Email Guidelines and Etiquette

Email in an invaluable business tool; however, it can also be misused.  Using the following Email guidelines will make Email even more useful for you and your correspondents:

·         Do not “Reply to All” unless ‘All’ need to know.

·         Do not overuse Email by sending courtesy copies of a message to people who do not need them.  Similarly, it’s not generally necessary to reply to an Email just to inform the sender that you’ve received it.

·         Do not overuse “Return Receipt Requested” feature.  This feature significantly increases the amount of Email traffic on the network and some users may feel it conveys a certain level of mistrust.

·          Remember that an Email is not the same as a conversation.  Email is a written record and can be duplicated at will.  While Email is generally less formal than a hard copy letter, it is far more permanent than a phone call.

·         Email does not communicate emotion well.  Use a telephone when appropriate.

·         Typing an Email in all capital letters is equivalent of shouting at the reader.  You can use capitals to create emphasis.

Recently I called on a custom cabinetmaker.  After spending 20 years of 60 hours per week of building up a nice $1m/yr business, his sole need was for …some time.  Time to work on his antique car. Time to cut the grass.  He really enjoyed the way the lawn looked when he was done…and the smell!

How many of you are yearning for more time? How would you like to free up 15% of your day?  You can do it, starting in three days! Here’s how:

For the next three days, record every activity you during the workday.  No times, just a list of activities.  At the end of day 3, number the activities and place the number in the box below based on Importance and Urgency.

                                                                        environment

               Urgent

                 Not

            Urgent

                              Not       Important

                        Important

From Stephen Covey’s, 7    Habits of Highly                 Successful People

Typically 15% of our activities are not important or urgent…so stop doing them!

There’s your 15%.  Some activities are urgent but not important.  Why are they urgent if they’re not important?  Some are important but not urgent.  So schedule them.  Lastly, the upper right hand corner becomes your priorities.  Make certain these get these done.  Caution:  more than 20% in this box may indicate a crisis environment.  Give this a try.  You'll be glad you did!

For many businesses developing and implementing a Quality Management System (QMS) that conforms with the ISO 9001:2000/2008 standard may be a business necessity.  Many large companies - particularly oil and gas companies and those that operate internationally - require that their vendors be certified to this standard as a condition of becoming an approved supplier. 

So if you are a small to medium sized business owner and you want to expand your market penetration into these kinds of industries, you should seriously consider certification.  In addition many times a business owner will be pressured by his/her existing customers to become certified.   

Well what is it and what does it do?  ISO 9001:2000/2008 is a standard for Quality Management Systems developed and published by the Geneva, Switzerland based International Standards Organization.

It establishes generic requirements for an effective QMS that:

• Provides assurance that the organization’s product or service meets customer requirements
• Provides assurance that the organization’s QMS is being effectively implemented on continuing basis
• Provides mechanisms for the continuous improvement of the QMS related to meeting customer requirements

Now aside from customer driven needs there are also good business reasons to seriously look at this standard because of the general business benefits that it can bring to all organizations.  There is often a mis-perception that this standard is only applicable to manufacturing companies.  In fact the standard was developed with the specific intent that it be applicable to all kinds of businesses - e.g. manufacturing, repair and service, distribution, and even research institutions.

Some of the business benefits that would be gained by having a conforming QMS are: 

• It improves customer satisfaction
• It results in standardized processes and procedures
• It results in continuous improvement of the organization’s product/service
• It increases employee involvement and satisfaction
• It provides confidence to the organization’s customers of the organization’s ability to meet their requirements
• It improves decision making through a disciplined approach based on hard data
• Adds value by increased sales via customer loyalty and retention, reduced costs via improved processes and reduced employee turnover
• Institutionalizes training in methods and procedures essential to quality
• Reduces dependence on individuals

Note that it is not necessary to become formally certified to this standard to reap the benefits of these businesses improvements.  Should certification be required for the customer or market driven reasons given above, certification by an accredited registrar will be necessary.

Now the next question for the small business owner is how to get started.  The first step is that the business owner must be committed to the goal.  Step 2 is to assess your current operations, procedures and QMS against the ISO 9001 standard (i.e. a gap analysis).  The last step is to bring you QMS into conformance. 

