“Hire for attitude and teach the skill!” That is the corporate motto of Southwest Airlines, the nation's most profitable passenger air carrier.
Southwest's top 10 strategies, which are aptly entitled “Flying Lessons,” that can easily apply to your business are:
1. Corporate Culture. Define your company's personality, then enforce it. A strong corporate culture, defined by companywide values and philosophies, must be integral to every decision and every action you take.
2. Strategic Planning. To hell with market share, grow with discipline.
3. Cost Control. Lower costs equal lower prices. Keeping costs low helps you keep prices low for customers, without sacrificing profits.
4. Quality Control. Do one thing better than anyone else. A quality product, like cost control, is intertwined with the concept of sticking to your niche.
5. Customer Service. The customer comes second. More important, put your employees first.
6.Hiring. Hire for attitude, train for skills. As part of the corporate culture, Southwest literally requires its employees to have a sense of humor.
7. Training. Get everyone thinking like they own the place. Once you get the right people, then you worry about getting the skills down and fostering teamwork.
8. Employee Morale. Celebrate everything, embrace mistakes. Let your hair down and party. Southwest does it with Christmas parties in July, paper airplane contests and chili cook-offs.
9. Marketing and Advertising. Break the rules and sell your soul. Set yourself apart, really apart, from the crowd.
10.Leadership. Never stop thinking like an entrepreneur. People respond to the bosses who lead by example.
With the economy starting to bottom out and then beginning to come back, Southwest's top 10 “Flying Lessons” can be a good guide for us all. If your company has successful management techniques you wish to share with our readers, drop me a line.
Southwest's top 10 strategies, which are aptly entitled “Flying Lessons,” that can easily apply to your business are:
1. Corporate Culture. Define your company's personality, then enforce it. A strong corporate culture, defined by companywide values and philosophies, must be integral to every decision and every action you take.
2. Strategic Planning. To hell with market share, grow with discipline.
3. Cost Control. Lower costs equal lower prices. Keeping costs low helps you keep prices low for customers, without sacrificing profits.
4. Quality Control. Do one thing better than anyone else. A quality product, like cost control, is intertwined with the concept of sticking to your niche.
5. Customer Service. The customer comes second. More important, put your employees first.
6.Hiring. Hire for attitude, train for skills. As part of the corporate culture, Southwest literally requires its employees to have a sense of humor.
7. Training. Get everyone thinking like they own the place. Once you get the right people, then you worry about getting the skills down and fostering teamwork.
8. Employee Morale. Celebrate everything, embrace mistakes. Let your hair down and party. Southwest does it with Christmas parties in July, paper airplane contests and chili cook-offs.
9. Marketing and Advertising. Break the rules and sell your soul. Set yourself apart, really apart, from the crowd.
10.Leadership. Never stop thinking like an entrepreneur. People respond to the bosses who lead by example.
With the economy starting to bottom out and then beginning to come back, Southwest's top 10 “Flying Lessons” can be a good guide for us all. If your company has successful management techniques you wish to share with our readers, drop me a line.