Podcasts - Page 3 of 12 - Greg Weatherdon

SBM #94 – Advice

Tagged as: 10 X, advice, business, crush it, entrepreneur, hollow, meme, professional speaker, small business expert, social media, success, successful

For some time now I’ve have taken issue with the advice given small business owners on social media platforms under the guise of motivation and advice. Sadly, much of this advice being spewed forth by many of these so called experts is, in my opinion, nothing more than hype to grow their popularity.

But in order to balance my opinion and for research purposes, I have spent over 20 hours of listening to the audio version of the books of some of these more popular gurus and to be honest, my opinion hasn’t changed. Listening to how we need to crush it or 10x our activity, because if we don’t, we’ll never achieve our goals, is a little much.

We all need motivation

Now granted, we all need motivation at times and Covid-19 has certainly increased the need. The ongoing pressure and changes has certainly amped up the challenges and anxiety of running a business. This increased strain can be draining and after a while can leave us feeling a little lost, worn out or just fed up.

Covid-19 aside, many of us entrepreneurs have been there over the years. Most of the time it’s nothing more than a speed bump after a prolonged period of grinding it out. You see, successful entrepreneurs are for the most part pretty positive and optimistic individuals. We have to be, considering what it takes to survive, let alone thrive. That’s why resilience is such a key characteristic of those that are successful.

But even with our higher dose of resilience coupled with a higher than average positivity and optimistic outlook, sometimes it’s just not enough, the tank is empty and were done. It’s what I like to call a “Poor Me Day”! It’s a day where we feel sorry for ourselves and wonder what the heck we got into and is it worth it? It doesn’t matter how long you been in business, Poor Me Days can happen to anyone.

The thing is, successful entrepreneurs don’t stay down long, hence the name Poor Me Day, not days. Now on the bright side, a Poor Me Day can be almost like a mental reboot, where it clears your mental cache that has accumulated bits of negative experiences over a period of time. And much like your PC, this cache needs to be cleared every once in a while. So having a Poor Me Day is ok, because once cleared, we can get back to doing what we need to do.

A witty meme doesn’t cut it when you advice

As I mentioned earlier, I do understand the need for motivation and sometimes it is the tonic we need to jolt us back to reality. But reading a pithy meme on Twitter, Facebook or Linkedin, unfortunately barely qualifies as motivation.

Motivation is supposed to help us to reset our compass and get our head screwed on straight again. Reading a witty meme or a quote that is misattributed to some personality really doesn’t quite cut it.

Digging into a book or listening to an audiobook has usually done it for me. It gets me thinking. My preference is for the audiobook, especially when read by the author allows me to get a truer sense of their message and their personalities. As a bonus, I can listen to them just about anywhere.

However, what I find disturbing by the two top personalities who’s audiobooks I have just listened to, was the messaging and the tone in which it was delivered.

Let’s start with the messaging. The last thing you want when you’re down is someone telling you that you’re not working hard enough. Telling you that you’ve got to up your game and do a lot more, otherwise you’ll never make it and you’ll be nothing more than average. Or if your not prepared to give it your all, sacrifice everything and put in longer hours in order to dominate, you’ll never achieve the success you want. Really? You call that motivational? I call it bull. But unfortunately that’s the underlying theme of these books.

As for the tone, I found them to be a little too “in your face”! It’s been my experience that what most people need when they’re down, is a calming voice or message instead of someone screaming at you telling you that you’re inadequate and you’re not putting in the effort.

Nothing more than sound bites

Listening to these audiobooks let’s you hear the sheer arrogance of these authors that may not be conveyed when reading the text. I will say, if you can get by all the chest beating that you have to endure, there are a couple of nuggets of good advice, but unfortunately, there’s far more hollow advice that it makes me wonder how they’ve become best sellers.

Much of their advice really is nothing more than sound bites and lack any sound executional details. Although, I’m pretty sure I’m not their target market, it does make me wonder who actually drinks their Kool-Aid? Considering, that there’s just so many better motivational or educational resources out there that offer much better advice.

Does it help to move your business forward?

The good news for most is that many of these resources are free if you have a library card. Although they vary in selection, many libraries have digital libraries that you can download e-books or audiobooks that run the gambit from sales, marketing, social media and so on from a variety of authors.

The only minor downside for some may be that you have to do a deep dive on a subject by reading or listening for a few hours. But let me tell you, no one book will have all the answers, but many will tell you how instead of just saying you should.

So the next time you come across one of these social media posts, take a second to assess it’s true value. How does it help you move your business forward or are the authors just looking to increase their followers and likes? The choice is yours.

You may also enjoy Motivation & Inspiration

Get More LIFE Out of Your Business

You shouldn’t be the hardest working person in your company.

Many small business owners find that even after the struggling start-up years, they’re working too many hours and still managing every aspect of their businesses.

Greg Weatherdon has been there, done that. As an entrepreneur, he learned not only how to get a business to the point of running smoothly, but also how to reduce the number of hours he worked, delegate more responsibility to his employees, and take longer vacations while his business chugged along like a well-oiled machine. And now he is providing the secret to success.

Do you suffer from any of the following?

1. Business ownership isn’t living up to the dream.
2. Endless workdays.
3. You can’t find good people.
4. Profits are less than expected.
5. You can never take a vacation.

You’re not alone. But there is a solution. As Greg demonstrates, with some time and effort, you really can Get More Life Out Of Your Business.

ORDER HERE

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Pivot! Just pivot! That’s what your being told if you’re having challenges running your SME. It’s another one of those words that actually had value once upon a time. Now, it’s so abused that’s it’s nothing more than a throwaway statement by individuals who want to sound like they’re offering intelligent advice, but really aren’t. Realistically, most businesses can’t pivot.

If we’re to be honest, most individuals have a heck of a time coming up with one idea that they can get excited enough about to take the plunge. That doesn’t mean it’s a good idea. It’s just an idea that they’re prepared to risk their time, energy and resources on to make happen. Even then the failure rate exceeds 50% in the first 3 years and upwards of 85% in 5 years.

So my point is pivot to what? It’s so hard to have one idea let alone coming up with a second one, especially when under duress. I say duress because you wouldn’t even be considering pivoting if everything is running along fine.

No, most often a pivot or rethink is a result of a failed idea, a competitive threat or 100 year storm such as Covid-19. So I say duress because in most cases your business is heading to the ground with the power on and you’re desperate. And when things get desperate, we need a fix and in a hurry. That usually means doing something, anything to generate revenue and stop the bleeding. Unfortunately, being stressed out is not necessarily the best time to make decisions.

The news is full of stories showcasing various companies that have reinvented themselves during Covid-19. But on closer inspection of the stories, I don’t think they’d qualify as pivots as much as a survival strategy.

It’s about survival

For example, how many clothing manufacturers converted their sewing rooms from producing apparel, to manufacturing medical masks? I’m pretty sure they’re not going to continue once the storm has passed. It’s a safe bet that most will return to fashion as soon as they can. This is not a pivot, it’s about survival.

