You have to be more than just another resume in a stack of resumes.

But it’s difficult to find a way to stand out from the rest.

In this Fox Business segment, I talk about how The Career Accelerator Program can show you how to differentiate yourself from the crowd and get the job you want.

What You Can Do To Get The Job You Want

Here are some tips outlined in the FOX segment to help you get the job you want.

Stop Looking  Online

The more you look online, the more you’re competing with everyone else.

Instead, identify your skills and tun those skills into problem solving solutions for employers.

Therefore, you can specifically go after certain jobs with certain skills and not compete with the masses.

Today, if you don’t differentiate, all you are is a resume in a stack of resumes that is most likely being screened by an automated process.

And you may never even get to the hiring manager.

Do I Need A Lot Of Experience?

The Career Accelerator Program lays out a proven process and step-by-step instructions when applying for a job.

We let you in on how hiring managers think so you can tailor your approach. It’s like having the answers to a test.

This program helps you get a job regardless of the economy.

Don’t Apply To Too Many Places

Before applying for any position do some research to determine a company’s problems and how you can help solve them.

Then, only apply for jobs with companies who have those particular sets of problems and challenges that you can solve.

Narrow you search.

This is not a game of numbers where you send your resume out to everyone.

Focus on the hiring managers that really need your help.

Then, build a custom marketing campaign that helps them solve their problems.

The key is to do this without even asking for the job.

How Many Jobs Should You Apply To?

You should apply to about a dozen jobs.

Make sure they are well targeted because you have to keep the campaigns going.

This is a far different approach to just sending out dozens of cover letters or resumes.

The Career Accelerator Program shows you how to set up a 12 step marketing plan.

These steps allow you to stay in contact with the hiring manager over a period of time in order to develop a

relationship that culminates in you being ask to come in for an interview.

The whole process takes time and effort.

That is why it is recommended that you apply for about a dozen jobs so you can keep the campaigns going.

Don’t Send Your Resume. Seriously.

Most resumes look like everyone else’s.

It’s a static two dimensional document.

Instead, send something called a “One Sheet”.

A One Sheet is a dynamic representation of what you bring to the table.

It outlines the problems the employer faces and how you’ve solved them in the past.

It also includes measurable results, references and testimonials from past employers as well as relevant career history and contact information.

Include graphics and print it out on nice, glossy paper.

By creating a dynamic and engaging document, it will stand out in a stack of resumes.

Bottom Line

Nowadays its important to rise above the competition and show how you are different.

With unemployment rates high and so many people applying to every position, differentiating yourself has never been more important.

The Career Accelerator Program will help you stand out and get the job you want.

image of keyboard

Related posts:

1. How To Get The Job You Want Within Two Months

Or are you looking to switch careers but don’t know how to get started?

I designed the Career Accelerator Program to help you find the job you want as fast as possible.

With the Career Accelerator Program, you’ll gain access to videos I created that show you how to get the job you want or the job you really need.

The information is free so get started immediately!

Click to watch the video and see what the Career Accelerator Program can do for you.

Related posts:

1. Career Accelerator Program On Fox Business

One of the most important aspects of being a superior leader is hiring people smarter than you.

The difference between good performance and great performance is not just having smart people, but also having the right people in the right positions.

That’s why top leaders spend more time putting the right team in place to accomplish their objectives than they spend on planning, strategizing, or many other components of their job.

Often ineffective leaders have a fear of not knowing the answer to every question.

They personally want to bring all relevant facts to the table every time. That’s not only impossible but also counterproductive.

Superior leaders hire people who can provide the answers that are pertinent to their particular area of expertise.

True leaders also know how to listen to advice and move out of the way to let others do what they do best.

Superior Leaders Hire Those Who Are Smarter Than Them

It is important to hire people who know more about their area of expertise than you do.

When you surround yourself with experts, you create a body of knowledge that’s far superior to that of one expert surrounded by worker bees.

This body of knowledge will increase the velocity of your progress and propel you more quickly toward your goal than you ever thought possible.

Did I Hire Smart?

When I meet with company leaders, I ask for a show of hands from those who hire people smarter than themselves. Many hands go up. Then I ask how they know, and lots of hands drop.

So how do you determine if you have hired the right people?

• First, ask yourself how often the people around you recommend sound ideas that you never knew were possibilities. Does this happen once a week? Once a month? Does it ever happen?

If you’re hiring people who are smarter than you, you should be surprised with their new ideas and solutions. You should be constantly learning from them.

• Second, in the privacy of your office, study each person in your organization who reports to you, and ask yourself, if there were no ramifications associated with the answer, would I pick this person again to be on my team and in the same position?

