Article of the Month - 
Who's talking?

A personal experience many years ago gave cause to think about customers who talk a lot. As they talk to us a lot when they are doing business with us, can we direct their talking to be about our business when they are with others?

A person talking about your business to others can be a lot more valuable than you creating social posts. The September Article of the Month is titled, "Who's talking?"

Book of the month -
The Art of the Exit by Jacob Orosz

Surely, everyone can tell about their experience of getting into business. Can you tell about your plans to get out of the business? Hopefully, you are not waiting for the morning you wake up and decide you want to retire or do something else. There is money to be had by selling an ongoing business to someone else. The Art of the Exit is a good book to read - now.

Planning when and how you are going to get out of your business can only mean a controlled exit, and more likely it means more money in your pocket.

Internet Tool for Your Business -
Return on Investment Calculator

It may have been a very small amount, but you did have some money when you started your small business. And as a business continues, there is an expectation that this amount of money grows.

Imagine taking that investment and putting the money into an account with a financial advisor. Surely you would ask the question about how much you could expect the money to grow. And the financial advisor would have an answer regarding their experience over the years.

Let's look again at your business. Can you ask your business the same question and get an answer? If not before, you can now. The Return on Investment Calculator is provided so that you can use the numbers from your business and find out just how well it is producing for you.

Each month we highlight one of the 47 free tools on the Profits Plus website; we call them "calculators". While some provide analysis by numbers and ratios, some are assessments, and others are self-examination questions. Many are downloadable, while others, because of the complexity of the calculations going on behind the scenes, are a part of the website and allow you to print your answers. None of them require you to give any personal information, nor are there any "cookies" tracking you or your information.

Staff Incentive for Your Business -
The envelope, please!

The staff incentive for September involves an envelope. Well, actually, it involves a bunch of envelopes. While this idea can work on any day of the week, we think Monday is a great day to utilize it because it can get you and your staff off to a great start and provide conversation that can last several days.

With a group of envelopes, put a prize in each. The prize could be money, a free meal, two movie tickets, or a note giving a long lunch break or going home early one day.

Gather the staff and, with a bit of grandeur, recognize an employee for something they did in the previous week that was above and beyond to help a customer or coworker. Call that employee out and ask them to pick one envelope from the stack. What is in the envelope is their reward/prize for what they did.

It is a small incentive, but it is also valuable recognition that can inspire everyone in your business to think about how they can be of value to others.

We want to recognize A Carrot A Day by Adrian Gostick and Chester Elton, whose book provides the basis for each month's incentive idea.