The same can be said about distillers and micro brewers who started producing hand sanitizer. This is not a long term strategy. It’s about generating some short term cash flow by utilizing existing facilities and processes. Which at it’s core is distilling alcohol. It’s nothing more than a finger in the dyke. Once demand is satisfied, then what?

“Chances are their pivot is only a few degrees off of their original idea”

Alternatively, some businesses have got nowhere to turn. Take the hospitality industry for instance. They can’t just convert their hotels rooms into alternative use. To be sure restaurants can offer takeout or delivery, but that’s not a pivot. It’s just an extension or alternative to what they are already doing and sadly won’t cover their costs. Again, it’s a just matter of generating some cashflow and of survival.

Retail is another example. Making your offering available online because of a massive drop in walk-in traffic, certainly sounds easy. But it’s a lot more involved than most imagine. Such as setting up your website, getting and managing your inventory online and establishing your payment gateway. None of it is easy and it costs money. Money that most small businesses don’t have.

Let’s not forget all the time and energy required to promote and get visible once you are setup online. That of course assumes you have the necessary skills to begin with. Granted, you can try to learn these new skills, but that takes time. In the meanwhile, you still have rent and utilities to pay.

Yes, there are companies that have managed to pivot and have found success. That just tells me that their original idea probably may not have been as sustainable as they first thought. However, these companies appear to be sufficiently versed in their industry that they’ve managed to leverage their insights and skills to offer an alternative solution. Chances are their pivot is only a few degrees off of their original idea and not a wholesale change.

My Pivot

After 8 years of running my first company, The Sales Support Company, I realized that I was working way too hard and felt like I was treading water. Even though revenues were continually growing at a nice rate, it never translated into any significant profit.

The company provided retail sales services representing some of the world’s largest packaged goods companies. I had 150 employees working coast to coast at a time before the internet and cell phones. Because of that, communicating with regional supervisors always took place after hours, so the days were long. It finally got to the point where I was just tired of trying to make it work. I was putting in endless hours, getting no closer to my goals and not making any money.

I knew the industry still required our type of service. So, I set out to come up with alternative method to service these stores. Two key criteria were, that it had to be profitable and give me a better quality of life. So, my pivot was to take what we were doing “live and in person” and attempt to do it via telemarketing, which really hadn’t been done before.

In order to find out if this idea would fly, I created Marketing Resource Group and tested the concept over the next 18 months. This happened all the while still running my other company.

Since it was a new concept for the industry, it did require a lot of convincing clients to test it. Fortunately, one by one clients began to support the concept as we were able to deliver the promised results.

More importantly though, is that this pivot was actually fulfilling my first priority of being profitable. My second criteria of having a better quality of life would be up to me, but profits would go a long way to making that happen.

Once I could see the momentum growing for our service, I sold The Sales Support Company. Well actually, it was more like I gave it away, but that’s a story for another time.

My pivot worked so well, I kept The Marketing Resource Group for 17 years before selling it. At which point we were making over 300,000 calls a year in Canada and the US.

Advantages

The point of that story is that I got to test the concept while I still had my first company. Although I was extremely well versed in retail sales and service, I knew nothing about telemarketing.

So the test phase allowed me to learn, trial, and refine the concept on my schedule. Unlike typical telemarketing organization that is script driven, our service had to be adapted to creating long term relationships. That’s why having the luxury of testing and refining made this pivot possible. Doing it overnight would not have had the same results and most likely would have failed.

A couple of advantages that I had that increased my odds at pulling off a successful pivot were:

I knew the industry and
I had a solid relationship with existing pool of potential clients that I could leverage.

As I stated before, most sustainable pivots are only a few degrees off the original idea and not massive wholesale changes. If we’re to be honest, there are far more businesses that can’t pivot, than those that can.

Sometimes that pivot can mean throwing in the towel, cut your losses and live to fight another day.

You may also enjoy SBM #82 Starting Over

Get More LIFE Out of Your Business

You shouldn’t be the hardest working person in your company.

Many small business owners find that even after the struggling start-up years, they’re working too many hours and still managing every aspect of their businesses.

Do you suffer from any of the following?

1. Business ownership isn’t living up to the dream.
2. Endless workdays.
3. You can’t find good people.
4. Profits are less than expected.
5. You can never take a vacation.

You’re not alone. But there is a solution. As Greg demonstrates, with some time and effort, you really can Get More Life Out Of Your Business.

ORDER HERE

Podcast

SBM #92 The 2 Biggest Mistakes

Tagged as: bankrupt, business, customer centric, Dennis Geelen, fail, failure, flexible, innovation, small business, small business expert, Small Business Minute, speaker, value add

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

This is a guest post by Dennis Geelen of Zero In.

Take a minute and think of a few companies that pop into your head that were once seen as leaders in their industry but, for one reason or another, eventually came crashing back down to Earth. Maybe they have since been surpassed and are no longer a household name. Perhaps they filed for bankruptcy. Or maybe you are thinking of a company that was forced to close its doors and shut down for good.

Why be Customer Centric?

When I ask people to go through this exercise, many typical companies pop into their head. Blockbuster, Kodak, and Sears being among the most notorious that come to mind.

But the truth is, most businesses are not set up for long-term success. Any company that is currently a leader in their industry could potentially be a footnote in history 5 to 10 years from now.

In fact, the stats are staggering. 25% of all new businesses do not make it past the first 2 years. 50% don’t make it past the 5-year mark and only a quarter of businesses end up being sustainable past 15 years.

That is insane! The obvious question here is ‘why’?

To answer that question, we need to look at some trends that so many companies (large and small) tend to fall victim to. Whether they got off on the wrong foot from the beginning or whether these trends slowly creep into the business over time, they are both common to so many businesses and ultimately cause their demise.

They are, or they become, too inward focussed
They are, or they become, too set in their ways

Let’s examine each of these issues and I am sure you will be able to see these trends in so many businesses (maybe even your own!).

First, there is the issue of being too inward focussed. By this I mean that they have a tendency to spend the majority of their time thinking, talking, analyzing, and strategizing about their products, their services, or their financials.

Now don’t get me wrong, these are all important things to consider and manage in a company. However, a major focus (probably the biggest) should be outward. Your customers. Who are they? Why do they purchase your product or service? What value are you adding? Why do some choose your competitors products or services?

Being a customer centric company, top to bottom, from your purpose, to your sales, to your marketing, to operations helps protect you from fixating inward too much and losing touch with why you are in business in the first place.

Second, there is the issue of a business being too set in their ways. By this I mean that a business can become too rigid over time. This happens when a company has found processes, methodologies, or business models that they believe very strongly in (and likely for good reason). However, unless you have been living under a rock the past 20 years you understand that things change, and sometimes fast! If you find you or your team members saying ‘this is the way we do things around here’ your business may be at risk of falling into this trap. You might be too rigid.

