Company | The Barefoot Spirit

To Succeed in Business, Delegation is Not a Choice, it’s a Requirement

Michael Houlihan & Bonnie Harvey — Tue, 06 Nov 2018 15:24:50 +0000

We like to say, “Do what you do best, and delegate the rest!”

That sort of flies in the face of, “If you want it done right, do it yourself.”

Is there a middle ground that gives you the time you need to focus on moving the company forward using your best skill sets with

out being disappointed by the performance of those upon whom you rely?

When owners try to do everything themselves, they think they’re saving money. Or, they think they’re saving the job from an undesirable outcome. But actually, they’re stretching themselves too thin and reaching beyond their skill set.

To read the complete article, please visit The Business Journals

Who We Are

Michael Houlihan and Bonnie Harvey co-authored the New York Times bestselling business book, The Barefoot Spirit: How Hardship, Hustle, and Heart Built America’s #1 Wine Brand. The book has been selected as recommended reading in the CEO Library for CEO Forum, the C-Suite Book Club, and numerous university classes on business and entrepreneurship. It chronicles their humble beginnings from the laundry room of a rented Sonoma County farmhouse to the board room of E&J Gallo, who ultimately acquired their brand and engaged them as brand consultants. Barefoot is now the world’s largest wine brand.

Beginning with virtually no money and no wine industry experience, they employed innovative ideas to overcome obstacles, create new markets and forge strategic alliances. They pioneered Worthy Cause Marketing and performance-based compensation. They built an internationally bestselling brand and received their industry’s “Hot Brand” award for several consecutive years.

They offer their Guiding Principles for Success (GPS) to help entrepreneurs become successful. Their book, The Entrepreneurial Culture: 23 Ways To Engage and Empower Your People, helps corporations maximize the value of their human resources.

Currently they travel the world leading workshops, trainings, & keynoting at business schools, corporations, conferences. They are regular media guests and contributors to international publications and professional journals. They are C-Suite Network Advisors & Contributing Editors. Visit their popular brand building site at www.consumerbrandbuilders.com.

To make inquiries for keynote speaking, trainings or consulting, please contact sales@thebarefootspirit.com.

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3 Overused Tactics of Poor Customer Service

Michael Houlihan & Bonnie Harvey — Wed, 10 Oct 2018 18:00:44 +0000

We hope it’s an individual and not a company-wide problem. It could be poor hiring or poor training that results in certain counterproductive tactics that account executives and customer service representatives in big companies increasingly use.

It seems to occur when companies oversell goods and services and then are unable to adequately service their accounts. The people whose job it is to interface with the customer tend to be harried, overworked, and somewhat confused.

But the message to the customer is clear. “Go away, get off the phone. I don’t have time for you, you’re lucky to get me at all. Accept my excuses and empty promises or you’ll get even less.”

Any startup or buildup company would certainly go out of business if their representatives sent this message by their words, actions, or inactions. It seems like this kind of experience is a growing danger in some buildout and enterprise companies that grew too fast, promised ongoing results, and filled their service jobs quickly but not necessarily with well-trained professionals.

Poor Customer Service Examples

Here are some of the behaviors we have witnessed from a customer standpoint:

1. Missed Deadlines

“Don’t worry. I’ll have that for you tomorrow,” is the usual promise, evidently to get you off the phone. But then tomorrow comes, and the day after, and there is no communication whatsoever. You have to call or send emails day after day until you receive what they promised. The implication is that it’s up to you as the customer to oversee them as the service provider.

This sends an “I don’t care, you’re not important to me” message. This frustrates the customer and makes them wonder why they did business with the company in the first place. But they’ve already bought the service, and now they’re locked in. The representative knows this and so there is no sense of urgency. They’ve got us over the barrel!

2. Blaming Others

“It’s not my fault, the tech people didn’t get back to me.” Or “Well, that’s what I was told.” These same representatives force the customer to go only through them for all interactions with their company. The customer is at the mercy of the representative. The representative can say anything to the customer with no accountability. This is because the customer can’t access the right people in the company to get a satisfactory answer.

