23 Tips to Reduce Stress, Work Happier for Top Performance
Nov. 1, 2011
You have a 35 percent better chance of living longer if you feel happy. That’s the upshot from a British study that links feelings of happiness to longevity. Note the key word, “feel.” So the emphasis is on feelings. Makes sense, right?
The study acknowledges some people inherently feel happy. But there are environmental factors, such as dissatisfaction with a job or career field, or working or living with the wrong person. The wrong job or living with a toxic person creates lots of stress.
The Great Recession is technically over, but if you’re like most businesspeople you probably need Solutions to Rejuvenate Yourself and Business. And if Business Has Got You Down, Tips for a Morale Boost are helpful.
In my experience, many people tend to allow pressures to become stress, and they have a lot of fears – even without realizing it. These also stem from career challenges or having the wrong partner in business or at home.
Aside from being stuck in a career or changing partners, here are 23 stress management tips:
- Avoid sleep deprivation. Insomnia and sleep apnea lead to strokes, heart attacks and other health issues. If necessary, see a sleep physician.
- Drink enough water. It will help your mind and body.
- If you drink, do it in moderation.
- Create a balance sheet — a list of pros and cons of your work and personal life.
- Write affirmations about your qualities or talents. Read the list as often as you feel necessary.
- Write out your goals. Prioritize your career and personal life. Make necessary changes.
- Use effective time management strategies. They include avoiding clutter and post-it notes. Don’t work against deadlines. They trigger stress.
- When you finish a project, meet a deadline or accomplish a task, relish your success and celebrate it.
- Self effacement works. Poke fun at yourself. It’s OK to be serious, but not be overly dramatic about, so smile.
- Minimize junk food. Eat a balanced diet with plenty of fruit, salads and vegetables.
- Don’t stuff your feelings, but that doesn’t mean showing anger.
- Look for the silver lining in every situation – even be grateful for them because any negative situations can be opportunities for growth.
- Take time off and go on vacations. You can’t afford not to get a change of scenery.
- If you have a problem work to solve it ASAP. You’ll feel better faster and all other matters will be a proverbial piece of cake.
- Do the things that promote healthy emotions. Be more accepting of events and people. You’ll find you won’t be so hard on yourself. Perfectionism leads to stress, too.
- Be generous with compliments. Look for opportunities to confidentially to pat others and yourself on the back.
- Do everything gently – whether it be setting objects on a table or talking with others.
- Make family and good friends a priority.
- Enjoy your hobbies.
- Get exercise. Cardio workouts are best. At the minimum, do a lot of walking.
- Remember there are many forms of success. It’s not always about money.
- Make decisions promptly. Over analysis leads to paralysis. If you have good self esteem, you won’t be constantly engaging in self doubt.
- Remember you’re never saddled with anything you can’t handle. Some events or people early in your life have prepared you for today.
- If all else fails, look around for someone less fortunate to help. A volunteer spirit works wonders.
From the Coach’s Corner, here are related resource links:
Why ‘the Overflow of a Revived Heart Is Always Generous Living’
30 Time Management, Stress Reducing Skills
New Year’s Resolutions to Recover from the Great Recession
If you ask what is the single most important key to longevity, I would have to say it is avoiding worry, stress and tension. And if you didn’t ask me, I’d still have to say it.”
-George Burns
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Columnist Terry Corbell is also a business-performance consultant and profit professional. Click here to see his management services (many are available online). For a complimentary chat about your business situation or to schedule Terry Corbell as a speaker, why don’t you contact him today?
Most Small Businesses Make You Vulnerable to Credit Card Fraud, ID Theft – Study
A study discloses a disturbing trend – nearly four out of five small companies are storing unsecured data about their customers. That’s an indictment of such businesses, and is alarming news for consumers about their vulnerability to credit card fraud and identity theft.
The 2011 study was conducted by the National Cyber Security Alliance (NCSA).
“How can this be,” you ask?
Nationally known security expert Dr. Stan Stahl, of Citadel Information Group in Los Angeles, knows why.
