Embrace your inner deviant??

When you hear the term “deviant workplace behavior” what do you think?  Do your thoughts immediately go to visions of employees stealing inventory from a retail store?  Do you picture an employee deleting files from their company computer?  Do you see bookkeepers taking a little extra pay via sticky fingers?  While these are deviant workplace behaviors they are not the only kind.  What if I told you the employee who defends a co-worker is demonstrating deviant workplace behavior, would you believe it?

The word deviant means, in loose terms means away from the norm.  Therefore, if the norm of the business is corrupt, the deviant would be honest.  For example, Enron was a profitable business that employed numerous people.  The standard at the company was dishonesty and illegal activity.  When the whistleblower came forward that person was considered the deviant. 

Deviant workplace behavior does have a negative connotation to it, but the deviant behavior is not always a bad thing.  If a business owner is going down a path that is negative, such as cheating customers or defrauding the public than the deviant within the organization would be a positive voice within the public.  The deviant is always the one that is away from the norm of operations.  Could you be the deviant if you were in an organization that was corrupt?  Do it.  Embrace your inner deviant and be the voice of positive impact in a less than positive workplace. 

 

Servant Leadership

Leadership is a process that can be handled in a variety of ways.  Some leaders lead their followers with an iron fist, while others are very hands off.  The key is to find the right leadership style for each leader.  No one leadership style will work with every leader.  It is for this reason numerous leadership models have been developed. 

“Psychological theories view leadership as a social influence process in which leaders use interpersonal behaviors to motivate followers to contribute to group goals”(Kaiser, Lindber McGinnis, & Overfield, 2012, p. 119).  The way in which a leader gains influence is dependent on their leadership model.  Models such as Servant Leadership are centered on the idea that the leader is to be of service to the followers and their development (Greenleaf, 1977).  This idea of a leader being focused more on the development of the follower than the actual project goal is a founding concept in servant leadership.  While this idea may seem too out of line for a leader, it has assisted in the development of other leadership theories such as Value-Based Leadership.

Value based leadership, which is found under the concept of partnerships, is maximizing the effectiveness of a group or organization by finding common values within the group members (Baloglu, 2012).  The characteristics of valued based leadership are things such as vision, trust, respect for others, and integrity.  These same characteristics are found in the servant leadership model.  The similarities between servant leadership and value based leadership are very important to understanding their commonalities.  The difference in these two models of leadership is the simple fact that servant leaders take a larger interest in their followers and the mentoring of the followers.  While value based leadership appears to have grown from servant leadership it does not focus on the development of the followers, but merely the partnering of followers.

References

Baloglu, N. (2012). Relations between Value-Based Leadership and Distributive Leadership: A Casual Research on School Principles Behaviors [Journal]. Educational Science: Theory and Practice, 1375-1378.

Kaiser, R. B., Lindberg McGinnis, J., & Overfield, D. V. (2012). The How and the What of Leadership [Journal]. Consulting Psychology Journal, 64(2), 119-135.

Attention to Detail

The one thing that is important in business is attention to detail.  If you lack attention to detail make sure that you surround yourself with others who have it.  Simple mistakes can be perceived as carelessness in the eyes of the consumer.  Do you want to be known as the business owner who developed an entire marketing program around a spelling error or do you want to be known as the business owner with the clever ideas?

Stand out in a crowd

What makes your business different from the competition?  How do you differentiate yourself?  The answer to these questions is critical to your business success.  You need to know how you are viewed in the marketplace and you need to understand how to market yourself in a way that makes you stand out in a crowd. 

While there may be a number of businesses out there that do what you do, do they do it as well as you?  You need to look at your business and see what you are doing that your competitors are not.  For example, in my business I offer bookkeeping services to small businesses.  Bookkeepers are everywhere you look.  So how do I make my bookkeeping service stand out in a crowd?  The 2 E’s.  Education and Experience.  All of my bookkeepers hold degrees from accredited universities.  Most bookkeepers do not have a formal education and are working on their experience.  While there is nothing wrong with that, why would you pay $50.00 for a bookkeeper without an education when you can pay $30.00 to $40.00 an hour for a bookkeeper who holds a bachelor’s, and in some cases even a master’s in business or accounting.  This is my advantage in the marketplace. 

