It’s a universal given that when you shop somewhere you’d like to be treated with respect. Statistics show that after only two negative incidents at any place of business you’re likely to shop elsewhere. That’s not a lot of wiggle room. Think of it as “two strikes and you’re out.”
But do you ever wonder how many customers your business may have lost due to customer service blunders? In a survey of more than 2,000 consumers in the U.S and the U.K., nearly half of the respondents said that poor customer service led them to switch to a different service provider in the past year.
Consider the following examples of poor customer service.
Example #1: A restaurant refusing to accept a two-for-one lunch coupon, citing all sorts of extra requirements that were not listed on the coupon.
Example #2: A retail store refusing to give a refund on a cheaply made toy, saying “that’s the quality you get for that price.”
Example #3: A customer service rep on the telephone saying “I’m sorry, there is no supervisor for you to talk to.”
Think about it. How long before you stop patronizing any of these businesses?
Results from another survey, this one polling 1,000 U.S. consumers about shopping experiences in a wide variety of industries, indicate that consumers are sick and tired of receiving poor service.
- More than 75 percent said they would hang up after waiting on hold for longer than five minutes.
- More than 80 percent would rather visit the dentist, pay their taxes, or sit in a traffic jam than deal with an unhelpful representative.
- 75 percent said that they tell friends and family about their negative experiences.
- 85 percent reported that negative customer service experiences drive them to switch providers.
With statistics like this, it’s pretty obvious that anyone having direct contact with customers should be trained on how to bathe their patrons with good service and an attitude of appreciation.
The down economy is all the more reason for going over and above in this arena. In fact, research appearing in the California Management Review indicates that treating customers “adequately” is not enough to keep them anymore. Amazingly, satisfied customers will return to do business with you 28 percent of the time—but delighted customers will return 85 percent of the time. That’s HUGE. With those kinds of statistics it only makes sense to provide outstanding customer service!
What follows are five helpful hints that can be adapted by any organization to help improve customer service.
Helpful Hint #1
Whenever possible, learn the names of your customers and use their name when talking with them.
Helpful Hint #2
Be cheerful. If someone is conducting a standard transaction with you, be glad to see them / hear from them and thank them wholeheartedly for bringing you their business.
If someone is bringing you a complaint, act as though it is the most serious grievance and set everything else aside to resolve it as quickly as possible. Be sure to apologize!
Helpful Hint #3
Be prompt in all matters. In today’s world, even microwave ovens and 3G smartphones are considered slow. Amazingly, slow service or response is one of the biggest complaints in the customer service realm, and yet it’s one of the easiest problems to resolve. Therefore, get on every service opportunity as fast as possible.
Helpful Hint #4
Get specific by asking “how can I help you?” This helps the customer pinpoint his/her need so you know exactly where to focus your service. Remember that your customer may not know exactly what your action should be, but they know what results they want. It’s your job to ascertain what results they’re looking for and then determine which actions are required of you to create those results.
Helpful Hint #5
Compensate for confusion and mistakes. Restaurants are usually pretty good at this (providing discounts on meals and offering special coupons for future visits), but other businesses can do similar things. For example, if a home improvement store messes up an order on an appliance, they might offer free delivery or free installation of the appliance as a way to say “we’re sorry.”
Bottom line, the Internet allows consumers to shop and compare more today than at any other time in history. With those extra choices their expectations are higher, and that means outstanding customer satisfaction is an absolute must just to keep them coming back more than 25 percent of the time.
Granted, every company is going to have hiccups in which customers don’t get the service they deserve, and yes, that poor service is likely to result in lost business. But the more you emphasize the service part of customer service, the more likely it is that your customers will hang around.
In today’s economy, that can make the all the difference.
]]>The biggest mistakes in business are usually made when leaders react instead of act. Reflexive actions are rarely effective when compared to actions borne out of a well-thought-out strategy.
Unfortunately, some entrepreneurs are simply winging it 24/7, and although they may be getting by, they usually aren’t thriving. (see the origin of the phrase “winging it.”)
