Hollywood, the Constitution, and Your Future

I just saw Will Smith’s The Pursuit of Happyness for the second time this week, and I had forgotten what a powerful movie it was. Or maybe I just wasn’t in a position to truly appreciate it when it first came out. It’s like studying Shakespeare in high school: at the age of fourteen you can’t even begin to appreciate the language or relate to the feelings in his plays (years later, that hasn’t improved much). But with time comes perspective, and I saw this movie in a completely different light.

 

Hey. Don’t ever let somebody tell you… You can’t do something. Not even me. All right? You got a dream… You gotta protect it. People can’t do somethin’ themselves, they wanna tell you you can’t do it. If you want somethin’, go get it. Period. - Chris Gardner, The Pursuit of Happyness

  Full Story →

IDEO on Following Your Passion

I’ve recently done a lot of reading about IDEO, Inc., a Palo Alto, California based industrial design firm. Let me give you a little background info on the company… Full Story →

What do You do When Your Schedule Conspires Against You?

You may have noticed that this blog as been completely dormant for nearly a week now. It has been one of those weeks where every client or potential client or potential client I have ever had decided they need something from me immediately, if not sooner. It’s the sort of problem you wish for when things are slow, but dread when it actually happens.

I’ve been living my life this week by the advice outlined in the Million Dollar Leverage post on What to Do When Your Schedule Blows Up, and putting in my share of very, very late nights. Still, there are only so many hours in a day. Chris Guillebeau offers some more great advice in a recent post at The Art of Nonconformity:

Problems:

• Your friends and family members who work at traditional jobs won’t understand.
• The crises are all yours for the managing.

Solutions:

• Simply decide to stop doing stuff.
• Improve your personal productivity skills, including planning and implementation.
• Delegate or outsource

Thanks Chris for the great advice. Really, check out his blog, which is full of great stuff.

The question remains though… how do you handle a sudden major influx of work? Outsourcing is great if you have something lined up or tasks that don’t require much training, but that’s not always the case. Hiring is risky because the fever pitch of work may not last, and then when things die down you end up overstaffed. Granted, it’s a good problem to have, but it’s a problem nevertheless.

Sun Tzu on Adaptability - Part 5 of 6

“Water shapes it course according to the nature of the ground over which it flows; the soldier works out his victory in relation to the foe whom he is facing. Therefore, just as water retains no constant shape, so in warfare there are no constant conditions. He who can modify his tactics in relation to his opponent and thereby succeed in winning, may be called a heaven-born captain.” - Sun Tzu, The Art of War

Learn Good Business Sense from Water

It might sound a little crazy at first, but we could all learn a few lessons from water. How much time and energy do we waste in an uphill battle with ineffective marketing, poor CRM, and ineffective information systems? How many of the tedious chores in your business could be automated and integrated? Isn’t it time to stop fighting the current and look for an easier way? When the water of a river runs into a boulder, it adapts, changes course, and finds a way to its ultimate goal no worse for wear.

Sun Tzu wasn’t the only one who felt we could all learn from the properties of water. A few weeks ago, Harrison at MenWithPens discussed the Book of Water in The Book of Five Rings, an ancient Japanese sword fighting guide. The author, Miyamoto Musashi says “Fixation is the way to death, fluidity is the way to life.”

Bruce Lee, one of the great martial artists of our time had this to say: “Empty your mind, be formless, shapeless–like water. Now you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup. You put water into a bottle, it becomes the bottle. You put it in a teapot, it becomes the teapot. Now water can *flow* or it can *crash*! Be water, my friend.”

Of course, they were talking about deadly combat, but the same clearly applies to businesses in today’s economy. Consumer needs and expectations are changing so quickly that being anything other than fluid and adaptive is suicide. Technology has changed everything. Old industries like traditional newspapers are facing extinction unless they can find a new place in the digital world.

How Can We Adapt?

Fortunately, small businesses have a real advantage in this area. As I’ve mentioned before, big businesses are choked by their own bureaucracy. American car makers have faced recent criticism for their inability to innovate and adapt to changing consumer demands. As a small business owner, however, there are probably only a few stakeholders for you to consult with on any decision. You may run it by your partners, employees or spouse, but ultimately decisions are likely up to you. YOU have the power to drive change, to keep your company responsive to your customers’ changing needs and tastes. Here’s how:

Keep Learning

No matter what business you’re in, there are always people you can learn from. First, there are tons of great books out there on managing your business. Pick up a few of these and learn some things you didn’t know that you didn’t know. Or maybe you could teach yourself how to use a new technology, or some of the more obscure features in Microsoft Office. I came across a company called VTC that offers awesome online training videos. I think I’ve even got a 30-day free trial coupon around here somewhere… drop me a note if you’re interested. The web’s full of great resources, just look around!

