3 past business mistakes you shouldn’t repeat in 2011

1. never sacrifice your customers AND your employees

your happy customers are the ones who pay you, and your employees are the one who make the customers happy

in the middle of crisis, it’s easy to find some money by cutting some benefit to the customers or cut the training budget.

don’t do that!

once you cut budget from the benefit of customers or employees, you just start your doom loop. not very long, either your company will be closed or sold.

2. want productivity? find it properly

again, when cash is rare, it is tempting to find the cash from your growth & intangible investment: training,new product/R&D, quality improvement efforts, and  advertising/branding

you should not take those easy way rather find it diligently by walking through your overall process and the total cost.

for instance:

does the current sourcing method while give you short therm lower price, but in the long term give you more expensive total cost?

does the decision to cut your advertising, while it give you immediate cash, that will make the overall business strategy in danger?

3. in the middle of the storm, you got to be open

crisis creates panick attack for everybody

if the business leader(s) keep their mouth shut, the rumors/gossips will take over the leadership. employee insecurity and unhappiness increase….customers are upset

reverse that loop by start communicating honestly