photo credit: Furryscaly

Remember the outrageous 7/70 bumper-to-bumper warranty Chrysler introduced back in the early 1980s when they introduced K-cars?

At the time, Chrysler’s quality problems were front and center reasons to avoid buying their cars. Likewise, major car manufacturers limited long-term warranty coverage to the engine and powertrain (ie: transmission, axles and such).

Iacocca came up with the “outrageous” warranty to get people past the quality question so they would  give Chrysler’s cars a chance. He knew the warranty was only good to get them INTO the cars – they’d have to meet their quality goals or that warranty would bankrupt them.

High Anxiety

While the warranty was a big change for car owners, the main purpose was to provide a little anxiety release. To get you to realize that Chrysler’s quality had changed, so much so that they were willing to cover *everything*, and thus, you could trust them to buy their vehicles.

Obviously, it worked. The K-cars saved Chrysler (for the time being, at least) and they paid back the then-controversial billion dollar loan (guaranteed by Congress) in 3 years, rather than the required 10.

It should be noted that Iacocca says much of the reason to pay the loan off quickly was to get the Feds out of his business. No question there is lots of controversy about the 1979 bailout / loan guarantee and the terms that went with it, but that isn’t the topic of the day.

Fast forward to today – when you wouldn’t dream of buying a car without a very-long-term bumper-to-bumper warranty.

So what does your business do in an environment of high buyer anxiety?

Remove the anxiety

Hopefully the obvious answer is to remove it.

Back in the Granite Bear days, we found some buyer anxiety issues cropping up. The few people who would ask for a refund would do so right at the deadline date. In almost every case, we found that those were also the folks who hadn’t started using the software yet. They were worried they’d be stuck with it and having not tried it, the obvious thing to do was ask for a refund.

One of our solutions was to extend our 30 day money-back guarantee to 60 day and then to a whole year. As I’ve noted before, some people thought we were nuts and would give back tons of refunds on day 364, but that ignores the reason people bought business management software in the first place – to manage their business and save them time. Who in their right mind would invest a year into integrating software into their business (and vice versa) and then toss it out the door on a specific day? That’s nuts.

In our case, we knew that if they really *used* it for a year, they’d never ask for their money back. We were right and it made a huge difference in sales, despite seeming like an insane thing to do. Our upfront costs of sales and implementation were mostly buried by day 30 (and definitely by day 60), so it made no difference whether we gave back the software on day 60 or day 364.

We also implemented other things that got them moving right away – another guarantee. Do you have specific guarantees for different parts of your business?

Recessionary buybacks

Recently, you’ve seen a number of major car companies offer to buy your car back if you lose your job – and that’s after they make several months of payments for you.

Hyundai started it and several other manufacturers felt the pressure to follow suit.

As I hear it, one very dark economic area’s local Hyundai dealer had their best weekend *ever* after corporate started offering these deals.

Something else that tells you about people in a recession: They aren’t all broke. If the buyback changed car buying behavior of a large group of people – did it also put a bunch of money in their pocket?

Of course not. Clearly they had the ability (and desire) to buy, but their anxiety about the future kept them from buying.

Your turn

In my case, I guarantee my marketing / strategic planning work.

Some people suggest that I’m nuts to do that. I might be nuts, but that has little to do with the fact that I’ve never been asked for a refund.

Meanwhile, it’s a huge differentiating factor because almost no other consultant guarantees their work. They either don’t have the confidence in their work, or the gumption to hang that guarantee out there – likely for fear that someone will use it. Maybe that even tells you something about the work product they provide from a strategic perspective.

Someday, someone might ask for a refund. Even if they do, it’s a great anxiety reliever for every other client – regardless of the economy.

What are you doing to take your clients’ anxiety off the table (or reduce it substantially) and get them from thinking to taking action/buying?

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photo credit: freeparking

In today’s guest post from TED, Dan Ariely talks about why we make decisions and how we are influenced.

