5. February 2012 by Bob Griffin.

Noel Guilford, COO at Business Bulldog, and I were brainstorming ideas on why employees do not respond to rewards and we came to the conclusion that the game doesn’t work.  OK, so it isn’t a breakthrough, but most businesses keep on using this same system of dangling a carrot in front of employees and expecting different results. That is the definition of insanity.

Instead of finding a new carrot, turn things around and get your employees to reward themselves and you have a reward system that works.

What most of you have is a top down (the ownership/leadership down to the front line) philosophy.  It doesn’t work because the expectations are all wrong. If you expect your front-line employees to understand why you are pushing them harder or threatening to lay them off and expecting them to bring in more money, you have lost your mind!  Your expectations and their needs are far apart.  You didn’t ask what motivates them.  You did what you always do…make a decision for the team.

What if you gave them the ability to reward themselves?  What would that look like?  How could you develop a system where you rewarded the employees meeting your needs with things they want and need.  Make the system an outside venture that creates an environment inside your stores that increases profits.  There are many reasons to create something like this, but the biggest reason is that once a business gets to a certain level, it loses the ability to hear the employees who helped make it successful.

So, how do you turn things around and get people who would normally not want to reach for goals get to them?  Let them reward themselves. Businesses are horrible at rewards for behavior that improves things.  Part of it is that management isn’t consistent with rewards and part of it is that the rewards they give don’t mean anything.  Making it part of your business culture is how to avoid these problems.

Fire-free Time

I have worked with hourly employees my whole career.  They are the front-line of a business and the ones most ignored.  Want to hear what the business is really REALLY like?  Give them the honor of speaking their mind without the fear of being fired for being honest.  The reward for being able to tell the owners and managers the way they see things is simply the knowledge that they are heard.  Also, the reward to you is that you can fix broken parts of your business that you did not even know were there.

The Wheel of Winning

I love to get a bunch of ideas on rewards from a group and then make it a game to reward them by chance.  Ask for reward ideas from each of your employees.  Two ideas to be exact.  One idea that has a cost limit (say $25) and one idea that is limitless.  The reward for doing this is that you get to know how your employees think about rewards and you can surprise them (if the limitless one is reasonable) with a big prize.  If you are handy, you can build a wheel that you can attach cards with the rewards written on them and spin the wheel to pick the prize.  If you aren’t handy, you can put the rewards in envelopes and just have the winner pick one.  The best part is that they OWN the rewards.

Pick A Group to Help

We have always been interested in helping others.  Have your team pick a charity, group, or family to help that month, quarter, or year.  They will each have a different idea of a group that they like to help.  You can do a little for each or pick one as a team that you can make a difference helping.  The reward for doing this goes beyond the work you do every day.  The reward is showing that you are part of something bigger than your brand.  I picked Children’s Miracle Network to help this year.  I bet the Atlanta Co-op of Great Clips salons that if they could raise $80,000 for CMN in the month of October, I would let them shave my hair down to a mohawk.   To say they were excited about raising money for a worthy charity does not say enough.  

Change the Patterns

If you look at how your employees file into the office, store, etc., you will notice a pattern.  Change the pattern and you will increase the rewards. Allow them to paint their parking spot, allow them to pick a new place in the office to work, allow them to decorate space away from the selling floor.  There are more ideas than these few ideas to reward your team and make the culture better.

The best reward is to listen, talk, and act.  Giving up some structure to your business is a good thing.  People are individuals and need to be treated as the creative, honest, hard-working team members that you hired.  Making them fit your culture doesn’t work.  Either you are on your team or you are an outsider looking in.

You may have noticed that there is no advertising on this site.  The more we help, the more we are rewarded (good karma).

Bob Griffin - CEO and Founder
BGriffin@businessbulldog.com
Twitter: @BusinessBulldog

Posted in Hiring Process, Creating the Culture, Being the Boss | Print | 1 Comment »

31. January 2012 by Bob Griffin.

There are many motivating factors that have been thrown your way last year.  The economy is one of the big ones.  Whether or not your customers can keep buying from you made a huge impact on your business.  The fear of the unknown is what held you back or moved you forward with the hope of getting ahead of your competition.  Fear is a process, not just an emotion.  When you learn to use it to your advantage, you will find more success in business and in your personal life.

Readers of this blog know that we have a specific philosophy that we follow to grow businesses.  Having the right mindset to make changes happen is the key to all growth.  Knowing that fearful situations is one thing that most people run from, we are going to make using fear an advantage and create small wins.

