Top Ten Ways to Help Your Business Save Money-Part 2

This is the continuation of my blog post from yesterday!

6. Stay at home.

 One of the most cost effective ways to save money for your business is by making the transition to web conferencing. While there are some disadvantages, technology has made it so that

7. Create a prospect-driven culture.

If you create a prospect-driven culture in your organization, you can effectively eliminate the need for costly prospect lists.You may not have as many names, but you will have more potential customers at a much reduced price.

8. Source the Crowd.

I know I have repeatedly mentioned this, but I strongly believe that crowd sourcing is one of the most fundamental technological advances of our time. For those of you who don't know what that is yet, check out my Mad Men blog post from September here!

9. Use the Rule of 3

Always get three quotes for everything before proceeding. You would not do that with your home, so don't do it with your business.

10. Use People Lease

We can not only save you money, but we can also save you time..and what is more valuable than your time? Give us a call today to find out the difference that People Lease can make in your business.

You can reach me at Jdanner@peoplelease.com

Top Ten Ways To Help Your Business Save Money-part 1

As November rolls in, most of us are getting focused on our budget for 2011. I don't know about you guys, but there is nothing like budget planning to get me focused on saving money! Here are a few quick tips to help save your business money.

1. Go Green

While there are a lot of negative feelings out there associated with climate change and even more negative feelings associated with governmental-led environmental change, saving money is always a good thing. Going green saves a bundle. A great way to look at how much energy is being wasted, is to go to energy star for small businesses(energystar.gov). However, even the simplest things like making sure that your computers and other electronics are turned off at night can save your company thousands.

2. Advertising

Advertising of the Mad Men days is quickly going out of vogue, while cheaper options such as social media, blogs, and e-newsletters are becoming more popular, more effective, and tremendously cheaper.

3. Interns

One of People Lease's newest endeavors is the beginning of a partnership with Mississippi
Universities to bring some of Mississippi's brightest to our office. They get some great, real life experience and we get great energy, bright ideas, and hard workers for almost nothing.

4. Pick it up!

Delivery charges can add a shocking surcharge to your order. So run that errand on your way to work and save a bundle.

5. Hang up your phone plan.

Phone plans can make or break your business. Reevaluating the number of lines you need and the company you are with save your business a ton. Actually, sometimes just calling your phone company and asking them for a better rate can be highly effective.

The Office

On Monday, I moved across the building to my new office. To be polite, I'm fairly certain that the furniture was picked out by a straight man. To be honest, it looks more like a blind, straight man designed the layout....While i was investigating news desks..I ran across these! Enjoy!

This desk looks like a techies dream

 Airplane wing desk

Gym + work...think that might get tiring..

Now this might add a little pep to those Friday meetings!!

My office. (Try to not be jealous!! )

Send me your ideas of what I can do spice it up at Jdanner@peoplelease.com

Why I am going to miss my 4 hour commute

For those of you that don’t know me, for the past 6 months, I have been driving about 1.5-2 hrs every day to work. So I usually spend about 4 hours in the car. At first, it was brutally painful. I couldn’t stand it. It made me a little crazy. And now I can’t live without it.

1.       It gives me down time. 

 Some days after work, I am just spent. I am emotionally, physically, & creatively tapped. I don’t want to talk. I do not want to be around people. So, I listen to some Stern or Oprah or NPR..and by the time I get home I am ready to start again. I am no longer tapped. I can make some business calls, do a little research, knock out some work. Without the built in down time, I probably would never get around to it at night.

2.       It gives me family time.

I have always talked to my mother a lot on the phone. In fact, sometimes it seems like it would be more convenient if we just had a constant stream of contact. However, since I hardly ever spoke to my dad. Now we talk at least once a week. While this doesn’t have direct affect on my business, having me being more centered, more focused on work at work is never a bad thing.

3.       It gives me reflective time.

A lot has happened in the past five years. I graduated college. Started graduate school.  Got diagnosed with a major illness. Got an MBA. Bought a house. Started a business. Got married. Got a Ph.D. Started another Business. Changed Careers.  Got well. Needless to say, there is a lot to think about.  A lot to process. The quietness of my drive has forced me to reflect in an unprecedented way. While occasionally painful, this has been very therapeutic. It has helped me realize some personal & some business mistakes that I have made along the way. Without this reflection period, I might have very well have made the same mistakes again.

4.       It gives me dream time.

This may sound a little teenage-girl-ish…but in order to accomplish anything in life, you first have to dream it. The reflective time has provided me the ability to see the past 5 years in a new way so that I can envision where I want my life & business to go and how I want to get there.

5.       It gives me planning time.

This is perhaps the biggest benefit. I have the time to make a game plan. Not just for the day, but for the week, month, year, next 5 years, etc. It is an invaluable gift. I plan everything from phone calls, to presentations, to charting the flow of business. Without a plan, you can almost never succeed.

When we finally move, it will be difficult to make the transition. The one thing I know is how important it is to make time for me & my thoughts.  I would love to get your thoughts. You can contact me at Jdanner@peoplelease.com

The Value of Evaluating Your Product

 

This weekend, I stopped by a new clothing store and (big shocker!) started talking to the employee about the owner's philosophy of business.She told me that he gets great clothing deals off of ebay. If something isn’t selling in the store, he just sells it back to ebay and adjusts what he buys based on his clientele.

