How to Be a Great Supervisor

Almost anyone with company and job knowledge can become a good supervisor with time and practice. To be a great supervisor, you need sound approaches to leading and managing employees along with certain attributes that set you apart -- including sharp observation skills, flexibility and the ability to communicate and listen. Your efforts to be positive, to be a winner and to find the good in everything is a gift that can make you a great supervisor instead of just an adequate one. Your winning disposition can motivate your staff to help your department achieve superior results.

• Treat everyone on the job with respect and courtesy at all times. As a supervisor and, therefore, a company representative, you need to set the example for everyone else. You need not be friends with your staff -- in fact, avoid close friendships with subordinates to avoid real or imagined favoritism -- but you do need to get along with them.

• Learn to delegate jobs or tasks to each of the people you supervise. Those with more experience may not need close supervision and can be trusted to meet quotas and deadlines. Others, especially new people, need to be monitored periodically to ensure that they know what to do and how to do it.

• Have departmental meetings to communicate with your staff regularly to ensure that everyone's priorities are the same. Encourage questions, and be courteous in answering them so as to encourage others to come forward if they don't understand. If language issues exist, have someone who is bilingual on hand to help explain the duties.

• Keep everyone in your group aware of priorities and their order so they will do first things first. Avoid telling one employee and expecting him to communicate it to his work mates, which can present the impression of favoritism.

• Be professional. Don't bring your problems to work or talk too much about your personal life with your crew, but be cognizant of the fact that your employees will have personal issues that they bring to work from time to time. Allow them to talk to you about their problems, and be sympathetic; this shows you are human and understanding. Talk to someone in human resources if the same person has personal problems all the time.

• Listen and learn. New employees often come to the company with training that would help your staff perform better. Take note, and work to incorporate improvements in your workplace.

• Be consistent. Impose the same standards and benchmarks on all employees in the same manner. Don't favor anyone or accept excuses for why an employee cannot do a task. Address non-performance with a structured disciplinary program.

• Get your employees ready to be promoted to higher levels by training and developing their skills, even if it means a good employee will be transferred to another part of the company.

About Internal Controls of Accounting

Internal controls of accounting are an essential business function for a growth-oriented organization, and include the elements of risk assessment, information communications and even employees' roles and responsibilities. Internal controls of accounting systems are designed to protect a company from fraud, abuse and inaccurate data recording and help organizations keep track of essential financial activities.

Record keeping

• Keeping track of accounting records and financial reports is an important element of business operations for both for-profit and nonprofit organizations. Setting up internal controls of accounting systems can help ensure all government regulations are met and company policies are followed consistently. Control procedures allow financial managers to set protocols for different processes and activities, assess the work environment for any risks and problems associated with record keeping, and understand how to improve the information communication processes for improved work flow.

Goals of Implementation

• A well-implemented controls system allows a company's financial managers to regulate and streamline all functions of the accounting department. Internal controls of accounting can be set up for every area to track deposits, monitor check handling, keep track of creditor accounts, and even assess budgets and financial statements on an ongoing basis. Setting up an effective accounting system to monitor accounting reports, analyze records and protect sensitive financial information also can help a company set clear goals and make accurate projections.

Features of Internal Accounting Controls

• Creating efficient accounting processes allows an organization to set specific policies and protocols on accounting procedures, and reach its financial objectives on a regular basis. Internal accounting controls can help keep track of such areas as cash-receipt recording, payroll management, appropriate recording of grants and gifts, cash disbursements by authorized personnel, and the recording of assets. These systems also can take into account any government regulations and requirements for financial reporting.

Benefits of Internal Accounting Controls

• Internal controls of accounting provide a streamlined solution for organizing all accounting procedures and ensuring that the accounting cycle is completed consistently and successfully. Implementing a formal Accounting Procedures Manual for the organization allows the financial department to facilitate several processes and maintain rigorous standards. Internal controls also allow organizations to keep detailed records, manage and organize important financial transactions and set a high standard for the organization's financial management structure and protocols. A well-implemented system also reduces the risk of accounting errors and abuse.

