Don’t gaze down
Never look away from your audience. In the outside world you may multitask and look at your Blackberry while ordering a latte, but never lose eye contact with those who have come to hear you speak. Eye contact helps you connect to people and enhance feelings of trustworthiness and likeability.
Don’t clasp your hands
Fidgeting with your hands is distracting. Don’t clap, knuckle crunch, or cuticle pick. Unless you are pointing to something in your presentation or making a big movement, keep your hands by your side.
Don’t dance
When you use your arms, gesture from the shoulder—not your elbow—to avoid looking like you are doing the chicken dance.
Don’t look messy
You should be neat and organized. Dress for the environment—a suit in a formal business presentation, but more casual if you’re at, say, a tech MeetUp. When it comes to presentation slides, title each one and highlight key words, be sure to spell-check and ask a colleague to review your materials. Limit any “cute” or “funny” visuals, especially if you’re reviewing a serious subject.
Don’t turn away from the audience
“Nobody wants to look at your behind,” says Rosenthal, CEO of Communispond in East Hampton, NY. And you often can’t be heard if you are speaking to the screen. Rosenthal likes the "think, turn, talk" method. Look at an item you are discussing to gather your thoughts, turn to look at the audience, and then start speaking.
Don’t hem and haw
Do your best to avoid “filler" words. Keep the "uhms,” "you knows” and "likes” out of your speech.
Don’t rush
Run through a preview “performance” so you know you have the right amount of material to make the best use of your allotted time, and you’re not forced to rush to squeeze in important points. Running out of time makes you look unprepared and clumsy.
Don’t chortle
Keep sounds effects like chortling or laughing at a minimum. “Nobody wants to see a clown performing unless, of course, you’re at the circus,” says Rosenthal.
Don’t roll your eyes
You don’t want to distract your audience—or inadvertently convey disdain—with visual effects like rolling your eyes. This is especially true when you’re responding to questions, or comments, and you don’t want to appear impatient.
So what should you do?
Smile. Stand. Make eye contact. Open your arms. Speak loudly. Says Communispond’s Rosenthal: “Plan for success. Look good, sound good, and know your material.” –Tatiana Serafin
http://www.inc.com/ss/wrong-body-language
7/30/11
7/20/11
My Customers’ 3 Most Valuable Learning Experiences
One of the reasons I love my job is having access to so many customers who are bright entrepreneurs. When you treat your customers like the gifted business people they are, you’ll be surprised how much they can teach you.
A few weeks ago I was curious to see what SurePayroll customers consider their most valuable learning experiences. For years, I’ve said the best learning tool is making mistakes — I even give one lucky employee an award for the year's best new mistake every year. After sending a survey about their most valuable learning experiences, I learned quite a bit from their real-life stories and what their experiences have taught them.
Many of their learning experiences fall into three main categories, ranging from practical office tactics to the philosophy of running their businesses.
1. Effective employee management is a must.
One of my customers summed it up nicely: “I have been in business for over 35 years, and I’m not sure any one experience is the most important. But one thing is for sure: Hiring the right people is critical to anyone's success.” I’ve learned over years that hiring is one of the most difficult aspects of running the show and that the overwhelming majority of my customers agree.
And they’ve also learned that part of having the right people is firing the wrong people, and doing so quickly. That may sound cold, but it’s a reality business owners need to face. A few customers discussed how they struggled in their first few years because they didn’t want to be the small business owner who fired people. Or they weren’t checking candidates’ backgrounds and references properly.
Once the right employees are on board, you have to communicate the vision of your company and make sure they’re aligned with it. And as tough as it sounds, you’re going to have to give your employees breathing room to do some things their way, and to make the occasional mistake. You can trust me that when employees aren’t belittled for making mistakes, it’s good for your business. But you don’t have to take my word for it — many of my customers feel the same way.
Employees want to work somewhere they feel welcome and appreciated – and like they can be themselves. As another customer said, “We all spend so much time at work, it is important to make it a fun environment. When people feel good, their work performance improves. It’s a win-win situation.”
2. Sales and marketing won’t take care of themselves.
Ralph Waldo Emerson is famous for a lot of good reasons, but he couldn’t be more wrong when he wrote “Build a better mousetrap and the world will beat a path to your door.” My customers agree that your mousetrap won’t sell itself.
Many SurePayroll customers started their own businesses because they loved what they were doing, and wanted to concentrate on it full-time and be their own bosses. Then they found out people weren’t beating paths to their doors, even though they offered top-notch products or services. They needed to spread the word via marketing and acquire new business by spending time on sales.
One of my customers learned this by accident, quite literally. After an injury took him out of commission from his carpentry, he needed to hire a replacement for six weeks. That’s when he discovered his strength wasn’t just in his carpentry but in promoting his business. He wrote that “There were plenty of competent carpenters willing and able to take my place as lead site carpenter. I focused my efforts on sales and marketing. Sales picked up significantly. My net income doubled in the span of a year and grew by 50% more the next year.”
Taking on sales and marketing yourself might not be the answer. If you want to stay focused on your trade, let someone else take care of it. The joy of owning your own business is that you can focus on your strengths and outsource your weaknesses, whether that means relying on services or hiring competent employees.
Even the carpenter-turned-salesman would have done it differently: “The next logical step in that duplication would have been to replace myself in my sales and marketing duties, too. Remember, the duplication of effort can be applied to all people in all positions performing all tasks. My end goal could have been to become CEO where all lower level tasks were delegated to highly qualified employees.”
3. You’re your own boss—and your own teacher.
Yes, hiring experts can help you grow your business, but at the end of the day, you’re the one who has to keep learning. As my customers can attest to, education covers everything from gaining new skills to realizing your limitations.
What’s the best place to begin your education? One customer offered a great starting place: “Read. Sounds simple, but it is one of the most important things a business owner can do to improve his or her business. While it is great to have a mentor, and I have many, books are portals to some of the brightest minds from our past and present.”
In addition to traditional education like reading and business school, many customers stressed the importance of on-the-job learning — taking on projects that require them to become experts. One customer wrote, “I had a client ask me to work on a project that required me to do educate myself about the details and the best way to accomplish the task. Rather than tell them, ‘No, I do not have those particular skills,’ I tell them, ‘I will look into it and give it a try.’ So far my clients have been pleased with the results, and I continue to learn and expand the services I can provide.”
Unfortunately, sometimes you learn the hard way. A few customers got caught up in the whirlwind housing market a few years ago before the crash, losing hundreds of thousands of dollars on their office space and housing purchases. Learning not to succumb to pressure is a hard pill to swallow, but an invaluable one.
What’s the most valuable learning experience you’ve had as an entrepreneur? Please comment below so we can all learn from your experience.
http://www.inc.com/michael-alter/my-customers-3-most-valuable-learning-experiences.html
A few weeks ago I was curious to see what SurePayroll customers consider their most valuable learning experiences. For years, I’ve said the best learning tool is making mistakes — I even give one lucky employee an award for the year's best new mistake every year. After sending a survey about their most valuable learning experiences, I learned quite a bit from their real-life stories and what their experiences have taught them.
Many of their learning experiences fall into three main categories, ranging from practical office tactics to the philosophy of running their businesses.
1. Effective employee management is a must.
One of my customers summed it up nicely: “I have been in business for over 35 years, and I’m not sure any one experience is the most important. But one thing is for sure: Hiring the right people is critical to anyone's success.” I’ve learned over years that hiring is one of the most difficult aspects of running the show and that the overwhelming majority of my customers agree.
And they’ve also learned that part of having the right people is firing the wrong people, and doing so quickly. That may sound cold, but it’s a reality business owners need to face. A few customers discussed how they struggled in their first few years because they didn’t want to be the small business owner who fired people. Or they weren’t checking candidates’ backgrounds and references properly.
Once the right employees are on board, you have to communicate the vision of your company and make sure they’re aligned with it. And as tough as it sounds, you’re going to have to give your employees breathing room to do some things their way, and to make the occasional mistake. You can trust me that when employees aren’t belittled for making mistakes, it’s good for your business. But you don’t have to take my word for it — many of my customers feel the same way.
Employees want to work somewhere they feel welcome and appreciated – and like they can be themselves. As another customer said, “We all spend so much time at work, it is important to make it a fun environment. When people feel good, their work performance improves. It’s a win-win situation.”
2. Sales and marketing won’t take care of themselves.
Ralph Waldo Emerson is famous for a lot of good reasons, but he couldn’t be more wrong when he wrote “Build a better mousetrap and the world will beat a path to your door.” My customers agree that your mousetrap won’t sell itself.
Many SurePayroll customers started their own businesses because they loved what they were doing, and wanted to concentrate on it full-time and be their own bosses. Then they found out people weren’t beating paths to their doors, even though they offered top-notch products or services. They needed to spread the word via marketing and acquire new business by spending time on sales.
One of my customers learned this by accident, quite literally. After an injury took him out of commission from his carpentry, he needed to hire a replacement for six weeks. That’s when he discovered his strength wasn’t just in his carpentry but in promoting his business. He wrote that “There were plenty of competent carpenters willing and able to take my place as lead site carpenter. I focused my efforts on sales and marketing. Sales picked up significantly. My net income doubled in the span of a year and grew by 50% more the next year.”
Taking on sales and marketing yourself might not be the answer. If you want to stay focused on your trade, let someone else take care of it. The joy of owning your own business is that you can focus on your strengths and outsource your weaknesses, whether that means relying on services or hiring competent employees.
Even the carpenter-turned-salesman would have done it differently: “The next logical step in that duplication would have been to replace myself in my sales and marketing duties, too. Remember, the duplication of effort can be applied to all people in all positions performing all tasks. My end goal could have been to become CEO where all lower level tasks were delegated to highly qualified employees.”
3. You’re your own boss—and your own teacher.
Yes, hiring experts can help you grow your business, but at the end of the day, you’re the one who has to keep learning. As my customers can attest to, education covers everything from gaining new skills to realizing your limitations.
What’s the best place to begin your education? One customer offered a great starting place: “Read. Sounds simple, but it is one of the most important things a business owner can do to improve his or her business. While it is great to have a mentor, and I have many, books are portals to some of the brightest minds from our past and present.”
In addition to traditional education like reading and business school, many customers stressed the importance of on-the-job learning — taking on projects that require them to become experts. One customer wrote, “I had a client ask me to work on a project that required me to do educate myself about the details and the best way to accomplish the task. Rather than tell them, ‘No, I do not have those particular skills,’ I tell them, ‘I will look into it and give it a try.’ So far my clients have been pleased with the results, and I continue to learn and expand the services I can provide.”
Unfortunately, sometimes you learn the hard way. A few customers got caught up in the whirlwind housing market a few years ago before the crash, losing hundreds of thousands of dollars on their office space and housing purchases. Learning not to succumb to pressure is a hard pill to swallow, but an invaluable one.
What’s the most valuable learning experience you’ve had as an entrepreneur? Please comment below so we can all learn from your experience.
http://www.inc.com/michael-alter/my-customers-3-most-valuable-learning-experiences.html
5 Low-Cost Ways to Make Employees Happy
Is there an upside to not being able to afford big bonuses and generous benefits? Bob Nelson, a business consultant in San Diego and author of “1001 Ways to Reward Employees,” thinks so: Your small business actually has a great deal more freedom than a larger one to be creative and cost-effective in how you show appreciation for staff members. “Small businesses are ideally suited to provide motivation to employees in that they aren’t constrained by a large policy manual or multiple levels of required approvals,” Nelson says.
With that in mind, check out these five ideas for making your employees happier:
1. Offer something special
You want the product or service your business offers to stand out in the marketplace. So it makes sense to think of your workplace in the same way by making it special and ensuring that it stands out from those of your competitors.
Don’t go crazy here, just think of simple ways to create a friendly environment. For instance, if long hours are part of your workplace, think about making sure people have ergonomic chairs and good task lighting. Providing snacks on Fridays, or a ping-pong table for break time might be just the ticket to helping your employees understand that you appreciate their efforts.
2. Share control
Time is a precious resource these days. Studies have shown that people in all sorts of situations respond positively to having a little control over their environment, their schedule, and more. Take a look at your workforce and your schedule and introduce some flexibility if there’s room for it. You don’t have to give everyone every Friday off (most businesses can’t go that far) but most workers will warmly welcome occasional, seasonal, or permanent flexibility options.
Nelson notes in his research from consulting with hundreds of companies that people who feel they are helping to shape their workplace and their time, rather than just being a voiceless cog in the wheel, are likely to be happier and more productive.
3. Share the load
Along the same lines, it’s important to remember that most people value and thrive on meaningful engagement. Employees crave involvement and autonomy, which can help your business in many ways. Let them engage in defining their jobs and helping make decisions about company resources and more. That sense of ownership will not only boost their morale, but it may help boost their productivity as well. “It’s common sense,” Nelson says. “We all want to be valued and when workers feel that their contribution is honored, they will honor that as well.”