“They’ve changed the rules,” is another common excuse. In this scenario, the representative blames a third-party for not being able to deliver what they promised. While it’s true that rules change, the representative is under no pressure to identify those changes as soon as they occur. Sometimes the representative only finds out about the rule change when the customer complains about nonperformance. Since the customer can only go through a representative, the customer has no way of knowing when the representative was truly aware of any rule change. But the results usually waste the customer’s precious time. Again, this demonstrates no sense of urgency on the part of the representative.

3. Avoiding Work

“You don’t need that fixed anyway.” “Me and my colleagues have decided it’s not necessary and everything works fine just the way it is.” This is a typical tactic to avoid doing the work the customer requests. Even when it’s the company’s responsibility to provide services without glitches, the representative tells the customer that the glitches are okay and don’t need fixing.

This tactic creates an argument between the customer and the representative as to the true need for the fix. The representative takes the position, “I’m the expert, and I’ll be the judge of that.” This is to mask the fact that the work was not done in a timely manner. It’s like, “It doesn’t matter that we didn’t do the work because it wasn’t needed anyway.” It’s another convenient excuse.

Conclusion

We’ve witnessed other tactics of poorly hired or poorly trained representatives working for large companies that can’t service what they’ve sold. These include emphatically stated outright errors, poor or no preparation for meetings, little or no knowledge of account history, poor coordination, and never acknowledging a mistake or a missed self-imposed deadline.

All of these tactics can occur when representatives believe they are going to get paid no matter what happens to the customer. For them, it’s hours put in and they are overworked. So, their goal is to reduce the work any way possible. We’ve seen this problem occur in top-down companies that view customer service as “complaint resolution.”

These tactics ultimately discourage the customer to the point that they feel obligated to warn others that the company can’t live up to its promises. This reputation hurts the company’s sales. But in the meantime, companies that behave like this suffer a great deal of turnover. This is because they don’t treat their employees much different than they treat their customers. The good ones who want to do a good job, and want to work for a company that lives up to its promises will move on. The turnover hurts the relationship with the customer even further.

It’s only a matter of time before these types of companies will implode from their own policies. We’re shopping, how about you?

Who We Are

To make inquiries for keynote speaking, trainings or consulting, please contact sales@thebarefootspirit.com.

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To Succeed in Business, Delegation is Not a Choice, It’s a Requirement!

Michael Houlihan & Bonnie Harvey — Thu, 13 Sep 2018 17:00:28 +0000

We like to say, “Do what you do best, and delegate the rest!” That sort of flies in the face of, “If you want it done right, do it yourself!” Is there a middle ground that gives you the time you need to focus on moving the company forward using your best skill sets without being disappointed by the performance of those upon whom you rely?

One of the biggest reasons for failure we see as advisors to small and medium-sized businesses is owners trying to do everything themselves. This keeps them from scaling and also keeps the company from doing its best. When owners try to do everything themselves, they think they’re saving money. Or, they think they’re saving the job from an undesirable outcome. But actually, they’re stretching themselves too thin and reaching beyond their skill set.

Our job as advisors is to identify the skills they need to delegate to move the company forward. We face two major challenges. One is that the owners tend to think they can do everything themselves – to the point that they actually hurt their own businesses by exhausting their limited skill sets. Another is that the owners simply don’t know how to delegate.

Most owners have great concepts they thoroughly believe in. It’s why they took the big risk, quit their job, and bet everything on a successful outcome. It’s why they work 17 hours a day, six days a week, without a vacation. But are they good people managers? Not necessarily.

Yes, they’re the owner and they think they’re the boss. They’ve certainly done all the hiring up to the point where they have achieved a positive cash flow. But now that they’re expanding, they need to bring on a full staff. Now, who will do the hiring, the training, and the holding people accountable?

Most owners take it for granted that they know how to hire and direct people to get the job done. The idea that at some point in the growth of the organization, they need a professional to do this work may be the last thing that crosses their mind. But we think it should be the first.

As businesses develop through the four stages of startup, build up, build out, and enterprise, they require very different management skill sets. If an owner can take the business through the treacherous startup phase and get a few big clients in the build-up phase, why can’t the same owner take it to the buildout phase where the business scales and expands? This is the phase when most businesses fail. They typically fail because owners underestimate the amount of work that’s necessary to properly service all their new clients and accounts.

