It may be hard to stay focused and motivated when the economy is down, layoffs are in the news daily and all we hear is about higher prices and fewer jobs. What is the answer?
• Whether you work for someone else or yourself, treat every day as a new adventure.
• If you work for someone else, make sure that you have a clear job description, performance objectives, your last performance appraisal and an updated resume.
• If you work for yourself, make sure you have a clear business plan with specific performance objectives (not just financial), a list of accomplishments from the past three years and an updated resume.
• Make a list of how you spend your time during one week. Anything that is not helping you achieve your performance objectives or business plan, stop doing it.
• Forget the "four hour work week". Start working earlier and stay later whether you work for yourself or someone else. And do not use the extra time to just catch-up on e-mail.
• Cut your time doing e-mail in half. Regardless of when you do it. Spend that time on customers and professional networking.
• Speaking of networking, make sure you attend at least four professional networking functions (formal or informal) every month. If you work for someone else, these must be external to your company or employer.
• Follow-up with former bosses, co-workers, college and graduate school contacts and others. Make sure people know who you are, where you are and what your are currently doing professionally. And always make sure you offer to help others if they are looking for a job.
• Whatever time you spend talking to or meeting with customers – double it. Only customers pay the bills whether you work for yourself or someone else.
• Finally, whatever you are saving for a rainy day – double it. Cut back where you can. You should have enough money put aside – beyond college funds and retirement – to live for SIX MONTHS without a steady paycheck. This may sound exaggerated but it is essential.
Economic downturns come and they go. This one may be worse the after the “dot com” bubble burst in 2001. Maybe it will not be. Either way, you need to take the steps NOW to insure you are marketable whether you lose your job – or your business – or not.
George F. Franks, III is the President of Franks Consulting Group, a Bethesda, Maryland-based management consulting and leadership coaching practice. Franks Consulting Group's clients include businesses, associations, non-profit organizations and individual leaders. Franks Consulting Group is on the web at:
http://franksconsultinggroup.com.
George can be contacted by e-mail at:
gfranks@franksconsultinggroup.com
Franks Consulting Group's free quarterly e-zine on career and leadership topics is at:
http://careerandleaderhip.com
Showing posts with label recession. Show all posts
Showing posts with label recession. Show all posts
Friday, March 28, 2008
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
Layoffs at Starbucks!
When one thinks of high growth, innovation and the new corporate model – one of the first names that comes to mind is Starbucks. In recent days, Starbucks has been in the news because their CEO has announced layoffs, store closings and a slower pace of growth. What – a corner without a Starbucks coffee shop? The shake-up at Starbucks can serve as a lesson for any business or organization.
Growth
The bigger a company or organization grows, the harder it is to stay true to it’s “roots”. Even if quality and image are strictly controlled – as they are with Starbucks (like McDonalds), there mentality, vision and passion of the corner start-up is difficult to maintain. Having a clear mission and staying true to that mission is essential for every location and every employee.
Core Business
When I think about Starbucks I think about coffee, maybe something to nibble with the coffee and a place to work, meet clients or read the WALL STREET JOURNAL or NEW YORK TIMES. While some people may think of it as a place to buy CDs, coffee mugs, calendars or other items, I do not. And it seems that Starbucks began to stray further from their basics. The point – stick to your knitting (your core business).
People
Starbucks is not about coffee – it is about people. People take the orders, people prepare the coffee, people keep the locations clean, and people manage what could be chaos during busy times. There people are the face of Starbucks – not the CEO and not the headquarters staff. While Starbucks has been very public about how people-oriented they are (benefits, training, respect for employees), there is a slippery slope that will be created by lay-offs. A people oriented business that lays people off and shutters locations can soon become just like any other fast food outlet or massive retail chain – cold, impersonal and full of clock watchers.
Overhead
Organizations that grow love to create new positions, new rules, and new bureaucracies and new titles (each requiring their own staffs for “support”). This is not unique to Starbucks. But every dollar that goes to overhead steals a dollar from the customer-facing resources and also from the profitability of the enterprise. Headquarters, regions, areas – each with their own functions, executives and support staffs drain the life out of any business rather than invigorate them. As a business grows, unless every function can demonstrate in some way there are generating revenue or creating value, I recommend the function either be outsourced to support business with that core competency or incremental to “line” (profit-focused) responsibilities.
Down-sizing people and locations will not be the death of Starbucks. But any business or organization can learn from downside of rapid growth as demonstrated by Starbucks. The tendency to grow quickly, lose focus, to treat employees as overhead, to build non-customer facing staffs are not unique to Starbucks. But any entrepreneur or executive with a growing business would be well served to avoid the same pitfalls.
