Welcome to February

Welcome to February!

January 2012 is history! By February 1, 65% of people who made a resolution are still on track. By year end only 25% will even remember what their resolution was. A business plan is like a resolution. --You have the desire, --You have the team, --The market share is available, and --How do you hold yourself accountable? That is precisely why a monthly date with your plan is so important.   So . . . Did you review January? 4 Suggestions to get started What was your Gross Revenue? How did it compare to your expectations (projections or budget)? What department of your business exceeded expectations? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? What part of your business was lack luster? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? The first two questions are asking for objective quantifiable answers - it either is or it isn't. Your business may be tracking some very common industry averages for YOUR industry. It might be Gross Profit Margin or it may be traffic - website views, calls in, customers in the door or your close ratio. Maybe you track a debt to assets or debt to equity ratio. Businesses that track at least one financial,one customer, and one quality measure tend to be more in control and achieve goals more quickly. The next two questions with the 5 Whys are designed to have your team delve deeper in to what happened.  Many a business meeting is peppered with quick answers and solutions that may or may not really solve the problem. The 5 Whys are a technique that may help you dig deeper and find the root cause, especially of a reoccurring problem.   Often when working with a team you will discover several underlying problems not just the most obvious. Once a root cause is found, a solution is not far behind. The other added benefit is that instead of blaming, we work as a team to solve problems and make the business a whole lot better. Answering these questions each and every month in 2012 will either help you have a great 2012 or just totally irritate you. Either way, you and your business will be in touch. Linda Lucas Fayerweather www.ChangingLanes.biz 419-897-0528 linda@changinglanes.biz Consider working with a coach or a MasterMind Team to make 2012 the year of your dreams!

THRIVE! Workshop to Build the Business of Your Dreams. . . Details below

Planning for Staff Evaluations

Yearly evaluations can be just as nerve racking for you as it is for your staff. Having some kind of order can help ease your staff into expectations while giving them a chance to communicate their concerns. Both parties are looking for ways to make your business run a little smoother while keeping their sanity. First, be fair and honest. The only way to make sure your staff knows the direction you want them to go is to tell them. Start the meeting off with the direction you would like and ask if they feel they can make some changes. This approach allows both of you to feel more at ease instead of defensive. Have each of your staff complete their own evaluations of their job and of their overall experience. Allowing your staff to address their concerns will open the lines of communication and make them feel their voices are being heard. Be open to hearing a little constructive criticism, there may be ways to improve morale and productivity that you have overlooked. Next, get down to the details. This is where you need to be honest and address situations that require correction or improvement. Whether it is web surfing or just plain lack of motivation, you owe it to your staff member as well as your business to bring it to their attention. Just remember to keep your cool and not play the blame game, talk in a casual and collected manner and don't be over bearing. Always end your evaluations on a positive note. This positive note brings strengths and positive feedback to the top of mind.  Staff evaluations are not a time for lay-offs or firing. These meetings are for the staff you want to keep on board and continue to grow.  Tiffiny Fayerweather tiffiny.fayerweather@ChangingLanes.com

What Do You Mean "Email isn't Secure?"

A few weeks ago my business friend, Steve told me he was signing up for a conference that I might be interested in attending. It's a national conference hosted by a pretty big company. Upon checking out the conference, I thought it would be a pretty good conference to attend. I clicked the register link to see my options and was horrified by what I saw. One of the options was to fill out a PDF and email in your registration. Not Fax, email it. They wanted Credit Card Information, Company Information, some personal information, and a digital signature. I closed the PDF and immediately called Steve to see how he registered. Luckily he registered through the site and submitted his info over a secure connection. But he was confused as to why I was so livid about the register by email option.  When I told him email is not secure whatsoever and is one of the most hacked area's in the Internet world, he agreed but I could tell in his voice he didn't believe me. So I asked Steve to tell me about his email accounts. He uses a standard email program like Outlook or Thunderbird. He pulls in three email accounts. One from his business, (a .com), two personal accounts from free email services such as GMAIL, Hotmail, or Yahoo. He was keeping his email on each email server for about 10 days before his email program deleted it, which is normal.  I then asked Steve to tell me about the last ten days worth of email (email that would still be on the server). Besides all the promo/marketing emails, he had a bunch of email from his clients, and several emails that contained login info. A gold mine of information.  Then Steve admitted to me that his one email accounts was hacked about a year ago! The hacker sent out a bunch of spam emails but they could have gotten access to a lot more. The hacker had access to a good chunk of Steve's emails. They could have gotten access to his accounts on Amazon, eBay, PayPal, and more. It clicked for him as to why I was so livid about the email registration option. All the hacker would have had to do is open up some of his emails... That's all any one would have to do.  It doesn't take much to get into an email account due to a weak password, a virus, hacking into the server, or a disgruntle or nosey co-worker that has access to your server. Once in, what do they have access to? Emails from clients, username and passwords to sites, private information, you name it. They could even setup a forward to collect your emails and you wouldn't be the wiser.  Email is not secure. Period. It is rarely sent and received through a secure connection, it is rarely encrypted, lives on the server or a computer for way too long, and more people could have access to it then you think. The bottom line is don't send any sensitive data through email, EVER and don't send any thing you wouldn't want some one else to read.  Then it got me thinking, if this company is that oblivious or lazy about security what other security holes do they have? Will my data actually be safe with them?  It doesn't take much to be secure. Create strong passwords. Don't use one word dictionary passwords. Use a minimum combination of 8 alpha-numeric characters. Or a 4 word sentence. Don't send or receive sensitive data. If you wouldn't feel comfortable letting someone else read your emails then don't send it. Make sure to clean up old emails, delete them from your Deleted Folder both on your computer and on the server. Be aware of who has access to your email accounts. Make sure they are people you can trust. Setup surprise security audits on a regular basis. If you are storing information make sure it is encrypted and protected. Make sure you have firewalls, anti-virus, and other security software in place, update to date and running. If you want to learn more do some Internet searches for "Email Security Best Practices" and "Creating a Security Audit". Or find a security consultant that can help you. Taking these extra steps I often hear people complain that it complicates things or makes accessing their data difficult. To those people I respond, What would happen if your merchant account or the credit card companies found out you were dealing with credit card information in a non secure way? Answer, you would lose your merchant account and possible be blacklisted from being able to accept certain types of credit cards, until the issues are fixed. What would happen to your company if you had a breach of security and lost client information? By law, you are required to inform your customers.  For most big companies it's pretty damaging both to their profits and in customer relations. For smaller companies it can destroy the company. How would your clients feel? How would you feel if a company you did business with had a breach of security and fraud was committed with your lost information? This article isn't meant to scare you into never using email again. It is meant to help you realize the limits of what you should use email for and what you should do to protect yourself and your clients. Think of security as a form of insurance. Protect yourself while protecting others. -- Jeff Mendelsohn Liquid Mechanix Studio, LLC www.liquidmechanix.com 419.297.3364