by Bonni Carson DiMatteo, CMC

Why is employee engagement your greatest tool to ensure a greater top line and bottom line? An engaged workforce, which is the by-product of highly motivated and committed employees, can increase your customer satisfaction, your productivity and your profits. The estimates are staggering. Those with a higher engaged workforce show 86% higher customer rating. Higher customer ratings create greater customer loyalty which translates to more business.

Great results, but creating a culture that engages employees is not as easy as you would think. Gallup tells us that only 39% are fully engaged.

What does it take to inspire an engaged workforce? It's not what most people would think. It is not just about compensation - although if you are lower than your industry, you simply won't attract new talent. It is more about the things you do that help employees feel that you care about them; you are invested in their growth; you listen; you communicate; you articulate how their impact makes a difference. Managers and leaders make the biggest difference

Here are three no-cost ways you can ensure a greater
E FACTOR.

EMPOWER
Ask them what would make the biggest difference in their compensation package - more flexibility, more time off or more pay. It is not "one size fits all" and the millenniums have a different standard than the boomers. Tailor it to their needs.

EXCELLENCE
Create standards of performance that include actions, accountability and attitude that will help them achieve. Excellence is an abstract unless it is broken down into the tangibles of actions, attitude and accountability.

ENERGIZE
People join companies and leave managers. Managers create high energy when they do simple things like acknowledge someone's contribution and point out how that impacts a goal, values or mission.

Unless your managers are creating energy, they are creating malaise. Help your managers reach the next level of their leadership by offering the training and coaching to excel. Their impact will aid and abet the E FACTOR in your company. You will see the difference in customers - both internal and external - when they are positively impacted by the E FACTOR.

To learn more about the E FACTOR, join us at the Women's Leadership Summit on March 13 at Bryant University.

by Curtis N. Bingham

Research has found that as much as 220% of profits were generated by 20% of customers. The remaining 80% of customers were actually a drain on profits. Clearly, not all customers are created equal.

To prevent some customers from leaching all your profits, you need to separate your best customers from the worst by following three simple steps:

1. Identify the attributes or characteristics of your best customers. It may be helpful to reflect upon the worst customers to identify those characteristics that you don't want and turn them to the positive. Ensure each characteristic is either measurable or qualitatively observable.



2. Analyze your customer base. For each customer, evaluate how they perform against the attributes. You can very easily separate the best from the worst by scoring each attribute for each customer. Use a "+1" for a positive score, "0" for a neutral score, and a "-1" for a negative score. The sum of all attribute scores for each customer provides a relative rank that can be used to differentiate the best from the worst.



3. Brainstorm ways in which you can increase service to your best customers and reduce the level of service to your worst customers. In some cases, your worst customers may be willing to pay more for the additional service you are providing them. Others may be willing to settle for less in order to maintain the same price levels.

Differentiating customers does three things: 1.) prioritizes customers making it very clear which customers get attention during a crisis, 2.) identifies customers that are draining resources and helps limit exposure, and 3.) exposes customers that perhaps you might be better off without.

By providing different levels of service, you can dramatically increase your profits as you keep more of your best customers for longer and diminish your exposure to your worst customers.

Curtis Bingham Personally Presents 3 Essential Steps to Dramatically Grow Profit Even in Difficult Times... Attracting, Investing in, & Keeping Only the Best Clients

Whether or not you believe the dire economic predictions of current presidential candidates, the challenge remains: How do you continue to grow profits despite an economic downturn or significantly increased competition?

One of the biggest challenges that small businesses face is that they treat all customers and prospects the same, much to their detriment. One of my clients found that 20% of his clients generated 80% of his revenues. Research in the manufacturing sector found that as much as 220% of profits were generated by 20% of customers. The remaining 80% of customers were actually a drain on profits. How can you more heavily invest in your best customers and provide the rest with an acceptable (and profitable) level of service without losing them?

Join us on Tuesday, March 4th, at 12pm EST for a FREE 60-minute teleseminar as customer strategy expert Curtis Bingham presents the "3 Essential Steps to Dramatically Grow Profit Even in Difficult Times... Attracting, Investing in, & Keeping Only the Best Clients."

During the teleseminar, you'll learn how to:

1. Determine which customers you need to invest more in.
2. X-Ray your best customers' brains (figuratively, of course!) to find out exactly why they buy and what it takes to get them to buy more.
3. Minimize your investment in your least profitable customers - or even consider letting them go.

Curtis will share case studies and anecdotes drawn from his 15 years of consulting to some of the world's largest and most successful companies, including Microsoft, Intuit, McGraw-Hill, and others.

To register and learn how to counter economic trends or increased competition, visit http://predictiveconsulting.com/Semin ars/BestCustomers-bc.html. When asked, enter the special value code: BATCC to ensure you receive priority access to this event. Dial-in instructions will be sent to you upon registration.

Curtis N. Bingham, President of Predictive Consulting Group, helps organizations dramatically increase customer acquisition, retention, & profitability. For more information about customer strategy, visit his website at http://www.predictiveconsulting.com or his blog at http://www.curtisbingham.com.