In the course of networking with colleagues or entrepreneurs in general, business operations is a topic discussed often. From hiring or computers to everything in between, it is good to discuss such business commonalities, as we can learn from each other and gain perspectives on how to manage various elements of our business.

It wasn’t until recently I realized I rarely if ever talk about money in networking. This thought came to mind as I got into conversations with 2 separate colleagues, and the topic of money came up. Each conversation was different, but it lent some insight into their business’ finances and how they seek revenues and profits. However it wasn’t until afterwards, when I was digesting what was discussed, that I realized money was discussed.

Now don’t think I am suggesting you should start a conversation with a complete stranger by saying, “hello, tell me about your business and how much you make?” Rather, when in a situation when you may want a different or unique perspective on money and finances, seek out trusted colleagues for a conversation. This colleague may be a fellow entrepreneur who is familiar with your business or not. You don’t have to open up your QuickBooks file to someone in the process, but you can get into some details without putting a dollar figure with it.

Of course you should always review any advice or decisions with your accountant or CPA. You do have one, right?

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Small business drives the economy. That statement is said over and over again, but what does it really mean? We hear figures how most new job growth comes from small businesses and entrepreneurs, but then that’s it – no depth is reported and you never hear anything beyond it. Allow me to put some meaning to it.

As you don’t have to go far to find any new unemployment numbers these days, let’s use this report out of the Great State of California where 79,000 were lost in the month of January, 2009 alone.

What one company is going to hire 79,000 people? Or what two companies will hire 39,500 each? Or what 100 companies will hire 790 people each?

Or will it be 79,000 companies hiring one person each? These 79,000 companies are the small businesses and entrepreneurs who are doing all they can to survive – and thrive – in this economy. Issues of extravagant junkets and private jets never come into play for them. As they do well and grow, they have the need to bring on more people. But it is expensive to bring on an employee. First off, you want to make sure you can keep them on the payroll and be able to pay them through the highs and lows of business. Then there is insurance – not just healthcare, but workers comp, unemployment, liability, etc. Add to that whatever tools they need to do their job, and you see the challenge for us entrepreneurs.

As elected officials throw around figures so large that I am sure even themselves don’t quite grasp, let alone those who voted them in, they need to remember who will be doing the actual hiring, and ensure they have the level playing field to do so.

Let the conversation on small business hiring continue!

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You don’t have to look far on the Internet for a mention of poor airline customer service. On a recent flight, however, I received great service – service to a level that compelled me to write to the airline. Rather than doing so, in a closed manner, I decided to put it in the form of an open letter here on The Hot Iron.

Dear AirTran Airways:

I am writing regarding a recent flight I had on AirTran and the great service I received. The flight was on Sunday, February 22, 2009 aboard flight 20 from Atlanta to Chicago-Midway. On that flight I upgraded to business class, as well as the flight into Atlanta.

My only regret in this letter is I did not get the name of the gentleman who was the flight attendant in business class. He did mention it at the beginning of the flight but I did not note it. However, his attentive, outstanding service did not need writing down. Many times I have flown domestic business or first class - on AirTran and other carriers - and the service has been good, but not great. I do not have the expectation of the forward cabin being an open bar party, but attention to those who paid more to be there is what I seek.

This attendant went way beyond service I have received for quite a time. He was very friendly, greeting each and every passenger as they boarded, and gave extra attention to children. Once the plane was boarded he came through and asked us if we wanted a pre-flight drink, which I haven’t received in quite a while. Throughout the flight he came through the full business class section frequently asking if there was anything else we needed or wanted, right up until the time we landed.

Once we landed and started to deplane, I noticed some passengers ahead of me in business class give him a hug. Perhaps they knew him or were just as pleased as I was, but that is something I have never seen before! As I passed him and he thanked me for flying AirTran and wished me a good evening, I thanked him and shook his hand – something I had never done before to a flight attendant.

