Is your business activity planned this far ahead?

This commercial screams Covey’s “Begin with the End in mind”.

Where do you begin?

And how far out is the End that you plan from? (not for, *from*)

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photo credit: TheAlieness GiselaGiardino²³

So today you wake up and find that you have only 15 days until 2010 (fewer than that if you count working days, at least for most people).

You vow that 2010 is going to be the year that you finally get your act together – despite the state of the economy, since can’t do anything about it but create your own…

Maybe you vowed that in 2009 and it did or didn’t go so well. Doesn’t matter. What’s gonna make 2010 DIFFERENT?

No matter how things are going, they could be better. If they’re going great, the challenge is to keep it that way and build upon your success.

So lets go over 5 things that you can do to make sure 2010 is the year your business gets the effort – and the results – it deserves:

Number 5: Become and remain brutally focused about the time you have and how you use it. Need some help with that? Try The Power of Focus and Dan Kennedy’s No BS Time Management for Entrepreneurs

Number 4: “Put on the hat” of your biggest critic or doubter: Ask yourself some tough questions. Justify what you’ve done this year. Reflection is a critically valuable tool. It isn’t about guilt, it’s about recognizing the need (or lack of) for change as well as recognizing what went well.

Even better, take your biggest critic/doubter out for coffee and ask them to let you have it. Ask them to kindly critique the year they’ve seen from you and suggest what they think you should be doing. The feedback isn’t the result you’re looking for. Instead, consider your reactions to the conversation. How do they make you feel about your level of commitment and what you’re really trying to accomplish? Do something about it.

Number 3: Schedule communications (not boring ones) in some form with every customer, at least once every month. If you can’t figure out what to say to your paying customers, you aren’t thinking hard enough – or – they aren’t much of a customer to you. If you can’t afford to communicate with them (and I don’t mean just by email) on a monthly basis, it seems clear that your business model could use some work.

Number 2: Spend some time considering where the leading edge thinkers in your industry are going – and why. If one of those leading edge thinkers is you (be honest with yourself), think harder. Look outside your industry for ideas you can use and “convert” for your business.

• How do these things fit into your current plans?
• Do those plans need adjustment?
• Does your entire big picture need adjustment?
• Do any legislative changes affect you in the coming year?

Number 1: Spend an hour (I’d prefer you spend a day or two – or a week if you can do so) and really, seriously nail down a picture in your mind of a few things:

• What things in your business should look like on Dec 15, 2010.
• What that year of progress is really, truly working towards – yes, what exactly *is* your big picture?
• Did 2009 work toward it, or go somewhere else? If you don’t like the answer…do something about it.
• If you have staff, do they fit the result of this discussion? Can they be trained to do so? What other resource challenges does this bring to mind?

Tick tock.

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photo credit: Falling Heavens

It’s a classic, if not overdone scene.

A plane, low on fuel and starved for altitude, flies over the ocean. As far as the eye can see, nothing but water. Her crew hustles to throw unnecessary items off the plane to lighten the load in hopes of gaining altitude and getting a few more miles out of what little fuel remains.

For a struggling business owner, the situation might not seem all that different.

Like a plane empty of unnecessary gear still flies because it has the essentials (thrust from the engines and lift from the wings), the business owner sometimes has to focus on survival strategies that keep them from crashing.

The trouble with working from a survival strategy is that’s all you often accomplish: Survival.

Your goal isn’t to just to keep from crashing, it’s to thrive, to accomplish that big thing that got you into this business in the first place – whatever it might be. It’s tough to see that when you’re barely afloat, but that focus is exactly what you it’ll take to get your business out of that survival mode.

Sure, spending time on the things that will get you over that current bump in the road is important – but if you do nothing else, all you’ll do is barely get over it and then be faced with the next. And another. And they’ll keep coming.

So what do you do? Take some time to think about where you really want to be. If everything worked out perfectly, what would you accomplish? It’s essential to spend time focusing on the long-term. “Where am I going?” is easy to look at as fluff, but that mission/ vision / goals stuff isn’t fluff because it drives everything else when nothing else will.

It tells you who you serve and who you don’t. It tells you what you focus on and what you ignore. It gets you out of bed in the morning when nothing else will. It’s what you talk about when anyone will listen. You know what you’re heart’s in. Admitting it to yourself is the hard part for many, especially you tough guys.