Should you like more information on this subject please feel free to contact me at jonelmendorf@iib.ws or call me at 713-303-1664

Companies who provide good incentive programs for their production crews and first line supervisors enjoy benefits far beyond just direct productivity increases, spectacular as those can be: Improvements in the 50% range are not uncommon. On top of that, though, such a program can tap into a resource that lies dormant in far too may companies: The day to day, down to earth, expertise of the hourly employees who do the actual work that the company eventually gets to collect money for. OK, they may not have even a High School education, but I have found them to be smarter than I expected, particularly about what they do all day long. Of course, without an incentive for them to apply their knowledge productively, many company owners and managers tend to view these folks as the source of some of their most vexing problems: Absenteeism, turn-over, lost time accidents, complaints and grievances, poor quality, low output, and so on and on. Even a well designed incentive program will not completely eliminate all of these problems, but it can make huge improvements. Here are some examples.

Let's say a company has a (properly designed) IC program which compares actual output against a reasonable standard, and distributes, say, one half of the amount saved by beating the standard among the crew members, including their direct supervisor, chief, foreman, whatever. We'll talk some more about how to do that in a minute, but just look at the things that happen right away: There is no longer any need to watch people to make sure they are working, because everybody knows that the laggards hurt the crew as a whole, so they watch and encourage each other. Social pressure is more effective than nagging by the supervisor any day. Quality improves because it is costly to do things over. Crew sizes tend to be more effective: I have had crews ask for members to be transferred to improve the output per man hour charged. Occasionally, conversations actually turn from sports and sex to ideas for doing things better, faster, easier. Morale improves: Working to beat a standard is much more fun than just putting in time, and the bonus payments, when they come, are like "found" money. Of course, turn-over drops as morale improves.

A good IC program also helps with supervisory training, because it lets first line supervisors acts as Leaders and Coaches instead of Naggers and Pushers. They can do their job just by helping the crews maximize their bonus earnings, telling them how "we" are doing, pointing out what can be done to improve, addressing and correcting problems as they arise, and generally being experts on the program who can answer questions and deal with concerns. So they learn to be much more effective supervisors than they would otherwise be, and, in the IC program, they have a tool that helps them be effective.

What's more, the crews will also be checking on their supervisors: They want the number of hours turned in to be as low as possible, so they do not want any of this checking a friend in early or out late or, as sometimes happens, reporting of entirely fictitious hours. In effect, then, a good IC program can also act as an inexpensive but highly effective production management control tool.

To provide all these benefits, the production incentive program must have the confidence of the production crews. They must absolutely believe that, if the make the effort, if they do well, bonus awards will follow like night follows day. If they do not, they will view the program as a slot machine - it pays off if you are lucky or the boss feels like it, effort and performance have nothing to do with it. Obviously, slot machines do not provide incentives, and so do not yield the benefits of a good IC program. They may actually be counter productive by generating bad feelings and ill will.

The crews will believe in the program if they and their supervisors understand it, and, above all, believe that the standards against which they are measured are reasonable and achievable. So - the standards should be as simple as possible, should be explained thoroughly and clearly, as many times as may be necessary to achieve complete acceptance. The source of the explanation should be the most credible available, preferably someone the crews accept as a real authority on their work. Do stay away from anonymous sources like "the computer", "acconting", "the office", "the bid price". If neceaary, a little hocus pocus with stop watches and clip boards can be helpful.

Once the program is under way, there must be opportunities for feed-back and exchnage of ideas for two equally important reasons:

First, to protect the credibility of the program. Supervisors must be able to get management to change any standards that prove to be incorrect, or at least get a good explanation for standards that just look wrong. Further, their crews must believe they can do that, so the supervisors need to be able to come back with answers.

Second, to make sure that good ideas from the field are utilised: Perhaps the company's pricing structure does not adequately reflect production difficulties; perhaps quality issues are routinely over sold or under sold; perhaps customers are made unrealistic promises; perhaps not all relevant information is obtained during the sale; perhaps materials obtained form some suppliers are unrealiable; and so on.  There are probably dozens of production details that should beneficially called to top management's attention. With the IC program, the crews now have an incentive to do so.

Finally, changes in the IC program should be handled carefully and thoroughly. Modifications should be predicted when the program is first introduced, perhaps by announcing reviews at stated intervals. Then, when adjustments are needed, let's face it, the crews are going to be suspicious if the program has treated them well up to that point. So, the adjustments need to be explained with just as much care and concern for credibility as the original presentation.

A good production IC program can have a decisively positive impact on a company's profitability and competitive prowess, so it is well worth the time and effort required to launch it and work with it. On the other hand, a program that is poorly designed and improperly implemented can actually be worse than none at all.

If you would like to talk about this subject some more, feel free to send me a message at jurgenringer@iib.ws

Rising health care insurance premiums are forcing employers to choose among undesirable lose-lose health care options.

