Working with friends

Working with friends is nice.  I love to call the people I work with friends.  There are advantages like you know the person’s skills, intentions and you can trust them.

There is a problem however.  You don’t tend to call BS on your friends.  You will be more hesitant to call them out on poor or slow performance.  You don’t want to throw your friends under the bus.  Of course, this is just as much your bad as theirs.

What do you do about it?  Well if you are the boss it’s easier than if you are not.

I’d have a private conversation and tell them you what you are seeing.  Ask for them to fix it – for you and the rest of the team.  Don’t be shy.  Afterall, if they are your real friend they wouldn’t want to let you down – right?  You have to communicate.  Don’t wait until you blow up about it.

Have you put up with bad behavior or performance from people because they are your friends (or family)?

For the competitive – enemies make you better.

If we are honest, we can see that our enemies made us better by forcing us to get better to deal with them.

If we had no enemies or competitors, we’d be lazy and complacent.

A primary feature of capitalism is that it has providers trying to out do each other to win the consumer’s business.

This effort makes the providers stretch, innovate, try harder, and get creative to win.  The consumer is the winner as they get more for less, and better stuff. 

Among the providers, the ones whom the consumer doesn’t like, starve and go out of business. This is how things get better.  The consumer is in charge, and providers try to be their best choice.

How has having “enemies” or competitors made you better? 

What did it make you do?

Leaders – Weak and Strong

Weak leaders silence voice and shoot the messenger.

Strong leaders welcome voice and thank the messenger.

Great leaders build systems to amplify voice and elevate the messenger.

Which are you?

Bad apples

Think about each one of your employees.  Do you have a low performer among them? 

A complainer?  A bad attitude?  

Would you hire this person again?

So why are you holding onto them and making their coworkers suffer by having to work with them each day?

Make room for someone better.

Important questions to ask your customer.

What are three very important questions to ask your customer?

Questions that would unlock their reasons for buying or reasons for not buying….

Questions that would tell you what you have to provide to earn their business easily….

Like – What is most important to you when you are in the situation to need a product/service like this?

What would be your ideal solution to your problem?

Craft three questions – and ASK THEM!

Make sure your salespeople are asking them too.

Gather the answers, and reinvent your product or service if you have to.

Call your company and ask for help

If you call your own company and ask for help, what is that experience like?

If you submit a request online on your own website, how long does it take for your company to get back to you?

What is that experience like?

Do this!  Many of you will be surprised with the result!

Company Debt

The more debt you have the more risk you have.  Debt costs money in interest, and that raises your breakeven each month.

Of course, debt can be a necessary tool, or even a voluntary one.  If you don’t have the money to invest in (real estate, capital equipment, vehicles you need), then you need to finance them to move forward.  But pay attention.  

How much are you paying in interest each month?

Are the assets you financed good investments that are making you money or enabling you to make money?

If business gets REALLY slow, can you still afford the payments?

I have always tried to avoid debt.  Of course, you need a successful business that makes money to pay cash for new buildings or vehicles.  If you always need financing, you might think about how to run the business better so you can make money and don’t have to borrow.

Innovate, add value to your customers you can charge for, become more efficient, and get better at marketing and better at selling.

A leader needs to understand money – a debt is a part of that.

Engaged Employees

Pretend each of your employees has a sign around their neck that says “Make me feel important”.

If you can do that, they will engage with what they are doing, and do far better.  They will smile more, care more, give more effort, be happier and more pleasant for everyone else to work with, and stay longer.

So acknowledge them, show you care, make sure they have everything they need to succeed, talk to them, tell them the goal, ask for their ideas, smile and celebrate them, and celebrate with them.

The truth is, your organization is nothing without them.

 

Private Equity is Ruining Companies

From many actual first-hand observations, I can say that private equity firms are ruining companies all over America.

They are funds that collect investment money from individuals and other investment firms, with the goal of buying whole companies, trying to maximize their value, and reselling them in 3-6 years.  

They think short term.  This is a really big problem.  They don’t build companies for the long term, only to maximize their value now.  Employees are treated like expendable assets.  They don’t care long-term about what happens to employees or customers.  They only say they do so they can flip it and get out.  Their tools are to raise prices, cut costs, and use financial engineering to make a profit.  The use of these tools is not evil in itself, but when combined with short-term thinking it results in win-lose-lose for the parties affected.

This gives the rest of us businesspeople and entrepreneurs a bad name.  I don’t like that.  I don’t do business where some groups – customers or employees or any other parties involved with my company lose.  

I’m sorry to be negative, but I have to call it like it is.  When private equity comes around, beware.  It seems they only care about themselves and they will sacrifice you to win.

The good news is that since their employees will hate working for them, they are easy to beat if you are competing against them and run a good business.

Entrepreneurs are necessary

No entrepreneurs –  no successful businesses – no jobs, no taxes paid, no products or services, no investment, no retirement, no leisure, no food, no place to live, no nothing. 

Thank you to all the entrepreneurs!