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 »

21. May 2011 by Bob Griffin.

Every workday I am struck by the number of people who fight against the system (franchise) they bought.  It’s like balling up all the money you worked so hard to earn and rolling it down the street.  If you did roll it down the street, you’d at least be able to know you weren’t on the hook for thousands more because of all the contracts you sign when you buy a franchise.  On second thought, forget rolling your money down the street.  Tie it to fireworks and blow it up.  It’s more spectacular and your crummy neighbors won’t be bothering you for more money.

The ability to lose common sense when it comes to making money is amazingly fast.  From the time you sign the Franchise Agreement to the time when you want to change things breaks the sound barrier.  Why buy something you want to tear apart and not use correctly?  It’s like buying a car and then taking it apart to make a skateboard.  Just following the system that made you want to buy in the first place.

Here are is my top 10 myths of franchising that I have seen in my years as a consultant.  If the guy selling you a franchise mentions more than one of these, even in passing, he is probably an OK guy to buy from.  The best franchises try to discourage you a little from buying.

Top 10 Myths about Franchising

1. I can buy a franchise and let it make me money.
2. Hiring a manager will take care of most of the work.
3. I manage people in my day job.  I can handle a few hourly/contract workers.
4. I have a Masters/ PHD/ Doctorate in Accounting, Marketing, Management, etc. This will be easy.
5. I can teach the franchisor a thing or two with all my knowledge and skills.
6. I can buy a poorly run store and turn it around for a profit.
7. I can jump in and sell out fast.
8. I can buy a franchise for my wife, son, daughter, etc to give them a career.
9. No one can teach me anything I don’t already know about business.
10. I like the product so I will be the best marketing person for my franchise.

Do any of these myths sound familiar?  We all want to see the best in the things we do.  It is human nature.  It is also human nature not to want to fail, but we seem to set that fear aside in the “knuckle-headed view” that you can buy a franchise, open the doors, and make huge amounts of money without doing any heavy lifting.  You have to work at whatever business you buy.

Hard work, building on success, building a business for yourself first, and many more lessons are hard learned when you get in business the right way.  Why start out on the wrong path?

I ask the classes that I guest lecture what kind of businesses they want to buy.  Not one, so far, has said they want to buy into an existing franchise.  Some of them have mentioned wanting to start a franchise but none want to buy a business with a track record and a reputation.  Absolutely none of them have mentioned the work that goes into being a business owner. 

Ask anyone how much money they think they will earn in the first year in business and they will gush with profit margins that would make Bill Gates blush.  The misunderstanding about the cost of doing business - more than money - is where most people fail to be honest in business.

Take my list my happy franchise friends!  Pass it around to anyone interested and especially those who are blind with new business bliss.  Don’t follow the myths. 

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

Posted in Customer Service, Being the Boss, Training, Saving Money, Making Money | Print | 412 Comments »

10. March 2011 by Noel Guilford.

Let’s face it, if you are in business, it’s for the money plain and simple. While I’m sure that there are some people out there who feel like business is a good hobby they like to engage in, those people are few and far between. So, lets talk about you and your desire to increase your profits, or to have any profit at all. What I’m going to ask that you do is think of profit as something that already exists out there in the market. Guess what? Even at times like these, someone somewhere is making a profit, someone has always made a profit. Why? Because consumers have always consumed something that they wanted or needed. Let’s start with the assumption that you have something people want or need. All you have to do is create a business where the profit is going and collect it.

• Take Inventory of Your Resources

Pop Quiz! If one hundred of your customers were polled what would most of them say they like best about your business? Who are your strongest employees and why? Constantly reflect on the condition of your business as well as the level and condition of your resources. Reading  SWOT ‘Em and using the method is a good way to reveal many of your resources and their condition.

• What’s the Plan?

Where are you going? How are you growing your customer base, your employees, and your operations? If you only plan just to make it through the day then your business will reflect that. Planing your business’s future is one of those things that if you can’t do, or don’t have the time to do can affect the chance of your business being successful long term.

• Business is Your Business

Don’t be surprised by the statement that many business owners have very little training or experience in owning a business. With that, its difficult for them to know what it is that they need to know unless they have a very inquisitive nature. Want to know why your cost of business is going up? One of those reasons could be that the cost of business went up for one of the business’s you interact with. Well what made that happen? It could be the cost of a raw material, taxes, or other factors. Knowing more about how businesses relate to each other helps to anticipate some changes that can impact your business.

• Ride the wave

Choosing not to evolve is a gamble that many good businesses lose everything on. If you look around i’m sure you can see where the profit is going. We are in the Age of Communication where the ability to spread information quickly around the globe can transform a society. The next time you travel along a major highway take a look at the billboards and have a moment of critical thought. Yes, some can change the advertisement digitally! There is a big old tsunami of technology coming and you can get on the boat or drown.

• Make the waves

Sometimes the situation requires a “hail-mary” play. What can you do when riding the wave wont get you noticed? When the competition has had more time to refine their rendition? The only answer at that point is pure innovation. Tap into the pulse of your customer base and give them what they didn’t know they wanted yet. In business when you mix great innovation with outstanding marketing I call that “Profit Bait”.

• Talk to weirdo’s

You know when you go to purchase a game or movie, that one person you regret asking for help because now after the ten minute explanation you are even more confused. That person is a walking Wikipedia, or knows someone who is so talk to them. If you want to know what the new trend, fad, technology, or to brush up on your terminology trust me they know. Use that information to help you anticipate where the profits are going. When you get there just make sure you brought your product or service that is wanted or needed and “voila” like shooting fish in a barrel.