Without that and the focus it brings, your business focuses only on surviving (don’t let the plane crash), rather than cruising at 33,000 ft.

Find your mission and refocus on it

Spend some time over the next few weeks focusing on the real mission you want to accomplish. What got you interested in what you do? What gets you out of bed in the morning, excited to do this work? Cash flow – while critical – isn’t it. Sure, it’s important, but few people get into a line of work solely because of it.

You’ll spend a lot of fuel climbing to cruising altitude, just like a plane does, but you’ll still be interested in the destination once you get there.

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photo credit: TheAlieness GiselaGiardino²³

Ten months of 2009 are gone. Take the pulse of your business and ask yourself: “Is the business where I wanted to be by now?”

Before you think this is all about the finances, it isn’t. It’s all about where you wanted to be. Maybe it’s about finances, but there might be more important indicators. It’s easy to be profitable and still heading in the wrong direction, for example.

If you’re behind, what can do add, change, delete, correct or adjust to get your progress back on track to meet/exceed your business’ goals? Have you actually done what you said you would do? If not, why not?

Not just about Retail

Big retail (and far too much of small retail) looks at these next two months as what gets them into the black. They’ve even named the day after Thanksgiving “Black Friday” because that’s the shopping day that traditionally moves their business into the black.

While many outside of retail often look at these next two months as throwaways due to the number of holidays, vacations, parties, travel, hunting season and so on – that’d be a mistake.

Likewise, lots of companies put off hiring during these two months (hmm, so NOW till January is the time to pick off the best talent?).

As for the delay, I can find a holiday and related excuses to do that in any month. Why would you do that?

Thank them

In a few weeks, Thanksgiving is coming up in the U.S.

What a great time to take a little time to thank your clientele for their business – just don’t be boring about it and don’t make it a sales call. Whatever you do, do it as a sincere thanks rather than making it ordinary and using it as just another opportunity to pitch everyone.

For Canadian readers who are thinking “Darn, our Thanksgiving was last month”, it’s not too late. Simply acknowledge that you’re a bit tardy so you thought you’d thank them in time for the Americans’ Thanksgiving.

2010

One last thing on this topic – now’s the time to get moving on an assessment of 2009’s successes and failures, and start laying out your 2010 plans and goals. Have your plans and strategies ready for Jan 1 (and start them earlier if it makes sense). Don’t wait until Jan 1 to start this process.

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What about in other markets that affect yours?

Ever want to know at least a little bit of what Google might be thinking?

This 5 minute excerpt is the meaty part of a 45 minute long discussion about the future with Google CEO Eric Schmidt.

Listen to what Schmidt says about the inevitable intersection of TV, radio, video, internet – ie: of media in general.

Sure, it’s obvious. And it’s just one aspect of what he’s speaking of.

But are you considering it in your marketing? In your product delivery? In what your products and services look like? In who you have on your staff, the skills you’re looking for in new hires and the training you’re offering to existing staff?

You don’t have to be in the tech business for this to have a profound impact on you. Has the iPod has affected businesses other than those who make cassette players? Surely.

What often separates the big dogs from everyone else is that they think ahead, they look ahead and they position themselves to be at cruising speed when that next big thing gets traction and hits cruise control.

Focusing merely on survival is not only a great way to never make it to top speed, but to find yourself on the wrong highway altogether.

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Competition. It isn’t good or bad, it just is.

You either are or you aren’t competitive. Thankfully, it’s something you might even be able to learn, at least somewhat.

On the other hand, it’s hard to teach the desire to drive the QB into the dirt and then stand over him. You just gotta.

Anyhow, on that theme, today’s guest post comes from a rather unusual place – a sports blog. More specifically, Dan Shanoff’s discussion about ESPN’s next entry into local sports coverage.

Filter all the sportiness out of it after reading it once and think about a similar entity entering your local market.

A big, powerful, deep pocketed player. In your market. In your town.

Whaddaya gonna do now?

Shanoff lays it out nicely for a paper. How about your business?

Are you going to wait till they arrive to take the next step? Not a good idea.

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photo credit: joiseyshowaa

There’s a story told during the early parts of Wood Badge for the 21st Century (a week-long leadership course for Scout leaders) about an old cathedral somewhere in the UK or Europe.

The story goes that the builders of this 700 year old building planned ahead for the maintenance of that building and a prime concern was replacing the beams in their building.

The beams in buildings of this period came from massive trees.