Watch the Trends

Subscribe to magazines or blogs specific to your industry. Keep an eye on the trends as they develop and ask yourself how you can position your business to take advantage of them. For example, I read an article about the growing impact the blogosphere was having on small businesses and decided soon after to launch OnYourBusiness. With tens of thousands of new blogs starting every day, there’s definitely a trend in that direction. If you’re keeping track of experts’ opinions in your industry, you’ll be ready to meet those changes as they happen. There won’t be any big surprise when consumers start demanding something else, and you’ll be able to react before your competitors.

Talk to your Customers

No one knows how consumer needs are changing quite like the consumers. Ask them what their needs are, how your product or service fits those needs, and what you could do to make things better. Better yet, survey them about the trends you’ve been reading about in your industry and see how they really feel. If their needs are heading in new directions, perhaps your business should too. Or maybe they’re just not in your target market anymore, in which case there’s no sense fighting against the current. Just go with the flow…

What’s next?

The end of the series! I’m getting a little Sun Tzu’ed out.

Sun Tzu on Leadership - Part 6 of 6

Why not subscribe and make sure you catch the rest of the series?

Sun Tzu on Business Tactics - Part 3 of 6

“Victorious warriors win first and then go to war, while defeated warriors go to war first and then seek to win.” - Sun Tzu, The Art of War

A Shot in the Dark

Let’s face facts. These days, if you don’t have a clearly defined target market, your business is in trouble. How are you going to reach the people most likely to buy your product if you’re not even sure who they are? Naomi from IttyBiz says it better than I could:

Imagine the target is, um, a target. And you’re the dude with the gun or the bow and arrow or whatever. If you hit the target right in the middle, you get 50 points. If you hit the outside circle, you get 10. If you aim at 50, you might get 50 or you might get 10. If you aim at 10, you might get 10 or you might get nothing.

So why are you aiming at 10?

Your target demographic is your version of perfection. These are the people who are begging for your product or service. They have money to spend and they want to spend it on you. Maybe they don’t know it yet, but you do, and that’s all that counts.

It’s time to start developing some tactics to start bringing in more bulls-eyes and stop wasting energy on shots you take with a hope and a prayer that they’ll hit something.

Know Your Target Demographics

Start by breaking your clients down into demographic groups. Web Marketing Resources defines demographics and psychographics like this: “Demographics refer to statistics like age, income and location. Psychographics refers to preferences, interests and personality characteristics.” It was recently revealed that Best Buy takes this approach to an extreme. They actually create personas for each of their demographics:

Source: The Consumerist

While Best Buy’s methods may be a bit overkill, imagine what having this sort of data could do for your business. Is your marketing plan tailored to each demographic, or is it a One-Size-Fits-Some approach?

Making no mistakes is what establishes the certainty of victory, for it means conquering the enemy that is already defeated.

- Sun Tzu

If you know what motivates your customers, what they want and need, you’re well ahead of the game.

Know Yourself

Clearly defining your target market and demographics is a good start. You’ve defined what your ideal customer looks like to you. Now ask yourself, “What does my business look like to my target customer?”

• Is your shop/restaurant/office clean and inviting?
• Does your website look professional, up-to-date, and provide the right information?
• Take a good look at your business’s weaknesses and see if there’s some way to turn them into strengths.
• Are you offering goods or services your target market values? How do you express this to each demographic?
• Do people even know your business exists?

Understanding your business and the way it’s perceived will go a long way. Just understanding isn’t enough though. A successful business is built on continuous improvement. A good owner also knows what they don’t know, creating partnerships and learning opportunities to improve their limitations.

Measurement and Calculation

Here comes the hard part. How do you accurately forecast sales as a new business? As a growing business? As a service business? There’s always going to be an excuse to put off market forecasting. Why? Because it’s hard. It forces you to take a serious look at your business and set some quantifiable goals. For some great advice on this topic, pick up a copy of On Target : The Book on Marketing Plans. It offers some great tips on how to generate those initial sales forecasts. For instance:

• Use census data to determine the number of people in your target market.
• Find out what data is available in similar markets, or what has been gathered by your competitors.
• Build on whatever past data you have available, and go with your gut instinct.
• Most importantly: GET STARTED! Next year you’ll be able to look back on the data you’ve gathered this year.