4. Offer no-interest loans
Looking for benefits that are low-risk for you and high-boost for them? Consider offering small, no-interest loans to employees. Talk to your accountant about how to administer such a program and be sure to cap these as “micro” loans that will just help people on small purchases. It’s a supportive gesture that will not go unnoticed.
5. Show your appreciation
As Julia McGovern and Susan Shelly note in “The Happy Employee: 101 Ways for Mangers to Attract, Retain, & Inspire the Best and Brightest,” one of the most basic morale-boosters is simply recognizing good work. People at all levels appreciate being appreciated, but it doesn’t have to come in the form of a fat check. Many people respond to a simple — and specific — “thank you” from their managers.
Nelson agrees: “Recognition is the top driver of human performance,” he says. “You get what you reward.”
http://www.bnet.com/blog/smb/5-low-cost-ways-to-make-employees-happy/5037
With that in mind, check out these five ideas for making your employees happier:
1. Offer something special
You want the product or service your business offers to stand out in the marketplace. So it makes sense to think of your workplace in the same way by making it special and ensuring that it stands out from those of your competitors.
Don’t go crazy here, just think of simple ways to create a friendly environment. For instance, if long hours are part of your workplace, think about making sure people have ergonomic chairs and good task lighting. Providing snacks on Fridays, or a ping-pong table for break time might be just the ticket to helping your employees understand that you appreciate their efforts.
2. Share control
Time is a precious resource these days. Studies have shown that people in all sorts of situations respond positively to having a little control over their environment, their schedule, and more. Take a look at your workforce and your schedule and introduce some flexibility if there’s room for it. You don’t have to give everyone every Friday off (most businesses can’t go that far) but most workers will warmly welcome occasional, seasonal, or permanent flexibility options.
Nelson notes in his research from consulting with hundreds of companies that people who feel they are helping to shape their workplace and their time, rather than just being a voiceless cog in the wheel, are likely to be happier and more productive.
3. Share the load
Along the same lines, it’s important to remember that most people value and thrive on meaningful engagement. Employees crave involvement and autonomy, which can help your business in many ways. Let them engage in defining their jobs and helping make decisions about company resources and more. That sense of ownership will not only boost their morale, but it may help boost their productivity as well. “It’s common sense,” Nelson says. “We all want to be valued and when workers feel that their contribution is honored, they will honor that as well.”
4. Offer no-interest loans
Looking for benefits that are low-risk for you and high-boost for them? Consider offering small, no-interest loans to employees. Talk to your accountant about how to administer such a program and be sure to cap these as “micro” loans that will just help people on small purchases. It’s a supportive gesture that will not go unnoticed.
5. Show your appreciation
As Julia McGovern and Susan Shelly note in “The Happy Employee: 101 Ways for Mangers to Attract, Retain, & Inspire the Best and Brightest,” one of the most basic morale-boosters is simply recognizing good work. People at all levels appreciate being appreciated, but it doesn’t have to come in the form of a fat check. Many people respond to a simple — and specific — “thank you” from their managers.
Nelson agrees: “Recognition is the top driver of human performance,” he says. “You get what you reward.”
http://www.bnet.com/blog/smb/5-low-cost-ways-to-make-employees-happy/5037
How to Sell on Value Rather Than Price
Don't want to compromise on price? Experts explain how to stay competitive based on the value of your product or service to consumers.
In a famous video clip from Penn and Teller's Showtime hidden camera show, diners are lured to an upscale restaurant branded as the world's first boutique vendor of bottled water. A water steward presents each table with a menu discussing the finer qualities of water purportedly shipped in from mountains and streams all over the world, some of which cost as much as $8 a bottle.
Of course, the joke is on the customers because all the water actually came from the garden hose out back, but the message was clear: People are willing to pay more for a product if they think it gives them a truly special or significant value—and if you present it to them in just the right way.
Your company is probably selling a stuff that's a lot more valuable than fancied-up hose water. Selling on value, not price, involves a balance of confidence, personal rapport, and doing your homework, and it's become more difficult as technology gives consumers greater access to price information and competitors. We've talked with veterans of selling their value, and they share some tips on how to make your products stand out in a low-cost world.
Choose Your Targets Wisely
New companies often make one fatal mistake that forces them to compromise on price, says Barry Farber, a business consultant who has worked with American Airlines, AT&T and BMW, and author of more than 11 books on sales. Companies don't narrow their target market, and don't understand their products likely aren't for everyone.
Farber says to do this by researching the potential client to see if they are a good candidate to meet your price needs. This saves you from wasting time talking to people who only want the cheapest deal.
"Some sales people, they just make sure the prospect is breathing and then they dump all this info on them," he says. "That's not a good return on your investment of your time. Sales reps that don't have that kind of aggressive focus, if they lose [the deal], their month is dead, their year is dead."
Nat Kausik, CEO of Trubates, an online marketplace for adjustable local deals, says his company knows that many consumers are familiar with the nature of value-based pricing, especially after dealing with fluctuating airplane fares. The right customers will be receptive to hearing why they should pay more for a certain product over another: That's why his site lets users review an offer after they redeem it, and makes the review available to other users.
"Consumers, they're very sophisticated," he says. "They understand how to explore price for value."
About one-third of consumers are purely hung up on price, while the other two-thirds are open to at least hearing your argument, says Tom Reilly, an author and value-based shopping expert. Innovators and early adopters are more likely to shell out the extra money, he says.
"Be crystal clear whom the market segment is that you're designing for," he says.
Leverage Your Strengths and Experience
Once you're in the sales meeting with a potential client, you had better be ready to stiffen your backbone and wield the full weight of your company's strengths. This comes largely from sales skills, but you can prepare your team by educating them on how your company stands out.
"It's almost embarrassing at times the way people don't understand all the ways they bring value," Reilly says.
You should also be telling the potential client or customers about the history of the company, which helps build confidence in the product. Build up your success stories by documenting testimonials from past successes and showing them off to future opportunities.
"Be able to successfully use your customers as your sales people," Farber says.
Orwak, a company that supplies waste compactors, baling systems, and other recycling equipment, emphasizes its value thanks to its trans-continental reach. Based in Europe, the company has seen recycling grow leaps and bounds ahead of the United States over the past 40 years. Its sales team pitches its products as a way to help companies stay ahead of the recycling curve.
"We try to sell it as, 'Hey we've been there, done that. Let's look at Europe, that's the future of America,'" says Mark Lanning, Orwak's national sales manager. "We're going to give you a little peek at the future from our experience."
Know That Confidence is Key
When you're highlighting the value of a product over cheaper competitors, you shouldn't be vacillating on price or negotiating. Reilly says to avoid words and phrases that suggest flexibility, things like saying "generally, we charge" or "your price."
"The time not to show a lack of conviction is when you're asking people for money," he says.
Drop the price without hesitation and without getting defensive, he says.
It is the time, however, to mention the advantages you bring to market: global sourcing, logistic support programs and other things that go beyond the features of a single product or service, Reilly says.
You can be confident without dragging your competitors through the dirt, Farber says. Highlight why your product's value is worth their consideration over lower-price options.
"The most critical thing an entrepreneur needs more than anything else is confidence," he says. "If that's missing, I don't care if you have a plan and all that stuff, you're dead in the water. You can lose your edge right away, and selling value becomes 10 times more difficult."
Emphasize Your Customer Service
The toughest job selling value to customers is getting them to picture the full depth and breadth of everything your company has to offer.
Lanning says his company likes to talk about more than just the product, as comparing balers can feel like just comparing one hunk of steel to another. Customers now expect a quick response time, an ease of use and the feeling that you care about them.
"It's easier to paint the picture about service than a hard object," he says.
Farber advises people to foucs on personal touches and developing a rapport with the client by getting to know their needs and business background.
"I'm a big believer of handwritten thank you notes," he says.
Often the customers who are obsessed with finding the lowest price turn into the biggest headaches, he says. But the customers that see your value understand you'll be there to provide customer service.
Make sure to keep providing good service throughout the lifespan of the customer, which will let you pile up those customer testimonials you can use to show future clients why you provide the right value.
"Value is always long term," Reilly says. "Price is short term."
http://www.inc.com/guides/201107/how-to-sell-on-value-rather-than-price.html
In a famous video clip from Penn and Teller's Showtime hidden camera show, diners are lured to an upscale restaurant branded as the world's first boutique vendor of bottled water. A water steward presents each table with a menu discussing the finer qualities of water purportedly shipped in from mountains and streams all over the world, some of which cost as much as $8 a bottle.
Of course, the joke is on the customers because all the water actually came from the garden hose out back, but the message was clear: People are willing to pay more for a product if they think it gives them a truly special or significant value—and if you present it to them in just the right way.
Your company is probably selling a stuff that's a lot more valuable than fancied-up hose water. Selling on value, not price, involves a balance of confidence, personal rapport, and doing your homework, and it's become more difficult as technology gives consumers greater access to price information and competitors. We've talked with veterans of selling their value, and they share some tips on how to make your products stand out in a low-cost world.
Choose Your Targets Wisely
New companies often make one fatal mistake that forces them to compromise on price, says Barry Farber, a business consultant who has worked with American Airlines, AT&T and BMW, and author of more than 11 books on sales. Companies don't narrow their target market, and don't understand their products likely aren't for everyone.
Farber says to do this by researching the potential client to see if they are a good candidate to meet your price needs. This saves you from wasting time talking to people who only want the cheapest deal.
"Some sales people, they just make sure the prospect is breathing and then they dump all this info on them," he says. "That's not a good return on your investment of your time. Sales reps that don't have that kind of aggressive focus, if they lose [the deal], their month is dead, their year is dead."
Nat Kausik, CEO of Trubates, an online marketplace for adjustable local deals, says his company knows that many consumers are familiar with the nature of value-based pricing, especially after dealing with fluctuating airplane fares. The right customers will be receptive to hearing why they should pay more for a certain product over another: That's why his site lets users review an offer after they redeem it, and makes the review available to other users.
"Consumers, they're very sophisticated," he says. "They understand how to explore price for value."
About one-third of consumers are purely hung up on price, while the other two-thirds are open to at least hearing your argument, says Tom Reilly, an author and value-based shopping expert. Innovators and early adopters are more likely to shell out the extra money, he says.
"Be crystal clear whom the market segment is that you're designing for," he says.
Leverage Your Strengths and Experience
Once you're in the sales meeting with a potential client, you had better be ready to stiffen your backbone and wield the full weight of your company's strengths. This comes largely from sales skills, but you can prepare your team by educating them on how your company stands out.
"It's almost embarrassing at times the way people don't understand all the ways they bring value," Reilly says.
You should also be telling the potential client or customers about the history of the company, which helps build confidence in the product. Build up your success stories by documenting testimonials from past successes and showing them off to future opportunities.
"Be able to successfully use your customers as your sales people," Farber says.
Orwak, a company that supplies waste compactors, baling systems, and other recycling equipment, emphasizes its value thanks to its trans-continental reach. Based in Europe, the company has seen recycling grow leaps and bounds ahead of the United States over the past 40 years. Its sales team pitches its products as a way to help companies stay ahead of the recycling curve.
"We try to sell it as, 'Hey we've been there, done that. Let's look at Europe, that's the future of America,'" says Mark Lanning, Orwak's national sales manager. "We're going to give you a little peek at the future from our experience."
Know That Confidence is Key
When you're highlighting the value of a product over cheaper competitors, you shouldn't be vacillating on price or negotiating. Reilly says to avoid words and phrases that suggest flexibility, things like saying "generally, we charge" or "your price."
"The time not to show a lack of conviction is when you're asking people for money," he says.
Drop the price without hesitation and without getting defensive, he says.
It is the time, however, to mention the advantages you bring to market: global sourcing, logistic support programs and other things that go beyond the features of a single product or service, Reilly says.
You can be confident without dragging your competitors through the dirt, Farber says. Highlight why your product's value is worth their consideration over lower-price options.
"The most critical thing an entrepreneur needs more than anything else is confidence," he says. "If that's missing, I don't care if you have a plan and all that stuff, you're dead in the water. You can lose your edge right away, and selling value becomes 10 times more difficult."
Emphasize Your Customer Service
The toughest job selling value to customers is getting them to picture the full depth and breadth of everything your company has to offer.
Lanning says his company likes to talk about more than just the product, as comparing balers can feel like just comparing one hunk of steel to another. Customers now expect a quick response time, an ease of use and the feeling that you care about them.
"It's easier to paint the picture about service than a hard object," he says.
Farber advises people to foucs on personal touches and developing a rapport with the client by getting to know their needs and business background.
"I'm a big believer of handwritten thank you notes," he says.
Often the customers who are obsessed with finding the lowest price turn into the biggest headaches, he says. But the customers that see your value understand you'll be there to provide customer service.
Make sure to keep providing good service throughout the lifespan of the customer, which will let you pile up those customer testimonials you can use to show future clients why you provide the right value.