In my 23 years of working alongside and consulting other entrepreneurs, I can testify that the best approach is balancing one’s vision with a grounded, mapped out plan.
Yep, that means planning.
Boring, right? To many entrepreneurs, yes. But vitally necessary for success.
Winging it in startups
Picture an early-30’s something entrepreneur named Jeff with an original, compelling idea. He shares his idea with others who similarly get excited, and quickly agree to help Jeff get his business off the ground. They refer Jeff to meet with technical experts who can help him launch his new idea, and they even pool money to provide funding. The project looks like a winner to everybody.
Things start with a bang. Jeff and his team create awesome marketing buzz and generate a lot of interest in their product. Everything looks good – on paper. Yet when it comes time to execute, cohesion breaks down and production takes four times longer than expected. In this age of rapid word-of-mouth occurring through social media, Jeff’s company suffers a stain on its reputation.
A few of the technical geniuses get frustrated with Jeff’s lack of organization and leave. Thing seemed okay at first, but it became obvious to them that after the ball was rolling, Jeff was unprepared for the load. Production limped along, but soon another company took advantage of the interest that Jeff had created and moved quickly to grab the lion’s share of the market.
I share this story to emphasize the fact that having a great idea without a comprehensive plan for success just another way of saying “winging it.” Oh sure, you can “say” you have a plan, but if it’s a 40,000 foot flight path that doesn’t consider the management details, then I’d predict your chances of success are greatly diminished.
Winging it in established companies
Another common mistake in business is reaction to a market shift instead of taking time to create a well-thought-out action plan. As humans, our reflexive actions rarely take into account all of our organization’s strengths and weaknesses, not to mention all the external factors surrounding us.
Consider what happened to a home heating and cooling company that misread the growing interest in more “green” applications. Without any market research, they launched a “go green” campaign that went a bit overboard, to the point that they had clients wondering if it was still a company that could service their existing furnaces and air conditioners. It only took a few months to realize their mistake, yet in that time they damaged their brand, and they wasted a lot of time, energy, and money doing so.
I realize that planning is not glamorous, not exciting, and it doesn’t make family and friends go “wow!” But without it, even the best ideas and intentions can come crashing down.
In my book Creating Passion-Driven Teams
In part, one of the things a leader is responsible for is the horizon—what is happening “out there.” But leaders are also responsible for ideas of where the company could and should be going. Not that other people in the organization can’t have ideas, they should! But ultimately, it’s the leaders who are responsible for them.
To be effective, leaders must also talk with others about those ideas. The purpose is to get multiple sets of eyes considering those ideas, looking for strengths and weaknesses. A leader who won’t get this kind of feedback is in danger of missing key, necessary action items that could strengthen the chances for success.
Look at the idea from many angles. Consider the potential ripple-effects in “what-if” scenarios. In other words, what are the implications of a potential action? And if “A” happens, what are the potential ripple effects of that? The more you look at it this way, the more likely you are to identify the potential hazards and plan for them to they don’t sneak up and bite you later.
By the way, the more eyes you have looking at project, the more likely you are to have buy-in, too!
I wish I could convey to you how many times I’ve had leaders tell me “yeah, yeah – we planned it out,” only to discover later (after things crashed around them) that their paper-thin plan was nowhere near comprehensive enough.
May you learn from their lessons. Before winging something, take the time to count the costs. It will be time very well spent.
]]>Few things are more frustrating than being on the short end of an unfair situation. And since those claiming to be the “99 percent” are making a lot of noise about how unfair things are, let’s examine what they’re taking about.
By looking at the list of “demands” made by the Occupy movement one could say that their main gripe is about capitalism. That’s how it’s portrayed in the news, anyway. Unfortunately, that’s an incorrect generalization, because much of what the Occupiers are really griping about is Crony Capitalism, and there’s a big difference.
Capitalism in its natural, practical form is a free market in which people with moral purposes devise products and services that fill genuine needs. People take risks and negotiate contracts with others who agree to provide products or services for an agreed-upon price, and everyone makes some money (profit) along the way.
