Rob Frankel’s Ten Steps to Saving Your Butt
February 10th, 2010You know how I feel about “job security”… there is none. Even those who do “everything right” in their career can get canned for one of a million reasons.
Even so, here’s a fun list from Rob Frankel… he created it for his employees to help them know what they could do to become more valuable, or as Rob says, to save their butts. The full list is here… here are the first four:
- When it doubt, don’t try to fake it. Tell the client you’ll check on it and call back. “Better to keep the mouth shut and be thought a fool, than to open it and remove all doubt”.
- Make a copy of everything and then file it. That way, you can always prove what you were doing, when you did it and why you were doing it.
- Tag everything with a job number. Suppliers need to tag their jobs with a number, too. The more you tag, the fewer headaches we have when clients or suppliers call us about particular costs.
- Send clients back-ups. Whenever we bill a client, send a copy of the estimate showing that he approved the job he’s being billed for.
- … the full list is here.
Any of this ring true?
February 10th, 2010 at 10:01 am
The essence of this, if not all the details, rings very, very true for me. Even though I’m not in Rob Frankel’s business, and what are these “bonuses” of which he speaks?, the basic principles hold true; and anything that involves coordinating work with or delivering work to anyone else, is in some sense a service business.
Actually, following some such list as this is a way to stay accountable to yourself, as well as your boss and your clients.
I liked the end of step 5: “This can save you untold embarrbuttment and many, many beatings.” Other things being equal, it’s always best to work for someone with a sense of humor. You may work just as hard and be just as accountable for your screw-ups, but life’s a whole lot better.