A more subtle way that this can happen is that your business becomes too complacent. In this case, the phrase you may hear amongst your team members is “if it isn’t broken, why fix it?” Now I am not saying that businesses should invoke change just for the sake of change, but you easily run the risk of getting into a complacent comfort zone and be ill prepared to be nimble and flexible and open to change when you have to be. Whether your business is too rigid or too complacent, watch out!

Set yourself up!

The antidote to this issue is to foster a culture of innovation. Businesses need to be intentional about always finding new and better ways to deliver value to their customers. They can do this by implementing principles and practices so that their employees are encouraged to come up with new ideas (in a structured environment) and then pilot them and see how they resonate.

When disruptors come along (competitors, economic downturns, changes in consumer habits, pandemics, and so on) businesses need to have a culture of innovation in place so that they can be flexible and pivot quickly as needed

So how do you protect your business from becoming the next statistic and falling prey to these 2 mistakes? Be intentional about turning your company into one that is customer centric and innovative. Set yourself up for long-term success.

You may also enjoy Innovation Starts at Home

THE ZERO IN FORMULA, Dennis Geelen’s latest book, challenges business owners, CEOs, and leaders to think differently about their company.

In THE ZERO IN FORMULA Geelen walks you through the recipe. You will learn what it means to be customer centric, with strategies and tools you can apply to your business. You will understand what it means to be truly innovative, with principles and practices you can implement. You will be guided through the recipe step-by-step to build your successful foundation. You will learn from stories and examples of other businesses and their successes and failures. Whether your business is just starting out and looking for a blueprint to follow over time, or your organization is an existing business and you realize you need to make some corrections and get back on a better course, this book is your guide.

https://www.zero-in.ca

Get More LIFE Out of Your Business

You shouldn’t be the hardest working person in your company.

Many small business owners find that even after the struggling start-up years, they’re working too many hours and still managing every aspect of their businesses.

Do you suffer from any of the following?

1. Business ownership isn’t living up to the dream.
2. Endless workdays.
3. You can’t find good people.
4. Profits are less than expected.
5. You can never take a vacation.

You’re not alone. But there is a solution. As Greg demonstrates, with some time and effort, you really can Get More Life Out Of Your Business.

ORDER HERE

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Money, it’s one of those personal topics that many people are uncomfortable discussing. Why that is, varies from person to person.

Even inside a business that uncomfortableness exist, but that needs to change. Generally speaking, the only time the subject of money seems to ever comes up is in the heat of the moment in comments such as “Do you know how much that costs?”. Even then the word money is not used.

When I ask owners what business they are in, I usually get the expected answer such as “I’m in retail or I own a restaurant or I’m in a service business of some sorts.” These are all technically correct answers and serve to explain your enterprise to your external customers and strangers alike.

However, I would like you to consider an alternative definition that should be used internally within the organization and be at the forefront of your decision making process. What is that internal definition? Simply, “We are in the money business!”

And it matters not one bit what industry you are in. At the end of the day, you are in the money getting business. Pure and simple. You exchange your services in return for money.

The service you offer is nothing more than the vehicle you use to get that money.

This may sound a little crass to some because they don’t want to think of their business in such impersonal terms. Others are so emotionally committed to their desire to be an entrepreneur that they have fallen in love with their idea and not the business of the business itself.

Let’s be honest, the reason 99% of us went into business in the first place, is the allure of potentially making more money. To be sure, we had other reasons such as being our own boss, validating our idea or just finding a better way to do something. But at the end of the day, the majority of us were seeking higher incomes.

Focusing on money is not to say that you have to become Scrooge like. Nor does it mean caring less about your customers or how you do things. To the contrary, having higher profitability and more money gives you the ability to actually increase your service levels. The alternative means that you’re on the proverbial treadmill generating additional low margin business just to keep the doors open, which results in customer service taking a back seat to everything else.

No, it means being selective in where you commit this precious resource. It also means getting your staff to understand that their actions can impact, good or bad, the profitability and financial health of the company. But you need to reinforce that position with them. You need to make them understand that their actions have a cost associated with it.

Loving what you do is one thing, but it’s got to be profitable and the more money or profit you make allows you to build a safety net under your company. Consider for a moment, how unprepared so many small businesses were in the face of the Covid-19 lockdowns. Sadly, many have locked their doors forever.

Changing the mindset

There’s really only two things you need to know about money, where you get it and where you spend it. So, the logical place to start is to understand where you get your money.

It’s been my experience that just about every business has revenue categories. Unfortunately, many entrepreneurs don’t bother to segregate their services into any formal groupings. As a result, they have no idea what percentage each product or service groupings contribute to their revenue.

But revenue grouping is only half the equation. We often hear that we should be focusing most of our time on revenue generating activities. I absolutely agree that this should be every entrepreneurs priority, with one added caveat. These revenue generating activities need to be profitable and we should be focusing on the most profitable of these activities.

Therefore, in order to determine which revenue generating activities are the most profitable, we need to be able to attribute what it costs to generate those revenue. You do so by allocating all the expenses incurred to each of the revenue groups. In doing so, you can now determine the most profitable areas of your business. In other words, what’s making you money, where you’re losing money and everything in between.

By having the ability to analyse your revenue categories, you can begin to make educated decisions. When you consider how much labour, overheads, and other expenses go into generating revenue and then to find out you lost money or only break even, it’s heartbreaking. Granted getting a nice big cheque for a project you just completed is a wonderful feeling. However, if it has a low profit margin, you are effectively just trading dollars.

So first and foremost, you need to prioritize your activities on the most profitable products or services you offer. Then you need to determine how you can increase your activity on these most profitable items.

At the end of the day your objective is to narrow your focus to those items or activities that are the most profitable and quit wasting time on marginal ones. There are only so many hours in a day available to you and your staff. If you subscribe even just a little bit to the 80/20 rule you’ll quickly determine that a lot of your energy and your staffs is wasted on low value products and activities.

I know many will say that they have to keep their prices low in order to compete. This is where you need to get your head around the fact that you are in the money business. If that’s truly the case, get the heck out of that line of business or quit offering that product. If you need to stay in that line of business, then find a way to increase the value of your offer without increasing your costs. That way you’ll you can demand a higher price, thereby increasing your profits. These decisions are well within your control.

A True Story

Many years ago, I undertook this exercise to determine where we were making our money. Although it was a tedious process, it was an eye opener. The net result of that undertaking was that I cut over $300,000 of revenue from the company by identifying low margin activities and clients in industries where, due to competition, we were unable to manage any form of price increase to make them more profitable.

This was at a time when my company had just achieved breakeven and this decision was going to be a major setback. However, as expected or maybe I should say hoped, our profitability grew significantly, and we were profitable in less than a year.

In hindsight, it made perfect sense and the risk was more imagined than real. When you consider that we focused on fewer but more profitable services and clients or labour and other expense inputs dropped dramatically, which resulted in more profits for the company.