How can you create an advantage in the marketplace?  The first step is to shop your competition and see what they are offering.  You cannot compete with something you know nothing about.  So go out and find a minimum of 5 businesses in your area that provide the same products or services.  See what they are doing and how they are doing it?  Be objective when you compare your business to theirs.  You might just find that you have an advantage that you didn’t know about. 

Once you see your advantage…..Market it!!

Customer Service = Repeat Business

Are you trying to figure out how to create repeat customers and new business referral?

One of the best ways to generate return business and new business referrals is with great customer service. Many businesses in today's marketplace are not focusing on their customer service and it shows. I talk to consumers in order to better understand what they are looking for in customer service. What they are looking for are businesses that are interesting in building a relationship with them and not just transact business and walk away.

Customers want to know that they can contact you with questions. They want to know that you are there to help them. Customers like to centralize their needs. They want to know that they place where they bought their computer will also be the place that can answer any questions they may have. There is nothing worse than buying a product and not having a local face to face place to get answers. A help line phone number that directs the customer to an outsourced call center is not their idea of customer service.

Be a better business owner. Know your products and services. Offer your customers more than just the initial transaction. Let your customers know that you are there for follow up questions, for recommendations, for any of their other needs. Be your customer’s prime source. When the customer knows that they can call you, that create repeat business and when the customers are happy they will send you referral. Customer service is the key to growth.

Top Ramen today... Top Sirloin tomorrow

If you are a new business owner working to build your business while supporting your family, then you know what top ramen tastes like.  As a new business owner you are investing a large amount of your time and your money in to making your dream of business ownership a reality.  You are making financial decisions every day that affect your business, but they are also affecting your family.  Operating your own business requires the ability to balance your family budget as well as your business budget.

The higher your personal or family bills are, the harder you will have to work to build your business.  It is for this reason that you need to sit down and calculate your family or personal budget before you start your business and look for ways to reduce your bills to their lowest possible point.  This will remove some of the financial pressure from the startup phase of your business.  While this may be a hard thing to do and to convince your family to do, you need to remember that Top Ramen today, will bring top sirloin tomorrow.

Back in my young married days my husband and I talked about starting our own business.  At the time we were newly married, about a year into it and expecting our first child.  I was working full time as a payroll manager and he was working full time as a contractor.  We were making good money between the two of us and lived in a nice 2 bedroom apartment in Los Angeles.  We wanted to start our own business, but we had a baby on the way and we were not sure if we could handle it financially.

The first thing we decided to do was reduce our monthly bills so that I could stay be a stay at home mom.  This meant that I had to sell my beautiful new car to get out of the monthly payment and purchase a used car with cash.  This was the first step and it was painful to say the least.  I had worked very hard in order to reward myself with that new car and here I was less than 2 years later getting rid of it.  My husband also had to sacrifice.  He had to sell his car and purchase a very used truck that was better suited for construction work.   He also had to give up smoking 2 packs a day and drinking 4 espressos a day. 

We had managed to cut our bills down by roughly 20%, but we were still looking for another big savings before the baby arrived.  The only thing left to reduce was our housing expense.  This meant that we would have to find a cheaper apartment to live in.  The hunt was on for an apartment in the same area for that was at least $100 to $200 less.  As my belly got bigger the search became more frantic.  Finally, in my 9^th month of pregnancy we found an apartment 4 blocks away that was $150 a month cheaper.  We moved into the apartment on my due date.  I do not recommend this to anyone.  It was not a fun experience to say the least.  I was as big as a house, I had to go to the bathroom every 10 minutes, I could not lift anything, I couldn’t bend over to see what was in what box, I was always hungry, the baby was kicking and moving all day, and to top it off it was raining too. 