Traditional options range along a continuum from passing through to employees all of the cost increase to dropping coverage altogether. Most employers choose a combination of reducing coverage and passing through a portion of the cost increase, a lose-lose scenario for both employer and employee.

Are win-win options available? The answer is a resounding, “Yes!” However, they all depend on an employer who is willing to commit to a program that encourages and rewards good health practices by employees.

The program incorporates four essential components:

1. Expand health care coverage to include alternative health care practitioners,
2. Encourage good health practices by employees,
3. Insure only against major health care expenses, and
4. Assure discounts from health care practitioners for routine health care costs.

This program, properly implemented, keeps health care costs at manageable levels and develops healthier and more productive employees. Each of these four essential components will be addressed in subsequent blogs.

If you would like to explore these programs for you or your business, send an e-mail to earlkemper@iib.ws.

Well here we are approaching the holiday season once again.  After which of course, will also serve to signifying the end of one year and the beginning of the new one to come.

Have you made your plans for your business as you move into this New Year?  Are you ready for what awaits you and your business?  Are you concerned about the current economic climate? If you have not thought about it, you should very soon.  Many business owners use the last few weeks to run reports and scramble to reduce taxes but often fail to give enough thought to the upcoming year.

My recommendation to you as a business owner is to sit down and take measure of yourself and your business.  Decide what it is you really want to achieve and then develop a plan to in fact achieve it.  Some may call it strategic planning yet others may refer to it as goal setting depending on what it is you are actually planning for.  No matter what you want to call it, the fact is you need to do it  at least on some level. 

Someone once asked me…do you take a proactive approach to your P & L? I thought to myself, what an interesting question, since after all a P & L is a historical indicator of my company’s performance.  Well upon further thought, I got what he meant. Let us remember the numbers don’t have to drive the company, the company has to drive the numbers and you as a business owner have to drive the company. 

There are many reasons why you may need financial leverage in your business. Maybe the organization is in a strong growth phase and needs more employees, more products, better equipment, a bigger space, and a new (more expensive) marketing approach. Maybe it’s a start up and has a very compelling product or service and needs to get a small amount of funding to perfect it and bring it to market. Maybe you are experiencing a cash crunch and must invest in new inventory or cover operating expenses in between customer payments. Or maybe you want to bring a new product or service to market and lack the financial resources to take advantage of the opportunity.

Before I discuss ways that this can be accomplished, let’s discuss some important criteria to consider before looking for money. Most importantly, a business owner must be able to prove that taking this step now will have a significant return on investment. Only a serious market analysis and financial analysis can help you decide if this makes long term financial sense. This should include a realistic pro-forma showing how these invested funds will produce greater revenue and profitability. This is the “proof” needed to back up a compelling story. Consider the business plan as your story, and the pro-forma as the proof.

Another relevant point to consider is whether this is the right time to invest in growing the company. As Bijoy Goswami said in a lecture on the Bootstrap concept, “Entrepreneurs should consider a capital infusion as an amplifier”. The point being that money is how you scale a successful concept. A successful concept is best defined as a viable proven product or service that has all ready attracted an interested customer base. For growth oriented companies or new start ups, the more you can do without raising money or taking on debt the better.

During the Dot Com bubble and the new “Web 2.0” craze, many entrepreneurs built a sexy sounding concept or product and looked at the financing as the exit strategy. Raising money, particularly from investors seeking equity, is not the end goal. It’s merely a way to take what you are doing now and do it on a much grander scale. Some great companies emerged from the dot com crash. In the majority of cases they were smart in their timing and financing strategy. In some cases they were lucky enough to have a strong enough business to whether poor financial decisions. The majority of the companies that sought and received funding blew apart in the bust, the principals left with worthless stock they could use to wall paper their over priced San Jose apartments.

So, if you can prove it will make money and you know it is the right time to take that step, here are some guidelines.

The two options available for raising money are debt financing and equity financing. Debt financing has many faces, and more debt vehicles are available to business owners than ever before. The key components of a debt financed deal are the same for a business as they are for an individual looking to finance a car or a house. Generally the questions a financier may ask are: How much cash (equity) can you bring to the project? How is your credit (both personal and business credit)? How strong is your concept and can it be proven? Do you have collateral to offer if it does not work? If you have an existing venture the financier may have you prove that if things don’t go as planned you can continue to service the debt on existing revenue. The financier can be an individual, a group of individuals, or an institution like a bank, private lender, or a private firm. Usually you must have an existing business or a very well planned and well funded start up to attract debt financing.