“Citadel works with small business leaders every day and – based on our experience – the reason small businesses don’t take cybercrime seriously is that they see it primarily as something their IT people are managing, not yet realizing the critical importance of their own leadership,” says Dr. Stahl.
“This includes establishing clear policies and standards for information use, explicitly assigning cyber security management responsibility to a member of the senior management team, providing cyber security awareness training and education to all information users, and ensuring that IT personnel are effectively managing the security of the IT infrastructure,” he adds.
The alarming results in the study first came to my attention after reading Small Businesses Don’t Take Cybersecurity Seriously, which was mentioned in Dr. Stahl’s security blog.
Hopefully, your business is not one of the businesses cited in the study. Cybercrime has become a global nightmare. My question for companies about Cyber Security: Is Your Business Prepared with Precautions and Response Philosophy?
For NCSA’s tips for small business security, read this post.
“Seventy-nine percent of businesses are storing consumer information when they don’t need it. It’s not protected. It’s not secure,” Verizon spokesperson Andrea Woroch was quoted in a published report.
For consumers, Verizon offers these tips:
Watch the people swiping your credit or debit card.
“You don’t want to blame or suspect everyone’s trying to steal your information, but there are people who will and are trying to copy your credit card information with extra swipes,” says Ms. Woroch.
Take extra care when you buy on the Internet.
“Don’t mark that little check box that says ‘to store for future purchases.’ you don’t want that organization, that business, that Internet website to hold any of that information,” explains Ms. Woroch.
Consider alternatives to using your credit card, such as gift cards.
Carefully study your billing statements.
“Lots of consumers overlook little charges that are being made on their statement and that’s how people are continually able to trick them and deceive them and steal them and take extra money out of their accounts,” adds Ms. Woroch.
Resource link: Dr. Stahl’s Web site.
(Note: Dr. Stahl is a fellow member of Consultants West, www.consultantswest.com, a roundtable of veteran consultants in the Los Angeles area.)
From the Coach’s Corner, here are additional cybersecurity tips:
Security Precautions to Take Following Citibank’s Second Reported Online Breach
Our Mobile-Banking Warnings about Security Prove Prophetic
“Being good is good business.”
-Anita Roddick
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Columnist Terry Corbell is also a business-performance consultant and profit professional. Click here to see his management services (many are available online). For a complimentary chat about your business situation or to schedule Terry Corbell as a speaker, why don’t you contact him today?
Is your Company Ready to Capitalize on What Women Offer?
It’s obvious the current economic environment is here to stay, so it’s necessary to keep an open mind and rethink our processes. That includes taking full advantage of all opportunities.
“What else is new?” you ask. Good question. It’s important to leverage the potential in human capital.
Two McKinsey consultants addressed one important aspect in a 2011 study: “Unlocking the full potential of women in the US economy.” Joanna Barsh is a director in McKinsey’s New York office and Lareina Yee is a principal in the San Francisco office.
It struck a chord with me, as I’ve written columns on related topics, including why Banks Have a Credibility Issue with Affluent Women; and I asked Are You Successful In Keeping Female Talent?
So I agree American business has not fully leveraged its assets.
The problem is many businesspeople don’t inherently take notice and capitalize on under-utilized assets unless they’re personally affected. I’ve said it many times – working moms have the toughest job of anybody, but they provide a bevy of important attributes. Personally, my antenna goes up whenever I see the potentiality of talent being ignored.
That goes for women in the macro economy.
“Indeed, the additional productive power of women entering the workforce from 1970 until today accounts for about a quarter of current GDP,” wrote Ms. Barsh. As the U.S. struggles to sustain historic GDP growth rates, it is critically important to bring more women into the workforce and fully deploy high-skill women to drive productivity improvement.”
Agreed.
Ms. Barsh listed the study’s objectives.
“McKinsey & Company undertook this research over the past three months to understand how women contribute to the U.S. economy; how their work benefits individual corporations; what prevents women from making greater contributions to their companies; and what approaches can help companies unlock the full potential of women,” she said.
“Despite the sincere efforts of major corporations, the proportion of women falls quickly as you look higher in the corporate hierarchy,” she asserted. Overall, this picture has not improved for years.”