The point is….we lowered our bills as much as we possibly could in order to become a one income family on our way to being small business owners.  You need to be willing to make adjustments in your personal life in order to create a business life.  When we were finally ready to start our own business we cut our bills down even more.  How is that possible you ask?  We moved again.  We took our little baby girl and moved out of Los Angeles and relocated to a small beach community in Ventura where we rented a 1 bedroom guest house in that backyard of a retired school teacher.  We wanted our own business and we wanted to be able to stay at home with our child. 

On the day we started our business our rent was $450 per month and we operated the business from our garage.  In total I think our bills, personal and business, were $1000 a month.  This was the absolute lowest we could get our bills without being unhappy.  You never want to be unhappy about your sacrifice or it leads to problems in your household.  We ate top ramen, but we knew some day that we would eat top sirloin.

We stayed in that guest house for a few years until we had a second child and hired an employee.  At that point there were just too many bodies in that small space.  While those times were very tight and our family budget was minimal, I have to say that those were some of the best times of my life. We worked hard and we grew our business at a steady pace without putting too much financial pressure on ourselves. 

So what does all of this mean to you as a new business owner?  It means that your family budget directly affects the amount of time and energy that you need to invest in the start-up or expansion of your business.  You need to communicate with your family the need to lower your monthly expenses and cut out the fat from your budget.  You need to explain that the sacrifices you make today will make it easier for you to build your business for tomorrow.  This is a critical step in your quest for establishing or expanding your business.   Everyone in the family must be will to make the sacrifice and understand that you will only be eating top ramen for a little while and you will get top sirloin one day.

Perception. 

The world is filled with talented people with diverse skill sets.  As a small business owner you need to be on the lookout for people that you can add to your team that will add value to your business.  When you are looking to add to your team what are you looking for?

You need to open your mind and your eyes to potential.  Closed minded business people can lose out on innovation by having a fixed perception of what an employee should look like.  Employees will come in all shapes, sizes, colors, races, and sexes.  The key to finding the right employee for you is to open your mind to what the person has to offer to your products and services.

The world is changing at a fast pace and only the business owners who stay ahead of the change will keep pace with the market place.  Get past your perceptions and judgments and open your eyes to talent and innovation.

"Find a need and fill it" - Rev. William Sturgeon

As we make our way through life some sayings or quotes will always stay with us for one reason or another.  This quote has been with me since I was a young girl growing up in West Los Angeles. 

When I was younger my dad was a Southern Baptist preacher who loved helping people.  He was always saying "Find a need and fill it".  As a child and young adult I had no clue what that meant, but now as an adult I do.

"Find a need and fill it"..... is that foundation of business itself.  As a business owner you are looking for a way to provide products or services to the public in exchange for a fee.  You look for a way to be different and stand out in the marketplace.  You are trying to see where there is a need and fill that need with your products and services.  Business is that simple.

So get out there and ......"Find a need and fill it" - Rev. William Sturgeon

Setting Up Your Books

I get calls all the time from business owners asking me about QuickBooks and accounting in general.  A majority of the calls are around April 1^st….hmmm; I wonder why they call at this time of the year?  Yes, the tax man is at their doorstep and they are unprepared for what comes next.  They have spent the entire year running their business and they haven’t had a chance to do the financial side of their business.  They come to me with boxes full of receipts, accounting records that are wrong or with nothing but a long list of transactions.  As a business owner you cannot run your business without up to date financial information. 

 As a business owner you need to be proactive and not reactive.  Being proactive means keeping track of your finances as the year progresses, not the week before tax returns are due.  For some business owners it is a struggle to “keep their books” in order all year long.  The truth is it does not have to be so hard. Your financial records can be as easy or as challenging as you want.

The key is to do it correctly from the start. When you are setting up your company books or accounting you need to understand what you are doing.  This can be accomplished by hiring a bookkeeper or perhaps having someone from your accountant’s office help you.  While that is a great way to get started, you have missed the most important step….understanding what the hell you are doing.

