Service Pro News

Building Websites That Sell

2008-01-25T10:11:00.000-08:00

As we all know, they sky is the limit when designing your company's website. Browsing the web will show you that each website has a personality of its own. But the winning websites -- those that are most effective at catching the attention of your target audience, explaining your serve, and motivating visitors to pick up the phone or order online -- will most likely have the following characteristics.

1. A Show-stopping Headline. For this you need to think like you are writing an advertisement for a magazine. How can you hook the reader and encourage them to read further? Use each headline to pull them in and then each copy block to keep them there. This is an opportunity to tell them right away what makes your website, and company, different, and why they should choose you.

2. A Clean and Organized Layout. As tempting as it is to throw lots of information on your home page, don't! Websites that are busy and overwhelming tend to confuse visitors. They make a first impression and give your visitors an idea about your company. Resist the urge to post lots of graphics and images and stick to a few, powerful and coordinated ones.

3. A Navigation System that Works. Have you ever visited a website and gotten completely lost? You want to get back to the home page, but can't figure out how. And where did that "service" section go? You were trying to read the rest of it but you can't find it. At that point, most people close the website and decide to search elsewhere. Perhaps the website was attractive and the copy was informative, but the navigation frustrated them, so they left. And odds are they won't be back. Don't let this happen to you.

4. Interesting and Web-friendly Copy. Capture the visitor's attention with not just appealing colors and a great layout, but also with wordage fit for the web. Use bullets rather than long sentences. Use bold words or phrases you want them to remember. Make sure the language style of the site matches that of your audience. Do you want to sound casual and friendly, or formal and rigid? If you want to expand on a point, link through to another webpage where you can offer more detail.

5. Current and Fresh Information. It's great to offer monthly specials or promote seasonal events, but make sure to keep those current. Outdated information is not just inaccurate, but it shows that you aren't paying close attention and potential customers will notice that.

6. A Consistent Template. Design the colors and layout for the home page and then keep it fairly consistent throughout your site. It's fine to change the location of images, but don't move your navigation bar. As many usability studies show, people quickly adapt to the design of a consistent website. As they move through your site they will instinctually expect your site to have continuity.

7. A Unique Sales Pitch. When visitors check out a new website, they will immediately scan your site to see why you are different. Telling them that you are an "Insured, bonded, and high quality" business is not different. What is your company's unique sales pitch? What makes you stand apart from the competition? Whatever it is, make sure it is the first thing people see when they find your site.

10 Tips to Making Every Click Pay Off

2007-12-07T09:49:00.000-08:00

SEO, PPC, RSS - is it just me or do we all need a translator these days to promote our websites? Have no fear. This newsletter offers Pay per Click tips that will address some of your burning online marketing questions.

1. Know the big players. Ever wondered which search engines get the most traffic? Well according to a Media Matrix survey conducted in July of 2006, the traffic percentages were broken down as follows:Google 74%Yahoo 14%MSN 9%Ask 2%All other search engines 1%There are basically 3 major Pay per Click campaign locations: Google, MSN and Yahoo! Each has a network of engines that your ads will appear on if you choose. To get an idea of each go to their homepages and look for the words "Advertising Programs", "Search Ads", or "Advertise."

2. Do some research and look at a keyword estimator. Two websites I recommend for this are http://freekeywords.wordtracker.com or http://www.wordtracker.com The first link is a free keyword suggestion tool. If you type in a word it will give you the top-ranking related keywords. The second offers a subscription service for those who are interested in making a more serious investment.

3. Watch those restrictions. Google restrictions will keep you from using superlative words like "best" and "#1". Review the guidelines on any search engine you use to avoid having your ad paused.

4. Understand how your money is spent. You can set a budget for the day, for a certain campaign, or for an ad group. One of your keywords may cost $4.00 per click and another $.50, you can get a lot more $.50 customers than $4.00 ones.

5. Aim for 3rd or 4th Place. You don't necessarily want to be in position #1 because that may break the bank. Try position 3 or 4 for more bang for your buck. Your ad will still be visible, but cost you much less.

6. Track your campaigns. The competition changes frequently so you need to check your campaigns often and adjust them as your competition does.

7. Test, test, test. Use the ad variations feature to test different copy on different ads. You will find that your potential customers will click through on some ad headlines more than others. The only way to figure out which ones work best is to test them out and track the progress.

8. Don't stress over the minutia. Yes some of your clicks will be wasted on your competitors clicking on your ads, or people who didn't mean to click or people who are looking to start their own business. But, that happens in any form of advertising, its just that in this type you are able to view things on such a small level that you needlessly worry about it. Just write it off in your mind as "the cost of doing business" and work on growing your business.

9. Plan with a results-oriented budget. Online advertising is replacing yellow page advertising, and yeah because you have more choices and control over your spending. So when considering your budget, be sure to think in terms of how much profit on an annual basis does one new customer bring me. I use the number of $625 for an efficient cleaning service. That means for a $625/month ad campaign you need to only get one good recurring customer from that month to pay for the ad.

10. Skip the learning curve and outsource. Don't speak much "online ad" lingo and can't imagine the headache of navigating yet one more program? Hire someone like us to do it for you for a very minimal cost. We know the tricks (and the treats).

5 Important SEO Tips to Get Your Website Noticed

2007-11-30T08:49:00.000-08:00

Sure, having an online presence is important, but how important? Well, during the holidays people will be flocking to the internet and those who are looking for a service of your kind will either find you, or they won't. But that's up to you.

The much-watched "Cyber Monday" is an e-commerce statistic similar to the first day after Thanksgiving, but lands on Monday when people are back in the office and really feeling serious about the impending holidays. According to comScore, Inc. a research firm that tracks digital activity, Cyber Monday online retail spending hit a new record this year at $733 million. That's a 21 percent increase over last year and the busiest online shopping day on record. Not only that, but they anticipate that the next couple of weeks' total will surpass $800 million. That's quite a few folks online.

So the big question is, how will they find YOU? Here are 5 quick tips on SEO (Search Engine Optimization) to help you get your website visible and accessible so that those online spenders find you fast.

1) Submit your site to online directories. Sounds obvious, doesn't it? But it's amazing how many businesses just have that "if you post it, they will come" attitude about the search engines finding their sites. Be sure to hit the biggies: Yahoo!, Google, and MSN, but don't forget those smaller directories as well.

2) Get Linked. Once upon a time it was all about just having the right keywords, but that has changed. Now search engines implement complex algorithms based on a variety of factors, and one of those is the quantity and quality of sites that link to yours. Not sure who is linking to you? Here's an insider secret. Go to Yahoo! and enter the words "linkdomain:" and your website's domain name. For example, "linkdomain:yourcleaningbusiness.com You'll find who links to you.

3) Keep Content Fresh. The more often you refresh your content and add new material, the more often the search engine spiders will find you. This is much easier that most businesses think. Update company news, add reviews on your products and services, change your testimonials. Put your online newsletter on your site. They are tons of possibilities.

4) Write an article. Odds are that you have enough experience in your trade to come up with a pretty useful article for your industry. Whether it is geared toward your potential customers or your colleagues in the businesses, you can distribute it with a link back to your website and increase the probability of visitors to your site. There are plenty of online services that will distribute the article for you or you can promote it to an association or professional group within your specialty.

5) Use Your Words. Do some research to find out what the hottest keywords are for your industry. Make sure you use them appropriately in your site, but don't overuse them. Relevant and applicable keywords that are carefully chosen throughout the text (and the code) of a website are important to make sure the spiders index your site correctly.

So remember to take advantage of this holiday season and make sure you come up in the searches. Stay tuned for even more useful tips on getting the most out of PPC (pay per click) campaigns.

The Truth About Government's Small Business FREE Money Programs

2007-10-31T09:00:00.000-07:00

Q. I went to a "get rich quick" seminar and was told that there is tons of "free money" available for small business owners, and if I sign up for their big bucks seminar they will tell me how to get it. Can you help me get some of the big pie of free money?

A. Every so often this question comes around and I don't want to burst your bubble but the government, as far as I know, is not really in the habit of giving out free money to start your business. There are a few programs that give extra tax advantages to businesses building in lower economic areas, high technology fields or hiring relocated, disabled or rehabilitated workers, that can be utilized to save you some bucks. For these types of credits check out federal, state, county, city and local governments for "tax credit", "employment credit" or "empowerment zone". To get you started you can check out the Welfare to Work credits (found at http://www.irs.gov/businesses/small/article/0,,id=1685 64,00.html) and the Empowerment Zone and Employment Credit (found at http://www.irs.gov/govt/tribes/article/0,,id=108424,00.ht ml). These programs change frequently and have very stringent requirements about exactly when you must file paperwork or the credits are a "no go". When I owned my cleaning business I got some really nice tax credits ($5000 back at taxes, if memory serves) for hiring a couple of great workers that had disabilities and were referred to me through a local government vocational rehab. And if you are going into a targeted field you may be able to get a grant for specific research or business development. You can check out http://www.grants.gov/ to see if something is appropriate for your business idea. However, most businesses "startup" using one of the 6 ways of financing below.

6 Ways of Getting Startup Dough to Launch or Re-Launch Your Business

Whether you are launching or thinking of re-launching your business, and you need some funds to get off of the ground here are some ideas about how others get the job done.

Buy an existing business on an owner contract. One way to start fast and furious is to buy an existing business on an owner contract. Owners looking for a quick sale may offer to sell on an owner contract where you make payments to them. Do your homework first, though. Just because the financing is right does not make it a good deal. Check out "The Complete Guide to Buying a Business" by Richard W. Snowden to see how to evaluate a business and be sure that you are getting a good deal.

Get a private business loan. Some banks will issue private business loans for startup, although you are going to want to pick the right bank, and be ready to be asked for some collateral, credit, money down, experience in the industry and some of the other things that banks always want. Picking a bank that wants small business owners as customers may be the key. With my cleaning business I had years of solid track record before applying for business line of credit and I first went to the wrong bank. After several weeks of chasing down papers and meeting with representatives they told me that they did not do loans for businesses like mine. Frustrated, I went to another bank that was looking for entrepreneur businesses, and with a signature on one form and 24 hours I got my loan. http://www.entrepreneur.com/has a very nice feature for finding small business-friendly banks.

Get a government business loan. The SBA (http://www.sba.gov/) is always a good source for looking for small business funding. What they offer changes frequently, but they can direct you to all kinds of funding sources, and their advice is free.

Find friends and family to be investors. Most businesses finance themselves with friends and family investors. Is this a good idea? It can be if you do it right. Make a formal pitch with a business plan to your potential investors. Tell them how much you are looking for in investment, your expected payoff schedule, how much stock they would own, and what level of involvement you expect in the business. Frequent reports and meetings on the status of the company, may ease their minds and their wallets.

