It’s a half-hour past when you wanted to leave the office and you’re almost out the door. Judy stops you with a question about a project. You know it would be best to explain to her the whole situation so that she’d know how to handle this in the future, but instead you tell her the minimum and get out of there. You want to give her a more detailed explanation, but you just don’t have the time.

Do you ever feel this tension between giving a quick-fix versus making an investment? We try to avoid the quick-fixes and seize opportunities to invest in employees and the business, but it can be difficult to choose the investment consistently.

Though each decision you make as a leader matters, it’s the pattern of your decisions that may be even more significant. If you pause to think about it, is the “quick-fix” becoming a pattern?

It makes sense that we would fall into a pattern of quick-fixes. They work, they get us through the moment and they take less effort and time than the issue really calls for.  Yet, we know from experience that it’s often worth investing time and effort to set things straight. We take the time to fully train employees when we hire them.  We try to pass on our knowledge and experience to others. We hope that they will absorb it, become even more productive in the business and grow into greater roles. We count the investment worth it.

But it’s not always convenient to make the investment. Like in the example above when you’re leaving the office, you would have had to sacrifice your time to stay longer to invest in Judy’s education. Or would you? The investment doesn’t always have to be in the moment. We can schedule investment instead. In fact, blocking off time to invest in your employees and your business is an excellent way to ensure it gets done. So next time, when Judy stops you on your way out, you can give the quick fix in the moment, but schedule time to explain more later.

We seem willing to assess our patterns and change for each new year. Why not today? I’m calling us to reassess our patterns. Are we investing in others and our businesses to improve them or have we simply fallen into a quick-fix pattern? The investment is worth it. Let’s block off time and do it.

Cover image info: Original, royalty-free image from Gratisography.

About the author: Lindsey Tolino shares tips and thoughts at ToBusinessOwners.com. Follow her on Twitter @LindseyTolino.

How would you rank your business website when it comes to effectiveness and winning over current and potential customers?

In answering that question, think about the time and money you have sunk into your site, whether you are a long-time business or one of the new kids on the block.

Remember, your website is oftentimes the first contact between your brand and the public, so you want to make sure you get off on the right foot with consumers.

Many Eyes Are Watching

Start and end the website review process by looking at the following:

• Look – Are you happy with the appearance of your company site? If not, what needs to change about it? While the content of your site is also of utmost importance, the look of the site can’t be neglected. Give consumers reasons to not only want to visit your site, but refer it to their friends and family. If you are a little short in experience and/or time when it comes to finding the right imagery and/or infographics, hire someone that can handle those tasks. You may decide (depending on the size of your business) to do the hiring within, though outsourcing such needs is always an option too. Lastly, the site’s appearance should not remain stagnant for months-on-end. Updating the site, giving it a refreshing look from time to time etc. will always prove to be necessary tasks;
• Content – What kinds of content you place on your website also will have a major impact on dictating exactly how much business comes your direction. It is important that your content (notably what runs on your company blog) is not canned material, but has real meaning to it. The content should be useful to consumers, especially those considering your products and/or services. Give them something they’re not going to find anywhere else; meaning your business will be the source (notably your website) they come to. Also be sure that your content helps improve your search engine ranking (see more below) if you are currently struggling with this. Where you rank (most notably on Google) should always be a priority with your business website initiatives;
• Ranking – Speaking a moment ago about where you rank on Google, do you take the time to check such numbers regularly? If not, it is something you should include in your regular plans. When you put a number of pieces in play – content marketing, search engine optimization (SEO), social media (see more below) – you have a great opportunity to improve upon where you rank on sites such as Google and even Bing. Also avoid some of the ways that ranking can be damaged. These include practices such as duplicate copy on your site, updating your site infrequently, being viewed as a spammer and more. At the end of the day, you want your brand at or near the top when consumers do searches for your product or service, be it home/life/health/auto insurance, divorce attorneys, Texas license plate lookup, furnishings for your home, rental cars/hotels/flights and so much more ;
• Socializing – As great as your business website may be, what if basically no one knows about it? If you think that isn’t possible, think again. You need to have a solid social media component to your website’s marketing plans. This means being active on at least what are generally regarded as the top sites – Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn etc. You can’t be all things to all people, but you do need to push your social media agenda as much as possible. One important aspect of doing such is sharing what others in the business community have to say about your respective industry etc. When you share what others are saying in their blog posts and more, they tend to want to do the same for you. By doing so, you’re getting your website out in front of countless eyes, some you may never have even known or thought about.

If you’re perfectly happy with your website, that is fine.

The hunch is, however, that there are one or more things on the site that you can do better.

Ask yourself, is it time for a change?

Photo credit: BigStockPhoto.com

About the Author: Dave Thomas covers business and marketing topics on the web.

You’re in a meeting on a Tuesday and Tom interjects, “What about this…” It’s a new idea. How do you perceive it?

• Threatening: This idea threatens the viability of the system, idea or product we’ve created.
• Offensive: “How could they think I didn’t think about that already?”
• Opportunity: This idea is an opportunity to improve our company and show this person we care about their ideas.
• Investment: This person is invested enough in our company to offer their ideas to us.
• Annoying: This person seems to try to out-do everyone else and wants to propel their career with an idea.

