As a business owner, you spend a great amount of time and energy working in the day-to-day matters of your business. The problem is you have to be able to delegate your responsibilities to employees in order to work on your business. Whether you have 1, 10, or 100 employees, they will have direct contact with your customers and prospects and have a greater impact on your bottom line than you might think.

I recently read a JP Horizons statistic that poor employee attitude is the number one reason customers leave service providers. This is becoming more pronounced as the nation’s labor pool begins to shrink with retiring baby boomers and a lack of skilled laborers entering the workforce. The good news is you can grow and promote from within if you hire the right people from the beginning.

Empowering
Your employees will perform better if they know that they have a direct impact on the final result. Entrust them with tasks that you are genuinely interested in and give them the space to complete those tasks. Hold your employees accountable for the outcome(s) and support the results.

You can also guage employee progression when you see how they handle increased responsiblities. Be sure to assign the right tasks to the right employees, and be prepared to deal with the outcome.

Motivation
Motivated employees are concerned with the outcome of their work and their effect on the business. The trick is to find out what your employees want and find a way to enable them to earn it or just give it to them.

There are a number of ways to motivate your employees:

• Recognition
• Non-cash incentives
• Compensation
• Fun workplace

You won’t know which system or combination of systems will work best without asking your employees first.

Training
Investing time and energy into improving the skills of your employees is not only good for your employees but vital to the continued success of your company. Recognizing not only your strengths, but the value and strengths of those around you will add value to your services and create benefits to your customers.

You can start with fundamental trainings such as safety and productivity training. Process training is always important. Then move on to less tangible skills such as customer service, sales techniques, lean and six sigma systems to help your employees ultimately better serve your clients.

Your employees are the frontline, the backend, and the face of your company. You won’t be everywhere all of the time, and your employees can and should know how to assist your customers. Your company will grow as great as your employees!

After writing the stories of this Oregon dealer, this Missouri dealer, and this California landscaper I have found some of the things you can do to prevent similar situations from occurring.

Planning
It really starts with prior planning. The old scout addage, “always be prepared,” is extremely appropriate when it comes to law. From the formation of your business to business contracts to your exit strategy, planning these events with an attorney and accountant long before they occur will go a long way to resolving any issues that may come up.

Counsel
I wrote about the importance of having your banker as part of your management guidance team. It is equally important to have an attorney on that team.

Your attorney(s) can help you with the business formation, contract reviews, collections, and ultimately court representation. The idea is to create internal systems that prevent errors by the business owner(s) or employees from dissolving the business.

Insurance
Business liability insurance, while not an attorney, is the protection from total financial ruin. You should still consult with your attorney when deciding on an asset protection plan, but your insurance coverage should protect your business and personal assets. The fact-of-the-matter is that small businesses won’t have the teams of attorneys looking out for their best interests that big corporations have. Small businesses will have a distinct disadvantage in the world of commerce that leaves them exposed to risks that may be completely out of their control.

This is where your business insurance will come into play. If your business is held liable in an event, than your insurance (if structured properly) will step in and control that debt burden allowing you to move on and continue.

These are just a few of the things you should be considering in order to protect your company and assets. I will continue to write about this topic in the coming week as there are still a number of things to think about, utilize, and protect against.

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When a customer bought a $6,000 riding lawnmower in the spring of 2000, Rick’s company provided its usual quality service after the sale, twice servicing small repairs covered by the warranty during the heavy-use spring/summer mowing season. At the end of the season, the customer had the lawnmower picked up for minor repairs. But it turned out he had something else in mind. (more…)