Do Business Well

Each manager’s routine was different, reflecting his or her unique style. Nonetheless, hidden within this diversity we found four characteristics common to the “performance management” routines of great managers.

First, the routine is simple. Great managers dislike the complexity of most company-sponsored performance appraisal schemes. They don’t want to waste their time trying to decipher the alien terms and to fill out bureaucratic forms. Instead they prefer a simple format that allows them to concentrate on the truly difficult work: what to say to each employee and how to say it. Continue Reading »

3 Comments »

A contact plan describes in specific detail how you will contact prospects and customers over a period of time to meet your specific goals. Each contact plan should contain the following sections:

A Written Contact Strategy

Your contact strategy spells out your goals and describes how ongoing customer communication will be used to meet those goals. When thinking about your contact strategy, be sure to consider the online service imperative. What are you going to offer your existing and prospective customers in exchange for giving you permission to contact them? When Wegmans Food Markets developed its contact strategy, it focused on extending the service and customer-oriented approach that you’ll find in its retail stores to email communication. It has developed a contact strategy that is focused more on delivering relevant content and information than on selling. Its goal is to ensure that it provides its customers with notification of special produce, recipes, health tips, and more in order to simplify their grocery shopping and food preparation tasks. Continue Reading »

5 Comments »

If you want your customers to have a consistent experience and develop a loyal relationship with your brand, you must clearly define your organization’s communications and relationship management responsibilities. Normally, marketing is responsible for managing an email direct marketing program, but it is not the only part of your organization that will engage with customers. Customer service, support, sales, and perhaps even e-commerce groups may also communicate with your customers independently.

To avoid any confusion, I propose that if your company is communicating with thousands, perhaps even millions, of customers, you put your marketing department in charge of managing and coordinating all customer communication, regardless of where it originates, and that the “relationship czar” discussed earlier be responsible for this initiative. Marketing’s role in the engaged organization is to ensure that your company’s email communication have a consistent voice, that they are focused on servicing the customer and effectively coordinated across all points of contact. To do this requires the following: Continue Reading »

6 Comments »

“We’re alive, partner!” This exclamation is the theme of a movie called One Good Cop. It was Michael Keaton’s victory cry each time he and one of his partners would narrowly avoid death or worse. During the next three to five years, maybe even longer, you may want to keep that phrase in mind as your business experiences itsown close calls.

Keaton’s character had the right attitude. Every time he was knocked down, he got up and kept going. Your attitude will have more to do with your ultimate success than any other single thing. I believe you should develop the following attitudes. Continue Reading »

3 Comments »

It can happen anytime. You get up in the morning and the prospect of going to the office doesn’t stir your juices. Sometimes it occurs because of a specific issue or job that must be handled that day. Other times, it may be the weather, the business climate, or a simple matter of body chemistry being out of whack. These problems are generally short-lived, and don’t require much in the way of remedial action.

However, there are instances where the problems are more deep-seated. Possibly you don’t feel like going to work almost all the time. You’ve concluded that your feelings aren’t related to the type of work you’ve chosen. You’ve also ruled out other aspects of your life such as marital problems or a general emotional disorder. Continue Reading »

5 Comments »

Another important aspect of the change in your company from survival oriented to management oriented is the way in which you establish goals and monitor them. The following questions are designed to take you through a process of developing a new set of goals for your company:

1. What do you want the company to do for you in the next twenty years? Ten years? Five years? Twelve months? Are you primarily interested in the income stream that can be generated? Is wealth building as opposed to income generation your most important desire? Possibly you’d prefer a lighter work schedule, even if it meant less income. Will you be happy if you aren’t growing? Is it a high priority for you to broaden markets?

Continue Reading »

4 Comments »