There are several pieces of this presentation that apply directly to traditional or online direct marketing of the stuff you do and sell, much less knowing a little more about what makes your internal decision tree tick.

Use what Dan discusses to analyze what kind of decisions you offer your customers and prospects. It’s all part of that “What do they buy the least of that they really need the most?” question. Part 2 of the question might be – “…and how do you get them to buy what they *really really* need?”

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photo credit: jurvetson

This piece by Paul Graham talks about a survey of startup founders, but it reminds me very much of my software company days.

Too much, perhaps.

It may not describe the business you’re in – since it’s mostly talking about software businesses – but the attitude, expectations, “reason why” and much more is certainly something that should be on your radar.

Not altogether different than the energy this country had when it was racing to the moon.

Where is your business racing off to?

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photo credit: matticgn

Yesterday, we talked about David Lee Roth’s M&Ms trick and how it acted somewhat like a canary in the coal mine.

It probably looked like a silly “diva clause” to everyone but Roth. A little, unimportant detail.

These little details that your competitors ignore or see as unimportant might be the one thing that customers view as an indicator of additional, more serious problems.

They’ll stick out even more when you take care of them, as if you pointed a laser beam at the very things they never wanted anyone to notice.

Don’t let those little things undermine your customer relationships. Use them.

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photo credit: jiazi

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

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

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

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

The Spandex Candyman

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Balls of paper

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

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

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

Warm Caveman Fuzzies

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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photo credit: Robert Scoble

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

5. They spend money on the wrong things.

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

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

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

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

Beyond that, what’s that time costing you?

6.  They don’t fire fast enough.

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

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

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

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

7. You picked the wrong infrastructure.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

9. You have a too cool name and logo.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

How have you stretched your technology-related capabilities lately?

12. You don’t change direction fast enough.

You’re either setting the tone or singing along.

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

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

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

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

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photo credit: Dave Hogg

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

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

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photo credit: powerbooktrance

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

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

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

Jeepers

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

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

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

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

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

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

The point

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

The size of this purchase isn’t the point.

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

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

Your market is no different.

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

Walking to Missoula

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

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

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

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

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

Trucking in the wrong direction

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

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

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

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

Stunningly “customer-friendly”.

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

These are good examples of his advice.

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photo credit: timparkinson

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

I guess they think they have to.

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

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

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

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

Find a reason

Why are you having a sale / promotion / event?

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

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

Reasons are all around you

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

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

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

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

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

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photo credit: Sabbath Photography

So far it’s been an incredible year for snow in the Northwest.

Two feet in the Washington DC area is a Snowpocalypse?

That’s nothing.

We have 8 feet of fresh pow* in Montana, Utah, Wyoming and Colorado. It’s so deep, we’re carving mad turns in our driveways and carrying avalanche beacons when we go out to get the mail.

Come out and join us and ski and ride your brains out!

Oh wait. Maybe not that much snow, but come on out anyhow.

Which truth is real?

As with other markets where misinformation can lead a customer astray, the internet has a way of finding the truth, even about mad pow*.

When skiers and snowboarders hop off the lift expecting to find the foot of fresh powder mentioned in the snow report and instead, find a couple inches of popcorn**, it doesn’t excite them.

When skiers and snowboard riders find a few feet of waist-deep powdery goodness, they can now use their cell phones to report snow conditions via Facebook, Twitter and this killer skier/snowboarder snow report app.

This app has forced resorts to come clean on their snow reports.

Thing is, it isn’t just snow conditions that are available in (close to) real-time from a source that’s cutting turns in it right now. Whatever you do, there is likely an enthusiast community talking about it

Whether we’re talking about stream flows, fish and wildlife migration, trail conditions, road conditions, whiter whites and brighter brights, parking availability, meal quality, service quality and more…it’s out there on the net for the savvy customer who wants to check you out before buying.

Help them find it – and don’t claim to be shredding pow in your driveway unless you really are

* Translation: Fresh, deep, powdery snow, often blamed for high levels of absenteeism at work and/or school.