This is where delegation becomes absolutely critical. This is where the business requires a serious professional who understands the challenges ahead, knows what to look for in terms of new hires, has the ability to define and communicate the deliverables, and establishes a system of accountability to see that the job is done, and done right!

For most successful businesses, this person is not the owner. It’s difficult for owners who’ve taken “their baby” so far to give up a certain level of control in order to see it climb to the next level. It certainly was for us, and in retrospect, that view actually held our business back for several years. It wasn’t until we bit the bullet and put professionals in charge that we began to see the growth we always knew would eventually happen.

Don’t get us wrong, we made several false starts. But with every disappointing trial, we learned more about what we could delegate and what we should not. We still had the final say on hires but we allowed our managers to develop their own accountability plans – which we also approved.

The key to successful delegation for us was in the accountability plan. Basically, answer the following questions: What will get done? Who will do it? Are they qualified? When will it get done? How often are the status reports? What will they contain? And when is the deadline?

It’s still going to be a white-knuckle ride for the first few years of delegation. It terrifies most business owners to give up control! But you’re going to get better at it. And what if the person you’re relying on doesn’t perform? You can always use our favorite four-letter word, “NEXT!”

Who We Are

To make inquiries for keynote speaking, trainings or consulting, please contact sales@thebarefootspirit.com.

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7 Steps to Infuse Entrepreneurial Thinking Into Company Culture

Michael Houlihan & Bonnie Harvey — Tue, 13 Jun 2017 19:12:14 +0000

Every company wants to stay relevant and be in the forefront of their industry. This requires an imaginative staff creating new solutions and thinking outside the box. But first you need to change your company culture. This is easier said than done.

A positive company culture is what we relied upon when building the Barefoot Wine brand into a national best-seller. Here’s how we did it:

1. The money map

When we hired people, they were give an infographic showing the circuitous route the money took to get to them from the consumers, moving through the retailers and distributors and eventually into their paychecks, bonuses and benefits. This was not just a great educational tool from an orientation perspective, but it was a great way to set the stage for a company culture of sales.

2. The two-division company

Unlike the typical pyramid structure with the CEO on the top followed by the C-suite and then the myriad of divisions and departments, our organization had just two divisions: Sales and sales support. Everybody who was not in sales was in sales support, including the CEO, receptionist and accounting, marketing, product development, and production.

Why? Because without sales there would be no income. If you really believe the customer should be on top, put sales on top and have everyone else support sales.

To read the complete article, please visit The Business Journals

Who We Are

To make inquiries for keynote speaking, trainings or consulting, please contact sales@thebarefootspirit.com.

The post 7 Steps to Infuse Entrepreneurial Thinking Into Company Culture appeared first on The Barefoot Spirit.

Are Your Company Values Shared by Your Customers and Employees?

Michael Houlihan & Bonnie Harvey — Thu, 23 Feb 2017 18:00:07 +0000

You can’t enter a reception lobby of any established company these days without seeing a plaque on the wall that says “Company Core Values.” This is the company’s way of announcing to vendors, employees, and customers the principles, ethics, and morals for which the company stands. Terms like honesty, integrity and morality are common. Some companies get more specific and talk about treating people equally, being a good neighbor, or even making the world a better place. But today’s customers and employees are looking for specifics that can help them justify an association with your company.

Most companies want to keep their core values statement as politically neutral as possible. They consider “political” issues those that have been politicized, even if they are more a matter of survival and security. For instance, a company may use a term like “fairness” but not take a public stand on massive deportation, even though they have employees whose families would be impacted. They want to play it “safe.”

Companies may use terms like “integrity” but have a huge carbon footprint. Or they may say they are an “environmentally conscious” company, but their product comes in a single-use plastic container. Is it “ethical” to damage the environment to make a buck? At some point your company may be called upon to take a public stand. You don’t want to be put to the test trying to justify your apparent two-faced stance.

