Weekly Business Idea

Main Idea:

How do you sound?  Have you taped yourself and actually listened to how you sound on the phone or in person?  Do you sound like the teacher in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off? 

 Expansion of the Idea:

Several things have happened this week that have reinforced to me the need to make sure that we know what our communications sound like.  My son is helping my office during tax season.  He brings energy and enthusiasm to the phone.  A high school friend and client called and talked to him.  After hearing how he answered the phone, my friend told me that my son should be promoted to managing partner.  We joked about that but then I started thinking about how my communications have slipped.  They have been professional but I allow busyness and distraction to get in the way.  I don’t bring that same enthusiasm and energy to every interaction.  I suspect that most people don’t.  Yet that is how you built your business to begin with.  A relentless focus on the other person will build a business.  That brings up the other issue that happened this week.  I talked to a client about his tax records and I said a few things that I meant but the client heard something different.  The client has had a rough year and I should have thought about his position first.  I can’t back down from doing the right thing but I can do a better job of empathizing with the client and helping him get to the right spot.  This is a critical skill that I have to get right.  I deeply offended the client and we ended up meeting.  He understood what I meant and he accepted my apology but what would happen if he just switched accounting firms.  We don’t always get a second chance to explain ourselves.  We need to make sure we do it right. 

 Points to Ponder:

1. Energy – do you show it in all interactions?
2. Enthusiasm – does this spill out from you?
3. Empathy – do you look for situations where this is required?

Main Idea:

Do you wonder why you are in the position that you are in?  Are you stuck in a rut?  Have you hit a plateau and you can’t get to the next plateau?

 Expansion of the Idea:

Most of us lie.  Every day, we tell a string of lies to one person.  Generally it is the same person.  OURSELVES!!!  We tell ourselves that we will fix the customer service issue tomorrow.  Yes it is okay to have that order of dessert.  We think the problem employee has fixed their attitude and we should not have any more problems.  I will be able to clear my to-do list even though it includes items from 2008.  (The client waiting for that particular call back is dead now.)  We feel we have our spending under control.  I believe that all of us have at least one and normally a string of lies that we tell ourselves every day.  Most small business owners are basically optimistic and believe in the future.  The problem is not optimism but realism.  We have to critically evaluate life.  Do I have personal problems that are impacting my business?  Do I really have the right number of people or should I hire someone?  Do I need to invest in more training for my employees?  What can I delegate to a team member that can better serve the business and our customers?  Do I need to find additional financing to allow the business to go to the next level?  Do I need to invest in myself with additional training or coaching?  When we start asking ourselves the hard questions and follow up by answering truthfully, our businesses can flourish.  We can start fixing ourselves and our businesses.  This is actually very hard to do.  We would rather work 18 hour days than answer these tough questions.  This may involve having a touch conversation with someone you like.  It may involve being vulnerable and showing a weakness.  Sometimes we need someone else asking the questions to force accountability.  We need to do whatever it takes to ask and answer the tough question. 

 What question do you avoid every week?

 Points to Ponder:

1. Make a list of problems that have been around you and/or your business for a long time.
2. What are the critical things that contribute to the problems?
3. Why have you not addressed the problem?
4. What one thing can you do to start fixing each of the problems?

Main Idea:

Have you ever been in a situation where the customer service was so confused that you wondered how they stay in business?  Do you know what your customers experience when they deal with you? 

 Expansion of the Idea:

I recently had the wonderful experience of going to a nursing home to visit a family member.  She had a knee replacement and was in the nursing home for rehabilitation.  The rehabilitation worked well but the communication was absolutely awful.  The nursing staff did not know if she should be on bed rest or not.  They allowed her to drink something that interacted poorly with the medicine.  There was almost no communication with family members and when it did happen they called the wrong family member.  When they were going to keep her in the place for an extra 10 days past when we thought she should get out, we started asking a lot of questions.  She was then released two days later.  We did not trust anything that they told us because there was so much confusion.  It is hard for us to judge the overall quality of care because all we see is the bad communication.  All of us have these types of stories about health care.  The question is “Are there these types of stories about your business?”  Our businesses can even be thriving and customers are not switching because they don’t have great alternatives.  They may fear switching to an even worse organization.  Yet we are vulnerable.  At the right time, our customers may switch as soon as there is a great alternative.  We need to make sure that they do not want to switch and that they are completely loyal.  One of the best ways of doing that is to take an honest look at your business from your client’s point of view.  If you can deal with your own company, how was the transaction?  How is the checkout on your website?  What is it like calling your offices?   Do you observe the customer interactions?  Is it positive and engaging or is it completely devoid of energy?  If you were a customer, would you deal with your company?  If not, then figure out the systems and people that you need to get in place.  If you would deal with your company, then figure out your biggest weaknesses and work on them.  In a lot of situations, the biggest problems might appear to be small but they are huge to the customer.

