3 Things Your Team Can’t Afford To Hear

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3 Things Your Team Can’t Afford To Hear
The Terms of Business: How to Negotiate a Partnership Agreement
Cooling Off Your Summer A/C Bills
Microsoft Announcement is Tip of the Iceberg with More Beneath the “Surface”

Posted: 21 Jun 2012 11:00 AM PDT

You can't say everything in front of everybody. In fact, your team cannot afford to hear your confusion, your complaining or your income. All three will mess with their head and their focus in one way or another.

disgruntled team

Your Team Needs a Clear Message

They need an unshakable understanding of their assignment. Your goal — in communicating your expectations — is to deliver the assignment in a way that makes it virtually impossible for them mess up. It's not about "I told you so," it's about impact.

Some messages need to be delivered in writing. Some need to be delivered in small chunks. All messages need a follow up. If you develop a reputation of forgetting what you asked for, in most situations, you'll nurture a team that doesn't produce. And that's not good for business.

Your Team Needs Clear Standards and Consequences

Being direct with your people is not the same as running them down or complaining. If things are not right, as the leader or the manager, it's your place to say something about it — to enforce the standard. In fact, the clearer the standard, the easier it is to enforce. The more consistent your behavior, the more consistent your team will be.

If the standard is "we don’t hold arguments in front of our clients," then you have to:

up hold the standard
insistent that others do the same

The only way your team understands that you are serious is by your own consistent behavior and consequences. In fact, consistency allows you to be cooler on the outside. After all, actions speak volumes.

They Need to Hear What They Get

Your team needs to know your expectations and their reward. What are they responsible for and what are they paid for solving that problem? Too much information about what you are paid can create distraction and the wrong kind of competition.

But what if they already know what you make? Or it's easy to figure out? Well, maintain a standard by always paying what you promised, dealing in respect and rewarding the consistent above and beyond behavior from team members.

Being clear and consistent goes a long way in business — and relationships.

Team Photo via Shutterstock

From Small Business Trends

3 Things Your Team Can’t Afford To Hear

The Terms of Business: How to Negotiate a Partnership Agreement

Posted: 21 Jun 2012 08:00 AM PDT

Finding a partner who wants to play ball with you seems like a difficult task, but when you take a look at the process, it's negotiating the terms of a partnership agreement that requires true business savvy. Like Ben Hogan's legendary golf swing, follow-through is the key, consistent element to make sure the terms of partnership are mutually beneficial.

negotiation

Do yourself a favor – don't leave it all up to the lawyers. Partnerships are about a shared vision, so make sure business comes first and foremost.

1. Business First

The key to any good business relationship is understanding individual and shared goals. We all want to make money, but when you share the cost of the service provided to customers, there are expectations and split revenues. Leverage what your company can do for their business goals and vice versa.

Before any lawyers get involved make sure you talk about business goals openly. How will revenue be shared? What does the end product look like? Does one company have to significantly customize a service they already provide? Is distribution involved? If the partnership falls through, will one company be compensated for the work its already delivered?

Answering these questions on a business level first will help get the partnership off the ground before legal teams can weigh down the agreement. Don't get me wrong, lawyers are great, but they focus on the details, which can rabbit hole partnerships quickly. Getting the business goals in writing can help make sure you enter the legal phase of creating a contract with a solid, mutually understood business case.

Since getting a large company to agree to anything in "writing" can be hard, having a summary written in an email is often a good solution – and something that you can get them to agree to prior to getting the lawyers involved.

2. Define Responsibilities

Within any partnership, there are distribution commitments. This might mean physically delivering a product, or it could be distributing a message. Whether on the content or distribution end of a partnership, be very clear about the work that is expected upon delivery and your company's role in getting it there. Define roles precisely so they have no messy gray area. Make sure the exact product is explained and the infrastructure to support and update that product is part of this definition.

It's important to be thorough at this stage, so be sure to cover breach of contract and termination agreements. Basically, if doom and gloom takes over, you want to ensure you have leverage and wiggle room. Make sure your company has enough pull written into the contract to enforce a breach of contract, should it happen. Also, define clean terms (and even metrics) that give your company the opportunity leave the partnership without a devastating penalty if it doesn't work out.