Seek private investors. Don't you just love the name "Angel investor"? It sounds like someone is coming down from the heavens to save you. And for some businesses that is what they do. At a private financing club presentation that I attended, I asked what is the difference between Venture Capitol and an Angel Investor. One of the key differences is the amount of money that we are talking about. VC's are generally looking for emerging technologies needing funds of over $3 million, and often in the tens of millions. An Angel investor will invest anywhere from $10,000 to $1 million. The one resounding theme, however was that you need to be flexible and coachable on your business plan if you want this kind of private investment. VC's and Angels are often intimately involved in the business attending meetings, receiving frequent status reports, owning stock and even making business decisions. A few places to look for investors is http://www.garage.com/, http://www.commonangels.com/, http://www.gobignetwork.com/, or local funding associations or networks.

Start from the dollars in your wallet. Starting from the few bucks in your own wallet is how most small service business owners that I know started their business. When I started my cleaning business I had $50 and a vacuum. It can work - with one catch. Startups need money to grow, and if you don't have enough dough growth can be extremely slow. Also, the risk that you take starting with no capitol is that if there is an emergency of some kind (poor weather spell, bad luck with a dishonest employee, unfortunate results with a marketing attempt) instead of it being a small setback, and can mean life or death for the company since you don't have the capitol to ride it out. So, my advice is that if you do start on a shoestring plan to take some of your first profits and put some away to reinvest in your business. That way it won't take you 20 years to get out of the starting gate, and you can sleep at night knowing that you have a safety net. The amount that I liked to keep around was a minimum of a month of payroll and overhead.

Whatever source you choose, decide ahead of time how much money you will need, and have a solid plan about how you will best utilize your precious capitol. Success is often directly attributable to planning.

Make Your Business Magical

2007-10-18T11:48:00.000-07:00

Take a long, close look at Disney World and you will realize that this place is not just fun, it is smart. After all, there are plenty of theme parks to choose from these days. Disney World is not just adding rides and simple attractions like all the others. Its adding productions: plays, musicals, circus acts, and more. But why expand into performing arts? Surely it must be much more expensive to hire hundreds of talented professionals to run the productions than to hire operators to run the rides. The answer lies in not just the magic of Disney, but the magic of a brilliant company vision.

As an outsider looking in, I uncovered 5 key reasons for Disney World's success.

1) They capitalize on their competitive edge. Consider the ever-popular Mickey Mouse, Cinderella, and many other Disney characters. Only Disney has the unique ability to play off its successful stories and characters. By making a musical from a successful movie, visitors are eager to see their favorite characters come to life.

2) They emphasize growth and opportunities to their employees. How does Disney manage to hire thousands of cheery people? Many businesses can't find anyone to fill their spots, let alone those who walk around with customer service as their first priority. It's simple, they offer their employees the opportunity to be Cast Members, not just employees. They encourage them to grow with the company and to expand their skills. Those who start out as actresses and musicians playing the role of a princess may launch their career to be the next Jessica Simpson or Britney Spears (well, maybe we don't want to be Britney this week). In short, they give their employees opportunities.

3) Disney World offers a truly unique customer experience. The Disney experience is one that can't be replicated anywhere else. The "rides" are not just rides, they are experiences. With live people, leading you along, you feel like you are in the middle of a musical, an adventure, a show. Sure, you could pay less and go to another theme park, but the magic would not be the same.

4) Their merchandising strategy grows with the company. Disney already has expanded its amount of successful movies. They know the formula of what works, and manage to pull it off again and again. With a slightly different script based on movie, they can extend their merchandising to sell more DVDs, toys, shirts, etc.

5) The company is positioned to launch into more entertainment deals. Let's face it, we all have favorable memories of Disney stories, whether they be from books, movies, or songs. With a lifetime of warm, fuzzy feelings about Disney, we are open to find out what more they have for us, whether that be additional stories for our kids or movies and music for an older crowd. As they make additional entertainment deals and products, their loyal customers look forward to the results.

So it seems the magic of Disney is not just in the characters, it is in the company vision. A strong corporate vision is behind all of these successes, from recruiting to marketing, to merchandising.

How to Create Your Own Big Promotional PayDay

2007-10-05T10:06:00.000-07:00

Forget "Do you want fries with that?" The newest phrase from McDonald should be "Did you want a high speed internet connection with that order?" As many of you have probably heard, McDonald's has just unleashed its Monopoly 2007 Game, where you can win prizes by darting between your favorite McDonalds restaurant and your computer to play along a virtual game board. All after giving them your email address, birthdate, first and last name, and full address, of course. Are there lots of prizes to be won? Sure. Will they attract and collect information on new prospects who are drawn to all the hype? No doubt. Could your business do something like this on a smaller scale? Yep.

The truth is, that there really is no notable event between October 2 and November 13 for McDonald's to highlight, so they are making up their own. And they aren't the first. Remember the Pespi Challenge? That was another. And this type of promotional event can be done on a much smaller scale. Here in the Northwest, there is a brewery down the street that welcomes the rainy season with the "Moisture Festival" and brings which brings in a big local crowd. Your business can do the same. Here are some tips on how you can make a big splash with a planned event.

1. Decide on the event date well in advance, so you have time to promote it. Start planning at least 3 months ahead, and even earlier if the promotion will be complicated. Draw up a timeline for planning purposes and consult it regularly so you don't miss any advertising deadlines, etc.

2. Decide on what type of event it will be. Contest, referral promotion, special midnight sale, "make your dreams come true" for a charity, one thousandth customer prize, 10 year anniversary event, be the finder of the magic toilet golden ticket, etc. Be creative, and remember that nearly every company in the country offers a "30% off your introductory cleaning" so to stand out you are going to have to be clever. Be sure to check with your state regulations on games on contests so your big score does not turn into a flop.

3. Be sure the program is achievable. If your plans include an elaborate citywide scavenger hunt resulting in a big prize, there are many elements of that concept that could go wrong and backfire. The result would be a negative one, making your company look like it has no following. Keep it simple and successful.

4. If you can, get your customer's involved. Like the McDonald's game, you will need to promote it less and less as time goes by since your clients will know about the event.

5. Include a charity, if possible, in your event so that you can share in their brand recognition. Open yourself up to a larger group of potential participants, and get lots of free press. A small annual event that our cleaning company used to do every year was a food drive. We were already in the home, and although we didn't have a ton of participants, our clients liked being part of that community contribution.

6. Get partners to participate in the event with you. When I owned my cleaning company a radio station offered a "luxury for a year" sort of prize and we donated "free house cleaning for a year" along with many other participants donating items/services for one year. Choose your partners carefully and lay out all of the rules in writing ahead of time. When your name appears with someone else's you share a reputation.

7. Be aware that you may not make a lot of money on the event itself, but the "fortune is in the follow-up." Following the event you can do a press release about the winner (if it was a contest sort of thing) and put notices in your newsletter a couple of times about the results. If you partnered with anyone, organize follow-up promotions with them, have signs made with any news articles or pictures of happy participants, and use collected contact information during the event to do follow-up marketing.

8. Consider making the event an annual event. At the end of your promotional campaign, begin to promote the next year's event. Tell them to "stay tuned" or "come back for more." You can even involve them further by letting them make suggestions for rules or prizes for the following year.

No matter what the concept and theme of the promotion, don't forget to make it fun. Yes, it may take some serious work to pull off, but the result should be something you enjoy doing, and can get excited about sharing with your customers.

Frustrated Customer and Violent Outburst

2007-09-07T09:56:00.000-07:00

Man takes pry bar to self-check till: Machine whacked after speaking to him in Spanish

"Well, let's look at it this way: At least, this guy wasn't buying a blowtorch," is the way reporter, Brad Wong, in the Seattle Times article starts this "stranger than fiction" story of a Home Depot customer using the self- check out to buy a pry bar and a hack saw, and becoming so frustrated when the machine began speaking to him in Spanish, that he used the pry bar to smash the computer to bits! Fleeing from the accident, he caused over $10,000 in damages.

Now, this guy's actions were definitely wrong and I'm in no way condoning it, but you have to admit sometimes bad customer service, or machines replacing people may give you fantasies about at least taking vengeance with a good tongue-lashing on the uncaring company who ruins your day with bad service. Who knows, maybe this guy was already having the worst day of his life, and then the challenge of having to navigate a new computer system was just the tipping point he needed to fall over the edge into crazy town.

I'll fess up that the concept of self-check-outs at the grocery store drives me bananas. I guess I am an old fashioned gal, and I want a little t.l.c. when I'm parting with my money in a business establishment. My life is full of complications (as is everyone's), and the store is just a last oasis where I can go and be taken care of. No thinking involved...in fact keep me unthinking and you'll get more of my money. OK, Self-check out at the gas station is fantastic since it saves me time and is so simple; just put your card in, pull it out and pump. But self-checkout at the grocery store does not save me time or money. I can see how it makes things easier for the store - but if I were the owner you'd never see me putting the customer to work like that.

So can we put any of my rant to good use? Only to know that there are all kinds of people that will react differently to the level of service that you provide for your customers. Some thought should be taken to how the customer is treated throughout their entire experience at your company - especially if you want to build customers for life. I doubt Home Depot executives are kept up at night with regrets about losing this nutty customer, but I have to wonder how many other people have similar frustrations but never voice their opinion?

Since you are in the service business you don't have self-check out lines, but you do have plenty of opportunities to provide great service, here are three tidbits on improving customer service in your business that I pulled from my popular special report written last year "50 Ways to Boost Your Revenues: A Small Business' Service Guide to Building and Army of Repeat Loyal Customers in a Competitive Market Place".

Don't Give the Appearance of Focusing on Speed

It's tricky. The customer's time needs to be valued, yet, when surveyed customers report that they do not want to feel rushed. The trick is to put on a good show. You can be as fast and as busy as you want behind the velvet curtains, but in front of the customer you need to focus on what they need, and not your time constraints. Maybe for your company this means teaching your staff how to work "efficiently" without appearing hurried.

Never, I mean never, tell the customer to hang up the phone and go to your web site

Yes, this is my personal opinion, but very valid. I heard recently of a customer having a computer problem and contacting the repair facility by phone, only to be told to go online and make an appointment for computer repair. Are they nuts? The computer is broken...and that's why they are calling!

It's perfectly o.k. to mention the web site if the client would like to research further, but never give the customer the impression that their only option is to hang up and go to the web site. Your customers are smart people. They already know that if they want web site information they can go there. They probably chose to call because, either they were having trouble accessing your web site, they had a question that was not answered on the web site, or they prefer to talk with a live person.

Give Your Staff "Listening Lessons"

Once you have implemented this, you'll want to try it on your spouse. It's human nature. People feel more valued when they are listened to. You want your customers to feel valued, smart, and accepted, so they feel satisfied. Think of hair stylists. People often report feeling a connection with their hair stylist that they do not feel with any other personal service provider. And, one of the things that they are good at is listening, and making the customer feel good about themselves. So, teach your staff how to actively listen, understand their customers, and build good professional caring relationships.