Presumably, the builders of the cathedral were concerned that future builders wouldn’t have the resources to maintain / repair the cathedral so they planted trees on the cathedral’s courtyard with the intent of using them in the future.

Or maybe they figured the cost would be beyond the budget of those doing the work.

Honestly, we don’t really know what drove their thought process, but it speaks well of them that they were thinking about it even during construction, despite it being so many years ago.

Naturally, the story continues with these massive trees on the property that are the only ones suitable for replacing beams in the building.

Similar stories can be found about the Tower of London’s trees, but no one is really sure if the trees were planted for this use or not.

Sharpen the chainsaw?

Now, we all know that you’d probably get strung up on one of those trees 700 years later if you proposed to cut them down to replace a failing beam in one of these structures, but that isn’t the point.

Nor is it the point that these days, engineered wood beams (made from laminated wood, resins and other products) would likely be the material of choice.

I hope it is obvious that the point of this discussion (and the reason it is used in the Wood Badge course) is the plan, the vision and the attention to detail in both.

Imagine if your business’ “What If” thought process didn’t end right after the New Year’s Eve party, but instead went 5, 10 or 25 years in advance?

If you’re thinking about your customers’ needs that far out, isn’t it more likely that your vision will be better than someone whose planning only considers what’s going on now – or maybe what might happen in the next year?

20/20

Are you strategic about something 5 years out? Or – like much of Wall Street – are you simply thinking 90-120 days in advance?

If you can see far into the future, obviously you would make better decisions now. Given that, how far forward are you looking?

Even if your vision of what your market will be and what your clients will need 10 years from now is inaccurate, that’s OK.

The process, research and examination of your market, your customers and your own business will yield much better short-term decision making than a short-term view would.

You’ll consider things you might never have considered, or you’ll do so far earlier than you would in an almost-reaction-driven (so-called) strategic mode that can’t even see over the next hill.

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Download audio file (BoatAnchorBadSharingGood.mp3)

photo credit: Robb North

Over the last month or so, I’ve been playing phone tag with someone at the local bank’s office.

I use this national bank primarily because they offer some electronic banking services that local banks don’t bother to offer (such as a real-time, seamless interface with QuickBooks), despite my repeated “encouragement” to do so.

Some have noted that the cost to provide this QuickBooks interface is substantial – yet I get interesting wrinkled brow looks when I remind them that I pay $15 a month to use this nifty QB service because it saves us hours per month. Until the fee got to the point where the time was more valuable, I’d pay it. But I digress…

Anyhow, we’ve been talking with someone there about a refi and a combination of my schedule / travel and her schedule /travel have made it difficult to get into the same room at the same time. Not their fault, just one of those things about a busy summer.

This last time I called, the person I’m working with was out of town for several days. I asked the person on the phone if they could put me on their appointment calendar for the week after they return.

My calendar! Mine, mine, mine!

Astoundingly, the answer was no.

Yes, the folks at this large national bank, the same ones who are advanced enough to have their accounts seamlessly talk to my QuickBooks, do not allow or cannot manage to let their employees see their appointment book or schedule an appointment for someone else.

Insane.

I have a feeling it might be related to worries that someone might raid someone else’s appointment calendar for plum prospects, but there are ways of showing only open dates. Even so, that shouldn’t be necessary.

If you can’t trust a *bank* employee to access a co-worker’s appointment calendar, tell me why you trust them to work at the bank in the first place – cuz I don’t see it. But that trust thing is a topic for another day.

Unseen Value

Now we get to the point where you see where this affects you and your business: Are there resources (like an appointment calendar) that your staff should be able to share so they can help each other serve your clientele?

Back in the photography software days, it was a huge deal for new users of our product to finally get off that paper calendar at the front desk. It allowed anyone to see which photographers / camera rooms / salespeople / presentation spaces were booked and make an appointment no matter where an employee was when they answered the phone.

Sounds completely obvious, but many businesses simply couldn’t do it because they were still tied to that boat anchor – the paper appointment book.

Big, heavy and “somewhere in the warehouse”

Another market I worked with manufactured expensive custom items that were big and heavy. They stored them in the warehouse once they were finished.

The information about the build status and storage location of these custom-ordered items was kept on a set of clipboards on a line of nails in the manufacturing area.

Sometimes the info on those clipboards was out of date or missing because someone forgot to write the build status or location down. An order might get lost / forgotten until a customer called for it – and then you might find out that it hadn’t been built yet.

