What’s lighting up your dashboard?

by Mark on February 26, 2010

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Audi Q7 4.2 quattro with Offroad Style Package * Saint Beast * Dashboard
Creative Commons License photo credit: jiazi

People often wet their fingertip and hold it up in a light breeze to see which direction the wind is coming from (at least for that instant in time). Golfers just grab a few blades of grass and toss it in the air.

Both tactics indicate current conditions, much like a weather rock.

Indicators are critical to your business just like the dashboard lights are to your car’s health.

That temperature indicator on your dash, in some circles called an “idiot light”, might light up to tell you the engine is overheating. It might not say that your antifreeze is way past its prime, your radiator is clogged, hoses are leaking, your air-cooled VW bug is out of oil , your head gasket is toast or any number of other things that make an engine overheat.

The Spandex Candyman

I read an article this week about a brilliant indicator used by Van Halen frontman David Lee Roth. Often perceived as a strutting, spandex-clad prettyboy with an amazing multi-octave voice, it turns out Roth was the operations whiz of the group.

Deep in an inches-thick contract specifying everything from how many hotel rooms to reserve to the voltage and number of outlets on stage, Roth included a clause mandating that a bowl of M&M candy should be provided and that no brown M&Ms should be in the bowl.

For some bands, it might be just another silly request to see what they can get away with. In Roth’s case, the bowl was an indicator of the quality of the job the event producers were doing.

If the bowl was present and no brown candy was included, it was an indicator that someone had read the entire contract, took it seriously and paid attention to even the smallest details. If he found no bowl (or he found brown M&Ms), Roth had reason to suspect that the contract hadn’t been read and followed to the letter.

For him, that meant that the specification of a myriad of electrical supply lines and outlets needed in specific places at specific loads might also have been ignored. At best, a poor electrical setup might impact the quality of the show. As the severity increases, equipment damage or fires could result.

Either way, it would have been easy for Roth to view that as a risk to long-term music/ticket/gear sales, notwithstanding the danger issues.

The M&Ms were an idiot light to tell him that a careful concert facility setup check was required.

Balls of paper

I’ve told you before about the ball of paper I use at hiring time to indicate self-motivated, observant folks from those who might not be.

If you pick it up or ask me about it, cool. If not, I’ll start to wonder if you pick up your socks. The reality is, it indicates whether you’ll notice that the back door is unlocked at closing time, or that the register is open when it shouldn’t be.

Finally, that ball of paper and what happens to it tells me whether or not I need to take the conversation deeper where it comes to self-motivation.

Warm Caveman Fuzzies

Another indicator is lighting up all around me and it’s more worrisome than a dashboard light or a ball of paper on the floor: It’s the caveman thing.

At a time when creativity and innovation (much less shredding of the box you need to get outside of) are as in demand as ever, I see folks retreating to their cave to hunker down until someone comes by and tells them that it’s ok to come out.

I also see folks looking at things the same way they got looked at them 30 years ago.

An example: A firm needs a TON of funding to pull off a project. It’s a project that will grant them independence and perhaps a competitive edge that puts them 4-5 years ahead of everyone else, while protecting them from regulatory issues and commodity sourcing problems *for decades*.

So far, approaching a bank seems like the only choice.

Funding enterprise-class expenses is beyond going to the bank these days. Partnering with vendors and (oh my, dare you consider it) competitors, public-private orgs, local equity partners, angels, heck – even 10000 community members. If you look hard enough, there are many, many ways to build a pile of funds if you just gotta have them.

Ask yourself a few questions when pondering whatever is lighting up your dashboard:

  • “Why not?” (instead of “Why?”)
  • “How can we?” (instead of “We cant”)
  • “Who else benefits?” (and will they invest?)

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Scoble, Secretariat and Mister Ed

by Mark on February 22, 2010

Robert and Ryan on Ryan's first Christmas
Creative Commons License photo credit: Robert Scoble

A while back, Robert Scoble wrote a terrific post on Scobleizer about the worst things that startups do.

