Joe Polish turned around his carpet cleaning business and started teaching his unique strategies to others.

Joe’s Consumer Awareness Guide taught people how to buy carpet cleaning. In it he said, “You can have an ELF business or a HALF business.” ELF stands for easy, lucrative and fun. HALF stands for hard, annoying, lame and frustrating.

An ELF business has a system that’s easy, repeatable and produces expected results. If you have a procedures manual and it sits on the shelf and isn’t followed, why do you have a procedures manual? It was a waste of time, effort, and money.

Likewise, if you have a process for answering the phone, talking with customers in your store, all employee contact with customers should follow a procedure. 

For example, review your financial statements each month. This compares budgeted to actual profit and loss and financial ratios and trends. You make good business decisions on the information you review. 

If these procedures are ignored, you may have unhappy customers who don’t come back, warranty issues, and a HALF business. 

It’s your business. Set the procedures you want and ensure they are followed. This requires management on your part – praising employees who do it right and discussing it when procedures aren’t followed.

We share such ideas in “Maverick Entrepreneurs’ Million Dollar Strategies.” 

For a $20 personally autographed copy, contact us at 803-331-6695.

Next: Cage your loyal customers.

Copyright 2020, The Bellune Co., Inc.