Caution! If you worry about what you would do if the answer is no, you will not answer the question honestly.

If you can answer often to the first question and yes, without hesitation, to the second, then you have the right person in the right job.

When you hire first-class professionals, your job will get easier and your objectives will be achieved faster, better, and more profitably.

Here’s a Secret

One of the toughest jobs for a leader is hiring someone you don’t know.

The last thing you want is to hire wrong and then have to deal with the aftermath.

Here is a secret I use to increase the probability of making the right hiring decision: During the latter stages of the interviewing process, after my colleagues and I have met with the prospective hire several times, I ask the candidate to write a one-page action plan describing what he or she will get done the first sixty days on the job.

The next time we meet, I ask the person to present the plan.

This not only allows me to evaluate the candidate’s style, approach, and critical thinking skills, but it also gives me a ready-made performance plan by which to evaluate the person in the months to come.

If I’m hiring to fill a senior position, I ask for a three-month action plan.

Bottom Line

A true, superior leader has the ability to continually meet or exceed a company’s operating and profitability objectives.

This is the single most important job a leader has, because the ability to achieve and accelerate results and profitability often means the difference between calamity and cash flow.

But a leader cannot do this all by themselves, they need a team of smart and competent employees to help.

You may not know all the answers to every question so hire people who know what you don’t.

image of puzzle piece: bp.blogspot.com
image of business plan: writemoneyinc

Related posts:

1. Trust Leadership: Engage Employees and Skyrocket Performance
2. The Do’s & Don’ts of Leadership For Higher Profitability
3. Leadership Self Assessment – Are You the Leader You Think You Are?

But as expected, at one time or another every company gets off track.

When this happens to successful companies, however, they recognize the problems and get back on track quickly.

Watch for these basic trouble signs when you’re working to achieve and sustain operational excellence:

• Hazy understanding of your cost structure, including what drives expense in the business and who the owners are for each cost component on the P&L
• No effective RCA/ICA process in place
• No plan for automation to increase productivity and reduce costs by eliminating human error
• Expenses and overhead that are out of control
• Budget owners who can’t factually explain deviation from plan and who don’t proactively take action to realize the plan

What are the solutions for these operational trouble points that will help you accelerate profitability to new levels?

 Scrutinize Every Dollar Spent

First and foremost, hold finance accountable for providing information to show how all business costs are allocated, including direct costs and variable costs by product, by line of business, even by customer and location, if appropriate.

The formulas used to create these models need to be understood by all so that, when these costs hit the P&L, you don’t spend time arguing about the numbers.

A full understanding of your cost structure also requires knowledge of how costs vary relative to changes in revenue.

Costs in various areas of your business may or may not grow in proportion to revenue, so you have to look for economies of scale along the way.

Talk to cost-center owners.

Determine how much work can be absorbed without increasing the cost structure, and start from there to increase efficiency.

Before increasing personnel, for instance, ask cost-center owners to automate certain functions and to stop doing less important work.

If you’re not comfortable with the answers you’re getting, consider implementing a time-reporting system to determine where people are spending their efforts.

During budget reviews, scrutinize all costs.

Any requests for increases should go through a strict justification process to demonstrate how the cost increase will directly benefit the top or bottom line, improve customer service, or increase your competitive advantage. If they can’t be justified, don’t approve them.

Listen and Learn from Every Complaint

Take an RCA approach to every customer complaint or service problem.

When you eliminate the root cause, you also eliminate costs associated with these problems, and profitability goes up.

Study Your Competition

Especially when pricing becomes an issue, it’s imperative to understand your competition.

You either have to be a lower-cost producer or provide significant differentiation so that your customer is willing to pay a premium for your product or service.

Ultimately, though, the biggest winner is the company with the lowest cost structure.

If your cost structure is higher than your competitors’, devote resources to figuring out why.

You want to obtain all of the competitive information you can in every legal way possible.

After all, the company with the most intelligence and the ability to translate and execute on that intelligence will win more business and enjoy higher profits.

There’s a reason they call it competition!

To gather competitive intelligence, leaders will want to assume some of the following actions themselves and delegate some to others in the company, including managers and people in sales, marketing, and customer service:

• Ask questions of your customers to see if they will give you information about your competitors’ products, services, pricing, and support

Depending on your relationships, many times they’ll accommodate your request. The more dissatisfied a customer is with your competitor, the more willing they’ll be to share this information with you.

• Attend your competitors’ seminars, product announcements, or programs. If they screen you out at the door, so be it. A lot of times they won’t, and you’ll be getting great information.

