Employee Motivation - Part One

OK .... so we have all read numerous surveys on what motivates employees .... appreciation ... opportunity for advancement ..... compliments .... money ..... great working conditions .... etc. etc. I have never taken a survey of my employees or any employees because I am not sure that they really know what motivates them. I have heard employees say one thing but then respond in a totally different manner. I am not even sure they know what DOESN'T motivate them.

Why? Because what motivates employees constantly changes as their life changes. A single person who is 25 may not mind being told to work until 8:00 each night. After all, he or she still has plenty of time to "hit the hot spots" after 8:00. On the other hand, when that same person is 38 years old, married and has two active children, he or she wants to be home by 6:00 to attend his child's soccer game.

When her kids are in college and tuition costs are constantly increasing, she may not care about how late she works, how much vacation she gets or whether or not her boss ever says "Thank You." At that point, all she may care about is her next pay raise. And when he or she is 60 and the kids have moved out, travel assignments may be just the right thing. Some time away from home may be welcomed.

Family situations, lifestyle, hobbies, age, etc. make each person different and thus, they will respond differently. So the person who at age 40 says "Give me some time off - I want to see my kid's game," at age 55 says "Show me the money - I have to pay my kid's tuition."

Even recognizing these differences, we can still look for common motivating factors. Throughout my years of managing people, I have tried various techniques. Most got just fair, short term results. Then, two situations came to my attention. First, I noticed an employee who worked in another department. His actions puzzled me. He did the bare minimum to get by on his job. He was active in a non-profit, charity organization and in that organization, his performance was exactly the opposite of his job performance. He worked extremely hard and volunteered to lead every fundraiser. I was really confused !!! Why was there such a difference?

The second situation concerned a worker who refused to work in a nice, comfortable environment on a Sunday and get paid double-time so he could go sit in the freezing cold and spend about $100 to watch his favorite football team. Why would he rather spend money and sit in the cold to watch football than work and make the extra money?

Well, as they say in the news business ..... "Full story at 11:00." I'll write more about this in my next postings. Sorry for the tease, but it is too long to put in one posting.

Your Relationship With Your Suppliers

All too often I hear business owners talk about "how they made their supplier jump." They brag about how disrespectful they were when they placed a large order. They love to take the "I'm the important customer" attitude. Well, maybe you are the customer to your supplier. And there is no doubt that you - as the customer - should be treated well. Nevertheless, I don't believe that it gives you the right to treat anyone badly. In addition, it can be BAD FOR BUSINESS.

"But Ron," you say, "How can it be bad for business? I'm not selling to my supplier. He is selling to me." I say it is bad for business for two main reasons. First, your supplier may take your abuse because he feels it is necessary in order to keep you as a customer. However, if you read my posting entitled "The Two Biggest Marketing Mistakes," you will recall that everyone is either a customer, potential customer or a referral source. If your supplier does not buy from you and is not a potential customer, he is certainly a referral source. He can recommend that others buy from you. If you treat him badly, how do you think he is going to react?

Oh, you may say that he will refer customers to you anyway because the more you sell, the more he sells. Maybe so - but I wouldn't bet on it. We are human and have feelings. Many times feelings will trump logic, especially if we are made to feel badly. Why take the risk?

The second reason that it is bad for business again plays to our feelings and emotions. Who do you want to help? Who do you do favors for? Who do you go the extra mile for? Someone who makes you feel good and someone you like? ...... or someone who abuses you? The old saying is, "You catch more bees with honey than with vinegar." If you make your suppliers feel good and feel important, they will go overboard to help you.

Go out of your way to compliment and thank suppliers - even when they have done nothing special. The better you make them feel, the more anxious they will become to go the extra mile for you.

What do you think? I would like to hear your comments?

Can You Trust Your Partner? - Part Two

No one wants to believe that their partner would ever do anything to hurt their business or their business relationship. Everyone wants to believe that their partner is just as dedicated as they are. Unfortunately, partnership problems are all too common.

Partnerships are usually formed for three main reasons. The first reason is to combine talents. Perhaps one person is good at sales and the other is a great detail person who can take care of administrative duties. They decide they would make a great team.

The second reason is for financial benefits. One person wants to start a business but does not have enough money so he acquires a partner with the financial resources that he needs. The third reason is having common interests. Two people both love to cook so they decide to open a restaurant together.

Of course, there are many other reasons but the three I listed above are the most common. None of these reason will guarantee a good, safe partnership. None will guarantee the opposite. If you decide to be part of a partnership, you have to protect your interests as though you were the sole owner.

Here is a true story that just happened recently. I talked to a business owner who was part of a partnership. She was the sales person (Ms. Outside) who brought in the business. He was the administrative person who ran the office and took care of the accounting (Mr. Inside). She trusted him. She felt there was no need to question him. After all, for a number of years business was good and there always seemed to be plenty of money to pay the bills and make a profit. She felt there was just no need to "look at the books."

Then she noticed that when she was in the office, there were a large number of calls from suppliers. She happened to notice an invoice from a supplier that was stamped "second notice." When an employee told her that Mr. Inside refused to take calls from suppliers, Ms. Outside decided she needed to ask some questions. At first, Mr. Inside said, "There is nothing to worry about." He became defensive and did not want to provide any financial information. "That's my job," he said. "I am taking care of everything."

Ms. Outside finally decided to look for herself. She was amazed at what she found. After a great deal of research, she discovered he had embezzled over $250,000 and the company was deep in debt. She has hired an attorney - who is not optimistic that she will recover any money.

My prediction is that she will recover nothing. I have seen this happen before and I have never seen a partner recover any significant amount of money. It is more difficult recovering from a partner than an employee.

