Small Business Saturday success can make a big difference for your business during the holiday season.
What is Small Business Saturday, exactly? Well, it’s the Saturday after Black Friday, which follows Thanksgiving. On this day, people are encouraged to do their shopping at small businesses rather than big chain stores. If you own a small business, you’ll definitely want to take advantage of this event.
For starters, you can advertise, promote via social media, and work with other small businesses to try to get people in the door. But, there’s even more you can do to prepare for Small Business Saturday! Here are five ideas to consider.
1. Implement a Rewards Program
You may think this type of offering is only for coffee shops and dry cleaners, where you can get a complimentary coffee or clothing laundered for free after your tenth visit. But a rewards program can apply to any type of business.
Clear cut firing, right? You don’t refuse any paying customer! (And, if you’re Starbucks, you don’t refuse any non-paying people as well.) But, the problem was, Chipotle reacted to a viral video without understanding that there is, always, more to the story. Here’s the video:
It seems quite shocking. Other customers can get their food without paying up front, why can’t these young black men?
Dominique Moran says she was acting in the best interest of the restaurant and her employees. In the video, she says, “you gotta pay because you never have money when you come here.”
A few years ago, it wasn’t uncommon for managers to bring people in for multiple interviews over multiple days. It was also common for managers to drag out the hiring process. It made candidates lives stressful–never quite knowing if this interview was the final one or not. And, even after going through all of this, you might well get ghosted–that is neither the recruiter nor hiring manager would ever get back to you to tell you that you weren’t hired.
And so, it amused me greatly when companies started complaining that candidates were ghosting them. It’s a candidate’s job market right now and if you snooze you lose. And to beat that, The Wall Street Journal reports that some companies are hiring sight unseen–after you fill out an application and have a phone interview, they make the decision on the spot. You can start a job without having ever met with a human face to face–or even Skype to Skype.
Do you pay your employees fairly? Of course! You did your research when making salary offers, you award regular cost of living raises and you pay for their overtime work. Still, according to a recent study by Robert Half, 46 percent of employees feel that they are underpaid.
This, of course, doesn’t necessarily indicate the truth about salary, since these particular findings are based on feelings. I’m a fan of dealing in facts, so I’d want to double check everyone’s salaries, and, depending on my findings, come back and say, “Yep, even though you feel like you’re underpaid, you’re not. Now get back to work.”
But, that’s bad management advice. People’s perceptions are their realities. If you simply dismiss their concerns with “I’ve double checked, and you’re not underpaid,” it’s not likely to fix how they’re feeling, which could lead to disengagement over time. Instead, if an employee approaches you to discuss their salary, I’d recommend taking the following steps.
Amazon is getting massive subsidies and tax breaks from the “winning” cities. According to CNET, these incentives run into the billions: $1.525 billion in incentives in New York, and $573 million in Virginia. Whew! That’s some serious corporate welfare.
And that’s the key part here: Amazon is big and cities fell over themselves to offer money to get Amazon to pick me. This pick-me dance is limited to the big players. If you walk into New York Mayor Bill de Blasio’s office and say, “I’m thinking of bringing my startup to New York. What can you do for me?” you’ll get laughed out. Actually, you won’t even make it into the office.
Recently, my colleague and I carefully documented and reported acts of long-term bullying by two of our coworkers. Soon afterward, HR summoned the entire department for a mandatory meeting where our boss’s manager and the top HR manager yelled and reprimanded us. We were told our complaints were petty and stupid, and that their time was wasted.
A few weeks later, another meeting was called where we received similar, abusive treatment after my colleague stood up to one of our bullies, and she reported it. It was made clear to us that no one was going to be fired, and if we didn’t feel the culture was a good fit, we were welcome to leave.
My question is: do we have any recourse for this treatment by HR and upper management?
There’s a standard story in recruiting where a candidate for a high-level position treats the receptionist poorly. As a result, the hiring manager rejects the candidate because anyone who treats a receptionist that way isn’t the type of person you’d want to hire.
The modern, updated version of that is how Jim Acosta treated an intern and the President at a press conference. If you haven’t seen a video, here’s what happened.
Love him or hate him, President Trump is in charge at this press conference, and Acosta had asked his question and received an answer. He actually received quite a long answer. But, a single answer wasn’t what Acosta came for–it appeared that Acosta came prepared to debate and argue. The purpose of a press conference isn’t to debate and argue–it’s to get questions answered. The President answered and it was someone else’s turn.
As the holiday season approaches, more people will start requesting time off during what for many businesses is one of the busiest times of the year. A standard vacation policy for small businesses can help you handle employee time off requests and ensure that the holidays are as productive as any other season. All you need is a plan. Here’s how to decide what yours should look like.
How to Manage Vacation Time for Employees
When everyone wants the same day off, it can be difficult to field requests in a way that’s fair and reasonable. You can approach managing vacation requests from several angles.
I love to speak. In fact, I feel more comfortable in front of a microphone than at a networking event. So, when my friend and colleague Kristen Pressner suggested I give a TEDx talk, I was like, sure, no problem. Pressner’s talk, where she introduced the “flip it to test it” method for handling unconscious bias was a perfect example of how a talk should be. This, I thought, will be easy.
Boy, was I wrong. Giving a TEDx talk is hard. For a 7-minute talk, I worked harder than on any other speech I’ve ever given. But, I’m so glad I did it because what I learned was invaluable.
Mentors come from unexpected places
My modus operandi is to write an outline and speak with the outline. That allows me to adjust my talk for time and audience reaction. For TEDx Basel, we were to have it memorized–word perfect, and no notes allowed. In fact, the guidance the coaches gave us was to have it memorized to “Happy Birthday” standard. That is, you should know your speech to the same level that you know the Happy Birthday to You song.
E-mail me!. Unfortunately, I can't answer every question, but I do try to do as many as I can. To increase your chances of getting your question answered, please limit yourself to two-three reasonably sized paragraphs and try to figure out what your real problem is. Punctuation and capitalization are pluses.
Why Evil HR Lady
All HR people are evil, it's in our job description. Or at least, that seems to be the prevailing theory. In reality, there's just more going on behind the scenes than most people know. I'm here to demystify your Human Resources department and tell you just why you worked your tail end off all year and still got a 1.7 percent bonus.