But Crony Capitalism is quite different. Crony Capitalism occurs when businesses and government officials get in bed with each other, and favoritism occurs in the form of special tax breaks, generous grants, overly generous contracts, and/or legislation that makes business too cumbersome for “the little guy.”
Crony Capitalism looks like regular capitalism, but it’s a corrupt version of it. Think of Crony Capitalism as the ultimate good-ol-boy network in which smaller players are shunned or legislated out of the picture. Think of nitpicky lawsuits pushing back challengers and back-room deals keeping newly branded products off retail shelves.
If this is what the “Occupy” movement is really against, then they’ve got a legitimate beef. Unfortunately, most of what I’m hearing is that they want equality of outcome – the same pay and rewards for doing unequal amounts of work. Only it goes beyond basic pay: They want a lot other things for free, too.
With regard to the workplace, civil rights legislation was passed to guarantee everyone a fair chance of achieving success. We should emphasize that the goal of that legislation was equal opportunity—not a guarantee of equal outcome.
How about we steer clear of the extreme perspectives for a moment and take a realistic look at what works, what doesn’t work, and why.
What the Occupiers are failing to understand is that the freedom that accompanies a capitalistic society provides the optimal conditions in which people can pursue whatever endeavor or ideals they wish. In capitalism, people learn about their options and choose what course seems right to them. If their chosen course does not lead to prosperity, then they learn from their mistakes, make adjustments, and strive to improve.
But if we incorporate what the Occupy movement advocates, failures would result in other companies having to share their earnings with the companies that fail. When that happens, it doesn’t take long for the achievers to slow down on their achievements. Yes, I agree that the Crony Capitalists are giving capitalism a bad name, but a whole lot of the “99 percent” are hard-working individuals who want to operate within the bounds of true capitalism, so why punish those people in an effort to stick it to the Cronies?
Redistribution is not just a world-view argument, it’s also a values argument, and not everybody holds that value. Furthermore, I have yet to meet anyone who enjoys having someone else’s values shoved down their throat.
When redistribution is forced on the workplace, the entire society loses. The push for innovation is diminished and people don’t care about learning from mistakes. As a result, excellence fades away as mediocrity becomes an accepted norm.
I strongly believe that Crony Capitalism is harmful to the business world, for in Cronyism we see companies trying to destroy other companies, or “take down the competition.” The cutthroat leaders at the top of these organizations think they’re acting in the best interest of their companies, but by removing competition they are actually hurting themselves in the long run.
For example, it’s easy to see that Apple Computers learned a few things from Microsoft, and vice versa. If either company was “taken out” by the other, the company that remained would not be as good as it is now. Similarly, makers of the Droid and the iPhone have learned a lot from each other, and the competition has made each product better. I lost a lot respect for Steve Jobs when I read that he wanted to “destroy” the Droid, because I saw that mindset as short-sighted arrogance.
In real capitalism, companies are actively competing to fill niches. Markets grow, shrink, and shift, and companies adjust as necessary. If they fail to adjust properly, sometimes they even have to close their doors. That, my friends, is true fairness.
Therefore, I say steer clear of the extremes. Adopting a redistribution mindset weakens innovation and progress, and moving to Crony Capitalism does the same thing.
The best thing for everyone is to operate fairly and compensate reasonably. Move to either extreme and everyone loses.
]]>Ask people what they do to stay productive and you’ll get a variety of answers, because what works for some doesn’t work for others. In other words, with all due respect to the folks who produce the Franklin-Covey Planner, it’s not for everybody. That said, if you’re the type who likes being organized, the Franklin Planner may be something you’d love.
Personally I’m a strong advocate of Stephen Covey’s recommendation for “weekly planning and daily adapting,” but beyond those basic practices, many other productivity techniques exist. Recently I decided to contact some folks whom I believe to be productive and ask what they did to maximize their productivity. What follows are some of their responses. See if any of these appeal to you.
