Business Management - Productivity/Process Improvement

Practice makes us better; it builds patterns and representations in our minds that enable us to see what others cannot. It makes us experts. Have you ever embarrassed yourself in front of your family by practicing a presentation aloud? If not, perhaps you should.

It seems color inkjet has charged past the innovators and is rapidly gaining traction with the early adopters. Many in the industry have been spending years on road shows, proselytizing in webinars and writing about it in magazines and online sources like PIworld.com. Now, it seems that people have been listening all along. And the conversation has changed.

With the adoption of cross-media services, print no longer is a majority holder when it comes to media distribution. I view this as a time in the industry full of opportunity to reinvent ourselves to better serve the needs of brand owners in their pursuit of conveying a message at the right time to the right audience through unique media channels.

Set your own “sequester” and have some fun with it. We all get too serious as managers, and if we create some fun around serious issues, they can become more manageable.

It's strange, that every owner or manager knows when a system stops running, but they fail to ask, "WHY?" For example, why DO people stop using systems such for Quality Control, Preventative Maintenance, Request for Leave, and for Orientation, etc.?

What was the inflation in your cost structure last year and what will it be this year? How much have your rent, utilities, payroll, supplies and delivery costs gone up? Have the courage to always build inflation into your pricing, or it will eventually put you out of business. It’s happened to many of your competitors.

Have you heard of The Deadly Law of Attrition? If not, I may shock you with this statement: You are going to lose your best customer. It’s not a matter of if; it’s a matter of when.

If you're a salesperson and your sales are down, there is an infinite amount of material out there that can be read or listen to for inspiration and encouragement. If you are a business owner, dealing with tighter margins and other business hurdles, resources abound to help you deal with those issues and many others.

The good criminals are good—they spend their lives honing their skills. They know how to falsify references, make you feel good about working hard to win the business, and they know how to disappear the moment you realize their snake oil. They don’t think like you and I, and they don’t play by the same rules. They enjoy their ill-gotten gains on a daily basis. They enjoy today because they’re not in jail—they’ll deal with their problems of tomorrow when tomorrow turns into today.

Business is a race. We’re all given the same 24 hours and the same 52 weeks. What we do with them determines whether we’ll eat someone’s lunch or vice versa. We just sent a New Year’s card to our customers.