We talked about the number one fear of employees during recssions in the blog-post below: they are afraid of losing their jobs because they don’t believe their management has a plan to survive this “dire” downturn! So, here’s the simple, very best way to overcome that:
Have a “” that you work out with your key people and then give it to every employee. You and your direct reports then Walk-Your-4-Corners (W4C) to communicate and encourage employees to carry out the plan, together! It really works. Click the to see an example and ideas for writing your own. Also known as 1-page or 1-pg business plan.
Best as always, Kraig
Are Your People Fired Up?
Monday, February 16th, 2009How to get your people fired up during this downturn? More and more we’re seeing managers and leaders communicating, planning and acting with their people. TELL your people you have a plan to get through the recession, JOIN with them in developing and executing the plan, and TAKE ACTIONS yourself with your people.
Jim Alampi, consultant and Vistage speaker says it best: “The single thing that causes employees the most angst and fear is believing their management has no plan.” So have one!
To paraphrase Morrie Schechtman, consultant, author, and speaker: stop trying to talk people out of their feelings — you can’t; talk reality with them, this recession will be long and deep; get your people’s feelings on the table, talk about the negatives.
Then, encourage your people to reach high, since they are talking themselves out of doing so — in other words, we’re thinking ourselves into failure, so don’t, and instead think that it’s okay to reach high and sometimes fail; what this means is challenge the buyer to buy like never before!
Finally, use the skills that fit this recession, not your everyday 2007-08 ones. For that one sales moment, put your emotions aside and dive in like never before!
On every front the same message emerges: engage with your people, plan with your people, execute with your people.
As always, hope this is helpful advice from literally dozens of articles and folks we keep hearing from. Very best to you, Kraig
Download Recession Webinar!
Tuesday, February 10th, 2009Great News! We’ve just made the available to everyone! Please check out how it can dramatcially improve your business. The download is just $47 (same as the Webinar) and you can keep it in your computer to share with others in your company.
You can also click up the 3-page, 18-slide PDF summary of the slides at , and print it for use in taking notes as you experience the Webinar Download with your key people and take action to thrive during this downturn.
Timely Cashflow: 6 Keys to Collect Now
Monday, February 9th, 2009My good friend and world-class collection guru, Abe WalkingBear Sanchez, wrote this article a few days ago and it is ageless advice for improving cash flow by collecting on your accounts receivable now. Please read and activate his six points for ratcheting your receivables into cash. You’ll improve your cash situation, guaranteed!
Just click on and reap the rewards.
All the best, Kraig
Recession Ideas from Tatum
Tuesday, January 27th, 2009Just received an email from my friends at Tatum, and they’ve got some great ideas from a CFO’s perspective on dealing with the recession. Two articles: the first offers solid tips for working with your liquidity and your lenders. The second article focuses on your financial and operational planning to prepare your business for the worst the recession pitches at you but readies you for the best. Sounds like sage advice to me! Here are their PDFs:
Hope these are useful ideas for you. Best wishes, Kraig
MeasureUp Recession Tools
Sunday, January 25th, 2009Here is your .
And, please visit us at for more business and management tools and tips.
Recession Tools: Google It!
Saturday, January 24th, 2009Amazingly, when you Google “recession” – three of the seven paid-for sponsors on the first page talk about the medical illness known as Clinical Depression and two talk about dentistry, not economic recession. Well, I guess that makes some sense, recessions and dental work can be very depressing! Another interesting observation: you get nearly 50 million hits when googling recession. And yet, not much to help us manage through it.
In our opinion, only the wikipedia website offers much, and that’s a pretty thorough history of recessions and the Great Depression. Good stuff, but it doesn’t help much to take action to survive and thrive in this recession.
Following are a few websites you might want to visit, but actually we got lucky here at CEO Tools Blog since we seem to be the only one on the first page or two when you Google “recession tools” that offers ongoing suggestions of real-time, concrete, free tools for businesses to manage and do better through recessions. Try these websites for some interesting input:
Great definition and history of recessions and the ‘30s Great Depression:
A few good ideas for dealing with recessions:
Great recession tools for non-profit organizations (actually, they’re not-for-taxation, but everyone knew that):
There are others, but it’s like wading through mud – it’ll take you a while to find them! So please check in with us regularly since we’ll be posting new ideas, tips, and tools to do better with your business during this recession.
Recession Tool: Asset & Cost Management
Friday, January 23rd, 2009Merrill Lynch recently posted an economic commentary entitled “Revisiting the deflation theme” which contains some great ideas for recession readiness and response. And, whether or not our economy deteriorates into deflation, your industry or your raw materials and products might, as for example what has happened to severely declining iron and steel prices in the past few months.
Sensible pro-actions include: increase your liquidity (more cash, quicker collections, lower inventory, higher inventory turns) , reduce your leverage without compromising your cash position, work now to spread your debt service out further, turn fixed costs into variable through outsourcing and the like so that you can curtail the variable when necessary, focus on cost containment since top-line will be squeezed, and stay tuned for more tips and ideas! Please email me at and I’ll return-email the PDF to you, with thanks to Merrill Lynch.
Recession Tool: Collect $ Receivables
Friday, January 23rd, 2009While speaking to several Vistage CEO groups last week, a great receivables collection tool was offered by two separate Members: while making a routine customer visit, the senior executive from each of these companies showed the CEO of the client company their recent payment record on a chart on their laptop. The client CEO had no idea that his company was well past due on a payment and immediately arranged for a check our Members took home right then – sometimes you don’t have to ask, just show! Clearly a management tool every business person can use. My best to you, Kraig
Webinar Announcement
Sunday, January 18th, 2009Hello CEO Tools BLOG-Fellows:
Welcome to our brand new weekly blog. We’ll be posting regularly, so please stay tuned in!
And, please join in with feedback, news, ideas, and most of all tools and tips you’ve used from our or from elsewhere. This blog is all about management tools, manager tools, CEO tools, and business tools. Every one of these tools is aimed at creating results for all our BLOG-Fellows, namely you!
Our biggest news right now is the to be held at 2pm Eastern time on January 28 Wednesday for one hour. I’m certain that will be the best hour you spend about how to Measure and Manage through this recession
. That will be our focus, so register this week. To register please click on now.
Please join us for the Webinar! I guarantee it will be worth your time.
With best wishes, Kraig