Minimizing Distractions
Several people stated they get more done if they can minimize workplace distractions. A woman told me she has learned to keep the door to her office closed “to keep the ‘drive-bys’ at bay,” and also to say “I’m busy right now, when can I get back to you?” if she’s in the middle of something and people invite themselves in.
One man said he gets more done if he finds a place to work that’s far away from his cubicle, usually in a different department altogether. He says this technique keeps him away from the never-ending chit-chat and office politics that “hum non-stop in the cubicle farm area” and eat up valuable time.
Another woman citing the same distractions actually asked for and received permission to do her job remotely, even though she lived just a few miles from work.
This technique for better productivity is similar to what I’ve written about before, the Results Only Work Environment (ROWE). The idea behind ROWE is a focus on performance, not presence. As long as employees are producing the results we expect of them, what does it matter where they are when their work gets done? For more information on this, visit gorowe.com.)
Old-Fashioned Paper & Pen
One woman emphasized that she stayed productive by keeping her daily plan in front of her all day long. She hand writes her priorities into a journal and keeps that journal open on her desk to remind her of what she needs to get done. She says it might be old-fashioned, but she gets a lot of satisfaction by crossing things off, and that each time she does that she gets encouraged to get the next item done so she can cross that off, too.
Micro-Planning
Because moving throughout a building can eat up precious time and reduce productivity, one woman says she always checks her day’s “to-do” list before leaving her desk to go someplace else in the building. “I want to see if I can combine multiple tasks into that one trip,” she says.
Managing E-mail
One man who deals with scores of people each day maintains that e-mail is a communications tool and not a filing system. To remain productive, he designates several times a day as “e-mail time” during which he focuses only on e-mail. For something that can’t get addressed right away, he drags it to his task list. He also keeps all the e-mail notification bells turned off at all times.
Productivity Periods
Some people are more productive in the morning, others more in the afternoon. One man who knows he’s a morning person never schedules any meetings in the morning, because that’s when he gets his “work” done. It’s his standing policy to schedule meetings only in the afternoon.
Granted, some people don’t have the luxury of making that an absolute rule, but if you know your most productive time, you can try to manage your schedule to maximize your productivity. One woman who knows she’s more productive in the afternoon always blocks out at least one hour per day after lunch when she neither takes any phone calls nor schedules any meetings.
Delegate
If you supervise others or manage a team, pay close attention to what you’re doing that could be delegated. Several people mentioned that they are much more productive when they’re delegating effectively. By the way, good delegation often requires planning (read: time), so it can seem counterintuitive that it’s a time-saver. But delegation planning is something that can be done during planning time, not during the golden productivity hours.
Balance
Finally, several people mentioned that getting their minds off work was very good for their productivity. One woman said that a 30-60 minute lunch away from the office worked wonders to keep her fresh in the afternoon. Another person said he always leaves work at work; that his evenings are always devoted to spending time with his family.
No doubt there are many more tips to boost one’s productivity (feel free to share), but if any of these sound appealing, try them and see how they work for you.
]]>Not looking for a new job? Some situations still call for a resume, such as when an organization is considering you for their board, or for a promotion within your own company.
Because the workplace is changing, the use of resumes is changing along with it. So let’s take a look at where you might be on the evolutionary timeline.
Traditional resumes
In terms of a traditional paper resume, the fundamentals haven’t changed much in recent years. Just this past month a friend handed me his resume and asked me to review it. With all due respect to my friend, who is very talented and would bring great value to any organization, his resume was utterly horrible. It contained way too many details about small projects, and when reading it from an employer’s perspective, I thought, “So what? What will this person do for me?”
Essentially, the resume failed to convey what my friend could do for another company. The info was there, but he failed to translate his experience into a set of transferable skills. Hence, it failed to make me go “wow!”
Want to improve your resume? Get someone to help you wordsmith it. From an employer’s perspective, identify what attributes you want to see and how your proven abilities can be worded in a way to show valuable, transferable skills.