Now imagine that you are a receptionist in the front office and you’re all alone over lunch hour or during a big sales meeting. When that big customer calls to ask about their 27 piece, $57000 order, you have to put them on hold (or tell them you’ll call back), run back to the clipboards, flip through the orders manually, find the order and run back to the phone.

If the clipboard is missing because someone has it at a manufacturing station, or it is on the manager’s desk (or car seat), you know nothing.

If the data on the clipboard wasn’t filled out, you get to run back to the warehouse and look on dozens of shelves from floor to ceiling for an item that has a little paper tag on it showing the customer name.

That’s a boat anchor.

The alternative? A system that integrates customer information, orders, build status and delivery information together. When the phone rings, you can look up all of a customer’s orders, find the status of any of them and tell them right then. The items are barcoded as part of the manufacturing process so most status and location info is automatically updated. Depending on your situation, “most” could be “all”.

What’s your boat anchor? What can you share to get rid of it, enabling your staff to be more helpful and more productive?

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photo credit: boyghost

Today is June 30.

Unless your business model is seasonal (which is common here in Montana), you should be at 50% of your annual goals as of the end of business today.

Whether you are or not, looking back over the last 6 months should provide some insight as you look forward and adjust your plans for the second half of 2009.

Over, Under, Worked, Didn’t

Where are you over and under budget?

In each case, are there *good* reasons for that?

If things are below budget, did you drop the ball, fail to market effectively (or at all), lose a competitive edge, have a drop in productivity or something else?

If you are at or over budget, did you follow your marketing and business plan for the first half of the year? Did productivity rise?

Are systems lightening the load of menial work, allowing you to get more productive, profit-generating work done? If you don’t have systems, perhaps you should. If you systems could do more, look at how they can – and prioritize their implementation.

What worked? Simple response: Do more of that.

What didn’t work? Again, common sense says you should assess how you can fix that thing or eliminate it.

You decide.

When I ask you to examine what is over and under budget, make sure you look at non-budget categories. Things like number of new leads, number of new customers, advertising performance by media/by ad, and so on.

One thing is almost certain. If you do for the next 6 months what you did for the last 6 months, chances are the 2nd half of 2009 will be little different from the first half.

You can decide whether that’s good or not.

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photo credit: pshutterbug

What does it look like to YOU, that is?

To get where you are going most efficiently, with the least amount of distractions and dead end side trips, a detailed plan is essential.

But it isn’t just about the plan. You have to be able to see the destination in your mind. You have to think through the nuances as well as what impact they have on your journey to get there.

For example, if a made-over store is one of your goals, what does it look like? How is it merchandised? How big is it? What sort of facilities does it have? Where is it? Same place as your current location, or different?

Drilling down beyond that, what will it take to make all those things happen? What specific level of revenue? What staff positions are needed to make this happen? What expertise do you need to learn or pick up via new or newly-trained staff members? Are there new product lines, services or directions that your products/services need to address in order to make all of this happen?

Think about it. Get it down on paper or on your computer – whatever you use to plan projects.

Knowing what success looks like in extraordinary detail will help you build and execute a better plan for getting there.

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Download audio file (GetParallel.mp3)

photo credit: jsgphoto

Obama made reference to it Tuesday during his Inaugural Address, acknowledging that many say he can’t do all the things he’s got on his agenda.

Maybe so, maybe not.

Admittedly, his obstacles are substantial.

Some might assume they are insurmountable, specifically those 500 or so people in the Capitol building.

The thing is, that’s  just the kind of situation that often makes people succeed well beyond their own expectations, much less the expectations of others who have counted them out.

Ask Joe Namath, Roger Staubach or John Elway about being counted out.

On second thought, do that later. I’m not here to talk to you about those 4 guys – I’m here to talk to you about you.

Got obstacles?

Who’s counted YOU out? Neighbors? Friends? Family? That little parrot on your shoulder?

Your obstacles probably shrink in comparison to the ones faced by Presidents, but they still might be daunting for you.

So what? Act in parallel and make em all wrong.

What exactly do I mean by parallel?

Most people act sequentially. They think “I’ll do this project, then this project, then that project.” We’ve been taught that way, at least most of us. Learning anything different is often something you stumble across. A failed project acted on sequentially is like a losing season.

