How To Make Your Business Run Without You
by Matt Thomas
on July 16, 2010
I received the following comment a few days ago. This question hits on a lot of interesting topics pertaining to management, damage repair and marketing.
Because the comment touches on so many important points on running a small business, I felt it best to address the question in a post. [click to continue…]
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Jumpstart a Change Initiative With These Simple Steps
by Matt Thomas
on November 23, 2009
Are you rolling out a change or new initiative in your company? Don’t even think about starting a change process without completing these steps.
Start with a plan
Any change you want to get rolling, whether it is a change in strategy, policy or when changing systems, must come with a well thought out plan.
If you don’t have a plan before beginning the change process, the expenses for your change effort will increase rapidly. Chances are, you will also find that your efforts will not be accepted among your staff and may ultimately fail. [click to continue…]
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How to Get Better Results Out of Your Staff
by Matt Thomas
on April 10, 2009
If you really want to get the most out of your staff, you need to be willing to challenge them.
Challenging work brings lots of benefits to workplace morale, improvements to culture as well as increased employee output.
Below are some reasons as to why challenge is so important in the workplace. [click to continue…]
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8 Barriers to Outstanding Customer Service
by Matt Thomas
on April 7, 2009
Are your customers complaining about the level of service they are receiving?
Are you immediately jumping to the conclusion that the customer is being unreasonable?
While customer service interactions can often be frustrating, and client requests can frequently appear demanding, there may be barriers in your organization that might make reasonable consumer requests seem excessive. [click to continue…]
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8 Useful Ways to Deal with Obstacles
by Matt Thomas
on April 3, 2009
We are confronted with obstacles every day. Sometimes they can be predicted, other times they cannot.
Being confronted with an obstacle is much more different than being confronted with a failure. While avoiding failure prevents action, avoiding obstacles may still bring success.
Since obstacles differ from failure, they require a totally different outlook. [click to continue…]
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Keeping Yourself in the Spotlight
by Matt Thomas
on March 31, 2009
Picture yourself logging into your analytics tracking software to find that you had a huge and unexpected surge in traffic over the past day.
What do you do? Do you celebrate? Hope another surge in traffic comes tomorrow? [click to continue…]
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6 Things NOT to do After Experiencing Success
by Matt Thomas
on March 27, 2009
You have just passed a huge milestone in your business. What do you do next?
Don’t rest yet! There is still plenty for you to do. However, remember that there are also plenty of things NOT to do. [click to continue…]
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What is Your Hiring Strategy?
by Matt Thomas
on March 24, 2009
Pretend you have an important position you have to fill. Do you hire from the outside or do you promote from within?
This is a very important question you have to answer, and it is imperative that you weight the costs and benefits of each strategy. [click to continue…]
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How to Effectively Lead Change in Your Company
by Matt Thomas
on March 20, 2009
While change is an issue we face more than any other, it is is also something we have the most difficulty dealing with.
Between identifying the actions needed to handle change, to getting your entire staff to embrace new ways of doing things, change management is a daunting practice that many managers dread.
If you are undergoing a period of transition in your company or industry, here are some things to keep in mind to help streamline the change process. [click to continue…]
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Why Failure Isn’t Bad
by Matt Thomas
on March 17, 2009
We’re taught at an early age that failure is a bad thing. When we do poorly on tests, we receive a failing grade.
When a business goes bankrupt or dies, it is said to fail.
We are constantly reminded every day that failure is something negative. But what about the positives of failure? There are so many benefits to failing, I find it difficult to argue that failure is anything close to negative. [click to continue…]
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