Take risks. You have to be willing to not let failure affect you
because you’re going to fail.
And, when you make decisions, you have to make them
as rapidly as your business
changes. If your business has a
lot of velocity, your decision-making has to have a lot of
velocity to it also. If not, you’ll
never grow.
Then you have to accept
what those decisions are. If
they don’t work out, you can’t
dwell on those. Learn from
your mistakes, and analyze
those mistakes.
The old saying is, ‘Hindsight
is 20/20,’ but not everybody
has that crystal ball to see
what’s there. When you make
a decision, base it off factors
you think will fall into place,
and when they don’t fall into place, you have to look back
and ask, ‘What was the driving
force to make this fail?’
What you can’t do is look back
on it and say, ‘I’ll never try something like that again,’ because
sometimes you try it, and it
turns out to be a great success.
Motivate your employees. There
are two different motivators
that drive employee productivity. It’s kind of like a bicycle.
The front wheel steers it;
that’s motivation as a group.
That’s having lunch brought in
for everybody a couple times a
month, having Johnny Cash
Day where everybody gets to
wear black, sponsoring softball teams. You’ve got to keep
doing that ‘Hey, this is a neat
place to work’ kind of thing.
Try to do some things that are
much different than you could
find anywhere else.
The back wheel is on the personal level. It is employees
being able to pay their bills and
having the flextime that they
need. You have to provide
bonuses down to a transactional individual level, give different
goals to different people and let
them drive their own behavior.
Hire the best. Surround yourself
with people who are smarter
than you. I check people out,
and I talk to references and see
what people have to say about
them. You want to make sure
that they’re well-respected and
have the pedigree that you
expect.
And don’t be afraid to compensate them fairly. If they’re going to make you money and
make the company successful,
then they should be compensated for it.
Establish professional alliances. Build strong relationships with
a good accountant, attorney,
insurance man and banker.
Have dinner with them, and
get to know them on a business and personal relationship
because they’ll have a lot of
good advice for you.
While they are suppliers, they
are a vital support to your company. They are around business
every day; they see what people
are doing and what’s working
and what’s not. There’s nothing
wrong with running ideas by
them on what you’re doing and
getting their advice.
HOW TO REACH: Logistics Management Solutions LLC, (800) 355-2153 or www.lmslogistics.com