How To Have a Thoughtful 2022

There’s a question I love to ask clients: “Tell me, what has the pandemic done for you?”

Yes, the pandemic has been awful in so many ways. But if you look for it, there’s an upside for all of us. There are things we’ve learned to do and knowledge we’ve gained. It may not outweigh the things we feel we’ve lost, but there’s still value in them.

Here are a few business lessons I’m hearing clients have found valuable from the last year.

Say ‘No’ More Often

You want your Yes to be valuable. But your Yes won’t be valuable if you don’t say No from time to time. A big lesson from the last year is learning how to say No at the right times.

How do you say No?

You say No when pricing. You say No in availability. And you say No with solutions.

But for every No, there’s a corresponding Yes. The No is the leaping off point that sets boundaries. You say No so that you can say Yes to something within specific boundaries.

For example, when a customer says, “I don’t want to pay A, I want to pay B,” you can then say, “Great, I can’t do X, but I can do Y.”

You said No by pricing your services a certain way. You gave the client a price for a particular amount of work. When the client wanted to pay less, you said No to providing the same work for less pay, but you said Yes to providing modified work for less pay.

Saying No can be daunting, but you have to be brave enough to say No more often. And not just with customers. You even have to say No to employees and suppliers. When you get used to saying No at appropriate times, you’ll find that it’s an excellent management tool.

You don’t have an unlimited amount of time, capacity, or capital. Supply is limited, and demand is high. When you say Yes to everything, your resources get tied up with non-ideal work, causing you to miss better opportunities.

By saying Yes to everything, you’re essentially turning down better business, better ideas, and better pay.

Think Ahead About Rewards

I’ve had a lot of conversations lately about compensations, incentive plans, and profit sharing. Too often, they’re about trying to incentivize behavior in people who are already working extremely hard and getting impressive results.

It’s difficult to incentivize a person who can’t really perform better than they do now.

Rewards, on the other hand, aren’t a new target to shoot for. They’re acts of appreciation that make your team feel valued and respected.

Rewards aren’t always about money, though people certainly appreciate that particular form of recognition. Rewards are also about self-worth or a feeling of accomplishment. These might be subtler types of rewards, like recognition, fun, or pride in the company you work for.

Time, however, is always a constraint, so you have to plan for rewards. Instead of planning incentive triggers, like hitting a sales goal, plan rewards for certain time frames. If you hit a sales goal at that time, great! Tie the reward to the sales goal. But recognize that you have many more things to celebrate than sales goals: happy clients, breakthroughs, successful events, a well-oiled team.

Know ahead of time that you’re going to reward your team and when. You can frame that reward around recent successes as the time approaches.

For example, a lot of clients told me how busy they were in October and November. They had customers coming through their doors every day, and they catered food for those clients.

They found that their crews really appreciated being invited to eat as well. It’s one less complication in their day.

So the next time your crew is busy, why not reward them by bringing in some food? Little rewards that happen more frequently actually have a bigger impact and more lasting power than larger rewards given on a limited basis — once a quarter, or once a year.

It’s all about keeping up morale. Remember that in this labor market, you need your employees and subcontractors more than they need you. Every small but sincere gesture you can make to show your appreciation adds value.

Take a Break

To encourage mental and physical health, give yourself and your employees the space and permission to take breaks.

This is really a self-management and self-care issue.

By nature, most people will work to fill the time that they have. I’m as guilty of this as anybody. But that’s why you have to start planning breaks ahead of time.

Try adding breaks into you and your team’s schedules and make them non-negotiable. If that’s not an option, look for other ways you and your team can detach in a healthy manner.

I’ve seen clients requiring employees to take a three-hour mental sabbatical from business. They have to leave their phones at the office, go to a park, and all they can take with them is a pad of paper. You don’t have to follow that model, but you can find what works best for your people and your organization. Be creative, and make it a part of your business model.

Or, if you can’t integrate this formally, lead by example. Make it a part of your own life. Start the day off with a jog, or take a walk in the afternoon. I walk my dog every morning.

Whatever you choose, sticking with it won’t be easy. Work will always try to encroach. But pay attention to how much better your day goes when you incorporate these interludes. They’ll give your brain and your body a much-needed break from sitting on the phone or in front of the computer all day.

Celebrate Making Money

Instead of celebrating revenue, celebrate making money.

Let’s face it, revenue isn’t hard to come by. Profit is.

The revenue you’re earning now is probably much more profitable than it used to be. So celebrate the profit behind the revenue by finding ways to give back.

One obvious way to give back to the employees that contributed to your profitability is to give them a raise. But, as discussed above, you can also make smaller moves that your team will respond to.

Incremental rewards let employees know they’re appreciated. Do they see you using the money for their benefit? If they do, it makes a positive difference in overall workplace morale.

Embrace Transparency

If your team doesn’t understand how the money is made and where it goes, they won’t see how they fit into the overall system. And they may come to resent your success.

Transparency is your friend in a time-constrained environment like we’re in now. You don’t have to put everybody’s salary on a whiteboard and share it. That’s not the point.

Instead, be transparent about what’s going on with your customers and what’s going on with your business. It gives employees buy-in and lets them know that they matter to you. It also gives them the information they need to prioritize, make better choices, and do the things that really make a difference for your business.

Self-Reflect

If we’ve learned anything from the past two years, it’s the value of reflection.

Each of the above five points are opportunities for reflection.

When you step back and look at how things have unfolded this past year, you can begin to see how they’re affecting you and your business. This knowledge is priceless.

Reflections on this list will lead to different solutions for everyone, depending on their own unique situation. But anyone who spends time considering these points will find valuable new ways to help themselves and their business.

I encourage you to take some time to reflect on your business and the people that make it successful.

You’ll be glad you did.

Have a safe and happy New Year!