Let’s start with what scares you.  Speaking in front of a crowd is still one of the top three fears in the world.  When you are forced to speak to a large group of people, do you seize up or do you use the anxiety to give more energy to your speech?  My bet is that most of you are using that energy to drive your words to connect with your audience.  That anxiety, that fear of failure in front of a group of peers is a driving force.  When you finish speaking and sit down you have a small win.  The event happened, you did well, and now you can reap the rewards of having lead the conversation.

Now, let’s move from one fear to another.  When you have to open your business for the day, do you have any idea how many customers you will have spend money with you?  Of course not.  There is a fear inside that no one will show up and you will be stuck with rent to pay, payroll to cover, and have stock sitting on shelves getting dusty.  Do you open for business anyway?  Yes you do.  Small Win!  Too simple?  Not for all the people who give up on their business and walk away.  It happens every day.

I mentioned earlier that embracing fear is a process.  Let’s start on that now that you know you handle fear every day and survive.

Step One:  Know what scares you

I have spent time with some of the most powerful people in business.  They know everything about themselves and use their strengths to keep their power in business.  They also know what they are not good at or just dislike.  They would never call it fear, but that is what it is.  Donald Trump is a prime example of a guy who is terrified of not having millions and millions of dollars.  Take the money away and he is a pushy guy with bad hair.  The fear of being without money is what gives him the drive to make money.  What scares you?  Have you thought about it or do you just walk through your day without knowing what motivates you?

Step Two:  Surround yourself with successful people

You have to look at the fact that you are not the big man on campus when you are surrounded with great people.  Especially if you hire them to help you be successful.   I recommend you hire as many successful people as you can.  There is power source that comes from pushing past the fear of coming in second place to someone who works for you.  Remember, they work for you.  You pay these outstanding people and have seen something in you that makes them want to help you be better.  It isn’t just a compliment, it’s a reward to be around great people.  How many businesses fail because the leader won’t hire someone who could push them out of a job?  It happens at every company.  Fear holds people back.

Step Three:   Be clear on your vision

Remember, we hate mission statements here at Business Bulldog but, we love vision statements.  Visions statements tell the story of why you want to be successful.  It draws a map of how you are going to get to your goals and paints a picture of what it will look like when you are there.  How many bosses did this for you since you started working?  Would it have taken a lot fear out of the job you were doing if you have a clear picture of how you fit in?  Of course it would have and you would be the biggest fan of the company and that boss if he had.  OK, so what are you going to do?  Take the time to sit and think things through.  Don’t just make a list of needed items and people for a project, goal, etc.  Maps, timelines, and stories go hand-in-hand.  It makes you have to think about how to explain why you want something rather than just dictating that it gets done.

When you start getting worried about things this year, start thinking about how you can use that fear and why you have it in the first place.  Fear isn’t a bad thing, not facing your fear is.

Posted in Customer Service, Creating the Culture, Being the Boss, Training, Making Money | Print | No Comments »

2. January 2012 by Bob Griffin.

I have always been the guy to look around the next corner to see what new things are coming.  This new year is no different.  There will always be new technology and new trends to check out.  There will be tough times and times when things go perfectly.  I am interested in all of it and you should be too.  It’s the looking that matters most.

My Dad had a saying that I mentioned in a prior article.  He said, “You will always find what you are looking for.  The trick is to keep looking.”  That is all the wisdom you need as you start the long road from January to December.  The more you stay focused on the right things in your life, the better a life you will have by the time 2013 rolls around.

What is it that you want?

Do you want money?  Money is not that hard to find.  Sell something, get another job, or offer your services for a fee.  I didn’t say it would be a lot of money, but it is there for the taking when you do the right things to get it.  On that note, are you doing the right things to earn your money?  If it all comes from one place, you are probably doing it wrong.  If every financial planner says to diversify your long-term income, then why are you not doing the same with your monthly income?  I am not saying drop what you are doing to find something else.  What I am saying is that this is a new year and there are new lines of products for you to sell, new ways to get to new customers, and new people to help you bring in more profits.  Are you ready to look?

Do you want a bigger business?  How big?  What does a bigger business look like?  Is it adding more outlets or is it expanding the location you already have?  If you can’t paint the picture clearly, you can’t find it.  If it is more outlets, there are plenty of spaces open to rent to add another store.  If it is online, adding a new webpage or buying another site name is as cheap as it will ever be.  If you want to expand what you already have, you need to look at the use of the space.  What are you paying to grow versus how much more will you earn by growing.  In a brick and mortar business it is easier to see the usage.  How many more square feet are you adding and how much more can you sell per square foot?  Focus on the cost when you focus on growing a bigger business.  It has to be worth the cost.