Potential Benefits

• More companies are adopting internal controls of accounting systems and using web-based applications and computer programs to make accounting management easier. Organizations can monitor and control several accounting processes using data management systems that provide statistical reports, ensure current-day compliance and allow companies to create accurate financial assessments and forecasts with ease.

Examples of Critical Success Factors

Critical success factors are variables or conditions that are essential for an organization’s success. Details to consider when identifying critical success factors include the type of industry or product, the business model or strategy of the company, and outside influences, such as the environment or economic climate. Critical success factors should be periodically evaluated and adjusted as necessary to account for changes in those identifiers that might affect the company’s success. Critical success factors vary by organization, but basic commonalities do emerge. 

Leadership

• No business can expect to be successful without effective leadership. A good leader inspires, guides and motivates a group of people while directing them toward a common goal. Without someone to monitor and keep the group focused, most groups will flounder and fail to achieve success.

Goals

• Successful businesses must have clearly defined goals. All employees should know where the company is going and how it is going to get there. The goals should be specific, attainable and attached to a timetable. The environment of the business should be such that attaining the goals is always the focus. Goals should be revisited and redefined as necessary when outside factors change in a way that might affect the desired outcome or attainment of the goals.

Roles and Responsibilities

• Once leadership and goals are in place, it is important to define the roles and responsibilities necessary to achieve those goals. It is also important to ensure that all necessary resources are available to those responsible for working toward a specific goal. Before assigning roles, leadership should ensure that those tasked with certain responsibilities have the necessary training and resources available to them to effectively work toward and achieve the goals that have been laid out.

Sharing Information and Teamwork

• Successful businesses encourage cooperation and teamwork. Because all employees are working toward a common goal, the sharing of information and cooperation across departments should be encouraged. The technology and infrastructure should be in place to ensure that information sharing and teamwork are possible, and all barriers that might interfere with information dissemination should be removed.

Measures of Success

• Businesses must employ methods and procedures that are measurable. It is difficult to declare success if there is nothing in place that can be measured to show proof of that success. Critical success factors should not be confused with key performance indicators. Critical success factors are measured strategically, whereas key performance indicators are quantitatively measured. For example, a critical success factor might be the implementation of a new sales strategy, and the key performance indicator would be the resultant increase in the number of sales.

Ten Ways to Increase Workplace Productivity

Increasing workplace productivity should be a collaborative effort between management and employees. Employees should suggest ways the company can be more productive and develop ways they can be more efficient at their own jobs. Management should constantly analyze workforce efficiency and develop policies designed to increase workplace productivity.

Breaks

• Insist that employees take a 15-minute break in the morning and then in the afternoon along with a lunch break each day. It offers employees a chance to get away from the job for a while and re-focus their energies when they return. The company can help by providing a comfortable break room at a central location in the facility.

Clear the Way

• Get employees into the habit of keeping their work areas and the company hallways clear of unnecessary clutter. Each employee should be responsible for maintaining the departmental filing system and keeping items such as tools and cleaning equipment put away. This will allow people to more easily access important papers and equipment, and it will also make the workplace safer. A safer workplace is a more productive workplace.

Office Floor Plan

• The office floor plan contributes to overall employee productivity, according to the Office Arrow website. The floor plan for the office should put work groups close to one another and place resources, such as reference materials or office supplies, within easy reach as well. It allows the groups to interact more efficiently, and it reduces the amount of time a work group spends retrieving necessary work resources such as training manuals.

Time Management

• Employees and management should all keep a calendar that indicates how their work days will be broken down. Schedule meetings at least a week in advance so participants can prepare for the meeting and make efficient use of meeting time. Schedule downtime throughout the day where emails can be checked and other correspondence can be read so it does not interfere with the work day.