"Value is always long term," Reilly says. "Price is short term."
http://www.inc.com/guides/201107/how-to-sell-on-value-rather-than-price.html
7/14/11
14 Habits of Happy Men
What makes men happy? If you thought it was all about grilling and beer, well, you wouldn’t be entirely wrong. Our informal poll of a diverse group — chefs and bottlewashers, stock brokers and musicians, bachelors and grand dads — yielded the following list of 14 fulfilling routines and pastimes that help make men happy and healthy.
Morning exercise
“I relish an hour or more of exercise at the start of the day,” says Mitch M., a seasoned consultant. “That could be walking, working outdoors, or playing tennis — but certainly an active period. It sets up the day for both my body and mind.” Fitness experts have long touted the benefits of morning exercise, which is closely associated with positive mood and sustained energy throughout the day. Men who get active in the a.m. hours are more likely to stick with an exercise regimen, too.
Alone time
Spending time with friends and family is a priority among men who describe themselves as happy, but their contentment also depends on finding a few minutes to hold the world at bay. “I always enjoy Sunday morning coffee and a newspaper — on real paper — on the front porch before the rest of the family wakes up,” says Mike Q., a salesman in the New York area. Some guys in our survey seize solitary time to learn or be creative while others want to be alone to “shut off my brain for a while.” Early mornings were a favorite time of day, though early birds and night owls alike savor the quiet moments.
Night out with the guys
“One thing that makes me happy is sitting down with a buddy over some drinks and food, talking about nothing,” says Josh M., a California-based M.D. Admittedly, it’s tough to argue the health benefits of chicken wings, fries and beer. But friendships are commonly formed and reinforced on barstools, and the health benefits of male camaraderie are supported by a significant body of research. Behavioral scientists have linked friendship not only to psychological well-being but to longevity.
Date night
It may not be the first topic of conversation on pub night, but men can be downright protective of their time with a significant other. Fathers with busy lives at work and home are especially covetous of evenings out with a spouse and report that weekly or bi-weekly date nights help keep the pair connected. Living in the same home doesn’t guarantee adequate time to interact, and a strongly bonded couple requires a relationship independent of their mutual attachment to children. Couples with a dedicated plan for spending time together tend to argue less and are better equipped to resolve tensions when they arise back at the homestead.
Games and sports
While men may say that regular ballgames are just a great way to blow off steam, they stand to reap all the benefits of play that children do (social development, honing physical skill sets, promoting mental sharpness) in addition to a long list of physical payoffs. Dr. Stuart Brown, an expert on the subject, has noted that healthy competition in adult play also increases abilities in decision making and problem solving. In his 2009 book Play, Brown writes, “The beneficial effects of getting just a little true play can spread through our lives, actually making us more productive and happier in everything we do.”
Getting organized
Leadership seminars and self-help books encourage effective time management for prioritizing tasks, improving productivity, and achieving goals. But you don’t need a life coach to tell you that gaining control over chaos provides peace of mind. Says Doug E., a professor and author, “I especially like writing down what I need to do on a monthly calendar and then crossing things off when they're done.” Doug’s routine does double duty, providing a template for time management and a built-in reward system for looking back over a month of accomplishments.
Exercise routine
Having a regular workout routine appears to be a leading source of satisfaction among men. The guys from our poll logged in on a variety of exercise preferences (a good run, biking to work, morning swims, a gym workout). Clearly exercise benefits men inside and out, fortifying the system against chronic diseases, managing weight, improving sexuality, and bolstering mood. Back in 1996, the Surgeon General reported on the many associations between inactivity and diseases including obesity, heart disease, high blood pressure, and stroke. It’s no surprise that inactivity has also been linked to depression and increased anxiety.
Generosity and charity
Want to feel good? Try making someone else feel good. Says Alex S., a real-estate consultant, “When I come from a place of giving to others I genuinely feel better about being me…. I try to carry that with me every day, and I’ve developed a way to measure it. I need to get six thank-you’s every single day from different people. If I get a thank-you from someone, then I know I've given something or done something someone else appreciates. I know it's dopey, but it makes me happy.”
An indulgent meal
Everyone must be cautioned against overeating, especially on a regular basis, but the occasional big meal — a stack of pancakes, a thick steak, a rich pasta — can be a source of satisfaction for a healthy man. Big meals are part of a longstanding tradition for men, and today’s warriors sometimes deserve a feast after returning home from battle at the office. Mitch P., a chef who routinely serves healthy, locally grown vegetables at his own restaurant, says, “On a quiet Sunday, I’ll flop on the couch and watch football or hockey with a huge, cheesy sandwich. Not the healthiest day off, but I need it.”
Down time with family
"It could be just TV time or a family board game — doesn’t matter. Downtime with the family helps keep me happy,” says Erik W., a business owner and father of pre-teen twins. Relaxed family time opens the lines of communication, reinforces the strength of a marriage, and provides an opportunity to decompress. The satisfaction of good parenting can be added to the equation, too, since family time helps kids build self confidence and stave off peer pressure.
Meal with family or friends
A good meal in good company is something of a feast for the senses. With positive, pleasure-inducing signals sent from the eyes, ears, nose and mouth, a man’s brain receives the message that the experience is nourishing to both the body and the mind. That, in physiological terms, defines happiness. Says David G., who happens to be a psychologist, “My happiness comes from ephemeral things like sitting around the table with family or friends — no special event, just any old dinner — and seeing everyone enjoying themselves.”
Playing an instrument
“Nothing relieves my stress like sitting down on the couch with my guitar and playing until the tension melts away,” says Evan K. of New York City. Accomplished musicians and amateurs alike enjoy the rewards of time spent on an instrument, a mental task that is uniquely well suited to blocking distractions and diminishing intrusive thoughts. Like other creative pursuits such as painting or woodworking, playing an instrument calls on different mental faculties than those tapped during the rest of the day. Several men we polled cited personal creative time as a great diversion and deeply fulfilling.
Time with the kids
Maybe it’s because we men really are just overgrown kids, as often characterized, that this category was the leading source of happiness among the dads polled. Anywhere they could catch one-on-time with their children — driving to practice, at the bus stop, during a bedside chat — the experience was genuinely prized and rewarding. “Whatever the topic, it just feels good to have that personal, uninterrupted time with each of my sons,” says Billy F., father of two teenaged boys. Josh S., an account exec, commented, “Discussing the shapes of clouds with my six-year-old is always eye-opening.”
Walking
An invigorating walk outdoors is sometimes referred to as a constitutional, meaning “beneficial to bodily constitution.” Lethargy, stress, anxiety and depression all stand to be lessened by getting out into the fresh air and making your body move according to its natural design. “A 30-45 minute walk can be peaceful, and it gets my blood pumping,” says Mike Q. “If I miss a day or two, I feel off.” Health authorities recommend adding as many steps to your day as your age and condition comfortably allow. Even the experts on arthritis, reversing an earlier understanding, frequently suggest walking for relieving pain in arthritic hips and knees.
http://health.msn.com/mens-health/slideshow.aspx?cp-documentid=100268482
Morning exercise
“I relish an hour or more of exercise at the start of the day,” says Mitch M., a seasoned consultant. “That could be walking, working outdoors, or playing tennis — but certainly an active period. It sets up the day for both my body and mind.” Fitness experts have long touted the benefits of morning exercise, which is closely associated with positive mood and sustained energy throughout the day. Men who get active in the a.m. hours are more likely to stick with an exercise regimen, too.
Alone time
Spending time with friends and family is a priority among men who describe themselves as happy, but their contentment also depends on finding a few minutes to hold the world at bay. “I always enjoy Sunday morning coffee and a newspaper — on real paper — on the front porch before the rest of the family wakes up,” says Mike Q., a salesman in the New York area. Some guys in our survey seize solitary time to learn or be creative while others want to be alone to “shut off my brain for a while.” Early mornings were a favorite time of day, though early birds and night owls alike savor the quiet moments.
Night out with the guys
“One thing that makes me happy is sitting down with a buddy over some drinks and food, talking about nothing,” says Josh M., a California-based M.D. Admittedly, it’s tough to argue the health benefits of chicken wings, fries and beer. But friendships are commonly formed and reinforced on barstools, and the health benefits of male camaraderie are supported by a significant body of research. Behavioral scientists have linked friendship not only to psychological well-being but to longevity.
Date night
It may not be the first topic of conversation on pub night, but men can be downright protective of their time with a significant other. Fathers with busy lives at work and home are especially covetous of evenings out with a spouse and report that weekly or bi-weekly date nights help keep the pair connected. Living in the same home doesn’t guarantee adequate time to interact, and a strongly bonded couple requires a relationship independent of their mutual attachment to children. Couples with a dedicated plan for spending time together tend to argue less and are better equipped to resolve tensions when they arise back at the homestead.
Games and sports
While men may say that regular ballgames are just a great way to blow off steam, they stand to reap all the benefits of play that children do (social development, honing physical skill sets, promoting mental sharpness) in addition to a long list of physical payoffs. Dr. Stuart Brown, an expert on the subject, has noted that healthy competition in adult play also increases abilities in decision making and problem solving. In his 2009 book Play, Brown writes, “The beneficial effects of getting just a little true play can spread through our lives, actually making us more productive and happier in everything we do.”
Getting organized
Leadership seminars and self-help books encourage effective time management for prioritizing tasks, improving productivity, and achieving goals. But you don’t need a life coach to tell you that gaining control over chaos provides peace of mind. Says Doug E., a professor and author, “I especially like writing down what I need to do on a monthly calendar and then crossing things off when they're done.” Doug’s routine does double duty, providing a template for time management and a built-in reward system for looking back over a month of accomplishments.
Exercise routine
Having a regular workout routine appears to be a leading source of satisfaction among men. The guys from our poll logged in on a variety of exercise preferences (a good run, biking to work, morning swims, a gym workout). Clearly exercise benefits men inside and out, fortifying the system against chronic diseases, managing weight, improving sexuality, and bolstering mood. Back in 1996, the Surgeon General reported on the many associations between inactivity and diseases including obesity, heart disease, high blood pressure, and stroke. It’s no surprise that inactivity has also been linked to depression and increased anxiety.
Generosity and charity
Want to feel good? Try making someone else feel good. Says Alex S., a real-estate consultant, “When I come from a place of giving to others I genuinely feel better about being me…. I try to carry that with me every day, and I’ve developed a way to measure it. I need to get six thank-you’s every single day from different people. If I get a thank-you from someone, then I know I've given something or done something someone else appreciates. I know it's dopey, but it makes me happy.”
An indulgent meal
Everyone must be cautioned against overeating, especially on a regular basis, but the occasional big meal — a stack of pancakes, a thick steak, a rich pasta — can be a source of satisfaction for a healthy man. Big meals are part of a longstanding tradition for men, and today’s warriors sometimes deserve a feast after returning home from battle at the office. Mitch P., a chef who routinely serves healthy, locally grown vegetables at his own restaurant, says, “On a quiet Sunday, I’ll flop on the couch and watch football or hockey with a huge, cheesy sandwich. Not the healthiest day off, but I need it.”
Down time with family
"It could be just TV time or a family board game — doesn’t matter. Downtime with the family helps keep me happy,” says Erik W., a business owner and father of pre-teen twins. Relaxed family time opens the lines of communication, reinforces the strength of a marriage, and provides an opportunity to decompress. The satisfaction of good parenting can be added to the equation, too, since family time helps kids build self confidence and stave off peer pressure.
Meal with family or friends
A good meal in good company is something of a feast for the senses. With positive, pleasure-inducing signals sent from the eyes, ears, nose and mouth, a man’s brain receives the message that the experience is nourishing to both the body and the mind. That, in physiological terms, defines happiness. Says David G., who happens to be a psychologist, “My happiness comes from ephemeral things like sitting around the table with family or friends — no special event, just any old dinner — and seeing everyone enjoying themselves.”
Playing an instrument
“Nothing relieves my stress like sitting down on the couch with my guitar and playing until the tension melts away,” says Evan K. of New York City. Accomplished musicians and amateurs alike enjoy the rewards of time spent on an instrument, a mental task that is uniquely well suited to blocking distractions and diminishing intrusive thoughts. Like other creative pursuits such as painting or woodworking, playing an instrument calls on different mental faculties than those tapped during the rest of the day. Several men we polled cited personal creative time as a great diversion and deeply fulfilling.
Time with the kids
Maybe it’s because we men really are just overgrown kids, as often characterized, that this category was the leading source of happiness among the dads polled. Anywhere they could catch one-on-time with their children — driving to practice, at the bus stop, during a bedside chat — the experience was genuinely prized and rewarding. “Whatever the topic, it just feels good to have that personal, uninterrupted time with each of my sons,” says Billy F., father of two teenaged boys. Josh S., an account exec, commented, “Discussing the shapes of clouds with my six-year-old is always eye-opening.”