I suggest you hop over there and check it out even if you aren’t in the technology business. When you’re done, come back so we can apply Robert’s comments to your not-a-startup small business. (Psst…While you’re over there, I suggest you subscribe to his blog, even if you aren’t in the tech world. You’ll be glad you did.)

Now that you’re back, let’s look a little closer at Robert’s list because it isnt just startups that make these mistakes. Here’s a small business angle on his list of mistakes:

1. Have plush offices in the most expensive part of town.

I haven’t managed to make this mistake as yet. Haven’t used someone else’s money for a startup though, maybe that’s why.

On the other hand, there have been times when I should’ve kept my office at home and didn’t. Sometimes it’s right, sometimes not. Think hard about the reasons why. Cash flow is always a concern, and more often than not, a critical strategic piece.

2. You can’t tell me what you do in a single Tweet.

For those who don’t use Twitter, that means: “Describe your business in 140 characters.”

For me, the Twitter version is “I help small businesses get more customers, become more productive and make more profit. Guaranteed.”

I find myself tinkering with that now and then, but it always seems to come back to the basics. If you aren’t interested in getting / keeping more customers, becoming more productive and more profitable, we don’t have a lot in common to build to a business relationship on.

3. If I look around and don’t see programmers.

Scoble’s talking about tech startups, but his point hits home for you as well – no matter what you do.

In a tech startup, programmers mean product and service creation. Someone’s creating something. In your business, product and service creation are equally important.

For me, if I’m not marketing, creating products and services, or delivering them…you could say I’m wasting time.

4. You hire a PR firm. (4b: you don’t have a blog and a Twitter account)

Hilary will probably beat me up a little about this – but note Scoble’s criteria – *startups*. If you don’t have a product or service for sale yet, most companies don’t need a PR firm. There are exceptions, but your business likely isn’t one of them.

If you’re open for business, this one isn’t a mistake unless you’re doing it really badly.

Example mistake: Referring anyone and everyone with questions to sales or PR (or someone else) because they aren’t allowed to talk to the public, or the press, and so on.

I don’t mean questions about your top secret process, chemistry, electronics or whatever. I don’t want to know the “I could tell you but I’d have to kill you” stuff.

We want to know why we should care…and despite the secret sauce stuff that you can’t tell us, we also want to know why *you* care.

Every single person on your staff had better be able to tell your company’s story with passion (at least their part of it).

No one, including me, wants to be bored by you reading the 9 paragraph mission statement that no one – including the CEO – remembers.

Infect us with your enthusiasm for what you do, even if you’re a divorce or bankruptcy lawyer. Think about that for a minute.

I can tell you one thing – if you step into the room sometime when I’m speaking to a group, you’ll damned sure get infected with the idea that you can do better. Lots better.

5. They spend money on the wrong things.

In the programmer world, the bad chairs and lousy monitors Scoble talks about are right on the money. If you’re a programmer and you don’t have dual monitors (or more) on the computer where you write programs, you’re working with a dull axe.

In every business I’ve ever seen, there are resources that make people more productive, that make them feel valued, that make them happier to work harder.

No one likes being unproductive. Watching either the Windows hourglass or the little multicolored Mac spinning thing is *the most annoying thing in the world* to a computer user. How much of your staff’s day is spent doing that?

How’s that make them feel about the value and importance of their work?

Beyond that, what’s that time costing you?

6.  They don’t fire fast enough.

At almost every business, some of the best people leave because they aren’t being challenged or because others aren’t pulling their weight.

Just like Scoble said and it isn’t just startups.

Your best performers have little tolerance for those who aren’t performing, much less for poor tools. The situations that businesses put them in often are what force them to go out on their own. If you’d like to avoid competing against your best performer(s), provide your racehorses with the best possible environment and when you hire – hire the best possible folks to accompany them.

Don’t make Secretariat share a stall with Mister Ed, (no matter how cool he was).