Most really successful people tend to act in parallel. They often have a dozen or more projects going on at once. If one of them sticks to the wall, fine. If not, those other 11 projects will pick up the slack. A failed project is just one of the many things they’re counting on, rather than an entire losing season, it’s more like an incomplete pass.

Sure, you’re wondering how they get it all done. How do they juggle a dozen projects when one is enough to drive you crazy?

I promise you one thing: it sure doesn’t happen by accident.

How do they get parallel without going postal?

• They have a mentor. Even *billionaires* have mentors, coaches, confidants or mastermind groups. Don’t imagine for a minute that Bill Gates plays bridge with Warren Buffett just for fun, nor that Buffett does because he can’t find anyone else to play cards with him. Look Tiger Woods can spank any golfer on the planet, yet he still has a coach to help him keep improving. Who do you have?
• They have systems in place to relieve themselves of tedious crap. I’m talking about the same stuff that bogs down your day, interrupts you during productive stretches (you DO have those, don’t you?) and create piles of minimum wage labor on your desk – work that you end up doing yourself.
• They’ve surrounded themselves with people as smart or smarter than themselves. Their ego isn’t driving the bus. Quite often, they do this to relieve themselves of time-consuming manual labor – often technical skills like copywriting and web design.

Acknowledging the theme of the day, Abe Lincoln is quoted as saying that if he had 8 hours to cut down a tree, he’d first spend 6 hours sharpening his saw. What sharpens your saw?

Jim Rohn says that “You become the average of the 5 people you surround yourself with.” No, that doesn’t mean you should go stand in a circle of supermodels<g>. Seriously…Who have you surrounded yourself with?

Get Parallel. Show the parrot who’s in charge.

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photo credit: Valerie Everett

You may have noticed that I took a little rest from blogging over the last couple weeks. Some of it was planned, some was due to surprisingly infrequent access to the internet during our trip to Missouri and Tennessee ( one example: a Starbucks with TWO tables, both next to the door in single digit weather, yeah, sure – and that was the only access I found other than a Panera restaurant).

Yep, we drove from Montana to the Midwest and back. Other than the “joy” of 20 below temps in Wyoming during the trip south, the trip was very nice and the roads were clear for the entire trip once we got out of Montana. The same can’t be said for my return home, where I found 2 feet of snow in my driveway and another foot the day after.

By the way, that 20 below thing is rare, but happens once or twice a year to keep the riffraff out:)

Normally when I leave town, I have posts automatically scheduled in Wordpress so that my schedule doesn’t interfere with keeping things moving here, but in this case I wanted to use experiences on the trip to seed those posts. I suppose the most noticeable seed from the trip is that in some areas, getting random access to the internet is a pain in the rump roast.  You wouldn’t think so in 2009, but that’s how it was.

Back to taking the time off. We all need it, of course. The only problem with taking time off from anything that you do regularly is that getting back into the game gets more difficult with each day that you’re gone.

People have asked me repeatedly how I manage to blog (almost) every single day. Quite simply, its a habit. Even on the days I don’t write (which are few – even on this last trip), I’m either taking notes about a future article or writing offline.

The secret is that writing is like working a muscle. Left unused, it’ll atrophy. You don’t want your blogging muscles to atrophy, just like you don’t want any other muscles to do that.

Writing, blogging, working out, golfing, reading and many other things are simply habits that must be developed. They aren’t instinctive (which is a good thing). Why good? Because anyone can train themselves to do these things.

Make constant improvement a habit

Most importantly – for your business, at least – the habit of working ON your business is a critical path habit that you need to do daily.

Yes, I said daily.

Even if you only spend 15 minutes a day working on improving your business, you’ll be surprised how it becomes a part of you and your business process. Its something that really must become a part of your business. Being the goto person in your business is fine, just keep in mind that your business looks at you that way too, not just your clients.

You’re one of the few who can help it improve.
Download audio file (WorkDailyOnYourBusiness.mp3)

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There are few things more valuable to a small business owner or entrepreneur than “airplane time”. In Montana, you can also call it “windshield time”, but I’ll explain that in a minute.

“Airplane time” is time that you have to yourself with no substantial external stimulus such as emails arriving, faxes coming in, phones ringing, people walking into your office, and so on.

Just like time on an airplane.

Even though you have thousands of people milling around in an airport, or a few hundred on a plane, you can block them all out almost as if they don’t exist. Yeah, even that poor mom and her earache-laden kid in 14B who is howling his lungs out.