Set some expectations for your business. Make sure they’re clear, quantifiable, and have a well-defined due date. “I’m going to lose weight” is not a clear goal. How much are you going to lose, and by when? “We’re going to increase sales” is just as useless. Instead, try “We’re going to increase online sales by 20% in the next 18 months by advertising through channels X, Y and Z.”

See how much more clear that is? 18 months from now it will be very clear whether or not you met your goal. By now this should be easy. You should know your customers better than they know themselves. You should know their demographics and their psychographics. You know what makes them tick. Your business is structured to give them exactly what they need in the best possible environment. You’ve set measurable goals, forecasted sales, and you revisit the numbers regularly. With that kind of preparation, you’ve got a tremendous advantage over the competition.

If you know your customer and you know your business, your success will not stand in doubt.

What’s next?

Sun Tzu on Leveraging Advantage - Part 4 of 6

Sun Tzu, The Art of War and Your Business - Part 1 of 6

“Opportunities multiply as they are seized.” - Sun Tzu, The Art of War

I was inspired by a recent post by Harry over at Men With Pens. His post was a study of The Book of Five Rings, “A classic text on the Japanese Way of the Sword,” as it applies to writing and working as a freelancer. He discusses the five elements of swordplay and how they are equally relevant to writing and, I would argue, all aspects of running a business. I won’t try to summarize the entire post, because you should really check it out for yourself, but here are the five elements: Ground (Building your foundation - discipline and stability), Water (Adaptability - staying calm in the face of adversity and change), Fire (Taking Action - putting your passion to good use), Wind (Style - finding the best approach), and The Void (Attitude - what binds it all together). Seriously, go read the whole post, it’s well worth your time.

Harry’s post reminded me of something I had long since forgotten. When I was 15 I started a neighborhood lawn mowing business, and one of my clients (AKA neighbors) gave me a copy of Sun Tzu’s The Art of War and told me I could learn everything I needed to know about business from that book. I thought he was crazy at the time, but years later, after running a business, I get it.

Corporate America - Our Battlefield

Sun Tzu was a Chinese general and military strategist in the sixth century BC. His book, The Art of War, consists of 13 chapters, each devoted to one of the aspects of warfare. Even though the book was written 2500 years ago, the concepts are still applicable today. Because the free market is governed by the interplay of competing businesses, many of Sun Tzu’s lessons have withstood the test of time. Historians have claimed that Napoleon, one of history’s greatest strategists, studied The Art of War. More recently, executives at corporations like Google and Microsft have begun to apply its lessons in the corporate world.

While I definitely think the book is worth checking out, some parts are more relevant than others. Take, for instance, Sun Tzu’s theories on the use of fire to destroy an enemy’s camp. I could give you a very creative interpretation of its application, but it would either be complete BS or it would give you the impression that I support arson. Instead, let me break down what I think are the most relevant of his teachings:

Managing Your Troops: The art of discipline, accountability, respect and admiration.

Tactics, Measurement and Calculation: The art of planning so that you have ensured victory before you’ve begun.

Leveraging Advantage: The art of avoiding strength and attacking weakness.

Adaptation: The art of reacting to circumstance, changing tactics, and constantly innovating.

Leadership: The art of balancing responsibilities, doing what’s right, and inspiring loyalty.

*Coming Soon, why not subscribe and make sure you catch the rest of the series?

As Sun Tzu said,

“If you know the enemy and know yourself, your victory will not stand in doubt; if you know Heaven and know Earth, you may make your victory complete.”

Never underestimate the power of planning. Develop a solid business plan and revisit it regularly to see how things are progressing. Do the same for marketing with a comprehensive marketing strategy. Analyze your market and your competition. Train your staff and reward them for a job well done. Apply these concepts to your business and it will grow.

I’ll see you on the battlefield.

Customer Service: Is it Dead?

Crappy Service - An Epidemic

Last week I walked into a sandwich shop and the woman at the counter, without even making eye contact, asked “What are you havin’?” in the most uninterested way possible. It took me a second to respond because I was so taken aback. I thought “If I’m going to be treated like this, maybe I should take my money to the restaurant next door.” What’s really sad though is that most people don’t even think twice when they are treated this way as customers. Is anyone else bothered by this?