Once you’ve given it a good working over, give your resume to other friends and tell them to totally criticize it. The only way you’re going to improve it is if people criticize it, so accept that fact and dive in with the purpose of refining and polishing it.
Electronic resumes
Today, many companies ask to receive resumes electronically. This could mean attaching your resume as a Word document or PDF, or they may want it in plain text/ASCII format. Every application is different, so be sure to read and understand a company’s instructions before applying. Social networking sites such as LinkedIn and Facebook are also becoming popular for posting jobs and submitting resumes.
As with any resume, you have between 17 and 20 seconds to grab their attention. Since the “delete” button is so easy to use, your resume must make the person go “wow!” right away.
If you’re using e-mail, choose your subject line very carefully. Specific job openings usually have a job number you can reference, but in any case, a subject line of “seeking employment” is never a good choice.
To make it easy for the person reviewing your resume, write a brief cover letter and then copy/paste your resume into the body of the message. You can also include it as an attachment, but if you only attach it you’re forcing the person to open the document, and that’s eating into your 20 seconds.
Also, because most email programs do not read formatting well, use caution to ensure your resume is easily readable. Send it to yourself and some friends to make sure it appears like you want it to.
Hyperlink resumes
Finally, let’s consider a whole new type of resume, and that’s no resume at all. In this age of mobile workforces and e-commerce, some companies are foregoing traditional resumes and asking applicants to send links to their Web presence, such as their blogs, twitter accounts, and LinkedIn profiles. According to a recent article in the Wall Street Journal, some companies are even requesting a short video demonstrating a person’s interest in working for the company.
Obviously, this type of resume doesn’t work for many traditional jobs, but it’s quite appropriate for a growing number of Web-centered occupations.
Because this trend is likely to grow, “who you are” on the Internet will be what employers consider in their hiring decisions, so be cognizant whenever you post something online. One snarky remark posted in a time of fun or frustration may be what prevents you from getting a job two years from now.
With all this in mind, remember that a resume does not get you a job; its purpose is to get you an interview. Obviously, a good resume improves your chances of that, so start with the traditional approach and be able to show you have transferable skills.
With today’s technology, you have the ability to research companies more than ever before. That’s a bonus, but they have a similarly increased ability to research you. This makes having steadiness in your character and your work ethic all the more important. Even if you’re not looking for a job, the evolution of resumes means that the evolution of your Internet use will someday be on the table for an employer’s evaluation.
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Soon you might get fired eating too many Krispy Kreme donuts. Why? To save on health care costs, your company has instituted a policy that allows them to fire overweight people.
As of this writing, the above policy is fictional. However, some organizations actually have policies that prohibit hiring people who consume legal products in the privacy of their own home, and more companies are considering implementing them.
The stated purpose of these policies? Save on heath care costs. They cite research that correlates the consumption of these very legal products with increased health care costs, and therefore claim a right to not hire people who consume theses products.
Remember, these products are perfectly legal to buy and sell, but if you consume them on your own time in the privacy of your own home, some organizations will never hire you.
My thoughts on this matter are not new. In 2005 I wrote a column about this very topic, which I entitled “Employer, Yes. Dictator, No.” The title alone should convey my opinion, but to add some data that informs my perspective, allow me to provide information published in reputable news sources as well as from the Center for Disease Control (CDC), and you can make up your own mind about the logic of these policies.
Let’s start first with the epidemic of obesity. According to the CDC, a “normal weight” individual averages $3400 annually in medical expenditures, with obese people averaging $4680 per year. The CDC also says nearly 30 percent of all healthcare spending today is tied to obesity-related issues.
For clarification, an adult whose Body Mass Index (BMI) is 30 or higher is considered obese, and obesity rates in the United States went up 37 percent between 1998 and 2006.
For the record, as long as you can demonstrate an ability to perform a job, employers cannot refuse to hire you just because your BMI is 31. At least not yet.