That airport/airplane kind of focus is sometimes hard to come by when you own and run a business, but you simply must find it, or create it.

Think back: What circumstances were you last involved in when you had an hour or two to just… think, without any interruptions.

Putting your phone on vibrate doesn’t count.

A few years ago when I was incredibly busy and pulled in even more directions than I am now, I noticed that my best thinking happened on airplanes. I’d get off a 3 or 4 hour plane trip with a yellow pad full of notes, itching to implement changes or create this new service or product.

And it scared me.

Why? Because I knew that my business was doomed if I didn’t take steps to create more focused creative time rather than depending on the airlines to provide it. I was only flying about 6-8 times a year and that was simply not enough focused creative time.

For a while, airplane time remained my best thought time even after 9/11. Despite the way that air travel has been dehumanized and turned into a B-movie bus trip, I still find that my time in the air is extraordinarily productive. It’s the sterile, no wifi, no phone, OK-to-zone and ignore-your-neighbor environment.

In 2007 and early 2008, I found myself driving to Billings once a month for some coaching meetings. That 7-8 hours of driving each day of those trips gave me almost 2 solid days of serious thinking time each month.

Part of that comes from not having decent (or any) cell service along much of the drive. While at times that could drive you crazy, it was great for insulating you so you could get creative.

Outside of the tourist season (June/July/August), you can drive that 14-16 hours and stay focused as the only interruptions are dodging deer on the road and the occasional blizzard (which numbs the external stimuli even more). Not to say that no one is on the road, but things are sedate enough that you can really focus on creative thought – and still stay on the road.

These days, I find other ways to insulate myself and get that thinking time in. Once you get used to having it, losing it scares the pants off of you.

How are you getting this time nowadays? Or are you?

If you aren’t, figure out a way to get it. If you don’t get the big chunks of time, it wouldn’t surprise me to find that you aren’t getting smaller bits of thinking time either. Trouble is waiting for you if you aren’t.

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Everyone’s busy these days and I am no exception. If only the Borg could talk to Wordpress:)

Because everyone is so busy, and because I’ve sensed a tenseness (but not a panic, at least not yet) among the small business owners I’ve talked to this week, I thought I might take only 5 minutes of your time today to help you tackle the stress you might be feeling.

If you are struggling to figure out where your customers are, or where they went, as well as where to find more, and how to keep them, give this a try:

Take 5 minutes EVERY DAY to think hard about what you can say to your customers and prospects TODAY that will benefit them, be of value to them, be of interest to them and make their lives and businesses better.

The money and time you spend to do this will be the best marketing investment you can make.

You might say, “Fine Mark, this is fine for us, show me what you’re doing so I can get an idea how to do this myself.”

Fair enough. This very issue is why I have an email newsletter, a print newsletter, a radio show, a business column in the local newspaper, speaking gigs, a book on the way (not as fast as I’d like…) and so on.

Despite all those things, and despite the fact that I am busier than ever…this is why a live TV show is just around the corner.

What are you doing to communicate with your prospects and clients?

How are you providing even the smallest piece of value to them every day, every week, or at the least, every month?

What are you doing to make sure that you are using the media that reaches each type of learner (some are readers, some listeners, some watchers).

Remember, despite all the noise in the news about the bailout, the election and everything else that’s going on, your economy isn’t dependent on Washington. Your economy is dependent upon you. Take the 5 minutes, and take it now.

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You might find it difficult to concentrate on improving your business with all the events going on in the financial world. After all, your primary bank might get purchased tomorrow, or your office building might get sold to someone in Costa Rica, then what do you do?

Probably nothing – at least nothing you can do about it. Meanwhile, another day got frittered away wringing your hands over stuff that you don’t have any control over. Did *that* help your business?

When stuff like this is going on, it’s always a good time to reassess your market, and be wide-eyed and inquisitive about markets that might not have been there 2 months ago. It’s also wise to consider how these things might impact your business.

What’s not good is to rub callouses on your hands worrying about it. Most of what happens to you is under your control. No, I don’t mean that you can make a phone call and impact global financial markets. On the other hand, maybe you can pick up the phone and call your Congressional rep’s office and make sure they know how you feel about the issue of the day.

But don’t be frozen by all the chaos, perceived or real. Times like these, no matter how you view them, are always full of opportunity. The biggest risk is often taken on by doing nothing.

