What do you see your business doing 12 months from now, when we’re out of the recession and making the upturn?

If you’re like many U.S. businesses, you will be playing catch up to where you were before you cut staff and put projects on hold to reduce costs.

You don’t want to be behind when the economy begins strengthening and coming out of recession. Many companies are going through tough times right now, but the smart ones are positioning themselves for growth so they are ready when the economy recovers.

Four Problems You Don’t Want to Have to Deal With

What happens when companies grow before they have the processes and technology in place to support the growth?

1.  Manual processes require a revenue-proportional number of additional employees to process.

Adding 25% more employees for every 25% increase in revenue gets expensive. Sometimes employee counts grow even faster as additional personnel are brought on for quality assurance (a.k.a. error correction before the customer sees it).

2.  Manual processes begin to break as volume increases.

Having a core group of employees familiar with each customer’s specific rules works great until you have to double the staff. It quickly becomes impossible to educate the larger group on all the intricacies and special handling for each customer.

3.  Processing time increases as volume increases.

As exceptions handling and extra review time increases, the time to process a new customer order, process a lab request or bill a customer increases. Besides creating customer dissatisfaction, you may be slowing down your receivables and other income.

4.  Systems no longer support the level of service now required.

Systems may not be flexible enough to support the new service or product requirements you offer, or require your staff to create workarounds to “force” the systems to work. New customers may require levels of availability, particularly larger customers and those in regulated industries (health care, financials, etc.).

Four Effective Solutions You Can Put into Place Now

1.  Take advantage of this slower time.

Streamline your processes while your employees have down time. They can focus now, but once it starts to get busy they won’t be available. Even if you can’t commit to a project timeline, staff can start writing down unique situations systems don’t handle well.

2.  Assess your current situation.

An outside third party perspective that is familiar with operational and technology standards can help you develop a strategy tailored to your business strategy. A frequent bonus is a reduction in spending on some items, which can then fund new investments to support your business goals.

3.  Focus on software projects now.

Small and mid-sized businesses can rarely afford to dedicate resources to these efforts, yet in downturns, more employee time is available which contributes to the success of these projects. If you need new software, look into Software as a Service (SaaS) which doesn’t require a big capital outlay.

4.  Evaluate new infrastructure options.

If your technology infrastructure (servers, network, PCs) is expensive, unreliable or isn’t as available as you need it, review your options. It may be the time to align with an outsourcer. It is also a great time to negotiate discounts with existing vendors.

When the economy is tough, businesses often focus on the short term and stop preparing for growth. Instead, focus on the long view in parallel with managing the day-to-day realities of your business. Begin to implement these four quick, effective solutions now to get your company ready and positively positioned for the coming upturn in the economy. You’ll also have the extra bonus of focusing employees on a positive effort rather than all the negative news.

About The Guest Author: Laura Pettit Rusick helps small and mid-sized businesses enable growth, reduce costs and improve efficiency by optimizing business processes and technology. For those interested in benefiting from business process efficiency projects, sign up to receive the PDF “Ten Critical Success Factors for Optimizing Business Processes“. Laura’s website is http://www.optsolutionsinc.com.

Yesterday @smallbiztrends tweeted a link to this extensive list of 100 Awesome Blogs For Your Business Education.  This is one of the positive aspects of using Twitter.  You have the opportunity to come across some very useful things.

Whether you’re in business school or are just learning the ropes by trial and error, getting a little extra help and insight into the business world can be a great help in your success. The web can be a great, inexpensive way to do that, allowing business professionals present and future to learn and get advice from those with experience and expertise in the field.

There is no doubt that you will find these blogs to be a great resource for small business information.  That is why I’ve decided to share the list with you today.  Enjoy and congratulations to Small Business Trends for being included on the list!

Here’s a five-step process for creating organizational and individual accountability, which will help to achieve extraordinary results in any organization:

1. Establish the organization’s top three objectives. This means the significant few, not the important many. (This is what we at Six Disciplines refer to as Vital Few Objectives- VFOs). Once identified, these vital few objectives must be clear, concise, measurable, obtainable - and assigned to one individual to be responsible for achieving.

2. Assign each of the objectives to a specific team member.

3. Ask each team member what resources he or she needs to win. To help people win, team leaders must remove the barriers or roadblocks that stand in the way. Do this by having each team member identify three things they need to accomplish each objective. Have them put it in writing.

4. Agree on what the team leader will do to help. Have the team leader meet individually with each team member to clarify the barriers and agree on what’s needed to achieve the objective and who will be responsible for making it happen. In all likelihood, the leader will assume some responsibility. Why? Because you’re responsible to people, not for them. Being responsible to people means helping them get what they need to win.

5. Reward results. When objectives are achieved, ensure that recognition and rewards are disproportionate and highly visible. Those who achieve the most get recognized and rewarded the most-and everyone should know that.

About The Guest Author: Skip Reardon is the Director of Digital Marketing and Social Networking for Six Disciplines. A 27-year marketing and communications veteran, he’s also responsible for branding, marketing campaigns, web content and he’s also the editor of the Be Excellent blog.

An important aspect of employee productivity is keeping them motivated.  Every manager has their own idea of what exactly gets employees interested and excited about their work.  Most of those ideas are just myths that don’t really result in a boost in productivity.  Entrepreneur.com has listed 5 Employee Motivation Myths and the reasons why they don’t work well for managers.

One motivational myth: Ignoring Conflict

Few people, especially in the professional world, enjoy conflict. Most bosses and employees alike would rather “let something go” or “sweep it under the rug” than make an issue out of it. Too many managers are concerned about being liked that they don’t fulfill their responsibilities to catch problems quickly. Not addressing an employee’s problematic behavior doesn’t help any one.