Allow me now to move on to something more controversial; sexual relations among men. The CDC refers to Gay and Bi-Sexual men having unprotected sex with other men as “MSM” (men having sex with men). Quoting directly from the CDC, MSM “represent approximately 2% of the US population, yet are the population most severely affected by HIV and are the only risk group in which new HIV infections have been increasing steadily since the early 1990’s.”
They also report that this 2% of the population accounts for the majority of all new HIV infections in the US, and “consistently represent[s] the largest percentage of persons diagnosed with AIDS.” It is estimated that 40,000 new HIV infections occur in the US each year.
What does that cost? According to data published by Johns Hopkins Medical Center and Harvard University, “people with HIV can get 24 extra years of life from modern treatments – at a total cost of about $618,900.” Actually, that’s an average price. Research at the University of Alabama at Birmingham shows that treating people with HIV/AIDS is between $14,000 and $34,000 per year, depending on whether the person is newly infected or in the advanced stage.
Spending on HIV-related medical care in the US has tripled in the last 10 years, and the CDC says that “the rate of new HIV diagnoses among MSM in the US is more than 44 times that of other men.”
Finally, let’s look at smokers. The CDC’s most recent statistics show that “cigarette smoking costs more than $193 billion” annually. They also state that 46.6 million Americans smoke. Crunch those numbers and you’ll come up with $4,141 annual health-related costs for smokers. They also note that smoking accounts for between 6 – 8 percent of health care spending in the US.
So, let’s summarize these average annual health-related expenditures:
Non-smoking, normal-weight non-MSM person: $3400
Smoker: $4141
Obese person: $4680
Person with HIV/AIDS: $14,000 minimum
With these figures at our disposal, isn’t it interesting that to save on health care costs, some organizations are flat out refusing to hire people who smoke in the privacy of their own home? I’m not a smoker, but cigarettes are a perfectly legal substance for adults to purchase.
The question here is “how far will this go?” At what point will companies decide that they’re not hiring anyone with a BMI over 30? Remember, smoking issues are 6 – 8 percent of our national care costs, but obesity issues are nearly 30 percent.
Consider also the uproar you’d hear if a company decided to save on health care costs by not hiring anyone who’s MSM.
I don’t care if companies ban smoking in the workplace, but it’s a slippery slope when companies “reduce costs” by refusing to hire people who do legal things in the privacy of their own home.
Refusing employment to an obese person or an MSM who can perform the job is illegal discrimination … and their health care costs are higher than smokers. So what gives?
* * *
PS. I took a lot of care not to misinterpret data in this piece. It was written using actual data published by reputable news, educational, and government institutions. Anticipating doubting Thomases, I saved every URL for the websites I used to collect the information in his piece. If you would like to look at these numbers with your own two eyes, feel free to send me an email and I will by happy to forward you a document that contains all the URL’s.
]]>The reason?
No time of completion is set.
Resolutions need to become goals, and a properly written goal includes a “by when?”
Without a “by when,” your goal is not a goal …
… it’s merely an idea.
Increase the likelihood of achieving your resolutions by making sure they:
– are crystal clear regarding what you want to accomplish
– are measurable
– include a “by when”
Give yourself added insurance by enlisting two other people to hold you accountable with weekly phone calls or meetings. These people can brainstorm with you to identify ways around obstacles … they can also help you stay focused, remembering to prioritize those behaviors that will take you where you want to go.
Just remember, the number one rule for success in achieving your New Years Resolutions is to ensure you have a “by when” attached to each one. Without a deadline, you don’t have a goal … only an idea.
]]>“Our company, CKE Restaurants Inc., employs about 21,000 people (our franchisees employ 49,000 more) in Carl’s Jr. and Hardee’s restaurants. For months, we have been working with Mercer Health & Benefits LLC, our health-care consultant, to identify Obamacare’s potential financial impact on CKE. Mercer estimated that when the law is fully implemented our health-care costs will increase about $18 million a year. That would put our total health-care costs at $29.8 million, a 150 percent increase from the roughly $12 million we spent last year.”
