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Helping business owners grow their companies and transition with confidence, added value and complete control.
Category Archives: Managing Employees
When a Good Employee Fails
One of the most difficult challenges facing any entrepreneur is correcting a prior promotion that didn’t work out. Sooner or later it happens to every business owner. You promote employees because they’ve worked hard, were senior in their position, or … Continue Reading
Posted in Leadership, Managing Employees
Tagged business ownership, entrepreneurship, management, small business advice
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Cancer in the Workplace
It was my first ownership of a business. I had moved to California to take over a failing auto parts distributor, and the deal came with a minority share in the business. I was just 30 years old. The housecleaning … Continue Reading
Posted in Leadership, Managing Employees
Tagged business ownership, employees, leadership, sales management
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Why Business Owners Shouldn’t Cold Call
The Owner as Salesperson If your business employs salespeople, then you’ve probably had them bring an account challenge to you. “You need to talk to this customer, Boss. You can (fill in the blank) better than anyone else.” The fill-in-the-blank … Continue Reading
Posted in Managing Employees, Sales
Tagged business ownership, leadership, sales management, small business advice
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Your Fault. My Consequence.
My friend Larry Linne, the author of “Make the Noise Go Away” has a great saying about employee mistakes.”Your Fault. My Consequence.” A good employee will accept responsibility, and be accountable for screwing something up. Unfortunately, it is still the owner’s … Continue Reading
Posted in Leadership, Managing Employees
Tagged business ownership, employees, leadership
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The Peter Principle Goes All the Way Down
Every small business, if it is to be successful, needs a competent Second In Command (SIC). In many companies that position is held by dint of tenure or loyalty as opposed to pure ability. When we see a key employee … Continue Reading
Posted in Leadership, Managing Employees
Tagged business ownership, business planning, employees, leadership, management
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Employee Incentives that Work
After four blogs on the long term motivations for running a business, perhaps it is time to return to some more practical advice. One of the most persistent issues for a business owner is trying to motivate employees with incentives. You install … Continue Reading
Posted in Incentives, Managing Employees
Tagged business ownership, employees, leadership, management, sales, small business advice
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Alternative Lines of Communication
You are unhappy with an employee’s performance. Following good management practice (praise in public, criticize in private), you meet with him one-on-one to tell him that he is not making the grade. His current project is far behind schedule. His direct reports aren’t … Continue Reading
Posted in Leadership, Managing Employees, Uncategorized
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Humbug!
It happened again last week. I heard a business owner say “I’ve decided to terminate Bob, but I’m going to wait until the first week in January to do it. I don’t want to ruin someone’s holidays.” I go through … Continue Reading
Posted in Incentives, John's Opinions, Managing Employees
Tagged business ownership, employees, leadership
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Losing Your Mind
All of us who are business owners know how tough it is to run a business. Most of us have long ago gotten past the ego part of owning a company. Sometimes I’m really surprised at how that affects folks … Continue Reading
It IS all about you.
Why did you want to own a business? If you believe the textbook definition of an entrepreneur, it was to leverage capital and other resources to create wealth. That probably applies to about 5% of us. Or, you might have started … Continue Reading
Off to Planet Ten!
I confess to being a fan of really, really good “B” movies. What is a good, bad movie? It’s one that knows it’s a bad movie, and lets the audience know that it knows. I haven’t seen it, but Piranha … Continue Reading
Whose fault is it?
In small business, we tend to give out titles with aplomb. You can be a manager. You’re a director. You are a vice president. When there are few levels to differentiate between, it seems meaningless to attach a lot of … Continue Reading