If you’re in the business of marketing hamburgers, you might think that the financial problems going on don’t really impact you all that much, or that they’ll hurt you by making people less likely to eat out.

On the other hand…

• You should be looking at properties to expand into when they flip over, or to switch to if that makes sense. Maybe they’re simply worth putting an option on.
• You might be looking into ways to offer a budget night out for families.
• You might be adding catering to your services, since people who ordinarily get to go home for dinner might be working overtime trying to keep their finances straight. Or trying to keep their business open, or chasing that great new opportunity they discovered.
• You might be looking at ways to help families whose parents are working an extra shift or an extra job due to whatever difficulties they are facing. Meal delivery? Pickup? Think, then act.
• You might be looking around for that next great new employee who got laid off from someplace else. As an example, one of my clients got 29 resumes for a recent administrative assistant opening. Many of the candidates were outstanding and the final 2 were really amazing.

I’m sure you can think of other angles to pursue, so don’t be frozen all the bailout talk. Take stock and assess your exposure, but keep your focus. Be observant of changes in your market and new markets that you can serve.

Not everyone will be doing that. You should be.

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Younger readers of Business is Personal might not remember this old Tareyton cigarette ad, but it reminds me of one of the hardest sales jobs around: Selling a “Me Too” product.

A “Me Too product” is a replacement product for one already on the market and (presumably) successful.

I say “presumably” because you really don’t even know for a fact that it is successful unless you do serious market research. Yet the research to make a wise decision about a “Me Too” rarely gets done.

Let’s assume that you’re an accounting expert and a programmer and you just can’t stand Intuit QuickBooks and it just makes you nuts thinking about having to use it even one more day. The natural thing for a programmer to do in this situation to (not so) simply: create their own “perfect” product from scratch and wave goodbye to the old product forever.

But that emotional response ignores a critical thing required to make a business success out of that project…

Do you offer a compelling reason to switch?

Think about it for a moment: What would it take to get you to stop using QuickBooks, or Microsoft Office, or some other software that is entrenched in your business. Think about the time and money you’ve invested in knowledge and training.

If you’re having difficulty with that thought process, think about what it would take to get you to stop eating meat, stop drinking, become celibate by choice, or switch from a Western religion to an Eastern one. Or vice versa in each case.

In each of those cases, the requirement is “a compelling reason”.

There has to be a seriously compelling reason to get people to change from “Tolerable Product A” to “Your New Baby – aka Totally Awesome Product B”, particularly when Product A is embedded in the business processes of the entire company and has been in use for years. Worse so when the quirks of Product A have actually infected the business processes of the company.

Elected officials aside, people have proven for centuries that they detest change. To management, change often means sunk costs, lowered productivity and bad morale.

If your compelling reason is so easy to understand and so obvious that everyone from the CEO to the mail room clerk gets it, change seems like a good idea and most everyone gets on board or is easy to convince. If the only people who get it are at the boardroom level, you might have a challenge on your hands.

Do yourself a favor: Before you write a line of code, before you design a screen or a database, answer a simple question: What is the compelling reason that will cause people to line up for a chance to switch to your software?

At that point in the process, you should already have a conceptual model of what your new product will do, so this shouldn’t be difficult or expensive. In fact, it should roll off your tongue in a heartbeat. It might even be your Unique Selling Proposition or Unique Sales Position (different folks call USP different things).

It isn’t just the programmers. You can find it everywhere, even in cafes and pizza shops.

Believe it or not, people drank coffee before Starbucks existed. When they opened, Starbucks wasn’t just another coffee shop like all the rest. They created a compelling reason to go there. In fact, they created several different compelling reasons, attracting different groups of people.

Today, smart coffee shops fighting for market share create compelling reasons to go to their place instead of boring old Starbucks. They offer gourmet beans, live roastings, live music, readings, art exhibits, networking events, free internet access, gourmet foods, online ordering, delivery, party catering, gift packaging and so on.

What’s the compelling reason you give people that’ll make them want to line up for a chance to switch?

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Consider the profitability of the work being done by each member of your staff. Are they making your business more profitable? Or are they doing non-critical work that a computer or service could do?

Why not automate those often lame-but-necessary tasks?

Why? Because you aren’t getting it all done otherwise.

Want proof? Call a vendor who performs a service or sells an item that requires installation. More often than not, you’ll not find someone who can deliver today, or even this week.

