A Message From Howard
CEOs, Presidents and Business Owners:
Your business success is determined every single day. Business success doesn’t take place because of a good or even a bad marketplace. It takes place because of you. You’re the one that has worked through the difficulties and slogged through the challenges of your business. But one day something happens in your business that…
How’s business?
Did you make any New Year resolutions about improving your business? If so, how are you doing with achieving your business goals? On target? Ahead or behind?
For many CEOs, presidents and business owners, last year wasn’t a great business year. And even if it was a great business year in revenue, there were many challenges and hurdles throughout the year. The current business atmosphere is likely to continue and include glimpses of optimism; but the economy still has a long recovery road.
So how can you turnaround your business for more profit and success? How can you turn a bad, even a mediocre, business year into a good business year?
Ask yourself these questions:
1) What made you successful in the past?
2) What has kept you from reaching the success that you’ve enjoyed over the years?
3) What’s holding you back?
4) Are you open to doing what’s necessary to turn your business around?
Everyone will tell you how everything has changed over the past few years. Much has changed. What worked in the past doesn’t necessarily work now.
But changes in business shouldn’t keep you from success and having a good business year.
Your clients or customers still have the same basic needs they always did.
Here’s the next question:
5) What do your customers or clients need from you and your company?
There is always a lot of talk about building relationships in business. Relationships are important. But when it comes down to it people buy from you because you have convinced them that you’re going to do something that will help them further their business, make more profits, reduce stress and a host of other reasons.
So to make this year the best year ever takes a lot of thinking about how you are going to plan your strategy to accentuate the positive and eliminate the negative in your business. This applies to every aspect of your business. Such as your product or service, how well your employees are trained, your marketing materials and anything else that affects your business on a daily basis.
Next question:
6) How you are going to improve your leadership skills to lead your business to greater profit and success?
You may ask me: My business was mediocre at best last year, what do I do about it?
Let’s take for example the subject of sales. So you say, business was off because sales were off.
Then I’ll ask you: Why? You may say: I don’t know. Then I’ll ask you: Why don’t you know?
Saying “I don’t know” is not the answer.
The economy has had an effect on all of us. But there are still 130 million employed people so there is an economy.
Next question:
7) Why aren’t you doing business?
Dig deeper to find the answer. Is it the prospecting? Is it the product? Is it the sales approach? Is it not qualifying prospects? Is it not knowing how to ask for the sale or contract? Is it something else?
The question is – why? – why? – why?
If you keep asking yourself the why question, you’ll discover where your weakness is. You will know where in your company to make your business stronger.
If you can’t find the answer, talk with other business people or find the expert that will help you determine what steps you need to take to turn things around.
Determine the priorities of what you need to take care of. You may be in a position of focusing on one or you may have to focus on all at the same time.
It’s hard to know where the most logical place to start is. Every business is different. One could say it’s sales, but is it really? Your sales could be fine but maybe it’s your prospecting. Your prospecting could be fine but maybe you have terrible customer service and your company is not delivering what your sales people are promising. Or maybe it’s your product line or pricing.
That’s why you need to keep asking – why – why – why – until you find the solutions you need.
Things are not always as they seem to be. You need to keep questioning till you get to the root of the problem. Most business people fail because they never understood what their real problem was.
Until you understand what the real business problem is, you can’t really solve it.
There is a 1-2-3 step to take but you need to determine what that 1-2-3 step is. It’s not going to be the same for every company.
There is a saying in the computer world – garbage in, garbage out. That means that if you are not entering the right information into your computer, smart phone or IPad, then what you’ll get out of it is the wrong information.
Same in business. If you haven’t analyzed the problem and you’re just taking a stab in the dark at it you won’t find the right business solution. Clear thinking along with a well thought out action plan is what makes business people succeed. It’s what can turnaround your business for success and having a good business year.
Howard Lewinter talks about business success every Wednesday at 11 AM/EST on Blog Talk Radio – Talk Business With Howard. This week Howard discusses, Turnaround Your Business For Success. Click here for link to show page and to listen to show.
If you like today’s blog post, you may also like Howard’s blog post with 5 Tips To Turn A Bad Business Day Into A Good Business Day. Click here to read the post.
Over the weekend, I was observing how life has changed right before our eyes over the years without us even noticing it. For example, instead of opening up the front door every morning to reach down for the newspaper many of us now go to the internet to read the morning headlines.
Times are changing; and businesses must change with the times.
Over the holidays, Sears announced plans to close stores across the country. Maybe even a store near you. Millions of people grew up with anticipation about the Sears catalog each time a new edition was published. In fact, Sears was founded as a mail-order company. How many catalogs do you receive now-a-days in the mail? It’s become an environmental issue, a cost factor and everyday more customers shop online than through the traditional catalogs. Yet with Sears, it’s more than just a catalog. Sears use to be a major force in retailing. The family shopped at Sears (then Sears, Roebuck & Co.) for tools, appliances, tires and Diehard batteries; even clothes and much more for the home. Now Sears struggles with company identity.
Sears is in financial trouble for four reasons:
1) Merchandise. As I just mentioned, they don’t know who they are as a company any longer and it shows in the merchandise mix. Do brands like Lands End or celebrity brands like the Kardashians really fit with the Sears image? The consumer has changed where they buy and how they buy.
2) The stores. They need to visually update and remodel stores to compete in today’s marketplace. Do you find Sears stores welcoming? Without the investment, Sears will lose the customer.