When we were building the Barefoot Wine brand, we decided to support several non-profit conservation groups that were, at the time, considered to be radicals with intentions to damage the economy. They included The Surfrider Foundation that was cleaning beaches and the ocean, The League to Save Lake Tahoe that was keeping pollution out of the lake, the Mono Lake Committee that was supporting the restoration of Mono Lake and the Mono Basin, which meant reducing water consumption in the greater L.A. Metro.

We were advised against “taking sides” on these “political issues.” We were admonished that people who made their money polluting and destroying the environment wouldn’t buy our brand if we took such a stand. In 1990 during the AIDS crisis we came out in favor of LGBT rights. Again, we were admonished not to take sides on such a “political” issue.

Turns out we were on the right side of history, but also we gained a big advantage in the marketplace with these marginalized groups. They saw us as early supporters and as a result, they became loyal customers and advocates. Was it risky? Yes. Did we suffer some push back? You bet! But the detractors eventually became supporters as they “evolved” and became better educated over time. And for us, as a new product, we needed customers even if it meant that some people disagreed with our stance. The one’s who agreed created our solid customer base.

Today, when you realize that you are dependent on selling your products to folks who are being marginalized by race, religion, or sexual preference, can you really afford to remain silent and play it safe? Is your company’s silence on these issues “ethical?” Is it even good business?

It’s time for companies to takes another look at those “values” they have hanging in the reception area. It is time for companies to take a stand and perform according to their values, rather than merely stating them on a plaque. Their customers are looking more closely now to justify their spending choices with companies that share their values. And employees are concerned about the real values demonstrated by the company that gives them their paychecks.

It’s time for companies to build a strong and loyal customer base by taking a stand on the issues that affect their customers and employees. Why risk losing business with corporate silence to a competitor who sees the advantage of speaking out?

Who We Are

To make inquiries for keynote speaking, trainings or consulting, please contact sales@thebarefootspirit.com.

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Address the Assumption Behind the Question, Don’t Just Answer the Question

Michael Houlihan & Bonnie Harvey — Thu, 25 Aug 2016 17:00:32 +0000

The purpose of a question is to solicit an answer. But an answer to what? Just the question on its face? Or the deeper misunderstanding posed by the question? In business, when you are building a team, you must pay very close attention and read between the lines to ascertain not just what your new team member is asking, but more importantly, why he or she is asking that particular question.

Often the question posed shows a giant incorrect assumption about how your business works, how the customer receives your product or service, or what the various relationships are between the critical parties in your supply and distribution channels. What happens if you give them the short answer that just addresses their immediate query? They remain off track, but now they feel validated in their erroneous assumptions, and start to take actions based on wrong judgements that can hurt your business.

That’s why we recommend that you take the time to look through a new hire’s questions to discover those wrong assumptions and correct them. This may seem tedious and you run the risk of being accused of giving a speech where a simple answer would do, but as we say, “When the cement is wet, you can move it with a trowel, but when it’s dry, you’ll need a jack hammer!”

Questions that indicate deep misunderstandings show that there’s room for improvement to your orientation and training documents. You’ve got to teach the basics. You can’t assume new team members have a good foundation in business because they worked for a big company or have a big degree. We found incredible basic misunderstandings about business from some of the apparently most qualified for the job. Many times schools and their former bosses failed to lay the proper foundations.

We had a supply manager who asked repeatedly, “Why does the vendor always get the order wrong?” when the correct question was, “What do we have to do differently to reduce the likelihood of wrong orders?” This person had “a good college education” and had several jobs where it was OK to blame the other party when something went wrong – and that there was nothing he could do about it on his end.

We had a top administrator ask, “Why haven’t I had a raise in two years?” when the correct question was, “Why hasn’t our bottom line improved in two years?” This person assumed the money came from the owners, not the customers.

And we had a sales manager who asked, “Why won’t my distributer’s sales rep get the reorder?” when the correct question was, “How do we create an incentive plan that reduces out-of-stocks?” This person thought the distributer’s rep was going to perform on a new, unknown product like ours, without an additional financial consideration beyond their salary and commission.

