Brandon W. Jones

As leaders, it is essential that you emphasize the importance of good customer service.  As you emphasize it, you must also lead by example.  You must show your employees what it means to give good customer service.

Recently, I had an interesting experience with customer service.  My wife and I got the oil changed in our truck at Walmart.  Afterwards, I noticed a few small oil spots on the driveway from time to time.  I didn’t, however, see a significant amount of oil loss each time I checked the oil.  Once the truck hit 3,000 miles we took it in to get the oil changed.  We went to a local oil and lube shop and were told they wouldn’t change the oil because the pan was stripped.  They didn’t want to take any liability for changing the oil on the truck with a stripped oil pan.  That was very frustrating because we needed the truck to get around, but couldn’t get the oil changed without fixing the oil pan.  We also didn’t want to drive the truck too much without getting the oil changed because we didn’t want to go way over on miles.

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I read an article in the Wall Street Journal yesterday titled, “Where’s the Boss? Trapped in a Meeting” by Rachel Emma Silverman. The article talked about a study that was done on CEOs. London School of Economics and Harvard Business School did a study of over 500 CEOs from various companies around the world. The studies were done to see how they used their time. The results were tracked by the CEOs’ personal assistants for anything the CEO did for more than 15 minutes during the day. Some of the results were very interesting. The average tracked CEO worked 55 hours a week and spent 18 hours in meetings.

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Everyday a multitude of problems and challenges come up as you go through the work day. Each challenge has many causes with different people involved.  As you face the challenges it is very important to realize what is within your control and what is not.  One of the biggest stresses that leaders can face comes when leaders try to control the uncontrollable.

When are you in control and when is someone else in control?  This question is a very valuable question.  You should ask this question on a regular basis when you decide on what to focus your efforts.  It is very easy to get caught up on things that are outside your control, but all that does is add undue stress. Read More…

If you praise your employees, they will feel more valued. When I speak of praise, I refer to heart felt, sincere praise. As a leader, you should praise your employees when they do a good job. The praise can come in the form of a small compliment, a thank you card, recognition in front of others, or some other way. All employees have their ups and downs, but when you recognize the successes of your employees by praising them, it will make a difference in their performance.

When you give praise, there are three things to consider.

1. Is the praise deserved?
2. What do you want to accomplish by praising your employee?
3. What type of an impact do you want to have by giving the praise?

Is the praise deserved? Each person has to determine for himself/herself if someone is deserving of praise. Once you have decided you want to give praise, you must be very sincere.

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If my life is anything like yours, you have many opportunities that come your way everyday. People will come into your office and/or send you emails requesting your help on everything you can imagine. Can you participate in this group? Can you help me with this project? Can you review this report? Can you take care of this responsibility? Ther are many other questions that come regularly. So how can you wade through all the requests and still complete your core responsibilities? I have just the solution for you.

Even though many of the requests are for very important things that need to be done, you don’t personally have to fulfill all of them. You can delegate. When you delegate these requests or Read More…

Did you hear the story about the stay-at-home mom that became a millionaire? How did she do it? She did it by blogging. She and her husband were struggling to make ends meet so she started a blog. The purpose of her blog was to show everyone what she and her family were going through and how they were trying to save money, be more frugal, and overcome their situation. As she wrote, she gained more and more followers. She gained credibility as a money saving expert as she saved money and became financially stable. Once she gained her expert status, major television networks had her to speak on their shows about overcoming financial instability. They paid her big money for the speaking arrangements. From there, she started her own in-home business that focused on helping people gain financial stability.

I learned about this story through reading the book ME 2.0 by Dan Schawbel. Each person

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