Prevent Employee Disaster: The Agility and Conviction of a Prize Fighter

2007-09-04T09:59:00.000-07:00

Many years ago I knew a service business owner that had a nightmare happen to her business the likes of which keeps us all up at night. She had a staff of six people, and ran a bustling cleaning business. She was kind and giving to her staff, but never seemed to be in the loop about what was going on with them. Employees would quit without notice, promise to do things and then not follow through, give her a sob story about being ill, and then be spotted later at the movies. Things were busy but she never seemed to get ahead because every time she would gain new business, she would have some crazy employee turmoil that would keep her from being able to capture the business. When she contacted me she told me that she was ready to start adding some structure and make her life as an owner simpler. A good training program, continued learning, incentive programs, policies and procedures to safeguard her business, and some other things were on the goal list. Unfortunately before we had an opportunity to enact any of these plans disaster struck! Four of the six employees got together and left the company taking many of the customers that they serviced with them. The owner was left with a fairly uninforcable non-compete agreement and less than half of her business left. She decided to close her doors.

The shame of it all was that she had great potential but just an unfortunate bout of luck that she could not overcome. Had she had a chance to take action on her goals, the problem would likely have not occurred. Her staff was unhappy and she didn't even know it -- despite her best intentions, and working like a dog to build her business.

The key problem that she had, I feel, was the type of "relationship" that she had with her staff. Her relationship was more like a personal relationship than a boss-employee relationship. From my own experiences, I have learned that these kinds of "personal" relationships end up causing the owner a lot of work and heart ache. I have told this story before, but maybe you haven't heard it. When I first started my cleaning business I hired a relative to work for me. And, I know a lot you will be going "Ohhhhh boy" because you may have been down this rocky road. Well here is how the debockle unfolded. I would send him out on jobs at the beginning of the day, and then receive dozens of all calls all day long about how he needed gas, he had to stop for lunch, he was out of cash, he's not feeling well that day, advice on what he thinks I should do, and then at the end of the day receive calls from all of my clients saying that he never showed up! Needless to say, I kept losing my temper, and explaining how upset he was making me -- none of which influenced his behavior. This is how personal relationships go -- you try to emotionally manage the relationship and behavior.

In a professional relationship you have much more control, and better results over an employee's behavior -- and thus a less stressful, and more balanced life.

So here is my recipe for building a professional relationship, gaining more control of your business, and being prepared for whatever comes your way.

Create Job Descriptions
Job descriptions tend to fall lowest on the priority list for many, but are actually essential in hiring and retaining quality employees. Your job descriptions should include the skills needs, tasks performed and knowledge required, as well as expected competency and attitudes. Set standards that can be measured and rewarded.

Review and Update Staff Training and Materials
Consider both initial training and a continued learning plan. Effective programs improve your staff's performances, skill level and motivation. The training program does not need to be expensive, but should train staff members via as many forms of communication as possible (i.e. written, verbal, visual, demonstrative, physical).

Provide Top-Notch Resources
Technology and office supplies are relatively cheap, and a worthy investment for your quality people. Inadequate supplies, back-aching tools, and awkward instructions not only inhibit performance, but also equate to a "you are not valued" message to your staff.

Feedback, Feedback, Feedback
People want and need to know how they are doing. I recommend both frequent evaluations, and informal feedback. The primary goals of the feedback are recognition of accomplishments and motivation.

Beef Up your Compensation and Incentive Programs
Does your Compensation package reward all aspects of your employees? Do your employees do everything on the list, but drop the ball on follow-up customer service? Wages aren't everything. Try to identify job tasks that are not being rewarded, and implement a creative incentive program.

Plan for Turnover
You may be able to decrease your turnover rate, but you cannot eliminate it -- so plan for it. Why risk stressing your staff with over-work, for something that can be planned for.

Perform Exit Interviews
Valuable information can be gained by interviewing employees that are leaving your organization. If you find out what your employees really want, then you can give it to them. It is not always money, like you might think.

Be a Great Boss
Take seminars, read books, hire consultants or whatever it takes to learn how to get the best performance out of your staff.

Create a Recruiting Plan
Now that you have the best jobs in town, you just need to find the right people. Create and implement a plan to find the employees that you need that includes everything from newspaper ads, to word of mouth, to recruiting events and contests.

Be Objective, and Look for the Best
Use your job descriptions to make an objective list of what you are looking for, and don't settle for less. Quality people are out there, and are looking for a place of employment that rewards and appreciates them.

Businesses Preparing for a Changing Economy

2007-08-17T09:51:00.000-07:00

Now, I am not an economist, but with this week's financial concerns over the sub-prime lending markets and the fluctuations in the stock market, have got me thinking that it's never too early to be prepared for a changing economy.

Here are some tips for leveraging your service business in a declining market.

Add Value. When money gets tight people tend to cut back on "unnecessary expenses", and now is the time to add so much value that your service is an "essential". Improve your quality, over-deliver, add signature services, check-in with customers often on their satisfaction level, work with your customers budgets, etc. Emphasize the customer loyalty programs you have in place and remind your staff to maintain top notch customer service. Make it so they can't live without you.

Diversify. In some very tough economies my businesses have faired well by leveraging my services ahead of time. Do more than one thing. When all of your income is tied up in just one kind of service, you literally have all of your eggs in one basket. So, if you own a residential focused service, you may want to take on more commercial focused services that are economy-neutral. Stick with what you know, however, and avoid crazy "pie in the sky" ventures that tempt you in late night television viewing, etc.

Get Organized and Strengthen Your Processes. Do you have inefficiencies in your systems? Does your office make mistakes that cost you customers and money? Do you have prospects that you don't market to? Now is time to tighten up those money leaks. Put systems into place that help your business run itself! Lose fewer customers, make less costly mistakes, decrease administration labor costs, close more sales, train your employees to make you more money. No matter what the economy does, your company will benefit from these changes.

Thoughts of Selling? If you have thought in the past about selling your business for big bucks? A down economy may be just the opportunity that you are looking for. I sold my business in a booming economy, and countless business brokers told me that down economies are the best sellers' markets for businesses, since employment markets get tight and people are willing to "buy a job".

Employees. Good news - down economies are generally easier for hiring employees. So, if you are currently doing everything you can to fill your office with new employees, avoid putting into place long term inflated wages that you may be stuck with even when employees are easier to come by. Instead you can offer short term bonuses, and non-cash incentives that can be changed as your company bobs and weaves with fluctuations.

We'll cross our fingers that the market and the economy shakes off this declining trend quickly, but just in case you will be prepared and ready to thrive in any changes thrown at you.

The Harry Phenomenon - A Loss Leader???

2007-07-20T09:59:00.000-07:00

This week you really can't do much without reading or hearing something about the new Harry Potter book coming out on Saturday. And the way that this craze has set in, it really IS news. After all, Amazon.com, the world's largest online retailer, has already sold over 2 million copies in advance. They are offering the book at 50% off with free super saver shipping, and a $5 coupon on your next order. Do they expect to make money off this sale? No. So why do it? Why throw away all that profit? The reason can be explained in two simple marketing words "Loss Leader." Now, I am not talking about Harry himself, mind you. Although today's news is that there are many leaks circulating about the ending of the book, this is not one of them.

The seventh Harry Potter book is simply a "loss leader" for Amazon.com and other retailers because they are making a conscious trade off of gaining customers but losing a sales margin. When they purchase their book, all those Harry Potter fans are buying those books and having some type of customer experience. Maybe they feel excited and happy after they order the book because they got such a bargain, maybe they find that ordering the book online is easier than they thought. Maybe they decide to buy a couple of other books while they are shopping. But in general they are having a positive experience buying from that business. And if they are happy, they are more likely to buy again. And if they buy again, they are loyal customers and will tell others about how great buying from that retailer is. And, if nothing else, they are giving the retailers some information - their buying habits, interests, contact information and probably many are setting up an account. And this is why loss leaders are born.

Those online and offline retailers have a bunch of number crunchers behind the scenes and they know their average cost-per-customer. For different markets and products, that number varies. Basically it is the cost that you spend on attracting, marketing to, and making a sale to a customer. Sure, those Amazon.com folks lost some their sales margins on this loss leader, but they gained over 2 million customers. Over two million. Those number- crunchers know how much money it costs to get two million customers, and I can guarantee you in the long run this little discount is well worth the effort for them.

Are You Ready For Our Lawsuit Happy Nation?

2007-07-12T10:47:00.000-07:00

We have all heard the horror stories of lawsuits filed against service companies for tens of thousands of dollar$, for things like slip and fall accidents, employee discrimination, hazardous conditions, illegal immigrant employment and the like.

Paralyzed Housekeeper Sues Condo Complex:
http://www.cmmonline.com/news.asp?N_ID=66606

Unsafe Floor Mat Allegedly Fingered in Slip and Fall Trial: http://www.madisonrecord.com/news/194952- burger-king-slip-and-fall-trial-to-begin-may-14

Cleaning Employee Sues over Unclean Duties: http://www.nypost.com/seven/01042007/news/regionalnews/peep__sweep_furor_regionalnews_laura_italia no____and_dareh_gregorian.htm

Wal-Mart Sued for Cleaning Contractor Allegedly: http://www.notinourname.net/detentions/walmart-5nov03.htm

However, maybe it's our turn to change this sue happy culture into a positive for our businesses by combating some of the lawsuits that may fall on them.

Did you hear about the lawsuit filed last week where a Detroit woman is suing her employer because her neighboring co-worker wore too much perfume and she has a chemical sensitivity? Using low scent or green cleaning agents, and using state of the art odor remediation techniques (certifications found at http://www.iicrc.org/) may be a great "benefit" to commercial clients who are aware of their responsibilities of this modern age that we live in. Or, in some business-to-business services, using products that you have proven to be safer and educating the customer about why you chose that product - for their own customers' safety.

Conference Implementation Secrets

2007-07-05T11:39:00.000-07:00

10 Things To Avoid Information Overwhelm And Ensure Results in Your Business

Business owner, Joe Service just came back from a conference and he is so excited about all of the ideas that he doesn’t know where to start. He doesn’t want this conference to turn out like all of the others where nothing gets implemented. So, I have a game plan for Joe…and you too if you also find this one tricky. Here are 10 things that I do to make sure that my investment in educational conferences pay off.

