Tips and techniques for achieving success in business.

Effective Employee Communications is a Leading Indicator of a Company’s Financial Performance

Companies with highly effective employee communications show an average of 47 percent higher total returns to shareholders than companies with the least effective communications.

It’s easy to see how communicating effectively to employees translates to better earnings. After all, employees are the backbone ― as well as a major expense ― of most companies. Effective communications can help:

• Reduce employee turnover and keep them engaged on the job

• Improve manager-employee trust

• Ensure a smooth transition/change

• Reduce your health care costs

Using Your Brain

Have you ever heard that we only use about 10 percent of our brain? If that is the case what in the world is going on with the other 90 percent? Well, here are some answers to that question. The 10 percent of your brain that this is referring to is actually your conscious brain. This is the part that we use while we’re awake and allows us to think and communicate. About 45 percent of our brain is the un-conscious part. This is used for functions that we don’t think much about like breathing, blinking (or in some cases, when my wife drives her car . . . just kidding hon!).

Half Full of Half Empty?

The downturn in the economy has been dragging on for quite some time now. We keep reading and watching the news reporting that things are starting to turn, all very slowly they add. Many large businesses have announced improved earnings. Although many of them have cut costs instead of increasing sales in order to report improved earnings. Washington keeps saying things are improving. It’s not easy to tell if these statements are strictly political posturing or facts. But most of the people I talk to who are running smaller businesses have not seen an improvement.

Why People Buy

“People buy based on emotion and rationalize their decisions based on facts.” This is a common quote you will hear from most sales trainers, or you will read it in most sales improvement books. It’s true. If you don’t embrace this philosophy in your business and sales process you will not reach your potential in sales and profit.

How to Fail at Business

Most of the “how to” articles you read, including the ones I write here, tend to advise you on what to do in order to improve and be successful. There are many books that do the same, like . . . The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing, and 40 Strategies for Winning in Business. How about all the top 10, eight ways, seven things, five reasons, four ideas, two rules and the one most important system to…. (fill in the blank).

Who's On Your Bus?

Most business leaders feel that the vision and mission of the company is all important. They determine “what” they need to accomplish and then determine “who” should be part of their team to help them get there. Jim Collins, in his book Good to Great, observed that great companies identified the “who” first and secondarily figured out “what” they needed to accomplish. The problem with starting with the “what” is that when things change, as they are inevitably going to do, you realize you have the wrong people on your bus.

When Customers Complain

Have you ever experienced bad service and complained about it only to realize your complaints are falling on deaf ears? Some businesses feel they have enough demand for their products or services that they can ignore complainers. I will warn you this is a dangerous game to play. When a customer complains about something in your business, you really need to pay close attention to what they are saying. Remember, there could be 10 other customers who may have experienced similar dissatisfaction but for whatever reason don’t say anything to you.

Fail to Succeed

How many of us started out in life hearing the words from peers, parents and professionals that failure is bad? Schools around the world predominantly are run on pass/fail systems. Is not failure a judgment placed on us by others? If so, then what judgment they pass on us is, in truth, none of our business! It all comes down to how we interpret the result.

My Webster’s Dictionary defines failure as “unsuccessful in the obtaining of” — SAYS WHO??

The Absence of Trust

I recently recommended a book to a colleague of mine titled The Five Dysfunctions of a Team by Patrick Lencioni. It seemed the organization he was part of was struggling working together as a cohesive team. There was a lot of back-stabbing, poor communication and a lot of conflict that was nasty rather than constructive. If you haven’t read this book, I would highly recommend it.

Managing Salespeople

Many owners of small businesses get to a point when they want to hire salespeople. They do this for a couple of reasons. They don’t like to sell. Or they’re not good at selling. Or other parts of the business are demanding their attention and they don’t have the time to put into selling. Whatever the reasons, they feel they need to get someone to get out there a sell for them. But what I have seen far too often is that many owners have had bad experiences with managing and keeping good sales people.

Do You See What I See?

In a previous post, you may recall, I wrote about the four mental laws and how they impact the results we get in our business and personal lives. The common thread among all the laws was that the results we get are tied to our thoughts and beliefs. If we think in a certain way our actions will follow those thought patterns and the results will turn out accordingly. Consider this.

The Four Mental Laws

I was listening to a CD produced by Brian Tracey regarding changing yourself in order to change your results. These results could be business results or results in your personal life. He talked about the importance of 4 mental laws and how they shape who we are and what we achieve in business and in our life. I’d like to share these laws with you and see if you can understand why you are getting the things in your life you are getting. Whether those are good things or bad things. These laws have been around for quite some time and seem to apply at all times, w

What's Your Plan?

You may have heard this quote before . . . “A failure to plan is a plan for failure.” I’m not sure who said it but in my experience I believe it is a very true statement.

Is Your Business Working?

I meet many business owners every day that are working a tremendous amount of hours per week. When I ask them “is this what you expected when you started your business?” . . . most say they thought in the beginning they would have to work hard but as time went on they had hoped to work a lot less. They had dreams of spending more time in other interests or with their family. But here they are, years late, still working incredibly hard. Why is that? I would contend the reason they are working so hard is because their business isn’t working.

D.I.S.C.: What Is It and How Can It Help?

There have been many times in my consulting practice when I have used the DISC analysis to help people understand human behavior. Why would this be important in business? Well, if you have customers or employees (and most businesses have both) I’m sure you can see how understanding their behavior traits might help you deal with them in a better way. It could help you communicate with your employees and get them to “want’ to do the things you want them to do. It certainly could help you build rapport with prospects, which is essential in the selling process.

Leadership— How Well Do You Influence Others?

Your ability to influence other people determines how successful you are as a leader. As a leader you need to change people’s beliefs, thoughts and actions in order to have them follow you. This is true certainly in business but also in life in general. Parents try to influence their kids, kids try to influence their parents, bosses try to influence employees, sales people try to influence prospects and on it goes. So how are your skills at influencing others? And how can you improve your ability to influence others and become a great leader?

Customer Service That PAYS

Customer service is a cliché if there ever was one. And it must be one of the most misunderstood concepts in business today. The name of the game is making customer service PAY. I am always amazed at how most businesses go about tackling the question of customer service. What most businesses do is spend lots of money and lots of time in an attempt to impress their customers. What they fail to do is to find out if this will make them any more money or not. You see, great customer service without bottom line results is a waste of time and money.

Identity Iceberg

I think we all can agree that in order to get better results in our business we need to make changes. Most people would define that as making changes in your behavior or in the actions you take. However, there are elements that you need to change much deeper than simply behaviors and actions in order to make the necessary changes in your business and life.

Dreams and Goals

Dreams are different from goals. Both are essential in running a successful business.

The Fly on the Window

You may have heard this story or my guess is you have witnessed this first hand. There you are in your home or at work in a conference room on a warm summer day and you hear a nagging buzz sound near the window. As you approach the window you witness a fly futilely attempting to break through the glass to get outside. The fly just keeps on bagging and bagging against the window. It starts to work harder and harder to achieve the objective. And yet there is no hope. It is impossible for the fly to break through. Just yards away there is an open door where