What’s Killing Your Business?

So much positive feedback on  “What’s Your T-Shirt Say?” posted the other night:  http://halalpiar.com/2009/10/boost-your-business-in-3-minutes/ that I thought another evaluative exercise might be in order.

     Don’t scream, “Hi-YaaaAHHHH!”  in mock sarcasm and kick in your monitor screen when you read the next sentence that describes your homework assignment.

     If you’d like to boost your day-to-day and long-range business sales and operations  with 20 minutes of concentrated effort (and no consultant fees!), take a deep breath  http://halalpiar.com/2009/05/4-steps-in-one-minute-zero-stress/ and write your business’s obituary. Whaaat? Yup! Read the first 16 words of this paragraph again!

     No, it’s not easy.  Yes, it’s worth it! The exercise will be enlightening to say the least. The insights you gain may provide a guiding light to the revitalization of your business. Plenty of participants in my various entrepreneurship seminars have found this experience invaluable.

     Take any approach you like.  Don’t worry about spelling, grammar, and punctuation. At this point no one else in the world will see what you write anyway. The only requirement is to be honest with yourself.

     Some suggested questions to answer:  Itemize the highlights of the life of your business …

• When it was born?
• Who were the parents? 
• Where? 
• What was the startup business type and goal? 
• Why? (i.e., what prompted entering a particular industry or profession and what was the  intended result?) 
• How (what process used) did it get started? 
• How did it get to where it’s been in this last year of it’s life?

     What was the cause of death? 

• Any survivors? (Parents? Brothers? Sisters? Children? Grandchildren? Quotes/Testimonials from any of these people?)
• Service arrangements? (Will there be a viewing? Will services be private? Should there be an “instead of flowers” request?)      

     Spend as much or as little time as you like  (20 minutes usually works). Your goal is to present as complete a picture as possible of the life of your business if it were to end today, and to focus on achievements and contributions made.

     In your final analysis, after you’ve finished your write-up,  step back and ask yourself if the cause of death is your true exit strategy. Should there be more accommodation for having more children and grandchildren? Are the highlights the ones you most desire?

•  
  • Would you change the highlights if you could? 
  • What would you do differently if you could prevent the business from dying today? (Life saving surgery, if you will)
  • What would you do to ensure the business a longer life starting right this minute if you had the ability to step in now and spare it from death?
  • PSSSSST! What are you waiting for? 

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“Listen To Your Customers!”

     There is no single-sentence piece of advice,  guideline, or rule of thumb in all of business that’s more important. Your employees may be your greatest asset, but your customers are the reason your business lives, and the reason you get up out of bed and go to work every day.

     You are the boss.  That means — among 37 million other things you need to tend to — that, first and foremost, you must be putting yourself in the right place at the right time every day to be able to LISTEN to (absorb and process, not just hear!) your customers.

     Find out  what your customers REALLY think of your name, logo, themeline, reputation, service, branding, advertising, marketing, community involvement, pricing, packaging, cleanliness, vehicles, experiences with your products / services / employees / website . . . 

     You must ALWAYS  be asking for customer  opinions,  advice,  input,  suggestions, contacts, referrals, resources, networks … and then putting that information to work. Take it with a grain of salt if you like, but don’t blow it off or gloss over it!

I once knew a boss  who did all this listening, who actually hired professional facilitators and researchers to run opinion surveys and focus discussion groups, who gathered whole file cabinets full of customer information, and let it collect dust right up until the day he was forced to close his doors because he never heeded customer advice to upgrade his inventory of services

. . . and he never followed up  on the referrals and contacts his customers provided. It was just easier to do business the old way, using old systems, old inventory, old-thinking employees, and old contacts. It became a business too old for its own good.

     Customer Focus Groups  (targeted discussion sessions moderated by a professional presenter and interviewer) can be the most useful customer opinion and information-gathering tool you can use. Odds are, though, like professional business writing, it’s almost always (like probably 99.9% of the time) best to hire an outside professional to get the job done.

