviors You Desire

Too often, we only focus on employees when something is wrong.  So we emphasize the wrong behaviors because that is the only time anyone pays attention.  It’s the same with your kids; if the only way a child gets attention is when they do something wrong (and they CRAVE attention) what do you think they are going to choose to do?  You can’t ignore bad behaviors, but you can minimize the attention spent on them and spend more time focusing on the positive impacts.  Spend time EVERY DAY catching them doing right.

Immediate Action

This is especially a challenge for small business owners but I have found it is often a challenge for corporate management as well.  The time to act is now.  Go to your calendar and open up some time to casually sit and talk with your employees one-on-one.  Not in your office, but in a breakroom or on a bench somewhere or take them to a coffee house.  Talk about where they feel they are most effective and ask them how you can help them be more effective.  Assure them that they have value.  Do it today, because the longer you wait the less likely you are to do it.  What you don’t want to do is look back and say, “I shoulda…”

Make YOUR day more productive by applying the zombie cure.

 

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