Do you want to lower costs?  Look at your P&L Statements.  There are as many people who do not keep up with their profits and losses as there are people who dig through them like they are searching for buried treasure.  What are your biggest costs?  Payroll and all the costs associated with hiring others is one of the biggest and most controllable costs on that statement.  If you are going to focus on lowering costs, you have to start with the cost of being a boss.  After that, you have rent that can be renegotiated and utilities that can be curbed.  There is some money to be saved in those monthly statements.  Are you going to look?

Do you want more customers?  They are there waiting to be invited.  What is your message?  Does it look inviting to someone just learning about your business or are you focused on existing customers and leaving the rest to chance?  If your advertising doesn’t educate, inform, and invite, then you need to make changes.  Also, brick and mortar friends, go outside.  If you have more than one message plastered to the front window of your store, you need to start scraping until you do.  Also, if any advertising has been up for more than one year, it needs to come down.  Focus the way a customer would and you will get more customers.

Finally, do you want a better you?  That better person is there to look back at you in the mirror.  What will you change in 2012 to make yourself smarter, healthier, and more productive?  Like I started with, there is new technology and trends to check out.  Get organized with your efforts.  Your time is your most valuable asset.  What you do with that time is what makes it priceless.  Start by looking at how you are spending your time each day.  Log it into a journal.  Once you have the time wasters listed, you will see where you can cut out the things that don’t help you and start using that time to get a better you.

As for me, this year my goal is to publish my first book.  It is something I have been writing and re-writing for years.  It is time to get it out there.  That is the success I am looking for this year.  

Posted in Creating the Culture | Print | 67 Comments »

25. October 2011 by Bob Griffin.

I was speaking with the manager of a restaurant recently when I asked a simple question. Any reader of this site knows how much I love a good simple question.  It aims the conversation directly where I need it to go in a way that I can follow up on after they give a “knee-jerk” response.

Very simply I asked, “Why do you think a business owner would ask the staff to do small, time-consuming things before they leave for the night when it doesn’t add customers or save money?”

The interviewee said “He’s a MICRO-MANAGER!”  I smiled and told her she was wrong.

Micromanaging is one of those terms that people like to use when they have a boss that goes over-board on ensuring his business is run a specific way and in turn gets in the way of getting the job done. 

Sometimes when an owner wants something random done, it isn’t for reasons of control…although it could be.  I wouldn’t put it past a bad person to be a bad owner.  Power in business is something that should be wielded to keep market-share, not hurt your own team.  Micro-managers are a tough lot.  It is an element of TRUST that they lack, so they fire off at the mouth and end up with a small, very low profit business.  On the other hand, managing the random things keeps the important things in check.  How can that be, Bob???  The answer lies in the nature of being an owner.

Most employees think that a business owner is a lazy SOB who hired someone else because he wants to free up his time for a good game of golf.  The truth is far from that perspective.  An owner has paperwork, costs, management, marketing, and his personal life all wrapped up into the business many people resent him for having.  It is a 24 hour a day job that does not get a real break where he can toss the workload over to someone else to handle.  So, with less time than he would like to have, he needs to find out how healthy the business is without living in the store.  (These are the paragraphs that I get the most mail about. Someone wants to add something to the list or tell me a horror story about being an owner.)  These are not micro-managers.  This the nature of the job of being an owner.

If you are a real business owner and not a micro-manager, you want to know how your business is being run without having to spend 100% of your time inside the four walls of the business.  If you want to stay in business, you can’t be there.  You have to get out and get customers in.  So, how do you run a good business without having to check on everything every day?  You have small, time consuming tasks that you can check on to know whether the business is being run to your standards.

I used to check handles on every piece of equipment.  If the handles weren’t clean, the restaurant wasn’t clean.  If you don’t clean the one part of the equipment that everyone touches, you don’t know what clean is.  If that one little check is wrong, I want more answers because there is more that they are neglecting.  I will do a top to bottom check of all the daily duties, run an audit, and ask the staff questions about what they think their job is at the store.

Why go for something small and not just check the big things?  Because things can “look” right and still be very wrong.  I have seen faked deposit slips, fraudulent inventory counts, and people on the payroll who didn’t exist.  If your business is bigger than one location, you need a red flag to let you know when you need to dig deeper.  It keeps the paranoia in check and lets you in a few seconds know if you need to jump in and stop everything from falling apart.

