Of course the current snow falls and freezing conditions are a real problem for many who are seriously cut off from the world and their employment. However these Arctic conditions also offer the perfect excuse for those who want a day off, not a ‘sicky’ but a ‘snowy’
I learnt yesterday of one boss who was so fed up with staff not turning up for work that he got in his car and attempted to drive round from the office to their homes. Surprise surprise he had little difficulty in arriving at their front door. They were greeted with the message ‘if I can get to you then you can get to me’ probably punctuated with a few expletives too. Now there’s a man who believes in taking a practical approach to business problems. Wonderful!

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Much of what I know and apply has come from business books and in my younger years there was usually one in progress by the bed. I tend to read for relaxation now but a client recommended a cracker the other day. It is the ultimate sales machine by Chet Holmes to be found on http://www.amazon.co.uk/Ultimate-Sales-Machine-Turbocharge-Relentless/dp/1591841607

Chet really focuses on the key issues any business has to address and I particularly like his two word phrase for effective business building ‘dogged determination’. I can certainly resonate with that.
Feeling in a generous mood I sent one to all my clients and they are absolutely hooked. They are applying the wisdom in their businesses and using the ideas to train their staff too. If you do buy the book let me know how you get on.

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This month I have been looking for a telephone marketing company to run an ongoing campaign for one of my business mentoring clients. As telephone marketing was how I made a lot of my cash I was on home territory. I had written a very clear brief which the client had agreed and all we needed to do was find someone to deliver on it.
There were a few companies the client had met through networking and some we picked off the web which seemed to be about the right size and with the type of capabilities we required – so far so good.
OK I could have rung them up but I chose to respond to their web contact page either through their message pad or by an email to their info or enquiries address. Now here comes the dramatic bit. One company responded within the hour and a few within a day but more that 50% did not respond at all. So undeterred I waited a few days and then sent a second email chasing my first. This elicited one more reply with the rest remaining silent.
How could I consider a company to represent my client and get them leads if their own responsiveness and commercial nouse was so poor? Well as it happens I did subsequently phone them as the ones we were engaged with produced such wayward responses to the brief, but that is another story.
How can anyone spend so much time and money building a web site presumably to get enquiries just to ignore them? Well it is easy to see how this can happen. The chosen recipient is on holiday or might even have left. The enquiry address is not filtered so they get lost in the spam. Maybe they just don’t care although those I subsequently rang were horrified they had missed my email although I am not sure if this as feigned or real.
Why not check now where your site enquiries go and how long you take to reply to them?
So the winner was? Actually the company which replied in minutes and maintained that interest, attention and understanding throughout our engagement with them – what a surprise?

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As the doom and gloom seems to show no sign of lifting advice on how to build maintain or even stay in business becomes even more valuable. Of course there is a mass of business input on the web but all too often it is lightweight, not practical or contains masses of marketing hype. I came across smallbusinesspro the other day and found it really refreshing. Maybe because so much of the advice reflects what as a business coach I tell my clients every day. I seldom recommend sites on my blog but here are some guys who have a positive contribution to make in the current hard times – check them out.

Popularity: 7%

Imagine my surprise when reading the Evening Standard on the way home yesterday to read a headline on the front page ‘John Lewis feels the pinch as sales fall be a third.’ Goodness there must be one hell of a sale coming up I thought. I know the credit crunch is bad but surely not that bad. Then on turning to the article I find the headline ‘John Lewis is feeling the pinch as profits fall be a third.’ The economic climate might change but the good old British media is as inaccurate and ignorant as ever.

Popularity: 11%

As a business coach I am more about motivating action than generating ideas. I find my clients have ideas aplenty and although I certainly add more, it is getting them to do what they say they will which is the real challenge. It is not as if we don’t know what we need to. It is simply finding time in between everything else to get these tasks completed.

I have now evolved a simple weekly planning process where we agree at the start of the week the business priorities which must be achieved and then review them at the end of the week to make sure they have been completed. ‘Nothing revolutionary about that’ I hear you say and you are right. I suppose the difference is that instead of having these actions wandering around in their heads we write them down. That simple process of having something in black and white makes all the difference.

There are many people who do this naturally, but if you are not one of them why not try this today. It is not hard and the pleasure of ticking off what you have achieved on Friday night makes it all worthwhile.

Popularity: 11%

I have a very good friend who is a recognised artist. We communicate virtually every day on email and this week he is to have a one man show. As it is quite a way out of London we have decided to make a little holiday of the trip. I rang the gallery, explained who I was and that I would be attending the private viewing and asked if they would recommend a hotel near them. Of course the usual ‘Muppet’ who answered the phone could not possibly say and had to ask the boss who was presumably hovering in the background. She then gave me the name of a nearby hotel and put the phone down. Now those with disposable cash to spend on art in this slump, crunch or squeeze must be getting thinner on the ground. So maybe 5 magic words could have made a little difference and started a positive relationship. What are they? Well what about ‘looking forward to seeing you?’ Now you might well think that this is a ravings of an old man but believe me when times are hard everything you can do to establish relationship counts. How welcoming and warm are you when prospects contact you from cold?

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Our next door neighbour used to own a pub in the local village. It was a legend in the area and apparently even people from Spain came to our rural Somerset to sample her paella. She was reminiscing over a cup of tea last week and wondered if she should throw some of her pub memorabilia away. After all it was many years ago and all that stuff was cluttering up the loft. The menus, the visitors book, the awards for her great cooking, she had them all. ‘But this is a part of you’ I argued and you know you will regret it as soon as you have done it.

I then remembered that I still had stuff from my first sales career in my early 20s. Those letters we received from the top management announcing on their colourful notepaper that I was top of the league for period 2 or had won this or that completion. There were the names from those days too, all now long gone, thanking me for my hard work. No email then. These were on nice crunchy paper especially used for the purpose all sent in an envelope which I could open and show the wife.

Now we have email and it is so easy to acknowledge performance. Just a few words hit the enter key and there you are. But how often do we do thank or praise the people who work for us or those we work with? Not just for the big things but for something small that really made a difference or for keeping going at a difficult job. Lack of acknowledgement is probably the most cited reason employees give for leaving a company. The person just does not feel valued. Who could you acknowledge, praise or thank for their contribution to your working life today? Just name them and do it.

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I was given a good reminder on responding to proposals today which I thought I would share. I am looking for a web designer for one of my clients with a well written brief, so it is very clear what we want. One company has responded with a short email giving the project cost and asking if this was within the client’s budget. If it was, they will follow with a detailed proposal. By adopting such a refreshing approach they not only save time but also position themselves as a professional company that takes quotations seriously. I have written more about qualifying enquiries in my downloads too.

Chris Kaday
Business Coach

Popularity: 11%

The more business owners I meet, the more convinced I am that ‘mind set’ not money is the key ingredient for building thriving companies. It is the resourceful, ‘can do’, fearless, capable, decisive, organised, realistic, empathetic, effective people who create successful businesses, more often than not from zero or near zero capital. There are others who are just too slow, too negative, too fearful, too idealistic, too ponderous, too muddled and too inward looking to ever really make it.

People with a business brain move faster and more logically and therefore stand out from the commercial crowd. They are resourceful enough to create what cash they need and in many cases people are actually falling over themselves to give them money as they recognise ‘a winner’ when they see one. Bet you know at least one person like this?

Popularity: 38%