The Cost of Poor Service

Do companies realize how detrimental poor service can be to their bottom line? Consider these statistics:

• Acquiring new customers can cost five times more than satisfying and retaining current customers.
• A 2% increase in customer retention has the same effect on profits as cutting costs by 10%.
• The average company loses 10% of its customers each year
  • Source - Living on the Edge of Chaos: Leading Schools into the Global Age

• 68% of lost customers are turned away by the negative attitude or indifference of a service provider.
  • Source - Survey conducted by the American Society for Quality

Can your business afford to lose 10% of its customers every year? How can you keep even your most demanding customers satisfied?

Forget About Satisfying Your Customers

Several years ago my company decided to forget about satisfying our customers. You heard me. We decided that any business could satisfy their customers. Customer expectations are so low these days that as long as they get what they came for without being verbally abused, they’ll be satisfied. What we wanted were Raving Fans. (Do yourself a favor and pick up a copy of this book… It’s a quick read and it’ll totally change the way you approach your business).

How do you get raving fans? I remember a conversation i had with Michael Giarrizzo Sr. on my very first business trip. His family has virtually owned the collision repair market in Ohio for decades. Their company, DCR Systems, routinely receives 100% Customer Satisfaction ratings because they believe in creating raving fans. Michael told us about a customer who left his garage door opener in his car, when he was supposed to put it in his rental. Giarrizzo called him, asked for his work address, and delivered the door opener to the man at his office. The customer didn’t have to ask, didn’t have to pick it up, and wasn’t inconvenienced by not having the door opener that night when he got home. With that simple action, Giarrizzo earned a customer for life.

Creating “Wow” Moments

The Ritz-Carlton is well known for their exceptional customer service. Bellmen are trained to look for name tags on luggage as guests arrive. They then use hidden radios to inform the desk clerks of the guests’ names, and the guests are then mysteriously addressed by name. Wow!

It’s a simple concept: if your service makes a customer stop and say “Wow!”, they’re going to come back the next time they need your product or service. They’re going to tell friends and family about their experience and recommend you to everyone they know. Examples are everywhere…

Stephen from Freakonomics writes about his Wow moment with Zappos, a popular shoe retailer:

My wife had ordered a pair of sandals from Zappos. When they arrived, she found that they didn’t fit. She tried to order the right size, but Zappos was sold out of her size. So here’s what the company offered: she could return the sandals (for free), Zappos would refund the purchase price and they’d send her a $25 coupon toward her next purchase.

But wait — there’s more! Zappos also offered to try to locate a pair of the sandals in her size from another vendor. (Hah! Sure, they will!) Fifteen minutes later, the company called my wife and told her they’d found her sandals, in her size, at another online merchant — “and,” the Zappos clerk told her, “they’re even cheaper at this other site!”

Another blogger, Zaz LaMar, wrote a post called “I Heart Zappos” after a particularly heartwarming encounter with the company.

Just search Google for “blog great customer service” and you’ll find countless links to happy bloggers telling the world about the experiences they’ve had with companies that made them say “Wow!” These raving fans are providing businesses with free advertising and testimonials simply because they were so impressed. What could be better??

How do you wow your customers? How do you keep them from taking their business elsewhere? As a consumer, have you ever had a “Wow” Moment? Tell us about it!

Business Owner or Hat Rack?

As an entrepreneur, business owner or manager, how many hats do you wear? Dave McClure, Master of 500 Hats, “refers to the many hats that entrepreneurs have to wear as they get a new startup venture off the ground. It’s also a reminder to entrepreneurs to spend time identifying all those hats, find talented people to wear them productively, and gradually take off & transfer the hats to others who can best help the business grow. “

As a small business owner, I’ve worn more than my share of hats. I mentioned in my last post that I’ve been the project manager, programmer, designer, account manager, marketing manager, and so on. Chris Garrett pointed out that by starting my own blog, I’ve just given myself ten more hats to worry about. Now I’m writing, researching, networking, etc. in addition to all the things I’m already doing. It occurred to me that I’m spending more time as a hat rack than as a business owner. A business owner should be negotiating deals, formulating strategies. A hat rack keeps hats from falling on the ground, getting trampled and lost.