Walking
An invigorating walk outdoors is sometimes referred to as a constitutional, meaning “beneficial to bodily constitution.” Lethargy, stress, anxiety and depression all stand to be lessened by getting out into the fresh air and making your body move according to its natural design. “A 30-45 minute walk can be peaceful, and it gets my blood pumping,” says Mike Q. “If I miss a day or two, I feel off.” Health authorities recommend adding as many steps to your day as your age and condition comfortably allow. Even the experts on arthritis, reversing an earlier understanding, frequently suggest walking for relieving pain in arthritic hips and knees.
http://health.msn.com/mens-health/slideshow.aspx?cp-documentid=100268482
7/13/11
Army Lessons That Apply to Small Business
How former Lieutenant General William G. Pagonis translates what he learned in the Army to steer logistics at Sears and now at Uno Chicago Grill and horse ranch
Lieutenant General William G. Pagonis might have rested on his laurels and retired in 1993, when he capped his 29-year Army career as the logistical chief of the first Gulf War. The 18-month stint earned him kudos from the Allied Forces commander Norman Schwarzkopf, whose memoir saluted Pagonis as the "logistical wizard" of the war.
But Pagonis decided to apply his wizardry to shake up logistics at Sears Roebuck & Co. As executive vice president of supply-chain management from 1993 to 2004, he was a key architect of the giant retailer's storied financial turnaround in those years. Most recently, Pagonis helps manage two small family businesses: a 50-employee Uno Chicago Grill pizza franchise that he owns with his son, Robert; and a seven-employee horse ranch in Evans City, Pennsylvania, that he and his wife, Cheri, own.
A lecturer and consultant on supply chain management, Pagonis is the author of the 1992 book, Moving Mountains: Lessons in Leadership and Logistics from the Gulf War.
Recently contributing writer Joseph Rosenbloom interviewed Pagonis about the logistics lessons he learned from his time at the Army and Sears, all of which can be applied to small businesses (like the ones he runs with his son and wife).
At 5-feet-6 ½ you're a head shorter than the stereotypical general—Norman Schwarzkopf, for example. Was your lack of vertical stature a disadvantage in the Army, or in business?
Not at all. It's performance. It's how well you do. It's how well you present yourself, and can you get people to do what you want them to do and go that extra mile? That's where the leadership part comes in.
In the military, what is at the core of effective leadership?
What they teach you in the military is, number one, take care of your troops and train them, and the job will get done. It's a mission-team-type effort. Even if people don't care about each other, they are going to come together, especially if they're in combat. In the civilian sector, you've got to motivate people, and you've got to make sure that they work as a team.
What did you take from your experience in the Army to improve supply chain management at Sears?
As in the Gulf War, I was the single point of contact for the supply chain. The first year we saved over $100 million right to the bottom line without firing anybody. The average turnover rate at Sears was, like 50 percent to 60 percent, a year. My turnover rate was 10 percent.
How did you achieve such impressive results?
When I was the single point of contact for the Sears supply chain, I could consolidate. I could coordinate. In Columbus, Ohio, we had about eight distribution centers. I was able to form a team there. If one facility needed troops there in a peak period, we could transfer from another facility. When the heads of all the distribution centers were reporting to one person, there was greater coordination. If we needed to transfer people from one site to another, we could do it more easily.
How did you cut employee turnover so dramatically?
I tried to make sure people had fun in their jobs, that they understood what the mission was. Families are so important. I would not see anybody at Sears after 5:30 in the afternoon.
I used to tell people, "You have a wedding anniversary and you have to leave at 3 o'clock, send your subordinate. And if you train your subordinate properly, it shouldn't be a problem." I would also use management tools: stand-up meetings and 3x5 cards. People would send me short, concise 3x5 cards by email with updates, concerns, and other operational information.
You insist on stand-up meetings?
About four days a week I had a stand-up meeting at Sears every morning at 8 o'clock. It didn’t last more than 15 to 20 minutes. Everyone was represented from the supply chain: transportation, warehousing and so on. I'd go around the room, and I'd get a quick update of what happened the day before, and what was going to be happening that day. All people in the room shared the information, and that's critical in the supply chain.
Why not let people sit down?
When you sit down, a meeting goes for over an hour or an hour and a half, and you lose everybody. When people are standing, they talk faster or they say I don't have anything to add. I did have a sit-down meeting once a week to cover ups and downs: What happened great for the week, what didn't happen well. And if it didn't happen, what did you do to fix it?
And why are 3x5 cards such a big deal?
If you have a 20 or 30-page report, nobody reads it. If you're working for me, I ask that your reports fit on a 3x5 index card. If it's longer than the front and back of a 3x5 card—and I do have index card formats for email—I won't read it. And I tell my managers I won't read it.
But in your book you said that you preferred 3x5 cards to email, in part, because of their anonymity.
I did, because remember in those days we didn't have laptops or other ready ways to access email. Today, I do everything on email and just keep a 3x5 card format.
But email doesn't allow for the anonymity that you built into your memo-flow system in the Army.
It doesn't. But at Sears I had a negative-free environment. People were not afraid to tell anybody that something was screwed up. Bosses were not allowed to stop bad news from coming to me. If they did, they got in big trouble with me.
Since the merger of Sears and Kmart in 2005, the consolidated company has hit the skids, despite the fixes you left in place. What happened?
I think they made a mistake of not finding the right people to lead Sears. There are a lot of great practices that are still in use. In the supply chain operations, they're still functioning with 3x5 cards. Some people still do the stand-up meetings. Their product mix is what's killing them.
You explained your belief in the virtues of email, but you've also stressed the importance of top executives having person-to-person contact with their employees.
One of my greatest strengths, when people were briefing me, was telling in a minute whether they really believed in what they were saying. But you can work over emails and never meet somebody for years. I think leaders of the future will have to figure out how to compensate for the lack of face-to-face contact.
Do your military methods apply to small companies?
Starting in December and continuing this year, I did a consulting job for a trucking company that had 25 employees. I used the same principles of 3x5 cards and stand-up meetings. Sales went up, and the company was more productive.
Has it been humbling to involve yourself in businesses as small as your son's restaurant and your wife's ranch?
It has been a dose of reality. Everybody doesn't feel as strongly as you do that they want to make money for the company and save costs. You see that the guys mucking out the stall could care less about turning the horses out and grooming them. You're paying minimum wage. He just wants to do his job and go home at 5 o'clock. Being down in the trenches again reminds me how critical it is to understand that everybody doesn't have the same desires and wants as the boss.
It has also been interesting because I now work with both my wife and and my son. They'll talk to employees one on one. I call it sensing sessions. My son will bring in three servers, two bartenders, and two busboys. He'll take thirty minutes. He'll have each of them write down on a piece of paper three ups and three downs about the operations. For the downs, he'll ask, "How can you fix it?" It’s amazing what kind of feedback he's getting.
http://www.inc.com/articles/201107/army-lessons-that-apply-to-small-business.html
Lieutenant General William G. Pagonis might have rested on his laurels and retired in 1993, when he capped his 29-year Army career as the logistical chief of the first Gulf War. The 18-month stint earned him kudos from the Allied Forces commander Norman Schwarzkopf, whose memoir saluted Pagonis as the "logistical wizard" of the war.
But Pagonis decided to apply his wizardry to shake up logistics at Sears Roebuck & Co. As executive vice president of supply-chain management from 1993 to 2004, he was a key architect of the giant retailer's storied financial turnaround in those years. Most recently, Pagonis helps manage two small family businesses: a 50-employee Uno Chicago Grill pizza franchise that he owns with his son, Robert; and a seven-employee horse ranch in Evans City, Pennsylvania, that he and his wife, Cheri, own.
A lecturer and consultant on supply chain management, Pagonis is the author of the 1992 book, Moving Mountains: Lessons in Leadership and Logistics from the Gulf War.
Recently contributing writer Joseph Rosenbloom interviewed Pagonis about the logistics lessons he learned from his time at the Army and Sears, all of which can be applied to small businesses (like the ones he runs with his son and wife).
At 5-feet-6 ½ you're a head shorter than the stereotypical general—Norman Schwarzkopf, for example. Was your lack of vertical stature a disadvantage in the Army, or in business?
Not at all. It's performance. It's how well you do. It's how well you present yourself, and can you get people to do what you want them to do and go that extra mile? That's where the leadership part comes in.
In the military, what is at the core of effective leadership?
What they teach you in the military is, number one, take care of your troops and train them, and the job will get done. It's a mission-team-type effort. Even if people don't care about each other, they are going to come together, especially if they're in combat. In the civilian sector, you've got to motivate people, and you've got to make sure that they work as a team.
What did you take from your experience in the Army to improve supply chain management at Sears?
As in the Gulf War, I was the single point of contact for the supply chain. The first year we saved over $100 million right to the bottom line without firing anybody. The average turnover rate at Sears was, like 50 percent to 60 percent, a year. My turnover rate was 10 percent.
How did you achieve such impressive results?
When I was the single point of contact for the Sears supply chain, I could consolidate. I could coordinate. In Columbus, Ohio, we had about eight distribution centers. I was able to form a team there. If one facility needed troops there in a peak period, we could transfer from another facility. When the heads of all the distribution centers were reporting to one person, there was greater coordination. If we needed to transfer people from one site to another, we could do it more easily.
How did you cut employee turnover so dramatically?
I tried to make sure people had fun in their jobs, that they understood what the mission was. Families are so important. I would not see anybody at Sears after 5:30 in the afternoon.
I used to tell people, "You have a wedding anniversary and you have to leave at 3 o'clock, send your subordinate. And if you train your subordinate properly, it shouldn't be a problem." I would also use management tools: stand-up meetings and 3x5 cards. People would send me short, concise 3x5 cards by email with updates, concerns, and other operational information.
You insist on stand-up meetings?
About four days a week I had a stand-up meeting at Sears every morning at 8 o'clock. It didn’t last more than 15 to 20 minutes. Everyone was represented from the supply chain: transportation, warehousing and so on. I'd go around the room, and I'd get a quick update of what happened the day before, and what was going to be happening that day. All people in the room shared the information, and that's critical in the supply chain.
Why not let people sit down?
When you sit down, a meeting goes for over an hour or an hour and a half, and you lose everybody. When people are standing, they talk faster or they say I don't have anything to add. I did have a sit-down meeting once a week to cover ups and downs: What happened great for the week, what didn't happen well. And if it didn't happen, what did you do to fix it?
And why are 3x5 cards such a big deal?
If you have a 20 or 30-page report, nobody reads it. If you're working for me, I ask that your reports fit on a 3x5 index card. If it's longer than the front and back of a 3x5 card—and I do have index card formats for email—I won't read it. And I tell my managers I won't read it.
But in your book you said that you preferred 3x5 cards to email, in part, because of their anonymity.
I did, because remember in those days we didn't have laptops or other ready ways to access email. Today, I do everything on email and just keep a 3x5 card format.
But email doesn't allow for the anonymity that you built into your memo-flow system in the Army.
It doesn't. But at Sears I had a negative-free environment. People were not afraid to tell anybody that something was screwed up. Bosses were not allowed to stop bad news from coming to me. If they did, they got in big trouble with me.
Since the merger of Sears and Kmart in 2005, the consolidated company has hit the skids, despite the fixes you left in place. What happened?
I think they made a mistake of not finding the right people to lead Sears. There are a lot of great practices that are still in use. In the supply chain operations, they're still functioning with 3x5 cards. Some people still do the stand-up meetings. Their product mix is what's killing them.
You explained your belief in the virtues of email, but you've also stressed the importance of top executives having person-to-person contact with their employees.
One of my greatest strengths, when people were briefing me, was telling in a minute whether they really believed in what they were saying. But you can work over emails and never meet somebody for years. I think leaders of the future will have to figure out how to compensate for the lack of face-to-face contact.
Do your military methods apply to small companies?
Starting in December and continuing this year, I did a consulting job for a trucking company that had 25 employees. I used the same principles of 3x5 cards and stand-up meetings. Sales went up, and the company was more productive.
Has it been humbling to involve yourself in businesses as small as your son's restaurant and your wife's ranch?
It has been a dose of reality. Everybody doesn't feel as strongly as you do that they want to make money for the company and save costs. You see that the guys mucking out the stall could care less about turning the horses out and grooming them. You're paying minimum wage. He just wants to do his job and go home at 5 o'clock. Being down in the trenches again reminds me how critical it is to understand that everybody doesn't have the same desires and wants as the boss.
It has also been interesting because I now work with both my wife and and my son. They'll talk to employees one on one. I call it sensing sessions. My son will bring in three servers, two bartenders, and two busboys. He'll take thirty minutes. He'll have each of them write down on a piece of paper three ups and three downs about the operations. For the downs, he'll ask, "How can you fix it?" It’s amazing what kind of feedback he's getting.
http://www.inc.com/articles/201107/army-lessons-that-apply-to-small-business.html
7/2/11
10 Tips for Raising Children of Character
It is one of those essential facts of life that raising good children--children of character--demands time and attention. While having children may be “doing what comes naturally,” being a good parent is much more complicated. Here are ten tips to help your children build sturdy characters:
1. Put parenting first. This is hard to do in a world with so many competing demands. Good parents consciously plan and devote time to parenting. They make developing their children’s character their top priority.