• Become a competitor’s customer in a limited way to test products, services, and pricing firsthand

• Call and ask questions of their sales and technical staffs. Technical people in particular love to talk about their company’s products and services.

• Read about them. Find every piece of public information that’s written in newspapers, magazines, on the Internet, and on their Web sites.

• Hire some of their best people, particularly those without a noncompete or where the noncompete has expired to ensure that the employee is not bound by certain restrictions to the other organization

But be careful. You want to avoid lawsuits and keep your competitors from raiding your team in retribution.

• Visit their booths at trade shows and collect as much information as possible

• Talk to your competitors’ customers’ procurement staff, and ask what they like best and least about their current products and services

Your competitors’ suppliers may also be a good source of information

The flip side of this, of course, is that your competition may be doing all of this to you.

Educate your people about how to screen out competitors’ attempts and keep proprietary information confidential.

Bottom Line

Every company is built on processes—people following certain procedures to get results.

Remember, don’t get caught up in process paralysis.

The goal is to consistently achieve results that count.

image of railroad tracks: 52weekprogram.com 
image of medals: macmillion dictionaries

Related posts:

1. Operational Excellence: Know Your Cost Structure
2. Is Your Competitive Advantage Sustainable?
3. Small Business Sales: Ever Wonder What Top Sales People Do Differently?

They spell out the steps every organization must take to achieve the business plan.

This is where you begin to bridge the gap between planning and results.

An operating plan must be measurable and highlight key milestones to achieve throughout the year.

Your operating plan is a road map that tells you how you execute your business plan.

It’s an instrument that shows if you are staying on course.

Leaders responsible for delivering results must develop operating plans.

They can’t and won’t buy into these plans if others developed them.

Leaders have to lay out the specific programs, timelines, measurements, and resources required to achieve their objectives, which, in turn, are aligned with the company’s overall objectives.

Most leaders know what they want. The challenge is getting the company to execute with speed and efficiency to consistently deliver the desired results.

The key is to bridge the gap between planning and results by executing effectively.

First You Need a Budget

Once the operating plan is developed, it needs a budget.

Combining the budget with an actionable operating plan is an iterative process that enables you to prioritize projects, say no to less important initiatives, link resources, and quantify specific deliverables by individual employees.

This is powerful stuff. It’s the direct connection between objectives and results, with touch points throughout your business.

When the business plan, the operating plan, and the budget come together, you know precisely what you want to accomplish, how you’re going to do it, who is responsible, what it’s going to cost, and how you’re going to meet your financial and operating objectives.

When combined with an effective measurement and reward system, this becomes the most powerful way to establish accountability across your entire company and achieve results.

Once you bring your plan to this point, it can be translated quickly down the line into specific objectives for every individual.

Ultimately you should have a direct line of sight from individual objectives through the operational plan to the business plan and the company’s financial performance.

Everyone is Involved

Every person in your company should know exactly how his or her individual objectives tie directly to the success of the business.

The concept that everyone is part of a larger process becomes part of your holistic culture.

With this mind-set, employees can know how they impact sales, costs, quality, production, customer loyalty, and, ultimately, profitability.

Once you have accomplished this, you will be in a position to ask employees two questions:

• What are the company’s top business goals?
• What are you doing today to accomplish them?

Plan Ahead

Have all the pieces in place on January 1 or by the beginning of your company’s fiscal year.

Too many companies lock their plans down sometime during the first quarter.

Never allow this to happen to you.

Be ready on January 1 or the first day of your fiscal year.

The best-led companies start the planning process in the third quarter to build the framework for the next year.

When they come out of the gate, they have 365 days to achieve their plan.

But you’re not finished planning on December 31, because on January 31 it’s time to reevaluate.

Continuous reevaluation is part of the process.

Don’t make it difficult.

Planning reviews should be part of your company’s culture and should mainly focus on deviations from the plan.

Make certain you hold your finance team responsible for creating the planning schedule and ensuring that deadlines are met.

If you’re ahead of the plan, analyze why.

Revisit your planning assumptions.

• Did the landscape change?
• What assumptions changed, and will the trend continue?

It’s important to know the answers to these questions because too much growth can overstretch your company and negatively impact other parts of the business.

View negative deviations the same way.

• What is the deviation?
• Are the assumptions still valid?
• What specific actions will be taken immediately so the company can return to plan and maintain profitability?

With any negative deviation, regardless of size, it’s important to get back on track as quickly as possible.

Don’t wait to take corrective action, or you may never recover lost ground.

Planning reviews can be as frequent as once a month. They won’t become tedious as long as they focus on deviation and the specific action that will be taken to remain on or ahead of plan.