Walking through the process of setting up your company financials is a great way to build your understanding of how your company operates behind the scene.  Understanding the financial side of your business is critical to profitability.  If you don’t know the true numbers of your business, how can you make a strong decision?  It is one thing to estimate numbers in your head, but it is another to see them on paper.

So what does all of this mean?  It means that you need to do a little homework.  You need to take the time to learn the basics about reading your financial statements, understanding what the numbers means, and most importantly understand how important it is that these numbers are accurate.  It is ok to hire someone to do all of this work for you, but remember that it is your responsibility to know when the numbers they are producing for you are WRONG.

SWOT Analysis

            Strategic planning is not just a big business tool; it is a successful business tool.  No matter how big or how small your business is, you should have a strategic plan.  One of the critical parts of strategic planning is a SWOT analysis.

            SWOT is short for Strength, Weakness, Opportunity, and Threats.  This analysis tool can be used before you start your small business, after you have started your business, or if you want to look at a department within your business.  The analysis is a very simple tool that anyone can use. 

Let’s say that we are using the SWOT analysis as part of our strategic planning for our business start-up which is a retail coffee shop.  We would start by using the diagram above to make an objective list of each area in the analysis.  The analysis works like this:

Strength = list here things that are part of your advantage in the industry such as experience in food service, experience in purchasing of products, understanding of the industry as a whole.  Anything that you think gives you an advantage in the marketplace.  This can also deal with your financing, such as unlimited funding for your business. (That is a great dream)

Weakness = this area should be a list of realistic weaknesses that you will need to overcome.  This could be things such as limited financial resources, aggressive competition in your ideal local area, or limited knowledge of experience in the industry

Opportunity = this is the area that should identify the things that you believe to be an opportunity to your business.  Opportunity can be the fact that you know the local university is looking for a coffee vendor to service their campus or be close to the campus or you know a local coffee shop is going to be put up for sale.  These could be seen as opportunity for you and your business.

Threats = this is the area were you identify threats to your business operation and success.  For our coffee shop start up, the distance from a large chain coffee shop can be a threat to business.  Threats can also be zoning restrictions, purposed construction, or anything that would interfere with your money making.

            By investing time in preparing a SWOT analysis you are taking a step forward in your overall strategic planning.  While many people start businesses on a whim or idea, there needs to be a level of planning involved.  It is important that you take the input of others when doing your SWOT analysis due to the fact that you already have your mind set on opening a business and that could create a level of bias in your objectivity.

Fraud Triangle

This past February I had the honor of speaking to a group of Private Investigators about Fraud, more specifically Embezzlement.  My presentation focused on "The Fraud Triangle", which is the creation of Donald R. Cressy.  This theory has served as the foundation of fraud investigation for years.  The theory of the Fraud Triangle is that a person will violate the trust of their employer if the three elements collide. 

The first element is the Pressure.  The Pressure is a problem or issue that the person is going through and they do not feel that they can share this problem with anyone else.  Since the issue is non sharable the person will try to find a way to solve the problem themselves.  These unsharable issues are usually debt from a failed investment or debt from a questionable activity. 


The second element is Opportunity.  The opportunity is what the employee or individual sees as a way to solve their unsharable problem.  So if the individual works in the accounting department they may see that there is a set of pre-signed checks for emergency use.  The opportunity the person sees is that no on keeps track of how many pre-signed checks there are and they are kept in an unlock draw.

The third element is Rationalization.  The theory states that when the employee or individual has the unsharable problem, sees the opportunity to solve their problem, they then progress to rationalization.  When the individual can rationalize the act of taking the money or committing the act of embezzlement, that is when the three elements collide.

Embezzlement is usually a short term answer to a problem that an employee is struggling with.  With the current state of the economy and the hardship created by the collapse of the housing market many people have found themselves falling on hard times.  The unemployment rate and foreclosure rate are evidence that individuals are struggling financially and may see their situation as desperate.  These economic conditions are a stimulating factor in the rate of embezzlement cases. 

