“Three to Remember” I’m a strong believer in the KISS Rule: Keep It Simple Silly. It is easier for our team members to remember our priorities for Out-Of-This-World Customer Service if we keep our expectations simple and clear. I developed our “Three to Remember” to reinforce the most important principles for serving our clients. We share these often with our team members. Team members learn our “Three to Remember” their first day on the job and will see the “Three to Remember” time and time again in internal emails, company newsletters and repeated in our team meetings. Our “Three to
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The Birth of “Excellence”
How Excellence Was Born! Tom Peters didn’t exactly give birth to excellence, but he did establish the idea that companies can achieve excellence under the inspiration of a management guru—like himself. It all began in the spring of 1978. John Larson of McKinsey’s San Francisco office was set to give a presentation to a client. But his computer crashed and took with it his notes. He turned to another consultant, Tom Peters, to throw together a presentation that would satisfy the client. Peters had just returned from traveling the world to compile research on best practices in business. Up until
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Start the Day Inspired
Be Inspired Many people start the day not so much inspired as angry, frustrated, grumpy and irritated at having to get out of bed in the morning. Happily, there are some changes you can make to your morning routine to try to change those morning blues into something more positive. For instance, one method of preventing yourself from starting to stress out the moment you open your eyes is to avoid looking at phone messages or emails for at least 15 minutes after you wake. Whatever it is, it can wait. Another good piece of advice is to
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Get Your Point Across Quickly in Emails
Efficient Emailing Email is virtually inescapable, especially in the professional world. In many organizations, it’s essential. Ideally, you should keep yours as concise as possible. Here are some tips for getting your message across efficiently and effectively: Start with a salutation. When beginning a message chain, especially in the morning, a little “hello” or “TGIF” goes a long way. Choose one topic and stick to it. For example, the central topic here is Paul’s vacation; the offshoots are the delegated responsibilities: Hi, all. Reminder that I will be on vacation next week. In my absence: Vera will
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Explore Your Options before Firing an Employee
Firing an Employee – Explore Your Options When an employee grows difficult for you and others to work with, you might be tempted to terminate the person as quickly as possible. You’re better off salvaging the situation if you can, though. Hiring and training a replacement always takes time and effort you can invest in more worthwhile tasks. Explore these options before firing an employee: Check your attitude. Have you accidentally slipped into an adversarial, “me versus you” role? Remember, as a leader, you must bring people together. If you’re insisting that you’re right and the problem employee is
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Systems: The Key to Having a Successful and Profitable Business
Breaking It Down Most accountants and bookkeepers don’t have a systemized way of running their business. They wing it and do things off the cuff. They are constantly in reactive mode (putting out fires) instead of being proactive (growing their business). Being reactive is very costly due to repeated mistakes, lost sales and clients, and minimal profits. Systems are the key to getting more done. They are the solution to getting the results you want. It takes intensive work and focus to build effective systems in your business, but investments of time now can prevent massive and costly mistakes later.
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