That means, of course, there are missed opportunities despite all the progress in breaking down the glass-ceiling barriers.
So, according to the study, there’s a schism – women are increasingly ambitious as they leap from entry level jobs to mid-management. But again, the talent is being ignored.
Attitudes of entry-level women workers:
- 79 percent want a promotion to the next level
- 32 percent want a leadership role
- 16 percent has longtime career goals to become a leader
Aspirations of women in mid-management jobs:
- 83 percent want to be promoted
- 51 percent want a leadership role
- 31 percent has always dreamed of being a senior manager
The study indicates that women have multiple barriers:
- Lack of role models
- Exclusion from the informal networks
- Not having a sponsor in senior management
“Managers – male and female – continue to take viable female candidates out of the running, often on the assumption that the woman can’t handle certain jobs and also discharge family obligations,” wrote Ms. Barsh. “In our Centered Leadership research, we found that many women, too, hold limiting beliefs that stand in their own way – such as waiting to fill in more skills or just waiting to be asked.”
That’s why I lamented the demise of two women executives, Carol Bartz and Carly Fiorina in Business Management Lessons from Yahoo’s Demise and Are HP’s Board and New CEO Headed in Right Direction? These situations didn’t help the case for other women to assume leadership roles.
Ms. Barsh makes another good point: Culture change is needed.
“Our evidence points to the need for systemic, organizational change,” explained Ms. Barsh. ”Companies that aspire to achieve sustained diversity balance must choose to transform their cultures. Management needs a powerful reason to believe such as the potential competitive and economic advantage from retaining the best talent.”
Therefore, in view of the stagnant economic climate, let’s hope the right people read this column, and the McKinsey report: “How women can contribute more to the US economy.”
Further, a lot of companies would benefit from the 6 Steps to Implement a Cultural Change for Profits.
From the Coach’s Corner, as for advice to young women, here are 7 Tips for a Young Professional to Become a CEO. Be sure to take note of the column’s postscript about getting a mentor.
“If you want something said, ask a man; if you want something done, ask a woman.”
-Margaret Thatcher
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Columnist Terry Corbell is also a business-performance consultant and profit professional. Click here to see his management services (many are available online). For a complimentary chat about your business situation or to schedule Terry Corbell as a speaker, why don’t you contact him today?
Is Higher Education Doing the Job to Prepare Grads for the Workforce?
A disturbing headline caught my eye — US higher education failing to focus on basic skills. The 2011 Washington Post column by Pulitzer Prize-winning Kathleen Parker asserts that colleges and universities are falling down on their job – to properly educate our students.
Ostensibly, she believes the nation collectively has an incorrect focus. And I had been pleased that At Long Last, More Focus on Critical Thinking in Business Schools.
But I tend to agree with her after previously writing this column, Study: Unemployment Stems Partly from Deficient Worker Skills, Education.
“Missing from the conversation is the quality of what’s being taught,” she writes. “Meanwhile, we are mistakenly wed to the notion that more people going to college means more people will find jobs.”
Ms. Parker acknowledges the economy is weak in providing jobs for graduates, but she advises: “Fundamentally, students aren’t learning what they need to compete for the jobs that do exist.”
In essence, she cites a report from the Association of American Colleges and Universities that quotes statistics that most employers know:
- 87 percent of companies believe colleges have to improve
- 63 percent of grads lack sufficient skills
- According to another survey, more than 25 percent of grads are inadequate in basic writing skills
Ms. Parker cites a book, “Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses,” that indicts the lack of progress in critical thinking, and that more than a third of students don’t sufficiently improve in learning.
“Most universities don’t require the courses considered core educational subjects — math, science, foreign languages at the intermediate level, U.S government or history, composition, literature and economics,” she writes.
She cites data from the American Council of Trustees and Alumni covering more than 1,000 educational institutions:
- 5 percent require economics
- 29 percent require two or fewer subjects
- Less than 20 percent require U.S. government or history
Critics of the data maintain that it’s incorrect – that it’s too “conservative.”
As for the students’ perspective, she writes: “A recent Roper Organization study found that nearly half of recent graduates don’t think they got their money’s worth.”
