Hi everyone

I have returned after a lengthy illness and am writing to say thank you for your lovely comments and to look out for a new article in the next few days.

There is a comment from a reader that has prompted me to write about dealing with dissatisfied customers (The Customer Is Not Always Right), a problem most of us have come up against at one time or another. So look out for it in the next week.

Please let me know if there are any specific business improvement/marketing topics you would like me to write about and don’t forget, if you have a legit, legal and non-offensive business I would be happy to advertise your business for free on my partner page. Check it out

Have a lovely day

Sincerely
Michelle

PS. I am writing another ebook on operational business systems, now is your chance to receive advice. Please email your business system setup/improvement questions related to operational processes and I will do the best I can to help you gain a better understanding!

Delegating tasks to your staff or hiring a consultant may help you with tasks that will free up your time to work ‘on’ your business rather than ‘in’ it… but you need to ensure the person carrying out the task knows everything required to complete it to your satisfaction – upfront!

Working ‘on’ your business allows you to:

• look for new ways to attract customers
• improve your business system
• monitor staff performance; ensuring your values and guidelines are being followed
• find new products
• analyse and beat the competition
• create new marketing campaigns
• enhance your business image
• find business partners
• and the list goes on

Of course, if you don’t want to work ‘on’ your business, and prefer to work ‘in’ it doing what you love, then delegation is great for handing out the tasks you despise. You may even have staff that would love to do that task and be better at it.

Each task you delegate should be briefly assessed against your employee’s level of skill and ability to carry it out to the level required; you will then feel confident the job is going to be done properly and/or professionally and your employee won’t feel overwhelmed. Make sure you provide ALL the information necessary to perform the task properly, skipping vital bits of information can cause problems and disagreements. Take the time to show your employee what needs to be done. You may think, “Well I might as well do it myself”, but when they get the hang of it, you won’t need to do it anymore, which is one less thing for you to do.

Staff are usually more willing to assist and more capable than given credit for, plus they may feel they are actually contributing to the business  and their  job satisfaction levels will increase, which turn, may produce better quality outputs and customer service.

Delegating helps your business in so many more ways than just giving you time to play golf or go to the gym. (more…)

What if the reason why we are currently experiencing an economic crisis is because there are too many ‘get rich’ schemes ripping people off or products being sold that are not quality or do not provide value? How can they get away with it? Maybe it is time for those ‘advantage takers’ to step back and realise they now need to provide value and quality or they won’t get the droves of customers they were getting a 1-3 years back.

Have you noticed all the ‘deals’ that seem to be popping up lately, like ‘buy xyz car and get $000s cash back’; and that’s not all, you also get a set of steak knives (just kidding). If you are in business that provides a product that is ‘not’ of sound quality (unless you are a bargain shop), what do you think is going to happen to that business down the track. In recent months I have purchased several items through online wholesaler sites. The items were for personal use mostly, but here’s the thing, most of the items have either been thrown out or just not used at all because they were not of the standard I expected.

Here is the other thing, most customers will NOT complain, they will just NEVER return to buy from you again and will tell their friends not too. Frankly, if I had seen the same items in a retail store, I would have thought they weren’t worth the money, unfortunately the Internet makes products look very inviting and can easily cover up any imperfections.

Here is a classic example: (more…)

It is now more vital than ever to stay ahead of what is going on around us, so that our businesses remain in tact and stronger than ever. I strongly believe a ‘quality system’ is one way to do that. That doesn’t necessarily mean that you need to go to all the trouble and cost of obtaining an accreditation certificate to ISO 9001; what it does mean is that you can use the ISO 9001 guidelines to setup your very own quality system.

If you are having problems in areas of staff performance, comebacks, customer satisfaction… a quality system can help you:

• identify problem areas and rectify them quickly
• track customer feedback
• improve performance of staff
• with continual improvement
• develop or provide better quality products and services
• force you to communicate more with your staff and customers
• increase sales and profits
• grow your business
  
• define an appropriate supplier
• protect your business
• standardise processes and procedures
• gain recognition from external bodies
• with obtaining government projects (usually certification is needed here though, but not always)
• define roles and responsibilities of management and employees- reduce overhead costs
• and heaps more benefits

There is a catch though … (more…)