 Points to Ponder:

1. Do I know what it is like dealing with my company?
2. Who do I know that could buy from my company and give me honest feedback?
3. What is one thing I need to work on to improve the customer experience?

Main Idea:

Would you prefer to go to a 5 Star restaurant where the food is very good or would you prefer to go to a hole in the wall restaurant where the food is great? 

Expansion of the Idea:

In the late 70’s and early 80’s I lived in Decatur Illinois.  Decatur is a blue collar town but it does have a few very nice restaurants.  However, the best food was always the places that only the locals would go to.  If you were driving through the town you would not have gone into these places on a bet.  One of the best steaks I ever had was in a restaurant called “Tom’s Grill”.  The service was great and they had a great business.  I just searched online and it looks like they are still in business. That is amazing for a restaurant.  The point is that they were great at the basics.  They had great food and great service.  It wasn’t the nicest place and they did not charge outrageous prices.  They had great food and great service.  Most of our businesses will survive and even thrive if we focus on the basics.  Do we have the inventory and products that our customers want?  Are we providing the service that our customers need?  Do we answer the phone calls and return them in the same month?  These basics are true at every level of business or organizations.  I was at a basketball coaching clinic a number of years ago and Rich Grawer was the speaker.  Rich had been the head coach at St. Louis University and helped them become relevant for the basketball junkies in the area.  Rich said that 90 % of all basketball games, including the NBA, are decided by free throws and layups.  If you make all your layups and a good percentage of free throws you will win.  What are your free throws and layups that you need to get right?  We can have the most sophisticated strategic plan but if we fail to tie our shoes we stumble as we start to implement it. 

Points to Ponder:

1. What are the two or three things that I absolutely have to get right?
2. Is my team clear on what they should do with them?
3. Have I tested that they are operating the way they should?

Main Idea:

Do you set goals at this time of year?  How long do they last?  After you fail, do you reset the goals?  Or do you give up?

 Expansion of the Idea:

As I was driving into work this morning, I was amazed by the sunrise.  It was so peaceful, beautiful and clean.  It really helps you with a great attitude for the day.  You think the day will be good.  The test at the end of the day is whether or not you can enjoy the sunset.  Is it peaceful, beautiful and clean?  I love both sunrises and sunsets.  I started thinking that this is a great analogy for our upcoming year.  At the beginning of the year we all have goals and hopes.  Then life gets in the way.  I decided to make sure I was going to get to the gym four times a week this year.  It is the first week of the year and it is Thursday and I still have two times to go.   I have a lot of issues to take care of at work.  I have things to do at home.  How do I balance all of it?  I think it is important to establish goals and to write those goals down.  There are a lot of studies that show that written goals are much more likely to be achieved.  It also helps that they are SMART.  That stands for specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and tangible.  If you need help with establishing the goals, Google smart goals and there is a lot of help with that.  The real key for me is to set up accountability with the goals.  You can have some pretty big goals that, if accompanied by accountability, have a very high chance of success.  Accountability can come in a lot of different shapes and forms.  You can ask for more accountability from your boss or a fellow team member at work.  Personal trainers fill the gap for some.  My posting of my goals in this email forces some accountability for me.  I have two different sets of people to help me with personal and business accountability.  The point is that we have to work to establish this accountability if we want to achieve our goals.  If you set up goals without accountability, you probably should not put a date on it because you can use the same goals next year.  We have all done that.  What I really hope for you is that at the end of this year you can sit back and look at the year just like you look at a sunset. 

 Points to Ponder:

1. Have I set goals for the year?
2. Are they S.M.A.R.T?
3. Have I set up accountability for the goals?  Why not?

Main Idea:

Do you spend time looking back at the year?  Or do you spend time looking forward to next year?  Or, do you do both?

