Scott's Q & A: Submit a Question
Over the years, I’ve been asked many hundreds of questions about Powerfeedback and the services we provide. Additionally, because of my past roles in the corporate world for 20+ years, as well as my 15 years as an entrepreneur, I receive a lot of business questions from current and potential business owners, plus plenty of career-related inquiries. I am also a columnist for the Eastern Pennsylvania Business Journal, where I write a Q&A column. I’ve selected a few of the most compelling and interesting ones below, and answered them as succinctly as I can. From time to time, I will post additional questions, plus, if you have a question that’s not answered on this website, I invite you to click the link above and send me yours. I’ll reply to you personally, and your question may become a part of this section to benefit others. All the best...Scott Gingold, CEO
Dear Scott: We’re launching a new product and we have no money left for market research. We’re basing our decisions on gut reaction and the opinion of friends and family. What are the chances that we will be successful? – W. F.
Dear W. F.: In an ideal situation you should conduct primary market research to determine things like the viability of your product, appropriate price points, the best target audience, as well as packaging feedback and message testing. As for the opinion of friends and family, while this can be valuable, more often than not, their feedback is prejudiced with their personal support and enthusiasm for you. Regarding the likelihood of you being successful, frankly, I am concerned. Often times, to a fault, entrepreneurs do not question as to whether they will, or will not be successful. They know it, and feel it in their gut. Are you ready to run through brick walls to make your product successful? Will you be willing to make adjustments on the fly to better address your customers needs and desires? I wish that I could answer your question more directly, but for now, there are still too many unknowns.
Dear Scott: We have a fleet of company vehicles. Due to changes in some state laws regarding and using a handheld cell phone and texting while driving, we supplied our field people with Bluetooth headsets and issued a memo about not texting while driving. We discovered that many of our people forget the headsets, and are still texting. What do we do? - G. R.
Dear G. R.: You have touched on a very sensitive topic for me! As someone who has used cell phones for over 25 years (“mobile operator, please connect this call to...”) I am amazed at what I see on the road today! It is extremely scary and a growing national problem that is providing alarming traffic injury and fatality numbers. The first mistake that you made was not putting professionally mounted blue tooth devices ($150-350) in the vehicles. Since they are not “portable”, they are always there when the vehicle is in use and can be easily paired to virtually any Bluetooth phone and cannot be forgotten. Second, forget memos. Instead, adopt a zero tolerance policy and have those people who operate company vehicles sign it. Make it clear that if they are caught using a handheld phone, or texting while driving, their employment will be terminated immediately, period. As to how to monitor this, here is a suggestion. Affix decals to the back of your vehicles, much like you see on the back of tractor trailers that say something like; “if you see the driver of this vehicle texting while driving or using a handheld cell phone, please call...”. Now, out of fairness to your employees, if a complaint is filed, talk to your wireless carrier first. They keep time and date stamps of all calls and text messages and they can verify the activity of the mobile device, which, you can compare to the time of the complaint. Lastly, do your part. Make sure that you are not putting your field personnel in a position of rushing to locations where they are forced to drive, talk and text in order to meet their schedules or unreasonable company timelines.
Dear Scott: I am a physician. I have a staff of eight full-time people. I am not the best manager” and the employees know this, so for all intents and purposes, the inmates are running the asylum. Often times this means that 3 or 4 of them are calling out sick (ironic, I know) at the same time, running to take their kids here or there, and not providing the best patient customer service. I am overwhelmed. Where do I start to fix this mess? - Dr. P. M.
Dear Dr.: Based on our email exchange I learned that you do not have any set policies and procedures, your office manager is inexperienced, not “managing” the staff, and is the primary offender as it relates to poor attendance and sudden time off and away from the office. Based on our experience with physicians and dentists by the way, this is not uncommon! With regard to where to start to correct the situation, you have already taken the first step by realizing that there is a problem, so, pat yourself on the back for this! Since you acknowledge that you are not a “manager” per se and that you have no desire to perform this function, I urge you to engage the services of an experienced consulting firm that can assist you with employee assessment, writing an employee manual, enacting policies and procedures, as well as conduct customer service training. With the right firm in place, all of these things can be done quickly and with little impact on your business.