Why Small Businesses Have the Advantage in Recruiting Top Talent

With all the economic news, its hard to believe when experts say that small business has an advantage. But, here are four advantages we--as small businesses--should use! Let us know if any of these have worked for you. 

From TABEastBayNorth.com: 

"Small to medium-sized businesses should not be intimated by hiring top talent. More and more employees are looking for meaningful work that only a smaller company can provide. And even if a small business can’t pay as much, money is less important than an individual's values. Small business can win the talent game this time around!"

Read about the four advantages you may not have thought about....

Taking Risks in an Uncertain Economy

Have you recently taken steps to be more fiscally responsible within your organization as a result of the economic downturn? Have you met with your employees about cutting budgets and asked for their feedback as to where these cuts should be made? When companies face tough economic times, very few business owners feel this is the time to take risks, implement new ideas or tap into new markets, but should instead cut costs and wait for the storm to pass. 

While putting the brakes on in certain areas at times of uncertainty is important, it is also the time to evaluate your business and understand areas in which you can afford to invest and take a few risks in order to increase revenue. Instead of slashing your marketing budget or waiting to invest in exporting your products and services overseas, take advantage of savings not previously available to you when the economy was stable.   

For example, many publications have slashed advertising prices in an effort to obtain more business and fill otherwise empty pages in their magazines and newspapers, resulting in much lower advertising rates. Take this opportunity to increase brand awareness and gain market share, especially when many of your competitors may be closing their doors. 

The ability to retain your current market share by investing in customer loyalty programs for those customers who have been loyal to you throughout the years also becomes increasingly important. Offer special discounts and deals to show your appreciation for your long-term customers. Often, these types of activities provide value to customers and get them back in the store sooner, leading to an increase in your sales.    

Understanding your business well enough to know where you can afford to take these risks will allow you to improve your business, even when facing an economic downturn.  Take the risk and implement one of these ideas in your organization so you will come out ahead of the curve when the economy does pick back up.  

 

Pride and Passion as Values in Company Culture

Company culture can differentiate you from your competition. It helps you attract better employees, retain them longer and, most importantly, it drives performance. Do you have an organization of individuals who do good work because they’re talented? Or, are you successful because your employees will settle for nothing but the best?

To some extent, we are all driven by the tangible benefits of work…like salary, responsibilities and bonuses. But, that only goes so far. One of the most common traits of top companies is a passion for the business and a pride to be nothing less than excellent. Sub-par performance is not an option because the employees take so much pride in their projects that they work to achieve a better end result.

In a tough economic landscape, we must utilize every advantage we can. Turn up the heat and find the passion within. Use this passion to become stronger and more determined and you will beat your competitors. It’s time to step up and fight harder—give 130 percent instead of 100 percent.

So, how do you ignite passion and motivate pride within your organization to create this powerful culture? Here are a few keys:

• Passion starts at the top. Never doubt that your employees will follow your lead. Are you exuding passion in what your organization does? Make sure all your employees understand the purpose of the organization and where they fit in the big picture.
• Hire for passion—as well as skills. We’ve all heard this one. You can teach a passionate person how to get things done, but you can’t teach a skilled worker to have passion. Plus, make sure everyone understands there is no insignificant task or job. Each individual helps us take one step closer to succeeding.
• Cultivate your true leaders. Do you have a team of leaders, management and executives who get to do the job that motivates them? Can they inspire other employees? If you have the right leaders, they will dig deeper and motivate other employees—giving you the greatest chance of success and better results than your competitors.
• Share in the successes. Do you have a staff—or a team? It can help to continually humanize your organization. For example, my team feels every victory—and every disappointment within the entire organization. They understand the impacts as though they are their own. And, it drives them to do better.

As I’ve heard one renowned speaker say, “Everything matters. Nothing is neutral.” Passion and pride can play a big role in your commitment to make your organization the best. Put it to work for you today—and watch as your team shatters your expectations.

Changing Your Corporate Culture

The current state of the economy has led many businesses to adapt their company cultures in order to re-prioritize and strengthen parts of their organization. If you are attempting any kind of culture change in your organization, it is extremely important to address any communication gaps you may have. If you can't communicate with your management team, you will not be able to institute any kind of change.

One of the most common flaws for business owners is that they are generally poor listeners. Most have to work at improving their listening skills because it goes against their basic nature. You have to force yourself to have the patience to not complete other’s statements. This is a born characteristic of a lot of people who become business owners.

You can build a stronger relationship with your employees if you can practice listening. Culture is something that is difficult to manage. It has a tendency to evolve on its own unless it is very specifically addressed. Having open and clear communications is essential during any changes in your culture.

You need to set goals and objectives with your management team the same way you would expect them to set goals with the rest of your employees. This is especially true in a situation where the business owner is not present at the workplace on a daily basis, which may also be a part of your vision.

If your vision does include being able to operate your company without being at the office regularly, you need to set goals for the culture you wish to exist in your absence. Just because you are not there does not mean that you do not need to communicate with your management.

Such a transition always entails a certain amount of friction, but the culture can change over time. It is not an immediate process, and it requires setting objectives that can be checked, along with communicating to your management team your expectations.

Hiring Non-Family Employees

First generation family leaders tend to be take-charge, full-court press and dominant personalities. However, quite often when the company has achieved significant growth under first generation leadership, it will need to bring in non-family talent in order to maintain and nurture this level of success. This often happens as the second generation enters the business sphere.

Non-family executives are frequently employed to provide seasoned leadership and mentoring for the next generation. Other valuable non-family employees and managers who are recruited and promoted within the family business become key managers, or as some call them, good soldiers. These are people who just like working for a good family firm with good policies and good practices and treats them well. These employees take great pride in their position and can become excellent long-term employees that are critical to the success of any family business.