Routines

• Getting staff members and management into certain routines can make it easier to plan a more efficient day. For example, if everyone in a department knows the departmental staff meeting is Thursday at 1 pm, then staff members know to ask questions at the meeting as opposed to taking up work time. Routines allow employees to better organize their days and weeks.

Use Technology

• Make technology available to the work staff that will increase productivity. For example, a contact management software program will help your sales, marketing and purchasing teams to keep accurate records about clients without having to create an inefficient paper trail.

Checklists

• Developing checklists that can be used for a variety of purposes will help keep employees organized and productive. For example, developing a checklist for what to bring to each trade show and how to run the trade show booth will reduce issues with shipping materials to and from the show. It will also allow booth workers to more efficiently attend to customers who visit the booth.

Keep it Light

• When employees feel stress and pressure to perform, it can have a negative effect on productivity. Emphasize company goals to employees, but also allow a sense of humor to be part of your corporate culture. Sponsor off-site employee gatherings at local sports events or a bowling night at a local bowling alley to help relieve some of the pressure at work.

Work Equipment

• In order to increase workplace productivity, you must provide your staff with the most efficient tools. This does not mean that you need to update your equipment each time a new version is released. It means that if your staff is forced to use obsolete or inefficient equipment, then productivity will suffer.

Reduce Personal Interruptions

• Family emergencies and other personal employee issues are unavoidable, and the company should support each employee dealing with a personal crisis. But in order to increase workplace productivity, the company should discourage personal phone calls and visits during work hours.

8 Qualities of a Successful Person

1. Desire
The motivation to succeed comes from the burning desire to achieve a purpose. Napoleon Hill wrote, "Whatever the mind of man can conceive and believe, the mind can achieve." A burning desire is the starting point of all accomplishment. Just like a small fire cannot give much heat, a weak desire cannot produce great results.

2. Commitment
Integrity and wisdom are the two pillars on which to build and keep commitments. This point is best illustrated by the manager who told one of his staff members, "Integrity is keeping your commitment even if you lose money and wisdom is not to make such foolish commitments."

3. Responsibility
People with character accept responsibilities. They make decisions and determine their own destiny in life. Accepting responsibilities involves taking risks and being accountable which is sometimes uncomfortable. Most people would rather slay in their comfort zone and live passive lives without accepting responsibilities. They drill through life waiting for things to happen rather than making them happen. Accepting responsibilities involves taking calculated, not foolish, risks. It means evaluating all the pros and cons, then taking the most appropriate decision or action. Responsible people don't think that the world owes them a living.

4. Hard work
Success is not something that you run into by accident. It takes a lot of preparation and character. Everyone likes to win but how many are willing to put in the effort and lime to prepare to win? It takes sacrifice and self-discipline. There is no substitute for hard work. One cannot develop a capacity to do anything without hard work, just as a person cannot learn how to spell by sitting on a dictionary. Professionals make things look easy because they have mastered the fundamentals of whatever they do.

5. Character
Character is the sum total of a person's values, beliefs and personality. It is reflected in our behavior, in our actions. It needs to be preserved more than the richest jewel in the world. To be a winner takes character. George Washington said, "I hope I shall always possess firmness and virtue enough to maintain what I consider the most valuable of all titles, the character of an honest man."

It is not the polls or public opinions but the character of the leader that determines the course of history. There is no twilight zone in integrity. The road to success has many pitfalls. It takes a lot of character and effort not to fall into them. It also takes character not to be disheartened by critics.

6. Positive believing
What is the difference between positive thinking and positive believing? What if you could actually listen to your thoughts? Are they positive or negative? How are you programming your mind, for success or failure? How you think has a profound effect on your performance.

Positive believing is a lot more than positive thinking. It is having a reason to believe that positive thinking will work. Positive believing is an attitude of confidence that comes with preparation. Having a positive attitude without making the effort is nothing more than having a wishful dream. The following illustrates positive believing.