While this approach to merchandise might be unpractical for a lot of business owners, the overall approach this guy has taken is something I think we all can learn from. He has separated himself from his product. Instead of being too emotionally invested (and thus, unrealistic), this guy has developed a model so that he is constantly re-evaluating what he is offering his customers.

1.       You become your own competition.

When your focus is on selling your product, it is easy to ignore its weaknesses. If you make a conscious effort to investigate the weaknesses, you will be able to improve your product. If you don't, you are leaving the door wide open for a competitor to swoop in and improve your original product. Recognizing your weaknesses can actually become your strength.

2.       Customers appreciate honesty more than hype.

The last time I bought a TV at best buy, I sought out the advice of two salesmen. The first salesman told me about this fantastic TV that never had any problems and was being sold at an unheard of low-price. I looked around the store some more and ran into the second salesman. He told me about a TV that was on sale, it got pretty great reviews, but he told me that some issues with one of its features. I bought the second salesman’s TV because his ability to tell me something negative about his product demonstrated his honesty to me. As it turns out, it was the exact same TV.  As it turns out, the product only seemed better to me because of the salesman. Honesty sells more than hype.

3.       You gain a deeper understanding of how your product is useful to your customers.

Even the most seasoned salesman can gain more understanding of the usefulness of his product to specific markets. Having the ability to step back and evaluate that usefulness will give you a deeper understanding of the product and might give you some insight on how it can be useful to a completely different sector of people.

Hope this provides some insight! Send me your thoughts at jdanner@peoplelease.com

The Play-Doh Debate

I recently read an article about Manhattan Free School, where high-school students can take classes in everything from comic-book-making to Play-Doh sculpting (whether they are 7 or 17). The idea behind the school is that when students are given a choice of what to learn, rather than being forced to attend certain classes, they will find what they are passionate about and they will eagerly learn. In essence, with freedom comes responsibility.  For most in the educational world, this model seems a little impractical and a lot far-fetched.  The business world, however, is a different story.

Google has famously subscribed to this model with their immensely employee-friendly work environment. Employees are hired based on their overall skill set and talents and are then able to choose which position they fit into the best.  Likewise, Apple also subscribes to this freedom bears responsibility idea by giving their employees similar degrees of freedom.

According to an article in the Washington Post, “Empowering leadership means that you have the foresight to share power with the people you manage—you give your employees opportunities to work on significant projects and participate in decision-making, and you remove bureaucratic constraints and show confidence that their performance will be high. When you hand over a project and give employees greater freedom, you’re giving them space to explore many creative solutions.”

In the world of business articles and blogging, I have found very few who have written articles encouraging more control. So what’s the deal? If managers believe that freedom is key to creative power, why are there an unprecedented number of unhappy employees? And why is that unhappiness connected to feelings of being stifled under managerial control.

I was recently talking to a friend of mine who works as an HR exec about this very issue. She suggested that while many of us say that we fundamentally believe that freedom is key to creativity, few of us are actually willing to implement it in our company because it just seems so risky. After all, Google and Apple employ those that are already super-creative and are the best of the best. Could this model work on hourly employees too?

What do you think? Is creativity and drive produced through freedom? Would you give your employees freedom?

Give me your thoughts…As always, you can catch me at JDanner@peoplelease.com.  

The Value of Accountability

Yesterday, there was a fascinating article in the New York Times (http://nyti.ms/cyuBXV ) about the relationship of Mark Zuckerberg (of facebook fame) and his business partner/accountability partner/friend Sheryl Sandberg. Every Monday and Friday they have a closed door meeting where they discuss strategy, deals, and personnel. This accountability partnership is credited with keeping the famously introverted Zuckerberg grounded. 

In the course of my life, I have had 3 such relationships. All of these relationships have evolved from bosses that turned into colleagues that turned into friends. The effect that this has had on my career has been astounding. Here are some of the ways.



It keeps me focused and on target


When you are talking about your goals and your vision on a weekly basis (both for your business and personal), it helps weed the fluff out of your life. My meetings are inspiring and keep me pumped up and focused on what I am trying to accomplish.



It prevents me from getting “the big head”

Overly educated people such as myself love to give each other awards. It is actually one of our favorite things to do. So, when my moment of glory comes around, it is helpful to have someone bring me out of my self-glorifying cloud. I accomplish nothing when I am thinking about how great I am, but I can accomplish a lot when I get back to what really matters-the vision of the business and my own goals for success.



It increases my efficiency

When you know that you are going to talk to someone at least once a week about what you have accomplished and how those tasks have moved the organization closer to its overall goals, there is a much bigger chance that you are going to work your butt off. In the light of accountability, the online shopping and the long lunch seem a lot less important.



It gives me new ideas

I come to the table with a very limited pool of my own ideas, so I am always on the troll for more. Plus, it is always beneficial to hear someone else’s point of view. Some of my best ideas have come from theses brainstorming sessions with these men.



It helps me let go of the ideas that just aren’t working

Like most mildly driven people, when I get an idea, I have a hard time letting go of it if it isn’t working. For every idea that does work there are six others that don’t. Occasionally, it is hard for me to recognize when it isn’t working since it’s my baby. Nobody wants to be the one to tell you that you have spinach in your teeth. Likewise, few want to be the one to tell you that something you have poured yourself into just isn’t working anymore. Having someone that will give you an honest assessment of your work is an invaluable resource.