So, what can you have your team do to ensure they are managing your business the way you want?

Bob Griffin - CEO
Questions@BusinessBulldog.com
Twitter: @BusinessBulldog

Posted in Customer Service, Creating the Culture, Being the Boss, Saving Money | Print | 131 Comments »

9. October 2011 by Bob Griffin.

I always enjoy working with new business owners.  They have a keen eye toward profits and a clear picture of where they want their business to go.  It is that fresh attitude and vitality that I thrive on and keeps me going.  I love the look of pure energy that they show.  It is what makes other people around them encourage them and also to be a little jealous of the path the owner is on.  Every book on leadership, entrepreneurship, and self improvement talks about that spark of life that the person who breaks away and runs toward the freedom of owning a business.  It is also what doesn’t last…at least not long enough.

There is a reason that a store sees huge boosts in sales and customer counts when a new owner takes over.  There is a reason that word of mouth marketing buzzes with the talk of a change to an old establishment and how much better it feels.  It is because of that spark.  And sparks flame out.  How do you keep that spark alive? 

At Business Bulldog we live a business philosophy of “Small Wins”.

A small win is when you can easily see a change for the better and nobody had to move too far from where they were.  Small wins change things gradually and are sustainable.  I have been in business consulting for far more years than I care to mention here and I can tell you that the guy who buys a business and turns it around fast can’t keep it that way for long.  Small changes every day make people notice a something is different (like when there is a new owner), but it is easy to keep going and build on.

Big changes are exhausting and cause chaos.

There are people reading this who can point to a store that they bought, gutted the place and the personnel, and made a million dollars.  Good for you.  I bet you can’t do it again. There is a reason why gutting and burning the old way a business was run is a bad idea and it falls on the reason you bought the business in the first place.

If the business was so wonderfully great that you were willing to put good money down to buy it, then why did you think that making big changes would be a good idea?  If was run so poorly that you had to break out the blow torch and start making charcoal, why didn’t you just lease a space down the street and put them out of their misery?  It was because there was a brand worth saving.

If you want to be the grand savior, you have to start by realizing that the reason you wanted to buy the place is the same reason customers spend money there.  Move too far away from that and you will fail.  I watch major companies struggle with leaders who want to make their mark when they take over and they run off customers and great staff.  how many companies can you name that had a change of leadership and when down in flames? Far too many.

No one likes change.

Small wins make huge differences.  I can tell you first hand that I have been the guy to shake things up as well as the guy who walks quietly into the room.  I have been stabbed and shot at for being the guy trying to make quick changes.  I like being the guy with the smile and the even temper.  I think it added ten years to my life to be the quiet guy with a simple plan.  People aren’t trying to kill me now.  Man, I wish I had learned that lesson sooner.

So, how does a new owner make small wins?  Find the reason that the business works in the first place and build on that.  I can tell you that there are really bad things going on at any business.  It is human nature for some employees to try to get away with whatever they can.  Even if it costs the business and their job.  I have no idea why they do it, but I can tell you there is someone working against you right now.  If you start to minimize the time that person has to do bad things, they will either work somewhere else because they can find the time to be bad or they will change with you.  Most people want to be recognized for being good.  So, recognize what is good about your new business.

Even if you have been the owner of your business for decades and want to see that new success, you can.  Find a way to have a small win and celebrate it.  I mean REALLY CELEBRATE IT!  Don’t go half way and expect your team to be hungry to show you more wins.  They will just think you have lost your mind and walk backwards away from you smiling and saying something reassuring until the reach the door.  Go BIG!

You can have rotten sales (it is one of the worst economic times in history) and still find a win.  It can be as simple as a customer compliment.

Find the customer who gave you good feedback and honor them.  Then, find the employee and make them king for the week.  There is no end to the new path that you can walk down if you are willing to celebrate small successes.

Tell me about your success and I will celebrate your business on this blog!!!  We have readers from 44 countries and I am sure you could use the free press.  Tell me about your small wins.

Email:  SmallWins@BusinessBulldog.com

Bob Griffin - CEO Business Bulldog

Twitter: @BusinessBulldog

LinkedIn:  http://www.linkedin.com/profile/view?id=33704176&trk=tab_pro

Posted in Marketing, Customer Service, Creating the Culture, Being the Boss, Making Money | Print | 423 Comments »