Business Information for Entrepreneurs by an Entrepreneur

For retailers, this holiday season is a gold rush of income. If you are a retailer, there's a good chance that you're staffing up and stocking up so that you'll be ready to serve customers as Christmas nears.

As that day draws near, your store will likely see more and more people crowding in. This is your opportunity to wow them with your service but it's also the hardest time to do that because so many people are competing for your attention. How can you manage the crush of people?

Here are some ideas:

• For repeat customers, invite them to an invitation-only event after hours. Close your doors to the general public, put out nice food and festive music, and greet each person by name. You'll generate a great following of loyal customers and people will enjoy the exclusivity. Offer secret one-day-only discounts that they have to show up to take advantage of.
• Open early and close late and post your busiest times on the window of your store. For example, post a sign that reads, “During December we are open from 6 AM to 10 PM and we're busiest between 5 PM and 8 PM. We'd love to serve you.” That way, people can see when you're open and might be able to find a time to come back later.
• If you have one register in your store, consider opening a second register, just for the holidays. Make it “cash only,” for example, so that people can run through even more quickly.

I've been doing a lot of reading about business ethics recently. Employee theft is out of control. Bad CEOs and the whistleblowers make the news constantly. As I write this, I see this headline flash across my newsticker: http://moneycentral.msn.com/inc/news/providerredir.asp?feed=OBR&Date=20061122&ID=6219008 Yet another corporate ethics scandal.

Creating an ethical climate is important, not only to make sure that employees are serving customers properly, but so we can sleep at night and stay out of jail because of their actions.

I've read a lot about the idea of rewarding ethical behavior but I haven't heard many good concrete ideas. After all, how do you reward someone for doing what they are supposed to be doing day-in and day-out?

So, I'm posing this question to my readers: how do you reward ethical behavior?

Related Website: CounterPoint POS Review A review of Radiant Systems CounterPoint POS software product.

I believe that privacy is a right we can all enjoy. I admit that I do have my limits, though. I don't mind if employees use company computers for occasional personal use (such as emails, etc.) but I definitely draw the line at the use of company computers for employees to run their own businesses, view adult content, or waste a lot of time.

Now, I am very fortunate that it's not been a problem so far in my business but I've heard of it being a problem in other businesses so I looked around at what kind of software was out there for businesses to use.

One of the best I've seen is www.pcpandora.com, which records websites, emails, and keystrokes, as well as lists all the programs that run on a computer. It even takes screenshots of all emails.

And, if your HR department needs “hard evidence” before they can fire an employee, it will print out a report.

For about $70 for the pro version, it looks like a good value for the business wanting to keep an eye on employees.