** Translation: smallish, hard popcorn-looking snow that looks like that stuff sprayed on ceilings in office buildings and homes. Not really what you want to ski/ride on, but still better than a good day at work.

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photo credit: Dennis Wong

What transforms an experience from “acceptable” to “cant wait to tell my friends”?

To me, “acceptable” service starts with a smile, an effort to make sure the customer received what they came for, eye contact and a thank you.

“Can’t wait to tell my friends” service doesn’t come *before* you do little inexpensive things, it comes *because of* little inexpensive things.

That’s right – the things that transform your service to “cant wait to tell my friends” are often simple, inexpensive little things.

By themselves they might not seem like such a big deal. Below, a few examples. In each case, consider the perception of the customer.

The birthday card

• A birthday postcard sent via an automated postcard service during your customers’ birthday month vs. no card at all.
• A birthday postcard sent via an automated postcard service vs a hand written birthday card signed by the owner or manager.
• A voice mail from the business owner wishing you a happy birthday, vs. a brief call to invite you into their establishment that required 4 callbacks to get you in person.

In 5 of 6 cases, a happy birthday message arrives. What’s the difference in the perception of the message?

A cup of coffee

• A tasty cup of latte made from freshly ground, freshly roasted beans vs. a cup of latte made from coffee ground 2 weeks ago and roasted who knows when (matters to those who can tell, doesn’t matter to those who cannot).
• A tasty cup of latte made from freshly ground, freshly roasted beans vs. a tasty cup of latte made from freshly-ground, freshly-roasted beans that is topped with latte art such as the cat you see above.
• A tasty cup of latte made from freshly-ground, freshly-roasted beans that is topped with latte art in the shape of a fleur-de-lis to celebrate the Saints’ Super Bowl win.
• A tasty cup of latte made from freshly-ground, freshly-roasted beans that is topped with latte art in the shape of a heart for the runup to Valentine’s Day

Doesn’t make the coffee taste better, but it does provoke someone to talk about what transformed a mundane cup of coffee (no matter how good) into something you tell everyone about, that you take a picture of with your phone and post on Facebook or Twitter, and that causes you to bring your best friend the cat lover to this place as a little surprise. Next thing you know, she’s bringing all her cat lover friends.

In the latter case, something to create a little free buzz (pun intended). Perhaps you do so before the game and give your customers a choice of the Colts’ horseshoe or the Saints’ fleur-de-lis. You can do this year-round for holidays, sports events, you name it.

The letter

• A letter from your Senator congratulating you on an achievement, with the Senator’s signature signed by the Senator’s personal assistant.
• A letter from your Senator congratulating you on an achievement, with the signature rubber stamped onto the letter.
• A letter from your Senator congratulating you on an achievement, with the signature printed as part of the letter.
• A letter from your Senator congratulating you on an achievement, with a handwritten signature.
• A letter from your Senator congratulating you on an achievement, with a handwritten signature , and a brief handwritten PS from the Senator.

Which of these would you show to your friends? Which would you frame and hang on your office wall? Which would you keep in your scrapbook for the rest of your life? Which would you show your grandkids 30-40 years from now?

Little, inexpensive things mean a lot.  They create relationships that few competitors can hope to break.

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photo credit: shoothead

You’ve probably seen people on Twitter or Facebook yammering about “Wow, I only need 17 more followers or fans to hit 2000″ (or  10000 or whatever).

If you’ve used Twitter, you know that there’s a curve there and when you round it, it’s like drinking from a firehose.

Stowe Boyd talks a little about the social media scoreboard in today’s guest post, stating that quality rather than quantity is the important factor.

Remember that each of those fans or followers are people. They have needs, wants and presumably they followed/fan’d you because they thought you had something to say. “I’m having a waffle” just isn’t it.

@BillGates doesn’t have 400-500k people following him on Twitter after just a few weeks because they want to hear him talk about Windows or MS Office. Bill is engaging to follow nowadays because he talks about poverty, disease and education – and then puts his money where his mouth is. Lots of it. Almost $300 million for polio, for example.