This is not the type of meeting in which the person with the best story or the one who best explains the deviation wins.

Focus exclusively on the source of all deviations and what you will do to get back on plan.

There is no place here for rationalization or victim mentality.

When you surround yourself with experts, you will get answers and actions, not excuses.

Your culture should create a supportive environment to help everyone stay on track by offering resources across the organization. This is only possible if company leaders understand that success is declared when the entire company reaches its goals.

Bottom Line:

In the end, it’s all about making choices and executing to plan.

It’s important to make the right choices when you launch a strategy.

Even if you execute well, if you’ve chosen the wrong things to do, ultimately you can’t be profitable.

With every business, there’s always more to accomplish than there are resources and time. So you have to stay focused on the significant few—the most important goals.

image of map: stock.xchng 
image of calendar: wror.com

Related posts:

1. Customer Management Strategies for Small Business

Without accurate cost information it’s impossible to set optimal prices, forecast performance, isolate areas that negatively impact cash flow, determine what to stop doing, identify what to automate, and decide how best to manage costs.

It’s also critical to undertand cost drivers in order to grow a profitable business while investing in areas that improve profitability and de-investing in ones that don’t.

Operational Excellence

Operational excellence is how margins are maintained. It is about efficiency, effectiveness, and doing the right things right the first time.

While sales are essential to profitability because they fuel business growth, when sales fall short of the top of the line, or there is pricing pressure, most companies must cut costs to maintain margins and stay afloat.

Unfortunately that often means eliminating people. It’s best to keep a constant eye on costs instead of slashing payroll as a last-ditch effort to make ends meet.

Know Your Cost Structure

The first step toward operational excellence is to thoroughly understand your company’s cost structure.
This provides the foundation for sound business decisions across the entire company.

Without accurate cost information, it’s impossible to set proper prices, forecast performance, isolate areas that negatively impact cash flow, or determine what to stop doing, what to automate, how to allocate funds, or how best to manage budgets.

It’s also critical to understand cost drivers in order to grow a profitable business while investing in areas to improve profitability and results while de-investing ones that don’t.

How To Apply This Knowledge

All too often leaders become slaves to their financial accounting systems and wait too long before taking action.

If you don’t completely understand your cost structure, you’re at a competitive disadvantage.

Take whatever steps necessary to get the information you need. There is no excuse for not knowing.

It’s amazing how many companies struggle to accurately determine their true cost of doing business (the cost of labor, fixed and variable costs, direct and indirect expenses, overhead, costs by market segment, customer, geography, or product).

Clear cost accounting allows a company to focus its energies on winning in the marketplace and achieving its objectives instead of debating the numbers internally.

Management’s primary objective in operational excellence is to fully understand all costs of doing business and maintain the proper balance of cost in relation to revenue.

That’s the best way to ensure that you maintain margins.

If you are in a commodity-based business, you must be a low-cost producer. If you sell differentiation, your prices must support a higher cost structure.

It’s that simple!

The goal is not across-the-board cost minimization, but rather optimization in support of achieving your business objectives.

For public entities such as schools and local governments, the objectives are to accurately understand all the costs of running the organization and to ensure budgets are properly allocated and funds are used efficiently to achieve the organization’s top objectives.

Operational excellence is a vital element since these organizations operate primarily on fixed budgets, with little opportunity to increase funding.

However, if you don’t understand and track your costs in sufficient detail, it’s impossible to know where to make the necessary adjustments to improve profitability.

This is not the place to guessing,the risk is too great.

Devote resources to determining not only your own but your competitor’s cost structure.

Adjusting Your Cost Structure

When you grow your company, you grow your cost structure. You want to make sure you’re growing it in the right proportion to revenue by adding cost only in areas where revenue is increasing and where margins and profitability can be maintained or improved.

Strategic investments are viewed differently from other types of costs.

These investments must be made using strict justification and approval guidelines.

Every department should use the same approach to enable effective comparison and selection of the appropriate investment alternatives.

These standards include use of approved financial justification methods such as NPV, ROI, EVA (economic value added), and payback, approved hurdle rates, proper depreciation schedules, and approved investment categories.

Tight-spending authorities are required to maintain control over the total cost of investments and minimize contingent expenditures.

In addition, post-investment audits at the conclusion of a project are essential to help managers make better future investment decisions. In all cases, managers should be held accountable for investment outcomes.

The cost candidates that should be considered for growth include production and delivery costs, sales, customer service, and product support.

The latter two cost categories should only grow in support of the company’s service strategy.

These costs are all directly attributable to revenue increases.