2. Review how you spend the hours and days of your week. Think about the amount of time your children spend with you. Plan how you can weave your children into your social life and knit yourself into their lives.
3. Be a good example. Face it: human beings learn primarily through modeling. In fact, you can’t avoid being an example to your children, whether good or bad. Being a good example, then, is probably your most important job.
4. Develop an ear and an eye for what your children are absorbing. Children are like sponges. Much of what they take in has to do with moral values and character. Books, songs, TV, the Internet, and films are continually delivering messages—moral and immoral—to our children. As parents we must control the flow of ideas and images that are influencing our children.
5. Use the language of character. Children cannot develop a moral compass unless people around them use the clear, sharp language of right and wrong.
6. Punish with a loving heart. Today, punishment has a bad reputation. The results are guilt-ridden parents and self-indulgent, out-of-control children. Children need limits. They will ignore these limits on occasion. Reasonable punishment is one of the ways human beings have always learned. Children must understand what punishment is for and know that its source is parental love.
7. Learn to listen to your children. It is easy for us to tune out the talk of our children. One of the greatest things we can do for them is to take them seriously and set aside time to listen.
8. Get deeply involved in your child’s school life. School is the main event in the lives of our children. Their experience there is a mixed bag of triumphs and disappointments. How they deal with them will influence the course of their lives. Helping our children become good students is another name for helping them acquire strong character.
9. Make a big deal out of the family meal. One of the most dangerous trends in America is the dying of the family meal. The dinner table is not only a place of sustenance and family business but also a place for the teaching and passing on of our values. Manners and rules are subtly absorbed over the table. Family mealtime should communicate and sustain ideals that children will draw on throughout their lives.
10. Do not reduce character education to words alone. We gain virtue through practice. Parents should help children by promoting moral action through self-discipline, good work habits, kind and considerate behavior to others, and community service. The bottom line in character development is behavior--their behavior.
As parents, we want our children to be the architects of their own character crafting, while we accept the responsibility to be architects of the environment—physical and moral. We need to create an environment in which our children can develop habits of honesty, generosity, and a sense of justice. For most of us, the greatest opportunity we personally have to deepen our own character is through the daily blood, sweat and tears of struggling to be good parents.
http://www.bu.edu/education/caec/files/10tips.htm
1. Put parenting first. This is hard to do in a world with so many competing demands. Good parents consciously plan and devote time to parenting. They make developing their children’s character their top priority.
2. Review how you spend the hours and days of your week. Think about the amount of time your children spend with you. Plan how you can weave your children into your social life and knit yourself into their lives.
3. Be a good example. Face it: human beings learn primarily through modeling. In fact, you can’t avoid being an example to your children, whether good or bad. Being a good example, then, is probably your most important job.
4. Develop an ear and an eye for what your children are absorbing. Children are like sponges. Much of what they take in has to do with moral values and character. Books, songs, TV, the Internet, and films are continually delivering messages—moral and immoral—to our children. As parents we must control the flow of ideas and images that are influencing our children.
5. Use the language of character. Children cannot develop a moral compass unless people around them use the clear, sharp language of right and wrong.
6. Punish with a loving heart. Today, punishment has a bad reputation. The results are guilt-ridden parents and self-indulgent, out-of-control children. Children need limits. They will ignore these limits on occasion. Reasonable punishment is one of the ways human beings have always learned. Children must understand what punishment is for and know that its source is parental love.
7. Learn to listen to your children. It is easy for us to tune out the talk of our children. One of the greatest things we can do for them is to take them seriously and set aside time to listen.
8. Get deeply involved in your child’s school life. School is the main event in the lives of our children. Their experience there is a mixed bag of triumphs and disappointments. How they deal with them will influence the course of their lives. Helping our children become good students is another name for helping them acquire strong character.
9. Make a big deal out of the family meal. One of the most dangerous trends in America is the dying of the family meal. The dinner table is not only a place of sustenance and family business but also a place for the teaching and passing on of our values. Manners and rules are subtly absorbed over the table. Family mealtime should communicate and sustain ideals that children will draw on throughout their lives.
10. Do not reduce character education to words alone. We gain virtue through practice. Parents should help children by promoting moral action through self-discipline, good work habits, kind and considerate behavior to others, and community service. The bottom line in character development is behavior--their behavior.
As parents, we want our children to be the architects of their own character crafting, while we accept the responsibility to be architects of the environment—physical and moral. We need to create an environment in which our children can develop habits of honesty, generosity, and a sense of justice. For most of us, the greatest opportunity we personally have to deepen our own character is through the daily blood, sweat and tears of struggling to be good parents.
http://www.bu.edu/education/caec/files/10tips.htm
6/27/11
10 Signs Your Child May Be Gifted
Many a proud mama and papa have deemed their tot advanced or ahead of the game, but most babes are only geniuses in their parents' eyes. However, some tots actually are branded as gifted. Is yours? There are a few developmental guidelines that often indicate giftedness in children, so here are ten signs that your child may be headed to the head of the class.
- Retains Information: The term "in one ear and out the other" seems to apply to most children. Those who are a cut above when it comes to intelligence actually retain a wide variety of information and are able to recall it at a later time. An example from the National Association of Gifted Children (NAGC) is: "One six-year-old returned from a trip to the space museum and reproduced an accurate drawing of a space rocket he had seen."
- Wide Spectrum of Interests: Gifted kiddos display an interest in a wide variety of topics. They may like dinosaurs one month, space the next month, and so fourth.
- Writes and Reads Early: If your tot is a smarty pants, she may be able to read and write very early on and without having had any real formal teaching.
- Is Musically or Artistically Talented: Children who display an unusual talent for music and/or art are often considered gifted. Tots who can draw things to perspective, have perfect pitch, or display any other higher perception of forms of art usually fall into the gifted category.
- Shows Periods of Intense Concentration: Children are not known for their long attention span, but gifted wee ones are able to have longer periods of intense concentration.
- Has a Good Memory: Some gifted tots are able to remember things from when they were smaller. For example, a two-year-old may remember and bring up (unprovoked) an occurrence from when he was 18-months.
- Has an Advanced Vocabulary: A tot who's early to speak is not a sign of giftedness alone, but if your lil talker is using advanced vocabulary and sentences, then he or she may be as bright as you think. According to the NAGC, "Children at age two make sentences like: 'There's a doggie.' A two-year-old who is gifted might say, 'There's a brown doggie in the backyard and he's sniffing our flower.' "
- Pays Attention to Details: A gifted child has a keen eye for details. An older child may want to know specific details about how things work, while a younger child will be able to put away toys exactly where he got them from or notice if something has been moved from its usual spot.
- Acts as His Own Critic: In general kids are not too worried about themselves or others, unless their friend has something they want. Gifted kids are the opposite and are concerned with others, but are most critical of themselves.
- Understands Complex Concepts: Tots who are highly intelligent have the ability to understand complex concepts, perceive relationships, and think abstractly. They are able to understand problems in depth and think about solutions.
6/22/11
10 Tips to Perfect Steak
Buy Dry Aged
Expensive? Yes. Worth it? Absolutely. Not only are you paying for a month of storage in a well-circulated cooler--where the beef loses up to 20 percent of its weight until it becomes as pungent as a wheel of cheese--you're getting meat with concentrated layers of flavor I could never create myself.
Let It Warm Up
Take the steak out of the fridge and let it come to room temperature about an hour before you cook it. Skip this step and the outcome will disappoint. As Rob Levitt of Chicago's The Butcher & Larder describes it: "The outside will be charred and the inside will be mostly gray meat with a little nugget of red in the middle."
Consider the Thickness
One-and-a-half to two inches is not some arbitrary measurement when it comes to hefty cuts like rib eye or New York strip. Rather, this thickness ensures that your steak will achieve the perfect char on the outside just as the interior reaches the ideal temperature.
Salt, Salt, and Salt Again
A few hours before you grill, lightly sprinkle both sides of the steak with salt; put it on a wire rack set on a rimmed baking sheet. The salt helps the cells retain water, guaranteeing juicy meat. Before placing it on the grill, pat dry with paper towels, and generously salt the meat again. (Use kosher salt; the bigger grains make for a superior crust.) Finally, pass some fleur de sel at the table to sprinkle over the sliced steak for more flavor.
Crack Your Own Pepper
Pepper not only adds an element of spice to steak, it also adds crunch. You want a combination of fine, medium, and big pieces. To achieve this, pour whole peppercorns in a resealable plastic bag and crush them with a heavy skillet.
Build a Two-Zone Fire
You want a hot side to sear the meat and a not-so-hot side to finish the cooking. If you've got a gas grill, that's easy: Keep one burner on low while the others go full blast. If you're cooking over coals, use your tongs to build a ramp of embers climbing up to one side of the grill to create high-low control.
Feel the Heat
How do you know when the coals are ready? Once the flames have died down and the coals are glowing orange, use the 2-2 rule: Put your hand two inches above the hottest part of the coals. If you can hold it there for two seconds--no more, no less--you're good to grill.
Control Flare Ups
Dripping fat + hot coals = scorched, carcinogenic steak. Don't use a spritz bottle of water to douse the flames; you'll kick up ash. And putting the lid on the grill won't smother the fire fast enough. To get that rib eye out of harm's way, gently slide it to a flare-free area with tongs until the fire subsides. (If you throw the meat around, you'll shake out more fat and start another fire.)
Use Real Charcoal
Hardwood lump charcoal burns hotter and faster than manufactured briquettes. It doesn't matter if you use oak or mesquite, as long as it looks like it came from a tree and not construction scraps. You want your steak to taste faintly of smoke, not chemicals.
End the Guessing
A temperature of 125 degrees means medium-rare. Instant-read thermometers guarantee you'll get it right. We recommend CDN's $8 version. (www.chefsresource.com)
Let the Meat Rest
Ten minutes of calm does wonders for a steak--no foil tent needed. Fibers relax. Juices spread. Colors are re calibrated and flavors retained. Think of it as a disco nap for protein. Remember: Patience is a virtue. You've come this far; do not squander porterhouse perfection.
Expensive? Yes. Worth it? Absolutely. Not only are you paying for a month of storage in a well-circulated cooler--where the beef loses up to 20 percent of its weight until it becomes as pungent as a wheel of cheese--you're getting meat with concentrated layers of flavor I could never create myself.
Let It Warm Up
Take the steak out of the fridge and let it come to room temperature about an hour before you cook it. Skip this step and the outcome will disappoint. As Rob Levitt of Chicago's The Butcher & Larder describes it: "The outside will be charred and the inside will be mostly gray meat with a little nugget of red in the middle."
Consider the Thickness
One-and-a-half to two inches is not some arbitrary measurement when it comes to hefty cuts like rib eye or New York strip. Rather, this thickness ensures that your steak will achieve the perfect char on the outside just as the interior reaches the ideal temperature.
Salt, Salt, and Salt Again
A few hours before you grill, lightly sprinkle both sides of the steak with salt; put it on a wire rack set on a rimmed baking sheet. The salt helps the cells retain water, guaranteeing juicy meat. Before placing it on the grill, pat dry with paper towels, and generously salt the meat again. (Use kosher salt; the bigger grains make for a superior crust.) Finally, pass some fleur de sel at the table to sprinkle over the sliced steak for more flavor.
Crack Your Own Pepper
Pepper not only adds an element of spice to steak, it also adds crunch. You want a combination of fine, medium, and big pieces. To achieve this, pour whole peppercorns in a resealable plastic bag and crush them with a heavy skillet.
Build a Two-Zone Fire
You want a hot side to sear the meat and a not-so-hot side to finish the cooking. If you've got a gas grill, that's easy: Keep one burner on low while the others go full blast. If you're cooking over coals, use your tongs to build a ramp of embers climbing up to one side of the grill to create high-low control.
Feel the Heat
How do you know when the coals are ready? Once the flames have died down and the coals are glowing orange, use the 2-2 rule: Put your hand two inches above the hottest part of the coals. If you can hold it there for two seconds--no more, no less--you're good to grill.
Control Flare Ups
Dripping fat + hot coals = scorched, carcinogenic steak. Don't use a spritz bottle of water to douse the flames; you'll kick up ash. And putting the lid on the grill won't smother the fire fast enough. To get that rib eye out of harm's way, gently slide it to a flare-free area with tongs until the fire subsides. (If you throw the meat around, you'll shake out more fat and start another fire.)
Use Real Charcoal
Hardwood lump charcoal burns hotter and faster than manufactured briquettes. It doesn't matter if you use oak or mesquite, as long as it looks like it came from a tree and not construction scraps. You want your steak to taste faintly of smoke, not chemicals.
