Grow Your Business

Can you imagine your every move during a disaster being scrutinized and reported to the world. BP is giving us a vision into the future of business reporting. Is your business ready for the microscope of attention during your worst times? Just looking at the drop in BP stock says the cost of mistakes has significantly gone up.

To prepare for such close scrutiny:

• Manage the news from the beginning by being upfront and forthright with information.

• Throw the kitchen sink at problems. Time is measured in nanoseconds in today’s world.Mistakes and disasters will happen to your organization at some point.

• Be financially ready for the dip in orders and possible stock backlash.

• Expect external finger-pointing while you are still in solution mode. Maintain focus.

• Once the problem is finally solved. Develop a white paper on everything you learned in the process and share it with the rest of your industry as a gesture of commitment to preventing this from happening again. If you don’t do it, someone else will with an edge of blame and contempt. Rebuild your reputation on your own terms with this first step.

In working with small businesses on a daily basis, I am constantly alarmed at how few of them are actually using the numbers in their business to drive the growth of their business.  It is rare that I meet a small business owner that can tell me exactly what his numbers were last month, much less one that knows what his key economic engine is use it to manage his Company.

In it’s simplest terms, your company’s economic engine is that one key ratio that your company can focus on that will have the most sustainable growth impact.  This ratio varies from industry to industry, and even from company to company within the exact same industry.

In Good to Great, Jim Collins detailed how Walgreen’s switched its focus from profit per store to profit per customer visit.    Walgreen’s business strategy was convenience.  They wanted to make it as convenient as possible for their customers to get to a Walgreen’s and to shop there.  This would result in many stores close together within a geographic area which had a negative effect on profit per store.  On the other hand, profit per customer made sense because it was a true indicator of the customer experience.    Another advantage is that it is much easier for store level employees to focus their efforts on the goal of profit per customer than profit per store.  Each and every employee that comes into contact with a customer has the opportunity to influence this ratio.

As stated earlier, the economic engine for your company may not be profit per customer – there is a good chance that it is not.  Some companies use a measure of employee productivity- such as profit per employee as their economic engine.  Nucor uses profit per ton of finished steel. Kroger uses profit per local population and Southwest Airlines uses profit per place.  Many restaurants use profit per square foot.   The first step is to determine what your key economic engine is and focus your efforts on it’s continual improvement.

Chad is a Charlotte CPA who works with small business owners and individuals on a monthly basis to provide them with proactive guidance and advice on how to grow their business, minimize their tax liabilities and grow their bottom line. Chad is also a primary contributor to his firms blog – Beancounter Ramblings You can find our more about Chad by visiting his profile here: Chad Bordeaux

Wasting time has always been a pet peeve of mine.  Being placed on hold with a customer service department is a great example.  I recently needed to call my local utility company and based on past experiences, I decided to make good use of the time I would be on hold. Before I placed the call I opened a document on my computer which I could work on while listening to the elevator music on my headset.

The only thing worse than others wasting my time is when I waste my own time. We’ve all heard the phrase that “time is money” so look around your office. Where are you wasting time waiting?  Perhaps you’ve grown accustomed to the wait and you don’t even recognize it anymore.  Here is a short list to get you started in identifying those wasted moments:

1. Using the “search” function to find an E-mail or a document on your computer – It is estimated that we spend 150 hours each year looking for misplaced information. That’s almost four work weeks! Take the time to properly name a document or to place an E-mail in its proper file.
2. Sluggish computer – A slow computer not only wastes time but causes frustration. Remove any programs or software that you no longer use and contact your computer geek to perform a tune-up.
3. Waiting for a return phone call or E-mail – If the response you need is an urgent one, avoid  E-mail. Instead, use the phone. Your message should specify the urgency of your need. In order to help others from wasting time waiting on you, turn on your E-mail auto responder and record a specific voicemail message any time you’ll be away for a half day or more.
4. Signatures – Sometimes the wheels of Corporate America grind ever so slowly due to a heavy layer of signatures required. Suggest a review of the signatures required in order to gain efficiency in a process and to keep projects moving forward in a timely fashion.
5. Waiting in queue for a printer or fax machine – If you’re spending a great deal of time standing around the department printer, begin documenting the time. Many companies have taken the lean approach in reducing the number of printers/faxes available to their employees. However, they may not be aware of the amount of time people are standing around waiting. Investing in a few additional pieces of equipment will make better use of their employee’s time and cut down on everyone’s frustration.

As I wrap this up, I’ll leave you with this thought: If you learned to save just 15 minutes a day, you would be saving 75 minutes each week which computes to 65 hours over the course of one year. Wow – that’s a lot!  Now who can’t use a little more time?

Audrey Thomas, CPO®, is a national speaker, author, and Lean Office expert.  She is the author of Buried Alive!: Surviving the Avalanche of Paper and E-mail and Getting Organized with MS Outlook and serves as Past-President of the National Speakers Association-Minnesota. A frequent speaker at conferences and sales meetings, Audrey also coaches individuals who want to improve their productivity and get more done in their day. Contact her at Audrey@OrganizedAudrey.com 1-866-767-0455 or visit www.OrganizedAudrey.com

Large companies are embarking on a new healthcare strategy for their employees: Offer to pay completely, including travel, for certain surgeries provided they are performed at a select hospital.

According to an article in the Charlotte Observer:

“In a move to control rising health care costs, Mooresville-based Lowe’s has cut an unusual deal with a nationally known hospital.

Lowe’s is giving its full-time employees a choice: Have selected heart surgery at the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio instead of at a local hospital, and the company will pay for it in full, even covering travel and living expenses for the patient and a companion.”

With out of control healthcare costs and directionless decisions being pondered in Washington, some employers are taking controls into their own hands.

Which raises the questions:

Will hospitals begin negotiating multi-year contracts directly with employers for specific surgeries thus eliminating the insurer in the equation?

What new jobs will be created as a result of this trend? Doctor agents who will negotiate free agent deals with hospitals looking to strengthen their bench in certain specialties? Hospital negotiators who will approach large employers for such contractual agreements? Travel agencies who specialize in domestic medical trips?

Will drug manufacturers be next?

Will this create favored employer status based on the medical deals they have negotiated?

Obviously, Lowe’s and the Cleveland Clinic believe such an arrangement will be more profitable and the employee incurs no expenses for this surgery. Is this the new model for company-provided healthcare coverage? How will small businesses compete?

This revolutionary step opens an entirely new approach to providing medical benefits to employees.

How would your organization participate in such a venture? It might be something well worth exploring.

Press Release: How Healthy Is Your County? New County Health Rankings Give First County-by-County Snapshot of Health in Each State