Realize that to increase profitability you either have to:

• Increase prices
• Only allow these costs to grow in decreasing proportion to revenue
• Manage costs tightly. They shouldn’t grow unless some predetermined efficiency standards are met
• Includes all overhead cost areas
• Human resources
• Accounting
• Administrative
• Support costs.

If not closely managed, these costs mysteriously grow by one person or investment at a time until they represent a significant and unnecessary burden on the business.

In lieu of increasing these costs, look for alternatives:

• Outsourcing functions such as recruiting, training development, payroll, and copy reproduction
• Deploy technology such as PDAs to allow employees to manage their own schedules
•  E-mail and follow up on calls without administrative support
• Automate expense reporting, document approval processes, and benefits administration
• Reduce rework and redundancies such as billing errors and warranty claims

Often, companies increase overhead because, for example, line organizations are not getting effective centralized corporate support, and therefore the company adds their own local support resources. You must not allow this to happen.

One way to minimize incremental overhead costs is to develop an approval process where every requested increase receives senior management’s attention.

It’s not okay to allow these costs to grow just because the company is meeting its profitability objectives.

This may sound burdensome. However, it’s far better to take the time to think through these decisions when times are good than be forced to take draconian actions when tough times arrive.

Always run lean, particularly when your company is doing well. That’s the perfect time to increase cash reserves and invest in the future. Get into the habit. The dividends are great.

Bottom Line:

Managing costs is a balancing act.
To carefully maintain margins and help avoid reactive cost cutting, all costs must be explicitly tied to the business plan.

This enables you to modify costs in a disciplined and well-planned manner as the company accelerates or decelerates.

image of structure: stock.xchng 
image of scale:outwardinsights.files.wordpress.com/
image of person carrying files:2.bp.blogspot.com/

Related posts:

1. Operational Excellence Through Competitive Analysis

Many business leaders believe that once they have a good strategy in place their work is done. But it’s far from over.

If you think you have a good strategy in place, test it. Ask yourself many tough questions.

Begin by asking if you can achieve your profitability objectives. In other words, did you pick the right goals on which to concentrate your resources?

To determine this, you have to assess your competitive advantage.

Are you truly better than your competition?

Have you sufficiently differentiated your product or service to charge a premium? How do you know?

All products and services can be imitated.

Just because you have a great idea doesn’t mean it’s sustainable.

Whenever there is profit or a positive NPV in a market, any market, competition will enter.

This is a universal truth, so get ready for it:

Someone is going to come in and try to take some of what you’ve got.

Being Different is Key

So, if your products and services are easy to duplicate, get busy developing distinctive processes that enable you to differentiate in a unique way.

If your company is strong at developing relationships with customers and channel partners, that’s hard to duplicate.

If you can execute better and bring new products and services to market more quickly and less expensively, or your quality is substantially better than your competitors’, that’s hard to copy.  If you have tools and processes that allow you to solve problems quicker and less expensively, that’s a powerful advantage.

Another great way to build barriers to stop competitors is through patents. Determine what will give you a sustainable advantage, and then do it.

This is often referred to as an unfair competitive advantage.

Study the Competition

You can gain another key advantage by learning everything you can about your competition.

Know their leadership.

Who are they?

Where did they come from?

How do they think?

Studying them can also yield great information about your competition:

• What have they done in the past and how well?
• Are they fully funded?
• What’s their strategy?
• How do they differentiate themselves?
• What do they depend on to make their strategy sustainable?
• How do they respond to competition?

It’s a competitive war, and you need to win.

Know your competition so you can beat them.

Competitive intelligence is a process, not a one-time event.

Do not allow your competition to surprise you.

Remember, once you implement your strategy, it’s hard to change.

You don’t want to set it in motion and then learn that your competition has a better strategy.

Here are a few examples of unsustainable strategies:

• Low-cost airlines, such as Southwest Airlines and JetBlue versus full-service carriers
• Japanese automakers versus the Big Three
• Digital media versus film – Goodbye Kodak!
• Online music stores versus bricks-and-mortar stores
• Netflix versus Blockbuster
• Borders versus Amazon
• Best Buy versus Circuit City – Former Good To Great company
• RIM versus Apple
• Kmart versus WalMart

Bottom Line

At the beginning of the day, it’s all about possibilities. At the end of the day, it’s all about results.

The true measure of a business’s success is its ability to understand this mantra, and as a consequence, continuously meet or exceed its profitability objectives.

The biggest challenges in business are neither planning nor strategy but the ability to execute and stay focused on achieving your plan.

all images: stock.xchng

Related posts:

1. Operational Excellence Through Competitive Analysis

When business is booming it’s easy to get comfortable and rest on our laurels with the status quo.