Questions can tell you more than they ask – if you listen closely. If the question fits into the “this-doesn’t-make -any-sense-to-me” category, you’ve got the clue that you have work to do. There may not be any stupid questions, but there are some stupid answers and most of them are short. Short answers are saying, “Go away, don’t bother me!” but they are also asking for trouble down the line. Sure, workers can continue with their immediate jobs without a detailed explanation, but later they will surprise you with their deep-routed misconceptions.

Oh, and “Why do they call it duck tape? Because if it dries out, it can quack!”

Who We Are

To make inquiries for keynote speaking, trainings or consulting, please contact sales@thebarefootspirit.com.

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Successful Entrepreneurs Must Constantly Sell to Each Business Relationship

Michael Houlihan & Bonnie Harvey — Thu, 14 Apr 2016 17:00:44 +0000

Most agree that selling products and services are at the core of any successful business. Without sales there is simply no money to pay the bills and the business fails. But there are other, less obvious types of “sales” that are just as essential to the success of your business. Without these sales, made regularly, your costs will increase dramatically. These are the “sales” you must make, not with your prospects, but with your support team.

Your support team includes your employees, your outsourced services, and your suppliers. Each one of these “sales” requires a different approach to fully engage them to do their best work for you, take on additional responsibilities, provide quality products and services, and extend your credit and terms. But they all have one thing in common. They must believe you have their best interests at heart before they will commit their time, energy, loyalty, products and services to you. But when they do, they can significantly reduce your costs, turnover, and need for capital, thereby dramatically increasing your chances of success.

Employees. Your employees are key to your success – if they really understand that you are offering them a career opportunity, security, a piece of the action, appreciation, guidance, respect, and time off. They must be clear on how their job, however removed, eventually affects sales, why it’s important, and how it fits into their careers. Show them that you have their best interests at heart so they will be more appreciative of performance based-compensation plans, bonuses, and increased decision-making power.

Outsourced Services. Show appreciation for your outsourced services by providing them with a clear message about your expectations. You can achieve this by having policies in place to constantly improve communication, being clear on requirements and deadlines, and sharing with them the reasons for your requirements. It also means that you give more praise than criticism, and your criticism is constructive. Show them that you are easy to work with. “What can we do on our end to help you be more effective” is a great “sales” pitch for these folks.

Suppliers. Show empathy for the risk they are taking with your new or growing company. Share with them your goals, challenges, and opportunities on a regular basis. This will alleviate some of their fears when they take a chance on you by extending credit and terms that enable you to grow. They worry that you may pay your bill late, or be a “beg pay.” Work out a long-term commitment so they know you won’t dump them for another supplier. They have to believe they can grow with you. It takes considerable seasoning over time to prove you have their best interests at heart.

Negotiating every business relationship is a sales process. You have to gain their trust and prove to them that you fit into their business and growth plan. You have to be aware of their fears and allay them. You do this by demonstrating over time that you will live up to their expectations, and that you are a true strategic partner, helping them achieve their goals.

The alternative to making these “sales” is to spend tons of money on turnover, lost corporate knowledge, high interest rates, short payment terms, and higher service and supply costs. This is money that startups can’t afford, and money that is better spent growing your business.

These types of sales to your support team are rarely taught in school and receive little focus in the entrepreneurial media. But when you demonstrate that you have your team’s best interests at heart, you spend less and monetize faster!

Who We Are

To make inquiries for keynote speaking, trainings or consulting, please contact sales@thebarefootspirit.com.

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3 Essentials of Effective Leadership

Michael Houlihan & Bonnie Harvey — Thu, 31 Mar 2016 17:00:31 +0000

Running a company, division or a team is a responsibility that goes way beyond being the executive. In many ways you are in a parental role. It’s not enough to lay out the path and make the big decisions. You must also nurture your people if you want them to perform at their best. After all, they are spending more time with you, in many cases, than they spend with their own families. They not only take direction from you, but they look to you as an authority figure. A word from you can make a big difference in their personal development as well as their skill set.