In addition, this exercise helped us to identify and target those clients and industries where there was very little competition. Doing so allowed us to regain the lost revenue within 18 months and our profitability continued to grow.

Just to reinforce this point, Covid-19 forced many global foods companies to reduce their product offerings in order to focus on their core products. Lays, Procter & Gamble, Kraft and the Campbell Soup Company, stop producing, not just cut back many of their slower moving products because demand on their core products exceed their ability to supply. Some of these companies reduced their offering by upwards of 18%. Many of these cut products may never return to our grocery shelves because the companies realized that their profits came from their core products.

Spending money is easy, making money is hard

Another thing to keep in mind is, that spending money is easy, making money it is hard. Because of how hard it is to make money, every spending decision, whether that be on equipment or staff needs to be paid for somehow. For example, if you’re netting 10% profit on the bottom line, a $10,000 expense requires you to generate extra revenue by a factor of 10. In other words, you need to generate $100,000 in additional revenue just to cover the cost of that expense.

So before you or your staff clicks the “Add to Cart” button or slap down your credit card on supplies or that new piece of equipment, you better make sure it’s necessary. Because at the end of the day, that’s less money you’ll be able to take out of the company personally.

Money is such a precious commodity in any business. Some of the benefits of having money in the bank, is that it’s a great stress reliever knowing we have the capabilities to meet our obligations. Taking that stress off the table, then allows us to concentrate our time on more productive duties.

It’s in times of crisis that the importance of money is reaffirmed. Crisis come in all shapes and sizes. From key customers that quit buying to pandemics, each can seriously mess with your business. So by adopting the attitude that you’re in the money business, will go a long way significantly increasing your profitability and your income.

I’d like to know your thoughts if you were faced with a similar situation. So, leave your comments below.

You may also enjoy Clustering for Profits

If you found this of value, please pass this along to any business owner that you fell could benefit by understanding that they’re in The Money Business

Get More LIFE Out of Your Business

You shouldn’t be the hardest working person in your company.

Many small business owners find that even after the struggling start-up years, they’re working too many hours and still managing every aspect of their businesses.

Do you suffer from any of the following?

1. Business ownership isn’t living up to the dream.
2. Endless workdays.
3. You can’t find good people.
4. Profits are less than expected.
5. You can never take a vacation.

You’re not alone. But there is a solution. As Greg demonstrates, with some time and effort, you really can Get More Life Out Of Your Business.

Order Here

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

I’ve been wanting to golf at a rural course for a number of years now. The reason is that this golf course now sits upon farmland that was once owned by two of my uncles. I had spent a lot of time of these farms as a kid growing up and I had only played the course once many years before and my memory suggested it wasn’t a bad little course.

So when a neighbour suggested that we get out for a round of golf, I recommended we go to this course and told him about my family heritage. He agreed and a tee time was booked.

For the sake of brevity, let’s just say the course condition was less than stellar. The fairways and greens looked like they hadn’t seen water the whole season and were harder than concrete. Needless to say I was a little embarrassed that I had recommended the course.

“…playing on what was the equivalent of a parking lot didn’t help.”

Aside from the terrible course condition, the signage was askew, and you were left to your own devices to find your way between holes. All in all, not a great experience and my score reflected my frustration. Heck, golf is hard enough at times and playing on what was the equivalent of a parking lot didn’t help.

My Google review

So, having wasted good money playing a bad course, I felt compelled to leave a Google review. Needless to say they only received a one-star and my write-up stated that the course was unkept and appeared to be unloved as well. I further stated that they clearly couldn’t maintain 36 holes, so maybe they should try to focus on 18 and do it better.

About a week or so later, I noticed a message alert in my Facebook feed. To my surprise, it was from the course operation manager asking if we could chat, to which I agreed.

This individual went on to tell me that my review pained him because they are family owned and they work hard. He further explained that their water pump had been down for three weeks and that they’d been hauling water day and night during the hottest time of the year. He then proceeded to ask me to remove my review now that he had explained his position.

My initial response to his request was that he should have let us know at the time that the course was unplayable and let us make the decision to play, or they should have offered some form of discount when we showed up. This is a common theme with many small businesses, when they are unable to provide an acceptable level of service for whatever reason. They just keep quiet and continue to charge their regular fees, instead of coming clean and being honest.

Responding to Google reviews helps

It’s been my experience, that the main driver for this type of behaviour is that they are so in need of the revenue, that they place customer service or experience a distant second. But what they don’t realize is that this attitude costs them far more in the long run and just compounds an already bad situation.

I further suggested to the individual that they should reply to my comment on Google because people want to see how businesses react to bad reviews. I also told him that responding to bad reviews with a legitimate reason actually has a positive impact. He responded that they would just prefer that I remove the original comment because they don’t think they should have to air their disputes in public.

Shortly after this, the conversation started going off the rails. I explained to him that I wasn’t prepared to remove my comments, because I experienced a subpar course regardless of the reasons. In addition, I also wanted him respond to my review as I knew it was in his best interest, but he wanted none of that.

The point of this story is that far too many businesses fail to pay attention to the impact of good or bad reviews can have on your business. But even more importantly, is the impact you can have in responding to any and all reviews. Just think of how you go about searching for goods or services on Google. Once you’ve narrowed down the search results, do you read the Google reviews? How do you react when you see reviews that have no response from the business owner? How do you feel when there is honest commentary from the business owner to each comment?

When asked, most people agree that they value Google reviews when researching businesses and the research overwhelmingly support this position. Unfortunately, too many businesses do not pay any attention to this free resource and it’s costing them a lot of business.

Google provides every business the ability to be listed in their search results. It’s always of interest to me when I do a search within an industry to see businesses that haven’t claimed their listing. To find out if your business is listed, simply go to Google my Business. If your business is not listed, they make it quite easy to get a listing included in their search results by logging in and completing your business profile. That way you’ll be able to get the benefits of having Google reviews

In a recent survey by BrightLocal, an online agency that helps marketers working with a local business do their job better, found the following key statistics:

Key Statistics

90% of consumers used the internet to find a local business in the last year, with 33% looking every day
82% of consumers read online reviews for local businesses, with 52% of 18-54-year-olds saying they ‘always’ read reviews
The average consumer reads 10 reviews before feeling able to trust a business
Only 53% of people would consider using a business with less than 4 stars
The average consumer spends 13 minutes and 45 seconds reading reviews before making a decision
Among consumers that read reviews, 97% read businesses’ responses to reviews

A link to the complete survey results can be found here:

https://www.brightlocal.com/research/local-consumer-review-survey/#influence-of-reviews

Additionally, research has also found that consumer give more credibility to businesses that respond to reviews, good or bad. That’s because it shows that the business actually cares about their customer service. For proof, just think about how you react to reviews with and without responses from the business. I know how I feel, but to qualify this, I asked approximately 10 people what their thoughts were regarding businesses that respond to reviews. 100% agreed that they look favourably upon those businesses that take the time to respond.