Engage. Have a *meaningful* conversation.

Think about the folks on Twitter or Facebook whose posts you look forward to. How are they different from yours?

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photo credit: mark sebastian

Did January sneak up and run out the door on you?

2010 is 1/12th GONE.

So, with a 1/12 of your year gone, how’s your 2010 going?

If you got a slow start, maybe a simple exercise will get you back on track.

Simple doesn’t mean ineffective, simple means uncluttered. Down to the bare metal, if you wish.

The goal is not to make this the best planning session ever, it’s to get you back on track and moving toward the right goal so that your next planning session has you standing there with a success in your holster, fired up to kick some butt.

In other words, we’re making accomplishment and planning into a habit, and we’re doing it by starting simple.

It’s a process

Put a one hour appointment/meeting on your calendar. I don’t care when you do it, but it needs to be a part of the day when you are good at focusing on your big thing.

If you work in an office, make sure you have this meeting elsewhere. Maybe try a new coffee shop where there’s no chance anyone you know will walk up and want to discuss the Super Bowl, Signing Day, General Hospital, the weather or heaven forbid – Farmville.

The goal is to get as close to zero distractions as is possible.

Ready to start?

Turn off your cell phone. Yes, I said *turn it off*. I know you’re irreplaceable and all that, but trust them to be able to stay reasonably sane if they can’t reach you immediately for just one hour.

Close any other distracting programs you have on your computer – including but not limited to: your email program, your web browser, your Twitter client, your Facebook page (yes, even *Farmville*), and your instant messenger client software.

Brain Dump

Write down the 10 most important things your business needs to accomplish over the next two years. One year isn’t usually enough time, or you just aren’t thinking big enough or far enough out.

Make absolutely sure those 10 things are seriously part of achieving the big picture vision you have for your business – whatever that might be.

Now the hard part. Pick the item that is *the most important* thing to accomplish.

What moves your business more strongly toward accomplishing your mission than *anything* else on that list?

That’s the thing.

Write down every task that has to be completed to make it happen. If you have to, put on your Covey hat and “Begin with the End in mind”, working backwards from “I’ve done it!” to today.

Now…Get to work, one bite at a time, just like that Scout I talked about a couple of days ago.

Once that’s done, repeat the process.

PS: Revisit this planning process monthly to make sure you’re staying on track.

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photo credit: Alex E. Proimos

A combination of events over the last couple of months has had me thinking more about the expectations we have for ourselves, our kids, our employees and holy moly, even our politicians.

First, Jim Rohn passed away.

Jim talked a lot about expectations and how delivery of them is on one person – you. I highly recommend Rohn’s stuff. While you can buy his books, videos, audio etc online, quite a lot can be found at no cost on his site and on YouTube.

Next, four of my Scouts attained the rank of Eagle on the same day, after progressing together in Scouting since the second grade.

Three of them had been Life Scouts (the last rank prior to Eagle) for over three years. They needed a little prodding to finish the last item or two on their checklist, but they all assumed they’d get it done. If nothing else, they figured their parents would pressure them to get it done. Note: They were right.

A tall, steep mountain

But a year ago, one of them just didn’t think he could get there. Not because he isn’t confident (he is), but because the mountain in front of him was so very tall.

A year ago, he was a Star Scout (and had been for some time). That means that he needed several merit badges in addition to finishing the requirements for the Life Scout rank, then he needed to spend six months actively providing senior leadership to the troop,  and finally had to come up with and complete an Eagle Scout service project.

All of that had to happen in about a year, and with a dose of reality, it had to happen in an environment that includes a job, his senior year of high school, cars, girls, school, skiing, hunting, a summer of fun (including traveling for a team sport) and everything else teenagers do these days.

The size of the mountain doesn’t matter much

One thing that I’ve found with folks young and not so young is that the size of the mountain in front of them rarely has anything to do with their ability to climb it.