     Why?  One reason is that objectivity is critical to meaningful feedback. Two is that your customers will speak much more freely with an “authorized outsider” than they will with you and/or people in your organization.

     Outside professionals bring fresh perspectives and objectivity both to the table. And these are particularly valuable attributes when it comes time to interpret the findings. They are paid for what they do, Because they are not put on salary, they are really not “beholden” to you beyond the immediate assignment.

     You can usually count on  more honest and direct conclusions and hypotheses.

     Focus group format, facilitation, agenda, and especially the words that are used  can make a huge difference in what you learn… as different as the replies generated by asking someone WHY he or she was late, vs. asking HOW can being late in the future be avoided?

     Bottom Line?  How can you provide customer service or manage customer relations if you don’t know exactly and with certainty what your CUSTOMERS consider to be “service” and “relations”? It could mean something completely different than what you think.

FOCUS GROUP QUESTIONS?

Call or Email: 302.933.0116 or Hal@Businessworks.US  (“FOCUS GROUPS” in the subject line) 

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When you quote a price,

do you quote a schedule?

     When you tell a story,  do you use a timeline?

     You’re in sales, right?  Of course you are! You own or run a business or professional practice or company department? Then you’re in sales. You work at the top crossbeam of a new skyscraper construction site? You’re in sales.

     You work inside an underground  storage container or facility? You’re in sales? You don’t work at all? You’re in sales. And since now that you’ve found out that you are in fact in sales, it’s important to know how important it is for you to make maximum use of a timeline.

     Why? Funny you should ask. You knew I had the answer, right?  Okay, here it comes. Because a timeline helps make your sales points quicker and simpler. It helps your prospects, customers, bosses, parents (and anyone you need to influence) to understand your frame of reference more clearly and more readily.

     When you propose a fee for providing a service,  for example, you must be prepared to give a target date for completion. In some cases, you can hedge it a bit by estimating 60-90 days or 1-2 hours or 9-10 months, but be quick to support the reason for not being more specific. Specific is best. Always.

     Why? (You knew that was coming, right?)  Here’s why:  For a goal to be a goal instead of just a meaningless “wish,” it needs to be specific, realistic, flexible and have a due date. (And, yes, it must be all four of those things or it is fantasy and fantasy doesn’t get things done!)

     To promise something by a specific date  gives you credibility and a certain amount of accompanying trust, which of course you need to fulfill on or notify the payer as far in advance as possible of the need to extend the time period… and why.

     You would be amazed  at how many people don’t automatically build a timeline into their planning, sales pitch, agenda, project, program, meeting, advertisement, work schedule, new product or service launch, construction or revitalization effort, financial review, or story.

     As a writer,  I find the inclusion of a timeline related to job completion to be essential, but I also find that including a timeline reference inside the actual writing –whether it’s a commissioned book or a brochure, advertisement or website– has value in and of itself.

     Part of the credibility and fascination  of the “story” or “sales pitch” will often actually evolve directly from an integrated timeline. Juxtaposing historic events alongside a biographical story, for example, or as part of “what happened when” in the “About Us” webpage, or as a schedule of events in an ad or brochure can give your presentation the teeth it needs to attract attention and create interest! 

# # # 

… not the “beaten” path,

nor the one “less taken”

     When the last time you took a brand new business path? A new product launch? A new line or service extension? A new revenue stream? A new employment position? A new set of objectives, strategies, tactics? A new mission statement? A new vision statement? A new business start up?

     Was it successful? Did you bite the dust? What did you learn from it? Did you manage to stir up a lot of excitement that produced no payoff? Did you drag your butt into the thing and be greeted with enthusiasm personified? Did you charge at it head down and get a concussion when that wall came at you from out of nowhere?

     As any jungle-dweller will readily attest, (and, yes, it IS a jungle out there!) taking a new path often requires the help of a machete and a whole lot of adrenaline. This means you may need to be ruthless as a fruit tree pruner in swinging that sword to create your path or passageway.

