Business | Business Management Resource

How to Have Successful Client Relations

May 16, 2011 By admin Leave a Comment

Successful client relations are key to any business. Of course there are easy clients that are easy to please, but there are also high maintenance clients that seem to require hours on the phone, tons of edits and lots of time. There are some keys to successful client relations that can make a business flourish.

It is important that you know your role. Be sure that expectations are clear and concise. You need to know exactly what the client wants and expects. Get it in writing and pyrefer to it often.
Invite client input. If the client feels that they have made a significant contribution to the project they will be less likely to request major changes. They have a stake in the finished product due to their contributions.

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If you have messed up admit it. Clients do not like excuses. They want results.
Do not take every project you are offered. Too many companies just starting out are desperate for work and are tempted to take on projects that they know they may not be able to complete or do successfully.
Be on time. When you say you are going to deliver the results do it.
If the partnership just isn’t making progress ending the relationship may need to be considered. If you are miserable chances are the client is miserable. Part ways peacefully.

Client relations are the bread and butter to any business. Follow these tips for a happy, successful client relationship which will lead to a successful business.

Hiring employees for less

March 28, 2011 By admin Leave a Comment

Maintaining a healthy head count is crucial for the success of any business. You don’t want to end up understaffed when you need the manpower to finish vital projects or overstaffed during lean periods that leads to unnecessary spending. Although companies generally have a plan on how they will be going about their recruitment process, smaller businesses often end up incurring huge expenses in hiring. They need skilled and talented employees yet can’t afford to pay high salaries or commissions to agents. Here are some tips on how you can get quality staff for your organization without having to delve too deep into your pocket!

1. Hiring immigrants instantly reduces the amount you will be spending on salaries. Immigrants, although highly talented, usually ask for lesser pay as their English may be flawed or they may not have enough local experience. With a little bit of training they can become high performers.

2. A lot of female executives leave their jobs to concentrate on their families once they have children. Often, however, they look out for part time jobs or work as consultants. They can provide you with much needed expertise at a discounted price!

3. Look out for people who work on contract basis. If you think you will need additional staff for a single project, hire employees on a contract that lasts the duration of the project. This way, your work will get done and you won’t have to pay for employee idle time.

4. Interns are a great way to fill up positions that don’t require a lot of experience. They look for jobs solely to gain experience and don’t expect much of a pay.

5. Encourage employee referrals to avoid paying huge commissions to agents.

Filed Under: Business, Employee Relationships Tagged With: Business, Employment, Recruitment

Hiring top management for small businesses

March 24, 2011 By admin Leave a Comment

Businesses, not matter how big or small, need top management who are experienced and experts in their fields in order to guide the company towards success. While large and established companies can afford to spend mammoth amounts in hiring senior management, smaller businesses can’t afford this luxury. However, this doesn’t mean that they should settle for poor quality staff or eliminate certain positions which may lead to their business objectives being compromised. There are several ways in which small businesses can get the expertise of top management without having to invest too much in hiring. Here are some tips:

1. To begin with, try hiring top managers as consultants. There are many chief officers who work part time or as advisors in smaller companies. You will be able to gain a lot from their knowledge and will pay only a fraction of the cost of hiring a senior manager on a full time basis.

2. Several educational institutions like colleges and universities have highly educated and experienced staff who are available as advisors or consultants. Many such institutions also run programs that provide free leadership and mentoring to budding entrepreneurs. Check if your company can qualify for any such program.

3. Even when you hire top management on a consultant or part time basis, encourage a team atmosphere. Making them feel that they are as much part of the company as a full time manager will motivate them to perform better and give the organization their best.

4. Before you hire anyone for a top management post, go through a proper reference and background check procedure just as you would for any other employee. Top management are the leaders of a business and you need to be sure they are genuine.

Filed Under: Business Tagged With: Business, Management, Small business

Effective Employee Orientation

March 16, 2011 By admin Leave a Comment

Most companies have an orientation program for new recruits to get them up to pace with the organization. Orientation fast tracks an employee towards better understanding of the organizational goals, the work environment, policies, benefits and lots more. Here are a few points that will make employee orientation more effective for any organization.

1. Have a good orientation plan. Bombarding a new employee with a load of information on the first day is never a good idea so spread your orientation over the period of a month.

2. On the first day, make sure the new employee gets introduced to all their colleagues as well as department heads.

3. Appoint someone from the employees’ department as his or her ‘buddy’. This person will be responsible for making the new recruit comfortable in the new work environment and help them adjust.

4. Create an Employee Handbook that contain all the policies pertaining to HR, administration, benefits, holidays and almost anything that an employee can have a question about. Give this handbook to the employee on the first day and ask them to read it thoroughly, indicating that their knowledge will be tested shortly.

5. At the end of the first week, conduct a quick test to know if the employee understand his or her job role and how their own department functions.

6. AT the end of the month, arrange for an employee orientation day for all the employees recruited that month. Have senior managers and executives of each department brief them on how their department functions. It would be great if you could get a chief officer to explain the organization’s goals, mission and vision.