Pick 1-3 goals, and an action plan. When you leave a conference your mind may be swimming with hundreds of ideas, and those ideas can quickly turn into “overwhelm”. To avoid paralysis pick only 1-3 goals, and create an action plan of how those goals will be accomplished. If possible you should pick your goals within 48 hour of leaving the conference while stuff is still fresh in your mind. Like with any action plan, your plan should include measurable goals, and deadlines. Remember the difference between dreams and goals is planning.
Create a master plan spreadsheet. I love a good spreadsheet. All of your thoughts all in one spot. My spreadsheet after a conference will include an ideas page, a goals page, a to do list, a needed skills and resources page, pages for details on some of the goals established, and an inspirations page to record what inspired me to want to make changes.
Techniques are good, but your goals should focus on strategies. It’s easy to be impressed by techniques or tips that you pick up from a conference, but don’t be so swayed that you forget to incorporate those tips into solid strategies that will mobilize your company. For example, a recent tip that I got at a marketing conference about marketing during the order process, wouldn’t be nearly as effective if I didn’t also absorb the sales strategy that made that tip effective.
Decide on a 15 minute daily task. We are all too busy. So, it’s unlikely that you will arrive home from a conference and be able to spend hours every day implementing…but adding in 15 minutes a day, most of us could do. The last educational conference that I came home from I dedicated 15 minutes a day to writing marketing copy and the result was… boosting up my ezines to weekly distribution, a new web page, and publishing more articles every month…and that all adds up to more business! Also the task of thinking about marketing every day kept me focused on my goals.
Automate your implementation. Whenever possible make your implementation automatic by delegating specific tasks to employees or outsourced services. For example, if you came back from your last conference with a goal to do some internal marketing for your employees, you can automate that by assigning your office assistant to create an employee bulletin board that he/she is to add something new to every Monday..
Plan to test. Where do your big plans turn into has-been ideas instead of reality? If you are like me it can be because you work hard towards a goal initially and then you run into a big pot hole in the plan and you start to doubt whether or not the plan will work, and then divert your efforts elsewhere. You CAN avoid this! Just know that you will have to “test” your ideas before fully implementing. If you hit a road block, that just means a failed test, not a failed system. So for example, if you come back from a conference and plan to start a direct mail campaign, send out only a few hundred of your first mailing as a low cost “test”. Keep testing and tweaking your design/copy/recipients, etc. until you get the results that you want, and then blow your wad on a big campaign.
New inspirations go on a future plan. Another biggee that keeps people from implementing is constantly changing their plans to meet new ideas. Don’t worry…it’s not your fault…you can’t help it… you are an entrepreneur. Blindly racing into the fire to chase new ideas is what makes us successful business owners, but when it comes to implementation we need to reign in that energy and stick to the plans that you originally made. How I calm these new inspirations myself is to keep a “next phase” plan (a great page for master plan spreadsheet), and that is where all new ideas go until implementation of the old ideas are complete.
Put your blinders on. While you are implementing your new ideas you may need to “not play nice” for a while. If you are tackling a really big project it may be necessary for you to take a week and ignore clients, employees and all of the constant needling of day to day business. Definitely when planning to sell my business I lost a few customers due to lack of attention, and I felt badly about that, but at the same time I had to make a choice between pleasing everyone and accomplishing my goal. The benefits outweighed the loss.
Get a coach. A business coach is someone who can help keep you be accountable, offer ideas, identify road blocks, redirect you towards your goals, and get you there faster. You can hire a professional coach, and sometimes even make an agreement with a colleague to be your coach if they are willing to make a commitment, and be honest with you.
It’s not a question of “can” you do it, but “will” you do it. Never allow yourself to say “I can’t”, instead replace that with “I won’t”. Everything is possible! Given all of the pluses and minuses I give myself permission to decide that “I won’t” do something because the sacrifice is too great, but never to say “I can’t” do it.

The Art of Hospitality

2007-06-27T10:40:00.000-07:00

As the hotel industry knows well, hospitality is not just putting mints on the pillows. It's the way you interact with your customers. You can make those customers feel like royalty and keep coming back, or not.

Here are 3 quick tips on how to ensure you and your team can keep the spirit of hospitality in their every day tasks.

Moods are Contagious - Remember that you are part of your customer's day. Do you want to complain to them, show then you are tired and cranky, or be positive and make them smile? People enjoy uplifting people. Often a sense of humor, kind words, and a genuine smile can turn around even the worst of days.

Remember the "Trickle Effect" and Keep the Environment Positive - You, and your employees are the living, walking and speaking representation of your company. What is your company culture? Stressed out and demanding, or enthusiastic with a positive attitude? Whatever it is at your company, it will probably make its way to your customers. Customers will know it from speaking with you for even a few minutes.

Identify the "Little Things" - This is a great brainstorming meeting to have with your team. Ask them to write down the 10 things they remember doing or saying to a customer to get a smile. Then ask them to write down the 10 things someone else in a service business has done for them to make them smile. You will end up with many great stories and super ideas for exhibiting hospitality and good customer service.

In the News

2007-05-16T10:38:00.000-07:00

All Clean Services in the News

First, I want to recognize All Clean Services in Arizona for a getting press coverage in their local paper, The Daily Courier. By establishing a relationship with the press and continually updating them on their business news, SharpChip Consulting and All Clean Services worked together to expand All Clean's public relations. The hard work paid off in an outstanding article published last month.

The article by Ken Helder entitled "Green Cleaning, Earth-friendly solvents gain popularity" at The Daily Courier highlighted on the unique offering of All Clean Services business: environmentally safe products and procedures. When Ken Celebucki, president of All Clean Services Inc. in Chino Valley, originally began offering "green cleaning" 13 years ago, people thought it was odd. Today All Clean Services' environmental focus is not just notable, it's being admired by households and businesses alike.

The Daily Courier pointed out that although the idea of "going green" has not completely caught on yet, many businesses are recognizing the importance of it and like the idea. Congratulations Ken and the All Clean Team!

Satisfaction Guarenteed?

On a very different note, a recent story by ABC News has highlighted the outrageous case where a family- owned dry cleaning business is being sued $67 million for a pair of lost pants. The plaintiff based his lawsuit in large part on the claim of "satisfaction guarenteed" from the cleaners. He claims he experienced "mental suffering, inconvenience, and discomfort" from the mishap.

How to Hire the Right Manager for Your Service Business

2007-05-09T10:01:00.000-07:00

Business is booming and its time to hire a manager. Good for you! Here’s a question that I hear frequently on this topic. “I need to hire an office manager. I have an employee that's been with me for 5 years that I am thinking about promoting. Is that a good idea?” My answer… “maybe”. It depends on the person. Becoming a manager requires a whole new set of skills. In fact, an effective manager's job has very little to do with knowledge of cleaning, and more to do with his/her organizational and leadership skills. If it is a good match, promoting a staff member can be very positive because you have the potential for his/her long term loyalty, since he/she "grew up" in the company. Also, it's a great motivational factor for the rest of the staff to see that you promoted from within, and that it could happen to them too some day. Everybody wins. On the flip side, if it’s not a match, then you may want to look for your manager outside the company since you could spend a lot of time and money trying to train in areas that are very seldom learned through training. Instead, find someone with demonstrated management skills and then teach them about cleaning.

Look for People That Can Make Connections
Good managers are hard to find, but you can do it. When looking for a manager to lead your organization there are a few things that are important no matter whether he/she comes from within your organization or not, and they mainly have to do with “connections”. No, not the “connections”, like “I can get you lunch with Brad Pitt” sort of thing, but “connections” meaning they possess the quality of being able to build dynamic relationships with people quickly. I’ve identified 6 qualities that are generally present in managers that are able to build the people connections that they need to be successful.

6 Characteristics to Look for in a Good Manager

Relationship Builder

Staff, clients, vendors, colleagues… you’re manager will be representing your business, and his/her ability to make others feel good and connected will have a lot to do with how people view and interact with your company.

Top Achiever

Striving to be the best at anything and everything, and actually achieving it, will not only benefit your company from the work he/she gets done, but can also inspire the team to want to do the same. Managing all of the details and challenges that a manager of a service business faces is a tough job, and someone who accomplishes it with ease, will be rewarded with your employees’ and clients’ respect.

Mentor/Coach

Service businesses and employee issues… these two sometimes go hand in hand. A person who has the ability to approach staffing problems with a coach or mentor perspective will be able to hold your staff accountable, while maintaining a supportive teaching style that employees respect and respond to.

Responsible

Taking on the responsibility of the whole job from start to finish is a characteristic that your ideal person for the management position will have. Clock watchers, finger pointers, and tattle tales will not be effective in this role.

Focused

With 30 calls a day requiring management of sales, details and crisis you need someone who knows how to stay focused! Someone who can see the forest through the trees, follow up on details, stick to a schedule and still be able to complete that employee motivation project that you have them working on.

Captain Charting His Course

And finally, you need a captain charting his course. Someone who can look at the big picture of where you are going, and plot out all of the critical steps along the way. Organization and prioritization will be key skills here, or else your manager may plot your course right into the Bermuda Triangle.

That’s a tall order to fill for a manager. Nobody is perfect, so this is your ideal that you are looking for in your new leader. And if you are like me, you are always striving to improve these qualities within yourself as a manager. Find people who possess these characteristics and then they can hone their day to day skills. Molding the raw talent into actual management skills can be accomplished by sending your new manager to a management skills training course, like the kind offered by SkillPath.com. Job shadowing them for a while is another way that you can demonstrate and teach your management style. Or, you can hire a consultant or coach to be your new manager’s mentor, and guide them through those initial bumpy roads, avoiding common rookie mistakes.

No matter how you do it, or where you find them, hire your manager based on character and their obvious ability to connect with people and you can’t go wrong.

Secrets Revealed: How Profitable Owners Set, and Achieve, Their Goals

2007-05-04T11:04:00.000-07:00

It's the New Year and you're armed with a list of resolutions: increase sales, organize everything, spend more family time, and the list probably goes on and on. The question is, do New Year's resolutions really work, and how do you make your dreams your realities?

You can achieve your business dreams, but it takes a good understanding of a little known business secret. This secret doesn't involve endless lists, promises of self-discipline, nor new gadgets to organize your time better.

Well, with my experience helping other business owner's like yourself, I can tell you that people can and do achieve their business dreams, but it often takes a good understanding of a little known business secret. But, it doesn't usually take endless lists, promises of self-discipline, nor new gadgets to organize your time better. No, indeed there is one driving secret that is essential and missing from most New Year's resolution plans. It's the secret that is going to help you achieve the goal that all business owners really want... more profits with less work! It is the real reason why you go through this "business resolution" process every year. It's why you are working like a dog and not getting anywhere. And it is the reason why you should drop everything right now, because what you have likely been doing is probably taking you further and further away from the peaceful profits that you could be achieving. What is it? Oh, no...it's not that easy, and you must read on to find out.

Have you heard of a little hamburger place called McDonald's? This American success story involves two brothers who built a multi-billion dollar international restaurant chain, right? But, that's just part of the story. Richard and Maurice McDonald did in fact start the restaurant chain, but it was Ray Kroc who bought the only eight-location business for $2.7 million in 1961, and then took it global. At the time of Mr. Kroc's death in 1984, there were 7,500 restaurants worldwide. Now, there's more than 25,000 worldwide. Ray knew the secret. So, what is it?

Let's look at the typical business owners "to do" list. Of course, an owner wears many hats-client relations, marketing, employee management, leadership, web development, copywriting, general manager, operations manager, production manager, and the list goes on. The list I use for evaluating business functions is over 200 items long, and I find in most small businesses, the responsibility of nearly all 200 eventually fall on the owner.