Posted in Creating the Culture, Being the Boss, Saving Money, Making Money | Print | 455 Comments »

16. January 2011 by Bob Griffin.

 **To my marketing friends - I like to make you think and push you to find better, newer ways to advertise. If this article bothers you, GOOD!  If that is all it did, you need a new job.  Start thinking creatively and find new and ORIGINAL ways to communicate with the customers.  Isn’t that why you got into marketing in the first place?? Operations can’t function without marketing but, it can’t function with bland marketing either.

I was looking through old pictures and ran across this one from last year of political ads that were jammed on the side of the road.  What a waste of time and money.  It looks horrible and it is trash.  I have never been a proponent of using these signs.  They are a weak way to grab attention at best and at worst, they are a blurry mess that drivers ignore.

First of all, if there is one of these signs, there seems to be several more that creep in over time.  It’s like a virus.  I drive down the road and there is one or two.  By the morning, there are several more and none of them make me want to stop and buy anything. Is there some kind of sign gnome that no one told me about that grows ugly signs in the middle of the night on the side of the road?  We should start hunting these damnable gnomes. Or at the very least set traps and relocate them to Las Vegas.  They’d love sign-growing gnomes there.

It may be my age (early 40’s) but I can’t read most of the signs because the typeface is too small to read. They jam too many messages into that small space and I can’t read it as I meander down the road at a whopping 45 miles per hour.  Who are they selling to?  It must be the speed readers with good eyes.  They are BIG spenders from what I hear.  For average people it looks like a blurry mess at any speed over idle.  Since there are stacks of them lining the roads, I mostly ignore them.  If you’ve seen one sign, you’ve seen them all.

Has anyone thought about the fact that the signs are below the driver’s door?  Unless Wonder Woman traded her invisible jet for an invisible car she ain’t reading the sign.  For you, it is below the car’s window and can’t be read even when stopped.  If it is across the road, you aren’t even looking at it.  Believe it or not, the government figured this one out before marketing people.  Their signs are at eye level for most people or at least high enough that drivers can read them.  I don’t remember a Stop sign being inches from the ground.  Not sure that would work for traffic.  Put the signs up on higher stands and you are starting to get somewhere with your message.

Business owners, think about how you are talking to your customers when you spend marketing dollars.  I don’t have real numbers but I suspect there are more marketing people than lawyers…Yick!  Some want your money and are going to show you statistics that indicate they have the world’s best way to get customers.  Use your common sense and think like your customers.  Will customers be intrigued, interested, and stop in because of your marketing?  If not, don’t do it.  We talk a lot about simple ways to grow your business on Business Bulldog.  Speak volumes the right way and do something better than your competition.  As an example of the wrong way to do things, I have no idea who any of the people advertising in the picture claim to be.  They wanted me to vote for them.  I didn’t remember any of them when I did vote.  Blurry, bland marketing doesn’t work.

Just a thought, if those filthy gnomes grab me because I outed them, tell my family I love them.

Bob
BGriffin@BusinessBulldog.com

Posted in Marketing, Creating the Culture, Saving Money, Making Money | Print | 83 Comments »

28. August 2010 by Bob Griffin.

I was speaking with a class of management students this week at the University of Georgia.  My topic was on getting customers, but I veered off topic a little when we got to communication to customers and word-of-mouth marketing.  I mentioned that bad word of mouth marketing - the media saying bad things about you or your business - can actually help you if it is played well.  Since it was a group of students and Thursday is the unofficial start to the weekend, I was impressed when they sat up and took notice of my statement.

There are exact times and places when bad word-of-mouth marketing works when nothing else will.   Seems counter-intuitive, but it is true and we have real world examples of this to point to.  BP has been dragged through the mud (or mucky oil if you wish) with little hope of recovery.  When the oil platform exploded and people died, that was a low point for them.  When millions of gallons of oil washed up on shore killing wildlife and the economy of several states, that was another low point.  It seemed that there was no end to the bad news and the CEO, Tony Hayward, was not helping the situation…except he was.

When bad things happen (and bad things will always happen) you have two ways of handling it.  Fight it or deal with it.   The first part, fighting it, seems to be what Tony wanted to do and we can see how far that got him.  He was covering his company’s rump with as much actions as he could stand, but he was ill prepared to make much positive change since he really did not understand why everyone was upset with him.  He wanted things to “go back to normal” as fast as possible since the accidents did not impact him directly.  He was mad and all of the actions he showed indicated he wanted to fight back.  To the families who lost a loved one or the people who live and work by the Gulf coast, they wanted to fight too.  One man against a population who have been harmed is ugly.

So, when the cap was attached to the pipe and the oil stopped gushing out of the well, they fired old Tony.  Look back and you will see, the bad press for the most part stopped as well.  All of the bad word-of-mouth marketing ended when the target - Tony Hayward - left the scene.  BP and the Board of Directors were smart enough to see that they had a chance to let the bad press go when they let Tony go.  No face to the business means the press is unable to fight and the population has no target for tough words.  Did the problem go away? No, but the bad word-of-mouth marketing was carried away on Tony’s shoulders.  Now, any news is going to be compared with the bad news that Tony endured.

Timing is everything.  If they fired Tony before they capped the well, it would still be BP that was the bad guy.  With a built in bad guy, they waited and made the change when good news was available.  BP is a media savvy company.

I was going to add in examples of other industries and celebrities, but you get the idea.  Since bad things happen, you have a choice in what you can do.  Fighting is sometimes an option.  Tony Hayward thought so.  BP let him fight. Then, they let him go away with the bad press.  Will BP bounce back? Yes.  Exxon did and they did the same thing with the Captain Joe Hazelwood of the Exxon Valdez.  There are ways to let things work out without losing your business.  Are you ready for all of the kinds word-of-mouth marketing?

Posted in Marketing, Being the Boss, Saving Money, Making Money | Print | 100 Comments »