George F. Franks, III is the President of Franks Consulting Group, a Bethesda, Maryland management consulting and leadership coaching practice. Franks Consulting Group is on the web at:
http://franksconsultinggroup.com
George can be contacted by e-mail at:
gfranks@franksconsultinggroup.com
Growth
The bigger a company or organization grows, the harder it is to stay true to it’s “roots”. Even if quality and image are strictly controlled – as they are with Starbucks (like McDonalds), there mentality, vision and passion of the corner start-up is difficult to maintain. Having a clear mission and staying true to that mission is essential for every location and every employee.
Core Business
When I think about Starbucks I think about coffee, maybe something to nibble with the coffee and a place to work, meet clients or read the WALL STREET JOURNAL or NEW YORK TIMES. While some people may think of it as a place to buy CDs, coffee mugs, calendars or other items, I do not. And it seems that Starbucks began to stray further from their basics. The point – stick to your knitting (your core business).
People
Starbucks is not about coffee – it is about people. People take the orders, people prepare the coffee, people keep the locations clean, and people manage what could be chaos during busy times. There people are the face of Starbucks – not the CEO and not the headquarters staff. While Starbucks has been very public about how people-oriented they are (benefits, training, respect for employees), there is a slippery slope that will be created by lay-offs. A people oriented business that lays people off and shutters locations can soon become just like any other fast food outlet or massive retail chain – cold, impersonal and full of clock watchers.
Overhead
Organizations that grow love to create new positions, new rules, and new bureaucracies and new titles (each requiring their own staffs for “support”). This is not unique to Starbucks. But every dollar that goes to overhead steals a dollar from the customer-facing resources and also from the profitability of the enterprise. Headquarters, regions, areas – each with their own functions, executives and support staffs drain the life out of any business rather than invigorate them. As a business grows, unless every function can demonstrate in some way there are generating revenue or creating value, I recommend the function either be outsourced to support business with that core competency or incremental to “line” (profit-focused) responsibilities.
Down-sizing people and locations will not be the death of Starbucks. But any business or organization can learn from downside of rapid growth as demonstrated by Starbucks. The tendency to grow quickly, lose focus, to treat employees as overhead, to build non-customer facing staffs are not unique to Starbucks. But any entrepreneur or executive with a growing business would be well served to avoid the same pitfalls.
George F. Franks, III is the President of Franks Consulting Group, a Bethesda, Maryland management consulting and leadership coaching practice. Franks Consulting Group is on the web at:
http://franksconsultinggroup.com
George can be contacted by e-mail at:
gfranks@franksconsultinggroup.com
Friday, February 08, 2008
Your Business Can Thrive During the Economic Downturn
The natural inclination of business leaders during an economic downturn is to cut people, programs and reorganize. Examples of this are in the newspapers and web sites daily: Alcatel-Lucent, AOL, Sprint, the airlines, Dell, Discovery Communications and many other companies plus countless medium and small business which never hit the media. There are alternatives to cutting and pulling back during an economic downturn.
Strategy
Review your business’s strategy. Does it make sense? Can it be executed? Is it too “pie in the sky”. And how does it address your markets and your businesses core strengths? A clear strategic plan is the basis for success in good times – and bad.
Execution
The best strategic and business plans are worthless without execution. Do you have measurements or metrics in place to measure performance against financial AND operational targets (objectives)? Which are hitting the mark and which are not? Why? Who is accountable? And what is being done to address weak areas of performance?
Customers
It seems that during a downturn in the economy businesses of all sizes are quick to put customers – those who pay the bills – last. No! This is the time to re-evaluate what your business is doing to delight your customers. No matter the business, product or service – your customers have choices. Take the steps necessary to make you business their FIRST choice. To do this, ask THEM how you are doing and what can be done to improve it.
Cost and Expense
Businesses are quick to cuts expenses and people when there is softness in the economy. This is so easy, that a kid with a lemonade stand can do it. But it is often NOT the right answer. First look at where resources are deployed. Most resources should be involved in driving revenue and delighting your customers. Keep you overheads to a minimum. If that means redeploy and retrain, it should be done. Secondly, before there are lay-offs cut the contractors and consultants first and do the work in-house. Also, cut salaries and bonuses at the top of the organization first. The biggest cuts should be among the biggest bosses – not the customer-facing clerks and sales reps. Finally, ask for input, the people on the floor and in the back office usually know where the biggest opportunities for REAL efficiencies exist. Ask them, act on their recommendations and recognize them for their ideas.
