As we hear words like recession, economic slow down, negative sales growth and other such phrases that begin to make us feel uneasy, it is only to easy to look for gloom and doom and expect the worst to happen. At such times companies often look for cost reductions and savings, which can often fuel ideas of staff redundancies, reduction of spending and making do with old systems and equipment and the halting of training and other staff growth activities.

In fact shutting down many of the vital systems that help maintain a company’s healthy growth driven by a fear of scarcity. Many of you will know that like attracts like so if you feel and act like you are suffering as a company you will attract more of it, if you fear losing more money, you will lose more money. There is a wonderful saying that says, “Where ever your attention goes, energy flows and where ever energy flows, things will get larger.” A skier will tell you this as they ski down a mountain and become aware of a tree, if they focus on it they will most likely hit it. So knowing this simple rule helps, for if you focus on the thing you do not want you will get more of it.

Conversely if you focus more on what you do want you will get more of that too. If you have a sales force that believe they will not get orders and will lose out to the competition of course they will and this begins a downward spiral. If you have a production team they believe they cannot make the item in time they will never manage it however hard they try.

For just about every company their most valuable asset is their employees and yet often, they are the asset that has the least time and energy spent on it, reducing people’s self worth and draining the energy or lifeblood from the company. Richard Wilkins has a wonderful quote that says, “Encouragement does to people, what hot air does to a balloon.” So take a look at when you last offered encouragement to your staff? And for that matter when you last passed encouragement to your manager and other members of the team higher up the organisation.

If it was ages ago do something about it. You do not have to look far to see the downfall of companies that have neglected their staff or treated them poorly as they are now either struggling or have gone out of business.

Look at the messages you are giving your customers and potential customers in your marketing materials and other sales collateral. A good yet simple tip is to look at the messages you use and decide if they are positive or negative To give an example use the word “Remember” instead of “Don’t forget”. If you use the former that is what people will do, if you use the latter the subconscious mind is really interested in activity words and so will forget the message (not really what you had in mind!)

At PDT Ltd we are not just interested in your business but also you most valuable asset: - Your employees. We can come in and help inspire the workforce, help integrate them in the process of change you may wish to instigate. We believe that providing inspiration rather than the old fashioned methods of motivating people will show greatly improved results. With inspiration comes much more personal responsibility and a more individual centred approach to management. We have a number of tools in our toolkit to help manage these processes and also help you understand the team of individuals you have working for you. Many people spend their lives being the “not self” rather than being the best person they can be: - Themselves of course!

Think how much more successful you could be as a company if you had all your employees working for you instead of against you!

Why not invite us in and see how we could begin to help you.