You Deserve a Break Today
If you’ve been managing tough times like the rest of us, pushing for, hoping for, wondering if you’ll ever get the morale and productivity boost you want and need, then this may be just the break you need.
Encouragement and how to’s from an insider at a company that prospered. Then stalled. And is now prospering again.
Read how and why that is happening in this great Harvard Business article entitled: What McDonald’s Can Teach Us About Recovery.
It’s written by Mats Lederhausen, who spent most of his career inside McDonald’s. First, flipping burgers, then advancing through the ranks and learning the the business from the inside out.
Staying Out There
Part #7 of the series on Managing Tough Times
Remember how Sally included her staff in the development of a Hunker Down Plan?
At that first meeting, in which she asked for their input on how to cut costs, she said:
“If my worst case revenue projections come true – we will have a $250,000 shortfall this year – which puts us in a bad situation with the bank.
“We certainly aren’t going to settle for this worst case scenario. We are taking charge. Staying out there. Acting boldly. And working on strategies for doing more of the same in order to boost sales. I’ll be asking for your input on that soon.”
She kept her promise and asked for their input on boosting sales at another staff meeting held a few weeks later. She started by Read more
12 Ways to Warm Cold Cuts
Part #6 of a series on managing tough times.
Layoffs. Reductions in pay and benefits. More work to do with fewer people and resources. Decisions perceived as good for the business – bad for the people.
Most managers and business owners hate making these cuts and do so only as part of the process to avoid the coldest cut of all – closing the business.
Their attempts to save the business often backfire. As they lower expenses, morale declines. So does loyalty. And productivity. Profitability too. All bad for the people AND the business.
If you need to make some of these tough, seemingly cold cuts for the financial health of your business but dread the impact on productivity and morale – theirs as well as your own – here are 12 ways to warm things up.
More! More! I Need More Help!
Note from Jan: This is part 5 of a series on managing tough times. For full benefit, I encourage you to read the articles in sequence. For your convenience, here are the links to the first four:
#1 – 4 Musts for Managing Tough Times; #2 – Hunkering Down; #3 – Using All Your Strength; #4 – Need More Strength? What About Your Vendors?
Hope you enjoy!
What about your customers? Have you asked them for help?
Depending on the customer/vendor relationship, all kinds of things can be discovered by asking: Read more
Need More Strength? What About Your Vendors?
Note from Jan: This is part of a series on managing tough times. For full benefit, I encourage you to read the articles in sequence. For your convenience, here are the links to the first three:
#1 – 4 Musts for Managing Tough Times
#2 – Hunkering Down
#3 – Using All Your Strength.
Hope you enjoy!
Toiling away at your desk. Pouring over page after page of financial statements. Plugging “what if” numbers into spreadsheets. Maybe there is a mistake in the formulas? No such luck. Hopefully the staff will come through with some great ideas.
They probably will.
But while you are worriedly waiting, let me ask you this…..
Are you sure?
Are you sure you are using ALL of your strength?
Using All Your Strength
Note from Jan: This is the third in a series on managing tough times. For full benefit, I encourage you to read: 4 Musts for Managing Tough Times & Hunkering Down before reading this article.
So —are you using all of your strength?
The best success I’ve experienced with big budget problems (other kinds as well) came about by involving others. Staff members always came up with far more ideas than I did on my own (one time we came up with a list of 100 ways to save money!). Plus they were much more committed Read more
Hunkering Down
This is a follow up to “4 Musts for Managing Tough Times“. Please read that article before hunkering down to read this one.
PLEASE. Don’t just hunker down. It’s important to take charge. Stay out there. Act boldly. AND then just in case… hunker down.
And please don’t read this article until you have set an expense reduction goal. If you are one of many who wants to skip this step, please go back and do this first. Otherwise you’ll just be burning (your time) while reading.
Got your goal?
Good.
It’s design time!
If your goal isn’t huge and if you haven’t already spent some time searching for them – it may be real easy to spot ways to cut back with little pain and just enough gain.
If not – then another line by line study of each expense category may do the trick if you ask yourself questions like:
4 Musts for Managing Tough Times
A group of business owners recently attended a workshop on doing business in a recession. The facilitator told them to cut costs, cut employee hours and raise prices. When it was all over, many participants asked themselves and each other, “Okay but —- how?’.
As they talked about this, I could hear frustration in their voices. And could see fear on their faces. Or maybe I was projecting my own feelings – re-living some tough times of my own.
Yes - I’ve had lots of experience – not with a recession quite like this – but with major budget crunches. Very challenging ones. Lots of perseverance needed. And creative problem solving. And teamwork. Resulting in lessons learned that I’d like to share here - hoping to help anyone hoping for help.
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The Hot Dog Story
The economy had taken an unfavorable turn and so had our close rate. Objections were getting tougher – in particular and understandably – the ones about budget. A group of us were commiserating in the sales room. We were worried and wondered how we might bide our time until things loosened up. A vacation perhaps?
Dan, our sales manager, must have been able to hear some of this from wherever he was at the time, because he swooped into the room as he tended to do and said, “Have you guys heard the hot dog story?” Read more
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