Terry Greenhut, Business Editor
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What Successful Managers Have In Common

Managers who succeed in growing profitable, enduring businesses tend to display similar traits. They have the ability to see all sides of their problems both professionally and personally and are constantly working toward finding and executing solutions. They know that they can’t do it alone, that they require the help of everyone in their business and in their personal lives, so they train themselves to work with others in varying circumstances.

Qualities of a Successful Manager

A winning manager always keeps in mind that the business exists to make a profit and it can only do that consistently if he or she truly cares that the best possible product is being produced by happy well trained employees.

Lead Your Employees to Succeed

Noting the difference between a production employee and one who manages others. As a production employee you had the luxury of only having to think about the work you were producing, at the moment, and how doing so benefitted you and the company. As a manager you now have to think about how the work that everyone does benefits all of the employees, the customers and, of course, the entire business. You can no longer function on the “What’s in it for me” mentality. Once again, as a manager, you will be a success when you lead everyone in your care to be successful.

Back To Basics – Employee Mgmt

By definition: Management is the skill of being able to plan, lead, communicate, control, and execute by using a group of people to successfully achieve the objectives of the company or organization. A manager is the person who guides, coaches, and controls another person or group of people focused on common goals or outcomes.

If You Were the Customer, What Would You Do?

Your choices, like the average consumer, boil down to basically two: You can have it fixed in one of several ways, or you can decide that the vehicle has outlived its usefulness to you and sell, junk or trade it for something new or newer. Your decision will depend upon several factors.

They Held My Seat Hostage

It’s been awhile since I did a rant about the airlines. I thought I would leave them alone if they didn’t bother me, but as usual they started another war with their amazing lack of business sense and their worse customer relations techniques.

What’s Your Business Philosophy?

Do you have a basic philosophy for your business? If you went to a banker to borrow money for expansion or new equipment and were asked to describe the basic philosophy of your business, how would you answer? How would you convince this lender to loan you money based on the way you do business and what you see in your future and that of the industry? What could you tell him or her that would show there’s a high probability you will be able to repay the loan?

Choose Your Words Carefully

Whether doing business with strangers or longtime customers, the same rules of etiquette need to be applied. We never want to take liberties and feel that we can talk to customers the way we do our golf buddies. People can be easily offended, and it would be a shame to lose sales because our sense of humor doesn’t match our customers’ or because we don’t control the use of inappropriate language. Even if the customer is using off-color words or phrases, we cannot take that as a cue that it’s OK to join in.

Hold on to What You’ve Got

Most of the time I teach people in our industry how to run profitable businesses by using proper sales and management techniques. Many of you have learned your lessons well and have gone on to build very successful businesses. Your reward for all of your hard work comes in the form of a sense of accomplishment and, of course, money. As good citizens, you’ve paid taxes on the money you’ve made and hopefully put the rest to work to make you more of it. Many of you have invested in real estate, either land, buildings, or both. Others have tried the stock market, bonds, annuities and other business ventures, hopefully all lucrative. Some of you have put your money in banks feeling that even though there wasn’t much to be made, it was safe.

How Expenses Can Sneak Up on You and What You Can Do about It

Anyone who has been in the transmission or auto-repair business for a while has experienced this: You come to one of those rare points in time when you think you’ve purchased all the equipment you need, all of your major bills are paid, your debts are all manageable, and you start to feel like you can finally take some of the profits out of the company that you worked so hard to make. Then you wake up. It was a nice dream, wasn’t it? The reality is that there is always something more to purchase or a new or increased expense with which to contend. There’s always a new tool or machine that you yourself or someone else convinces you that you just can’t live without, while at the same time every utility and government agency is working as hard as it can to get you, the small-business person, to pay more.

How Does the Stock Market Affect Your Business?

The stock market is a venue for people who want to gamble on something many of them think they can control by doing a lot of research and constant tracking of the companies in which they invest. In point of fact you can follow your companies all you want. You can find out lots of information that will tell you how strong their sales are as opposed to their costs. You can check the background of all their executives and look into their relationships with other companies. In fact, with the Internet putting so much information right in front of you on your computer screen, you might think you can find out everything you need to know about how well companies are doing and how their stocks should behave on the market. One little problem though: Some of the best companies simply follow the market up or down, their individual performance notwithstanding. In other words, when the Dow Jones drops it takes these great companies with it no matter how well they are doing.

The Older We Get

Aging is not always a pleasant subject with which to deal. It tends to slow us down, make us forgetful and force us to change the way we go about our everyday lives. Although deep down inside most of us will be 25 forever, our bodies don’t help us keep that promise. Our brains tell our arms and legs which way to go but they don’t always obey, and remembering everything that used to be automatic becomes a struggle, so we have to continually think a move or two ahead.
I’ve found, as I’ve aged, that the simpler I keep things the more chance I’ll have of remembering them. This is especially true in dealing with customers. If I follow the same routines and tell the truth all the time there is much less I have to remember, allowing me to be far more effective. That way I won’t hesitate when I’m speaking and won’t have to search my internal database constantly trying to remember what lie I told to which customer. I was never a very good liar to begin with, but for those who are, you probably won’t be as you age, so it might be a good idea to start changing your tactics now.