Stop Keeping Secrets and Start Talking

“Communicate everything you can with your associates.” – Sam Walton

It is so true, the more people know, the more they care and the harder they’ll work.  So why is it that so many business operators keep so many secrets? Do you share your sales numbers? Sales targets? What about other metrics – average sale, customer count? Why not go to the extreme, do you share your target vs actual income statements? If not, what are you afraid of?

By simply sharing information, you are empowering your team. If your team knows what your sales targets are, and what they actually achieved, they’ll try harder and achieve more. If your staff understands what profits are and what makes for a profitable sale, they’ll make better decisions and your company will become more profitable.

The same holds true for other things. If you’re going through tough times and you don’t communicate, your employees will come to their own conclusions. In tough times, it is even more important than ever to keep communication up.

I used communication as a tool recently as our company was going through some major challenges. To keep everyone in the loop, I would update all of our key staff in our morning huddles, then I would follow up with a conference call every morning at 9am with my two managing partners. This gave me the opportunity to give them a detailed daily update and to make sure they were able to ask any questions that they may have had. This was key for keeping everyone focused on the end goal. Without it, I can guarantee that most staff members would have drawn their own conclusions and things would not have gone so smoothly.

I know I’ve said it before, but information and communication are vitally important to any organization. Don’t starve your company with lack of information.

What can you start sharing with your team tomorrow?