Getting paid for your work

[UKRay]

I like your principle Bree, and would very much like to hear the others.

Rob

Yes, me too!

edit due to inability to press keys and think at same time...

Edited November 14, 2008 by UKRay

[Bree]

I like your principle Bree, and would very much like to hear the others.

Rob

LOL!! I have lots of them. I number them as I go along. I spent 15 years doing management consulting for small businesses and entrepreneurs back when I lived in Florida. People came in with all kinds of wacky problems and ideas and they naturally give rise to these principles.

In the case of this one, it is the result of losing about $50,000 in fees not collected from deadbeats who in one way or another conned me out of the money. Having a kind heart, generous soul, and believing attitude is not usually good for little businesses like mine.

Here is one you don't find in the books... Bree #7 for when you are selling.

Share your customer's prejudices.

It's amazing how when you walk into someone's office and scan their books and paraphernalia you can get a quick picture of how they think. A little bit of listening later and all of a sudden you have a picture of their likes, dislikes, and prejudices.

I found that people love to buy from salesmen or saleswomen who share their prejudices. I suppose it's a trust thing. They bond on stupid stuff... irrational stuff like prejudice. But in selling, production is what counts unless some sacred principle is being violated in which case, you can compute the cost in lost sales, commissions, and profits of your high moral compass.

It's a sad but true fact of life and business.

Here is Bree #11

A really good business always does the same thing at 2:00 PM on Tuesday.

I had a client who ran some Dunkin Donuts locations. He was totally ignorant about acedemic theories of business. He was from Portugal and had some $$$ and bought a franchise. He simply followed the book Dunkin Donuts gave him. He became very wealthy doing it despite his lack of formal education or training.

In an operations review for a business plan that I was writing for him, I noted that every Tuesday at 2:00 PM they started cutting donut holes. The dough for the donuts would go one way and the hole cut outs would go another for processing into Dunkin Donuts Donut Holes.

It was a PROCESS... the same thing done over and over and over like clockwork. The business was just a machine running the same operations according to a process. Management was all about monitoring and tweaking the cogs of the machine making sure that it was running fine. His manuals gave him all the process tools he needed to WIN.

Bottom line... the closer that a small business comes to being process-driven like that Dunkin Donuts, the more likely it will survive and prosper. People blindly proliferating products, techniques, and deviations end up in process hell. And they fail... very very fast.

So make PROCESS one of the most important words in your business vocabulary. Define your processes, document them, and most importantly follow them religiously. It makes your nice little business boring in a way. But that is the boredom that generates money and profit... the boring hummmmm of success.

[Go2Tex]

................Bottom line... the closer that a small business comes to being process-driven like that Dunkin Donuts, the more likely it will survive and prosper. People blindly proliferating products, techniques, and deviations end up in process hell. And they fail... very very fast.

So make PROCESS one of the most important words in your business vocabulary. Define your processes, document them, and most importantly follow them religiously. It makes your nice little business boring in a way. But that is the boredom that generates money and profit... the boring hummmmm of success.

All so very true, but hard to apply to a custom order business. Every order is a bit different and more often than not, you're sitting there at 2: pm on Tuesday waiting for the leather to dry wondering what else you can be doing. Or worse, with no orders! Then, I guess you work on your new business plan.