Protect yourself !!!! Do not go into a partnership assuming that everything will be fine. And equally important is to be open and honest with your partner. Make sure if you are the one "handling the books" that you provide good, frequent financial information to your partners. Don't feel offended when they ask questions of you.

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Can You Trust Your Partner? - Part One

In a previous posting, I talked about protecting your business from outsiders and employees. But what about other owners of your business - your partners? Can you trust your partners?

I am sorry to tell you that over the years, I have seen more than my share of embezzlement from partners in businesses. My guess is that none of the partners enter the business relationship with the intention of stealing from their partner. They all enter with the idea that business will be great and they will all make a great deal of money. The embezzlement usually comes about because of one of three reasons.

Reason One: Business is not good. The partners are not taking home enough money to pay their bills. Thus, one partner decides to take more than his share.

Reason Two: Business is fantastic so one partner becomes greedy. She decides that since there is plenty of cash, the money will never be missed.

Reason Three: Business could be good or bad. One partner feels that he is doing way more than his share of the work. Maybe he is "Mr. Inside" and handles all of the administrative duties and his partner is "Mr. Outside" and handles all of the sales. He sees his partner taking customers to dinner and to play golf while he "is stuck in the office doing all of the work." He therefore decides that by embezzling he is "getting his fair share for all of the extra work he is doing."

No doubt there are other excuses that partners use to justify their actions. These are the most common. Of course, none are legal or ethical.

What can you do to protect yourself? First of all, if you don't know how to read and understand financial statements, LEARN IMMEDIATELY. It is a vital part of running a successful business. Take a class, pay a CPA to teach you. It doesn't matter how, just learn to read and understand. You need to be able to know what makes sense on a financial statement and what doesn't. You need to be able to look for signs of trouble. This is your best protection.

Secondly, you should have an agreement with you partner(s) that you will review all financial statements together so you all can ask questions of each other. I always recommend to any company with multiple owners that they generate monthly financial statements.

Third, ask financial questions frequently. Let the partner who handles the accounting or bookkeeping function know that you are interested in the financial details of the company, not just the bottom line. If your partner is embezzling, he can certainly make the bottom line look good no matter what the real situation is.

Fourth, you should have an agreement that any partner can request an independent audit of the financial statements at any time. Just knowing that this option exists can be a good preventive measure.

Finally, have an agreement that the financial statements MUST be audited periodically. The length of time between required audits may have to be determined by the size of your business and the cost of the audit.

I will write more on this subject in the next posting. Please feel free to post your comments.

Two Important Ingredients to Customer Service

If there is one aspect of marketing that has had more than its share of attention, it is probably customer service. Over the past 10 years, many books have been written on the subject. Of all that has been written, there are two items that I have not seen mentioned. I assume that someone has probably written about them, but I must not have read those books or articles. I believe that they are important enough for me to discuss them in this posting.

The first item is honesty. I don't believe you can possibly give good service if you are not honest with your customers. Many businesses take orders knowing full well they can't deliver what the customer wants. They think if they can come close, the customer will accept it. Or perhaps they can convince the customer that what they are getting is good enough.

I have always believed that it is better to lose an order than not to provide what the customer wants when she wants it. By getting that one order, you will most likely lose future orders AND your customer (or should I say former customer) will tell everyone how you failed to live up to your commitment.

The second ingredient is information. You must keep the customer informed. No one likes to guess what their vendors are doing. They would rather have information NOW. Good or bad, knowing is better than not knowing.

Suppose you call a vendor at 8:00 in the morning to inquire about the status of an order. The vendor representative tells you that he will call you with an update in two hours. At the end of two hours, you have not received a call. At the end of three hours, no call. Four hours later - no call. You call the vendor representative again. You get voice mail. It is three in the afternoon and you call again. This time the representative tells you that the reason he did not return your call as promised is that he had no information for you. He was still waiting to get an answer from the person he asked. How do you feel? Wouldn't it have been better for him to have called you at the end of two hours and tell you that? You have no idea whether he forgot about you, was ignoring you, or was afraid to call because of the information he had.

Be honest and keep your customers informed. You can't give good customer service without those two ingredients.

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More Good Technology But Bad Marketing

After posting my last article, I experienced a perfect example of "good technology/bad marketing." I sent an email to the Human Resources Department of a company. It was a question that only required a one or two sentence answer.

Instead of the brief answer I expected, I received an AUTOMATED REPLY. Just think about that for a minute - an AUTOMATED reply from the HUMAN Resources Department. Maybe they use the initials (HR) so much that the people in the department don't know what the "H" stands for.

The automated response told me that I should go to a specific site and "answer questions about my inquiry." Then the HR department would know who to route my question to so I could get a proper and quick response. How's that for good technology but bad marketing? If I were a betting person, I would be willing to wager a large sum of money that the people in the HR department don't consider themselves to be responsible for marketing. Nowhere in the job descriptions of anyone in that department does it say that they are responsible for selling or marketing. Thus, they don't believe they represent the company to customers, potential customers or referral sources. Obviously, they have not read my previous postings. They don't realize that marketing is EVERYTHING a person sees, hears, feels touches and smells that comes from or is about your company. In addition, they don't realize that they must make it easy for me to do business with them.

From this experience, I have decided that I do not want to do business with them because it is not easy to do business with them. As a referral source, I will tell others that it is not easy to do business with them. They have good technology, but bad marketing. Over the years, I have had similar experiences. And keep in mind, it just doesn't have to be computer-related technology. It can be any type of system or procedure that your business has.

Once again, I strongly suggest you look at every way your company interfaces and communicates with the general public. Do your employees who are "not in the marketing department" know how to represent your company? Have your systems, procedures and technology made it more difficult for people to do business with you? If you want more business, you have to make it easy for people to do business with your company. Keep in mind what I said in my last posting. People are like water. They take the path of least resistance.