Your cash flow, credit access, pricing and profit margins are all directly or indirectly at-risk with the mandates to increase the minimum wage for unskilled workers.
Workers should be paid well, if they’re good performers and your business is profitable. However, several areas have increased the minimum wage to $15 an hour or higher for unskilled workers and it seems preposterous for small businesses, and it is.
Minimum-wage proponents fail to understand important considerations.
Welcome to the age of entitlement attitudes. Instead of workers having the good sense and discipline to pursue education and training to earn higher wages, they expect others to make sacrifices for them.
Insidious self-indulgent attitudes are pervasive in our culture. We see it everywhere — in business, families, government and schools.
If you share this concern, you don’t have to become a victim. Continue to speak your mind, and take steps to protect your business.
Two key mistakes to avoid: Don’t cut your business muscles — don’t arbitrarily slash marketing and lay off employees.
Two key mistakes to avoid: Don’t cut your business muscles — don’t arbitrarily slash marketing and lay off employees.
Implement these nine strategies:
1. Thoroughly assess your situation. Review your business requirements, profit margins and projections. That includes determining your break-even point as an integral part of your financial planning.
2. Evaluate your needs in human resources. Thoroughly review your workforce. Assess the performance of each employee and avoid the 12 common errors to in evaluations. Next, determine whether you need to hire permanent workers or outsource your work.
3. If you decide to hire, make it count. Small businesses, especially, need people who are good fit culturally. Upgrade your staff where possible. So, screen resumes to hire the best people and conduct behavioral interviews.
4. Treat your employees as investments to reduce costly turnover. Start by engaging your employees for business success. Focus on employee morale as high morale propels profits. There are easy ways to boost your employees’ morale. For maximum profit, partner with your employees.
5. Investigate ways to cut costs. Make sure you make unemotional, objective decisions. Use best practices to avoid making reactionary decisions.
6. Use best practices in your pricing. To cope with rising costs, review your pricing strategy.
7. Focus on revenue growth. At least half of a company’s obstacle to revenue growth are actually internally driven. So get on track for revenue increases.
8. Enhance customer loyalty. Optimize revenue with a stellar customer-loyalty program for repeat sales and referrals by energizing your customer-loyalty program.
9. Set goals with strategic planning. Whatever your entrepreneurial dreams, focus on the right details by developing a vision in setting goals.
From the Coach’s Corner, suggested reading:
Classic Red Flags You’re about to Lose a Sale – How to Save It — You’re in the hunt for new business. You’ve done your research about a prospective anchor client. You’ve had some preliminary discussions. Now, you’re seated with the person and making your case. But will you seal the deal?
You Can Get Bigger Corporate Accounts in 5 Steps — So your company needs to grow and you’ve decided to go after bigger fish. Getting bigger corporate accounts is easier, if you develop the right system. But not only must you have reason to be confident, you must position yourself and your company to instill confidence in your prospects.
11 Tips for the Best Business Mobile Web Site — If you operate a retail business, it’s increasingly important for your Web site to be easy-to-use for mobile users. The use of smartphones and tablets is skyrocketing, especially among Millennials — young adults aged 32 and under. Studies also show the majority of mobile aficionados use their devices to access the Internet.
“That government is best which governs least.”
-Henry David Thoreau
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