Success has many fathers and mothers.

When an organization is successful, lots of people like to take credit.  Witness what people say on resumes.  The marketing director says she increased business by 60%.  The Sales manager says he increased the business by 60%.  The production manager says he grew the production of the company by 60%.  Salespeople say they sold more and grew the company.  And so on…

Success has many participants, that is true.  (of course no one wants to admit being on the losing team when it happens).

But the reality is that while it takes many talented hard-working, effective people, there is only one real parent of success – the leader.

The leader puts the people, capital, ideas, and conditions in place, acting on the right opportunities at the right time, to create the ultimate end result.

Train wreck?  Look at the leader.  Success?  Look the same way.

That being said, a smart leader always casts much credit to their team.

A Sense of Progress

When it comes to motivation, a magic force is a sense of making progress.

Don’t you like to feel you are making progress?  And when you don’t, you feel stuck, right?

Now think about your employees. They like to be in an environment where they can get better.

Do you tell them they are making progress? That they are getting better?  

Your employees like to be on a winning team.

Do you tell them that the team/company is making progress?

When it comes to motivation, a magic force is a sense of making progress.

Are you communicating enough?

Goals, initiatives, what is most important now…..First YOU have to be clear.

Then communicate.

“The problem with communication is the illusion that it has occurred.”

It’s amazing what can be done when everyone on a team is rowing in the same direction.  But they have to know what direction that is.

If you don’t sound like a broken record, you aren’t communicating enough.

Profit = Unspent Revenue

It’s not that hard to understand.

Whatever revenue you collect and do not spend is profit.

“Unspent revenue”.

Watch your expenses.

Spend less than you take in.

More, with less effort

A business owner’s perpetual dilemma – “How can I go faster and farther and do more with less effort?”

Reinventing your job is always the answer.

It’s not about how long or hard you work, it’s about WHAT YOU DO when you are working each day.

Release the brakes. 

Reinvent your job.

Wire Fraud

We have been talking about fraud the past couple of days.  Here’s another one.  Watch out for wiring money to the bad guys too.

The bad guys get you to click on something that launches a program where they can read your emails.  This really happened – the business owner was buying a house.  The bad guys see that and see who his attorney is.  They intercept an email from the attorney, and compose a new email that looks like it is from his attorney.  “Wire the money to this account.”

$400,000 gonezo.

Be careful!  Confirm the wire instructions by phone.

ACH Fraud

Yesterday we talked about Check Fraud.  One way to avoid it is by using ACHs instead to transfer money directly into another company’s bank account.

Here’s the game.  The bad guys get someone in your company to click on something you should not.  That launches a malware program running in your server.  The bad guys can see all your emails.  Over time, they figure out who the president is, who the CFO is, who the accounts payable person is, who your vendors are, and even your account balances with those vendors.

Ready?  Then they strike.  Your accounting people get an email that looks like it’s from your supplier.  “Hi, I just want to let you know we have a new receivables person in the office.  It’s Judy.  She will be handling things.”  You say, “Hi, Judy!”  

Two weeks later, you get an email that looks like it’s from the supplier again.  Judy says, “Hey, can you clean up that $102,854 balance today?  Because of fraud, we had to change our bank account.  Please ACH it to this routing number and this account.  Your accounting people say, “Oh, ok.”  You transfer the money to the bad guys.  Gone.  You dummy.

First, your people should be trained not to click on anything they don’t recognize.  There are many many forms of things they email you that look legit that they want you to click on.  Second, when you get an incoming email, you always have to pull down the sender’s email address and look at it.  If you aren’t sure, call and ask the person you know, “Is this from you?”  And don’t call the number on the email, call the number you already had been using.

Next, with ACHs, no one person should be able to send an ACH.  Have one person initiate it, and another person in your office has to release it.  

There are many forms of this scam.  Beware.

Preventing Check Fraud – Use Positive Pay

I updated my School of Entrepreneurship class on Preventing Fraud recently.  Fraudsters are always developing new ways to scam businesses.  Check fraud is a big deal.  There are a few versions of it, but basically, they can steal your mail, inbound or outbound, from your mailbox or the recipients and find a check of yours in an envelope.  

Then they dip the check in acetone, and the ink from a pen dissolves right off it.  As I have learned, even a check printed out from a computer printer can be washed like this.  They can wash just the payee or just the payee and the amount.  Now they have a blank check with your signature.

Now they write it out to themselves or open a fake bank account to a fake name, write the check to that name, deposit the check, take the money, and they are gone.  Local police can’t go out of their jurisdiction, so you are out of luck.  This is a huge problem.

In other cases they can duplicate the check and print more blank checks from a simple printer.

To defend yourself from check fraud, use Positive Pay.  This is an extra step your office takes.  They make a list of checks they have written out with the check number, payee and the amount.  They send the list to the bank.  The bank will not process any check that doesn’t match with your list.

I know a company whose bookkeeper didn’t want to take the extra step and signed a paper with the bank to opt out of Positive Pay.  Last month,  the bad guys got hold of an $11,000 check and changed the payee, and got away with it.  

Use Positive Pay.  Call your bank.

No pressure.

Lead.  And do this with grace and style, and humility.  

Don’t worry about how long it takes. 

Bring out the best in others.

Make you proud.

Enjoy the daily experience – because that is all there is.

Who needs to know you care and appreciate them today?

Tell them. 

Better yet tell them in public.

And if you write it down, they will keep your note forever.

It’s perhaps the most potent use of your positional power.