Puzder goes on to write that they’re having to cut spending to meet these new health care costs … by not building new restaurants. The ripple effect of that? No money to build new restaurants means no new employees.
He also mentioned a reduction in capital spending (improvements for existing restaurants) … this means local tradesmen are not hired to do the work.
To cut costs further they are making more of their jobs “part-time” (under 30 hours per week) because under the new law they don’t have to pay health care costs for those employees.
He went on to say that 62 percent of CKE’s employees are minorities, and 62 percent are female, and that it’s these folks who will be affected most.
Puzder also stated:
“Because we don’t know what our health care expenses will be in two or three years, we are unable to determine with any certainty how much our investments will have to return for us to be profitable. All of that counsels in favor of holding off on new investments and saving our funds. We want to grow. But we are unable to do so knowing that large and undetermined liabilities will absorb funds we otherwise would invest for expansion.”
Puzder quotes the CEO’s of several other companies who state similar things. I encourage you to read the article for yourself. Then you’ll have a good idea why the US economy remains in a stall … and looks to stay that way for a while.
]]>A progressive realization of worthy goals propels people towards their vision of prosperity. Unfortunately, it’s easy to let business planning and goal-setting get pushed aside in favor of more “urgent” activities. It’s also easy to let “good” things get in the way of great things.
To move forward on your path to prosperity you should first recognize that “good” can be the enemy of “great.” Obviously, good things are not bad things, but if you feel that something is good enough, then you have little motivation for moving forward to make things better.
People often tell me their dreams, but then follow it up by saying that what they currently have is good enough. I understand the need to be content with what one has, but the danger in hanging on to the good is that we rarely reach for our bigger dreams.
As Jim Collins says in his book Good to Great
We don’t have great schools, principally because we have good schools. We don’t have great government, principally because we have good government. Few people attain great lives, primarily because it is easy to settle for a good life. The vast majority of companies never become great precisely because they become quite good – and that is their main problem.
This observation aligns with a story told me long ago by a seasoned businessman. The analogy is that of a man who has a handful of rubies. He knows the stones are valuable, so he does not want to give them up. But then someone shows him a pile of diamonds and tells him he can keep whatever he can pick up with his hands. The dilemma? The man must let go of the rubies to pick up the diamonds.
What about you? Are you willing to give up that which is good to get that which is best?
You may think that quitting something that’s good is not good, but that’s not necessarily true. Seth Godin, in his book The Dip
The problem is that when people become satisfied with good things, they can easily procrastinate on working toward what’s best. To address this, we can turn to a principle in Stephen Covey’s book Seven Habits of Highly Effective People
Here are some ideas that can help you identify and act on your bigger yeses:
Get together with a trusted friend, family member, or co-worker and list the benefits you’ll get by accomplishing your bigger dreams. This should not just be an academic exercise. The idea is to get emotionally connected to each benefit, because the stronger your emotional connection is to your core values the more likely you are to act on your dreams.
After you’ve identified your bigger yeses, set up regular meetings with an accountability partner — or two. More than three people gets a little overwhelming, so find one or two other people who want to see you succeed and ask them to help you stay on track for meeting your goals.
Lastly, help yourself stay on track by keepings your tasks small and manageable.
Beware! Procrastination can still be a problem!
Procrastination is a very real obstacle, even if you have accountability partners, so here are a few ideas to help you overcome procrastination.
1. Acknowledge that procrastinating creates unnecessary stress. In fact, one person I know says that procrastination is the opposite of success.
2. Break down larger, overwhelming tasks into small ones. For example, if you want to write a two hundred-page book, don’t do it all at once. Write two pages a day and you’ll be done in just over three months.
3. Attach a “by when” to every action item. With a clearly identified time-of-completion you have goal. Without that time-of-completion you only have an idea.
