Jeff FaulknerAll Articles
Did Your Child Earn That Title? The Impact of Giving What One Doesn’t Deserve
In my last post How "Over Giving" to your Kids Can Impact Future Succession Goals, I discussed how past gifting behavior can impact and create unnecessary challenges the transfer of business assets to your children. A common first thing given to children, which sets a tone for future gifts is a job, I recommend for you, your business' sake and for the development of your children, they should earn it. Giving -Creating a Title Once your children have found their way into the family business, titles are often given away before they deserve one. Sometimes it’s a made up [...]
How “Over Giving” to Your Kids Can Impact Future Succession Goals
The eventual transfer of business related assets to children is a common concern shared amongst family business owners. As a result, client meeting discussions often turn towards evaluating the most effective approach. Transferring business related assets is usually done through a combination of gifting and various forms of selling. The long-term effectiveness of any asset transfer strategy directly correlates to how gifts were handled in the past - have children always been given everything or have they had to work and contribute to receive rewards? So, prior to gifting and/or selling assets, a number of fundamental considerations need to be [...]
How to Create a Culture of Excellence – Are your Processes Aligned with Your Purpose?
It is absolutely imperative that the sales and services your team provides be aligned around a common purpose. Your purpose, or the purpose of each department of your organization, needs to be well defined as it will determine how they go about problem solving, accomplishing daily tasks and long-term goals. When it’s all said and done, it’s what we actually do that matters, not what we say we do. How you do things will define your reputation in the community. One of the most common disconnects in any organization is between purpose and procedure, or between what we say we [...]
How to Create a Culture of Excellence – Is Your Environment Appealing?
I have a car dealer client in Colorado with a showroom that is out of this world. It’s a well-appointed living room environment complete with plenty of workstations, wireless internet, salt water aquarium, fireplace, and a well-rounded playlist on their music system – and the music’s loud. I routinely arrive earlier than my scheduled meeting with the client because it’s a very comfortable and engaging place to work. In defining the standard of excellence for your team, there are a couple of big picture essential ingredients that I want to share with you. The essential ingredients are not the measuring [...]
How to Create a Culture of Excellence. Have You Defined the Standard?
I recently went to my local Toyota store to get my oil changed. I had called ahead of time to make an appointment. I made the appointment for 7pm because I was told the wait time would be less at that time of day. Unfortunately, that message was not communicated to the service department staff. When I arrived in the service lane promptly at 7pm, I stood by my car and waited patiently for about 10 minutes before the only service advisor in the place worked through the paperwork of the customers in front of me and came to greet [...]
Successor Development: 5 Key Indicators for Evaluating a Successor
Times of transition like Pandemics , Economic Downturn or Industry changes are the perfect time to identify and begin developing successor candidates. If you had made working on your business a priority before a forced transition hit - congratulations - this is a perfect time for leadership and successor development. If you have had your head down working in your business, this is an excellent time to step back and work on your business and begin developing your leadership and ownership bench strength. To evaluate successor candidates, you can use what we refer to as the 5 C’s, which [...]