3. Hire Experienced Council

When the drafts of the contracts are going to be exchanged you'll need an experienced lawyer. Don't make the mistake of trying to draft a complicated, legally binding agreement between a big company and yours without counsel. Big companies have a sophisticated in-house contracting attorney; you need one too.

I've spoken with entrepreneurs who thought they were saving money by not using an attorney on their first partnership contracts, only to later realize they gave away a lot of their intellectual property to the big company!

When considering who to hire, let experience be your guide. Essentially, this means that the larger, the more complex an agreement is, the more experience you will need from your counsel. I've had great luck using a quick online search to find startups who have partnerships with the company I'm negotiating with – and then using LinkedIn to ping the startups' CEOs and ask for recommendations on the counsel they used.

One area where you'll need your counsel's advice is negotiating the "protective provisions." These are designed to protect the larger partner, in the case that the smaller gets sold. Make sure the large partner does not have a chance to either block or disrupt the sale of your company – as unlikely of a move as this might be. Also, make sure these provisions cannot slow or block funding, particularly if your company is venture backed.

Many times the larger company will ask for more than it should. Your lawyer's job and reputation is based on negotiating for you, knocking the larger partner back in line with an agreement that is more standard.

Your lawyer will also help you out with intellectual property. Sometimes in partnerships, something called IP taint happens – where one partner lays claim to own the IP of the other. Make sure that your company retains full ownership of any IP, even if a customization is involved in the process. Make sure these bases are covered before your partnership officially launches.

Once the hardball is out of the way, it's time to be a good partner – which brings me back to Ben Hogan's golf swing. To become known as the best striker in the game, Hogan had his tips, tricks and secrets, but he also had his very obvious follow-through, which basically comes down to routine and effort.

To be a great partner, meet your responsibilities consistently and don't be afraid to append your agreement if it requires some tweaking.

Negotiation Photo via Shutterstock

From Small Business Trends

The Terms of Business: How to Negotiate a Partnership Agreement

Cooling Off Your Summer A/C Bills

Posted: 21 Jun 2012 05:00 AM PDT

Work up a sweat just thinking about business's air-conditioning bills this summer? Believe it or not, your electric company may be able to cut you a deal.

frozen dollar bill

Many electric providers are under pressure to reduce demand load in the hot summer months in order to avoid blackouts and brownouts and other electric grid issues. In doing so, many utilities now offer their commercial electric customers incentives (read: discounts) for signing up for programs that help them rein in electric use on the hottest days of the year. Some electric providers offer multiple types of programs geared to different types of businesses.

The easiest way to find out is to call your electric provider directly or check out its Web site, but the U.S. Department of Energy's Federal Energy Management Program lists what's available state-by-state.

Some utilities lower commercial customers' bills in return for allowing them to cycle off air conditioning during times of peak demand. Xcel Energy, a large electric utility in Colorado and Minnesota, provides businesses who sign up for its Saver's Switch program a $5 per air-conditioning unit ton monthly discount from June through September – which averages about $100 in discounts per business per summer. (A 15% monthly electric bill discount is also available to Xcel's residential customers who participate in the same program.)

Using a remote control, the Saver's Switch allows Xcel to turn off the A/C compressor in intervals on the hottest most electric demand-heavy days. But since the fan continues to run, the company says that some customers won't even notice their air-conditioning is off. (Certain types of businesses, such as restaurants and operations that require climate-control, are typically not good candidates for such a program.)

In California, Southern California Edison has a Summer Discount Plan, and San Diego Gas and Electric has its Summer Saver program, both of which lower bills in return for cycling off air conditioning.

Businesses using higher than normal amounts of electricity could also be eligible for electricity demand response programs in which they receive savings on their rates in return for voluntarily reducing usage during times of peak demand.

Notice times can vary. The New York Independent System Operator's Emergency Demand Response Program, for example, provides a two-hour notice.

Some states have gone high-tech with these programs. In California, Pacific Gas and Electric, SCE, and SDG&E have an Automated Demand Response (Auto-DR) program in which commercial and industrial customers receive incentives for installing technology that automatically makes pre-programmed, pre-authorized load reductions through their facilities' control systems.