These are just a few options and you may have a few of these thoughts simultaneously. New can be exciting, threatening and annoying all at the same time. So why does it matter how we perceive new ideas?

Let’s look at a different scenario: You’re in a client meeting and you have an excellent tailor-made idea for their business. You share it with your client and their face scrunches up. They pause for a quarter-second, then say “that wouldn’t work for us” and move on. It hurts doesn’t it? More than that, don’t you think about how they should have at least considered it? You try to explain it further, but you can tell that they aren’t open to that change, even though you’re sure it will help them.

How we perceive new ideas is crucial to how successful we are. It’s also vital to how we show respect others and are open to hearing their voices in our lives. If we perceive new ideas predominantly as threatening and offensive, we will limit our business growth and ensure the idea-giver doesn’t feel valued and respected. We need to recognize that ideas are opportunities to show people that we respect them as well as potential growth opportunities for us both in business and personally.

We can’t grow without be challenged. New ideas are a great way to be challenged.

So how do you perceive new ideas?

Cover image info: Original, royalty-free image from Death To The Stock Photo.

About the author: Lindsey Tolino shares tips and thoughts at ToBusinessOwners.com. Follow her on Twitter @LindseyTolino.

You can’t believe what you just heard. You can’t wait to tell Sheryl. She’s going to freak out. And you know she’ll agree with you on this. Then you couldn’t believe what happened with that supplier. You solved the issue quickly, but go straight to tell your right-hand man how mad it made you.

Have you ever had a bit of gossip or news that you just couldn’t hold in? Have you ever blown up an issue beyond what it needed to be? Sure, we all have. But have you ever thought about how creating that drama might affect your leadership?

We love to share news and gossip with each other. We all want to feel connected and form bonds with each other. It’s often hard to connect with your co-workers, so when something good and juicy comes up, it’s hard not to share it. But when we talk about people behind their back or escalate an issue beyond what is needed, we slowly choke out our leadership (and just as a reminder – rank does not confer leadership).

The best leaders are trustworthy, level-headed and resolution-seeking. When we create drama by gossiping or by emotionally escalating issues beyond what is needed, we degrade our leadership.

Let me give you an example. You find out that an employee has been filing paperwork incorrectly. You go to the employee and let them know the proper way to file the paperwork. You then proceed to let all the other employees know that someone has been filing the paperwork wrong and you reinforce the right way to do it. You could have just went over the basics, but you added that “someone” has been doing it wrong.

You’re looking to bond with the people you confide in, but you’re actually destroying trust, not only with the people you’re speaking about, but also with the people you’re speaking to. We inherently know that people who talk about others will some day talk about us. We also know that people who escalate issues beyond what is needed may escalate an issue we’re involved in beyond what is needed. Drama kills your leadership.

We naturally gravitate toward people who we know keep the peace and are trustworthy. As leaders, we want to create environments where anyone feels comfortable talking to us about their ideas, needs and concerns. Leadership is a hard-earned, precious responsibility, let’s not kill it with needless drama.

Cover image info: Original, royalty-free image from Unsplash.

About the author: Lindsey Tolino shares tips and thoughts at ToBusinessOwners.com. Follow her on Twitter @LindseyTolino.

Do you need another voice? Does someone in your life hold a “trump” card? Do you bounce ideas off a trusted colleague, friend and/or spouse regularly? Do you respect their opinions?

I am so thankful for the voices in my life. But I wasn’t always thankful for them. Sometimes I’d try to shut them out and write them off and justify why my way was better. But even if we don’t always like them, we need other voices.

Why we need other voices:

• Our emotions can veer our lives and businesses off course. Be it fear, anxiety, or foolish optimism, we can wreck our judgement with tunneling down one path driven by our emotions. Outsiders may be better at seeing our situations more objectively.
• Our thoughts and ideas aren’t always the best or even good enough. Period.
• It’s best when we share our lives with others. When we allow others to speak into our decisions, we allow them into our lives. When we share our lives with each other, we grow together and learn from each other’s decisions. Everyone is better and richer when we learn from each other’s lives and mistakes instead of living in isolation.

Yet, we all already have voices in our lives – whether we want to listen to them or not. Because of this, we may not really see our need for another voice in our life. We may be working hard to shut out the ones we have already. However, there are some signs that make it evident that we to listen to another voice or two in our lives.

Ways you know you need another voice:

• You always think your way is the best. (It isn’t – we’re all fallible!)
• You cut people off all the time. (If we can’t hear others out, then we can’t hear their voice in our lives)
• You are set in your ways – your routine, your thought-process and your idea sources.

We all could probably use more quality voices speaking into our lives. However, most voices aren’t one-size-fits all. Though wise people are generally wise overall, it’s likely that you’ll have certain voices you listen to for business matters and others that you listen to for personal ones. In fact, we should listen to a variety of diverse voices, tease out the wisdom and gain from it.

We all need voices speaking into our lives – to keep us from falling on our faces and to speak truth into us when we do. This is a reminder to keep listening and discerning. The more we do, the more we will grow and prosper together.

Cover image info: Original, royalty-free image from Pixabay.

About the author: Lindsey Tolino comes alongside artisans, craftsman and people monetizing their passions to help them create healthy businesses. She shares tips and thoughts at ToBusinessOwners.com. Follow her on Twitter @LindseyTolino.