What’s far more important is whether or not they THINK they can climb it.

Yeah, I know…I’m teetering into the land of the touchy-feely. However, what folks think they can make happen clearly has a huge impact on what they accomplish.

For that one young man, it was easy to seem like Eagle wasn’t reachable because it was so far away.

All he needed was to see that *I* completely believed he could do it if he applied himself. I didn’t do the work, I didn’t give him any shortcuts, and I sure don’t deserve the credit, but that little tiny bump in the road could have kept him from getting there.

Once he believed he could get over it, he simply had to chip away at it till he was done.

You can’t do that

I wonder how many of those little bumps and “You can’t do that” comments employees, business owners and entrepreneurs run into and what accomplishments they prevent.

Some people would see a comment like that as a challenge. They’ll swing for the fences and complete the task with a flourish (think “Ricky Henderson“) as a way to say “Oh yeah? Take THAT. I *could* do it.”

Most business owners and entrepreneurs probably steamroll past that stuff or they wouldn’t be in those positions.

But… not everyone is built that way. It might take a success or two to show some that they really can kick butt and take names.

I spend a lot of time with kids due to Scouts, swim team and other things I’m involved in. I sometimes see kids who are told they *are* great (whether they are or not) rather than encouraging them to *be* great (or even better) and accomplish great things.

More kids need to be encouraged to BE great, whether they want to be a rocket scientist, a millwright or a statesman (“statesperson” sounds a little weird for me). We could use a few (hundred) *great* statesmen of both genders, in fact.

Just telling them they are great isn’t enough. They need mentors, like anyone else.

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Note the sign at the end of the video: “Ves como te gusta la opera?”, which translated roughly means ”See how you like opera?”

Point being – how many of those shoppers had ever been to the opera? And how many *more* will consider it after that performance?

Brilliant, guerrilla marketing. Just flippin’ brilliant.

Before you think “I could never do that”…start planning how you could turn your business into performance art, some how, some way.

When the stream in your backyard doesn’t have any fish, fish where the fish are.

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photo credit: Peter Kaminski

Today’s guest post is from Pragmatic Marketing and asks the question…

If you could say one thing to your company president without fear of reprisal, what would you say?

Here are the results.

The question is, what would your folks say to you…and are you big enough to let them do so?

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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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Download audio file (BridgesAndMoats.mp3)

photo credit: raindog

Look closely at your business and think of each thing you do that interacts with other vendors, competitors, customers, prospects and your community.

For each interaction, consider whether it builds a bridge or a moat:

• A bridge allows someone on one side of a chasm or river to get to the other side. Bridges are welcoming (toll gates notwithstanding) and encourage interaction and cooperation.
• A moat keeps others out.

A moat says “I’m scared of what’s out there, it might get me.”  Moats are often built by companies that fear the future, if not the present.

Moat builders often think in terms that are the antidote to improvement – and that “C word”, change. Their moat makes it appear that they fear change and the future because the future often brings changes to “the rules” (you know – “the rules that got us here”).

Working together

Many companies design interoperability features into their product.

In other words, they make their product easy to integrate with other products or standard services. In the software world, interaction with systems like Growl (a universal notification system) or SOAP (a web-based way to send data in the context of a description of that data) are a good example.

They make their product “talk to” and/or “listen” to other products.

Interoperability (making stuff work together – even with *competitor’s stuff*) is a bridge.

Others are in their own little world and refuse to interoperate, or do so far less than most. They sometimes ignore standards or recreate their own because they think they know better (and sometimes, just sometimes, they *do* know better – but do they share that knowledge?).

In most cases, refusing to make your product interoperable is a moat.

Communities have bridges and moats too

When the investment in participating in user communities becomes so frustrating that it isn’t worth it anymore, who suffers?

The company. Long time community members. New members of the community. Everyone, really.

Without a community tie-in, there’s less inertia to keep you from trying other products, much less switching to them. Kennedy talks about “putting an iron fence around your herd” – meaning keep your customers close by doing things that prevent them from even *considering* using another vendor.