7. You picked the wrong infrastructure.

Most of us have hitched our wagon to the wrong horse at one time or another.

Next time, choose better. Choose for the right reasons.

Is your web host critical? Is a steady supply of large amounts of electricity critical? If you start to grow, are there enough skilled employees available in the area?

We got lucky on this one – there was a call center nearby with *excellent*, well-trained people – and we hired some of the best folks in the valley.

8. You let VCs control your management team and strategy too early.

Most of you won’t ever deal with a venture capitalist, but the same kind of issues can hamper your growth and stability.

Does your ability to access capital control your strategy? Does the size of your American Express bill?

Cash flow is as strategic as any other aspect of your business, sometimes more so.

9. You have a too cool name and logo.

There’s nothing wrong with a great name and logo, but there had better be some meat on the bone.

10. You say yes too often, particularly in engineering decisions.

This is the one that used to get me, and it was a hard lesson to learn. One of my business partners used to ride me now and then about “building end tables when we needed coffee tables”.

In other words, “Give me the big stuff, the little stuff can wait”.

I’ll quote Jim Rohn as usual on this topic: “Saying no means you can say yes to something more important.”

This isn’t just about software. Everyone has decisions to make about what to do, not to do, whether you’re an attorney, a programmer, a car wash or a restaurant.

11. Startups pick old technology because it’s familiar.

In his post, Scoble said “…going with the same stuff your dad’s company used?”

Technology can be as strategically important as (almost) every hire you make.

Maybe not your choice of operating system or spreadsheet, but how you use technology to gain edge after edge.

This is one of the reasons why I bought a Mac last year. Most of my tech-related work is still on Windows, but for me to help myself and clients reach even higher, I needed to be able to explore custom iPhone/iTouch apps. That requires a Mac.

How have you stretched your technology-related capabilities lately?

12. You don’t change direction fast enough.

You’re either setting the tone or singing along.

If you’re echoing the moves of someone else, you’ll always be behind unless they misstep badly, not to mention that it’s pretty hard to lead a market in wait and see.

If that new thing is *the* next big thing or the next big flop, wouldn’t you rather know before everyone else? Wouldn’t you want to be the one taking your clients that direction first – or knowing first not to take your clients there?

Going to the moon isn’t about planting a flag and taking a picture. It’s about the challenges you face and the lessons you learn on the way to liftoff.

Think about Robert’s list. Where can you improve?

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Management garbage

by Mark on February 20, 2010

Ali! Ali! Ali!
Creative Commons License photo credit: Dave Hogg

Today’s guest post is from bnet, where they profile a Boxing-Day-style reality show where the CEO works on the ground floor.

What would you find if you worked the bottom floor for a few days?

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What to do if you have too many customers

by Mark on February 18, 2010

Dead Weight
Creative Commons License photo credit: powerbooktrance

It must be all those trees we have. They’re so full of customers that businesses just don’t need any more.

As you know, I strongly encourage folks to buy local.

The flip side of that is that locals have to EARN the business. Not just because you’re here, but because you kick butt at what you do.

Jeepers

I called a couple of stores about getting a sound bar for my son’s Jeep as a gift to acknowledge a major accomplishment he recently completed.

One said: “We don’t have them but we have the speakers for them.”

The Department of Obviousness requires that I inform you that the holes in these sound bars are designed to fit common speaker sizes so that retailers don’t have to stock custom speakers.

After checking the store, another said: “I don’t think we can get anything like that.”

No one said “We don’t carry that, but I can get it here tomorrow and install it for you. When would you like to bring the Jeep in?”

The last answer is what keeps people from buying car audio gear on the internet.

The point

While I’m only talking about a $200 purchase plus installation, the big picture was missed.

The size of this purchase isn’t the point.

What you *must* get across to your staff (no matter what you do) is that the real long-term reason to make a sale is to *get a new customer*. 
After that, it’s their challenge to keep us as customers.