So, you know you can't do everything-you need to delegate. But delegate what to whom? And when you do delegate, who will train and communicate with this person, watch deadlines, review work quality, etc.?

This is the point where hear, "Renee, I'm working so hard on achieving my goals, am being pulled in so many directions, and I'm not going anywhere. I've delegated things to staff members, but everything comes back to me. I have to train, check, approve, watch deadlines, manage people and drive every task in this business, and I only have so many hours in a day."

Have you been there? That brings us to the secret goal that needs to be on every business owner's New Year's resolution list - Stop being the key player on every task, and only delegate to "project managers"! "That's the secret?", you say. "But, what if I don't have any project managers? I am only a small company with a couple of employees?" Yes, Yes, this applies to you too!

In order to make delegation work without being bombarded with tons of information and new tasks, you need to assign someone as a "project manager", then let them work the entire project from start to finish. This person watches the deadlines, make decisions, and talk with other project managers and not you about little details.

Don't have employees who could be project managers? Then, consider outsourced contractors. Even so, you still may be wondering how this will work without service and quality going to H-E-double toothpicks in a hand basket? Just remember how it worked for Ray Kroc with McDonald's - you just need to implement systems and standards that make decision making easy for your team.

Let me give you an example from one of my clients. She has three people working in the office to help support the 15 employees in the field for her service service. Now, even though she has three people in the office, throughout the day she is called into resolve client issue after client issue, leaving her no time to achieve her business goals. So, I asked her to keep a log for a week of all of the "issues" that she is asked to resolve, and it turns out that there are really only about 10 things that clients call about in her office, and a simple system of a phone script with FAQ section allowed the staff to become "project managers" of client relations, and handle 95% of the issues that formerly plagued the owner.

So, this year, don't add any more tasks to your "to do" list. Instead, make your top resolution this: delegate complete "project management." Resist the temptation to quickly resolve client issues one at a time, and instead implement (or better yet, hire someone else to implement) systems and standards to fix the problem for good.

That's the secret that could make 2007 a year like no other you've experienced in your business. Take it and run. And, let me know about your successes, and/or how I can help.

Don't Miss Those Promotional Opportunities!

2007-05-04T10:16:00.000-07:00

Mother's Day is coming up again very quickly - in 8 days, in fact. I won't ask if you are prepared. The more important question is: Are your prospective customers? As a mother of two small children, I would take a completely clean house over flowers any day (after all, who is going to maintain and clean up those flowers really?) And so would many other moms I know. This year, BIGresearch from Worthington, Ohio estimates over $15.7 billion will be spent on Mother's Day, with 39.3% of that spent on gift certificates! So it is only fitting that this week's topic is Promotional Calendars.

Don't Miss Those Promotional Opportunities!
Sometimes called a promotional calendar, sometimes called a retail calendar. Whatever you call it, it is a planned schedule in line with all the holidays and special occasions that allows you to promote your business. With a quick online search you can find a generic promotional calendar online, but it's up to you to add the creativity, and the marketing.

Planning Ahead: It's best to plan out at least 6 months of promotions at once so that you can think through all the components of each and be prepared. For each you should plan out which marketing channels you want to go through and how you want to get the attention for your promotions. Do you want to do a special event to attract attention in the community? Do you want to send out a special direct mail campaign? Offer a coupon in your newsletter? All of these take different lead times, so it is important to know when your deadlines are for each so you can write your copy or arrange printing in advance.

Streamline: Don't be afraid to follow a formula that works. If you know that you want to run a promotion around a holiday or special occasion every other month for the next six months and you know that your customers respond to coupons, participation in community events, and radio spots, plan all of those promotions in advance. Buying media is often discounted if you buy several placements in advance and you can save time and money by writing and designing all 3 coupons at one time. Plus, you have the comfort of knowing that you have some great promotions in place and can try to find additional occasions to talk up your promotions before and after the occasion.

Evaluate: This is a step that many small businesses forget but it is very important. Measure and evaluate your promotional campaign! Did you get any new leads from the marketing event? How many? How many of those leads turned into sales? What was the cost per impression or cost per sale? What was the long term advantage? Many marketing initiatives such as public relations and community service have long term effects that may not have immediate results. But as you build those relationships with the media or the community you will find the benefits are well worth the time.

Who is Branding You?

2007-04-02T10:29:00.000-07:00

In the marketing world advertising gurus like to throw around big words like "branding" and "positioning". Are those only for the big corporations like Starbucks or GM? Nope. Everyone can have a brand and -- as a small company - yours may even be more important than GM's.

Very basically, branding is the public's opinion about your company or service, be that your customers, the media, even your employees. Does it include a logo, colors, and style? Yes. But it also includes how your employees act to customers, the formality or casual style of your communications, and anything else that exposes your business to the public. And positioning is basically where you rate and compare to like- companies or services. Positioning is usually based on how you brand. Simple as that.

Now let's look at the Motel 6 vs. The Four Seasons. Both places for lodging, both have beds, hotel employees, both offer perks and both have a pricing model that works for their business. But they have very different brands and positioning. The decorations at the lobbies are different, the employees are trained differently, and the perks (or "amenities" if you are at The Four Seasons) are different, and most definitely, the prices are different. Are either of those business models not working? No, they are both quite successful. They are both hotels businesses - do they compete? No. Why? Their brands and positioning help them to find different customers.

We all know about the branding and positioning of big companies. Take hotels, for instance. Some places are clearly set for the family with a casual style. Motel 6's slogan is "We'll keep the light on for you" evoking an image of your home. This helps to shape their brand.

Think of it like the survival of the fittest in the marketing world - if we all went after the same customers competition would be too fierce, so we decide who, where, and what our customers will be like, then target those people to sell our services to. If we are smart, we make sure there are plenty of target customers out there and not too many other fierce competitors in the same market. Then, we make sure we appeal to those target customers. We shape our branding, which then helps customers come to us. Our potential customers take a look at us compared to our competition and then decide who they identify with, who they trust, and who they want to make a customer- business relationship with.

So think about your own organization. What is your branding like? Which customers identify with you? Are all the messages you communicate with the public consistent? And how are you positioned compared to the communications of your competitors? Whether your brand is similar to a Motel 6 or a Four Seasons, with a bit of thought and planning, you can ensure that your brand is consistent, intentional, and clear so that you can find the right customers, and the right customers can find you.

Cell Phone More Distracting than Marijuana?

2007-02-14T09:17:00.000-08:00

We all assume that recent technology is going to make us more productive, right? Not necessarily. A recent study conducted by a UK research firm found that the influx of information, including cell phones, email and instant messaging can actually reduce workers IQ more than smoking marijuana. Often the bombardment of calls and interruptions can make people overwhelmed, less efficient and less focused on their tasks.

Although the results varied between men and women, they found that the effects can be as extreme as losing an night's sleep and IQs levels were seen to drop 10 points as employees got off track! Even if workers don't answer those calls, just the phone ringing can be distracting to the job at hand.

Written by Christina Huarte, SharpChip Consulting
Wednesday, February 14, 2007

Sharpen Your Saw and Grow Your Business

2007-02-08T09:40:00.000-08:00

I love Steven Covey’s book “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People”. It really identifies techniques that accomplished people have in common. One of my favorites is “Habit #7 - Taking the time to sharpen the saw”. And, basically it is the concept that if you are a woodsman chopping wood all day, you must stop occasionally and sharpen the saw, or else your ability to cut would will start to diminish, and eventually you will be completely ineffective. So as business people we must pause once in a while to sharpen our saws, and your slow season is the perfect time.

Right now most service businesses are having a lul in their sales, and it is a great opportunity to sharpen the saw…

Your Skills – Do you need better management skills, sales skills, marketing skills, computer skills or industry education? Well, I encourage you to seek those out. I am constantly reading books and dozens of periodicals, attending seminars and subscribing to many business and industry publications. I keep a list of my skills that I am seeking to improve so that I can be on the look-out for opportunities to gain new skills.

Your Capacity – Web sites, marketing plans, employee training, affiliate programs, etc. These are all big projects that can broaden your company’s ability to grow quickly and more efficiently. This we know…but, the problem is that they take time. Well, now is the time! Take on one big project, and be poised and ready to handle the business rush in the spring and fall months. You can even make it easy on yourself get someone like me to do the project for you (shameless plug ).

Your Mentors – This is sometimes called “Clout Power”. We’ve all heard the saying “it’s who you know that makes you a success”; well, I don’t subscribe much to the idea that you have to have connections with big players to be successful, heaven knows I surely didn’t know anyone like that. But, the part of who you know that is valid is the idea that if you surround yourself with, or even emulate successful people then you are likely to pick up new things from them and improve your own success. Look for people who you admire for their character, their moxy, their savvy, their skills, or any other value that’s important to you, and improve those relationships.

I sharpened my saw this last month by spending time redesigning my new web site. Already in the 24 hours that it took me to put the site up, and then announce it I have already had a bunch of new sign-ups from people who found me on the web! (Welcome, by the way) So, if you want the same results, take some time now to improve your future.

10 Savvy Business Investments for $1000 or Less

2007-01-31T10:07:00.000-08:00

Do you want to invest in the future of your business? Maybe you are receiving a fat refund from the IRS this year, and want to know the smartest ways to put it to work for you? Well, look no further. Here are ten savvy investments that really deliver.

Get Technology Working for You ($150) – Take a computer class and hone your skills to be working like a well oiled machine. The average computer user utilizes less than 20% of the features offered by their software. What are you missing out on? Microsoft Word mail merges, QuickBooks account setup for maximum business management, Excel formulas for quick management of financial data… skills like these and more can make a big difference in the time required to manage your business. To get the training that you want you can go to http://www.quickbooks.com/ and click on the “Training” tab for QuickBooks, and / or go to www.microsoft.com/learning/homeandofficeuser/default.asp for Microsoft, or check with your local community college for a computer class that fits your needs.. Training options are on-line training, Cd-Rom training, or certified training providers that may be in your area.

Become The Best Manager That You Can Be ($150) – We can all use a brush up on our management skills. Why not take a day to get to know other business managers, and gain some well needed skills. Check with your local Chamber of Commerce on local management skill classes, or go to http://www.skillpath.com/ to find some great topics that come to an area near you.

Get some Professionals Involved ($150) – Have an attorney look over your client service agreement, your employee handbook or employment contract. Or, hire an accountant to review your bookkeeping, taxes and payroll setup. Or, hire a consultant to help solve a long standing problem in your business. Getting professionals involved can help bring piece of mind to your business, that frees you up to take the business to new levels.

Make a Name For Yourself On The Web ($89) – Register your company domain name and set up a professional web site. You don’t need to have all of the fancy bells and whistles, just a simple professional presence on the web, where prospects can look you up and decide to buy more service with you. It’s never been cheaper then now to do this. If you are not looking for a custom look you can go to http://www.register.com/ and register your business name as a domain name, and setup on of their custom templates instantly for only $89 a year. That’s fantastic! Domain names are snapped up fast, so if you haven’t registered yours yet, you’ll want to do that right away before someone takes yours.