Sadly, for most entrepreneurs this is a necessary evil. If I’d had the cash for a professional accountant, I would have hired one. God knows I’m clueless when it comes to accounting. Matt Inglot points out in his blog that the areas we struggle in tend to be the hats we spend the least time wearing. That explains why, before we hired an accountant, our accounting hats only showed up once a year in early April.

You can learn a lot about yourself by looking at the way you solve problems like drooping sales. A tech-savvy owner might put his programming hat on and implement a cutting-edge CRM application to better track leads and customer information. A marketer will put his marketing hat on and find new ways to reach customers or new target markets to enter. The engineer will reach for his inventor’s hat and start working on his next big idea, guaranteed to draw crowds of customers. Which hat do you reach for? A true entrepreneur will consider each hat in turn, weighing his options until he comes up with the best combination of hats for the task at hand.

Unloading a Few Hats

The hardest thing for most business owners to do is let someone else wear a few hats. In The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don’t Work and What to Do About It, Michael Gerber outlines some of the dangers of taking this step. By hiring people to do the jobs I hate, I’m ensuring that they get the attention they deserve. But to whose standards? Not mine. I’m just trusting that the new guy knows what he’s doing. And then when he cooks the books and disappears with all of my money, who do I have to blame?

The critical component in effectively delegating tasks is learning how to handle each task yourself, THEN deciding how to delegate. You’re in charge. You have to set the rules.

Start by creating an Organizational Chart. It may seem ridiculous in a company with one to three employees, but this is critical. Take a look at my company’s first org chart. Initially, all of those boxes were filled with just two names.

Once you have the chart, create a position contract and job description for each box. For each position, what are the expectations? As VP of Marketing, what are my responsibilities? How do I know I’m fulfilling them? Who do I report to? Who reports to me? This should all be clearly defined when there are only a few employees, because it will get much harder the larger the company gets.

You should now have an Organizational Chart and a stack of position contracts. For each box that has your name on it, sign the position contract to seal the deal. This is especially important in partnerships, where responsibilities are not clearly defined. There’s got to be some accountability right from the start.

As you grow, you now have the structure to hire employees and present them with clearly defined roles. Each new employee takes one of your hats, and signs a contract indicating that they understand what is expected of them. This is just a small step forward, but it’s a step most small businesses never take. Once you start hiring, you need to worry about training, communication, record keeping, and all sorts of other things well beyond the scope of this post. More on all that later…

Your turn… what hats are you wearing? What hat do you instinctively reach for when there’s work to be done?

Other Bloggers on The E-Myth

Naomi at IttyBiz wrote a (not surprisingly) great post last week about how to make the jump toward starting a business when you hate your current job. Johnathan posted a number of statistics from the book over at WiseVisions. Marc Melvin presents a great summary of the goal behind The E-Myth: creating a “place of community that has purpose, order, and meaning… A place where the generally disorganized thinking that pervades our culture becomes organized and clearly focused on a specific worthwhile result.” Michael Gerber’s blog is definitely worth checking out too. Pick up a copy of The E-Myth, it’ll be worth your while.

Welcome to OnYourBusiness!

A few weeks ago I found myself thinking “I should really start a blog.” My next thought was “Wait a minute… Why?”

Hmm… Sadly, I’m getting too old for “Because everyone else is doing it” to be an acceptable response. That was a sobering realization in and of itself. So I had to give it a little more thought.

Ultimately, this is why I started OnYourBusiness:

• Sharing My Experiences - I’m always referring friends and clients to articles and resources that I’ve found useful. Why not share these with a broader audience? As a small business owner, I’ve been the Project Manager, Programmer, Database Analyst, Graphic Designer, Secretary, Customer Service Rep, Sales Rep, Marketing Manager, Accountant, etc… I’m constantly reading books and articles about these topics, and applying them to my own business. There’s a lot of great information out there, but there’s also a lot of crap. Hopefully most of my posts will be among the former.
• Networking - For anyone interested in starting a small business, networking is key. I’ve been inspired by some great bloggers, and wanted to reach out in the same way they have. So many opportunities in my life and my business have materialized out of the nowhere through the connections I’ve made. So drop me a note, introduce yourself! Maybe one day that connection will pay off.
• Fame and Fortune - Probably a long shot, but hey I can dream right?

So that’s why I’m here. Those are the things I’ve set out to accomplish with OnYourBusiness. More importantly, why are you here? Leave a comment and let me know…