End the Guessing
A temperature of 125 degrees means medium-rare. Instant-read thermometers guarantee you'll get it right. We recommend CDN's $8 version. (www.chefsresource.com)
Let the Meat Rest
Ten minutes of calm does wonders for a steak--no foil tent needed. Fibers relax. Juices spread. Colors are re calibrated and flavors retained. Think of it as a disco nap for protein. Remember: Patience is a virtue. You've come this far; do not squander porterhouse perfection.
6/15/11
6 Essential Skills Every Entrepreneur Should Have
There's no doubt that entrepreneurs have the passion and mindset to develop innovative business ideas. What they often lack are the skills required to effectively execute them.
Starting and building a company is all about leadership: formulating an idea, building a unique plan based on vision and experience, and forging a path over and through all obstacles. Yet the image of leadership in business is at an all-time low, according to national leadership experts, considering the political debacles, record business bankruptcies, and executive fraud cases.
If the country is to recover financially and politically, new leaders will have to emerge to fill the leadership deficit—new leaders who understand that leadership is a privilege, not an entitlement—according to executive coach Michael Schutzler, author of the book Inspiring Excellence: A Path to Exceptional Leadership.
Entrepreneurs are well positioned to become the new leaders, because they perceive problems as opportunities and have the mindset to innovate and execute. They have the required passion, perseverance, and work ethic. What they don't have by default are the skills required, or the relationships. These don't come automatically with the CEO title.
Schutzler's view of leadership is different than many academics and executive coaches, who feel that leadership is an innate character trait. He urges people to focus on developing a few key relationship skills, and I agree. Here are some key conclusions:
Leadership is a learned behavior, not a character trait. Good judgment, for example, is certainly a hallmark of exceptional leadership, but it isn't something you are born with. "More than anything, good judgment comes from listening," he says. It also comes from paying very close attention to every situation, and learning from it.
Listening is the most important skill for a leader. We need to pay attention to the words and actions of others while suspending judgment long enough to allow your intellect to catch up with your instincts. Why? Because as leaders, if we speak too soon, we shut off creation. We shut off contribution. We force the adoption of our ideas.
Communication and storytelling are skills that not everyone is born with, but are ones we can all develop. People on your team want to believe! They want to believe you know where we are going, or you will get us there even if you aren't sure of the exact path at this moment. They want stories that compare what they are doing with others.
Acknowledging contribution is necessary to sustain motivation during the hard times. It's not hard to do and doesn't require a lot of effort or expensive gifts. A thank-you note or peer recognition is enough most of the time.
Negotiation is a practical skill for every leader. It's often misunderstood to be the domain of clever deal makers. It's actually really simple: Make very clear requests for a promise, understand exactly what the promise is—what is being done, when, and what the standard of excellence is—and then check up on the status to make it happen.
Too many leaders are focused on personal ambition. He believes that we need leaders who use power as a tool for inspiring others to create a better future, not as a tool for retaining their position or perks.
The middle four points are the essential skills for great leadership, inspiring excellence, and building a successful business. They are easily practiced and serve as the foundation for successfully attracting talent, reaching consensus, making tough choices, and harnessing ambition.
Starting and building a company is all about leadership: formulating an idea, building a unique plan based on vision and experience, and forging a path over and through all obstacles. Yet the image of leadership in business is at an all-time low, according to national leadership experts, considering the political debacles, record business bankruptcies, and executive fraud cases.
If the country is to recover financially and politically, new leaders will have to emerge to fill the leadership deficit—new leaders who understand that leadership is a privilege, not an entitlement—according to executive coach Michael Schutzler, author of the book Inspiring Excellence: A Path to Exceptional Leadership.
Entrepreneurs are well positioned to become the new leaders, because they perceive problems as opportunities and have the mindset to innovate and execute. They have the required passion, perseverance, and work ethic. What they don't have by default are the skills required, or the relationships. These don't come automatically with the CEO title.
Schutzler's view of leadership is different than many academics and executive coaches, who feel that leadership is an innate character trait. He urges people to focus on developing a few key relationship skills, and I agree. Here are some key conclusions:
Leadership is a learned behavior, not a character trait. Good judgment, for example, is certainly a hallmark of exceptional leadership, but it isn't something you are born with. "More than anything, good judgment comes from listening," he says. It also comes from paying very close attention to every situation, and learning from it.
Listening is the most important skill for a leader. We need to pay attention to the words and actions of others while suspending judgment long enough to allow your intellect to catch up with your instincts. Why? Because as leaders, if we speak too soon, we shut off creation. We shut off contribution. We force the adoption of our ideas.
Communication and storytelling are skills that not everyone is born with, but are ones we can all develop. People on your team want to believe! They want to believe you know where we are going, or you will get us there even if you aren't sure of the exact path at this moment. They want stories that compare what they are doing with others.
Acknowledging contribution is necessary to sustain motivation during the hard times. It's not hard to do and doesn't require a lot of effort or expensive gifts. A thank-you note or peer recognition is enough most of the time.
Negotiation is a practical skill for every leader. It's often misunderstood to be the domain of clever deal makers. It's actually really simple: Make very clear requests for a promise, understand exactly what the promise is—what is being done, when, and what the standard of excellence is—and then check up on the status to make it happen.
Too many leaders are focused on personal ambition. He believes that we need leaders who use power as a tool for inspiring others to create a better future, not as a tool for retaining their position or perks.
The middle four points are the essential skills for great leadership, inspiring excellence, and building a successful business. They are easily practiced and serve as the foundation for successfully attracting talent, reaching consensus, making tough choices, and harnessing ambition.
5/30/11
5 Resiliency Secrets From America's Top Founders
How do entrepreneurs create highly successful companies? After interviewing 45 of America’s leading company founders, I learned that it doesn’t take luck to start and grow a company that sells for $100 million or more, or goes public for $300 million or more, as each of theirs did. But it does take resilience — the ability to see an obstacle as something to climb over and move beyond.
Each of these entrepreneurs faced at least one major setback that should have stopped them in their tracks; instead, they rebounded stronger, smarter, leaner, and meaner than before.
Here are 5 ways they did it:
1. If you can’t hit home runs, go for singles.
In the pharmaceutical industry, your odds of getting a drug approved are 1 in 1,000. It takes 10 years and $800 million to get a “home run” drug approved — the kind of drug that becomes a household name. Jeff Aronin, founder of Ovation Pharmaceuticals, knew he couldn’t compete. But instead of giving up, he decided to focus on drugs for “smaller” diseases like epilepsy and Huntington’s disease that the big hitters weren’t interested in. He eventually sold his company for $900 million.
2. Turn disappointment into a discipline.
In the Internet age, we take for granted how relatively easy it is to start a tech company. But in 1974, Cyborg System’s Mike Blair was trying to start a software company at a time when there was no software industry, let alone the internet. Venture capitalists gave him blank stares, and banks couldn’t figure out what he was doing. That lack of funding forced a discipline on Blair and his team. It forced them to build the business slowly, grow organically, and be focused on making a profit and having positive cash flow. His software company was acquired by Hewitt in 2003 for nine figures.
3. Have something to prove.
Sometimes with startups, you’ve spent so many years talking about and working on the concept that your very reputation is on the line if it doesn’t go forward. When GE withdrew research funding from Rock Mackie’s radiation therapy project after four years, he had to lay off his entire staff and scramble to get funding for TomoTherapy during the dotcom bubble. But Mackie never gave up because he had something to prove — that a university professor and a handful of brilliant grad students could launch a world-class company. Now the company employs 600 people and was just acquired by Accuray for $277 million.
4. Don’t talk about a Plan B; have one.
Baxter Corporation’s president Bill Gantz raised $42 million in 1992 – a lot of money at that time – when he left to start Pathogenesis to develop what he thought was a perfect drug with no side effects. There was only one problem: After the clinical trial, they discovered it didn’t work. Luckily, Gantz had identified another drug along the way that worked really well, and had convinced the owners of that drug to license it to his company before he knew about the failed trial. He didn’t think he would ever need it, but as it turned out, that “Plan B” drug saved his company — and led to the sale o
f the company to Chiron Novartis for $720 million in cash.
5. Sometimes it’s OK to benefit from disasters.
The turning point for Lakeview Technology came when Bill Merchantz installed his company’s new software for a really big client — New York City Transit Authority. The software didn’t work. Worse, it even destroyed some of the client’s data. For some reason, his engineers were on vacation or out of town, so he and one team member spent 72 sleepless hours inventing disaster recovery software to solve the problem — only to lose the client. But it gave him a great idea, and he built the business on the new disaster recovery solution, which became wildly successful. Now Lakeview’s clients range from Allstate to McDonald’s.
http://www.bnet.com/blog/smb/5-resiliency-secrets-from-americas-top-founders/4705
Each of these entrepreneurs faced at least one major setback that should have stopped them in their tracks; instead, they rebounded stronger, smarter, leaner, and meaner than before.
Here are 5 ways they did it:
1. If you can’t hit home runs, go for singles.
In the pharmaceutical industry, your odds of getting a drug approved are 1 in 1,000. It takes 10 years and $800 million to get a “home run” drug approved — the kind of drug that becomes a household name. Jeff Aronin, founder of Ovation Pharmaceuticals, knew he couldn’t compete. But instead of giving up, he decided to focus on drugs for “smaller” diseases like epilepsy and Huntington’s disease that the big hitters weren’t interested in. He eventually sold his company for $900 million.
2. Turn disappointment into a discipline.
In the Internet age, we take for granted how relatively easy it is to start a tech company. But in 1974, Cyborg System’s Mike Blair was trying to start a software company at a time when there was no software industry, let alone the internet. Venture capitalists gave him blank stares, and banks couldn’t figure out what he was doing. That lack of funding forced a discipline on Blair and his team. It forced them to build the business slowly, grow organically, and be focused on making a profit and having positive cash flow. His software company was acquired by Hewitt in 2003 for nine figures.
3. Have something to prove.
Sometimes with startups, you’ve spent so many years talking about and working on the concept that your very reputation is on the line if it doesn’t go forward. When GE withdrew research funding from Rock Mackie’s radiation therapy project after four years, he had to lay off his entire staff and scramble to get funding for TomoTherapy during the dotcom bubble. But Mackie never gave up because he had something to prove — that a university professor and a handful of brilliant grad students could launch a world-class company. Now the company employs 600 people and was just acquired by Accuray for $277 million.
4. Don’t talk about a Plan B; have one.
Baxter Corporation’s president Bill Gantz raised $42 million in 1992 – a lot of money at that time – when he left to start Pathogenesis to develop what he thought was a perfect drug with no side effects. There was only one problem: After the clinical trial, they discovered it didn’t work. Luckily, Gantz had identified another drug along the way that worked really well, and had convinced the owners of that drug to license it to his company before he knew about the failed trial. He didn’t think he would ever need it, but as it turned out, that “Plan B” drug saved his company — and led to the sale o
f the company to Chiron Novartis for $720 million in cash.5. Sometimes it’s OK to benefit from disasters.
The turning point for Lakeview Technology came when Bill Merchantz installed his company’s new software for a really big client — New York City Transit Authority. The software didn’t work. Worse, it even destroyed some of the client’s data. For some reason, his engineers were on vacation or out of town, so he and one team member spent 72 sleepless hours inventing disaster recovery software to solve the problem — only to lose the client. But it gave him a great idea, and he built the business on the new disaster recovery solution, which became wildly successful. Now Lakeview’s clients range from Allstate to McDonald’s.
http://www.bnet.com/blog/smb/5-resiliency-secrets-from-americas-top-founders/4705
5/26/11
How to configure a linksys WAP54G (access point)
This device offers 4 modes of configuration. But you have to be careful because we cannot just set this access point into any mode without checking first for its compatibility. I will show you how to configure the device manually. Before the steps, here are the four ways this device is capable of functioning.
First as a plain Access Point, needs to be connected into a wired device (e.g. router, switch).
Second, as a Repeater, now you have to take note that it only works as a repeater with another linksys wireless router, not any wireless router but specifically WRT54G all versions.
Another configurations, Access Point Client and as a Wireless Bridge, also take note that when set to “AP Client” and “Wireless Bridge” mode, this device will only communicate with another Linksys Access Point (WAP54G), preferably same hardware and firmware version.
Important Note:AP Client, Wireless Repeater, and Bridging modes, make sure the SSID, channel, and Security/WEP key settings are the same for all access points. WPA will not work with an AP Client, Wireless Repeater and Wireless Bridge modes. Device IP is 192.168.1.245.
ACCESS POINT MODE - this mode allows wireless client to connect to the access point and routes traffic between the wireless and wired interface. Use this mode to create a standard wireless Infrastructure network.
By default the AP mode is set to Access Point.
1. Push the reset button while it’s powered up, release the reset button then unplug and replug the power cord.
WAP54G back panel
2. If your router’s IP address is 192.168.1.x, you may just hardwire your access point directly to the router and on your computer launch an Internet Explorer or any browser. On the address bar type in 192.168.1.245, type in admin as password, no username.
