6 Reasons Why Your Best Employees Will Leave

When it's not about money, your star employees are probably jumping ship for one of these reasons.
By Jeff Haden | Dec 15, 2011

You start a business and you hire a key employee. She’s awesome. You hire another key employee. He’s awesome. Together the three of you create an unstoppable team.

Until one of them leaves. Sometimes great employees leave because you can’t afford to pay them more and they can earn more somewhere else. Unfortunately, that happens.  Often, though, great employees leave because your company has changed—and they don’t want to change with it.

Here are six of the top (non salary) reasons your best employees will leave:

1. The business grew—and so did your ego.
2. A cool startup became a corporation.
3. The sky is no longer the limit.
4. Exceptional skill forged handcuffs.
5. Flat is now layered.
6. The NFL is now a little league.

Read full article here.

An insider’s six-step plan to fix Congress

By Mickey Edwards, former congressman.

The Atlantic

July/August 2011

Break the power of partisans to keep candidates off the general-election ballot.

Turn over the process of redrawing congressional districts to independent, nonpartisan commissions.

Allow members of any party to offer amendments to any House bill and—with rare exceptions—put those amendments to a vote.

Change the leadership structure of congressional committees.

Fill committee vacancies by lot.

Choose committee staff solely on the basis of professional qualifications.

 

 

 

Listen to some of the feedback from disgusted citizens on the treatment of Gov. Johnson and the arbitrary exclusion from the New Hampshire GOP debate...

The media is 100 percent committed to designating "first-tier" candidates solely on basis of whether corporate America "trusts" them enough to pour millions into their campaign coffers and if they have "rock star" name recognition.  - Mel Marcus, LTTE, Baltimore Sun

That’s a shame, because in an interview with Rolling Stone, Johnson proved himself to be one of the more honest – and certainly more unorthodox – politicians in the running.That’s a shame, because in an interview with Rolling Stone, Johnson proved himself to be one of the more honest – and certainly more unorthodox – politicians in the running. - By Tim Dickinson, Rolling Stone Politics.

CNN owes Governor Johnson a public apology and a chance to express his views on the issues on one of its prime-time weekday programs. You can ask CNN to apologize here.

For his part, Governor Johnson did not take this slight laying down. He took the questions of the debate and answered them — all of them — and released the video of his performance on youtube. You can view the video here. I highly recommend watching it.

Available for speaking gig.

Come hear Joseph Oddo deliver a message on the FairTax - legislation pending in congress to eliminate income tax and replace it with a national consumption tax.

Harrisonburg Court Square between 1 - 5 PM.

 

by Ian Campbell, Mission Partners

You get into business to make money. In order to make money, you have to have clients. However, “getting a client and retaining a client” are two totally different things. Clients are the life blood of any successful business. So it seems to make sense that you would want to build a relationship with your clients that will last for years to come.

If you look at it from a financial perspective, you spend a lot more money trying to obtain new clients then it would be for you to market your products and services to your existing clients. In these tough economic times, client retention is more important than ever. Why do clients stay with a company? Research has shown that clients remain with a company for the following reasons:

    * Superior Products      
    * Superior Customer Service
    * Friendly, Knowledgeable Staff

If you waste time in marketing to your existing client base, then you are playing Russian roulette with the success of your business. How can you work on client retention? Below are just a few things that you can do to insure that you retain your clients for the long haul:

    * Market to Current Clients – Set a specific number of current clients to market to each week. Setting a goal will keep you focused and goal oriented. Your goal could be to market to 25 cur rent clients this week with an additional goal of selling new products or services to 10 of those 25.

    * Always Keep Your Word – Your word is what customers will hold you to. Never promise what you can’t deliver. You want to be seen as reliable and trustworthy. If a client knows they c an rely on you then they are more likely to remain with you.

    * Personalize Your Service – Get to know your clients. Who are they? What are their interests? What drives them? Knowing more about them will allow you to personalize your delivery to them.

    * Longevity – Your customers want to know that you’ll be there long after the sale. There’s nothing worse than a company gaining your business and then dropping the ball after t he sale. Clients are more apt to stay put if they know you’ll be around for them if they need you in the future.

