Articles

Enhance Your Credibility!

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It’s easy to get lazy during these last two weeks of the year when everyone seems to be busy. Yet, it’s the perfect time to enhance your credibility as a business professional.  Here are some helpful hints:

Dress well.  Wear appropriate business clothes to meetings and events during this time.  It’s easy to want to wear your jeans or your less professional gear.

Network.  It’s a great time to connect since most people don’t.  Use these last two weeks to meet and thank valuable contacts.  At a minimum, call or email to set up meetings for the beginning of January.

Show up and be seen in the office. Many people will spend the next two weeks cleaning up projects and handling other items found in their in-basket. Spend time doing the same thing yourself.  Answer your phone. Return all calls. You’ll be amazed by your productivity and will feel good about wrapping up fourth quarter 2010.

 

©Jeannette Seibly, 2010

Are You a Good Entrepreneur?

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If you answer “Yes” to any of the following questions, you might be like many other entrepreneurs and business owners, who would rather have a root canal than take a cold hard objective look at their businesses and how they manage them. Each “yes” is a signal that it’s time to talk with a business mentor and hire yourself a coach before it’s too late:

  • Are your financials in the red – or bright pink? Sadly many self-employed business owners are afraid of numbers. Do you find it so scary to take a close look at the numeric metrics of how you are doing, you wait until you are forced to do so? Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) do apply to you. Hire a bookkeeper or your CPA to help you set up your books. If you are not reliable to keep them updated on a weekly basis, hire someone who can.
  • Are your customers leaving and new ones are not filing in? Many times we get caught up in the “bright shiny object” of our ideas. We miss the fact that others don’t “get” what we are selling. Hire a marketing coach and/or a social media professional (even if you are already using social media) to help you objectively look at your offerings and clarify your message.
  • Have you become arrogant and egotistical – a jerk? Most “jerks” are unable to identify themselves as such. If you wonder, just ask your closest friends. Being a bad boss, having no one want to work for you takes its toll on you and others.  So does having clients leave in frustration, unwilling to work with you. Everyone can learn effective management and customer service skills that will work for them, if they are committed to the process.
  • Are you unable to decipher between good and bad advice?  Poor decision-making is a visible sign of someone who may not have the business maturity to be a good business owner. Are you able to take coaching and implement it effectively? Your improved results are the markers that best signify to others you’re doing well and your business is moving in the right direction.
  • Do you have high turnover? This is a reflection of poor hiring skills and systems, even if you get lucky once in a while. Hire the right person(s) and you look like a superstar.  Hire the wrong person(s) and you’ll may need or want to close the doors and start all over again.  Work with your coach to implement a legal and valid process. It will make all the difference in your success. 

©Jeannette Seibly, 2010

Build Loyalty, Not Followers

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Recently, I talked with a business owner who simply wanted people to show up and do their work.  “I know what needs to be done; they simply need to do what I tell them to do.”  While this type of mindset worked decades ago, it will never create the loyalty (or level of performance) you wish to build.

 

1) They may have the answers. Put aside your automatic judgment that it can’t work and create five reasons why it could work.

2) Listen to both sides. When you authentically brainstorm new ideas, processes and procedures, you will come up with out-of-the-box solutions to age-old problems.

3) Open your mind to new possibilities. The way it has always been done will not work today.  What can you add gradually, or fade out? Or, what needs a major overhaul.  Start doing it now.

(c)Jeannette Seibly, 2010