4. Choose one task and make it your day’s priority. Little things accomplished steadily over time create big things.
5. If you find yourself stuck, try using your moods to your advantage. For example, a woman I know once had a high-profile marketing proposal to write, but the words eluded her. Since she was more in the mood for talking with friends than writing her proposal, she called several friends and brainstormed various ideas for her proposal. These conversations revealed several new ideas and when she went back to writing her proposal the words just flowed.
Bottom line, be willing to give up the rubies in your life if what you want is diamonds, and work with accountability partners to help you succeed along the way. Without these in place it’s way too easy to procrastinate and you may never achieve your dreams, especially if things are “good enough.”
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Small Business Survival Guide by Jason Reid
Throughout this book Reid proves himself to be an awesome consultant. In addition to ideas for the new economy, the book is full of back-to-basics core principles that are so time-tested they are often overlooked. For example, the hip, cool marketing professional would rather have you tweeting and retweeting 20 times a day instead of acting on Reid’s advice to pass out 500 business cards a month.
Reid packs his text with enough proven wisdom that a small business owner is guaranteed to walk away with numerous golden nuggets after reading it. Not everything Reid writes about will apply directly to your business, but the principles will if you do a bit of thinking.
But don’t just read this book. Find someone you trust and talk about what resonates with you. Make whatever adjustments are necessary for your unique situation, sketch out a plan for implementing it, and then act on what you have decided. Another suggestion: Make implementation fun, not a burden.
I’ve survived in business 22 years. But I have to admit, after reading this book, I realize that I could have survived a lot better if I had Reid’s advice when I first started out.
Killer Facebook Ads: Master Cutting-Edge Facebook Advertising Techniques by Marty Weintraub
Weintraub hits a home run with this book, and if you advertise anywhere online, you will definitely benefit from reading it.
As a business owner I’ve been reading books on advertising for years, and I have to say Weintraub has done his homework. He provides comparison images to explain his points, and includes excellent explanations on why one version of an ad is better than the other. Some who want only bullet points may find the book too heavy with facts and data in some places, but I found Weintraub’s descriptions and explanations to be quite informative. Besides, you can skip over what you don’t need to read, and the explanations are there if you want to understand things a bit deeper later on.
The fact is that as long as we have the Internet, social media is NOT going away, and nobody has more personal data about its users (at this point) than Facebook. So, if you want a solid Facebook advertising strategy that reaches targeted potential customers, I’d say this is the best guidebook out there for getting the biggest bang for your buck. Even if you’re advertising on Google and not Facebook you will learn a lot.
Not only will this book save you hours of experimenting (and costly frustrations), Killer Facebook Ads is well worth the cover price as it will easily pay for itself in your first ad campaign.
Convert!: Designing Web Sites to Increase Traffic and Conversion by Ben Hunt
Whereas Weintraub’s Killer Facebook Ads is about creating effective ad campaigns, Hunt’s Convert! is about creating websites that lead more people to buy from you (i.e., upping your conversion rate).
If you’re not careful, you can pay thousands of dollars to ‘experts’ who will help you up the conversion rates on your website. The first thing I need say here is “read this book before you hire any such experts.” The reason? After reading this you may not need to spend so much money. As a case in point, I was in the middle of a website overhaul when I got this book, and reading it saved me plenty of hours (read: $$) with my designer.
Hunt acts as a consultant/adviser, not a theorist or artist, and straightforward advice fills the book. Two quick examples are, “Ask! If you don’t ask, you don’t get” and “Do not waste energy trying to reinvent conventional solutions. Save your creativity for the important work of understanding your market and their needs in depth, to assess the best alternatives to test.”
Also, knowing that one size does not fit all, Hunt uses a solid “if/then” approach for many examples. He also includes excellent screen shots showing the nuances of minor changes and explains how those little changes made big differences.
Take this book and Jakob Nielsen’s Prioritizing Web Usability and you have a wealth of information for designing websites that bring results (read: $$).
There you have it. Three books that will help small and mid-size businesses fortify their position. But please remember – especially during the holiday season – that our families are more important than our businesses. Yes, our businesses are important, but our families are even more so. Be sure to invest in those relationships, too.
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