7. Conduct a final test to know if the employee is aware of all policies of the organization.

Filed Under: Business, Employee Relationships Tagged With: Employee Handbook, Employment, Human resources

Shoe string training

March 9, 2011 By admin Leave a Comment

Companies may recognize the importance of training their staff but often find themselves cash strapped to invest in it. Many companies put their elaborate training programs on hold after the recent global economic crisis. Although this may save the immediate buck, it can prove costlier in the long run due to poor productive growth of employees. High end training is almost always difficult for small businesses to pull off and so they often ignore training of employees all together. Just because you can’t commit a massive amount s training budget doesn’t mean you have to forego training! Here is a look at some methods you can try to train your employees for barely any cost:

1. Form a training ‘Union’ of sorts with other small business owners. Use each others expert staff to share knowledge and skills. Each company will have employees with unique skills who can act as trainers for others.

2. When purchasing equipment of software, include product training as part of the contract. Get the manufacturer to send a representative to your office premises and train the employees on how to use the equipment of software. This will cut the cost you would incur in training the employees while your staff will get trained first hand by the manufacturer’s experts.

3. Form in-house training groups consisting of employees who have been identified as having good leadership and mentoring skills. Encourage them to set up weekly training classes for colleagues. Give them an incentive in the form of performance bonuses. This way, your employees will get trained for a fraction of the cost of hiring a professional trainer.

4. Try out one of the many online training courses available. Several sites provide free training material that can be utilized by your in-house training groups.

5. Send a single employee to a professional training camp and have the employee pass on the knowledge and skills to colleagues.

Filed Under: Business, Training Tagged With: Employment, Small business, Training

Benefits are Changing; Top Workplaces Offer More Than Vacation Packages

February 23, 2011 By admin Leave a Comment

What is considered a ‘good employer’ has changed. It used to be, all a boss had to do was offer a decent wage, paid lunch hour and some health insurance, and people felt they got benefits. However, looking at the list of the top 100 businesses to work for makes that seem minimal.

Here are some things the top companies are offering their workers:

Flexible work schedules – Some people cannot fit into the ‘9-5’ model that America’s gone by for so long. It’s important to let employees have a sense of control over their own lives and making a schedule that they like makes fewer days missed at work.
Child-friendly Workplaces – It’s okay to take several weeks off when a child is born, but now mothers are finding it’s okay to bring baby to the office while they work. Software firm SAS offers employees on-site health care, child care, and in summer they even provide summer camps. Many places are also becoming pet friendly.
Atmosphere of fun and creativity – At Facebook employees get around from meeting to meeting on scooters placed around the floor, and ping pong and foosball tables are scattered here and there, as well. At Qualcomm employees enjoy baseball games, surfing lessons, kayaking tours and lots of other fun things.
Rewards great service – When people feel appreciated they make a point of doing a good job. The Methodist Hospital system gives quarterly bonuses of $300 to non-management staff. Annabelle’s Restaurant gives employees parties with great prizes like airfare and massages for high-revenue days.
Understanding employee’s lives – acknowledging that real people are working and not robots means that at times some amendments to scheduling may have to be made. Johnson Financial Group gives employees leave of absences with full pay.
Good incentive programs – every company on the list has some sort of great benefits for meeting incentives.

Filed Under: Business, Business Costs Tagged With: Employment, Facebook, Johnson Financial Group

Business Planning is Essential

February 21, 2011 By admin Leave a Comment

We all dream of owning our own business, but most of us really don’t know the right way to do it. A business plan is essential to starting a successful small business. To simply talk about it, dream about it, and then try to make a go of it will most likely result in failure. Successful business ventures always begin with an idea and motivation, but in order to implement that idea into a work in progress specific steps need to be taken.

The more organized an idea the better result will be for all involved. Using ERP, a enterprise resource plan, will help business owners, future employees, and potential lenders see how the business can benefit the community, if it will survive the first year, and what alternatives or contingencies the owners has should the business begin to fail.

There are many business plan templates available on the internet, and even if you have to pay for one, it’s worth it. Business plan templates guide you through the important information you’ll need to really lay out your new endeavor. Think of it as a wordy math formula. Once you’ve filled in all of the blanks, does the sum add up to a positive answer?

Often times, it’s the business plan that reveals the sad truth. Maybe that awesome idea really wasn’t so awesome. That’s not to say it’s impossible, it just means you’ve got to get back to the drawing board.

Some things that are included in a business plan are:
Mission Statement – This is where you really focus on what you plan to do.
Start Up Capital – You’ll need some money to start that business.
Key Players – Who are the owners, officers, managers, etc.
Products – This is where you discuss what you will be selling.
Location – This is where you describe where your business will be located.
Overhead – This is where you try to budget the various costs of running the business.
Income – Figure out what you’ll be charging for various products. Also, this is where you try to set a monthly goal.