7. The Power of persistence
The journey to being your best is not easy. It is full of setbacks. Winners have the ability to overcome .mil bounce back with even greater resolve.Persistence means commitment and determination. There is pleasure in endurance. Commitment and persistence is a decision. Athletes put in years of practice for a few seconds or minutes of performance.

Persistence is a decision. It is a commitment to finish what you start. When we are exhausted, quitting, looks good. But winners endure. Ask a winning athlete. He endures pain and finishes what he started. Lots of failures have begun well but have not concluded anything. Persistence comes from purpose. Life without purpose is drifting. A person who has no purpose will never persevere and will never be fulfilled.

8. Pride of performance
In today's world, pride in performance has fallen by the wayside because it requires effort and hard work. However, nothing happens unless it is made to happen. When one is discouraged, it is easy to look for shortcuts. However these should be avoided no matter how great the temptation. Pride comes from within, which is what gives the winning edge.

Pride of performance does not represent ego. It represents pleasure with humility. The quality of the work and the quality and the worker are inseparable. Half-hearted effort does not produce half results; it produces no results.

Excellence comes when the performer takes pride in doing his best. Every job is a self-portrait of the person who does it, regardless of what the job is, whether washing cars, sweeping the floor or painting a house.

10 Qualities of a Successful Entrepreneur

Successful businesspeople have many traits in common with one another. They are confident and optimistic. They are disciplined self starters. They are open to any new ideas, which cross their path. Here are ten traits of the successful entrepreneur.

1. Disciplined

These individuals are focused on making their businesses work, and eliminate any hindrances or distractions to their goals. They have overarching strategies and outline the tactics to accomplish them. Successful entrepreneurs are disciplined enough to take steps every day toward the achievement of their objectives.

2. Confidence

The entrepreneur does not ask questions about whether they can succeed or whether they are worthy of success. They are confident with the knowledge that they will make their businesses succeed. They exude that confidence in everything they do.

3. Open Minded

Entrepreneurs realize that every event and situation is a business opportunity. Ideas are constantly being generated about workflows and efficiency, people skills and potential new businesses. They have the ability to look at everything around them and focus it toward their goals.

4. Self Starter

Entrepreneurs know that if something needs to be done, they should start it themselves. They set the parameters and make sure that projects follow that path. They are proactive, not waiting for someone to give them permission.

5. Competitive

Many companies are formed because an entrepreneur knows that they can do a job better than another. They need to win at the sports they play and need to win at the businesses that they create. An entrepreneur will highlight their own company’s track record of success.

6. Creativity

One facet of creativity is being able to make connections between seemingly unrelated events or situations. Entrepreneurs often come up with solutions which are the synthesis of other items. They will repurpose products to market them to new industries.

7. Determination

Entrepreneurs are not thwarted by their defeats. They look at defeat as an opportunity for success. They are determined to make all of their endeavors succeed, so will try and try again until it does. Successful entrepreneurs do not believe that something cannot be done.

8. Strong people skills

The entrepreneur has strong communication skills to sell the product and motivate employees. Most successful entrepreneurs know how to motivate their employees so the business grows overall. They are very good at highlighting the benefits of any situation and coaching others to their success.

9. Strong work ethic

The successful entrepreneur will often be the first person to arrive at the office and the last one to leave. They will come in on their days off to make sure that an outcome meets their expectations. Their mind is constantly on their work, whether they are in or out of the workplace.

10. Passion

Passion is the most important trait of the successful entrepreneur. They genuinely love their work. They are willing to put in those extra hours to make the business succeed because there is a joy their business gives which goes beyond the money. The successful entrepreneur will always be reading and researching ways to make the business better.

Successful entrepreneurs want to see what the view is like at the top of the business mountain. Once they see it, they want to go further. They know how to talk to their employees, and their businesses soar as a result.