     Clinging to old practices won’t help you now anymore than a crank-up rotary dial phone and a ream of carbon paper (if you don’t know what either of these are, you are probably a reckless, young entrepreneur who doesn’t have any old practices to cling to anyway, and you might as well go zoom off to Facebook right now . . . or something).

     On the other hand, if you’re a bit older than the txtmsg generation and you’re a true entrepreneur who’s only willing to take reasonable risks, and you’re sincerely committed to launching a successful venture, OPEN YOUR MIND.

     Be receptive to all the people, places, and things that –until now– you would never have considered worthy of your time and attention. Why? Because some of the world’s greatest ideas… the ones that really put a new venture over the top… come from forcing yourself to think differently!

     A fleeting exposure to yoga, or a snorkeling or grocery-shopping trip, or an hour of playing on the floor with a baby or a puppy, or telling your least favorite brother-in-law that you love him! You’d be surprised at the doors that your open mind will open if you’ll just give it the chance!

     You’ve come this far, isn’t it worth a short experiment to put your brain in a completely opposite/foreign situation/environment –even for an hour– to see if something clicks that can put your venture over the top. Of course it is! Don’t cheat yourself of a great possibility. OPEN MINDS OPEN DOORS!          

# # #  

Are you a Zippity

or a Doo-Dah?

“You can never resolve a problem by condemning it.”

–World-famous author/consultant Wayne Dyer

     They may not always be right, and they might not always do things right, but Zippity’s get things done!

     Doo-Dah’s typically bungle what they attempt and rarely make attempts on their own to get things done anyway. For a Doo-Dah, it’s easier to make excuses than to take action…easier to complain about a problem or condemn it, than to attack it or solve it.

     How many Doo-Dah’s surround your business and personal life? Stop reading here for 30 seconds, and count them. Think about it. Go ahead: count! I’ll wait. How many?

     Are you helping them? Are they helping you? If you’re not gaining something by association, you’re losing. There is no middle ground. Either you are doing a good deed by spending time and energy (and perhaps money?) with each, and can afford to do that, and want to do that…OR you are losing speed, quality, credibility, and success.

[It may be useful here to remember that achieving the success you seek will surely afford you greater opportunity to help more Doo-Dah’s, if indeed that’s a goal for you!] 

     Distancing yourself from Doo-Dah’s may seem cruel, and may be impossible when family is involved. Ha! Hit a nerve there, huh? Well, considering that most shrinks will tell you that everyone has a dysfunctional family, it should be no surprise that you ended up with a Doo-Dah brother-in-law or uncle or cousin or parent or child.

     But guess what? If you don’t start taking steps sooner than later to surround yourself and your business with Zippity’s, you run the risk of falling prey to the disengaged incompetence of the Doo-Dah’s now and forever after. It’s your choice.

     If you really can’t let go of being Mr. or Ms. Do-Gooder and you’re not into switching to a priesthood, nunnery or social worker career, then you’d better learn to live with your business and your life being universally uneventful, stale, and stagnant…an investment in the status quo.

[Can your business survive that? Can you?]

    No, it’s not a likely scenario if you are actually still reading this. And assuming you are still reading this, get yourself Zippity’d and stayZippity’d.

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Input welcome anytime: Hal@TheWriterWorks.com (”Businessworks” in the subject line) or comment below. Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals, good night and God bless you! halalpiar  # # # 

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You are your business.

Attitude and behavior

are your brand.

     Small business owners rarely devote enough attention to branding and the importance of branding. It is much more than a logo, name, label, or catchy slogan. Brands reflect the integrity and reputation of both the company and the business owner.

 Your brand and branding messages need to include

 and be wrapped around

ALL aspects of your business.

     Your brand and branding messages need to make a statement about the environment and methods you and your company are engaged with. This “statement” needs to be an integral focal point of ALL of your communications… verbal, visual, written, in-person, and implied!