Make them personal

If you’re going to respond to review, avoid the standard cut and paste responses, such as “Thank you” and make them a little personal. Whatever you do, do not offer any discounts or bribes to people in order to get them to write a Google review. It’s highly frowned upon by Google should they find out and will seriously impact your search ranking. However, asking people for reviews is quite acceptable and worthwhile.

As for my little story, in order to end my conversation with the individual, I stated that I will consider updating my comments to reflect that the owner did reach out to me. However, after further ruminating on the subject, I decided not to update my comments. My rationale was that it’s not my responsibility to do his job.

I’d like to know your thoughts if you were faced with a similar situation. So, leave your comments below.

You may also enjoy Want More Sales-Follow up

If you found this of value, please pass this along to any business owner that you fell could benefit by understanding the upside to Google reviews.

Get More LIFE Out of Your Business

You shouldn’t be the hardest working person in your company.

Many small business owners find that even after the struggling start-up years, they’re working too many hours and still managing every aspect of their businesses.

Do you suffer from any of the following?

1. Business ownership isn’t living up to the dream.
2. Endless workdays.
3. You can’t find good people.
4. Profits are less than expected.
5. You can never take a vacation.

You’re not alone. But there is a solution. As Greg demonstrates, with some time and effort, you really can Get More Life Out Of Your Business.

Order Here

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Work from home is not a new concept. People have been looking for any excuse to do so since the turn of the century. Initially, Friday’s was the defacto work from home day. It’s popularity was driven mostly to get a jump on the weekend, more so than trying to get distraction free time in order to get caught up. For evidence, just check the highway traffic on Friday’s afternoons during the summer, as people are fleeing the city.

Over time as work from home became more and more accepted, Wednesday also became popular. Wednesday is a natural work from home day as it not only breaks up your week, but for many was a legitimate opportunity to work uninterrupted. The mid week isolation gave individuals the chance to focus on major assignments or priorities. Of course, people raved about how productive they are working from home and most were.

So what changed?

For centuries people have been making their way into the office. Initially most could walk to their place of employment. But over time, as cities grew, public transit became the norm for those who had to travel greater distance than walking. Finally, as the downtown core in many cities became the commercial hub and with people moving to the suburbs for affordable housing, the car began to dominate as the preferred method to commute in many cities.

As this cycle of commercial intensification in the downtown cores and suburb getting farther away, going to work went from a simple task to a stressed induced war pitting driver against driver to see who can gain the best lane advantage. Depending on where you lived, this daily ritual could easily last from 30 minutes to over an hour, twice daily. So needless to say, people started looking for any opportunity to get the occasional reprieve from this daily grind.

But that’s not all!

Another major catalyst for what has become the Work from Home (WFH) movement, is the growth of the open office concept. Long before Covid-19 changed our world, companies of all sizes were jumping on the open office concept. Gone were the cubicles, the open office concept, embraced by the major tech companies, was the model to follow.

Contrary to what is expounded by management of the team building benefits of an open office, the real motivation is cost saving. Open office concepts save a lot of money because they pretty much eliminate the need for all but minimal leasehold improvements. Plus they offer a ton of savings on office furnishings.

What I find genuinely interesting with the open office concept, is that most senior managers all end up with offices. If it’s good for the goose, shouldn’t it be good for the gander? Of course, they justify it based on their need for privacy. Shouldn’t these managers be subjected to the same restrictions and annoyances they place on their employees?

To be sure the open office concept is not new. Just check on those black and white photos of the clerical pools of 1950’s, where there were rows upon rows of desks in large rooms. But those were days before computers and automation. Most of those jobs were repetitive task driven activities and although these individuals were knowledgeable, they weren’t considered knowledge workers. Most of those tasks of yesteryear have been replaced by automated solutions with little human interaction.

So many of today’s workers are considered knowledge workers and are required to think and make decisions. They need to be creative and require time to focus. The reality is that as individuals, we are creative at different times of the day. Some individuals are at their best creatively in the morning, some at midday and other late afternoon and not necessarily everyday. Let’s be honest, creativity can very spontaneous and generally can’t be scheduled. So reserving one of the “quiet rooms” located on the perimeter of the open office concept, at a moments notice, is not always possible.

At the end of the day, the reason why people want to work from home is that there are too many distraction in the open office concept. Whether those distractions are in the form of visual, auditory, or human interruptions they abound everywhere and everyday. There’s just no privacy. Interruptions by fellow employees appears to be the most frustrating issue reported, because there’s no place to hide or call your own. An attitude that, you’re at your desk, therefore it’s okay to talk to you, is the norm. You’re living in a fishbowl.

As a result, individuals are going to great lengths now to develop the virtual version of “do not disturb” signals and it is stressing them out. Wearing headphones and not looking up when someone goes by, is essentially an indicator that “I’m busy”, but even then many teammates are oblivious to these indicators.

As a curious individual, I’m hard wired to be constantly scanning my environment. Maybe it’s a hold over from the prehistoric days when you really had to be aware of your surroundings, otherwise you became somebody’s lunch. So keeping my head down all day, is as big of a distraction as being interrupted.

Is work from home any better?

For people around the world, this wasn’t a conscious decision. Covid-19 just forced everybody’s hand to work from home because there wasn’t much of an alternative. After three months, many are liking it, but many aren’t and as time moves on, there appear to be cracks forming in their new love affair with the work from home concept.

For those fortunate to have a spare room, the transition was acceptable. However, if a couple are both relegated to work from home, then someone is going to get stuck at the kitchen or dining room table. This is okay for a day or two, but for three plus months, I don’t think so.

So, if this work from home movement is to become permanent, how are individuals going to manage this? You can’t expect most couples to share that spare bedroom and work side by side, that’s just a recipe for disaster. Most individuals can’t afford a bigger house, so what’s the option. What about condo and apartment dwellers? No, work from home is not sustainable under many individuals current lifestyle.

Taken a step further and assuming an individual has the physical space to work from home, who’s going to pay for all the necessary upgrades to make it workable and at what cost? What about security and liability? What if someone gets injured? What if someone trip or falls going to their home office, where does the liability begin or end? Is that a workers compensation issue or a safety issue? Believe me, I don’t have the answers and I’m not sure anybody does at this point.

Let’s talk about team unity

In order to maintain communication and team unity, everybody jumped on the available collaboration tools available such as Zoom, Microsoft Teams and albeit a little late to the party, Google’s Meet, just to name a few. For all the praise for the ease of use and quick implementation of these tools, it’s just not the same as an in person meeting.

Having participated in a few of these digital meetings, I’ve come up with some observations that I have no idea how they are to be solved. Granted people are getting far more comfortable on the platforms, but they are draining. Gone are all the physical queues we become accustomed to. When to speak, avoiding talking over someone paying attention are just a couple of the myriad of challenges individuals face on video platforms.