Expansion of the Idea:

This time of year is a great time to reflect on the past and look forward to the future.  Most people have a little time off at this time of year.  We are busy with the start of the New Year.  Friends are in town or we have parties to go to.  There are some natural discussions that occur about the past year.  We had a good year or a bad year.  If we had a good year there could be ominous signs for the following year.  If we had a bad year there could be good signs for the upcoming year.  All of these things get discussed at this time of the year, either socially or at work.  How we handle the discussions and reflections will to a large extent determine our future.  Someone once said that he who ignores the past is doomed to repeat it.  I do believe that we need to look back and learn from the past.  There are a lot of things that do repeat and they are good.  We also need to look back and see what went wrong and adjust our systems to insure that they are not repeated.  At the same time we need to spend time looking forward to the future.  We can plan and prepare for our future.  To a large extent, our future is what we make of it.  We can use the best of the past as we prepare for a better future.  Ultimately this is the difference between a pessimist and an optimist.  The pessimist firmly believes that there is no future and is therefore permanently looking back.  The optimist believes that there is a great future and is looking forward.  The real key is to be an informed optimist.  You do this by looking back and learning and then you can adjust what needs to be adjusted and have a great future.  You have reason for hope.  This becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy and is a much better way to live.   I just finished the book Moneyball by Michael Lewis.  This is a true story about the Oakland Athletics baseball operations in the early 2000’s.  They spent a bunch of time evaluating the past and put together sophisticated projections for players.  This allowed them to put together teams that won.  They may not have been pretty but they won games. 

They created their future by analyzing their past and adjusting their ways of thinking and operating.  You can do the same.  All you have to do is to decide to be an informed optimist and be proactive.

Points to Ponder:

1. Am I a pessimist or an optimist?  Why?
2. Do I plan for the future either personally or professionally?
3. Do I systematically and rigorously analyze the past in order to improve?
4. Give yourself permission to make your future by deciding it.  (Read Moneyball or see the movie if you want to see how they did it.  Word of warning, the language is a little crude.)

 I hope you and your family have a safe and prosperous New Year.  Thank you for your friendship, your business and your attention.

Main Idea:

Do you love this time of year?  Do you have some particular family traditions that everyone in your family look forward to?  Do you have a few family traditions that you dread? 

 Expansion of the Idea:

Christmas season is one of the busiest for all of us.  For businesses, it is the end of the year.  Retail businesses are really stressed now.  We are busy with decorations and baking and buying gifts.  Most of us have some family traditions that are firmly implanted.  One of our traditions is a big family breakfast on Christmas day.   My wife always makes a great egg and sausage casserole and cinnamon rolls which are fantastic.  One tradition that is firmly in that breakfast is that my wife always has poppers.  These are festive things that you pull apart and they “POP”.   Inside are a Cracker Jack type toy, a paper crown and a real bad joke.  Christmas would not be the same without this.  When our kids were little we also had a tradition of going to a tree farm and cutting our tree.  They had a Santa Claus and even real reindeer.  We loved doing this but we outgrew it when our kids got older.  We got busy and it ended up with me going by myself to get a tree.  This happened for a couple of years in a row.  That is when we got an artificial tree.  (I am ashamed to admit it.)  The point is that some traditions are great but some outlive their usefulness.  How often do we hang onto old traditions when they are no longer useful?  The same is true with our businesses.  We have some traditions at work for how we work or when we do things.  Do some of those traditions need to be changed or eliminated?  Other traditions should be embraced and possibly expanded.  There is a danger in thinking that just because we always did something that it is still the best way to do it.  Our employees and customers are looking for different things.  We need to make sure that what we are doing is still relevant.  I would encourage you to carefully look at your traditions and make a conscious decision on whether or not to continue doing them.  At the same time, are there other traditions that need to be established?

 Points to Ponder:

1. List out some traditions
2. Talk to team members or customers to see if they are relevant
3. Change them or eliminate them if appropriate.
4. Brainstorm with your team about new traditions that should be established.

 I hope that all of you have a Merry Christmas.  I pray that you experience God’s love for you and your family as we celebrate His birth 2000 years ago.

Main Idea:

What are two job titles that should never be given to any one person?