     Your business exists because of your customer bases: INternal customers (like associates, employees, referrers, strategic alliances and present suppliers) as well as EXternal customers (like past and present buyers, prospective buyers and employees, and prospective suppliers). What it is that you put out to each and all of them every day is what adds up to your brand and branding.

     This translates into how you and your business deal with all of these diverse “customer audiences” on a day-by-day basis, how you treat them, whether you pay your bills on time, if you follow-through with customer service after the sale is made, if your business is a good citizen in the communities that support it, whether your products and services provide true quality benefits and dollar value.

     Keep in mind that one unhappy customer (internal OR external) will tell ten other people about her or his lack of satisfaction, and each of them will tell ten more. In case you weren’t doing the math, that’s a hundred people walking around bad-mouthing a business that may naively dismiss one upset as one upset. But–aaaaaah, the reverse is also true: delight one person and gain a hundred positive referrals!

     Reality is that maintaining positive and productive brand images and branding messages means you need to practice unending vigilence in tending to all levels of (internal AND external) customer service. It is especially important to be and stay tuned in to employee and industry-related issues, and to pounce on problems and deal with them honestly.  

     A great memorable name and themeline are critically important to brands and branding messages, but not nearly as important as a business with clear-cut genuine values run by people with clear-cut genuine attitudes. 

# # #  

Hal@TheWriterWorks.com or comment below.

Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals! God bless you!

Budget-bashed?

Go for the GOLD!

You thought “Working Under Pressure” was a power-wash business? (I know, enough jokes; get to the free champagne part; OK, keep reading!) 

     Let’s imagine you’ve got a bashed budget in one hand and are limited to the Northeast. Well, that’s not a strangulation script all by itself, but now add to the mix that you’ve just gotten requests from above (in your other hand) to pull off a spectacular meeting at a spectacular location. Sound familiar?

     So how in the world do you find that top-quality all-inclusive, stunning property with less money than you had last year? Like the elusive butterfly that will land on your shoulder when you stop chasing it, STOP looking! This is a time for greatness. And you came to the right place. The champagne’s on ice, waiting for you. Read on. 

     This is a time to rise above the clutter and clamor, to find the exact right place at the exact right price and book it. It will come to you. Close your eyes… no, wait, don’t close your eyes; you’ll miss getting the answer. Here it comes… are you ready? Here it is:

     Take those meager budget dollars out of your sweaty little fist and count out what’s left. Go ahead; I’ll wait. Okay, good. Now, pick up the nearest phone and dial: 1.800.222.2909 and ask for Kristy, Kevin or Dan. If they’re not in, leave a message with your name and number and best times to call back.

     When you get one (or all) of them, tell he/she/them your sad story. Ask what’s possible… and remember to tell them you got their contact information from Hal’s Blog… they’ll throw in a free champagne toast to start or end your meeting (200 people? No problem!).

     Not only will you get everything your boss ever dreamed of and more in a truly spectacular setting with experienced top professional meeting support, food and room service staffs, plus every amenity imaginable, you can meet in private paradise just a 2-hour drive from Manhattan, 3 from Boston.

     From executive ropes course to golf and racecar-driving school to canoeing and kayaking, spacious clean rooms and top-rated casual dining with fresh EVERYthing, even homemade ketchup! The people you bring to this property will never stop talking about it, and they’ll never forget their meeting experience. What more can you ask?

     You want a taste before you call?

     Go to www.InterlakenInn.com right now. See for yourself why top meeting planners have been booking at Interlaken since the Berkshires had Foothills.        

