Posted by George Cloutier on 10/12/09 | (6) Comments
The husband or wife might squawk when you shut off your cell phone during meetings and tell them only to call for an emergency. Johnny and Suzy might stamp their feet or pout when you don’t make it to the baseball game or the ballet recital. But here’s a newsflash: they’d much rather enjoy great financial security than see you struggling for the rest of your life to make money that never comes.
You are the only person who is going to fix your business and make it better, and that is not going to happen while you are taking 14 personal phone calls a day and attending local cub scouts meetings three times a week.
Posted by George Cloutier on 10/10/09 | (3) Comments
If you have to terminate family members, so be it. It’s time to stop whining about the diminishing demand from the marketplace, employees who are not performing, or banks who won’t extend your credit because you are losing money. It is in your power to maximize your profits, solve your problems and have a good life. You have to decide whether you want to be a pillar of your community because you have a strong and well run company, or waste your time spinning yarns and fantasies to yourself about how well you’re doing. It’s in your hands now.
Posted by George Cloutier on 10/08/09 | (14) Comments
Cutting out early to take your kids to baseball practice three times a week, printing up invitations for your church fundraiser, or picking up your Aunt Tilly or Uncle Ned from the airport—these are all unacceptable interruptions to success. Your cell phone is for keeping in touch with clients and sales managers in the field, NOT for taking calls from your spouse throughout the day about what groceries to pick up on the way home. You can keep doing these things and waste dozens of hours each week. Or you can focus on the financial future business and work all day, every day, including Saturdays and Sundays!
Posted by George Cloutier on 10/05/09 | (3) Comments
No more pay raises. Freeze your salaries now. Pay for performance is an absolute necessity for small and midsized businesses to achieve real profitability, and big money for the owner. It is so important to determining the success or failure of your business that if you don’t install pay for performance today, you should fire yourself.
Pay for performance doesn’t just mean an employee gets paid more for doing well. This is not just an entitlement. You’ve got to be willing to slap workers on the side of the head, or the wallet, if they fail to perform assigned tasks in a timely manner. This is controversial. Many so-called management gurus insist that punishing underperformance is de-motivating, and that pay for performance should only entail a positive reward. Most business owners get squeamish about negative reinforcement. But if your check is lower on Friday, you’ll be darn sure won’t make the same mistake next week. You have to be willing to set up a system that penalizes failure to perform. It’s critical to the success of a pay for performance program.
Posted by George Cloutier on 10/02/09 | (6) Comments
Your business is a place of work, not a country club or a refuge from an unhappy personal life. Make it clear what you expect of your employees, then push and hammer until it gets done. Enforce ironclad discipline. If you don’t, watch how the important details get overlooked and the business starts to fail. Fear of not getting a paycheck was, is, and always will be the best motivator.
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