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Business owners should give thanks this season, too

Tue, 29 Nov 2011 16:34:55 GMT

As published in the Colorado Springs Business Journal on November 25, 2011. By Laddie & Judy Blaskowski.

The holidays are upon us and it’s time for most of us to enjoy time with family and friends, indulge in overeating, and have some fun. It’s also the time of year when we take stock of our lives and show gratitude for our blessings.

If you’re a business owner and have successfully navigated the economic hurdles of the past few years, you have cause for thanksgiving (we all know of companies that haven’t been so fortunate). Have you thanked those individuals who have helped make your business strong? Nothing is better for building relationships than letting people who have helped you know that you appreciate them. It’s an important practice that’s good for your business.

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Careful planning will make company policies stick

Tue, 29 Nov 2011 16:14:14 GMT

As published in the Colorado Springs Business Journal on November 18, 2011. By Laddie & Judy Blaskowski.

Have you ever had this experience? You recognize a problem in your business and formulate a policy or procedure to govern how it should be handled in the future. You put the policy in a memo to your employees and send it out by email, discuss it at a staff meeting, and maybe even post it on a bulletin board.

People comply initially, but a month or so later you suddenly realize the policy isn’t being followed anymore. You’re now highly annoyed and frustrated because your directive has been ignored. Worse yet, there may have been repercussions because the problem recurred and wasn’t handled correctly.

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Be sure to take a seat at the best possible business table

Tue, 29 Nov 2011 15:56:52 GMT

As published in the Colorado Springs Business Journal on November 11, 2011. By Laddie & Judy Blaskowski.

A client recently gave us the book Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion and Purpose by Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos.com. It’s a great book and one story particularly stood out to us. Hsieh talked about how he developed his poker-playing skills through study and practice.

He went on to illustrate similarities between poker and business, and one of those had to do with table selection. He pointed out that when playing poker in a casino, choosing the “right” table of opponents greatly increases your chances of winning. “I learned that the most important decision I could make was which table to sit at,” Hsieh said. He believes this principle also applies to business.

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Good, bad or ugly -- the owner sets the example

Fri, 11 Nov 2011 17:19:40 GMT

As published in the Colorado Springs Business Journal on November 4, 2011. By Laddie & Judy Blaskowski.

Remember the movie “The Christmas Story” and the scene where Ralph drops the F-bomb while helping his dad change a tire? His mother is stricken and certain he must have learned that word from a friend. But the grown-up Ralph narrator says he learned it from his father, who used it all the time.

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Take steps to improve account collection

Fri, 04 Nov 2011 14:37:22 GMT

As published in the Colorado Springs Business Journal on October 28, 2011. By Laddie & Judy Blaskowski.

The work is done and your customer has been invoiced, so the sale is complete. Right? Wrong!

Your sales aren’t complete until you’ve been paid.

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Study your competition if you want to win the game

Fri, 28 Oct 2011 14:58:50 GMT

As published in the Colorado Springs Business Journal on October 21, 2011. By Laddie & Judy Blaskowski.

If you were the coach of a football team, one of the things you would spend a lot of time doing is studying your opponents. You would watch tapes of their games over and over again to learn more about their strengths and weaknesses. Then you’d use this information to develop strategies that would make you better than your opponents so you could win the next time you met on the field.

A business is much like a football team and if you own a business one of your goals is to try to beat your competitors every time you face them. This reality can seem harsh because you may actually like your competitors on a personal level. But when there’s a limited “pie” of people or companies to sell to or service, you want a hefty piece of that pie and want to beat the competition.

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How do you know when you should fire a customer?

Thu, 20 Oct 2011 14:09:03 GMT

As published in the Colorado Springs Business Journal on October 14, 2011. By Laddie & Judy Blaskowski.

Many of us started out in business hearing “the customer is always right” and some people still adhere to that philosophy.

But sometimes we want to shout out a resounding “No!” The customer is not always right and sometimes you need to end the relationship.

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Why employees who have potential for success often fail

Tue, 18 Oct 2011 15:31:12 GMT

As published in the Colorado Springs Business Journal on October 7, 2011. By Laddie & Judy Blaskowski.

We once had an employee who was a nice guy but was never as productive as others in his department. Supervisors discussed this with him on several occasions but his output didn’t improve. Then, in a staff meeting one day, he spotted something on the wall and remarked, “Sometimes I’m sitting at my computer and stare at a speck on the wall, and the next thing I know, 45 minutes have gone by! This happens all the time!”

He didn’t last long.

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Make your business plan simple, yet powerful

Fri, 07 Oct 2011 11:35:26 GMT

As published in the Colorado Springs Business Journal on September 30, 2011. By Laddie & Judy Blaskowski.

Laddie once met with a new client at his location and asked to see his existing business plan. The man reached for a binder covered in dust that sat on top of a bookcase. It held a document 50-or-so pages long that obviously hadn’t been touched for several years.

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Alliances can be beneficial or troublesome

Thu, 29 Sep 2011 17:16:21 GMT

As published in the Colorado Springs Business Journal on September 23, 2011. By Laddie & Judy Blaskowski.

A client recently asked for advice about the opportunity to partner with a larger company.

The arrangement looked promising on the surface and the other company was pushing for it, insisting it could be a strong union and a win-win situation. But there were also red flags, warning that this particular alliance carried considerable risk for our client.

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