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Input welcome anytime: Hal@TheWriterWorks.com (”Businessworks” in the subject line) or comment below. Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals, good night and God bless you! halalpiar  # # # 

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Action In Pursuit Of

Meaningful Goals

Delivers Success

     Much has been made in motivational literature about the wisdom of rewarding those employees who have tried and failed—solving, launching, selling, creating, producing, developing, inventing—cited often as a best practices reverse-psychology hallmark of many of the human resource management approaches used by the same big business catastrophes that have dragged down the entire global economy 

     The point of this thinking is that by mollycoddling people who can’t cut the mustard, these non-performers will inevitably produce more positive results when you continually reward them with an “A” for effort. After all, shouldn’t business be like T-Ball or Cub Scouts where everybody who does a good job of trying gets rewarded? After all, rewarding employees for failed efforts that are born of sincerity may produce failures, but will also produce more sincere efforts, which will presumably and eventually pay off in success. Right? 

     Well, I don’t buy it. It’s non-productive circular reasoning. We’re not talking about sensitivity here. Insensitive bosses don’t survive long term. We’re talking about making businesses work. Period. I believe when you reward people for failing, you are simply prompting them to produce more failure. Don’t you think? I mean, it seems to me it makes more sense to instead reassess the goals attached to the challenges at hand.

     Are goals clearly defined? Specific? Flexible? Realistic? Due-dated? If they’re not ALL of these things, they’re not goals; they’re wishes. Wishes don’t get things done. Action gets things done. Real, meaningful goals that are specific, flexible, realistic and due-dated are the ones that trigger action. Action in pursuit of meaningful goals delivers success. 

     Huh? Well, consider that if perhaps the carrot is closer, the rabbit will actually reach it and then get a commensurate reward (a bite of carrot) vs. having to try getting to a far-away, out-of-reach carrot, the pursuit of which serves only to exhaust and stress out the rabbit, nes pas?

     It is a far more productive practice to reward steady small steps to achieving success with incremental (small, frequent) rewards along the way. It’s easy to say the sky’s the limit, and set off for the sky, but whatever is “easy to say” is rarely productive, and almost never is “reaching the sky” realistic.

     Except for those few wondrous gifts to humankind—like the Wright Brothers, Mother Theresa, Thomas Edison, Helen Keller, Einstein—most of us will not achieve their levels of the impossible dream in our lifetimes.

     We can, though, most assuredly achieve our own levels of the impossible dream by scaling ourselves and our employees back to manageable steps and by chunking up tasks to within the range of reason. And to then appreciate and reward accordingly. “One small step…” proclaimed the first moon-landing Astronaut.

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Input welcome anytime: Hal@TheWriterWorks.com (”Businessworks” in the subject line) or comment below. Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals, good night and God bless you! halalpiar  # # # 

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Don’t be waiting for unions,

government, big business,

banks, or Fairy Godmothers! 

     It’s a good idea to step on the scale every once in awhile. It’s easy to let your business get too heavy from feeding it too much fat and not exercising it enough, or making sure it gets the sleep it needs. Whaaat? Well, sure: your business has a life too. The question is–since it’s YOUR business and dependent on YOUR choices–what exactly are you doing to keep it healthy and growing?

     When’s the last time you stepped outside your business and re-entered it, pretending you’ve never been there before? Just as trying to draw conclusions about your own health from just stepping on the scale, weight is merely one indicator. Many other factors need to be inventoried.

     Beyond the obvious business health ingredients, like first-impression appearances (e.g., parking, signage, displays, employees, facilities, waiting areas) and all the components like lighting, colors, cleanliness, etc., there’s a myriad of interrelated factors, issues, concerns and pursuits that warrant your assessment or reassessment.

     When, for example, did you last–or when do you next plan to–launch a new product or service program or initiative? Have you been holding back until the economy is “better”? Considering the growing evidence that that could be a very long time, could a launch delay now drag your company’s energy level down, perhaps to a point below a more aggressive market competitor? In other words, is it worth waiting?

     If you’ve already launched your exciting new Zilch-Zapper product line and support services, are they dying on the vine while you’ve preoccupied yourself with tap-dancing around your bankers and investors? There comes a point–as with humans–when a business becomes so over-burdened, so dis-stressed, that it collapses or has a stroke. Could you possibly be cultivating that kind of trauma?

