(Time to read this Blog is about 3 minutes)
Before we get to the main topic, here are a few things to get you thinking or smiling:
- My Biz Quote of the week:
“Do you spend a lot of your time trying to light a fire under the bottom 20% of your Team…or in coaching, challenging, supporting and thanking your top 20%?”
…Donald Cooper.
- Quick Biz Tip:
Everything you do, or don’t do, communicates:
Everything you do, or don’t do, let’s customers know if you’re competent and how much you care. An excellent Team exercise is to sit down with your Team for just one hour and make a list of all things you do, at every customer touch-point, that make you look incompetent, or uncaring.
Then, together, come up with a solution for each one. Commit to extraordinary customer outcomes and determine specifically what will be done, by whom, by when, at what cost, measured how, to fix it. Then, follow up. The world is run by those who follow up.
This is the perfect time of year to bake cookies. This wonderful cookie recipe comes with an important business lesson. These amazing Chocolate Chip, Oatmeal and Pecan Cookies were originally made famous by a small bakery in Dorset, Ontario. We used to fly to Dorset in my brother’s float plane just to buy them. They were that good.
But, one day, the Bakery owner did a costing on the cookies and determined that he was losing money. So, rather than just put the price up a bit on his best-selling item, he stopped making the very thing that made him famous.
There’s a great business lesson here for all of us, and it’s this, “Do whatever you do really, really well…and then have the guts to charge a decent price for it.” Remember, nobody will ever think you’re worth more than you do.
Anyway, back to the cookies. The lady who worked in the bakery took pity on us and secretly gave us the famous recipe…and now, we share it with you. Simply click here.
- Canada’s most and least happy Provinces. According to a recent Survey, Quebec is Canada’s happiest Province with a ‘Happiness Score of 75%. Saskatchewan is the least happy, with a score of just 53. Ontario is also at the bottom of the list with a ‘Happiness Score’ of 55.
- Productivity in the Canadian construction sector is falling. While Canada’s overall labour productivity per hour worked has risen 27.5% since 1997, productivity in the construction sector has fallen 5.8% over that span.
Now, to this week’s important topic:
Four questions to answer to improve your business in 2025:
Question #1: Dealing with non-performance.
In what existing positions in our business would it make a big difference if we replaced mediocre or toxic staff with talented top-performers?
Question #2: Recruiting for new positions to help us grow.
What new key positions do we need to create and fill with expert top-performers to guide our business to where we commit to be in 3 years?
Question #3: Improving performance through effective staff training.
What additional Staff Training, for whom, in which Departments, done effectively, will make a big difference in our business in 2025?
Question #4: Improving performance with new equipment, technology or systems.
What new equipment, technology or systems upgrades will make a big difference in our business in 2025?
Sit down for 90 minutes with some of the best minds and hearts from all across your business and ask and answer these four questions. You’ll be amazed at what you discover. Then ask the magic question for each opportunity that you commit to…‘Specifically what will be done, by whom, by when, at what cost, with what outcomes, measured how and rewarded how?’
That’s it for this week…
Stay safe…live brilliantly!
Donald Cooper
Donald Cooper speaks and coaches internationally on management, marketing, and profitability. He can be reached by email at donald@donaldcooper.com in Toronto, Canada.