5 Tips to Help Your Team be More Creative

In today’s challenging economic times, creative thinking is more valuable than ever. Not creative for creativity’s sake — creativity to solve real business problems. Many of the ideas of the past are no longer relevant. As a seasoned leader shared with me recently, “The half-life of ideas is decreasing rapidly.” So what’s our response? We need more and better ideas. The good news: creating new, value-added ideas is what teams do best. However, creativity in a team environment is not automatic. There are some things that leaders can do to increase the creative output of their team. Here are a few ideas to get you started . . .

Expect it – When you establish the role of your team, be sure to highlight the expectation that the team will create fresh, new solutions to the problems you face.

Train it – The skills of creativity can be learned. To learn them, they must be taught. Schedule time to conduct training for your team. This can take many forms. It can be as brief as a micro session on effective brainstorming (before your next brainstorming session) to multi-day training sessions and everything in between. The point is simple — train your team on the skills of creativity.

Practice it – Creative thinking and problem solving are skills — just like golf, tennis or a foreign language.  Like any skill, you get better with practice. Look for opportunities for your team to practice the skills you’ve learned. Practice builds competence and competence builds confidence.

Recognize it – The actions that you reward will be repeated. That’s human nature. That’s one reason you need to recognize not just the successes but the effort as well. Not every creative endeavor will be successful. That’s normal. If you’ve been operating in a culture in which creativity has not been valued, recognizing creative effort will be even more critical. People are paying attention. They want to know if it’s really safe to voice new ideas.

Model it – People always watch the leader — whether we want them to or not. Do your people see you embracing creative ideas? Do they see you engaged in the process of creating new ideas? You can accelerate the adoption of creative thinking as a skill if you personally get in the game. If you don’t, you’ll need to temper your expectations of groundbreaking new ideas from your team.

Teams are probably at their best when they’re engaged in the creative process. They are leveraging their collective wisdom and experience to create what previously did not exist. One of the most satisfying and productive things leaders can do is create the conditions to harness this creative potential. Start today and get ready to be amazed at what your team will do!

Calculating Customer Lifetime Value

Customer lifetime revenue is the total amount of revenue that a customer is likely to get in for the company.

The computation of the customer lifetime revenue is relatively easy:

Customer lifetime revenue = average purchase amount x purchase frequency in a year x number of years customer is expected to stay

or in exponential form with a yearly discount rate

CLR = Total Revenue per client * (r/(1+d))

where r is the retention rate and d is the discount rate.

It is also important to keep in mind that if your product has serviced the customer well, there is a likely chance that the estimated volume of purchase per cycle and therefore the estimated average amount per purchase occasion increases over time. However, this is something that also depends on the category in question. The number of sanitary pads that a woman purchases in a month is not likely to increase just because she is satisfied with the product. However, the share of wallet on some multi brand categories is likely to increase over time with higher levels of customer satisfaction.

Customer Lifetime Value
Simply put, customer lifetime value of a customer can be defined as the value of the customer to the business. This pertains to the total value that the customer can bring to your business across a specific period of time. Factors that need to be taken into account to calculate the lifetime value of a customer include the amount of money being spent on the customer for acquisition and retention. In addition to that there is also the aspect of the referral value of a satisfied customer in terms of good word of mouth. The lifetime value of a customer therefore needs to be a summation of the profit that she or she is likely to bring to the business and the referral value too.

Computing the lifetime value of customer is not easy. It needs to take various aspects into consideration.
Estimated customer lifetime value – (Customer lifetime revenue – customer lifetime cost) + expected number of referrals x expected value of the referred customers)

Some businesses however do not like to add in the referral value of a customer in the overall computation since it can bring in duplication over a period of time. Therefore the calculation is limited to:

Estimated customer lifetime value – Customer lifetime revenue – customer lifetime cost

The customer lifetime cost can be calculated by looking at the profit per sale and the number of times purchase has been made.
Knowing the customer lifetime value helps in assessing the amount of money that you should be spending on certain segments of customers in order to retain them. It helps in ensuring that the return on investment of specific customers is high and in accordance with the kind of returns that the company is looking at.

