Five Reasons To Use a Business Plan
Business plans, for the most part, are written with the wrong goal in mind. We use to use them to show the SBA or the local bank when applying for initial funding purposes. Now that most banks have tightened up financing there doesn’t seem to be a pressing need to write a plan….oh how wrong you are!
Develop Employee Engagement in Your Business
I’ve have interviewed many small business owners, most have just a couple of employees, yet these owners dread the idea of hiring more not because of the economy but of the extra hassle and headache they heap upon themselves.
Having employees will allow you to focus on the important aspects of your business, like making a profit. Yes, employees can and often are a real pain to deal with. There is a very good reason for this, they don’t know what you know, and they don’t feel for your customers what you feel. How would they if you don’t have a method of training the new people you bring on?
Here are 3 things you can do to set a frame work from which both of you can work from:
1) Have a written job description with a breakdown of how to complete each task.New employees want to impress you with their abilities. If they have a set of clear instructions for the tasks they perform they can refer to them as often as needed, without instructions they are confused and are constantly asking for direction. By documenting each task you also are very clear on how a task is completed and how quickly it should be done.
2) Build an environment of open communication.When interviewing employees talk with them about your vision and goal of what you are presenting to the public. You have chosen them as employees for some redeeming factor; let them know how you feel they will fit into your vision. Encourage feedback, even negative; it shows you value their opinion.
3) Catch them doing something right.We all watch our employees just to make sure they don’t mess up somehow. What a refreshing change to watch them do something well and praise them. Complementing them on how they dealt with a customer or how efficient they were placing an order goes a very long way. Many employees will have fierce loyalty for an employer who truly respects them.
Hiring an employee is meant to remove a burden from you so that you can become more focused on more important matters in the business. How you train and treat your employees is what sets you free. Learning how is the hard part!