Week In Review
“Life is Art and Art is life. Learn one, and you will have also learned the other.”
This is similar to what I wrote last week about business. When I write Art, I mean also creativity. Art and Business and Life are connected in my day. I always view my life as I am working and creating my master piece. A life that grows to be a great masterpiece is only enjoyed when it is shared with others.
It has been a epic week. I love working, and getting inspired. I was away for a 6 day trip with my favourite inspirational customer to San Antonio Texas, Indiana, Saratoga New York, Montreal, Regina, Swift Current Saskatchewan, and Kelowna. I learned a lot, and got a deeper understanding of some business principles from my teacher/customer/business role model.
-Hire slow, if you make a mistake fire fast. Do not waste a person’s life if they are not suited to the position.
High staff turn over is like trying to building a business on quicksand.
Usually people leave not because of salary it is usually because of management.
You can’t change the mistakes of the past if they were 10 years ago or 10 minutes ago, but you can learn from them and make sure they don’t happen again and plan for the future.
Customer satisfaction and employee engagement.
Respond to every single email and call, thank every person that sends you a card.
Write down old inventory, have a write down policy, take the hit now.
Get pledge from staff on what they will do to improve and grow. To better serve customers. Setting Goals makes work more fun and engaging.
The Customers are the most important person and the ultimate big boss in a business.
Make decisions for the very long term for the greater good.
Do what’s right, do not do something just for the company.
Make all decision as if they were on the front page of the local news paper , live transparently.
If we serve and take care of our good honest customers. usually they will take care of our business. That does not mean we let dishonest people take advantage of us. We serve our good honest customers.
I photographed a retirement dinner of a great humble kind leader. He was not the most charismatic leader and often stuttered when he spoke, but he earned amazing respect and loyalty from his management team. He grew an amazing business in challenging times. He would always give the credit to his team for any success. I asked some of his team how he did it?
He would simply hold people accountable with to do lists and review them and made sure what they got done. If there was a problem he would gather his team and ask “what are we going to do to fix this?”The team would then brain storm solutions.
There are many other reason why he was so successful, like impeccable honesty, attitude, practical, and accountability.
Life is full of challenges like business, taking consistent positive action when needed, gets you to where you plan to get to, but you need a plan, and once you get there keep innovating. There is constant change and challenge, it is part of the journey in creating a life that becomes a work of art.