Get a Marketing Message That Sells ($150) – I have heard many times “I have sent 3 mailings to a group of people and I have gotten no response. The advertising is not working.” Well, it may not be the advertising method, but instead the message that’s being delivered. Hiring a copywriter to refine your message might blow the thousand dollar budget (but is worth it if you can afford it), but you can refine your message “do-it-yourself” style and then hire a marketing pro to review and fine tune it for a fraction of the cost. Go to http://www.bly.com/ for Robert Bly’s Free outstanding advice on writing messages that deliver sales. If you have a few extra bucks, then spring $20 or so for one of his great books.

Pay Yourself First (FREE) – Are you throwing away money? If you don’t have a small business retirement plan set up then you might be. Let’s say that you decide to invest roughly $105 from your twice monthly paycheck ($300 a month pre-tax amount) in a small business retirement plan that yields you an average of 8% a year. After ten years you will have $52,000 + for retirement, when your paychecks were only shorted $25,000 over the same time period. That’s $27,000 of free money, courtesy of IRS tax relief and compound interest!!! Setting up a plan may be easier then you think. There are many options, ones that would require contributions for your staff, but many that likely would not. One resource is to go to http://www.schwab.com/ and get their free “Small Business Retirement Planning Kit”.

Gain A Mind For Business (FREE) – I don’t care how much you hated Algebra in school every business owner needs to have a solid understanding of financial management in order to be successful in business. Getting a better understanding of how to read financial reports, navigate tax requirements, and make prudent financial decisions doesn’t have to be hard. Just commit to doing it. The federal government has a great resource for small businesses through the Small Business Administration (SBA). If you go to http://www.sba.gov/ you can find a number of free or low cost seminars in your area and/or on-line including some financial courses. If you are lucky enough to have a local office near you, it’s a great resource that you don’t want to miss.

Give Your Self A Mental Health Day (FREE) – Take a day off during the business week to clear your mind of all of the clutter, and think clearly about the future of your company, your strategies, and new ideas. If possible, get out of your element for this mental health retreat by going for a hike, heading to the library or some where you can be disrupted with any daily fires to put out.

Motivate Your Staff ($150) – Plan a staff motivational party where you provide the staff with a budget and let them plan what they would like to do. If the rules are “no shop talk allowed”, then everyone should have an opportunity to bond as a team and have fun. Happy people work harder, and you’ll enjoy getting to know your staff more too.

Get Involved in Your Professional Community ($110) – Successful small businesses repeatedly report that they are active in a professional community, so join a professional organization and get involved. Attend seminars, volunteer for committees, and have a voice on critical issues. If you haven’t already, go to http://www.arcp.us/ to join the premiere trade group for your industry. If you are already a member and are looking for another to get involved in check into your local Chamber of Commerce, Rotary, minority organization, builder and contractor association or any other business related entity that interests you.

So, there’s our budget. Let’s recap:

Get Technology Working for You.....$ 150.00
Become The Best Manager That You Can Be.....$ 150.00
Get some Professionals Involved......$ 150.00
Make a Name For Yourself On The Web.....$ 89.00
Get a Marketing Message That Sells.....$ 150.00
Pay Yourself First.....FREE
Gain A Mind For Business.....FREE
Give Your Self A Mental Health Day.....FREE
Motivate Your Staff.....$ 150.00
Get Involved in Your Professional Community......$ 110.00

TOTAL: $ 949.00
Knowing that the future of your business is bright........Priceless!

There you have it…Business results on a budget. Enjoy investing in your success.

Secrets Revealed: How Profitable Owners Set, and Achieve, Their Goals

2007-01-25T09:19:00.000-08:00

It's the New Year and you're armed with a list of resolutions: increase sales, organize everything, spend more family time, and the list probably goes on and on. The question is, do New Year's resolutions really work, and how do you make your dreams your realities?

You can achieve your business dreams, but it takes a good understanding of a little known business secret. This secret doesn't involve endless lists, promises of self-discipline, nor new gadgets to organize your time better.

Well, with my experience helping other business owner's like yourself, I can tell you that people can and do achieve their business dreams, but it often takes a good understanding of a little known business secret. But, it doesn't usually take endless lists, promises of self-discipline, nor new gadgets to organize your time better. No, indeed there is one driving secret that is essential and missing from most New Year's resolution plans. It's the secret that is going to help you achieve the goal that all business owners really want... more profits with less work! It is the real reason why you go through this "business resolution" process every year. It's why you are working like a dog and not getting anywhere. And it is the reason why you should drop everything right now, because what you have likely been doing is probably taking you further and further away from the peaceful profits that you could be achieving. What is it? Oh, no...it's not that easy, and you must read on to find out.

Have you heard of a little hamburger place called McDonald's? This American success story involves two brothers who built a multi-billion dollar international restaurant chain, right? But, that's just part of the story. Richard and Maurice McDonald did in fact start the restaurant chain, but it was Ray Kroc who bought the only eight-location business for $2.7 million in 1961, and then took it global. At the time of Mr. Kroc's death in 1984, there were 7,500 restaurants worldwide. Now, there's more than 25,000 worldwide. Ray knew the secret. So, what is it?

Let's look at the typical business owners "to do" list. Of course, an owner wears many hats-client relations, marketing, employee management, leadership, web development, copywriting, general manager, operations manager, production manager, and the list goes on. The list I use for evaluating business functions is over 200 items long, and I find in most small businesses, the responsibility of nearly all 200 eventually fall on the owner.

So, you know you can't do everything-you need to delegate. But delegate what to whom? And when you do delegate, who will train and communicate with this person, watch deadlines, review work quality, etc.?

This is the point where hear, "Renee, I'm working so hard on achieving my goals, am being pulled in so many directions, and I'm not going anywhere. I've delegated things to staff members, but everything comes back to me. I have to train, check, approve, watch deadlines, manage people and drive every task in this business, and I only have so many hours in a day."

Have you been there? That brings us to the secret goal that needs to be on every business owner's New Year's resolution list - Stop being the key player on every task, and only delegate to "project managers"! "That's the secret?", you say. "But, what if I don't have any project managers? I am only a small company with a couple of employees?" Yes, Yes, this applies to you too!

In order to make delegation work without being bombarded with tons of information and new tasks, you need to assign someone as a "project manager", then let them work the entire project from start to finish. This person watches the deadlines, make decisions, and talk with other project managers and not you about little details.

Don't have employees who could be project managers? Then, consider outsourced contractors. Even so, you still may be wondering how this will work without service and quality going to H-E-double toothpicks in a hand basket? Just remember how it worked for Ray Kroc with McDonald's - you just need to implement systems and standards that make decision making easy for your team.

Let me give you an example from one of my clients. She has three people working in the office to help support the 15 employees in the field for her service service. Now, even though she has three people in the office, throughout the day she is called into resolve client issue after client issue, leaving her no time to achieve her business goals. So, I asked her to keep a log for a week of all of the "issues" that she is asked to resolve, and it turns out that there are really only about 10 things that clients call about in her office, and a simple system of a phone script with FAQ section allowed the staff to become "project managers" of client relations, and handle 95% of the issues that formerly plagued the owner.

So, this year, don't add any more tasks to your "to do" list. Instead, make your top resolution this: delegate complete "project management." Resist the temptation to quickly resolve client issues one at a time, and instead implement (or better yet, hire someone else to implement) systems and standards to fix the problem for good.That's the secret that could make 2007 a year like no other you've experienced in your business. Take it and run. And, let me know about your successes, and/or how I can help.

How to Create Employee Training Programs That Work For Anyone

2006-12-20T10:00:00.000-08:00

As unemployment dips lower and lower, attracting the right employees to your organization may get trickier, and the skill levels that you are looking for in a new employees may not be as attainable as before. So, what's a business owner to do? Well, when I owned my service company, hiring and keeping people was critical to the success of the business. And yet, as you know the cleaning industry turnover is high, and the skill levels of new recruits were generally not what you would like. So, a key part of my solution was...to hire for attitude, and train everything else.

Why is good training so important? Because the skill level that an employee reaches through training is the best performance that you can expect from that employee in the future. That means that if an employee only learns to clean to a below satisfactory level through training, then they will likely always clean at a below satisfactory level, and you will spend a lot of money to solve the related problems of poor customer satisfaction, low trouble-shooting skills, and lack of knowledge of company standards.

Here are some key things in creating effective training programs.

1. Gear your training program to all learning styles. See it, hear it, observe it, do it, and then test it. If your training program hits all of those areas you will have a hit. According to Edgar Dale's "Cone of Experience" people only retain 10% of what they read, 20% of what they hear, 30% of what they see, 50% of what they see and hear together, 70% of what they say and write, and 90% or more of what they perform. These statistics are why video training cleaning is only 50% effective.

2. Be sure that your training program covers more than just technical skills. For example, if you own a restaurant, don't just train on the location of tables, etc., but also customer service, professionalism, company policies, sales, and all elements of the company. In my cleaning company my new employees were shocked to find out that I expected them to read the whole handbook and then pass a short quiz on our policies before moving onto the next phase, but it really set the tone for the professional expectations of our staff.

3. Set a schedule for the entire timeline for the training program. At what point during their employment will people receive this training? How long are they expected to take on each section, and what resources are required? At what points will there be checks to see that the learning is happening as expected.

4. Keep your training inexpensive and flexible. When creating the first training program for my cleaning business the first that I wanted to do was run right out and have a video made. I spoke with an organizational and training consultant and was advised to hold off for two reasons. (1) Videos were expensive, and I would want to solidify my program before investing the money, and (2) Videos are not flexible, and it would lock me in from future changes. Now, in the world of computer based training programs you can use video segments and rework them, so its much more flexible, but it still may be too big a project for starting a training program. Some alternatives to video/dvd are audio, workbooks, evaluations, tests, oral role plays, check-lists, self-evaluations, etc.

5. Try to create on-going training, not just training at the beginning of the job. Continued learning environments, where new skills are taught throughout a person's employment, can be a great asset to a company, not only with improved skills, but also satisfied employees. Brown bag lunch lessons, quarterly trainings, or a schedule for educational speakers. I had weekly 20 minute training sessions that kept everyone always learning something new.

6. Get your staff to help create the training programs. Your trainees that are learning the material can tell you best how well you are describing the information. So, when you are short on time have the new trainee create a memo about the task that they just learned following each lesson. The trainee will learn the task quicker by describing it to someone else, you will be able to see what they did not pick up, and when finished all you have to do is polish up their memos into pieces for a training program.

7. To add audio in our training program, get a digital recorder. Digital recorders have great quality and are relatively inexpensive. You can have one on when you are going through a training process with someone, so that you may later use sound bites or transcripts from your instruction. Of course, be sure to get everyone's approval before recording.