I suspect car audio industry research tallies the average annual spending of customers. If that figure is only $100, at one new customer per week, you’d add an average of $5200 to your gross sales per year.

Your market is no different.

Has dealing with your store become so unremarkable that customers would rather pay for shipping and wait a few days?

Walking to Missoula

I was in a cloth store recently, buying some material so a local business owner could make some custom neckerchiefs for my Scouts.

They had less material than I needed. They offered to order more, advising me that it could take 3 to 6 weeks.

They didn’t mention their corporate-run online store. I checked it myself, finding an in-stock quantity of only three yards. That wasn’t how much the local store had, it indicated (incorrectly, I suspect) the corporate’s in-stock quantity.

Meanwhile, the Missoula store had plenty. I know this because the local store is advanced enough to be able to check this from their handheld terminals (nice!). When I asked them about getting it from Missoula, they said it would take “about 3 weeks”.

I can *walk* to and from Missoula in three weeks.

Trucking in the wrong direction

Recently I was outside of Missoula at a truck stop and bought a small toolkit for a task that had me sidelined on the road. As the cashier finished ringing it up, I realized I’d bought the wrong thing. Yes, my fault.

While standing at the counter, before the salesperson walked away, before picking the item up from the counter, while putting my wallet back in my pocket, I asked to return it, unopened.

Without a second’s delay, they said “We have a strict corporate return policy. No returns.” 
Even if the unopened item has never left the store, much less the cash register.

It’s early on Saturday evening and there is no weekend on-premises manager. She won’t be back until Monday and no one else is allowed to take responsibility.

Stunningly “customer-friendly”.

Earl Nightingale once said something like “To be successful, observe what the majority in your market are doing, then do the opposite”.

These are good examples of his advice.

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The Reason Why

by Mark on February 12, 2010

Is there a sale on? @ Lowestoft, Suffolk
Creative Commons License photo credit: timparkinson

Ever notice that some businesses have a sale every other week? (or worse, even more often than that)

I guess they think they have to.

They’re the ones who have sales so often that *everyone* seems to wait until the next sale before they buy. Hey, it’s right around the corner, why not?

It starts to look a little cheesy before long. Why is that?

Aside from the “smell of desperation”, people see credibility if given “a reason why” even if the reason is silly.

Otherwise they get the idea you’re having a sale every week because you don’t know what else to do. Once they figure that out, your sale prices *are* your regular prices. Not a good thing.

Find a reason

Why are you having a sale / promotion / event?

  • Because the Saints won.
  • Because the Colts lost.
  • Because Obama won.
  • Because McCain lost.
  • Because I’m a grandpa.
  • Because we had a monster snowstorm.
  • Because it hasn’t snowed in 2 months+.
  • Because Valentine’s Day is approaching and you wanna be a good significant other
  • Because Valentine’s Day is over and you don’t want to keep all this red stuff till next year.
  • Because your kid just scored his first goal.
  • Because your kid’s never scored a goal.
  • To send a message to someone.
  • To thank a certain group of people or an entire community.
  • To educate your customers (ie: “because TED2010 is going on this week, all our natural foods are specially priced”, or whatever)
  • And so on.

But NOT because “I need some cash flow and having a sale is the only way I know how to close sales.”

Reasons are all around you

Legitimate is in the eye of the beholder, so have a little fun with it.

Papa John’s Pizza has a heart-shaped pizza special this week. Not difficult to do, but so far, I’ve seen no other restaurants offering something like this.

Yesterday I received an email from Dan Kennedy’s company that offered a 24.8% discount off any of their information products.

Why 24.8%? Because they got 24.8″ of snow in Baltimore this week. Almost everyone knows about snowpocalypse.

Associating your sale or promotion with stuff like this is easy. Taking an extra step to tie the discount to the event (like the depth of the newly fallen snow) is even better – as long as the discount/promo/sale doesn’t last forever, or come back again with the same reason every other week.

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