After all, why not?  The status quo is (or was) working wonders.

But if we’re not careful, complacency sneaks in, and before we know it we’re knee deep in crippling habits that wreak havoc from within.

We all have excuses for not changing and you’d better believe companies are full of them! Do any of the following phrases sound familiar?

“We’ve tried that before and it didn’t work.”
“I didn’t make my numbers because . . .”
“Here are all the things that could go wrong.”
“I didn’t know you needed that.”
“I can’t get everything done.”
“It’s not my job. It wasn’t my fault.”
“I wish management would stop changing their minds.”

Excuses signal deeply embedded systemic problems within an organization’s culture. And while you can’t predict or avoid certain hostile economic events, many companies suffer from the same five crippling habits that inhibit change, progress and growth.

Is your small business one of those companies?

There is never going to be a “one-size-fits-all” model for business success. However, strong leadership can overcome each of these crippling habits and keep your company on track with improved business performance and profit.

Crippling Habit #1: Absence of Clear Directives

If you’re hearing (or saying) any of the following, then your company suffers from an absence of clear directives:

• “I can’t get anything done”

• “Everything is a priority”

• “I wish management would quit changing their minds”

• “I didn’t know I was supposed to do that”

As a leader, you need to make sure everyone who reports to you understands and stays focused on achieving the company’s most important objectives — those things that matter most and must get done.

At General Mills, the goal is to replace good with great. And one method used to accomplish this is to have ALL employees create “Individual Development Plans.”

So what about your business?

If your company’s objectives are not being met, do you know why? Listen and observe to determine what’s keeping people from doing what’s important, and then ask:

• Have you set goals that are specific and measurable?

• Can everyone in your company articulate their goals?

• Do they understand how their jobs directly support these goals?

It’s easy to discover the answers to these important questions. When I work with companies on improving business performance and profitability, one of the first things I do is walk around and ask people at all levels about the company’s goals.

If they can articulate the company’s top objectives, pull them up on a computer, or reference a sign in their office or a break room, and then follow up it up by describing how their work fits into those objectives, I know my job is going to be much easier.

Business leaders need to understand the positive impact clarity and focus have on business success.  In running your business, nothing can be vague, optional or left to chance.

Unfortunately, many employees don’t know their employer’s top objectives and they struggle to directly connect their work to desired outcomes.

If you’re concerned, simply listen and observe. Are heads down and focused? Are people having action and goal-oriented conversations, or are they surfing the Internet, rationalizing problems and reliving their weekends?

To turn things around and refocus your employees, put the objectives front and center — on meeting agendas, in ongoing written and verbal communications, and in marketing collateral.

Make your company’s objectives come to life in everything the company does.

Improving business performance starts with clear objectives.  Taking that first step will poise your small business for profitability and success!

Stay tuned!  Next time we’ll tackle the second business behavior to avoid: Crippling Habit #2 – Lack of Accountability!

image of keyboard: vertical-leap.co.uk

Related posts:

1. Trust Leadership: Engage Employees and Skyrocket Performance
2. Business Turnaround: Returning To A Path of Profitability
3. Top 10 Critical Business Challenges – Survey Results

Like it or not, this just seems to be our economic reality for the foreseeable future.

Unfortunately, you can’t just hit PAUSE until things improve. You’ve got a business to run!

Your job as a leader is to make the necessary adjustments to plow ahead and succeed.

So whether gas prices go up or down, the housing market improves or consumer optimism increases is all somewhat irrelevant to the small business owner.

While those factors may change the rules of the game, don’t let them alter your ability to manage a thriving business. You have to be willing to make some tough changes and ADAPT, but it doesn’t mean you can’t turn a profit.

Since it does no good to pretend conditions are better than they are, let’s first uncover the harsh realities of doing business and then look at six tangible leadership tactics to put you on the path to profitability.

With the right leadership skills, profitability for your business is not out of reach!

The Cold, Hard Facts

Along with declining employment, we also face increased gas prices, political uncertainty in Washington, as well as overseas, and overall rising costs for doing business. Oh, yes, and let’s not forget the credit situation which remains extremely tight. For small businesses in particular, the impact is draining.

On top of that, it’s simply becoming harder to compete. New businesses, created by smart, unemployed entrepreneurs, are popping up all over offering lower prices. And large companies (once competing up-market) now have moved down to go after smaller opportunities.

But enough doom and gloom, let’s focus on how you can navigate toward higher profitability by following a few simple leadership “Do’s and Don’ts.”

The Path to Profitability

There is something you can, and should, do to build positive momentum. Use this time to revamp your business policies and practices to operate with greater efficiency and innovation.

