One of my clients, a business owner, reached out to me and said, “How do I tell this person that they need to keep their personal stressors from impacting everyone at work without sounding like a jerk?” The situations may change, from telling employees they are underperforming to telling them their attitude is alienating everyone around them to telling them they are being … [More]
Domain Hijackers Prey on Business Websites
Today, it’s relatively easy to have a professional-looking website that inspires confidence and drives customers to one’s company. If a particular domain name is available, a business needs only use an internet domain registrar to make it its own. Unfortunately, the ease of registering a domain name comes with a price: It can allow fraud to proliferate. For example, imagine … [More]
Succession Planning: Preparing for the Expected or Unexpected
With an aging population of baby boomers in ownership roles, succession planning has become an ongoing priority. Although some of the activities were paused due to uncertainties related to the pandemic, the ideas have been brought back to the table with interest rates remaining relatively low and liquidity relatively available to deploy. Many businesses remain actively … [More]
Tasks, Tasks – and Non-Promotable Tasks
Anyone reading this article has done work that wasn’t promotable. Maybe it was handling a low-revenue client or spending another day dealing with that one customer who can’t be satisfied. Or staying late one night to reformat the very unprofessional-looking budget spreadsheet created by a co-worker. Or perhaps it was being “voluntold” to organize a fund-raising event. We … [More]
The Unknown and Underutilized COVID Business Stimulus
The Employee Retention Tax Credits, or ERC, was first enacted by the multitrillion-dollar CARES Act in March 2020 to address the economic impact of COVID on many businesses. When first enacted, the ERC gave employers the opportunity to qualify for up to 50% of $10,000 in eligible wages, or up to $5,000 worth of credits, per employee for 2020. Since then, several pieces of … [More]
Phoenix and Arizona Are Ripe for Franchise Growth
Each spring, the International Franchise Association and FRANdata, a leading market research firm, produce an annual Franchising Economic Outlook. Among the findings in 2022, Arizona ranks third in predicted franchising growth, with the number of establishments expected to reach nearly 20,000, a 3% jump over 2021. But that’s not all. The report also predicts the number of … [More]
Beyond Cyberattacks: Ransomware Readiness and Recovery
There were seven people seated around the table: the CEO, the VP, the CFO, the Special Agent from the FBI, the owner, the forensics technician and the company’s CISO (Chief Information Security Officer). “Don’t pay,” was the CEO’s vote. Same for the VP. “Pay it,” was the owner’s response. The CFO nodded in agreement. “Paying could be a violation of federal law,” … [More]
Hiring for Sales ‘Just Doesn’t Work Like That’
Finding talent right now is hard, and those difficulties are well documented. But when it comes to hiring sellers, some companies are making it even harder on themselves. The problem? Hiring sellers is simply a completely different — and unique — challenge from any other position in your organization. There are three obstacles that exist only in the selling role that get in … [More]
Nine Reasons Your Company Should Create a Mentoring Program in 2022
Companies face numerous challenges going into the new year: a shortage of skilled workers, employee churn, economic aftershocks from the pandemic and shifting consumer behaviors, just to name a few. While there’s no one-size-fits-all fix, there is a powerful tool that can help leaders successfully navigate many of the obstacles 2022 might throw at their business: … [More]
Elevated Marketing – Empowering a Brand with Enchantment
When people face a world that is too complex to understand, constantly changing in unexpected ways and unclear, they put up barriers of distrust and caution. This environment creates debilitating distress, and most people don’t have the tools or training to deal with it. This affects decision making and can lead to irrational choices driven by fear. Sound familiar? From the … [More]
Design for Productivity
Business owners need to find ways to boost employee productivity from time to time. Redesigning the office is a great way to do this. Creating a stylish and accessible office keeps employees focused and motivated. Here are a few of the most impactful design elements to freshen up an old office space. Design multiple workspaces. Employees have different working styles. Some … [More]
New Realities of Today’s Workforce
The impact and effects of COVID-19-related policies has accelerated the coming demographic change in the labor market. Many have written on and studied the working habits and behaviors of millennials. While an admitted generalization, millennials value their personal freedom, seek a cause to serve and have less loyalty to a long-term employment position than previous … [More]
Light This Candle: Strategic Partnerships Can Change the Game for Industries
On April 12, 1961, Soviet Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first human in space. One month later, Astronaut Alan Shephard’s Freedom 7 space capsule sat atop a Mercury-Redstone Rocket awaiting launch at Cape Canaveral, Florida. Technical problems caused flight delays and at some point Shephard grew impatient, extolling, “Why don’t you fix your little problem and light this … [More]
Why Businesses Shouldn’t Lower Their Standards when Hiring Salespeople
As the economy (finally) heats up, hiring managers are desperately trying to fill sales openings. Faced with stiff competition for a small pool of applicants, they might be tempted to compromise on the quality of new hires. It’s easy to rationalize: Thanks to the pandemic, the nature of sales has changed. The role is less forward-facing than it used to be, and anyone can give a … [More]
Don’t Let Metrics Myopia Drive Away Your Talent
“Employee engagement” has been a boardroom buzzword for quite some time. We’ve long known engagement matters. Still, the unspoken “but” has always been that metrics — especially those of the performance and financial ilk — matter more. Now, with the talent shortage at a 10-year high, according to a 2010 survey by ManpowerGroup, the time is right for a major shift in this … [More]
Seven Ways Social Media Can Revitalize Small Business Competition
Economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic could very well continue to play out over decades. Change is a forerunner to growth, and businesses across the nation were forced to pivot over the past two years. Perseverance was tested, resilience was built and the presence of small businesses on social media, or lack thereof, was noticed. Small businesses, which account for 99% … [More]
An American Businessperson in a Global World
In the American business world, there is a generally accepted, and often unspoken, etiquette that most businesspeople follow: Be on time, dress professionally, use a firm handshake, make eye contact, show initiative, be respectful of one’s superiors and so on. Look around the world, however, and there are widely diverse protocols that can quickly lead to cultural barriers, … [More]
Could the U.S. Really Move to a Four-Day Workweek?
The pandemic is responsible for opening our eyes to the importance of “quality of life.” We were all confined to our homes in the blink of an eye, and the requirement for a drastic increase in remote work saw 42% of people working from home in 2020, according to the American Time Use Survey from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. At the time, the labor force was able to … [More]