Because we’ve done it so long, most people are comfortable in live meetings, albeit bored on occasion. Being on a video conference requires 100% attention to the screen because you have 6, 10 or 20 people staring back at you for the duration, so you need to be on your best behaviour. Reports from individuals that are on video calls or meetings a good portion of their day, are reporting that they are exhausted, where they weren’t in in-person meetings.

Leaders checking in

Now I will profess that I subscribe to the Management by Walking Around style of management. I wasn’t aware that my style actually had a name until such time as I read In Search of Excellence by Tom Peters and Robert Wateman many years ago.

Essentially, it’s what the name infers. As opposed to a formal meeting, a manager wanders around checking in with their staff in an impromptu manner. It’s not about catching people slacking off, it’s about creating informal teaching moments. But at a deeper level, it’s about connecting with your staff by having more face time. The concept apparently originated at Hewlett Packer or HP as it is known today.

There was a study done by Leadership IQ on the Importance of Leadership. The report states that 50% of employees spend less than 3 hours a week with their leader. However, those that spend 6 or more hours per week with their leaders are

29% more inspired
30% more engaged
15% more motivated
10% more innovative

This level of engagement, although possible, will be difficult to achieve using video conferencing. Managers of all types will need to reinvent themselves if work from home is the new normal. I’m just not sure it’ll be as effective as face-to-face.

If this is ever going to work, managers will need to up their game and reinvent themselves. Team members will worry that because they are out of site, they’re out of mind and fear they won’t get the recognition they want or more importantly need.

Personal boundaries

The curse of the smartphone has stretched many peoples day, as emails or text messages come in at all hours of the day. As a result, many have defaulted into responding to them no matter when they come in. The justification is that it’s only one email and, what the heck, if I answer it now, it’ll be one less thing to do tomorrow. In addition, email and messaging has created a false sense of urgency and therefore an answer is expected immediately. This was bad enough before Covid-19 and I can only imagine what the new normal will look like.

Where all this really falls apart is if people are permanently anchored at home, they naturally loose their work boundaries. They’ll take advantage of doing errands that were traditionally relegated to nights and weekends. And they’ll justify it by they can catch up on their work later that night or weekends. Boundaries are going to get blurred by managers and employees alike.

Humans are social

Let’s remember, that for the most part humans are social and need interaction. That can’t be replicated on video or conference calls. There’s a potential risk that people will start to feel disconnected from the rest of your team as all those informal interaction become a thing of the past.

What companies need to be on the lookout for will be the potential reduction in innovation and creativity, much of which just happens when colleagues pump into each other at the water cooler or in the hallway. This can’t be replicated digitally.

Work from home has been tried in the past by some very large corporations and their experiments failed miserably. Granted the advance in technology will certainly improve the odds, but I don’t believe by much. IBM for all it’s technological know how, recalled about 11,000 of their employees back into the office 18 months ago after realizing they were missing out on the innovation that just happened through interacting in person.

What’s the solution?

When Covid-19 is in our rear view mirrors, I think most people will be back in their workplaces and rumours of the death of the office are premature. What might be interesting is a hybrid solution, whereby people will able to split their week or rotate days that they’re in the office. But for those companies, that are going fully remote, you’ll need to create some very unique skills in order to keep your teams organized, motivated and loyal. It won’t be easy

Get More LIFE Out of Your Business

You shouldn’t be the hardest working person in your company.

Many small business owners find that even after the struggling start-up years, they’re working too many hours and still managing every aspect of their businesses.

Do you suffer from any of the following?

1. Business ownership isn’t living up to the dream.
2. Endless workdays.
3. You can’t find good people.
4. Profits are less than expected.
5. You can never take a vacation.

You’re not alone. But there is a solution. As Greg demonstrates, with some time and effort, you really can Get More Life Out Of Your Business.

Order Here

SBM #88 Discounts

Tagged as: business, Covid-19, crisis, customers, discounts, ego, entrepreneur, failure, pride, sales, small business expert, temporary

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

For many Covid-19 has temporarily changed the way business is done and for others those changes will be permanent. This is both good and bad. The good is that for those that adapt, they will find news ways to do business. The bad is that for those who remain steadfast in their ways, they may not survive. This brings me to today’s topic, discounts.

Discounts are necessary

Before going any further, many of the enterprises deemed as essential along with those businesses that have only had to relocate their workers to their home, are most likely able to continue with business as usual and don’t need to offer any discounts. For the rest though, discounts may be necessary.

There’s lots of commentary on social media platforms about the merits of maintaining your pricing during these disruptive period. These statements are usually is prefaced by slogans such as “Get paid what your worth” or “Don’t discount your value” and so on. These are all great motherhood statements that have some value when things are normal. But these aren’t normal times.
Let’s be honest, even in the best of times, you only get to take that position when you’ve been in business long enough and have created a reputation as an organization that consistently deliver results and are deemed to be an expert in your field. So, regardless of what you think you’re worth. It only matters what your customers think you’re worth and chances are your customers are being enticed by intriguing value propositions by your competitors.

30-50% of SME’s will fail

Having been through more than one economic upheaval and survived to talk about it, I disagree with whole notion of not offering discounts. Based on estimates, approximately 30-50% of SME will not make it and as an owner you have but one goal for the next while-survival, period. Since the majority of your customers are probably suffering, they will be looking discounts on any spending they’re making and if you don’t, your competitor will.

Assuming 30% failure rate, the 1st 10% are already gone, with the 2nd 10% only weeks away. It’s the last 10% who you need to worry about, because they’ll be gunning for you by targeting your customers by offering discounts. Why? Because they’re desperate. This in turn will put huge competitive pressure on your business as you compete with lower priced competitors. For those that are financially secure or are unaffected by the impact of Covid-19, hallelujah! Otherwise, you need to make sure you keep cash coming in, because if you’re not selling anything, you risk falling into the 30%.

Protect your brand

The challenge in all of this is fighting our own pride and ego. They say that “pride goeth before the fall”. This translate into those that are too arrogant will fail. If there ever was a time to seriously consider offering temporary discounts, this is it. It’ll give you the ammunition to protect your brand and your company. Remember that breaking even is ok, because in times like these, profit can wait for better days.

Covid-19 Discounts

So, how do you go about offering discounts that don’t become permanent? One simple way is to turn what you’re doing upside down. Why not consider offering a temporary Covid-19 discounts on your product and services? You can communicate to your clients that in these difficult time you want to do your part and help other business owners.

How you do this is quite simple. On your quotes or invoices, you show what your regular fee or product costs as you would normally. Then on the next line you show “Less temporary Covid-19 discounts” and then deduct the amount of the discounts.

By itemizing the discounts as separate line items on the quote or invoice, you reinforce your goodwill gesture, even though it’s self preservation. By having it as a separate line item it reinforces that it’s a specific discount thereby inferring that this won’t be forever. Failing to list the discounts separately, effectively creates a new lower price. When things return to normal and you and your business is still standing when many aren’t, you can then begin to remove your discounts.