My thought: Oh my! More evidence that America is not prepared for the future.
From the Coach’s Corner, well, here’s a partial solution: 25 Best Practices for Better Business Writing.
“Intellectual growth should commence at birth and cease only at death”
-Albert Einstein
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Columnist Terry Corbell is also a business-performance consultant and profit professional. Click here to see his management services (many are available online). For a complimentary chat about your business situation or to schedule Terry Corbell as a speaker, why don’t you contact him today?
Why Many Healthcare Workers Are Responsible for Alarming Trend: Medical ID Theft
Sept. 26, 2011
Medical identity theft is skyrocketing. It’s the fast-growing trend in ID thievery, and the data shows it adversely impacted 1.42 million Americans in 2010, according to a study by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) in a published report.
PwC reports medical ID theft aggregately cost more than $28 billion.
“The root cause of the fraudulent use of someone else’s medical identification is that protected medical information is widely dispersed in multiple information systems where it all too often is inadequately secured,” says nationally known security expert, Dr. Stan Stahl, president of Citadel Information Group, Inc. in Los Angeles.
MedPage Today (Medical Identity Theft a Growing Problem) reported the three most common identity breaches:
- Employees who act unprofessionally – improper use of patients’ data in doctors’ offices, hospitals, insurance company and life sciences companies. They’ve even been caught posting comments about patients on Facebook.
- Almost 40 percent of hospitals and physicians report they have caught patients using another person’s identity when they seek treatment.
- Twenty-five percent of insurance companies acknowledge the improper transfer of information in patients’ health files. Unauthorized persons viewed such files.
“Every organization that collects or stores personally identifiable medical information – hospitals, doctors, clinics, pharmacies, billing offices, insurance companies, even employers – has a legal and ethical obligation to properly secure that information,” asserts Dr.Stahl.
In public reports, theft was responsible for 66 percent of medical ID breaches in the last two years. The thefts include notebook computers, smartphones, using another person’s personal information for fraudulent claims, and people using others’ names.
More shocking news
Authors of the PwC study indicated most healthcare organizations aren’t equipped to prevent medical ID theft – despite the growing use of information technology in the medical profession.
“Most breaches are not the result of [information technology] IT hackers, but rather reflect the increase in the risks of the knowledgeable insider related to identity theft and simple human error – loss of a computer or device, lack of knowledge or unintended unauthorized disclosure,” said James Koenig, director of the Health Information Privacy and Security Practice at PwC in a press statement.
More than 50 percent of the study’s respondents who work for healthcare organizations said they knew of at least one privacy breach since 2009.
“Doctors need to take measures to assure their patients are who they say they are,” recommends Dr. Stahl. “That can include checking referrals.”
What can patients do?
“Patients need to treat their medical information with the same care that they treat their financial information, including periodically checking with their insurance company to identify fraudulent activity,” advises Dr. Stahl.
The PwC study indicated that most healthcare organizations admit they haven’t even begun to adequately deal with privacy and security issues in this digital-information age.
Obviously, as a business-performance consultant, here’s my sense:
- The medical profession should immediately take adequate security precautions.
- All medical employees should undergo privacy-confidentiality sensitivity training.
After all, shouldn’t these precautions be part of medical care?
Dr. Stahl’s links:
From the Coach’s Corner, you might consider these security-resource links:
Security Precautions to Take Following Citibank’s Second Reported Online Breach
Our Mobile-Banking Warnings about Security Prove Prophetic
11 Travel Tips – Save Money, Prevent against Cyber Theft, Fraud
“If you reveal your secrets to the wind, you should not blame the wind for revealing them to the trees.”
-Kahlil Gibran
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Columnist Terry Corbell is also a business-performance consultant and profit professional. Click here to see his management services (many are available online). For a complimentary chat about your business situation or to schedule Terry Corbell as a speaker, why don’t you contact him today?
Why Startup Companies Fail – How to Win
As a critical thinker, Dr. Peter Drucker left a giant legacy of thought leadership. For my money, the world’s foremost business philosopher left us with timeless teachings.