3. If you are configuring the device without a router or if the router has a local IP address other than 192.168.1.x, get your computer and, hardwire the access point to it and assign a static IP address, eg. 192.168.1.25. Open a browser an access 192.168.1.245 on your address bar, password is admin.
4. By default in the setup page under Network Setup, Configuration type is set to Static IP, leave it as it is or if your router has different Network settings (ex. 10.10.10.1), you may change the IP address following the range of your existing network (10.10.10.245), default gateway should be the IP address of your router, save settings. Click now on AP MODE subtab, select on Access Point and save the settings.
5. Click now on Wireless and configure your wireless settings (WIRELESS SECURITY subtab and select the desired encryption (WEP, WPA-Personal, WPA2-Personal, WPA2-mixed, WPA-enterprise, RADIUS), these are the security supported on the latest version releases. Take note of your encryption and of course save the settings. Turn off the access point and unplug it from the computer, set the computer’s IP address back to Obtain. Connect the access point to your router/switch regular port and power it up. It’s ready now for testing. Should there be any problem, try to powercycle the whole network (modem-router-access point).
Wireless Repeater - This mode will turn the access point into a wireless repeater. Enter the wireless MAC address of the access point whose signal you would like to repeat.
Linksys WAP54G repeater diagram
- Do the same things you did in setting the device to AP but this time on the AP Mode tab, select on WIRELESS REPEATER radio button and make sure you know the WIRELESS MAC ADDRESS of your router or another WAP54G (STATUS tab > Wireless) since you need to input that in the blank field alloted. Save the settings and check if you can connect.
AP Client - this will allow the device to act as a wireless client. You can enter the Wireless MAC address of the Access Point or use the Site Survey button to select the Access Point you want to connect.
- Under the AP Mode tab, select AP Client and push on the Site Survey button to check for the wireless network you want to connect and select it, automatically it will copy its Wireless MAC or you can manually type in the wireless mac of your network source.
Wireless Bridge - This is to create a wireless connection between two or more wired networks. This mode connects the physically separated, wired network using multiple access points. Wireless clients will not be able to connect to the access point in this mode. Enter the wireless MAC address of the wireless access points that you would like to bridge together.
- Know the Wireless MAC of your other Access Point and input it on the blank field. And do the same thing to the other WAP, they just change Wireless MAC to ensure that they only recognize each other. No intrusion from another network.
That’s it!! If you are having hard time connecting after configuring everything, make sure you perform a complete power cycle.
First as a plain Access Point, needs to be connected into a wired device (e.g. router, switch).
Second, as a Repeater, now you have to take note that it only works as a repeater with another linksys wireless router, not any wireless router but specifically WRT54G all versions.
Another configurations, Access Point Client and as a Wireless Bridge, also take note that when set to “AP Client” and “Wireless Bridge” mode, this device will only communicate with another Linksys Access Point (WAP54G), preferably same hardware and firmware version.
Important Note:AP Client, Wireless Repeater, and Bridging modes, make sure the SSID, channel, and Security/WEP key settings are the same for all access points. WPA will not work with an AP Client, Wireless Repeater and Wireless Bridge modes. Device IP is 192.168.1.245.
ACCESS POINT MODE - this mode allows wireless client to connect to the access point and routes traffic between the wireless and wired interface. Use this mode to create a standard wireless Infrastructure network.
By default the AP mode is set to Access Point.
1. Push the reset button while it’s powered up, release the reset button then unplug and replug the power cord.
WAP54G back panel
2. If your router’s IP address is 192.168.1.x, you may just hardwire your access point directly to the router and on your computer launch an Internet Explorer or any browser. On the address bar type in 192.168.1.245, type in admin as password, no username.
3. If you are configuring the device without a router or if the router has a local IP address other than 192.168.1.x, get your computer and, hardwire the access point to it and assign a static IP address, eg. 192.168.1.25. Open a browser an access 192.168.1.245 on your address bar, password is admin.
4. By default in the setup page under Network Setup, Configuration type is set to Static IP, leave it as it is or if your router has different Network settings (ex. 10.10.10.1), you may change the IP address following the range of your existing network (10.10.10.245), default gateway should be the IP address of your router, save settings. Click now on AP MODE subtab, select on Access Point and save the settings.
5. Click now on Wireless and configure your wireless settings (WIRELESS SECURITY subtab and select the desired encryption (WEP, WPA-Personal, WPA2-Personal, WPA2-mixed, WPA-enterprise, RADIUS), these are the security supported on the latest version releases. Take note of your encryption and of course save the settings. Turn off the access point and unplug it from the computer, set the computer’s IP address back to Obtain. Connect the access point to your router/switch regular port and power it up. It’s ready now for testing. Should there be any problem, try to powercycle the whole network (modem-router-access point).
Wireless Repeater - This mode will turn the access point into a wireless repeater. Enter the wireless MAC address of the access point whose signal you would like to repeat.
Linksys WAP54G repeater diagram
- Do the same things you did in setting the device to AP but this time on the AP Mode tab, select on WIRELESS REPEATER radio button and make sure you know the WIRELESS MAC ADDRESS of your router or another WAP54G (STATUS tab > Wireless) since you need to input that in the blank field alloted. Save the settings and check if you can connect.
AP Client - this will allow the device to act as a wireless client. You can enter the Wireless MAC address of the Access Point or use the Site Survey button to select the Access Point you want to connect.
- Under the AP Mode tab, select AP Client and push on the Site Survey button to check for the wireless network you want to connect and select it, automatically it will copy its Wireless MAC or you can manually type in the wireless mac of your network source.
Wireless Bridge - This is to create a wireless connection between two or more wired networks. This mode connects the physically separated, wired network using multiple access points. Wireless clients will not be able to connect to the access point in this mode. Enter the wireless MAC address of the wireless access points that you would like to bridge together.
- Know the Wireless MAC of your other Access Point and input it on the blank field. And do the same thing to the other WAP, they just change Wireless MAC to ensure that they only recognize each other. No intrusion from another network.
That’s it!! If you are having hard time connecting after configuring everything, make sure you perform a complete power cycle.
5/24/11
4 Ways to Be the Boss That Your Business Needs
Leona Helmsley. Donald Trump. Mark Zuckerberg. You know their names. To some, they’re the epitome of the nightmare boss, associated with tyrannical tantrums, boardroom antics, and for threatening employees when things don’t go their way.
As a small business owner, you didn’t get into the game to crush egos or smash office printers. You got in because you had a passion for what you do better than anyone else. But it’s not just you anymore. You have a team behind you. And it’s your job to manage it.
But your team’s not responding. Now what?
Now, you act like the boss. You stop walking on eggshells with your staff, and start adopting positive leadership practices that will inspire excellence. You’re not there to be your employees’ best friend; you’re there to manage them, and to grow your company.
You’re there to lead.
If you’re unsteady on your new managerial legs, here are a few suggestions to help you build the right team.
1. Stop Promoting People
Want to give a crappy reward to someone who’s good at her job? Elevate her to a managerial position where she’ll get to do less of what she loves to do. The idea of running a flat company is gaining street cred among scrappy startup types because it works. It removes that old, inefficient managerial hierarchy where in-field experts are banished to corner offices, and rewards employees instead with things they really want — more days off, more control, and a greater chance to do what they love. Don’t reward with titles; do it with freedom.
2. Don’t Involve Employees in Sensitive Company Matters
You’re running a small business, not a daycare center. There’s no reason for you to get mushy and reveal your darkest fears to your staff, especially if those fears concern your business. (Consult a business networking site for that.) The only thing worse than worrying about your own business is being forced to be worry about a business someone else founded.
If you’re looking to your staff for emotional support, stop. If the company is in trouble, if there’s a partner shakeup in the works, if you’re unsure of how to be a manager, fake it until you make it and keep quiet about it internally. Filling employees in on financial issues or things that don’t concern them will distract, frighten, demotivate them, or make them question you as their boss. You take care of the business; let them focus on their jobs. If they wanted to run a business, they’d start one. You better hope they don’t.
3. Get Rid of Dead Weight
Small businesses are like families. The only difference is that in business, you can divorce the people who hold you back. Hiring and firing is tricky for small business owners because they let emotions get in the way. You get attached to team members, and become reluctant to let them go. Do not hold on to employees for sentimental reasons. You’re their boss, not their mother. Holding on to an employee that doesn’t fit into the company not only holds that person back from finding a job where he can excel, it’s demoralizing to the rest of your staff. Non-performing people create resentment and mediocrity. The moment you know someone cannot do what you need them to do, fire them. No exceptions.
4. Get Comfortable Acting Like a Leader
If you want to cultivate a work environment where employees are comfortable making tough decisions and demanding innovation, you go first. Lead by example, even if it sometimes means disrupting the status quo. Mark Zuckerberg knew that Facebook needed a News Feed to keep up with Twitter and the microblogging trend. He didn’t care that it upset users, angered app developers, and changed the mindset of the site. He knew it needed to be there, and he stuck to his decision. And it paid off. Every decision you make doesn’t have to be correct, but you need to have the confidence in yourself to make them, and to fail faster.
The strength of your small business will be determined by the strength of your leadership. If you don’t have the stomach for tough calls, maybe you can get your old job back.
As a small business owner, you didn’t get into the game to crush egos or smash office printers. You got in because you had a passion for what you do better than anyone else. But it’s not just you anymore. You have a team behind you. And it’s your job to manage it.
But your team’s not responding. Now what?
Now, you act like the boss. You stop walking on eggshells with your staff, and start adopting positive leadership practices that will inspire excellence. You’re not there to be your employees’ best friend; you’re there to manage them, and to grow your company.
You’re there to lead.
If you’re unsteady on your new managerial legs, here are a few suggestions to help you build the right team.
1. Stop Promoting People
Want to give a crappy reward to someone who’s good at her job? Elevate her to a managerial position where she’ll get to do less of what she loves to do. The idea of running a flat company is gaining street cred among scrappy startup types because it works. It removes that old, inefficient managerial hierarchy where in-field experts are banished to corner offices, and rewards employees instead with things they really want — more days off, more control, and a greater chance to do what they love. Don’t reward with titles; do it with freedom.
2. Don’t Involve Employees in Sensitive Company Matters
You’re running a small business, not a daycare center. There’s no reason for you to get mushy and reveal your darkest fears to your staff, especially if those fears concern your business. (Consult a business networking site for that.) The only thing worse than worrying about your own business is being forced to be worry about a business someone else founded.
If you’re looking to your staff for emotional support, stop. If the company is in trouble, if there’s a partner shakeup in the works, if you’re unsure of how to be a manager, fake it until you make it and keep quiet about it internally. Filling employees in on financial issues or things that don’t concern them will distract, frighten, demotivate them, or make them question you as their boss. You take care of the business; let them focus on their jobs. If they wanted to run a business, they’d start one. You better hope they don’t.
3. Get Rid of Dead Weight
Small businesses are like families. The only difference is that in business, you can divorce the people who hold you back. Hiring and firing is tricky for small business owners because they let emotions get in the way. You get attached to team members, and become reluctant to let them go. Do not hold on to employees for sentimental reasons. You’re their boss, not their mother. Holding on to an employee that doesn’t fit into the company not only holds that person back from finding a job where he can excel, it’s demoralizing to the rest of your staff. Non-performing people create resentment and mediocrity. The moment you know someone cannot do what you need them to do, fire them. No exceptions.
4. Get Comfortable Acting Like a Leader
If you want to cultivate a work environment where employees are comfortable making tough decisions and demanding innovation, you go first. Lead by example, even if it sometimes means disrupting the status quo. Mark Zuckerberg knew that Facebook needed a News Feed to keep up with Twitter and the microblogging trend. He didn’t care that it upset users, angered app developers, and changed the mindset of the site. He knew it needed to be there, and he stuck to his decision. And it paid off. Every decision you make doesn’t have to be correct, but you need to have the confidence in yourself to make them, and to fail faster.
The strength of your small business will be determined by the strength of your leadership. If you don’t have the stomach for tough calls, maybe you can get your old job back.
5/18/11
Business Plans by the Numbers
When writing a business plan, here's how to run the numbers that matter without getting hung-up on those that don't.
Entrepreneurs are a courageous bunch—except when it comes to math. I've seen many notoriously tough senior executives shudder at the prospect of running financial projections for their business plans. So I've developed a much kinder, simpler guide to help you crunch the numbers that matter most.
Break-Even Analysis
The most important numbers for a start-up are often the most basic. Among them: Predicting what it will take to have more money coming in per month than going out. Get that wrong, and you could find yourself out of cash, and out of business.
Start by estimating the revenues generated by an average sale. Then subtract the costs that change with each transaction, like sales commissions and costs of producing the products sold. The result is your "unit contribution." Next, predict your monthly overhead, or expenses that don't vary directly with sales volume, such as rent, salaries, utilities, legal fees, and accounting expenses. Finally, divide your monthly overhead by your unit contribution. That number will tell you how many transactions you'll need per month to break-even.