To quote Darwin “It’s not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change”

You may also enjoy Cash flow – The breath of life

Get More LIFE Out of Your Business

You shouldn’t be the hardest working person in your company.

Many small business owners find that even after the struggling start-up years, they’re working too many hours and still managing every aspect of their businesses.

Do you suffer from any of the following?

1. Business ownership isn’t living up to the dream.
2. Endless workdays.
3. You can’t find good people.
4. Profits are less than expected.
5. You can never take a vacation.

You’re not alone. But there is a solution. As Greg demonstrates, with some time and effort, you really can Get More Life Out Of Your Business.

ORDER HERE

SBM #87 – Where have all the experts gone?

Tagged as: business, cash is king, Covid-19, entrepreneur, experts, Future, greg weatherdon, margin, messiahs, money, pandemic, professional speaker, profitability, skills, social media

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Those of you that know me and have either purchased my book or attended an event that I have spoken at, know that the advice I share is based on getting the basics right. By getting the basics right, you can grow your business and your leadership skills that allow you to attain a high level of freedom by removing the shackles of ownership.

Financial cushion

Unfortunately, what I preach has never been sexy or opportunistic. These basic, time tested business philosophies are easy to understand and don’t require any special skills to execute. The only requirement is that you spend the time to implement them.

It’s interesting that during these surreal times, with a pandemic raging, that those who’ve gotten the basics right, will be just fine. It’s not that they’re thriving at the moment, as a matter of fact, like most, they’ve had their businesses turned upside down. However, what they have in common is that they have built a financial cushion that will allow then to weather this storm and survive.

Where have all the experts gone?

So this brings me to my question- Where have all the experts gone? Where are all those talking heads with the latest and greatest strategy? Where are those experts, with the can’t miss lead generation program or consumer engagement secrets gone? Where are they now when your world has blown up? The thing is, many are one trick ponies and that’s all they’ve been preaching for the past few years. Sadly many entrepreneurs assumed that by following these messiahs all their problems would go away. Unfortunately, that’s not how it works. To be successful, you need to hope for the best, but plan for the worst. And it doesn’t get much worse than this.

Not to be let off the hook, let’s not forget all those government funded incubators and post secondary entrepreneur programs that have encouraged thousands of individuals to become an entrepreneur. Where is their voice in all this chaos? Shouldn’t they, with all their expertise, be offering the small business community actionable solutions or ideas to help them survive?

Based on my research, all I see them doing is regurgitating information on the various government emergency programs and not much else. Isn’t this the time when these organizations should be rallying their resources to help their memberships or alumni? It is, but they aren’t.

30-50% will fail

So with all these so called experts, where are they now when the small business community is being decimated? Unfortunately, many of their followers won’t survive as it is estimated that 30%-50% of small businesses won’t make it through this turmoil. Regrettably, how to prepare for economic upheaval, is something they just don’t preach.

For those successful entrepreneurs that will survive, they have a few of things going for them. They remember the past, are focused on the present and are looking to the future.

The past

History has a nasty habit of repeating itself and understanding that economic turmoil is a regular occurrence that hits entrepreneurs the hardest. And each time it happens it decimates a high number of businesses because they didn’t plan for the worst case scenario. Let’s be honest. This pandemic is the proverbial 100 year storm and is extreme, but it still an economic upheaval. Those businesses that will fail, never placed any effort to build a financial foundation under their businesses. They just kept reinvesting everything in their enterprises.

Much like betting at the casino, those that will survive understand that cash is king and when you’re up, you should consistently take some money off the table and continue until such time that they’re only playing with the houses money. Sadly, many just kept betting it all and now they have no money to tide them over and will become a statistic.

The present

Those that understand the past and have built their financial resources, can calmly focus on maintaining what they’ve built. To be sure, it’s not business as usual and they’re feeling the pain, but having the financial wherewithal allows them to scale down their business and focus on surviving. Although they are still feeling the stress with the current situation, they’re not panicking and are able to focus on reinventing or innovating in a calm manner. Let’s be honest, making decisions under duress is never a good idea, simply because we’re not thinking clearly.

The future.

Those entrepreneurs with a financial cushion, know that things will get better in the future and are preparing for the day that things turn around. They understand that when that day comes, they can once again accelerate their business growth and with far fewer competitors they’ll easily make up any lost ground. As an added bonus, they will most likely grow their margins because they’ve either innovated and/or found savings by just doing things a little differently.

Maybe things will change once this is over. Maybe how we promote entrepreneurship will also change, but I have my doubts. Growth for the sake of growth increases risk far greater than necessary and needs to be tempered with a good dose of common sense.

Get More LIFE Out of Your Business

You shouldn’t be the hardest working person in your company.

Many small business owners find that even after the struggling start-up years, they’re working too many hours and still managing every aspect of their businesses.

Do you suffer from any of the following?

1. Business ownership isn’t living up to the dream.
2. Endless workdays.
3. You can’t find good people.
4. Profits are less than expected.
5. You can never take a vacation.

You’re not alone. But there is a solution. As Greg demonstrates, with some time and effort, you really can Get More Life Out Of Your Business.

ORDER HERE

SBM #86 – Entrepreneurs in Crisis

Tagged as: control, crisis, customers, employees, entrepreneur, small business, small business expert, Small Business Minute

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Covid-19 is creating utter chaos for many small business owners. Fear is taken hold of many owners as they wonder what’s next? No one knows when or if they’ll reopen. Most don’t want to admit out loud what they are secretly thinking-bankruptcy. It’s just too difficult to fathom.

Making any kind of decision while under duress is never a good idea. We’re just not thinking clearly. This is especially true when your dream or life long work is about to evaporate in front of your eyes.

Covid-19 has forced governments to mandate closure of all but essential services in many parts of the world. In turn this has created panic amongst many entrepreneurs and their reactions range from submission to lashing out at everyone. To be fair, this is a once in a lifetime scenario. Much like a 100 year storm, most individuals and businesses are not prepared, and the aftermath will be disastrous for many.

There is no cavalry coming.

Not to be the bearer of bad news, but there is no cavalry coming, sorry. Governments can only do so much, and many small businesses will not qualify for the many programs that are being unveiled.

Many individuals think that the banks should automatically suspend all payments, but that’s not going to happen. However, if you’re business was solid before Covid-19, you can probably get some short term concessions. If your business was struggling beforehand, then don’t hold out hope.

Many landlords are small business owners themselves. They, like you, can’t afford to offer much leniency. They too have mortgages and bills to pay. Unlike residential mortgages commercial mortgages don’t usually have deferral options, so their payments must be made.

Hope for the best, but expect the worst

So, what’s an entrepreneur to do? To state the obvious, batten down the hatches. But instead of just fretting away, it’s time to get proactive and lay out a plan. Actually, it’s time to lay out two plans. The first plan is based on your business starting up in 4-8 weeks and the other is the worst case scenario plan, business shutdown. Regardless of which way it goes, working on your plans will be a distraction from all the noise and give you something to do.