As a business owner you need to aware of your financial position and look for professional help if you suspect deviant behavior in your accounting department.

Financial Ratio's

As a small business owner it is critical that you understand how your business is performing financially.  Some times looking at financial statements when you are not a non-finance person can be such a headache.  The key is to know how to take specific information from your financial reports and calculate your financial ratio's. 

These ratio's are measuring the liquidity of your business. These ratio's deal with how you can meet all of your short term debt.

Current Ratio = Current Assets / Current Liabilities (this ratio shows your ability to pay short term debt)

Quick Ratio = Quick Assets / Current Liabilities (Quick Assets = Current Assets - Inventories)

Net Working Capital Ratio = Net Working Capital / Total Assets (NWC = Current Assets - Current Liabilities)

Know lets do some calculations. 

Current Ratio Calculation

Current Assets = $10,000.00
Current Liabilities = $6,500.00

Current Ratio = $10,000.00 / $6,500.00 = 1.53  So we express the ratio as 1.53 : 1.  This means for every $1.00 of debt, you have $1.53 of assets.  This is a good thing. This means that you have enough short term assets to pay your short term debts if the demand was made. 

Lets try another one

Current Ratio Calculation

Current Assets = $100,000.00
Current Liabilities - $123,000.00

Current Ratio = $100,000.00 / $123,000.00 = .83.  So what does this mean?  .83:1?  This means that for every $1.00 of debt, you only have .83 cents.  This is not so good.  This means that you cannot pay all of your short term debt if the demand was made.

Ratio's can help you understand the financial position of your business.  Try calculating your ratio's the next time you have your financial statements in front of you.

UP

"Never think down - always think up" - Norman Vincent Peale

Work-Life Balance

For six years I sat at a desk in exchange for a check.
For six years I gained weight, a lot of it.
For six years I was tired every day.
For six years my health was failing.
For six years I ignored my body crying out.

Today I sit at a desk, but take breaks to walk.
Today I am losing weight, a lot of it.
Today I have energy.
Today my health is improving.
Today I listen to my body.

Today I live for me and not the check.

Crisis Leadership

The true test of a leader is crisis.

How a leader responds to a crisis can illustrate their ability to lead, make decisions, and act in a manner that benefits others or can show us that they never should have been a leader in the first place.

Leadership is a position that should be held by those who can truly focus on the best interest of others. A leader should always want the best for those around them and should seek out ways to assist others.

There are two perfect examples to illustrate selfless leadership and selfish leadership, Captain Sullenberger and Captain Schettino.

Captain Sullenberger was the pilot of the US Airways Flight 1549 that landed safely on the Hudson after the plane’s engines failed as a result of ingesting birds. Captain Sullenberger and his co-pilot assessed the situation and responded. They landed the plane on the Hudson safely and it did not end there. As the plane began to submerge Captain Sullenberger walked the entire plan insuring that everyone had indeed been evacuated. It was only after he was sure that everyone was safe that the pilot then exited the sinking plane.

The complete opposite of Captain Sullenberger is Captain Schettino. Captain Schettino is the disgraced captain of the Costa Concordia that sank off the cost of Italy after running aground into the jagged rocks. The captain is being investigated for manslaughter and abandoning ship. This leader, when faced with crisis, did not respond in a manner that would be expected from a person in his leadership position. Captain Schettino was said to have left the ship during the crisis and chaos ensued.

What is the difference between these two leaders?

Selfless leadership and selfish leadership.

While these are two very dramatic and life threatening examples they serve as the foundation of leadership selection. When you are selecting leaders for your organization or you are selecting a leader to follow, you need to understand their true leadership philosophy. Are they a selfish leader? Will they serve their followers best interest? Will they use their followers and then abandon them just when they are needed the most?

A true leader is a selfless leader. They look for ways to serve others. A selfless leader is one that will work to develop others and finds satisfaction in knowing that they have made a positive impact on the lives of others.

Inspiration

"Just keep swimming" - Dory (Finding Nemo)