These are just a few of the components of a business plan, and if they don’t add up, you’ll know before you start. Always work through this part of starting a business so that you can be successful in your new adventure.

Filed Under: Business Tagged With: Business, Mission statement, Ownership

Bank of America Buys up Domain Names to Keep Offline

February 16, 2011 By admin Leave a Comment

Shareholders carry a lot of clout in any company, especially when it comes to getting approval. Company executives will do most anything to appeal to shareholders, sometimes creating highly complicated accounting strategies to make it seem like more of a profit is being made.

Some will do everything they can to keep the shareholders from seeing bad news about the company. Brian Moynihan is the most hated BOA exec and he’s drawing a lot of fire from the populations.

BOA executives are scrambling to buy up domain names that put BOA in a bad light. It’s almost comical, as they snap up such domains as brianmoynihansucks.com and brianmoynihanblows.com and even names like brianmoynihanisugly.com. Any domain name that can make a derogatory remark about BOA or its executives is being figured out and purchased.

Domain Name Wire Gets Jackpot

Domain Name Wire, an Internet company who often buys domain names for big corporations just bought hundreds of domain names in hopes of keeping them offline. It’s a last-ditch effort to keep clean the name of the company that was just convicted of putting people out of their homes illegally during a recession.

Also, one BOA customer alleged that a bank employee broke into her home (after an illegal foreclosure) and stole the ashes of her dead husband (and other items) during the illegal foreclosure process. BOA isn’t just disliked, it’s becoming hated.

BOA bought all the domains they could think of that have anything to do with the bank, Brian Moynihan or Charles Noski and other members of the board.

As if that isn’t enough of a problem for the BOA, there is now a rumor that the bank will be the subject of another release by WikiLeaks, the Internet‘s national tattler. If anything is known about WikiLeaks it’s that they’re thorough when they rake someone over the coals, so it doesn’t sound good for BOA.

Filed Under: Business, Business Costs Tagged With: Domain name, Shareholder, WikiLeak

Recruiters Need Marketing Skills to get Good Help

February 10, 2011 By admin Leave a Comment

Recruiters today have to fill openings and put out notices for the help wanted. They’ll get a glut of applications, with possibly all of them being wrong for the job, or not skilled as wanted. They then must pick through a stack of applications looking for someone they can fit into the hole.

A pharmacy might need technicians, and those are a dime a dozen in the US. However, not all pharmacy technicians will qualify for the spot if the recruiter is looking for someone with more skills than just pharmacology. A qualified applicant might be one who likes working in the health care field and has experience working with the public.

Fish Out the Necessary Information, Then Hire Accordingly

More data is needed to find out the hidden qualities a person has that aren’t listed on their resume. They may enjoy working their job, but hate working with the public, for example. A good potential applicant would want to demonstrate their previous success working with the public by listing those jobs and skills, even if they don’t relate to the position being offered.

A recruiter hiring for the pharmacy position can market the job by using adjectives that describe the whole attitude of the person needed; good communication skills, good organization, good attention to detail and good interpersonal skills, etc. Then, there’s the fact that most pharmacy customers are ill or in pain, so having compassion for the sick and being able to comfort them is also something a recruiter might require.

How does a recruiter find good quality candidates? Interview top performers in the position. Find out what they like or dislike about their jobs, what motivates them and what they like best about doing their work. Find a common ground between them. What do they find particularly satisfying? Or, dissatisfying? With more information a recruiter can find who is best for the position, and not just choose someone to fill a spot.

Filed Under: Business, Business Costs Tagged With: Health care, Pharmacy, Recruiter

The Potential Employee

February 10, 2011 By admin Leave a Comment

In the cutthroat business world, there is so much riding on the resume and interview. It is very difficult to land a great job, so there will be many different applicants for open positions. Here are a few things to look for when interviewing potential candidates.

Resume

When looking for a potential employee, the first thing you will see is their resume. It’s not just an outline of their work history or their education, it’s also a glimpse into their personality. If you receive a beat up, poorly printed resume full of misspelled words and outdated information, you probably aren’t looking at the next great employee. Only let the applicants through that meet the meticulous standards your company warrants.

Education

While looking at resumes, you will also be looking into the applicants education history. You first want to make sure that they meet the minimum education requirements that the position needs. It doesn’t matter whether it’s from junior colleges, online schools, or even ivy league schools, a commitment to education shows a lot about your applicant. A couple of red flags you want to look out for may be if they changed their major a lot, never finished, or got horrible grades, because indecisiveness, lack of commitment, or doing the absolute minimum required are all qualities you want to avoid in an employee.

Interview

You can learn so much about a person when you meet them face to face. When interviewing potential employees, you want to try and absorb as much about them as you possibly can. The person you want working for you will exude confidence, look you right in the eye when speaking to you, and seem comfortable around you. Although, you may want to be a bit understanding when it comes to nerves, because you don’t want to miss out on a great employee because they were a little nervous in the interview.

Filed Under: Business, Employee Relationships Tagged With: Employment, Human resources, Résumé