8. Don't just teach the "how", but also teach the "why". Everyone has had the experience of either working with or being a new computer user that memorizes the sequence of steps to perform a task, and then when he/she accidentally hits the minimize button panics that they have "lost" their document. This is the kind of thing that happens when the training is missing the "why" part. People that understand "why" you do things, will be able to store information and skills longer, as well as trouble shoot problems when they arise.

9. Save time by using commercially available materials. Where a lot of companies fail when they buy a book , video, computer tutorial or other technical resource guide and expect that to suffice as their training program. How about using these products but only as part of the training program. For example, maybe utilize a video about your service, but create a training program to make that video a more effective training program. A schedule of assignments, study guides, tests, safety checklists, planned practice and other materials that turn the raw information into a great program.

10. Train some trainers. If you have a number of employees, it can take a big bite out of your schedule to be continually training each new recruit. It's a good idea to train others on how to effectively train. With your new training program, it should be a lot easier to delegate this task.

Find More Customers, Get More Sales...In the Neighborhoods You Already Have Clients In

2006-11-14T09:55:00.000-08:00

Just imagine ... you provide services to a few good clients in a particular neighborhood. And you wouldn't mind having a few more clients like those, especially in that particular area.

So, you create a marketing campaign that identifies prospects in that neighborhood who might need your services. You send a letter, the neighbors start calling, and soon, you've got all the business you could want in that one neighborhood. The benefits keep adding up - not only do you increase sales, but you save traveling money because more of your clients are in the same area. Plus, the more the neighbors see you working in the area, the more likely they are to ask you about your services ... and now your sales are jumping even faster!

Whether you're a roofing company looking for new business or a cleaning company trying to find people who just moved into the area (or any other home service that wants to improve its sales), increasing your customer base in this way is much easier than it seems. It's also one of the least expensive and most successful ways to get more customers in a particular neighborhood. How do you do it?

First, you need to create a strong sales letter that tells prospects you're already working for the neighbors, and that you're available to work for them, too. A good direct marketing letter mentions either the neighborhood you're working in, or better yet, some of the neighbor's names you currently have as clients. Try to get a testimonial or two from your happy clients and include those in the letter as well. You might also try offering a special discount or a free estimate to entice the neighbors to call you. Just remember to leave space in the letter so you can personalize it with the exact names and addresses of the neighbors. Which leads me to the next phase of this project.

You've got your letter, and now you need to gather the neighbor's names and addresses. How do you do this? It's quite simple, and can be done in several ways.

The least expensive way to gather the names and addresses is to visit your local library and ask for a criss-cross street directory, such as the one Cole Directories provides. Simply look up the addresses of your clients, find the names and addresses of the neighbors, then copy the information to create your mailing list.

You can also use the computerized Reference USA directory available at the library itself or on the library's website. This computerized directory allows you to search for, then download the names and addresses into your computer so you can merge the information directly into your marketing letter.

Other directories can be purchased or used online: just type "cross-reference listing" into your Web browser to see what's available.

Then it's just a matter of adding the names and addresses to your letters and sending them out. One last bit of advice: make sure it's easy for prospects to contact you via phone and/or e-mail. Now, get ready to field calls from new customers who want the services you're offering, and find out how powerful direct marketing to the neighbors can really be!

8 Sure Ways To Save You Time

2006-04-05T09:18:00.000-07:00

Everyone need something from you at the same time? Don’t have enough hours in the day to get ½ of your “To Do” list done, let alone that big employee handbook project that you wanted to tackle? Does your family need you to be at a soccer game and letting the roof repair man in at the same time? Well, you are not alone. Being pulled in too many directions between work and home is a battle that seems to come with modern life these days.

Here are eight tips for owner/manager time-management:

1. Give yourself a schedule. Learn to “map out” your time each day, and leave time slots where you can work uninterrupted from staff questions, emails, phone calls, and get some of those big leadership projects done. Also allow time in your schedule for daily client services, that you can plan for the unexpected. You may find that by giving yourself a time and a place to put each of your typical tasks, you can stay more focused and organized.

2. According to Julie Morgenstern, time-management expert and author of "Never Check E-mail in the Morning," one tip is to not check e-mail first thing in the morning and, instead, use those early and fresh hours to tackle their most important projects.

3. More time can be created by “controlling the nibblers." This simply means to discourage colleagues from dropping in your office to chat by closing the door or forwarding calls to voicemail.

4. Get into "legato" mode which means "slow down and focus," as said by Erin Brennan, vice president of Hunter Public Relations in New York, who has adopted some of Morgenstern's tips. Set aside time blocks to do the thoughtful, complicated projects that companies want.

5. Before going home each day, write down the six most important things you need to do for the next day. Take into consideration how long each task will take, and what priority it is. If you have 50 things to choose from put things that have the strongest deadlines, and/ or are directly related to billable work at the top.

6. Keep a time log of your activities for a week. Then go over the log and take out what can be eliminated or streamlined. You can use this log to create your schedule in item #1.

7. Delegate tasks to others, especially if they can do them better or faster. You can also create shortcuts, such as templates for client reports, to diminish the time needed for repetitive tasks.

8. Make a hard and fast rule about time off, where work and home are separated. Not just one more phone call, or one more email… your personal time is very needed to give your body rest and the ability to keep your mind limber for your next creative endeavor.

By applying these helpful tips, you'll feel productive knowing how much you've got done. Also keep in mind, as you're practicing this new method, you'll be regaining control over your life. Soon, this new skill will be an automatic tool and you'll be grateful you did it.

The Art of Employee Motivation: Inspiring Employees to be Top Performers

2003-11-01T09:57:00.000-08:00

Are your employees top performers? Do they go out of their way to do their jobs to the best of their abilities, and to make your life easier? If not, then read on for some ideas for inspiring your employees to be the best that they can be.

An eager, well skilled, highly motivated staff that will stay with your company for long periods of time is what every business owner and manager wants. Right? …But, is it possible in an industry like the cleaning business where you are often hiring unskilled labor, not offering the best of wages and giving them a sometimes very unglamorous job? The answer is ABSOLUTELY, YES! Let me explain how.

My approach to employee motivation, and inspiring outstanding work is based on one simple principle. The principle is:

Employees who feel recognized, rewarded, respected, empowered, educated and armed with the tools that they will need to succeed, will out perform unrecognized, unrewarded, disrespected, un-empowered, and under educated employees with poor tools every day of the week.

In fact, I would argue that if you recognize, reward, respect, empower, educate and provide the best tools for each of your employees you will create a team of top performers that can set your company apart from the competition. To get an idea of what I mean try to think of a client that you or your crew loves working for, and then think of one that they do not. I bet, that the one that everyone loves actually appreciates the work done and is generally pleasant and encouraging. The one that people do not like, I bet is extra critical and difficult to understand what they want. Well, your staff is just like everyone else. If they are made to feel good when going to work, then they will want to go and do a good job in order to keep feeling good about going to work. People have to earn a living, and most would prefer to do it at a company where they feel valued.

Many service industry businesses have a staff that is out in the field most of the time. This is obviously how your company makes money (being out there to serve customers), but it also poses a problem in that employees can feel isolated, unsupported, in a communication black hole and without the help that they need to perform at their very best. From what I have seen, the most successful cleaning companies understand this challenge and develop programs to motivate their staff despite the inherent difficulties.

The Magic Meeting

It has been my experience that you can solve many of your employee motivation and performance problems with one simple answer…a weekly "Magic Meeting." The "Magic Meeting" is weekly get-together for all of your staff that has a sole purpose of:

Recognizing
Rewarding
Respecting
Empowering
Educating
Providing good tools for success

Some companies see their staff every day to exchange keys and information, and others less often. However, these brief meetings are often all about administration of the business, and not focused on the employees themselves. The "Magic Meetings" are separate weekly meetings held on a consistent schedule with a main purpose of motivating their staff.

Your Magic Meetings can be of any topic that interests your staff, and that relates to your business. The Magic Meetings can take the form of a presentation, group discussion, team function, contest, game, work party, training or any other type. Some ideas for topics could be "Customer Service", "Vacuum Maintenance", "Team-Work", "Finishing Touches" and many more. The real key to the "Magic Meetings" is to make them informative and very fun. Break away from the old "stand up an lecture" sort of thing. Make coming to work fun for your very important crew, and they will respond with inspiration to do their best. "Magic Meetings" worked wonders for the success of my cleaning business, and I know that they can work for yours too.

Now it's time for a little plug. If you like this idea, but are a little short on time to plan out a year's worth of Magic Meetings for your staff, then you may be interested in my "Employee Motivation Kit - Inspiring Employees to be Top Performers". I created the kit in response to requests from service businesses across the country to help them inspire and motivate their employees every single week. The kit includes Magic Meetings designed specifically for service businesses, including presentations, group discussions, team functions, a contest, games, work parties, and trainings. All instructions, game pieces, handouts, suggested prizes, supply lists and a suggested schedule for one year's worth of meetings are included. Many of the Magic Meetings have optional variations and/or can be repeated, so you can use the kit as an essential tool for year's to come. So, whether you use my Employee Motivation Kit to plan your Magic Meetings, or design your own, give it a try, and I know that you will like the results.

10 Profit Boosting Goals

2003-04-05T09:59:00.000-08:00

Profitability is important to all of us. To improve your profit you have two options ... increase sales or decrease costs. Of course, there are hundreds of ways to improve a company's profits , but this article contains ten quick ideas.

Know your Vision. When you have a clear idea of what your company is about, and where you are going, then you can convey that to every one that you come in contact with (employees, customers, vendors), and they can participate in helping get you there. Resources are often wasted when a company's vision is unclear.

Know your Ideal Customer. Who is your ideal customer? What age (if consumer), location, size (if business), income/revenue level, previous experience using a business like yours, etc. These are questions that can help you identify who your ideal customer is. How does knowing your ideal customer improve your profits? Simply, when you exactly who to market to, then you don't waste time or money marketing to people who don't buy, don't respond, or don't understand your service.

Know 3 or 4 unique benefits that your customers enjoy from your service. There are likely many companies that do what you do nationwide, and you need to stand out as unique from them. When a customer has something tangible to hang onto (ex. "local experts"), they know how you stand out from the others, and may be more likely to choose your service...Thus, you will close more sales by knowing your client benefits.

Use Sales Scripts to highlight your unique benefits to your customers and prospects. No, I don't mean droning on in a monotone fashion. Sales Scripts are useful tools for mapping out ahead of time some of your most successful client sales conversations. By writing a script you are more likely to remember to point out your benefits to your clients, address objections, answer common questions in a positive way and ask for the sale when it is appropriate. You may close more sales with a Sales Script.

Fine Tune your Delivery Method for Your Product or Service (Method & Procedures). Your Method & Procedures are a collection of the exact steps that you take to produce and deliver your product or service to the client. Not only what you do, but how you do it. It can give a healthy boost to your profits to review your Method & Procedure and see if there are better products or tools that can be used, if the collection of tasks that you provide adequate, and if there are faster more efficient ways to perform the same tasks. Every efficiency that you come up with here, can mean more dollars in your pocket.