And isn’t that what you want – team members who are better this year than they were last year? So what exactly are those words from you that can make all the difference to them and your team’s productivity and your company culture? Just like the gas you put in your tank that gets you to your destination, here is the “G.A.S.” that keeps your team running:

Guidance. Make sure your team has clear and achievable weekly goals. Review them again on Wednesday to make mid-course corrections. Clearly describe to every member of the team what they have to do, and by when, to achieve those goals. Be sure to explain why what they are being asked to do is important to the big picture, the health of the company, the security of their jobs, and ultimately their compensation, bonuses, commissions and benefits. In other words, tie it to sales! Get the deadlines on the calendar. Get involved in helping to remove roadblocks and barriers to communication. Make suggestions and offer help when needed. And then get out of their way!

Acknowledgement. This often overlooked essential is the building block of validation. And validation is what your people want when they are creative, take responsibility, and complete a job well done. We feel that acknowledgment is right up there with compensation when it comes to why they even work for you at all. A heartfelt “Thank You” is always appreciated, but don’t stop there. Do it in writing, be specific about what they did and how it moved the project forward, saved money or made money, and copy the entire team. Public acknowledgement creates more appreciation among team members for their team mates, encourages more of the productive behavior you want, and creates loyalty and tenure.

Support. This is not hand holding. This is not micromanaging. This is being there to answer questions, and to provide the right tools, applications, and services. This is conducting yourself in a reasonable and understanding manner during frustrating times. This is taking it down a notch when things get crazy. And this is standing up for your people when they need it. It’s also interceding on their behalf when they run into the type of contracted or other ‘outside’ folks who won’t work with a delegated person and want you personally on the line. Take those types aside in advance and spend the time to convince them to work with your delegate. Then help your own people develop the confidence and people skills to get the respect they need to get things done on their own.

So when it comes to Leadership, don’t run out of G.A.S.!

Who We Are

To make inquiries for keynote speaking, trainings or consulting, please contact sales@thebarefootspirit.com.

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How to Use Your Suppliers as Investors to Reduce Your Need for Capital

Michael Houlihan & Bonnie Harvey — Thu, 15 Oct 2015 17:00:13 +0000

Nobody likes to get bills. They seem unending and chew up your monthly income as fast as it comes in. It’s probably the scariest part of starting a new business. You begin to realize that the bills are due no matter whether you have the funds to pay them or not. Many businesses fold simply because they can’t pay their bills. Many that survive find they can’t expand without a big cash infusion that may cause them to lose control of their own company. Is there another way?

When you are new in business this is especially trying. You find yourself playing catchup almost immediately and it can take years before there’s anything left you could conceivably call “profits.” For us it took 10 years to really get ahead! Why? Because we were growing and everything we made went right back into growth. Sound familiar?

But we found something surprising about all those bills. We discovered that there were several vendors we had who depended on us for their own growth! They actually wanted us to make it so they could sell us more and send us even more bills!

Take another look at your vendors and suppliers. Who’s getting the most money out of you each month? If you succeed do they succeed? Shouldn’t you be strategic allies? How can you make them increase your credit and lengthen your terms so that you can better afford grow, and, in the process make them a lot of money? Answer: TRUST. That’s right, they have to trust you!

They have to believe that you will stick around when you get bigger and don’t need them anymore. They have to believe that you will pay your bills on time. They have to believe that you will notify them as far in advance as possible when you can’t – with a plan to bring your account current within 30 days. They also have to believe in you, your product, your management and your growth strategy.

What would make them believe in all this? How about quarterly meetings where you outline your progress, your challenges and your plans? How about long-term contracts? How about treating them like a real partner with updates and opportunities?

This isn’t going to happen overnight. It will require some seasoning, where, over time, your consistent behavior earns their trust! It took us years but eventually our supply companies, vendors and bankers all extended our credit and terms enabling us to reduce our need for capital and grow on our cash flow. Sure there were times when we were unable to perform, but because they believed we had their best interests at heart, they were lenient. They’d seen how we handled the same situation in the past. They judged us not by how well we paid when we were on time but by how fast we became current when we were late!

Maybe it’s time for a meeting with the vendors and suppliers who send you your largest bills. Find out what it would take to get them to extend your credit. Usually they will have a performance plan whereby you prove over time that you are worthy of more credit. Go ahead and prove it! It’s a whole lot cheaper than a loan, you stay in control of your company, you reduce the use of your interest-bearing line of credit, and you forge a long-term alliance with a supplier who has a special interest in your success. Yes, it’s sort of like what the pioneer said, “Thar’s gold in them thar bills!”