Speed
It is amazing to me to read what the USA did to mobilize resources in a very short time during World War II on the home front. Factories went from making cars and refrigerators to making tanks and aircraft in huge quantities in amazingly short time frames. This was before computers as we know them today. So why does everything (except perhaps the internet) take so long today? The time frames required to develop new products and services are often years rather than months. Look at whatever time is required in your business today and cut it by 25% to 50% while maintaining the same level of quality if not better. It can be done. And it is a competitive advantage.
Innovation
It is the natural tendency of businesses of all sizes to take fewer risks when times are lean. This includes new and innovative ideas for products, services, marketing and doing business. The BEST time for risk taking and innovation is when the economy is challenging. While most businesses retrench, those that take risks and push innovation stand out among their competition. And innovation is not limited to research and development or marketing, it should encompass all functions and aspects of any business.
Downturn, recession, soft economy. All of these terms drive chills through most business people at any level. In fact, even money is tighter and market opportunities shrink, there are winners and losers in both good and not so good economies. By addressing the areas of: strategy, execution, customers, cost and expense, speed and innovation, any company – regardless of size, market or industry – can be a winner during an economic downturn.
George F. Franks, III is the President of Franks Consulting Group, a management consulting and leadership coaching practice. Franks Consulting Group's clients include businesses of all sizes across a variety of industries, associations and other non-profit organizations and individual leaders. George is a member of the Institute of Management Consultants (USA). His web site is:
http://franksconsultinggroup.com
He can be contacted by e-mail at: gfranks@franksconsultinggroup.com
Franks Consulting Group publishes a free quarterly e-zine:
http://careerandleadership.com
Strategy
Review your business’s strategy. Does it make sense? Can it be executed? Is it too “pie in the sky”. And how does it address your markets and your businesses core strengths? A clear strategic plan is the basis for success in good times – and bad.
Execution
The best strategic and business plans are worthless without execution. Do you have measurements or metrics in place to measure performance against financial AND operational targets (objectives)? Which are hitting the mark and which are not? Why? Who is accountable? And what is being done to address weak areas of performance?
Customers
It seems that during a downturn in the economy businesses of all sizes are quick to put customers – those who pay the bills – last. No! This is the time to re-evaluate what your business is doing to delight your customers. No matter the business, product or service – your customers have choices. Take the steps necessary to make you business their FIRST choice. To do this, ask THEM how you are doing and what can be done to improve it.
Cost and Expense
Businesses are quick to cuts expenses and people when there is softness in the economy. This is so easy, that a kid with a lemonade stand can do it. But it is often NOT the right answer. First look at where resources are deployed. Most resources should be involved in driving revenue and delighting your customers. Keep you overheads to a minimum. If that means redeploy and retrain, it should be done. Secondly, before there are lay-offs cut the contractors and consultants first and do the work in-house. Also, cut salaries and bonuses at the top of the organization first. The biggest cuts should be among the biggest bosses – not the customer-facing clerks and sales reps. Finally, ask for input, the people on the floor and in the back office usually know where the biggest opportunities for REAL efficiencies exist. Ask them, act on their recommendations and recognize them for their ideas.
Speed
It is amazing to me to read what the USA did to mobilize resources in a very short time during World War II on the home front. Factories went from making cars and refrigerators to making tanks and aircraft in huge quantities in amazingly short time frames. This was before computers as we know them today. So why does everything (except perhaps the internet) take so long today? The time frames required to develop new products and services are often years rather than months. Look at whatever time is required in your business today and cut it by 25% to 50% while maintaining the same level of quality if not better. It can be done. And it is a competitive advantage.
Innovation
It is the natural tendency of businesses of all sizes to take fewer risks when times are lean. This includes new and innovative ideas for products, services, marketing and doing business. The BEST time for risk taking and innovation is when the economy is challenging. While most businesses retrench, those that take risks and push innovation stand out among their competition. And innovation is not limited to research and development or marketing, it should encompass all functions and aspects of any business.
Downturn, recession, soft economy. All of these terms drive chills through most business people at any level. In fact, even money is tighter and market opportunities shrink, there are winners and losers in both good and not so good economies. By addressing the areas of: strategy, execution, customers, cost and expense, speed and innovation, any company – regardless of size, market or industry – can be a winner during an economic downturn.
George F. Franks, III is the President of Franks Consulting Group, a management consulting and leadership coaching practice. Franks Consulting Group's clients include businesses of all sizes across a variety of industries, associations and other non-profit organizations and individual leaders. George is a member of the Institute of Management Consultants (USA). His web site is:
http://franksconsultinggroup.com
He can be contacted by e-mail at: gfranks@franksconsultinggroup.com
Franks Consulting Group publishes a free quarterly e-zine:
http://careerandleadership.com
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