Most important, have the courage to “do good and do well” not only by your business, but also your employees and community.

It might sound simple, but in reality it’s one of the most challenging leadership issues you’ll face.

Forget easy, politically correct, or most comfortable — it’s about having the fortitude to make the right decisions even when they’re difficult.

Increasing your profitability is doable, but you can’t afford to take a “business as usual” approach if you expect to get anywhere. It takes guts to make tough internal changes.

To keep your small business profitable, you must lead first with integrity. Looking for the quick road to success, regardless of consequence, sets the whole company up for failure.

Leadership Do’s and Don’ts for Building Profitability:

Now is the time for action! Create a leadership plan to play through this economic downturn and position your company for better times.

• Do create a culture with a fierce commitment to meeting goals and objectives guaranteed to sustain profitability and exceptional employee morale. You need this in any economic climate.
• Do becomemore hands-on and pay attention to details. Don’t be afraid! In the end, it’s going to benefit your bottom line. And yes, this also applies to those of you who don’t like the details!
• Do hire people smarter than you. Once you’ve got the right people in the right positions, step out of the way and let them do their jobs.
• Do have the courage to make tough decisions and take calculated risks.
• Do build a collaborative work environment where employees’ ideas and talents are sought and respected, even if/when they’re not identical to your own thinking. Encourage collaboration, have an open door policy, and listen! It’s key to leading a profitable and visionary company.
• Do maintain a high ethical standard — ALWAYS!

Along with the “Do’s” are, of course, a few very important “Don’ts.”

• Don’t allow yourself to get comfortable. Great leaders are brave enough to grow, and as John Maxwell said, “If we’re growing, we’re always going to be out of our comfort zone.”
• Don’t believe that “Good=Complicated.” Experienced leaders understand the power of simplicity. Simple and easy initiatives often are the most successful.
• Don’t make it personal. It’s fine to be hard on performance, and you should be. In running a small business, you can’t allow numbers, commitments and objectives to go unmet. However, don’t take it out on your people. You want your employees to feel free to talk about both successes and failures. Keep your focus on the business problem.
• Don’t fall on the sword of, “But that’s the way we’ve always done things!” What worked in a booming economy might not be the best solution today. You MUST be willing to change. Continuing down the same road can ruin a business and drive a business owner to the brink of insanity. Errors, rework and the use of inefficient procedures and ineffective technology will bleed your organization of precious profit dollars.

Bottom Line:

Profitability eludes plenty of businesses these days. It seems like we’re all just limping along trying to stay in the game.

While some of these “Do’s and Don’ts” require gradual shifts in leadership strategy, many can be implemented immediately. All will help you on your path to profitability as part of a sound leadership development strategy.

The Key: Improving your business profitability hinges on your ability to avoid challenges that negatively affect your bottom line, and it starts with mindset. A willingness to walk away from the status quo can be incredibly difficult for business leaders. But you must do it!

As you begin to make some of these positive changes, I hope you’ll let me know how things are going. Together we can start conversations to help stir action and get this country moving in the right direction.

image of pause button: theragblog

Related posts:

1. Trust Leadership: Engage Employees and Skyrocket Performance
2. Business Turnaround: Returning To A Path of Profitability
3. Boost Profits During Hard Times Through Rational, Cohesive Action

Don’t you love it when this happens:

You have a great idea, you gather all the resources needed to make it work, you implement your plan, and it’s a success!

You are a implementation and turnaround rock star!

But as time marches on things shift. And if you’re not completely in tune to those variances, it’s easy to look up and find your business plan completely off track.

But that’s Ok, every company gets off track. It happens.

The key is knowing how to figure out the problem so you can turn your business around quickly.

If you ignore the issues hoping they work themselves out, you can get yourself and the company in dire straits with no “good” way out.  Right now, a number of companies such as Dollar Thrifty Automotive and Radio Shack are seriously off track, and it remains to be seen whether they’ll be able fix their problems.

Returning to a Path of Profitability After You’ve Fallen Off Course:

• Reaffirm Priorities: First and foremost, you want to reaffirm the organization’s top priorities. Make sure you have the right people in the right jobs, along with clear objectives and measurements for tracking performance.

Assign ownership and then require employees to focus on achieving those top priorities. Now is the time for sharp attention to the things that matter most.  Don’t lose focus by taking on too many responsibilities.  Do what you do best, and do it well!

• Communicate: To refocus everyone’s efforts, make sure you are communicating effectively. Be clear about what you’re asking people to do, and you’ll eliminate false starts. And please, make sure you derive objectives from deep thinking, not half-baked ideas!