Despite the state of the economy. Or perhaps, because of it.

Odd example: I was told late last week that Amtrak passenger trains are packed to the gills because they don’t have any more passenger cars to put in service. Now don’t get me wrong, that’s good thing because it means they’re busy. Busy is good. Means they are doing some things right (and of course that fuel prices are high).

But backlogged and having to force businesses and consumers to go to your competition isn’t good, and it’s a fine line between busy and too busy.

What’s bad for Amtrak in this case is also bad for you. And that’s where the profitability of the work your staff does will come into play.

On one side of the fine line: things that require your expertise.

On the other: stuff that a high school kid could do in their sleep (and they need more sleep anyhow, right?).

Those are the kinds of things to target for automation.

It isn’t about getting rid of people. It’s about giving the people you have the kind of work that generates profit, rather than simply keeping them busy in low-value jobs that take them nowhere.

Why do they want that?

Because the kind of work that generates profit is the kind that makes a job – and thus an employee – more valuable.

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Today’s guest post is a story about Honda that comes from MSN reporter Lawrence Ulrich.

The source of that quote that I’ve used as title of the post?

It’s a quote from Dan Bonawitz, Honda’s vice-president of corporate planning. When short-sighted Honda store owners clamored for a 8 cylinder pickup, Honda corporate responded with that question.

It’s a good question to ask yourself.

“What value are we going to provide customers that no one else does?”

There’s no market leadership in “Me too”, even though you see it in the automobile business year in and year out. “Me too” has never been Honda’s style. As a result, this isn’t the first time that Honda has been in this position, though it is a bit more obvious this time.

Are you part of the herd, or are you leading the herd?

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You may find it uncomfortable to think about this one, and you might even be lazy when it comes to implementing things related to it, but it’s important to do so.

What steps have you taken to deal with something happening to you, or a key employee?

Insurance companies have “Key man coverage” (and yes, I fully realize it is available for women, surely by now you realize that all of the women in my life are key<g>).

Do your key people have key man coverage?

What have you done to prepare your company for the worst?

Would they know where everything is? Are there instructions to help find it?

If it’s a family-owned business, have you talked with your family and put plans in writing for succession?

Are you cross-training other family members, or other employees?

We’ve talked at length about documenting employee processes, but are YOURS documented?

Is there a checklist of things that must be done weekly, monthly, quarterly? For example, are you the only one who knows what EFTPS is? Certainly anyone can pick that up and do it, but if they don’t know they need to…big problem.

Coming in this discussion: technology, marketing to clients who think your biz is toast, what others have experienced and what you can learn from it.

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I was listening to Sam Clark this morning and he was talking about a group he surveyed about their business habits and noted that 86% of the people surveyed had no plan.

We talked about this when I first heard this comment from Sam a few months ago, but didn’t really press the issue.

Dan Kennedy calls it the “Monday morning reinvention” – where people show up at work Monday morning and start all over again. They sit down, they get coffee, and then they start figuring out what they need to do that week, at least until they’re distracted by a few joke emails or a link to someplace that takes them somewhere else until it’s “suddenly” lunchtime, or mid-afternoon.

Would it shock you to look across the room at 100 people at today’s Rotary Club meeting or Chamber of Commerce lunch and find that only 14 of them are working a plan to get where they want to be.

The other 86 have:

• No plan for today.
• No plan for tomorrow.
• No plan for next week.
• No plan for next month.
• No plan for getting their business, or their part of the business, from where it is today to where it will be tomorrow. A

We all know that you have to plan in order to achieve what you want, so why do so few people do it?

Start today. Don’t give me that “one of these days” comments, or “I’ll start on it next week, it’s too late for this week”.

Do it now. As soon as you finish reading this post.

Why now? I already know you aren’t working – because you’re reading this:)

If you aren’t working a daily or work week plan, take 15-30 minutes or however long it takes and figure out what your most important achievements for this week will be.

Now take a few minutes and figure out what the first few steps are to work toward each one, and start on them. NOW.

As you finish those first few steps, figure out the next few, and then knock them off.

At the end of the day, spend a few minutes planning tomorrow. Repeat it the rest of the week at the end of each day.

If you *are* one of the 14% who are working a plan, don’t forget to re-assess where you are at the end of the day, adjust as necessary and stick to it.

Do what most people aren’t doing. Get what most people arent getting.

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