Community is a big part of that.

Different companies handle this in different ways.

These days there are web forums, community-building environments like Ning.com, social media tools like Twitter and Facebook, old-school newsgroups, Google groups and many other options that allow you to build a place for your customers to meet and talk shop.

Once you get them there, then the challenge really begins. Do you encourage it to take on a life of its own, or do you spin it, control it and stunt its growth? Are the members of the community like a herd of cows, moving where you drive them, or are they gazelles?

Enable and Empower

Back in my software biz days, there was no social media other than BBS systems or email lists. Most customers were non-technical and spending more time on the computer didn’t interest them (there were exceptions, of course).

We saw a substantial uptick in sales, referrals and hard-to-measure/value “customer goodwill” when we started having day-long training sessions at trade shows. We’d just stick everyone in a room and go over what was new, what the group wanted training on and more often than not, the day also turning into a rich interactive resource for everyone in attendance.

There were benefits for us as well, but that’s not our topic for today.

How you manage – no, no – how you *enable and empower* your user community to become an asset to themselves, your services, your products and your business is critical. How you view that asset (the group/community) and how you nurture it says a lot about your company.

It’s not just a community for now, it’s a sales tool, a testimonial and many other positive things…if you allow it and encourage it to be.

What’s yours?

In your world, is that asset being used as a bridge or a moat?

The mindset of digging a moat around your business infects your staff, your services and your products with thoughts like “We know better”, “We don’t need you (or them)” and “We can do it all ourselves.”

Even if true, the deeper and wider the moat between you and your customers become, the easier it’ll be for someone else to convince those customers to head for a bridge.

The problem with moats is not just that they keep others out, but that they keep you trapped inside.

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photo credit: Koshyk

Today’s guest post from Gizmodo talks about how Apple handles the release of future products vs how other vendors do so.

It’s usually an adjustment the first time someone sees an Apple presentation:  ”Available….today.”

What message does your trade show appearance send?

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Your competition’s employees in LowRentEconomyIstan are willing to work this hard – and not for $50K a year. Maybe for 50 cents a day.

Someone mentioned to me privately after reading Where were you that if he didn’t know better, he’d think I was trying to put a guilt trip on folks.

He didn’t mention it (though I know he realized it) that my real point was that anyone used to competing locally has already found (or will soon find) themselves competing in a statewide / regional / national / global market.

How you react is the critical thing.

Whaddya do, wait, whine or work?

A friend’s business is facing a similar challenge.

For two decades and then some, they’ve competed against local and in-state firms.

That’s all changed now.

In the last year or so, every single opportunity they’ve bid on has had national and regional players at the table.

My guess is that some of you are experiencing the same thing.

In that environment, in their market, qualifications aren’t likely to even make it into the discussion before local firms get pushed off the table.

The national firm’s materials will make them the obvious choice (where have you heard that before?) because a local firm’s marketing materials, sales expertise and experience will be *normally* be hard pressed to match that of a national firm.

Of course, those processing the bids won’t acknowledge it and they might not even realize they’re doing it because worst case, it happens subconsciously as if they were staring at a pretty girl or a handsome man.

Because they have to compete on a bigger, shinier stage, these firms have honed their image and their materials over years of competing with other national and regional firms. It’s quite possible that some of them have had to battle it out with international competitors.

That leaves the local firm with the same choice we discussed a while back: Wait, Whine or Work.

Again, we circle back to “what other people do”. What do they do to succeed that you don’t yet do? It doesn’t matter how important *you* think these things are. What matters is how important they are in the minds of your customers and prospects.

In simple terms: What’s the market think? How do they buy? Why do they buy? What puts them over the edge?

Your reasons don’t mean much. Theirs mean everything. Either you deal with global competition or it’ll deal with you.

Waiting around for some Senator to “fix” your competitive problem isn’t gonna help. Fix your competitive position yourself. It’s faster and a lot cheaper than a politician.

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