Nobody ever benefits when an employer or manager ignores conflict within an office environment.  If a problem employee is not dealt with properly, it’s usually one of the better employees that the business ends up losing.  Afterall, a problem very rarely corrects itself.  Deal with the issue right away before it gets out of hand and other employees end up frustrated.

Hurry, you only have until June 30th to submit your entries for the first round of Forbes’ third annual contest.  The “Boost Your Business” competition offers $100,000 in grand prizes.  The winner will receive $50,000 in cash to invest in their business plus $50,000 in advertising on Forbes.com.

This Forbes contest consists of several rounds.  For the initial round, business owners who apply need to submit a 500 word write-up on their business.  Entries will be judged and 20 semi-finalists will be chosen.  Those semi-finalists will be required to provide more information along with a 30 second elevator pitch  video.  The field will then be narrowed down to 5 finalists.  After the final 5 provide detailed business plans and give live presentations in front of the judges, the grand prize winner will be chosen.

Unfortunately, this contest is only open to United States residents over the age of 18.  Complete contest details, information and entry form can be found here. Good luck to anyone who chooses to enter!

If you want to improve performance, or likewise increase capacity or capability, you need to track the one thing that you’ll never get back: time.

In order to improve effectiveness and efficiency, you must understand how your time is being used. With all of the technological advances over the past two decades, we’re continually forced to do things “better, faster, cheaper.” In other words, all of these advances have taught us how to be more efficient.

But - have any of these advances (spreadsheets, email, cell phones, IM, etc.) made us more effective?

The difference between the two?

* Being efficient is essentially doing things right.
* Being effective is essentially doing the right things.

It’s not enough to just do things right - we also need to balance it with doing the right things, doing the right things based on their priority.

As Dr. Stephen Covey once said: “The key is not to prioritize what’s on your schedule, but to schedule your priorities.”

BOTTOMLINE: Take a good look at your calendar: Are you spending time on the most important things? Are you spending the appropriate amount of time on those activities that are the highest priority? How do you know?

If you’re not tracking how you spend your time, how will you ever know?

The best way is to have an individual plan (we recommend quarterly) - of daily activities that you’re responsible for, which support the organization’s goals, initiatives and projects. Track your time against these projects daily, and review weekly. The goal is to spend the most time on the most important activities that get you closer to achieving the organization’s goals..

Now, consider this: multiply this daily/weekly time-tracking activity times the number of people in your organization. You’ll be amazed at how much more productivity and results you’ll begin to see (or, very frustrated, by how much time is actually wasted on non-productive, non-essential activities…)

So…. if you’re looking to improve your performance (or the performance of your organization) - how can you possibly improve, if you don’t track your time!

About The Guest Author: Skip Reardon is the Director of Digital Marketing and Social Networking for Six Disciplines. A 27-year marketing and communications veteran, he’s also responsible for branding, marketing campaigns, web content and he’s also the editor of the Be Excellent blog.

Yahoo and Bank of America have partnered to offer small business owners the chance to win a $20,000 Yahoo search marketing credit.  Starting next Monday the 22nd you will have one week to submit your business questions for Kevin Salwen, former National Small Business Editor for the Wall Street Journal.  If Kevin chooses your question to answer, you will be entered to win the $20,000 grand prize.  The winner will also have the opportunity for a one-on-one interview with a Yahoo Small Business Expert and have their business featured in the Yahoo Answers Center.  You can find more contest information here and submit your questions beginning Monday.  Good luck!

When it comes to customer service, you usually find that there is always room for improvement.  Your employees have a direct impact on how customers view your business.  They are usually the first ones to come in contact with potential customers and their appearance, attitude and demeanor can easily be a turn off.  Maybe your employees aren’t even aware of the subtle signals they are giving out.

Luckily, there are small changes that employees can make to improve the way they come across to your clients.  Improving body language can have a direct impact.  It can do wonders to make your customers feel more at ease and comfortable with your business.

I’ve come across a helpful list of 5 Quick Tips To Improve Your Customer Service Skills Through Body Language posted on the blog, Customer Service Skills Guide. The most important tip to me is maintaining eye contact.

The easiest way to insure the customer knows you are paying attention to them and care about what they have to say is to keep eye contact with them as much as possible. Eye contact says: You’re the only person I’m listening to right now.

Each of these small adjustments are easy for your employees to incorporate into their everyday interactions with clients.  I would encourage you to share these simple tips with your employees.  Not only will it improve customer service quality but it will probably improve the office atmosphere as well.

You may still be wondering if implementing Twitter into your business marketing arsenal could be beneficial to your company or not.  Well, let’s take a look at Small Biz Bee’s 10 Reasons Why Your Business Should Be Using Twitter.  Matt’s article touches on 10 important points to consider:

Gain Exposure

Build Trust

Generate Leads

Drive Traffic

Provide Stellar Customer Service

Expand Your Network

Get Feedback

Market Research

Testimonial Tool

Build Authority

In the article, Matt explains his reasoning for each point.  After looking through this list, it’s hard not to realize that you may be missing out on a good thing.  Twitter can take a good bit of effort but who knows, you may be pleasantly surprised by the results.

Yesterday marked the start of eBay’s first ever Sellers Challenge.  Entrepreneurs are encouraged to submit a business plan complete with a 60 second video presentation.  On the video you are asked to describe your business plan and explain your passion for selling on eBay.  Once the best submissions are chosen by eBay’s panel of experts, the eBay community will choose the winners.

If you are chosen as a winner, eBay will invest up to $25,000 to help you grow your business.  Go to the eBay Sellers Challenge website for more information and then enter to win.  Good luck!