Some popular debt vehicles are term loans, lines of credit, receivable financing or factoring, purchase order financing, equipment leases, and real estate loans. Convertible debt to equity financing or claw-backs (equity to debt) are popular institutional instruments (think: the TARP Bailout). Smaller, high margin businesses can utilize collateralized credit card receipts or contract financing. Asset rich companies can take advantage of equipment or real estate lease backs. If your company is a start up, you may have to depend on loans from friends and family, credit cards, or tying up personal assets to fund the business venture. During the current economic climate, regional banks are far more likely to offer credit than many of the majors. The problem is that everyone knows it and they have been flooded by loan requests. Alternative lenders such as equipment lease companies and receivable financiers have become invaluable to existing firms seeking capital.

For a financier to consider equity financing, there are different criteria to explore. From the perspective of the entrepreneur, they must be willing to give up some percentage of ownership to attract an investor. The business concept has to be really strong and sexy to attract investors. Often this is the only outlet for certain start ups such as tech or biotech where investors are always looking for the next big thing, there are little tangible assets, but there is decent proof that this business concept will work. The other is in “risky” service industry businesses like bars, restaurants, dry cleaners, convenient stores, and retailers. In this case, unless it is such a uniquely marketable concept that an institution can see it going national fast (such as Applebee’s), you are left with attracting friends and family and interested local investors to partner with you in your business. Another instance where it may make sense to attract equity investors is if the business owner would be in a position to take on debt financing but lacks the equity (cash) portion of the deal. If real estate is in the equation, lenders often look for owners to produce 20% of the money needed to complete the transaction. If the owner lacks capital, taking on some form of private investment may be the only way to get the deal done.

As with debt financing, the current economic climate has changed things. Collateral has become more important, whether it be Intellectual Property or hard assets. Early stage investors such as angle groups have become much more selective and the larger firms such as VC’s and Private Equity groups are looking for companies with proven records and strong growth potential. This makes timing an even more important issue. The longer you can do without, the better.

In either case some key questions should be explored carefully. Is this the right time to seek funding? If so and you decide you have the right credentials, how much debt can you realistically take on while maintaining profitability and servicing the debt? Which kind of debt vehicle is best for your business and situation? If you take on equity investors, how much control are you willing to relinquish? How much revenue (and profit) are you willing to give up? What kind of investors do you want to attract? Someone who has a say in the business operations such as a general partner, or limited partners that have little say but expect a big return? Is the idea so good that having a small piece of something big is better than having nothing? Who do you approach and what do they require as far as documentation? These are the kinds of questions I help business owners answer, as well as helping with investor relations, business planning, and market analysis. For more information, feel free to email me at adammorehead@iib.ws.

Employers looking for ways to reduce the costs of health care may be interested in a new program available in Houston. The program encourages employees to practice healthy lifestyles and extends benefit coverage to alternative health care providers. Its emphasis is on improving and prolonging the health of employees by supporting the body’s tendency toward wellness.

The natural state of the human body is wellness. It is designed to return to good health when it becomes infected, injured, poisoned, burned, etc. When its cells or systems malfunction, the body initiates processes to identify and fix whatever is malfunctioning. Disorders of the body are either acute or chronic.

Acute disorders are those for which the body’s ability to heal itself functions properly. For example, if bacteria, viruses, fungi, or parasites, invade the body and attack its cells, the body launches mechanisms to overcome and kill those organisms.  These mechanisms may bring about fever, localized swelling, nausea, sneezing, coughing, watery eyes, or other symptoms, but over time, the body will heal itself.

Chronic disorders are those for which the body’s ability to heal itself goes awry. Left uncorrected, chronic disorders will get worse with the passage of time. Chronic disorders have been associated with advanced age, but today even young people suffer from them. The costs of treating chronic disorders are the primary reason for the rapidly rising costs of health care.

Treatments used by health care professionals rely on the body’s ability to heal itself. Treatments will vary dramatically by type of health care professional. In broad terms, health care professionals are either medical (allopathic) doctors or alternative care doctors.

Allopathic doctors focus on sicknesses. Allopathic doctors first diagnose the disease or disorder, then they administer the standard medical treatment protocol for that condition. Common treatments for both acute and chronic disorders are drugs. Since almost all drugs treat the symptoms and not the cause, chronic disorders often intensify because the body’s self-healing mechanism continues to malfunction. Further, long-term use of drugs creates undesirable complications. Doctors treat those complications with other drugs and patients embark on a slippery slope of long-term, multiple-drug dependency. If chronic illnesses progress beyond the ability of drugs to cope with the symptoms, the treatments escalate to the use of hazardous processes (radiation and surgery) and the costs of the medical treatments increase rapidly. The spiraling costs of allopathic treatments for chronic disorders drive health care costs to ever higher levels.

