Business development

Build your business through chamber of commerce

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Build your business by getting involved in your chamber of commerce. Here are 3 suggestions: 1. Participate in chamber functions. You’re familiar with the monthly networking event. What about seminars, workshops or expos? Consider offering a presentation. Become recognized by your peers as an expert; a “go-to” person. This presentation could be part of a … Read more

Using suggestions builds, maintains morale

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Every business encounters employee issues on occasion. Any number of factors can cause tension, unhappiness and other disruptive feelings.

LightbulbThere are ways to combat this. One way to let employees know they are appreciated is to use their suggestions. This may sound obvious, but some managers apparently don’t understand.

Not all suggestions can be implemented, of course. But some can. And how you handle each situation helps determine how well your decisions sits with the employee. Here are four steps for handling suggestions:

1. Acknowledge the idea. Thank the employee for offering the idea. Emphasize that you’re pleased with the person’s interest in helping the firm improve its operations, bottom line, and so forth.

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Learn to improvise while networking

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Business networking events, like other programs, sometimes don’t proceed as planned. Or, they weren’t formatted as you thought. Do you sulk and walk away? Or do you turn the unfortunate into a positive?

traits of a leader, how to be a good leader, being a good leader, how to be a managerI recently learned of an event that I thought was open only to members of the local Chamber of Commerce. It was a pre-Grand Opening event for a new dessert place in town. I thought, Great! Check out a new business, and get in some networking. Imagine my surprise, then, when I noticed a line out front of the building. Turns out the business had broadcast the event, so dozens (perhaps hundreds) of people showed up.

Good for them. As for me, I needed to improvise.

My first step entailed scoping the crowd. I was looking for any familiar faces, particularly local business people. Didn’t see any. Hmmm.

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Be disciplined with your time

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Time management tip: Review non-productive emails after hours

If you’re like most people, you volunteer for a number of non-profit organizations. That’s great. I highly recommend it. (I’m involved with the Rotary Club of New Berlin, the New Berlin Chamber of Commerce, the southeastern Wisconsin chapter of JDRF and a Milwaukee-area ham radio organization.)

Those organizations and the volunteers involved with them regularly send out emails asking for advice, help or information. I imagine you promptly respond to each message. I have. It’s difficult not to. Due to my background in customer service and sales, I tend to react to messages quickly. That’s the problem.

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Reminders regarding your online presence

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Three reminders on a variety of topics related to your online presence. These thoughts were triggered by recent experiences. Perhaps I can save you some problems.

1. Visit your websites daily. Make sure they are visible. Perhaps the hosting firm experienced a problem. (GoDaddy has had several issues over the past eight months or so.) If there is a problem, contact the hosting firm immediately. I have found Twitter to be quite effective for this purpose, but you can contact them directly, too. Bear in mind that the problem could be confined to a select number of websites. The hosting firm may not know about the problem until customers (people like you) contact them.

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