While it is certainly unsettling to get downgraded, the resulting unsureness that some companies will feel creates opportunities for their competitors. Whether the crisis is caused by the debt, caused by irresponsible funding, caused by short-sighted politicians or whatever you perceive it to be, businesses will continue to innovate and people will continue to live their lives. Companies with sound fundamentals, a solid talent development strategy and a courageous sales and marketing plan will continue to grow and prosper. What is the situation with your company?
Debt crisis creates opportunities for companies of courage
August 7th, 2011It’s been busy for this business speaker
March 5th, 2011
I was just doing a quick review of recent and pending activity. I have been busy. I was a featured speaker at the Self Storage Association’s Executive Ski Workshop, where I spoke on the power of branding and how local branding is more important than ever.
I did three sessions for the first Virtual Self StoragExpo with the good people at StorSuccess and Bitsonthewire. I talked about training sales people, specific sales tactics and trends in the industry.
I lead a webinar for my friends at the Mini Storage Messenger on how people still like to deal with people…if they like how those people treat them.
I am getting ready to do two sessions for the great folks at Inside Self Storage for their March world expo trade show. The one session is about conflict in the workplace…how to handle things when you don’t like the people you work with, your customers are rude, and your boss is a jerk. Not that I have first hand experience with any of these scenarios, but I can give a good talk even on things I don’t know personally. ( wink) The other session is a panel on new technologies that I will moderate. We will talk about all kinds of new tools from automated delinquent notices to the new self storage kiosk in a pocket. I hope the attendees will have lots of questions and stories to share about what they are using, what they have tried and what they hope to test soon.
I am doing lots of business speaker activities for the storage industry while helping the crew at PhoneSmart get ready for its busy season. I really like what we are seeing from consumer demand. I really like how well our crew has developed in the last few years and all of our new tools, tactics and processes.
And my favorite business speaking event is not far off. The PhoneSmart Hawaii Un-Conference is coming up June. You don not want to miss that.
A keynote speaker asks if you love work or hate work.
August 4th, 2010A keynote speaker asks if you love work or hate work.
It is typical for people to have a love-hate relationship with their workplace, their co-workers and superiors. If the people running the organization are paying attention, they can use this to improve the business weekly.
Take employee comments seriously. If they compliment you and tell you things that they love about work, try to find a way to do more of the same. If they tell you something they hate or bring up a problem, take this very seriously. Use the problem to find some root causes, expose some weaknesses, uncover some sloppiness. Then do something about it. Create an initiative, a training exercise or a new protocol. Measure results. Reexamine the process and measure results again.
If you do this correctly, employees can love to work at your place of business, even if there are things they hate about it, because you try to address what they hate and make it less hateful.
Do you love to work where you work, or do you hate it?
Keynote speaker recommends a carry-in
July 24th, 2010As a keynote speaker, consultant and business executive, I am often asked how to keep employees motivated. At our PhoneSmart call center, we work on motivation issues every day. Taking hundreds of phone calls a day can wear down even the most self motivated positive thinker. After all the things I have done and heard about to motivate employees, a carry-in lunch is by far the best.
Carry-in lunches are a great way to motivate your people and get them working together on a fun project. We try to have one at least once a month. You would be amazed to see how many excellent chefs you have on staff. People have so much fun preparing their favorite recipes and eating other people’s favorites. People spend a good week getting excited about what they will prepare and talking with everyone else about what they are preparing. The team work and cooperation that surround preparing a carry-in and cleaning up afterwards are very special and bonding moments.
You could not get better food from any restaurant or any caterer. Our carry-ins are delicious. You will be especially pleased if you have a diverse workforce with a wide range of ethnic heritages, because you and your coworkers will get to taste interesting treats you would otherwise never know about. The pride people feel when everyone raves about their dishes goes a long way to making people feel good about the people they work with and their workplace.
We sometimes have special theme carry-ins based on a holiday or a particular style of cooking. It is a lot of fun to see how everyone interprets the theme through their cooking. You’ll find that employees will become famous for a dish or two, and popular demand will mean they bring those dishes often.
Get this tradition started in your workplace and you will love the results. The eating will be great and your people will feel really good about it.
Order “Rent it Up!” here
July 3rd, 2010When acting as a keynote speaker at self storage meetings I like to give some good tips for renting up all the empty space self storage owners have available.
I put all these tips into “Rent it Up!”, my book on self storage sales and marketing. You can order “Rent it Up!” by following this link.
You can also see some reviews of “Rent it Up!” on Amazon.
Please let me know how you like it.