A personal favorite of mine is one of his lesser known quotes: “Arrogance is being proud of ignorance.”
The quote is applicable in a myriad of ways – whether it pertains to professionals’ careers or the companies for whom they work. As Biz Coach, I strongly recommend self-assessments for careers and a business-performance analysis for companies.
It’s vital to conduct a thorough needs-assessment of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats – followed by development and implementation of a strategic action plan.
Of course, Dr. Drucker’s quote is also applicable in understanding the No. 1 reason why startups fail. Such companies don’t have a clear picture of their situations. They complacently assume that they do, but most don’t.
Consequently, nine out of 10 fail because they self destruct – not because they’re defeated by competitors. This is true in any sector.
Now, there’s informative confirmation about the reasons for startup failures from another source, Genome.
A Genome report on 3,200+ tech firms cites what it calls “premature scaling.” The startup Genome report concluded that too many early-stage companies try to grow at a pace inconsistent with their capabilities.
Among the Genome-study authors’ conclusions:
- No startup that scaled prematurely passed the 100,000 user mark.
- Ninety-three percent of startups that scale prematurely never break the $100k revenue per month threshold.
- Startups that scale properly grow about 20 times faster than startups that scale prematurely.
“A startup can maximize its speed of progress by keeping the five core dimensions of a startup Customer, Product, Team, Business Model and Financials in balance,” write the study’s authors. “The art of high growth entrepreneurship is to master the chaos of getting each of these five dimensions to move in time and concert with one another.
“Most startup failures can be explained by one or more of these dimensions falling out of tune with the others,” assert the researchers. “In our dataset we found that 70 percent of startups scaled prematurely along some dimension.”
Inefficiency causes failure
My sense is that such new entrepreneurs’ behavior fails to match their goals for success. Too often, they lack cohesive-business behavior. The study appears to confirm this point.
“Every startup has an actual stage and a behavioral stage,” assert the authors. “Actual stage is measured by customer response to a product. A startup is classified as inconsistent when any behavioral dimension is at a stage that is different than the actual stage.”
Hence, they call it premature scaling.
Conversely, the study points out that some companies behave in inferior proportion to their actual situation. For example, they’re not expanding fast enough or they fail to add enough of the right employee skills when they are needed.
Candidly, I love startups, but for the above reasons I don’t work with most of them. It’s one thing for new entrepreneurs to have great ideas, but it’s another when they fail because they don’t understand and implement best practices in management. As a result, they don’t properly manage financials and there are too many unnecessary opportunity costs.
Often, new entrepreneurs simply aren’t good at what they do because they don’t have enough practical management experience, so they insist on charging ahead too fast or they head in the wrong directions. Ultimately, they errantly burn capital.
Bottom-line: The solutions lie in avoiding the pitfalls implied in Dr. Drucker’s quote: “Arrogance is being proud of ignorance.”
New entrepreneurs need to temper their approach and be pragmatic – don’t allow conviction and passion to lead to unproductive exuberance. That’s what leads to chasing ill-health and results in failure.
Instead, seek Drucker-like expertise to fully understand your situation and to guide you. Then, you’ll be in a position to hire the right people at the right time, objectively calculate risk management, optimize processes for critical performance improvements, and adroitly fill the needs of customers for acceptance in the marketplace.
From the Coach’s Corner, a successful angel investor shares his insights: Tips for Increasing Cash Flow, Profits.
Here are two other resource links – my startup strategies published by The New York Times:
Been There… Done That… Here’s How – New York Times
Advice on Taking an Entrepreneurial Leap – New York Times
“When you play solitaire, you can only beat yourself.”
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Columnist Terry Corbell is also a business-performance consultant and profit professional. Click here to see his management services (many are available online). For a complimentary chat about your business situation or to schedule Terry Corbell as a speaker, why don’t you contact him today?
Do You Have A Toxic Relationship With Your Boss?
This may be the 21st century with a cornucopia of management textbooks for bosses, but a significant number of employees still complain about their supervisors lacking in professionalism. That’s according to a study by Wayne Hochwarter, a professor in management at Florida State University.