When you communicate clearly and get commitments, progress will follow.

• Analyze: Do you have a measurement system to track progress on all of your top objectives? If not, you need one. Measurements act as an early-warning system allowing you to re-prioritize and take corrective action when things change.

Once you identify problems, make sure you uncover the root cause so you don’t waste resources resolving the same problems over and over again. This approach reduces costs and allows you to focus on what’s most important — sustained profitability.

A Successful Business Turnaround Starts by Asking Yourself the Following 10 Questions:

• Do we have the right strategy and top objectives, along with the support of the entire management team? Your strategy must provide clear direction that’s easily understood by employees, shareholders and customers alike. If there’s any uncertainty, everything else is at risk.

If your strategy isn’t producing sufficient profits, then you must either reduce your costs or develop a more profitable strategy. Either way, take action! Don’t sit around waiting to “get lucky.” Ford Motor Company didn’t wait for a government bailout. Instead, they took action and avoided bankruptcy.

• Are you surrounded by smarter people? Consider each of your direct reports. If given the choice, would you pick that person again to be on your team and in the same position? Each of your direct reports should be giving you ideas you never considered as possibilities. Use this criteria to build your team and watch what happens.

• Do you hold formal monthly operations review meetings? This is one of the most effective ways to instill accountability and consistently achieve the organization’s objectives. It’s the perfect forum to review results, remove roadblocks and ensure accountability. These meetings will be the best barometer in assessing the efforts of your business turnaround plan.

• Are people focused on achieving the organization’s top objectives? This doesn’t apply just to your leadership team! Everyone in the company should understand how their tasks help the company meet its objectives.

Word of caution: When you start asking people what they’re working on to achieve the organization’s top objectives, don’t be surprised if you’re met with blank stares. It’s common for people not to know the top objectives or how their actions support them. Just because it’s common, however, doesn’t make it right.

If there is a change you need to make, then do it immediately!

Communication is the key to making sure everyone’s on the same page.

Work closely with your team so they know how to effectively communicate, and then hold them accountable. People need to know you’re serious about this, so don’t waiver.

Visibly post the top objectives of your company so employees are reminded of them every day.

Also, make sure managers meet regularly with their own teams to review progress against objectives. This ensures the entire company is aligned with the turnaround plan.

• Are you effectively delegating? When your business is far off course, it’s time to get as involved as necessary until you’re confident the situation has been corrected. However, be discerning.

It is uncomfortable to be managed too closely and can cause employees to shut down or back away. Be aware of your style. If you’re too involved, back off.

Learn to delegate and let people do their jobs. But if you need to make a personnel change, do it. Cut the dead wood and don’t rationalize.

• Are you helping people prioritize? No one can do it all. Help your company triage initiatives, and put an end to unnecessary work.

• Are meetings effective? Meetings should be purposeful. People should be solving problems and talking about how to turn the company around. If they’re focused on complaints, excuses and extraneous issues, stop them in their tracks. Explain how to effectively conduct meetings focused on achieving results, then hold them accountable for immediate improvement.

• Are you asking people what they need to be successful? When you ask someone to do something, also ask if they need anything to make the deadline. If so, deal with it immediately. When people fail to meet objectives or deadlines, remind them meeting commitments builds trust.

Everyone’s behavior needs to be focused on the success of the team, not the success of the individual. Recognize individual performance and success in context with how it supports the company’s goals in achieving a successful business turnaround. Celebrate and reward top producers for their achievements.

• Are you watching for busy work? Pay attention to the output from accounting, human resources and information systems. Are they engaging in non-essential work and generating unnecessary reports, or are their activities supporting the company’s top objectives?

• Do you always have time to plan? Are you always running to keep up? Are you missing commitments because you’re in too many meetings? Are you reactive instead of proactive? Do you regularly take your vacation? Does everyone seem to come to you for answers?

The higher your position, the fewer decisions you need to make. If you’re involved in small decisions, you’re not working on the right things.

Bottom Line:

When you can answer “yes” to the 10 questions above, then you’re on the right path.

Executing a successful business turnaround plan takes commitment on the part of your entire leadership team. You can’t do it alone, or without the buy-in of your business team.

Wherever you are in your turnaround efforts, don’t be discouraged. Companies of all shapes and sizes wander off track from time to time. While it takes hard work and diligence to ”right the ship,” profitability will be your reward.

Press on!

image of objectives: businessihub.com

Related posts:

1. The Do’s & Don’ts of Leadership For Higher Profitability
2. Improving Business Performance: 5 Behaviors You MUST Avoid!
3. Top 10 Critical Business Challenges – Survey Results