Plan #1 – 4-8 weeks

Assuming you’ll be able to restart, you’ll need to put a game plan in place, so here’s a primer on the things you’ll need to think about.

• Call your landlord- If you haven’t already, it’s time to make that call and ask how you can work together. They may or may not be willing or able to offer any concessions. But you do need to know, don’t assume, ask the question.

• Business most likely won’t return to the pre-crisis level, so how do you plan on managing it? How much staff do you need, short and long term? You need to let your employees know your thoughts.

• How are you going to get your customers back? My suggestion is to call them and let them know you’re planning to restart as soon as you’re able. An alternative is to email them. But it’s far less personal.

• Depending on your business, do you have to do a thorough sanitizing?

• Do you have product that expires? What’s your plan on disposing of it?

• Do you have receivables? How do you plan on collecting these? Are you prepared to offer the same concessions you’re looking for from your suppliers?

• Call your suppliers. Has your status changed with them? If you had credit with them, is it still available? This is important to know. If you no longer have credit available, how do you plan on getting your supplies?

• Make a regular habit of checking your on your place of business. Some leases and insurance policies have clauses stating that you must check the premises regularly.

Plan #2 – Business shutdown

This is not fun, but you need to be prepared if this becomes the inevitable. Planning a measured shutdown is far better than doing nothing and just letting things happen. As soul destroying that this can be, there’s an old adage that says, “if you find yourself in a hole, quit digging!” If shutting the business down is your only option, it’s best to initiate it sooner rather than later, to stop the financial bleeding. Now is the time to get your head around this potential outcome, so that you are in control. The following steps should get you started in the event a windup is necessary

• Contact your lawyer and discuss the situation. Find out what needs to be done to close a business and the cost to do so. Get their input and direction on how to handle your suppliers, including your landlord.

• Contact your accountant and ask them what your liability is regarding taxes owed and their role in a business wind up.

• Make a list of all your payables. This list includes absolutely everything. This way you’ll know how much you owe.

• Make a list of any receivables you have and your plan to collect on these. The more you collect, the less you’ll end up owing.

• List all your inventory and contact your suppliers to see if you can return any unused product. Otherwise develop a plan to liquidate.

• List all your business assets i.e. equipment. These can be sold. Just remember that their value will be significantly less than you paid or what you think they’re worth, as many other businesses will be liquidating at the same time.

• Contact any other creditors to determine what you owe them. Some will be willing to negotiate a lesser amount or some form of payment plan.

• Make sure you complete all the necessary paperwork for laying off your staff, if you haven’t done so yet.

Regardless of your experience or years in business, no one could have foreseen what has gripped the world economies as a result of Covid-19. Most recessions and depression come upon gradually over time and gives people the time to adjust their course in order to weather the storm, but not this time. It was immediate and without warning.

What you do next matters. How you do it also matters. So, by putting your plans in place now, you’ll be prepared, in control and be able to live to fight another day.

Get More LIFE Out of Your Business

You shouldn’t be the hardest working person in your company.

Many small business owners find that even after the struggling start-up years, they’re working too many hours and still managing every aspect of their businesses.

Do you suffer from any of the following?

1. Business ownership isn’t living up to the dream.
2. Endless workdays.
3. You can’t find good people.
4. Profits are less than expected.
5. You can never take a vacation.

You’re not alone. But there is a solution. As Greg demonstrates, with some time and effort, you really can Get More Life Out Of Your Business.

ORDER HERE

SBM #85 – Entrepreneurs guide to conference calls

Tagged as: communication, conference calls, efficiency, entrepreneur, follow up, leadership, small business, small business expert, Small Business Minute

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

The outbreak of Covid-19 has got the world on lock down and many employees have transitioned to working at home. With that, many entrepreneurs are holding daily conference calls to keep teams connected.

The upside is many employees are having greater communication with their managers than they previously had. Unfortunately, many owners have never participated or hosted conference calls and in my conversations with participants, I’m hearing that many of these calls are bit chaotic and frustrating.

So I thought I’d offer up the following 6 tips to have better conference calls.

1. Be on time!

There’s nothing more distracting than someone joining a call late only to declare “Hi I’m here!”. This usually happens without consideration that with a call in progress, someone may be already talking, and your arrival and announcement totally disrupts the flow. Login quietly and wait until there’s a break in the topic to let people know you’ve arrived.

2. The meeting Chair

Whoever is hosting or chairing the call, needs to set some rules or guidelines in order to control the conversation and keep it on track. One thing I did when chairing in-person committee meetings in my many volunteer roles, was to make sure everybody had a chance to speak. Many people have great ideas or want to contribute to a conversation but just don’t have the confidence to speak up. These same people tend to be a little more reserved and therefore remain quiet. Let be honest there’s always a core group of people who monopolize conversations, so the quieter ones are little intimidated and don’t speak up.

So, in order to give these individuals a chance to air their ideas or concerns, I would keep track of who has spoken on a given topic and then I would go around the table and ask the individuals who hadn’t commented, if they had anything to add. This way they were given the opportunity to make their thoughts known.

In a conference call, the chair should state the issue or ask the question and then ask each individual, one at a time to comment. This alleviates the typical free for all that usually happens, and the conference call becomes more productive.

As a caveat, some conference calling platforms have the ability for individuals to digitally raise their hand to comment. However, many of conference calls taking place today calls are being held on mobile phones without these functions.

3. Set out an agenda

Just like in person meetings, whoever is running or chairing the call should put out an agenda beforehand. Since these conference calls will be daily or twice daily events, the list will be small. It’ll help at keeping everyone focused on the issues at hand.

4. Put your phone on mute

There’s nothing more annoying than background noise during conference calls. Since many people are going to be working from home, with kids and dogs underfoot, this is a big problem. So, if you’re not talking, put your phone on mute until it’s your turn.

5. No speaker phones or hands free.

Usually the sound quality when talking on speaker phone is significantly reduced. Using the speaker phone setting makes it difficult for everyone else to hear what your saying and requires immense concentration. Get a set of headphones if you need your hands to be free during the call. It’ll make the call more comfortable for everyone else.

6. Assign a minute taker

Just like any formal meeting someone should be taking minutes of the meeting. They don’t have to be long dissertations. Point form is sufficient and is really just a summary of issues and actions required. Unlike an office meeting, there’s little chance to do face to face follow up, so these minutes can be distributed shortly after the conference call ends and serves to keep everyone on task. The minute taker should be rotated between the callers every day.

These are trying times for most entrepreneurs. Many have never faced such a dramatic shift in they way they are forced to do business. However, this is a wonderful opportunity to try out those ideas you’ve always had, but never had the time to test.

Using conference calls to keep your arms around everyone and provide clear direction is just one of the tools, that did not exist or were the exclusive domain of large corporations not that many years ago.

Stay safe.

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