Evaluate your staff productivity. It is good to keep a good handle on staff productivity, because a lot of money can be lost here. Are you billing for all on-the-job work hours? Are the staff following the Method and Procedure? Are you losing productivity time with poor tools, scheduling, training, or another area? These questions, and others like them are ones that should be asked regularly, and could untie the knot on the purse strings for your business.
Motivate your staff. Worn down, burnt out, unappreciated or disgruntled employees could be costing you plenty. An investment of time and funds to continually motivate your staff could be your answer to new found profits. Motivated staff with good attitudes can work harder, be better representatives for your company, contribute more creative idea, and sell more of your product or service.

Refine your training program. Most people want to do their best and perform well at work, but sometimes don't know how. Refinements to your training program like using positive language, covering more troubleshooting techniques, beefing up the customer satisfaction section, may provide your staff with more tools to do outstanding work on the job.

Write down all of your operating procedures and systems. Not only does writing down all of your systems and procedures make them easier for others to follow, but in the process of writing them down you may encounter inconsistencies or flaws that may be costing you money.

Get 100% Legal. It is hard to move forward in your business, and bring in consistent profits if you have a legal issue looming in that back of your head. So, what I mean by "Get Legal" is make sure that you are following all of the legally required labor and hiring practices for your state and the federal government. Be sure that you are posting all of your labor posters, you have a file and a procedure for accidents on the job, that you are declaring all of you income, that you file all of the taxes that you are required, that you file your taxes on-time, that you are paying for workers comp, that you have a legal business license in your state and city, and any other things that leave you wondering if someone is later going to come knocking. Not only will you avoid profit-strangling penalties, but you will be able to sleep better knowing that there is nothing stopping you, and you are free to grow like gangbusters.

Absentee Ownership: How to Make a Great Living While Really Enjoying Your Life

2003-04-05T09:51:00.000-08:00

"It is Friday night at 6:00pm, and I am exhausted. I just got home from cleaning 2 enormous houses because one of my staff of four house cleaners is sick today, and we had some jobs that just had to get done. Before I can call it quits for the day, I check the phone messages, and find that there were three complaints from unsatisfactory cleanings this week. I am getting worn out from working 50 hours weeks and never seeming to get ahead. I need less stress in my life, more time to spend with my family, and while I am at it, a bigger salary! It seems like a vicious circle, and I ask myself 'What can I do?'"

This was me 2 years after starting my house cleaning business. My business had grown like clockwork initially. After reaching 4 - 5 employees it now seemed to be stagnating. No matter how hard I worked my business seemed to stay about the same size, and not be able to regain that momentum that my business growth once had. I was starting "to lose that loving feeling" about my business.

I needed to do something. One of the main reasons that I started my business was so that my time would be my own, and that I would enjoy my life, and some how that seemed not to be happening. So, I made a decision that things were going to have to change…and change today! Starting immediately I was going to set some new goals, and figure out how I was going to achieve them.

My new goals were
1. Not to work more than 40 hours per week initially, and eventually not more than 10 hours per week.
2. I wanted my salary to at least double.
3. I wanted to build a business that I could sell for a substantial profit in the years to come.
4. I wanted my stress level to decrease.
5. I wanted to take at least 4 weeks per year vacations without worrying that the business would be there when I got back.
6. I wanted to work creatively on building my business, instead of on the day to day stuff.
7. I wanted my customers to be consistently satisfied no matter which staff member performed the cleaning.

So, new goals are nice, but how was I going to achieve them? My new determination seemed to turn on a light switch in my head (yes, just like a cartoon). My background before my house cleaning business was working as a consultant for a large business consulting firm. I knew a lot about how big business got that way, but for some reason I had never really applied those techniques to my own business. I thought, "Bingo! That's it. I need to study successful business models and apply those techniques to my own business."

My plan began immediately, and about 3 years later I found myself running a 25 person cleaning company, working less than 10 hours/week, vacationing 6 - 12 weeks per year, and really enjoying leading my business.

So, how did I do it? Well, the short answer can be stated in five steps and one new mind set. Let's start with the new mind set:

"Get Out Of The Kitchen and Lead!"
That is to say that everything that has to do with the day to day operations of your business can be delegated to someone else. But, Leading your business can only be done by you. You can hire someone to do the cleaning, answer the phone calls, perform collections, even estimate and sell new jobs. Generally, only the owner/s can decide to conquer a new market, add a new service, try a new marketing method, etc. I know that it is hard to think this way because the pragmatist in all of us wants to say "but, I can do those things for free, and not have to pay someone"; but the reality is that you are paying a price for that, and the price is a big one…lost opportunity for growth. As long as your time is wrapped up in the daily operations of your business, nobody will be leading your business, and your business cannot grow. That is why in my opinion many businesses stagnate around 4-5 employees, because up until then you could juggle both the leading and the operating, but at some point you reach a maximum capacity. So, I would encourage those businesses interested in growing to have a new mind set of "Get Out of the Kitchen and Lead!" Next, comes what I call the Five "R" Process.

Five "R" Process:
Refine
Repeat
Review
Reel 'Em in
Release

Let's look at one step at a time.

1. REFINE
The first step in achieving your goals is to Refine your business to be the most efficient that it can be. Like building a house, you need to start with a good foundation. When researching successful businesses I have found that there are six major building blocks of a business foundation (they may be called different names, or grouped differently depending on which study that you look at, but the ingrediants are all basically the same).

The six building blocks of your business are:
Leadership
Finance
Production and Delivery
Sales & Marketing
People Management
Organizational Management

Refining your business entails fully understanding, gaining adequate skills, and implementing successful strategies for each of these business building blocks. I have found that for a business to grow they must be strong in every building block. Startup businesses can achieve some success with weaknesses in one or more of the building blocks, but they will likely not be able to grow and reach their full potential, because their area of weakness is keeping them from succeeding.

To find out the strength of your business building blocks take our Business Assessment Challenge. The Assessment is designed to point out areas in these core building blocks that may need your attention before you proceed to grow your business. Obviously, mastering these building blocks is no quick, easy task but the rewards are well worth it. Not only will your business be ready for growth, but you will likely identify inefficiencies and opportunities for increasing your profits immediately.

2. REPEAT
Create Repeatable Systems. Think franchise. Now, a franchise may not be your dream, but building your business as though you were going to franchise will help you develop successful systems that will power your business to achieve whatever your vision is. Let's look at a classic franchise like McDonald's. McDonald's and other fast food chains like them are some how able to not only produce a satisfied customer locally, but also worldwide. And the reason is that they have a successful formula that is repeatable. How do they make their successful formula repeatable? Well, with systems. Everything in a successful franchises' operations is defined by repeatable systems that organize all of the people, supplies, equipment, tasks, functions and other objects to work in the same way every time, regardless of location or participants. That is to say that whether you are in Dallas, Texas or Hong Kong when you orders a hamburger, the hamburger and the service will be basically the same; and thus the business operation has the potential of duplicating its local success as many times as it wants.

So, how does this relate to the service industry and how I was able to make my business repeatable? I wanted to have happy, profitable customers every time, but the personal nature of the service meant that each customer wanted something different, and each staff member worked differently. This resulted in sometimes unsatisfied clients (for the same service that thrilled others), and too much job stress trying to keep everyone happy. The solution was to look at every thing that I did in my business as a component of a system, so that I can improve it. I reviewed and re-created successful systems that would work every time on my demographic of customer by creating repeatable systems for how clients received company and service information, how prices were bid, how the cleaning was performed, how the staff was trained, how the billing was done, and dozens more. The systems were detailed, right down to which direction to push the sponge, and what words to use when setting up a new customer.

3. REVIEW
Establish practices for regular review of your business. In order to achieve my goals (and to stay with my new mind set "Get Out of The Kitchen and Lead!") I was going to have to have less hands-on contact with the day to day operations, which opened up all kinds of possibilities of this business getting away from me. I needed a way to monitor, and actually manage business progress without having any direct contact to the daily jobs. So, I established criterea for which I would regularly review, the schedule upon which I would review and the action that I would take if expectations were not met. I achieved this through quantification. I began quantifying and documenting everything. Things like how many new sales (and of what type) occurred, what time of day they occurred, as a result of what marketing, how many employees were hired, how many customer complaints occurred, etc. When you establish a method for quantifying everything, then identifying problems is merely a case of math. Either the numbers expected equal the actual numbers or they do not. Monitoring reports on a regular basis can help you identify where problems are and by what measure they are off.

A straight forward example of one way that I accomplished this in my business was to create "status reports" that each person was repsonsible for. For Cleaning Associates their "status report" was a detailed time sheet that included all of the details that I needed to know about the work that was performed, length of time, customers served, etc. For Managers there was a Status Report that requested quantities on vital management and sales details like the amount and type of sales, schedule changes, new clients, terminated clients, marketing vehicles, employee feed-backs, customer complaints, and more. When something changed or went wrong in the business I wold know about it, right away.

4. REEL 'EM IN
Implement a Tested Marketing Plan that Has a Consistent, Reproducable Return that Reels Customers In. At the beginning stages of any business there is a lot of experimentation about different marketing and advertising methods. It is good to try out a number of different marketing vehicles and compare your return on investment. However, it takes a lot of energy and resources to continually try new marketing techniques. The goal is to identify a formula that produces a reasonable return on investment and can be reproduced at any time. Once you have these methods you can add the winner methods to your overall marketing plan, and get that going on a self-revolving system. Then, if you want to try out a new thing now and then, the results would be in addition to your regular marketing.

With my business I found a lot of marketing methods that worked in this way. For more information on successful marketing techniques for the cleaning industry email us to request my 22 page special report "Ten Proven Techniques Every Cleaning Company Should Know About Marketing Their Business in a Down Economy", FREE for a limited time to newsletter subscribers.

5. RELEASE
Release Control of Your Business. Once you have gotten the first four steps down pat, your business is ready for growth. All you need to do is release control a little at a time until you have achieved your goals. Your path for releasing control of your business will be dependant on your specific situation. But, in my situation, this was a gradual process that began with giving some key employees minor management tasks (and responsibility that they appreciated), then hiring a part-time manager, slowly increasing the hours of the part-time manager, and then ultimately hiring a full-time manager. As for my time off, I started with taking Mondays off, because that was a slow day, then working from home a couple of days a week, to working from home every day of the week; leaving all daily operations tasks to the manager. I found that with accomplishing the first four steps there were now tools available for anyone that I gave a little training to, to run the business just as I would myself. Releasing control of my business in stages instead of all at once, was mostly about waiting to hire help as the business could afford it.

Even if everything is primed and ready, releasing control can be difficult for some people; just remember that people will not take over tasks in your business that you are already doing, or are likely to come back and re-do.

Summary
Well, that's the story of how I became and absentee owner of my business, and how you can do it to. Good Luck. I know that you can do it.