Please pass along my kind words to him, and I look forward to the next flight I am on with him. And for sure I will get his name again.

Regards,
Mike Maddaloni
Chicago

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Yesterday it was announced that accounting giant KPMG LLP is moving their Chicago offices to the Aon Center, the 3rd tallest building in the Windy City. In honor of that, the name of the firm was displayed on the south-facing side of the tower using window shades.

As I am a former firm employee, my wife currently works there, and we have many friends who work there in the US and internationally, I went out last night and took a few pictures, as seen in the accompanying photo, and as well made the following video – view it on YouTube if you do not see it below.

As much as people are more and more working virtually, we still have the need to get together and collaborate. Of course the firm itself will need space for storage and record keeping, but the need for people to be able to meet face-to-face is still important today and tomorrow, and I am sure at least through the end of their lease.

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Yesterday I took the day to get a monkey off my back – my email inbox. Yes, I spent a Sunday to process all of the email that has piled up over who knows how long. This could have been avoided if I followed the advice I gave to myself many years ago when I faced a similar situation on an almost daily basis – managing your email inbox to zero.

As the name implies, it means you will continuously work to have no emails in your inbox. So where will they go? The following is a list of actions that I apply to all of my inbox messages:

• Read
• Delete
• Forward
• File
• Act Upon

Note I don’t have “leave in there” as a valid action. With the capacity of mail folders on just about every type of email software, coupled with search, filing messages that need to be saved and processing the rest will get your inbox clutter in order.

In general, I do not neglect email. I do read it through the day and process most mail. Messages that are low priority or something not requiring immediate action are what tend to build up. But a few of these messages a day can add up quickly and thus here I am.

First Step – Low Hanging Fruit

As I sat down to process my inbox, I decided to go through every message first, looking for low-hanging fruit, which I determined as messages that could right-away be deleted or filed. If it took longer than a second to think about them, I would skip them for the full review.

This went well – I started with 100 messages in my inbox and after processing low-hanging fruit I ended up with 50! Not only did I feel a sense of accomplishment already, but some relief that I wouldn’t spend the entire day on email.

Process Them In Order

After I got my inbox to a manageable size, I decided to tackle them in the order of the most recent received, going in reverse. It was a Sunday, so this made sense, but if it was a weekday I might have wanted to process the oldest first. And I worked them one at a time – not tackling the next message until the current one was completed. After going through the low-hanging fruit, I had already cleared out redundant messages or reviewed those related to others, so I would not have been surprised by a second message related to the one I was currently working on.

Needless to say this took a while, and longer than my review for low-hanging fruit. I tried to act on as many of them as possible, especially if work was involved. For some, I added a task to my to-do list system and filed the email. There was a mix of actual client work, messages to reply to which required actual thought and email receipts among other things. After a few hours, my inbox was at zero, and all was right in the world.

It’s About Keeping It That Way

Ideally, my inbox should always be at zero. If there are any messages in there, they should be there for a brief period – no longer than a day or two – and almost serve as a poor-excuse-for-a task list. If it would take longer, I would add the task to my to-do list system, where it would be prioritized properly. The goal is to only have one list to work from, not two.

The Origin Of A Process

As I related earlier, this process was borne from necessity. Years back I worked for a large international company where email was flying from all directions. I would not be unusual for me to come into work at 8 am East Coast US time and have 400 new messages in my inbox! Granted many were related to each others as part of a message thread, but they still took time to process.

To make things worse, my manager left all of his email in his inbox! I realized this after a while when he would yell at me for not telling him something when I had already emailed him on it days ago. One time when in his office I noticed he had literally thousands of email in his inbox, most unread. It dawned on me the reality of this particular job was reading and filing email, and searching for it when called on the carpet, which happened all too frequently.

Everybody needs their own system for work. I share this as its something that has worked for me for over a decade, and when I have personally shared it with folks they have responded favorably to it.

Give it a try, and let me know what you think of it.

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