Dr. Hochwarter has long studied employee-employer relationships, as well as the dynamics that trigger poor performances, hostile workplace environments and tension. His 2011 study included responses from more than 400 employees in a myriad of industries.
The results:
- 42 percent of employees reported that their boss was concerned more with saving his or her own job than with developing and assisting employees to be productive.
- 42 percent said they failed to receive things that were promised more than once over the past year.
- More than 40 percent of workers said they would not acknowledge their boss if they ran into him or her on the street.
- 40 percent agreed with the statement that “the only fun thing about work is leaving.”
- 34 percent reported that their boss is “two-faced,” in that he or she is nice in person but speaks negatively behind the employee’s back.
- 32 percent indicated that they work for a “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.”
- 29 percent felt that their boss would “throw them under the bus” if it meant saving the boss’s own job.
- 24 percent caught their supervisor in a direct lie but never received an apology or explanation.
- 20 percent have heard a supervisor tell a co-worker that he or she could “get them fired if they wanted to.”
The professor reports many such workers feel vulnerable without any hope of improving their workplace environments.
“For workers in declining industries such as construction and manufacturing, catching on with a company able to offer comparable wages has been virtually impossible,” Dr. Hochwarter was quoted in a press release. “Plan B just doesn’t exist for many employees at the level it did five or 10 years ago.”
Not surprisingly, many of the workers fail to apply themselves for the welfare their companies, suffer from a resulting lack of sleep, and lack in self esteem.
In my experience as a business-performance consultant and human resources trainer, the study prompts me to make two responses:
- The Peter Principle seems applicable — “”In a hierarchy, every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence.” Many bosses are unqualified for management.
- There are sometimes two sides to such stories. Employees often needlessly point fingers and are culpable, too.
But Dr. Hochwarter’s study is eye-opening, and is a surprise considering the abundance of 21st century tools for bosses to become professional supervisors.
From the Coach’s Corner, here’s How To Deal With An Oppressive Employer.
Resource links for bosses:
Leadership Strategies to Profit from Employee Respect
Human Resources – Power Your Brand with Employee Empowerment
Management Best-Practices Include Solid Operations Checklists
21 Quick Tips to Avoid the Dark Side of Management
Some people climb the ladder of success. My boss walked under it.
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Columnist Terry Corbell is also a business-performance consultant and profit professional. Click here to see his management services (many are available online). For a complimentary chat about your business situation or to schedule Terry Corbell as a speaker, why don’t you contact him today?
Daily Deal Sites and Pricing Principles – What’s Sustainable and What Isn’t
Updated Feb. 9, 2012
Whether you’re an investor or small-business advertiser, there’s a new ominous warning about Groupon. The daily deal company has reported a $42 million loss for Q4 in 2011.
Not to be gauche, this portal has been warning about daily-deal red flags, such as Groupon and LivingSocial. Additionally, results from three Rice University studies serve as warnings for the industry, its investors, its advertisers and consumers.
Indeed, 2011, the third Rice study by a management professor, Dr. Utpal M. Dholakia, appears to draw such conclusions.
The study caught my eye because this business portal has long maintained it’s dangerous to sell products at the cheapest price in the marketplace vis-à-vis focusing on value and customer service. (See What are the Secrets for Success from Advertising?) Companies that focus solely on price attract the smallest segment of consumers – 18 percent – the least-desirable customers who make buying decisions solely on price. Such consumers are not loyal. Additionally, they’re the biggest complainers and more likely to return products.
But let’s consider Rice’s research.
For two years – from August, 2009 to March, 2011 – Dr. Dholakia’s third daily-deals study examined the outcomes for 324 businesses advertising with five daily-deals sites in 23 U.S. cities.
He concluded:
- 55.5 percent of businesses made a profit.
- 26.6 percent lost money.
- 17.9 percent broke even.
“Although close to 80 percent of deal users were new customers, significantly fewer users spent beyond the deal’s value or returned to purchase at full price,” he concludes. “48.1 percent of businesses indicated they would run another daily deal promotion, 19.8 percent said they would not, and 32.1 percent said they were uncertain.”
His study drew other warnings.