    * Get Comments – Your clients are the main source for gaining feedback on the positives and negatives of your business. The way to make your business better is to get feedback from your cli ents. They can assist you in areas that may need improvement or letting you know areas that exceed their expectations.
 
Positive client relationships equal long term clients. Remember the old saying “you get what you put in it”? Well this is true in business as well. Customers can make or a break a business. So the time you invest in them will insure that they are around for years to come. It’s never too late to work on client retention.

 

By ROSALIND RESNICK

Despite the many books and articles that have been written about entrepreneurship, it's just not possible to start a company without making a few mistakes along the way. Just try to avoid making any mistake so large that your company can't get back on its feet to fight another day.

By Ashley Halsey III

PHILADELPHIA -- The Obama administration plans to spend $53 billion on high-speed and intercity rail over the next six years.

Vice President Biden and Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood made the announcement Tuesday morning during an appearance at Philadelphia's 30th Street Station. The money will be used to build new high-speed rail networks and to make existing rail networks faster.

President Obama's budget for fiscal year 2012, which is to be unveiled next week includes $8 billion for the plan.The rest of the money will be allocated over five years, officials said.

 

"As a longtime Amtrak rider and advocate, I understand the need to invest in a modern rail system that will help connect communities, reduce congestion and create quality skilled manufacturing jobs that cannot be outsourced," Biden said.

Biden estimated that, as a longtime senator from Delaware, he made over 7,900 trips between Wilmington and Washington on Amtrak.

"As President Obama said in his State of the Union, there are key places where we cannot afford to sacrifice as a nation -- one of which is infrastructure," Biden said in a statement.

Last fall LaHood announced awards of $2.4 billion for high-speed rail projects in 23 states, including $45.4 million for Virginia to help fund studies and preliminary engineering in order to improve service between Richmond and Washington. It was the second round of awards, as the administration previously distributed $8 billion in stimulus money for high-speed rail projects. California has received the bulk of the awards -- about $3 billion total.

Read rest of story here.

Reuters contributed to this report.

“Never before have so few done so much for

so many with so little for so long that we are

beginning to think that we can do almost

anything with almost nothing.” Not Known:

but a common saying among members of the

Libertarian Party of Nevada in the 1970’s

(Likely a rip-off of Churchill)

PATHS TO SUCCESS

1. We all know the saying “To fail to plan is to plan to fail”

Do you have an actual plan in place? Your business is more than just some abstract concept; this is your livelihood. It’s what’s going to pay for your house and put your children through college.

Good strategy can mean the difference between success and utter failure. Marketing success allows companies to grow and expand their internal capabilities. To enable this expansive growth, Mission Partners has created a series of flexible programs that will increase your strategic marketing potential without consuming your business promotion budget. Our cost effective approach to marketing gives your company – no matter what size or stage of development – the ability to implement efficient marketing to extend your reach.

• Strategic Planning – Before beginning any marketing effort we suggest you perform a “Four P” (Product, Price, Promotion, Placement) or “Marketing Mix” analysis on your prospective market. This analysis will help develop a highly accurate marketing plan that pinpoints specific customer segments. Using the most cost effective implementation plan possible, we apply the proper application of those principles, a strategy can be devised that applies specifically to your target market.

• SWOT Analysis – Early planning and strategic focus are the key to any successful project. Marketing is no exception. One of the most powerful tools for planning the strategic objectives of your company’s marketing efforts is the SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats) Analysis. This identifies the positive and negative characteristics of a product, the marketable potential of the product, and the competitive factors that impact its potential.

• ISWOT Analysis – ISWOT is a refined, focused version of a SWOT analysis. This analysis focuses solely on the strengths, weakness, opportunities, and threats associated with internet marketing efforts and the product’s web presence. This analysis will sketch the marketing landscape as applied to the worldwide web and identify your position vis-à-vis those competitors that leverage the internet.

http://www.yourmissionpartners.com/smallbusiness/strategy/