     The good news is that business trauma is easily reversed. It requires only two things:

1) Recognitionthat the negative places your business health dwells in or is headed toward are the result of your conscious or unconscious choices (It’s as easy to choose to UNdo a bad choice as it is to choose to stay with a bad choice), and

2) Awareness that a burning commitment needs to be made to act on and directly treatthe diagnosis your inventory produces, and to be made by standing shoulder-to-shoulder with the immediate and long-term business healthcare and growth goals you set.

     Bottom line: If YOU don’t balance the life of your business (as well as your own… in order to grow your business from a position of strength vs. a position of weakness), who is going to balance the life of your business? Certainly not the government, unions, banks, or big business… I guess the answer kinda doesn’t leave much to the imagination. But that’s okay, because imagination is plentiful, and it’s what you need to exercise in order to get the job done. 

# # #  

Input welcome anytime: Hal@TheWriterWorks.com (”Businessworks” in the subject line) or comment below. Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals, good night and God bless you! halalpiar  # # # 

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Hey Boss, what’s

your T-shirt say?

     One of the most useful exercises you can do as a business owner or manager is to take a shot at branding yourself and your business… regardless of whether your business is already in the middle of a branding campaign or not.

     This exercise is just between you and yourself! And don’t offer any feeble not-enough-time-type excuses because this whole adventure shouldn’t take you more than 3-4 minutes!

     Put two pieces of paper in front of you. Label one “Me” and the other “Biz.” Put “Biz” aside for a minute. On the “Me” page draw the simple outline of a blank t-shirt… no knit collars or sleeves, no tag sticking out, no concern for size or crooked lines; remember, it’s just for you, and you can toss it when you’re done.

     Now close your eyes and take two deep breaths (go ahead; I’ll wait!). Good.

     Next, put some representation of whatever you think would be the most appropriate visual message [word(s) and/or picture(s)] on that t-shirt to represent you, your thinking, your personality, your approach to things, your attitude, your values, your goals/ambitions— whatever strikes you as something that accurately represents what you’re all about.

     Perhaps it’s something you might want a stranger to know about you, or even something that might surprise those who do know you?

     Good. Fold the paper and stick it in your pocket.

     Now, close your eyes again and take two more deep breaths. Okay, now pick up the “Biz” page and draw another t-shirt (same as the first one), but —on this one—record what it is that you most want others (customers/patients/clients/employees/vendors/referrers) to see in your business.

     In other words, when others hear or read or think about the name of your company or practice, what do you want come to the front of their minds? What quality or uniqueness or value or key characteristic? Write/draw it on this second (“Biz”) t-shirt. 

     Finally take the first one out of your pocket and unfold it. Put the two side by side and make a note on the “Me” page about what the two messages have in common. On the “Biz” page jot down what the difference(s) is/are.

     Ideally, there’s a synergy between the two. Whatever differences there are should be healthy ones. If you think you could never wear both shirts, you might want to start career-hunting again. If the messages run parallel but you think they need to be more closely aligned, what can you do starting at 9am tomorrow morning to get that to happen?

     If the messages are identical, you may want to think about stepping up your personal life a bit. Eating, sleeping and breathing your business is admirable, but quickly becomes an unhealthy state of existence that magnetizes stress, illness, and family disruptions. 

     If I see you this summer without a t-shirt, I’ll know you’ve been busy working on your message, your business, and your life… or are about to be arrested! All four situations need your undivided attention! 

# # #  

Input welcome anytime: Hal@TheWriterWorks.com (”Businessworks” in the subject line) or comment below. Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals, good night and God bless you! halalpiar  # # # 

FREE BLOG SUBSCRIPTION? Click on ”Posts RSS Feed” (Center Column), or now on your AMAZON Kindle for just $1.99 a month after a free trial. BE A CO-AUTHOR: Add your own 7 words to the end of the daily 256 days old growing tale! Click under “7-Word Story” (center column)