“Overall, our findings lead us to conclude that there are relatively few points of differentiation between the daily deal sites, making it harder for any one site to stand out from the others,” he adds.
More dire conclusions by Dr. Dholakia:
- Only 35.9 percent of customers returned to pay full retail price.
- Many advertisers aren’t loyal to their original daily deal sites – 72.8 percent of businesses will consider advertising on different sites.
- Just 35.9 percent of restaurants/bars and 41.5% of salons and spas will continue to run such promotions.
“The major take-away from the study is that not enough businesses are coming back to daily deals to make the industry sustainable in the long run,” Dr. Dholakia says. “And our results from three studies and close to 500 businesses surveyed show that the deals are nowhere close to the rates of financial success for participating businesses that some companies claim to be having.”
“The businesses that we see spending their marketing dollars on daily deal sites have dramatically cut their advertising budgets,” Dr. Dholakia warns. “This is a problem for businesses, because they’re not building their brand when they offer discounted prices for their products and services. Only about 20 percent of customers using daily deals return to businesses to buy at full price; customers acquired through other programs typically have much higher rates of full-price repurchases.”
Dr. Dholakia has a warning for consumers.
“If you’re going to purchase a voucher, make sure you use it before it expires,” he says. “Right now the getting is still good for the consumer, but that isn’t going to last much longer as these steep discounts won’t and can’t last very much longer.”
Not convinced? Consider another writer’s post: Why Groupon Is Poised For Collapse. I don’t know why investing in daily-deal sites makes sense.
Furthermore, a business will profit more from best-practices in traditional marketing and social media.
Such practices aren’t sustainable.
From the Coach’s Corner, here are best-practices in marketing:
How to Win Your Major Marketing Campaign
Strategies for Maximum Customer Loyalty, Profits
The Seven Steps to Higher Sales
“What kills a skunk is the publicity it gives itself.”
-Abraham Lincoln
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Columnist Terry Corbell is also a business-performance consultant and profit professional. Click here to see his management services (many are available online). For a complimentary chat about your business situation or to schedule Terry Corbell as a speaker, why don’t you contact him today?
Link between Financial Performance and Succession Planning
Companies that promote their chief executives from inside vis-à-vis recruiting from the outside have a much higher financial-success rate. In other words, successful companies identify and nurture their intellectual capital. It’s not just my experience. It’s been confirmed by a global human resources study.
The report comprised an analysis of 500 S&P non-financial companies from 1988 to 2007. “Homegrown CEO: The Key to Superior Long-Term Financial Performance is Leadership Succession,” was conducted by Indiana University and the international consulting firm, A.T. Kearney.
Its conclusions will work for both the public and private sectors.
From 25 industries, 36 companies were singled out including these global brands: Abbott Laboratories, Caterpillar, Colgate-Palmolive, DuPont, Exxon, FedEx, Honda, Johnson Controls, McDonald’s, Microsoft, Nike and United Technologies.
The study’s salient conclusion: Businesses that promoted CEOs as part of succession plan were more successful and their chief executives lasted on the job much longer.
“Moreover, the study found that no non-financial S&P 500 company with externally recruited CEOs generated 20-year performance numbers that surpassed or even equaled those of the top 36 in all of the study metrics,” according to A.T. Kearney’s Web site.
The results were based on these metrics:
- Return on assets
- Equity and investment
- revenue and earnings growth
- Earnings per share (EPS) growth
- Stock-price appreciation
Ironically, CEOs recruited from the outside proved to be more costly in other ways. The salary, bonus and equity incentives were 65 percent higher for such candidates. Additionally, 40 percent of them only lasted two years or less. More than 60 percent failed to last four years.
This means succession planning is crucial. Naturally, the promoted executive knows the firm’s culture, and must have a good track record with a positive leadership style developed over a number of years within the company.
The study’s four recommendations:
- Make certain the board is heavily involved in the process.
- The screening process must start early in the potential CEO’s career.
- The company should install a nominating committee, and should not abdicate its responsibilities to the incumbent CEO.
- Get buy-in from the incumbent CEO about the concept.