In contrast, alternative care (non-allopathic) doctors focus on wellness. Treatments utilize non-toxic and non-hazardous materials and procedures to return the body to its natural state. Alternative care doctors look for clues about how and why the body drifted from its natural state. Once they reach a conclusion, they recommend certain remedies, rarely drugs, to help the body heal itself. If the remedies address the cause, the body returns to its natural state and the chronic disorder goes away.

Addressing the causes of chronic illnesses can often be a simple and cost-effective option for chronic disorders. Preventing chronic illnesses and delaying their onset by adopting healthy lifestyle practices can be even more cost effective.

Evidence of the effectiveness of alternative care treatments of chronic disorders abound. Books and articles written by respected health care professionals maintain that lifestyle and other adjustments can have a very positive impact on chronic disorders. Their claims are supported with sound logic and published research.  

Employers wanting to add alternative health care options to their benefits packages can be hindered by strong ties between the health insurance industry and the allopathic medical community. Insurance policies rarely cover alternative health care practitioners and remedies. In addition, insurance companies rarely offer incentives to change behavior. Therefore, the costs of bringing about lifestyle changes in employees’ behavior are left to the business owner.

Programs that include alternative health care professionals are being developed and adopted in the greater Houston (Texas) area. These programs are designed to hold down health care benefit costs and to improve the long-term health of employees.

If you would like to explore these programs for you or your business, send an e-mail to earlkemper@iib.ws.

Employers profit from healthy employees. Employees benefit, too, so a program that helps employees improve and prolong their health is a win-win solution.

How do employers profit?

• Healthy employees keep group health insurance premiums down.
• Healthy employees work more days per year, increasing potential revenues to the employer.
• The day-to-day productivity and creativity of healthy employees are higher than if those same employees were chronically ill, adding more revenue potential.
• Chronically ill employees who show up sick for work are more likely to make costly mistakes and reduce daily productivity.  

Measuring the true costs of sick employees is difficult, but that should not deter employers from exploring the potential of healthier employees.

Since employers profit from healthy employees, what can employers do to encourage employees to improve and to prolong their health? What options are available to an employer who wants to offer such encouragement? And how much of health-improvement out-of-pocket expenses should an employer defray?

Traditional health insurance covers a portion of out-of-pocket sickness expenses, but provides little encouragement and few incentives to be healthy. As a result, the expenses of maintaining good health are borne entirely by the individual, unless a far-sighted employer offers to bear some of them.

Employers who provide their employees with traditional health insurance face ever-increasing premiums. According to the non-profit consumer advocate, Families USA, Texas health care insurance premiums rose 86.8 percent from 2000 to 2007. In 2000, the average family health insurance premium was $6,638. In 2007, that same coverage cost $12,403. In the same time period, median earnings rose just 15 percent, from $23,082 to $26,484. The costs of health care benefits rose from 28.7 percent of the employee’s wages and salary to 46.8 percent.

To employers, the options for traditional health care are troubling. They can pay all of the increase, shift more of the premium costs to the employees, switch insurance providers each year, increase deductibles and copays, reduce coverage, or discontinue health insurance coverage altogether.  This is the environment for all businesses, both large and small.

On top of that, the small business owner has weak negotiating power with insurance providers.  Increasing premiums have forced many small business owners to abandon health insurance coverage. According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, 59 percent of small businesses in the United States did not provide health care benefits to their employees in 2006. In Texas, the rate was 68 percent. Of course, offering no health care benefits seriously affects the ability of business owners to hire and keep quality long-term employees.

What options do small business owners have? The option that makes the most sense to me is to “develop” employees who rarely get sick. Most people are unknowingly setting themselves up for costly chronic disorders. With appropriate employee education, guidance, and encouragement, business owners can help their healthy employees prolong their good health and help their chronically sick employees become healthier.

Traditional wellness programs offered through conventional healthcare insurance include:

• Weight loss programs,
• Gym membership discounts or on-site exercise facilities,
• Smoking cessation programs,
• Personal health coaching,
• Classes in nutrition or healthy living,
• Web-based resources for healthy living, and
• Wellness newsletter.

In subsequent blogs, I will address effective health-improvement programs that go well beyond those listed above. Developmental programs in the greater Houston (Texas) area have shown very encouraging results. It appears that these programs, if adopted by employers, or even individuals, will hold down long-term health insurance costs and improve the long-term health of their employees.

If you would like to explore these programs for you or your business, send me an e-mail at earlkemper@iib.ws.