Financial Wellness for Your Business Starts Here

Financial Wellness for Your Business Starts Here

   Dave Ramsey has a Financial Wellness program for small business owners. It isi designed for large and small business to teach personal money management to you and your employees. The classes are taught by Dave himself and offer video lessons, workshops, and group discussions. Dave’s website says, “Because we believe that personal finance is 80% behavior and only 20% head knowledge, our goal is to change the way your employees manage their money. Winning with money doesn't happen overnight. That's why Financial Wellness is designed to teach your team a step-by-step process to overcome debt and develop a long-term plan with their money.”

   Dave’s team claims the program can help reduce turnover and build community and loyalty at work. That’s a tall order, but the Ramsey group has a proven track record on return on investment.

   Next to your product, the most important asset you have is your employees. The way you manage your employees and they work together will make a difference in your company performance and your bottom line. As more owners work to improve employee relations, they find financial concerns are the number one priority in people’s lives. If you want your people to be more engaged in their jobs instead of stressing about their finances, help them get a personal money makeover.

   Ramsey says you can “Improve the performance of your team by adding stability to their lives. Financial Wellness offers a turn-key solution that will address benefit challenges such as:

Lack of participation in benefits packages

Frequent withdrawals from retirement plans

Income garnishments

Requests for payroll advances

Employees unprepared for retirement

   This common-sense approach and entertaining presentation will bring clarity to important, but often overlooked, matters of personal finance: saving, investing, eliminating debt, managing household income, and much more.”

   At least 70 percent of Americans are one paycheck away from insolvency. They are living from one check to another, have no savings, no emergency fund, depend upon credit cards, loans, and robbing Peter to pay Paul to get through life. Most Americans do not know how to manage their money and no one hgas really taught them how to prepare for the financial necessities of life. In fact, ost Americans will end up spending their Golden Years, as it were, in poverty because they are unprepared for life and for retirement.

   As your employees learn how to manage their money, they will begin to take advantage of benefits that will help them the most. They will learn to budget, save, have emergency funds, get out of debt, start investing in their retirement,  and have a future. They will learn to tell their money where to work, instead of working just for money.

   People who are financially secure and planning for their future will be much more content and productive. They’ll also spend more time at work instead of staying home with imaginary illness. Happy people make for a much better work environment

   If you are interested in seeing a dramatic turnaround in your place of business and the live of your valuable people, go to www.daveramsey.com and check out his programs. You’ll be glad you made the investment.

Use Plain English with Your Customers

   When Possible, Use English. That’s the headline for an article in the May 2 edition of The Wall Street Journal. That advice is given to financial advisors who might speak jargon to their clients. It turns out that people are happier and more satisfied when you speak plainly to them.

   Invesco Ltd., a fund managing firm, surveyed 800 of their customers to find out what would make them happy. Using ordinary speech to describe products and investing make a big impact on the customers. The WSJ article gave some vivid examples:

“Finance people may talk about “equities,” “fixed income” and “asset allocation.” Normal people talk about stocks, bonds and diversification.”

   The point is that we tend to lapse into our specialized area of expertise using jargon that is confusing or meaningless to other people. Since jargon is endemic to our way of doing any kind of business or occupation, the chances are that you talk “funny” to your customers too.

   If you want to make a sale and keep a good customer, you have to relate to your customer in a way that doesn’t demean him or make her look foolish. You can always show off your knowledge and vocabulary to people in your field. When talking to ordinary people, make the effort to describe what they need in terms that make sense to them.

   Another tactic the customers who were surveyed disliked was trying to scare people into a sale. This touches a raw nerve in many people. In my life I’ve heard countless people tell me that if a salesperson asks the question, “Don’t you care about your family?” my friends or acquaintances would answer with a resounding, “NO!” Scare tactics are not necessary and they irritate people almost as much as jargon.

   If you want to know the secret of excellent communication, you have to understand that your customer wants respect and honesty from you. Don’t talk down to your customers; don’t try to impress your customer by making him or her feel inferior. Try to imagine yourself in his shoes. Treat her the way you want someone else to treat your mother, wife or daughter. Stop trying to put yourself firs, and put that customer in first place. You need a few things to succeed in business: you need good customers and good employees.

   Mary Kay Ash, founder of Mary Kay cosmetics, used to tell her consultants to look each customer in the eye and pretend that the customer was wearing a sign on her forehead that said, “Make me feel special.” That technique worked beautifully for Mary Kay. It’s still sound advice for anyone who deals with people.

Have a terrific day!

Patricia