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Posted

November 24, 2017

How to Make Your Morning Meetings More Productive For Everyone Involved

Have you ever woken up for your day at work and absolutely dreaded having to deliver the morning meeting? It’s usually a Monday, it’s usually raining, and for some reason this month, the heating hasn’t kicked in on time, so the boardroom is freezing cold. This type of start to the day is guaranteed to make your employees miserable, which means they do not want to sit in the morning meeting and listen to you talk about the week ahead. This is your chance to make the Monday morning team meeting so much more fun. Well, you can make it suck a little less and make it more bearable, anyway!

If you were a standup comedian, you’d know the importance of the first and last five minutes of any show. You cannot hope to engage your employees if you are bored by your own content and tone of voice, and getting them to interact in the meeting with you is difficult enough as it is! So, how can you engage your employees and get them leaving the meeting they’re dreading smiling instead?

Set An Example

If you walked into a boardroom and everyone had a sour look on their face, would you want to be there? Probably not. Start the meeting with pastries, offerings of hot coffee and be jovial in your demeanour. People find a bad mood infectious, but the same goes for a good mood.

They will be happy and at ease if you are. It’s so much easier to discuss the latest content curation platform you want to use when the team have had a pastry, a hot drink and a laugh first thing in the morning. You need to keep the energy of the room high, so don’t let the Monday morning misery from others affect you, either!

Connect With Everyone

This may seem a little daft, but talk to everyone about their weekend, get an anecdote or something funny they’ve seen while away from the office. If you start off with the agenda of the meeting you’re going to watch their eyes glaze over and it’s game over for their attention-span! Making an effort with your staff can make them feel appreciated, and everyone needs that on a Monday morning.

Start With Praise

Begin a meeting with praising those who have hit targets and deadlines. Hand out rewards and make the meeting a positive one. Recognition is so important when it comes to building good relationships with people and starting your week on rewards instead of failures can set the tone for the workplace. Buoyant staff often work harder, so make them fly.

End How You Begun

You started your meeting with energy and praise, so end it the same way. Never end a meeting on a sour note and thank your staff for their efforts. Acknowledge that meetings aren’t always the most fun way to spend time, but make them know you’re grateful for their attendance.

No one likes to attend a meeting and be lectured, so make sure your meeting style deviates from the norm. You’ll be thanked for it!

Posted

November 23, 2017

It’s Time to Update Your Management Style!

It’s a strange thing that, just because you’re the kind of person who has the drive and passion to start a business, you’re then expected to be able to be a great manager as well. Of course, there is a pretty good chance that the part of your that was able to create a business will also help you stay on top of everything, but even with the bird’s eye view of the business that you have, it’s still not always easy. The truth is that managing a business is a whole unique skillset that not everyone has. However, that doesn’t mean that you can’t learn those skills. With that in mind, here are just a few of the ways that you can update your management style for the good of your business.

Treat your employees like people

Far too often, business owners think of every part of their business in terms of resources. They try to quantify everything from equipment to time. Of course, this can often be very useful, but there’s one place where this method simply doesn’t work: people. Your employees might be the most valuable resource that your business has, but that doesn’t mean that you can treat them like machines.

You need to remember that your employees are people with needs and limits that you have to be aware of. Otherwise, you’re going to end up overworking them and causing them to become frustrated and resentful of your business as a whole.

Keep track of your data

In the modern digital world, data is more important than ever before. However, far too many business owners simply aren’t good at managing it properly. Whether it’s keeping data secure or simply being able to analyse and understand it properly if you’re not managing your data properly your business is going to pay the price.

Luckily there are things in place which can help you. Whether it’s Excel data analysis or the use of things like cloud storage, managing your data has never been easier. Being able to better understand your data and keep it secure is going to be incredibly useful for your entire business.

Plan for everything

There is no resource in your business quite so important yet tricky to manage than time. The thing about time is that it’s the one resource that, once used, you can never get it back. Because of that, you need to make sure that you’re planning for just about everything as carefully as possible. Otherwise, you’re going to end up wasting time and working inefficiently which can have serious consequences for your business down the line.

Not every business owner is going to be good at everything, and that’s something that you should come to terms with as quickly as possible. However, there are certain things that you need to be responsible for, and management is one of them. If you feel like you’re not able to manage your business properly, the best thing that you can do is to put in the effort to improve and develop those skills. After all, if you’re not going to manage your business, it’s unlikely that anyone will.

Posted

October 29, 2017

The Buck Stops with You — Responsibility for Business Owners

Businesses should be responsible.

When you read that sentence, what do you think that “responsible” means in this context? Different people will have different answers; some will say that this means businesses have to be environmentally responsible, others will say that businesses are responsible for taking care of their finances. Neither answer is wrong, but there’s another type of “responsible” that you may want to consider: the responsibility you have when things go wrong.

boy, child, clouds

A business that is responsible for its own mistakes is a business that can be trusted. When businesses try to pass the buck and absolve themselves of blame, they can ruin their reputation with breathtaking speed. Below, let’s explore three areas where you have to be willing to take responsibility for any issues that your business has caused, as well as the steps to ensure it doesn’t happen again.

Rogue distributors

If you make your own products which you then sell to distributors, you will be required to set a minimum advertised price (MAP). This is the lowest price that distributors are allowed to sell your products.

There are numerous reasons a distributor might be tempted to go rogue and advertise your products for a lower price. They might want to generate more interest, undercut their competitors, or just make a quick sale. Whatever their reason, it’s wrong, and all the other distributors you sell to will be furious if another company is violating the MAP.

If this happens, then you need to take responsibility for the rogue distributor, even though it’s not really your fault. The distributor is at fault, but you have to take the fall on this one. Apologise, assure the annoyed distributors you’re going to be working with the likes of Trade Vitality to ensure it doesn’t happen again, and move on.

Image Credit: Pexels

Discourteous employees

All business owners want to get the most out of their employees and encourage them to do well; they’re a vital part of your business. If you hear a report from a customer that an employee has been discourteous or not performed correctly, then your first instinct might be to defend the employee.

This isn’t a good idea, and can actually make the customer angry. Even if you think the customer is wrong, just issue an apology and say the matter will be dealt with. As the boss, it’s your job to be responsible for hiring the right staff. So if one of your employees messes up then sometimes you need to take the blame to ensure immediate damage control.

Speak to the employee in question and ensure they know the situation cannot be allowed to repeat itself.

Technical problems

If a customer wants to visit your site and finds that it’s crashed, they’re going to be annoyed. In this circumstance, you could blame your web host — they are, after all, the ones who are having the issue.

However — as with point two — it’s your responsibility as the business owner to choose a good web host. The same applies across all tech glitches, from ordering problems to delivery snafus — you have to own them. Anything other response will just make customers more irate.

By taking responsibility in the above areas of your business, you will give the impression of a business owner who is able to deal with issues without passing the buck. This, in turn, will make you seem more competent and in control — exactly the way that you want your customers to think of you.