Archive for the ‘Business’ Category

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December 5th, 2011  Posted at   Business
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Here’s an oxymoron – if you want to be successful in the world of sales, stop selling! You don’t need to convince the prospect to do business with you; they must convince themselves that you are the person they prefer to buy from. Prospects and customers don’t just buy the products and services they need, they buy a relationship with someone that they know is looking out for their best interest. Do you really know what it takes to build a solid, long term relationship with a customer? Consider The 3 Laws of Relationship Selling.

Law # 1 – Law of Reciprocity. If you want to receive business from a customer you need to give. Giving of your time and expertise will lead to getting. If your goal is to satisfy your customer’s needs and not your own, then you are giving, and, taking care of the customer trumps all else. Customers enjoy buying from sales professionals that work hard to satisfy their business and personal needs. They love to give the good news to the person that has earned their trust and their business.

A trusted sales person becomes the quarterback of the team and helps to decide which team members need to be involved to meet the challenges and needs of the customer. Sales professionals that focus on building a long term relationship earn the right to ask the tough questions that others might not get to ask, or might not get answered. Would you answer a personal question the same way to a stranger that you would to a close friend? I don’t think so. It works the same way with customers. Generosity builds the long term relationship with the customer just as it does with your friends.

Law # 2 – Law of Intention. Your motive is to satisfy your customer’s needs but your intention sets the customer’s expectations. Ideally your intention should be to always exceed their expectations. Have you ever arrived at a store with a sign on the door that says “Open at 7am” yet you’re still waiting for them to open at 7:05? You’ve probably experienced this many times – what goes through your mind? They don’t care, they’re lazy, their apathetic, they come first, not you the customer. Perception is reality and when we over promise and under deliver, it sets us up for failure in the mind of the customer.

Then there are those times when we are standing at the door at 6:55 and the staff notices you waiting and they immediately run to the door to let you in, apologizing for making you wait, even though you were early. Isn’t that who you want to give your business to? Customers do business with those that set the expectation of over delivering on their promise. It’s dropping off the proposal on a Thursday when it’s due on Friday. It’s estimating what a project will cost, then coming in under the estimated budget and 2 weeks earlier than planned. That’s what’s called “customer delight”.

Law # 3 – Law of Accountability. It seems like we live in a world where the only time people are accountable for their actions is when there’s good news. You need to be accountable regardless of the nature, and you often have to help your customers be accountable too. It’s easy to blame others for the events and circumstances that affect your customers. Yet that is exactly when you want to take responsibility and avoid the excuses. Accountability means owning up to the good, the bad and the ugly and as the team quarterback it’s your responsibility to communicate the news to the customer.

Your customers will respect your honesty even when you are the bearer of bad news. Owning up to customer disappointments shows character. Trust is the combination of the character and expertise you deliver, and customers buy from people they trust. Being accountable will help you build long term trusting relationships with your customers. So, when you can’t deliver on the customer’s expectations, let them know immediately.

To truly serve the needs of your customers, remember the Three Laws of Strong Relationships:
1. Law of Reciprocity
2. Law of Intention
3. Law of accountability
Study each one and reflect on how well you understand and execute on each of these laws. Once mastered, the three laws will help you become the trusted adviser and the quarterback of a team that is in demand for solving customer needs. (more…)

December 1st, 2011  Posted at   Business, Employment Law
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Managers are the primary contact with most of the rank-and-file employees in an organization. Whether it is an office manager in doctor’s office, the warehouse manager in a storage facility, or an inventory manager in a retail operation, all managers interact with their staff on a daily basis. As such, maintaining an educated and informed management team will go a long way in helping your business comply with complicated labor and employment laws.

In an informal poll taken by AllBusiness (a division of Dunn & Bradstreet), managers were asked, “What is a manager’s role”? The answers were wide-ranging, but all shared the same underlying theme: daily oversight of the staff:

“A manager’s role is to provide proper oversight and direction to a group that is trying to accomplish a certain task. They may also act as a mediator between those under him. Managers may need to be called upon at times to be disciplinarians or morale boosters.”

“To make sure the place runs smoothly.”

