Many employers are forced or make the decision to lay off or fire long term and costly employees.
Then seemingly days later add those same roles to their jobs list online in hopes of getting a ‘deal’ from some unemployed person with a lot of experience and talent or graduate fresh out of college, but pay them half of what they should be getting for the work they will do.
This type of business is short term and yields a high turnover as soon as those new hires find a better job somewhere else. In the end the employer who takes this approach loses their original talented staff, the trust and dedication of the remaining employees and productivity goes down.
The best way to avoid these kinds of problems is to do the following:
1) Use a lot of common sense and have plenty of understanding.
2) Give credit and praise where it is due.
3) Pay close attention to what all of your employees are doing for you and think deeply about what will be lost if they are gone one day for whatever reason.
4) Never do anything to anyone that you would not feel is right to do to yourself or people you know. There is nearly always other options available.
5) Always keep communication open as to troubles the company may be facing so that your dedicated team is prepared to support the company.
You have to walk before you can run when it comes to business. It isn’t possible to sustainably go from a few thousand dollars in sales per month to millions without the proper infrastructure.
In running it takes years to go from one level of fitness to another. If you are running 6:30 minute mile pace for a 10k, you may only knock off another 15 seconds per mile after a year of running 50 mile weeks based on your current level of fitness.
In business you can’t expect to grow at a manageable pace without putting in the proper infrastructure. Runners build a strong cardiovasucular, neuromuscular, energy and motor systems from years of daily work. You must build a strong product development, delivery, support, employee, accounting and marketing system for success.
One of the best sources of new contacts and business is a trade show. I’ve been attending various shows since 2003 and find value every time. It is a great opportunity to catch up on new technology, keep an eye on any competition, getting the pulse of buyers and most importantly meeting new people in your industry.
Some of the shows we like to attend are CES, PMA, RetailVision, E3, Interop, CTIA and Photokina.
Attending a trade show is generally a great ROI, but having a booth is even better. You don’t have to go the uber expensive route with a large expo area near the doors. There are several great options for smaller companies.
Many times you can pick up a table near the back of the room at a reduced rate either well in advance of the show or with a few weeks of the show when they are trying to close out inventory. Our first few booths were under $1k.
No question, it was worth the investment. You’ll be amazed at the different type of people that stop by; your end users, potential resellers and high up executives with entourages.
If you are a more mature company with a longer roster of contacts you can do a hotel suite. This is actually the best bang-for-your-buck. Invite your contacts up for a private meeting with no distractions. It is best to pick a location near the venue. If you cant arrange this you may need to hire a driver or have someone on staff handle driving duties with a rental vehicle.
Attending in one form or another is the goal. Be in the space and be confident, attendees are open to hearing and trying new ideas. Get out there and shake hands!
One of the first questions a new business owner must answer is “What should I name the company?” or “What should I call my product?” In a cluttered market space it is important for your name to be memorable.
It is worth spending some time on, but don’t bang your head on the wall for weeks trying to get it perfect. Pick something that feels right and run with it. I’ll lay out a few of the ideas that worked for us. You can apply these concepts to company names, product names or service names.
There are several reasons to get a name right:
You don’t want to have to explain the name after every meeting with a potential client.
How do you spell that?
You don’t want to pigeonhole yourself in to a niche or segment. Example: you don’t want to call yourself “Matt’s Tractors” if you plan to eventually expand beyond tractors to sell ATVs or side by side vehicles.
You don’t want to have a city, state, region in your name and then move the business away from that area.
You don’t want an offensive name in another language or culture.
Plain words don’t stand out in a crowd.
Step 1.
Brain dump a list of names. Quantity and diversity is the key here. We focused on three questions:
When a company decides to go with outsourcing some or all of their software development, they now get to deal with the language barrier. This is something new to a team leader for a company who manages his/her current local team in one spoken/written language. Once you are dealing with a programmer or team leader in another country, it can reduce efficiency in regard to getting any project scope understood and the job started.
This happens because of heavy accents, fast talkers, inadequate translators on the call, poor translation software being used by the offshore people. This can lead to many misunderstandings and delays if not properly managed or monitored.
If you find a company with moderate to good English skills where you do not need translators, it is a real plus. Many people in American companies think that because there were so many British in India that the India based programmers have the best chance of understanding their English, this is not always true. The British speak, read and write Oxford English and in several ways it is different from American English. In addition, many of the Indian programmers have a heavy accent and speak fast.
Filipino offshore outsourcing companies are thought to have better English because of the American presence in the Philipines for so many years. However, management usually has the best English skills and the programmers commonly having the same quality as the Indians. This can be aggrevating but they all mean well so patience is needed in extra doses to get through this.
If you manage to have an offshore outsourcing company with programmers that have moderate to good English skills, plan to patiently work with them to grow their skills to fit your needs. It will usually pay off in the end. As well, be sure to take the time to adequatly explain all areas of your expectations clearly so that they fully understand. They usually want to get the job on time and to your expectaions. If you do not make sure to go through every part of what you want, you may be let down.
April 23rd 
Posted by Korey