In Washington state, PacifiCorp/Pacific Power's Internet-based Energy Exchange offers real-time rate savings to large commercial customers during peak demand times. The customers can then decide whether the discount is enough to warrant reducing load.

Many electric utilities also offer rebates for businesses that replace their current air-conditioning units with more-efficient ones.

Do you participate in such a program through your electric provider? If so, how much money does it save you?

Frozen Bill Photo via Shutterstock

From Small Business Trends

Cooling Off Your Summer A/C Bills

Microsoft Announcement is Tip of the Iceberg with More Beneath the “Surface”

Posted: 21 Jun 2012 02:30 AM PDT

With Microsoft’s announcement of its new Surface family of PCs Monday, we’ve had readers express interest in more details about the new computers and tablets and what they may offer to small businesses in the future. We’ve collected some details from around the Web. Here’s more on the release that may change how small business computing is done.

Brave New World

From the horse’s mouth. If you didn’t catch it, here’s Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer’s announcement of the new Surface family of PCs, the first Microsoft stab at the PC and tablet industry. Ballmer stresses that windows remains the heart and soul of Microsoft, and that Surface is a way to add excitement to the Windows 8 launch. Whether Microsoft hardware will become as much a part of business as its software has been remains to be seen. The Verge

Cornering the market. While Microsoft made a lot out of its big Surface announcement on Monday, the company may not be planning on dominating the market it has so far left to its PC producing partners. One question is whether business users already comfortable with a particular PC vendor will really make the switch. Microsoft executives were saying, even after the event, they expect a lot of Windows machines out there next year to be made by other companies. All Things Digital

The Competition

Trading in your iPad? Not so fast, say analysts. The device most thought of when news of the Surface broke may have been the famous Apple tablet product, but experts say far too many specifics are lacking for serious users to compare the products yet. As further details emerge, business users in particular may be trying to figure out where is best to put their investment dollars. Reuters

A wake up call for the PC industry. What the Surface may represent is a wake up call for the PC industry Windows supports, and which has so far been slow to mount competition to the runaway success of the iPad and its domination of the tablet market, says technology writer Ashlee Vance. Whether or not everyone buys a Surface, it’s likely the new product will change the type of device your business runs Windows on in the near future. Bloomberg Businessweek

A Closer Look

Under the hood. Don’t underestimate the new Surface PCs, says one reviewer, who spent some time after Monday’s announcement experimenting with the Microsoft Surface Tablet for Windows RT. The device may be a legitimate competitor to both the iPad and its Android counterparts. Read one of the more detailed reviews we’ve found of the new Microsoft offering up close and personal. Wired

Comparison shopping. Monday’s announcement of the new line of PCs from Microsoft revealed not one but two flavors of the machines and two slightly different versions of Windows, Windows 8 and Windows RT, to run on them. Here’s a look at the difference between the Windows 8 Pro and Windows RT models to get a better idea of which one might be the best fit for your application. engadget

The Meaning of It All

Questions left unanswered. With all the discussion about the new Surface announcement, some major questions remain unanswered about the new PCs. These include things like pricing, availability, battery life, and more. It’s certain many of these questions need to be answered before users can make an educated decision about the new Microsoft products. PC World

A whole new era. If some people are left wondering whether a Microsoft entry into PCs and tablets will change the devices you purchase for your business in the future, columnist Mike Elgan says it will. Even before the much discussed announcement on Monday, Mike was touting a new dawn in the technology industry that businesses should be watching. ComputerWorld

Quieting the Yammer

News under the Surface. The one thing Monday’s announcement left observers wondering was why some other big Microsoft news was so conspicuously left out, namely, the software giant’s purchase of enterprise social network Yammer. Called by some the Facebook of social networking for enterprise, Yammer has apparently already been acquired, says Dan Primack. Microsoft may have been concerned that announcing it now would overshadow the company’s Surface news. Forbes

Networking for business. The rumored purchase of Yammer by Microsoft is another signal that social media tools specifically for business have truly arrived. Technology reporter Janet I. Tu suggests in her report that a major target market for Yammer may be small businesses. Do you need a social network other than Facebook for your business? The Seattle Times

From Small Business Trends

Microsoft Announcement is Tip of the Iceberg with More Beneath the “Surface”