Build Business Profits

Mike Ullman, the CEO of J.C. Penny since late 2004, estimates the company has saved over $400 million annually by implementing programs to reduce the turnover of valuable talent. Mike has further quantified this cost per employee leaving. Each one costs J.C. Penny about one third of that employee’s annual salary to replace.

If J.C. Penny only loses one third of the cost of an employee’s annual salary when they leave and need to be replaced, they are fortunate. I have seen huge costs associated with employee turnover including the cost of recruiting, training and relocation. There are also the less obvious costs of lost productivity, lost sales and a loss of control of assets.

J.C. Penny operates fairly large format stores supported by district and regional managers. In theory, if a person leaves there is a backup to cover the business while a replacement is found. The reality is that even in that situation productivity is compromised and customer service standards are at risk.

Consider a smaller format store with local or regional retail chain. Often the only backup is none or maybe the owner. I have seen many instances where a store cannot open because of inadequate staffing. When this happens too often, the customer base loses confidence and the profits decline to a point where a store may have to close. Look at the transportation industry where there continues to be an acute shortage of drivers. How many freight companies are losing revenue because they simply do not have enough drivers for their equipment?

In each of these examples, the cost of replacing an employee is far greater than 30% of the departing employee’s annual salary.

In one of the modules of my FREE course How To Increase Profits by 30% or More in 90 Days or Less, I cover key ways to minimize the turnover of valuable people. One is to make sure you do not retain and nurture mediocre performers. That is a major negative influence on talented staff. Another is to clearly define and communicate company performance goals in terms of how they relate to a person’s job and then answer the question “WIIFM” or What Is In It For Me?

Mike Ullman is right on point focusing on the company’s number 2 asset. Employees in retail and many other industries are key to developing a company’s number 1 asset which, of course, is it’s customers. If you know Mike, please compliment him on J.C. Penny’s vastly improved performance and please ask him to visit www.localretailmarketing.com which is a program that will definitely help him grow profits by customer.

A reminder: the FREE course including the module on human resource development is offered at www.stevepohlit.com I wrote the course and the human resource section based on my experience helping numerous clients across a number of key industries including retail, recruit and retain key people.

Blogging is a communication tool that will help your business if you follow a couple basic guidelines.

The majority of blogs on the Internet are free services. The most popular one is Blogger by Google. I started blogging with a Blogger account and still have an active account. However, a number of blogs that I started were left alone for awhile and all of a sudden those blogs and content are gone. Fortunately, I have back-up on nearly everything I write, but the point is Google was in control and I was not.

Notice this blog: it sits on a distinct domain www.stevereports.com In this case I have chosen to use subject categories as a method of navigation. An alternative is to create separate blogs for each subject category. I have tried that and personally find it more difficult to manage over time. I recommend a distinct domain for your blog and a logical navigation based on the content you offering.

Every blog should have icons for the reader to add your blog to one of the popular RSS feeders. This will result in your blog entries being picked almost immediately by the news readers and people who want you content will receive it by way of their own news reader. There are a number of popular new readers including Yahoo, Pluck, Newsgator and more. As this is being written, the links for many of the popular news readers are being added to my blog.

In this article you will notice live links to a couple of my sites including www.stevereports.com and my main business consulting site www.stevepohlit.com You will also notice in my articles certain keywords being hyperlinked. Including these links is a very powerful feature of blogging since the RSS News Readers pick up your blog and the search engine spiders frequent blogs a lot especially when you are adding content regularly. This search engine news reader activity helps the flow of readers to your main web site and increases the back links to your sites which is an important search engine optimization tool.

You will find additional features being added to my blog over the next couple of weeks as I implement my blog development strategy. I developed a plan based on the objective I set out for the web sites I use to promote my consulting business. You should have a plan for your company’s blog that compliments your business development strategy. Of course you can develop a blog on a particular subject and use various techniques to monetize your blog. However, if monetization of content is your goal I continue to recommend a web site for that purpose and a blog designed to drive traffic to your web site.

It took some time to figure out some the features I wanted on my blog and I chose not to become a Word Press programming expert to achieve some of the goals of my blog. I have developed a team of people who can quickly set up a blog similar to this one. They can do it fast and economically. I recommend it and I am offering it because I had difficulty finding a one stop solution when I was starting. If you have an interest in this service, Email Me

Steve Pohlit, Business Consultant is the author of this article. This may be freely distributed intact and with this resource line.

Don’t Worry, The Multi-millions Spent On Accounting and Board of Director Leadership Are Undoubtedly Well Spent. I can’t wait for The New York Times Best Selling Book in the fiction category titled “How General Motors Did Not Know They Were Screwing Up Their Numbers” This began, according to the press, in 2000. What about a sequel: “Our Latest Late Filing With The SEC Where We Explain Nothing” . Maybe FOX will pick it up as a reality TV show Titled “The Accounting Apprentice”