 Expansion of the Idea:

Most of us know what our jobs are.  They are reasonably well defined.  (They probably could be better defined but that is the topic for another week.)  We focus on our specific tasks and that is good.  However, frequently we lose sight of the bigger issues.  I recently saw a business card for someone which said something along the lines of “Director of Marketing”.  I started thinking about this because that should be on all of our business cards.  We also should have customer service as part of our jobs.  All of us who have any touch with the customers and the general public should be focused on marketing and customer service.  And all of us who have no touch with the customers and general public should be focused on how we can help our organization provide better service and market our products or services.  I looked at the definition of marketing by the American Marketing Association and it is:

 Marketing is the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large.

 According to this definition, the key marketing person should be running every business.  You could argue about that.  However, it is a comprehensive definition because marketing and customer service should touch all of the systems of a business.  They need to be designed with the customer in mind.  In the mid 1990’s, I owned a car where the brakes went out twice in 14 months which I thought was unacceptable.  The dealer was not focused on the customer either.  This car company has had a lot of marketing campaigns where they stressed their quality products.  Something was pretty inconsistent.  I will never buy from that car company because they broke their trust.  This is a complete contrast to my existing car.  We have bought three cars from this company in the last 12 years.  The marketing message and the operations of the car are consistent.  If I buy a new car, which car do you think I will buy?  The same is true for every one of our businesses.  I know my service levels to my clients have not always been what they should be.  All of us have to look at the marketing message and at how we operate and ask ourselves if they truly are the same.

 Points to Ponder:

1. Define your marketing message.
2. Define how your job ties into the marketing message and to customer service.
3. Where there are inconsistencies, work with your team to fix them.

Main Idea:

Do you invest in systems?  When was the last time that you tested your systems?  Do you need to test them?  If you were a customer looking for what your company sells, would you buy from you?

 Expansion of the Idea:

I am a huge believer in systems.  Systems are the key if you want to leverage your time and talents.  They are critical in providing outstanding service.  All of us need to continually work on developing and implementing new systems.  The problem is that we frequently think that once the system is in place we can ignore it.  We don’t experience life from our customer’s perspective.  Systems break down over time.  They get corrupted by team members who have to do work-arounds because of unusual situations.  The work-around becomes the standard and you have lost the benefit of the system.  Phone systems can easily get out of control.  When Howard Schultz from Starbucks returned to run the company on a day to day basis, he focused on cleaning up the stores systems.  This focus on getting back to basics allowed him to return Starbucks to profitability.   This is just as true for small businesses.  I just received a solicitation from another CPA who had bought a mailing list.  If you saw how the name and address was typed you would wonder if the CPA had any common sense.  He may or may not be good.  What probably happened is that the company he bought the list from changed their specs and he did not change his word documents.  As a result, he is just throwing away money.  The point is that all of us have systems that have slipped from when we implemented them.  The key is to periodically check the critical systems to determine their effectiveness.  Are they still projecting the image that we want to project?  Are they the most efficient way of doing something?  Does everyone in our organization know how to use the system?  Did the new person who was hired five years ago get trained on the system?  We need to critically examine our systems to see if they are working the way they should.  Who knows how much lost business is floating around in the voice mails for ex-employees that never get checked?

 Points to Ponder:

1. What are your top 5 systems?
2. When was the last time you tested them?
3. Have you looked at your business from your customer’s viewpoint?  (Or have you had someone you trust do this for you?)
4. Consider documenting or updating your documentation of the systems.  This forces you to carefully evaluate the systems.

I am thankful for the following:

• The gift of my faith
• The gift of my wife
• The gifts of parenthood
• The gifts of my parents
• The gifts of my siblings, my wife’s siblings and all other family
• The gifts of friends
• The gift of living in the United States
• The gift of my business
• The gifts of clients and people I like to work with
• The gift of being able to work
• The gifts of my team members
• The gift of being able to enjoy my work
• The gifts of challenges to my work
• The gift of my desire to learn and grow
• The gifts of books
• The gifts of sports
• The gift of a sun rising over the ocean
• The gifts of the things we take for granted; food, shelter, transportation
• The gift of health
• The gifts of mentors who have helped me along the way
• The gifts of a break in work to spend time with family

 There are a significant number of other things that I am thankful for.  Most of us give thanks over this holiday.   And we are thankful.   However, most of us don’t think about it and ponder all the things we should be thankful for.  I would encourage you to spend some time, even if it is when you are driving over to Grandma’s house, to think about what you are truly thankful for.  Make it a long list.  It is amazing when we are truly thankful how much better life is.  It helps us deal with the challenges that will occur. 

 I hope you have a Happy Thanksgiving holiday.