Who We Are

To make inquiries for keynote speaking, trainings or consulting, please contact sales@thebarefootspirit.com.

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5 Ways to Become Indispensable

Michael Houlihan & Bonnie Harvey — Thu, 02 Jul 2015 17:00:07 +0000

People often ask us what the characteristics of an ideal employee or outsourced service are. The answer is they should be effective, dependable, and irreplaceable. If you are the employee or outsourced service, ask yourself, “Why was the job created, and what are the goals of the job? How and why was the job budgeted?” If you can honestly answer these questions you are on your way to becoming indispensable.

Here’s a big hint. All jobs have something to do with sales. How does your job create, maintain, or support sales? Sales is the only source of your salary or fee – period! Without sales there is no money for you or anyone else.

Sure, some folks take jobs with companies that are funded by an investor. Those companies have a budget which is steadily diminished by a “burn rate” – the amount of the investor’s money that is used every month to keep the project going. But if the staff is not actively involved somehow in sales, the company eventually folds. Then the employees look for a new company that has a new investor and set about burning up their money. The problem is that ultimately this approach to job security is counter-productive since one has to keep moving, resulting in a reputation of working for companies that failed. They failed because they could not create a positive cash flow resulting in profitability and growth.

If you want job security, build your reputation as an effective player. Here are 5 ways to become indispensable to your company:

Follow the Money. Understand where the money comes from, now and in the future. If your job is now supported by an investment, realize that it must be supported by sales sooner or later, and in most companies, the sooner the better! While investments have time limits, sales should be continuous.
Understand the Justification. Recognize why the job was created and how the job contributes to the sales process. From R&D to service, from accounting to administration, from production to marketing, every job must be pointed at supporting sales.
Know the Processes. Don’t look for security in a cookie cutter approach that requires little thinking. On the contrary, the better you understand the processes and the reasons for the processes, the more effective you will be.
Anticipate the Needs. Once you understand the processes for your job, look for opportunities to maximize those processes to the benefit of your company while reducing the time it takes to get the job done. Don’t wait to be told what to do, and don’t let opportunities get by you. Become relied upon to get the most out of every situation, rather than doing the least necessary to complete the job. Don’t just stay “busy,”’ be productive!
Just Own It! Ultimately, when you thoroughly understand the goals of your job, not just the motions and procedures, you will be in a position to improve the job itself. By focusing on the goals you can better achieve them in a more effective manner. Follow through and follow up as if it was your own business.

So at the end of the day, did you help to increase sales? Did you bring more money in to the company than it cost to support your position? Did you take every opportunity to improve the products and services offered to the company’s customers? Did you help identify, communicate with, and sell the prospects? Did you jump on every opportunity, without being asked, to increase company income and reduce costs? If you did, congratulations! You own your job and are indispensable!

Who We Are

To make inquiries for keynote speaking, trainings or consulting, please contact sales@thebarefootspirit.com.

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To Succeed in Business, Delegation is Not a Choice, it’s a Requirement

To read the complete article, please visit The Business Journals

Who We Are

3 Overused Tactics of Poor Customer Service

Poor Customer Service Examples

1. Missed Deadlines

2. Blaming Others

3. Avoiding Work

Conclusion

Who We Are

To Succeed in Business, Delegation is Not a Choice, It’s a Requirement!

Who We Are

​7 Steps to Infuse Entrepreneurial Thinking Into Company Culture

1. The money map

2. The two-division company

To read the complete article, please visit The Business Journals

Who We Are

Are Your Company Values Shared by Your Customers and Employees?

Who We Are

Address the Assumption Behind the Question, Don’t Just Answer the Question

Who We Are

Successful Entrepreneurs Must Constantly Sell to Each Business Relationship

Who We Are

3 Essentials of Effective Leadership

Who We Are

How to Use Your Suppliers as Investors to Reduce Your Need for Capital

Who We Are

5 Ways to Become Indispensable

Who We Are

7 Steps to Infuse Entrepreneurial Thinking Into Company Culture