Further, my sense is that you’ll need a plan for a series of lateral moves so the talent gets intimately aware of all your company’s processes. The person will grow if provided development and training programs, as well as placed in various leadership roles and special projects. It’s best to identify and nurture the growth of all future leaders.
This is also good for overall teamwork and morale. Other employees will notice and will appreciate you more as an employer.
By the way, if properly implemented, your company won’t suffer if a person gets an attractive offer and leaves prematurely. To use a baseball metaphor, you’ll barely even notice the vacancy – because you’ll have a great bench from which to draw.
So, if you want a longtime foundation for financial success, strategically establish succession planning as a policy. You’ll be happy you did. For all the study’s details, see: “Home-Grown” CEO.
From the Coach’s Corner, here are related Biz Coach resource links:
Management — Why It’s a Mistake to Overlook Succession Planning
HR Management: Which Employees Are Most-Likely to Quit?
Human Resources – Profit By Not Letting Your Stars Become Free Agents
Are You Successful In Keeping Female Talent?
If Mergers & Acquisitions Tempt You, Consult HR Pros
“Let our advance worrying become advance thinking and planning.”
-Winston Churchill
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Terry Corbell is a business-performance consultant and profit professional. Click here to see his management services (many are available online). For a complementary chat about your business situation or to schedule Terry Corbell as a speaker, why don’t you contact him today?
Solutions for 3 Dangers to Small Business, Travelers’ White Paper
More than 50 percent of small businesses report they face three dangers – tax regulations, healthcare costs and poor disaster planning – according to an insurance company study. Nearly 33 percent cite government regulations as a salient obstacle to their success.
However, most respondents now say they’re optimistic about revenue growth and hiring workers.
That’s according to a nationwide study by the Travelers Institute, which is the Washington, D.C. public-policy arm of the Hartford-based Travelers Companies.
The organization embarked on a campaign: To spotlight the public-policy issues that are perils to small businesspeople; as well as the solutions in March 2011. It’s worth noting that senior Travelers’ management is staging panel discussions throughout the nation for the remainder of the year.
“Travelers is committed to being a constructive participant in the public policy dialogue with regard to important issues facing our industry,” wrote Jay Fishman, the Travelers chairman and CEO on the institute’s Web site.
“We hope to contribute to solutions on a wide range of issues that face our customers, our agents and brokers, and the communities we serve,” he added.
Conclusions from the small-business survey:
- More than 60 percent are over-burdened by tax-related issues, government compliance and mounting healthcare requirements
- Half of them cited health insurance
- 47 percent said licensing, permitting and inspection issues are an unnecessary weight
- 52 percent indicated government regulations depress small business
- More than half aren’t prepared for a disaster
More insights from the institute:
- Regulatory costs for small businesses are 36 percent greater per employee than big business
- Regulatory burdens — 33 percent of respondents cite the federal government; 34 percent for state and 16 percent for local or county
- Costs for coping with federal regulations – companies employing fewer than 20 workers spend $10,585 per employee per year but companies with 500 or more employees spend $7,755 per employee per year
- Tax compliance costs to small business – $18 billion annually
- The nation has 27.3 million small businesses
- 600,000 new businesses are started each year
- The tax code has four times more words than the Bible
The study included the opinions of 600 small-business owners, employing 50 or fewer people, from Feb. 18 to March 11, 2011. (Read the Travelers Institute White Paper.)
My sense: Travelers is on the right track, and is to be commended. Over-zealous government regulation is a threat to our collective political liberties, which is also a menace to our economic liberties. Let’s wish the institute luck, and remember we must all participate in the public-policy process.
From the Coach’s Corner, here are four resource links:
11 Strategies to Keep your Small Business Floating above Water
How to Ease Debt-Collection Headaches
Step-by-Step Solutions for a Company Turnaround
19 Tips to Protect Your Core Assets from a Disaster
“If you have ten thousand regulations you destroy all respect for the law.”
-Winston Churchill
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Terry Corbell is a business-performance consultant and profit professional. Click here to see his management services (many are available online). For a complementary chat about your business situation or to schedule Terry Corbell as a speaker, why don’t you contact him today?