“A manager’s role is to maintain a productive atmosphere while conserving cost. He is the communication link between the employees and upper management.”

The Manager’s Role

For a manager to effectively do their job, they must be educated on the proper methods of discipline, motivation, and management. Furthermore, managers act as a direct extension of the executives and ownership of the organization. As such, any misstep by a manager may expose the entire organization to an employment lawsuit. While much of a manager’s role may seem like common sense, they must virtually become employment law and human resources experts to do their job properly.

Dozens of State and Federal laws dictate precisely how managers can treat employees, speak to them, discipline, warn, and terminate them.

Some of the most important laws governing these areas are Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 which prohibits employment discrimination; the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967 (ADEA), which protects individuals who are 40 years of age or older; the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA), which prohibits disability discrimination, and the Civil Rights Act of 1991, which, among other things, provides monetary damages in cases of intentional employment discrimination. (more…)

November 6th, 2011  Posted at   Business, Law Legal
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Many small and medium-sized businesses find themselves “out in the cold” when it comes to working with a business lawyer. Most of the time, it doesn’t make much sense for a small business to have an attorney on staff full-time. Attorneys are expensive, and most smaller businesses don’t have enough legal work to keep one busy full-time. The unfortunate result of this, however, is that many smaller businesses don’t get legal help when they actually do need it-before making important decisions that could have costly consequences. Usually attorneys that work in private practice with small businesses work on a project basis-the client hires the attorney to draft a contract, or to negotiate a deal, or to form an entity. Once the project is completed, the client doesn’t call the attorney again until another project arises. It is unusual for attorneys to become an integral part of the business decision-making process within the business. As a result, many times businesses are blindsided by legal problems that could have been easily avoided with a little help and counsel from an attorney familiar with their business and industry.

Small Businesses Can Benefit From a General Counsel Too

Many smaller businesses would benefit greatly from forming an “outside general counsel” (OGC) relationship with a skilled, experienced attorney. In much the same way that huge corporations employ dozens of in-house attorneys to oversee and provide input on all facets of the corporation’s operations, an outside general counsel can provide insight and assistance to business owners and managers seeking to avoid legal pitfalls and take advantage of opportunities. As the name suggests, the attorney is not an employee of the business. Instead, he or she is a trusted outside advisor to the leadership team, offering legal counsel on a regular basis. Instead of calling the attorney only when something goes wrong, the business owner, leadership team, and attorney meet regularly to bounce ideas off each other and make sure that the plans for the business don’t raise any legal red flags. Keeping in mind the old adage that “an ounce of prevention is better than a pound of cure,” the OGC’s role is to prevent problems before they occur. And if unforeseeable problems do arise, the outside general counsel is perfectly positioned to be able to address those problems without having to spend expensive billable hours to “get up to speed” on the client’s unique business, key players, and industry issues.

Outside General Counsels Can Bring Specialists as Needed

Another benefit of working with an outside general counsel is that the attorney tends to know other attorneys in other disciplines. Few attorneys are general practitioners anymore-in this age of specialization, clients are rarely well served by an attorney who claims to offer everything to everyone. Instead, a client can save valuable time and resources by seeking qualified referrals from the OGC when a specialized need arises. In this way, the OGC becomes the “go-to ” source for all legal questions.

If the OGC can handle the issue in-house, then he or she will do so. For issues or projects outside the scope of the OGC’s practice, skilled, experienced colleagues can provide solutions with the OGC’s input and guidance. Clients don’t have to spend time and money searching for an attorney that specializes in employment law, or securities law, or the UCC. The OGC can bring allied professionals to the table.

Many business owners shy away from on ongoing relationship with an attorney, concerned that such regular contact will be expensive. However, experience suggests that the opposite is true. Clients who take the time to meet with their OGC regularly tend to find that the business runs more smoothly and efficiently, and that issues rarely get out of hand. In contrast, business owners who wait until the last minute to call an attorney often find that small problems that might have been handled easily at the outset explode into expensive and lengthy litigation-the bane of any small business. As in many areas of business and life, it’s much easier to do the routine maintenance than it is to make costly repairs. A good, experienced outside general counsel can help a business stay on focus, control costs, and avoid problems. (more…)

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