A company can use the values of lifetime value by categorizing people into various groups based on the level of lifetime value – high medium and low. These people can be profiled based on their categorizations and once you know the specific types of people in each group, the company shall be in a better position to spend the marketing budget in the right direction. This data can also be used to plan invites to high profile events and loyalty programs.

Customer Lifetime Value or CLV is one of the best ways in which the objectives of the company can be defined for the year. Defining the company objective based on CLV can help in ensuring that the future of the company is also being taken into account and that the marketing strategies being developed are not merely short term and tactical.

Efforts of the sales force can also be defined in keeping with the customer lifetime value so that you can be sure that you are keeping the high value customers happy and content.

7 Customer Metrics Every Business Should Track

The numbers of marketing and customer metrics that are floating around seem to sometimes inundate the marketing professional. In fact with competition at its highest, each consulting company tends to create a new metric (that is sometimes marketed as a black box) to impress potential clients. While there may be a large number of metrics, here are the top 7 metrics that we feel any business should track if they are interested in ensuring a good sustainable client base.

1. Customer Lifetime Revenue
 Customer lifetime revenue is the total amount of revenue that a customer is likely to get in for the company. This metric will be discussed in detail on our next post.

2. Average Purchase Amount
The average purchase amount is the revenue that the business gets per purchase order. It is the revenue that the business gains per sale or per order. Knowing the average purchase amount for customers can help you segment them and service them accordingly. It can also be coupled with the conversion rate so that a business can forecast at the expected revenue for the next 3. year.

3. Purchase Frequency
Purchase frequency can be defined as the number of times that a customer makes a purchase in a given period of time. This is a metric that can be calculated for a week, a month, 6 months or a year depending on the specific category that is being studied. When you find that purchase frequency for certain subset of customers is lower, depending on the category that they are buying, can lead to strategic marketing initiatives for upsell/cross-sell.

4. Recency
This term refers to the amount of time that has lapsed since the last purchase. While there is a lot of emphasis on frequency of purchase and the number of times that a customer comes back, recency is the one metric that can actually help retailers to a large extent. When tracked, recency can help create targeted communication that is more effective due to the timeliness of the communication. While there are other aspects such as the content of the communication, offers, discounts and more that also impact customer behavior, the timing of the communication is paramount. Tracking campaigns across various companies has shown that when the first email is sent seconds after the customer signs up for an account, it is likely to have the highest open, click through and conversion rate as well.

5. Retention Rate
The customer retention rate is a metric that indicates the proportion of customers that have stayed with you for a while. The retention rate can be calculated annually, monthly or weekly. The periodicity depends on the purchase cycle and the frequency at which the purchases are generally made.

It is known that acquiring new customers 5 times costlier than retaining existing ones. This means that maintaining a high retention rate can save the company precious dollars every year. Working on the retention rate also ensures that there are less disgruntled customers leaving your company. This means that you will have a lesser amount of bad word of mouth.

6. Customer Engagement
Customer engagement is a step ahead of customer satisfaction. When a customer is engaged, he or she becomes a marketing manager for your product. The factors that need to be considered while computing customer engagement include product involvement, frequency of interaction, extent of referrals, purchase behavior, virility of information shared. There is no standard model for calculating customer engagement and most companies develop their own based on the category in question.

This metric can be used to target specific groups of customers in order to increase their involvement with the company. It can also be used to measure the effectiveness of various campaigns that have been targeted at increasing retention and customer engagement. Web based strategies to increase customer engagement can be created to target individual customers.

7. Share of Wallet
Share of wallet can be defined as a metric that tells you the proportion of dollars that the customer is spending on your brand. The calculation can be done at various levels and you can define the share of wallet on the base of specific variants of a category, the entire category or even monthly expenditure if the category merits it. Calculating share of wallet is especially important for categories where the customer operates from a basket of preferences. The metric allows marketers to understand the average number of competitors that it is dealing with along with the overall position that the brand has.

There you have it, our set of the top 7 customer metrics that every online retailer should track. What other metrics do you consider important?