Engaging Budget Cuts

I am not sure if you noticed but budgets are getting cut. Next Step Magazine gets most of our revenue from colleges, student loan companies and the military advertising. We have already seen the student loan companies disappear due to the liquidity crisis. As the recession deepens, we need to be prepared to feel the pain from other advertiser cuts as well.

So far, we’re hanging in there quite well. But often, it only takes a bad few months to reverse a small business’s success. So what is a maverick small business guy to do? (Ok, sorry, I just wanted to say maverick. Sometimes I feel so mavericky! Go to:
http://www.nbc.com/Saturday_Night_Live/video/clips/vp-debate-open-palin-biden/727421/ for more on being mavericky).

Anyway, what is the first thing a small business can do when facing a looming economic crisis. Obviously, cut the budget. The last thing you want to do it cut payroll and derail the moral of your coworkers. The first thing you want to do is to engage them in the process.

That’s what we did yesterday. We held a non-mandatory budget cut meeting. Since Next Step has an open book management philosophy, everyone knows every line item in the budget anyway. So about half the staff showed up to the meeting and offered their thoughts on what we can cut.

They shared great ideas and seemed to feel excited to be part of the process. They thought of things that I hadn’t. Their ideas ranged from postponing new computer purchases to having the staff volunteer to bake birthday cakes instead of the company buying them.

My role was to shut up and listen. Of course, that was not entirely possible but I think I did quite well!

Bottom line, I bet their suggestions will save us around $50,000 a year. That’s helps a lot! And it also helped that the staff was involved. Nobody likes heavy, top down decisions without being able to give feedback. Granted you can’t always implement every piece of feedback received, but the environment you will create by sincerely allowing feedback will be a cornerstone to a thriving workplace culture.

Eyes on the Future

I went to the Rochester business pep rally called "Eyes on the Future" Friday morning and felt jazzed. Even though the Rochester and New York State economies are in the crapper, I left feeling hope. I always say that for a city our size, we do amazing things. And the thing I felt good about was the people that were there. We have some top notch people and leaders in our community. Kudos to Tom Ioele for putting the event together.

I feel confort knowing that Dennis Mullen, former head of Greater Rochester Enterprise is now the upstate president of the Empire State Development Corp. I am also grateful that we have a sensible County Execetive in Maggie Brooks who gets along with our Mayor, Bob Duffy. I have great respect for both.

And last but not least, it's been fulfilling to watch Governor Paterson become a leader. The role of Governor was thrust upon him and like Abraham Lincoln did, he is evolving into a leader for our times. I strongly disagree with his SUNY cuts but at least he is not hiding his head in the sand and seems to battling our state's finanacial crisis head on.

So, while I watch the news and stock market, I feel like we are approaching times of doom and gloom. The "Eyes on the Future" event was just the shot in the arm I needed to be reminded that at the end of the day, it all about people and great leaders getting us back on track.

We have them here in Rochester. Everything will be all right.

Bocce Ball and Business

What do bocce ball and business have in common?

Not much. And that was the point of the staff at Next Step Magazine playing last month. My co-workers worked hard over the summer to get our back to school issue off the ground while also kicking off the new school year. It was time to have fun!

So we used the professional course at Nazareth College's Casa Italiana and had a bocce ball tournament. We had some great Italian food for lunch and of course, had cannoli for dessert. We even polished a few bottles of wine!

It was a great day. The weather was perfect and the bocce playing was superb.
Team Diana Fisher/Chris Roberts won the tournament and each took home some Italian liquor!

The point was to have a work day that was nothing about work. Just fun. We deserved it!

What does your company do for fun?