3) Customer service. This is the age of the customer. Especially in today’s economy. Yet Sears has lost the service edge in their stores (with the exception of perhaps the appliance department). Customer service is entering a new era due to the internet and social media.
4) Marketing. In the 80’s, Sears commercials featured the slogan “There’s More For Your Life At Sears”. When was the last time you saw a memorable Sears ad?
History repeats itself. Does anybody remember Circuit City, Woolworths or Gimbels?
Today’s post features what has happened to Sears. But names of corporate giants like Hostess (bakers of Twinkies), Kodak and Barnes & Noble now are speculated about. Will they still exist in a few years? Only time will tell. We live in a quickly changing world.
Play this video of a Sears commercial with a theme you may remember: Come See the Softer Side of Sears.
As you watch the video, ask yourself: What happened to Sears?
Here’s another Sears commercial you may recall with the theme: There’s More for Your Life at Sears.
How does this apply to your business?
You want to make sure your business doesn’t become a dinosaur. That everything you’ve worked for is lost because you weren’t changing with the times.
It’s not change for the sake of change (that’s a whole different story).
The key is to be aware of changes and shifts happening before they impact your business. Before your business loses momentum. Before you ask yourself: How did that happen?
Will customers still buy from your company tomorrow? Or will it be like other companies who find themselves questioning where all of their customers have gone?
In business, you can’t think that the business model you’re using today will still be just as effective tomorrow for continued business success. Nothing lasts forever especially in this economy.
No matter what, time will fly by, as will the profits, if you are not nurturing your business, motivating employees and taking care of your customers.
Just like Sears, once you lose momentum, it’s hard to get it back again. There’s always a competitor nipping at your heels ready to take your business away which means taking your profits away.
Every day you have to look at it like it’s the first day of starting your business and ask yourself: Are we doing what we need to run a successful profitable business? Let’s look at what’s positive and keep it going; let’s look at what’s not working and make the necessary changes.
Successful business people adapt their business to the economic conditions and the needs of the customer. If you don’t adapt you won’t have the business success you want.
Listen to Howard Lewinter’s internet radio show every Wednesday on Blog Talk Radio. This week Howard talks about: Management and Leadership for Business Success in a Changing World. Click here to go to the show page.
When you talk with John Mariotti, the best thing you can do is listen. His years of experience and his understanding of business is invaluable. John, thank you for your wisdom. -Howard-
The name Tim Tebow is on the top of every sport fan’s tongue these days. Most consider Tim to be an inspirational leader. A few consider his religious beliefs to be a negative, but those are in the minority. The question always posed is, “How could Denver have become so much better with Tebow as quarterback, leading the team?” Conversely, the Indianapolis Colts had a terrible NFL season, and the most glaring change in the team was the absence of long time quarterback and leader Peyton Manning.
Could these individuals make that much difference? For that matter, can any one person—a single individual—make such big differences? My answer to this question is a resounding “YES!” But the reason is not what you might think. It is not merely what that person “does” that makes the difference. It is the belief, the confidence and the attitude that the person brings. It’s all about the “power of what’s possible.”
Could the Denver Broncos really make those miraculous fourth quarter comebacks after playing three lackluster quarters? Sure they could—and they did—because the power of what’s possible elevated their play to another level. The team made the playoffs and just beat a more talented Steeler team that was favored by more than a touchdown.
Could Peyton Manning alone account for the difference between the playoff teams of the Colts and this year’s bottom dweller? No, probably not. But those prior teams knew that if they could get the ball in Peyton’s hands with a minute or two left and less than a touchdown or a field goal behind, they still had a chance to win. Often they did just that—march down the field in less than two minutes for the winning score—because they believed they could.
I remember a discussion I had with one of my executives after I left Huffy Bicycles, in which he cited a dilemma and told me that I’d have known what to do. I told him that I wouldn’t have, but that together WE would have figured it out. “That’s right!” He exclaimed. “We’d have been confident that WE could figure out what to do.”
Steve Jobs brought this to Apple. Sam Walton brought it during his tenure at Walmart. Sam called it “getting ordinary people to do extraordinary things.” Great leaders like these two men, and athletes like Tim Tebow and Peyton Manning are not superhuman. They do, however, exhibit one characteristic of a leader that is hugely important. Their kind of leader instills in the team the belief that working together, anything is possible—and then they go make that belief come true.
I once asked Robert Galvin Sr. of Motorola what distinguishes a leader. I have never forgotten his answer. “A leader will take people places they would be afraid to go alone.” When I asked him “what else…?” He added, “And he goes along with them.” The greatest power of a leader is to instill in his/her people the belief in the “power of what’s possible,” and the will to make it happen. This is what separates the winners from the losers.
John Mariotti is an internationally known executive and an award-winning author. His newest book, co-authored with D. M. Lukas, is titled: Hope is NOT a Strategy: Leadership Lessons from the Obama Presidency and will be available early in 2012. Mariotti’s 2008 book, The Complexity Crisis was named one of 2008’s Best Business Books. His critically acclaimed 2010 novel, The Chinese Conspiracy, merges an exciting fictional thriller with the factual reality of America’s risk from Cyber-Attacks. (www.thechinesecomspiracy.com). Mariotti does keynote speeches, serves on corporate boards and is a consultant/advisor to companies. He can be reached at www.mariotti.net .