When recruiting non-family members into a family-owned business, it is important to review all the details of the position with the applicants—especially as the position relates to the family traditions and plans for family member employment and leadership of the company. Be totally open, put everything on the table so the applicants know exactly where they stand and recognize that becoming a CEO, or even an officer or the company, is probably not in the cards for them.

It is also important to discuss your business philosophy or your recipe for success openly with all applicants. Some family businesses are run very professionally, with things absolutely above board and they pride themselves on that. For others it is cut-throat—it is bottom-line and money—and if this is the case in your family business you better put that on the table and find out if the non-family applicant is in alignment with this philosophy.

All employees typically want to grow professionally and personally in their work. Motivated employees are an important investment for any family-owned company. To retain valuable non-family employees, make sure they are challenged with exciting vision and given an opportunity to participate in the development and execution of that vision.

Keys to Being a Successful Business Owner

In addition to having a sound business plan, great marketing strategies and top employees, what does it take to be a successful business owner—especially during challenging financial times? Ray Brun, TAB-Certified Facilitator and Coach describes Sixteen mind frames business owners have on the TAB East Bay North Web site—discussing the importance of having the right mental attitude:

“Nothing can stop a CEO who has the right mental attitude from achieving his goal. However, nothing on earth can help the CEO with the wrong mental attitude. The state of your life and business is nothing more than a reflection of your state of mind. I find working with successful business owners to be a pure joy. As a result of working closely with over 100 entrepreneurs in recent years as a facilitator for The Alternative Board, I have noticed that certain mind frames exist for all Successful Owners of Businesses (affectionately referred to as “SOBs” for the rest of this article). Here are my top sixteen:

1. There Is Always a Better Way to Do It
   Marcel Proust once said, “The real voyage of discovery consists not in making new landscapes but in having new eyes”. SOBs look beyond traditional ways to solve problems, create deliverables and get results. No matter what strategy, process, or procedure is under consideration, there is usually an easier or better way. SOBs have an unquenchable thirst for doing things faster, easier, less expensively and with less risk.
2. Being a Marketer Trumps Being a Master Every Time
   While you must always strive to evolve from proficiency to the mastery of your expertise, your doors will close if you do not make others aware of your services. SOBs never stop promoting their business at any time.”

Read more…

Financial Crisis?! Keeping Your Family Business Afloat in an Economic Downturn

With the financial crisis we’re currently facing, family businesses are not only struggling to overcome business challenges and problems to keep the company afloat, but are trying to reduce the amount of stress on family relationships.

Eastside Business Journal recently featured an article by The Alternative Board founder Allen Fishman discussing ways to reduce the stress of family business members:

1. Don’t hire if you can’t fire. Create a written policy for hiring, reviewing and terminating family member employees. Responsibilities and standards need to be upheld…even if the expectations are different than a non-family employee.
2. Be open and honest about financials, including compensation. This is the most emotionally charged issue family businesses face. Attempting to keep the peace with equal pay for unequal contributions actually provides fuel for future conflicts. Avoid family tension regarding compensation by sticking to agreed policies.
3. Plan to pass the business on someday. Be proactive with succession planning. Choose a successor and create a succession plan. Then, communicate! Be sure key family members, including the successor, are on board with the plan.

Read more…

Utilizing Your Competitive Edge to Create Success

Identifying and developing your competitive edge is the cornerstone of success in life. This means finding those skills, aptitudes, abilities and aspects of your nature that set you apart or in which you have a natural proficiency. You need to go through a diagnostic process, assessing your ability in at least six business related areas: strategy, execution, innovation, deal making, organization and integrating culture.

There are different aptitudes in which a person can have great specific ability, but which are not measurable by current tests. Your competitive edge is one of them. You should be nurturing and utilizing this ability. You may know where your greatest aptitudes lie, but you may also be surprised to find what others consider to be your greatest aptitudes.

One businesswoman listed her two greatest aptitudes as the ability to listen to others and her verbal skills. When her three key executives and one supplier were asked the same question, they (in different words) identified other skills and did not list the aptitudes she had described. They emphasized her ability to think out of the box. She saw solutions to problems no one else had seen. She came up with opportunities that others had not noticed. As the supplier remarked, “she has a never-ending number of ideas that challenge you to think through things.”

Small and medium-sized businesses must offer better service than business giants, and often the president of the company is personally involved in making sure the service is satisfactory. It is not possible for the president of a multibillion-dollar company to take the time to respond to similar customer complaints.

When you do what you are good at, you enjoy doing it. It is frustrating to do something that you are not good at doing or are no better at than many others. For better results, you should surround yourself with others who have their own competitive edges that are different from yours and the others in your team.

Not focusing on your competitive edge eventually leads to burnout. One of the most common factors that holds business owners back from achieving success is burnout. A business owner I worked with had taken over a company from her dad and got burned out. She didn’t want to do what she needed to do to run the business. In order to fight this feeling, we focused on her competitive edge. Burnout can make you mentally exhausted. It is a negative energy pattern. We had her keep track of all the activities she did that she didn’t like. Doing what she didn’t like took up 80 percent of her time. When we got rid of those things over time, the burnout disappeared.

Consider all the things that may set you or your business apart from your competition or potential competition. Look at all the factors involved in your life as a business owner and in the life of the business itself. For instance, one business owner found a competitive edge in being aware of the needs of his Spanish-speaking employees. He operated a cleaning company, and the major problem facing this business in his area was keeping employees. He operated in an area in Texas where there were many Mexican immigrants. By having the company benefits translated into Spanish, he could better communicate the total value of his employment and reduced his turnover rate.

If you only follow through with the commitment to find your competitive edge, and implement no other strategic plan, your life will be changed for the better.