Now for the analysis. Is that a realistic sales target? When do you think you'll hit it? What resources will you need to get there? How much cash will you burn through in the meantime?
Marketing Efficiency
If you reach customers directly—as opposed to selling your products to a wholesaler or retailer that will then sell to customers—then make sure each of them brings in more money than it costs you to get them in the door. Get that basic number wrong, and no amount of sales volume will save you.
First, estimate the cost of acquiring one customer, by researching similar companies, and forming a hypothesis you'll test and hone over time. Then, estimate the lifetime value per customer. Predict how long an average customer will stick around, and how much unit contribution they'll generate during that time. Ideally, the lifetime value of a customer should be three or more times greater than the cost of acquiring a customer.
Financial Projections
Projecting your financials will help you develop a sense for how to expect money to flow in and out of your business over the first few years. The numbers here are very difficult to predict, so don't waste too much time on them. Instead, run the numbers in a simple way, and adjust them as you get real revenue and expense data. If you don't understand the basics of finance and accounting, or know how to use a spreadsheet program like Excel, you should probably get help. But make sure you understand how the equations work, and what they mean for your business. Here are the most important takeaways from your financial projections:
Opportunity to scale: While it's nearly impossible to predict how big your company can get, it's helpful to make an order of magnitude estimate (Are you shooting for sales of $1 million, $10 million, or $100 million?). That will help investors, partners, and other stakeholders grasp the attractiveness of your opportunity and help them know that if things go well the rewards will be worth the risks. Also, make sure your scale is reasonable. One way to do this is to look at comparable companies. How long did it take them to reach a similar size, and how much did it cost them?
Capital requirements: It's important to estimate how much money you'll need over the course of the next year in order to break-even. That way, you can get enough cash in the bank to allow you to focus on running the business for a while before needing to spend your energy lining up more financing.
You can always go deeper, but understanding these basic numbers will help you make smarter choices without getting bogged down in analysis-paralysis.
http://www.inc.com/articles/201105/business-plan-financials.html
Entrepreneurs are a courageous bunch—except when it comes to math. I've seen many notoriously tough senior executives shudder at the prospect of running financial projections for their business plans. So I've developed a much kinder, simpler guide to help you crunch the numbers that matter most.
Break-Even Analysis
The most important numbers for a start-up are often the most basic. Among them: Predicting what it will take to have more money coming in per month than going out. Get that wrong, and you could find yourself out of cash, and out of business.
Start by estimating the revenues generated by an average sale. Then subtract the costs that change with each transaction, like sales commissions and costs of producing the products sold. The result is your "unit contribution." Next, predict your monthly overhead, or expenses that don't vary directly with sales volume, such as rent, salaries, utilities, legal fees, and accounting expenses. Finally, divide your monthly overhead by your unit contribution. That number will tell you how many transactions you'll need per month to break-even.
Now for the analysis. Is that a realistic sales target? When do you think you'll hit it? What resources will you need to get there? How much cash will you burn through in the meantime?
Marketing Efficiency
If you reach customers directly—as opposed to selling your products to a wholesaler or retailer that will then sell to customers—then make sure each of them brings in more money than it costs you to get them in the door. Get that basic number wrong, and no amount of sales volume will save you.
First, estimate the cost of acquiring one customer, by researching similar companies, and forming a hypothesis you'll test and hone over time. Then, estimate the lifetime value per customer. Predict how long an average customer will stick around, and how much unit contribution they'll generate during that time. Ideally, the lifetime value of a customer should be three or more times greater than the cost of acquiring a customer.
Financial Projections
Projecting your financials will help you develop a sense for how to expect money to flow in and out of your business over the first few years. The numbers here are very difficult to predict, so don't waste too much time on them. Instead, run the numbers in a simple way, and adjust them as you get real revenue and expense data. If you don't understand the basics of finance and accounting, or know how to use a spreadsheet program like Excel, you should probably get help. But make sure you understand how the equations work, and what they mean for your business. Here are the most important takeaways from your financial projections:
Opportunity to scale: While it's nearly impossible to predict how big your company can get, it's helpful to make an order of magnitude estimate (Are you shooting for sales of $1 million, $10 million, or $100 million?). That will help investors, partners, and other stakeholders grasp the attractiveness of your opportunity and help them know that if things go well the rewards will be worth the risks. Also, make sure your scale is reasonable. One way to do this is to look at comparable companies. How long did it take them to reach a similar size, and how much did it cost them?
Capital requirements: It's important to estimate how much money you'll need over the course of the next year in order to break-even. That way, you can get enough cash in the bank to allow you to focus on running the business for a while before needing to spend your energy lining up more financing.
You can always go deeper, but understanding these basic numbers will help you make smarter choices without getting bogged down in analysis-paralysis.
http://www.inc.com/articles/201105/business-plan-financials.html
5/17/11
How to Deliver a Speech that Gets a Standing Ovation
Rebecca MacDonald, a Canadian immigrant born in the former Yugoslavia who started with nothing and is now executive chair of Just Energy, a $2.3 billion (market cap) energy firm, delivered such a vivid and passionate speech at the Womens’ Presidents Organization annual conference on Thursday afternoon in Vancouver, that the entire audience of 650 women business owners spontaneously leapt out of seats to clap, howl and cheer her on.
“I laughed, I cried, I almost had to leave the room when she spoke about her relationship with her mother,” said Nancy Lyons, president of Clockwork in Minneapolis, raving about the range of emotions MacDonald inspired just moments after the remarks.
So what can you do to make a speech that spurs your audience to similar applause and admiration?
Get personal. Rebecca MacDonald told her life story—and didn’t spare the details. First, MacDonald credited her upbringing in a socialist system as fundamental to her mindset that “women can do anything men can do”. Then she shared that her husband’s initial skepticism about her launching a Canadian natural gas resale business was a catalyst that spurred her on. “If he didn’t say, ‘Are you insane?’ I wouldn’t be standing here,” MacDonald said, smiling. When she landed her first customer and sought gas supply, but was thrown out of the Toronto Petroleum Club because she was a woman, MacDonald added: “I didn’t want to face my husband. I didn’t want him to say, ‘I told you so’.” Once her business started to take off, MacDonald’s husband came to her to suggest, “Darlink, let’s merge,” recalled MacDonald, with an accent. But MacDonald would only do so if he’d work for her. In 1992, after he helped expand her company into a new market, MacDonald’s husband was killed in a car crash. “That changed me forever,” MacDonald confided.
Be honest. When asked about her upbringing, MacDonald admitted she had a very strict and dominant mother. “I ran away from my mother,” she said. “I probably wouldn’t have survived her if I hadn’t moved to Canada,” and then revealed that her sister committed suicide. “My mother prepared me for life.”
Tell jokes. Although she touched on such intimate and serious subjects, MacDonald managed to keep the overall tone of her talk light and humorous. “Sometimes we get bitchy and catty,” she admitted, describing one drawback of women. She also spoke of a time her son told a friend visiting their home: “My mom’s actually nice and friendly—she just has cash flow problems.” Early on, she mentioned that after her husband died she devoted her life to her work and two children. But before she wrapped up her speech last week MacDonald was sure to announce to anymen attending, “I’m single and I’m available.”
Talk to your audience. Whether it was the serendipitous drink that turned into her first supplier relationship, becoming the first woman to take a company public in Canada—or the bout of rheumatoid arthritis that nearly kept her bed-ridden while doing so—throughout her speech, MacDonald related her business and life experiences to the particular crowd she was speaking before: entrepreneurial women.
Act as if each attendee is the only one. She invited the conference-goers to call her any time. She offered up her phone number (it’s on the Just Energy website) and availability (after hours). “I always answer the phone for a woman,” MacDonald said.
Forget notes, visuals or a PowerPoint presentation. MacDonald held our attention for more than an hour—just by being herself—and without relying on ancillary or distracting materials.
End on a high note. MacDonald wouldn’t get off the podium until she could respond to a question with an uplifting final answer—even if it meant risking missing her flight home to Toronto, where she was due at 5 a.m. the following morning to watch the royal wedding over champagne and biscuits with girlfriends.
Here are MacDonald’s pearls of wisdom you would have written down if you were there:
"Nobody got to a big business without starting small."
"Always pay your supplier even if you have no money to pay yourself."
"I made a lot of mistakes, but I never made the same mistake twice."
"Surround yourself with smart people."
"I love hiring the best and paying them more than the market."
"I never ask others to do something I’m not prepared to do myself."
"If Rebecca MacDonald can do it, everyone can do it."
"I thought $1 million was a lot, $10 million was a lot, $100 million was a lot, $1 billion was a lot. Now I want to shoot for $10 billion."
Now let me see if I can get my hands on the videotape of MacDonald’s address.
http://www.inc.com/how-to-deliver-a-speech-that-gets-a-standing-ovation.html
“I laughed, I cried, I almost had to leave the room when she spoke about her relationship with her mother,” said Nancy Lyons, president of Clockwork in Minneapolis, raving about the range of emotions MacDonald inspired just moments after the remarks.
So what can you do to make a speech that spurs your audience to similar applause and admiration?
Get personal. Rebecca MacDonald told her life story—and didn’t spare the details. First, MacDonald credited her upbringing in a socialist system as fundamental to her mindset that “women can do anything men can do”. Then she shared that her husband’s initial skepticism about her launching a Canadian natural gas resale business was a catalyst that spurred her on. “If he didn’t say, ‘Are you insane?’ I wouldn’t be standing here,” MacDonald said, smiling. When she landed her first customer and sought gas supply, but was thrown out of the Toronto Petroleum Club because she was a woman, MacDonald added: “I didn’t want to face my husband. I didn’t want him to say, ‘I told you so’.” Once her business started to take off, MacDonald’s husband came to her to suggest, “Darlink, let’s merge,” recalled MacDonald, with an accent. But MacDonald would only do so if he’d work for her. In 1992, after he helped expand her company into a new market, MacDonald’s husband was killed in a car crash. “That changed me forever,” MacDonald confided.
Be honest. When asked about her upbringing, MacDonald admitted she had a very strict and dominant mother. “I ran away from my mother,” she said. “I probably wouldn’t have survived her if I hadn’t moved to Canada,” and then revealed that her sister committed suicide. “My mother prepared me for life.”
Tell jokes. Although she touched on such intimate and serious subjects, MacDonald managed to keep the overall tone of her talk light and humorous. “Sometimes we get bitchy and catty,” she admitted, describing one drawback of women. She also spoke of a time her son told a friend visiting their home: “My mom’s actually nice and friendly—she just has cash flow problems.” Early on, she mentioned that after her husband died she devoted her life to her work and two children. But before she wrapped up her speech last week MacDonald was sure to announce to anymen attending, “I’m single and I’m available.”
Talk to your audience. Whether it was the serendipitous drink that turned into her first supplier relationship, becoming the first woman to take a company public in Canada—or the bout of rheumatoid arthritis that nearly kept her bed-ridden while doing so—throughout her speech, MacDonald related her business and life experiences to the particular crowd she was speaking before: entrepreneurial women.
Act as if each attendee is the only one. She invited the conference-goers to call her any time. She offered up her phone number (it’s on the Just Energy website) and availability (after hours). “I always answer the phone for a woman,” MacDonald said.
Forget notes, visuals or a PowerPoint presentation. MacDonald held our attention for more than an hour—just by being herself—and without relying on ancillary or distracting materials.
End on a high note. MacDonald wouldn’t get off the podium until she could respond to a question with an uplifting final answer—even if it meant risking missing her flight home to Toronto, where she was due at 5 a.m. the following morning to watch the royal wedding over champagne and biscuits with girlfriends.
Here are MacDonald’s pearls of wisdom you would have written down if you were there:
"Nobody got to a big business without starting small."
"Always pay your supplier even if you have no money to pay yourself."
"I made a lot of mistakes, but I never made the same mistake twice."
"Surround yourself with smart people."
"I love hiring the best and paying them more than the market."
"I never ask others to do something I’m not prepared to do myself."
"If Rebecca MacDonald can do it, everyone can do it."
"I thought $1 million was a lot, $10 million was a lot, $100 million was a lot, $1 billion was a lot. Now I want to shoot for $10 billion."
Now let me see if I can get my hands on the videotape of MacDonald’s address.
http://www.inc.com/how-to-deliver-a-speech-that-gets-a-standing-ovation.html
How Accountability Creates Success
The “list” gets longer and longer. Ideas and goals fall to the wayside remaining incomplete or never even seeing the light of day. There’s just no time; even less energy.
Sound familiar? You are not alone. I see it all of the time and I’ve experienced some of it myself. But why? We’re passionate about our businesses and our ideas. We believe we can manage it all. And we certainly have the drive and desire to succeed, don’t we? So with all of this going for him, why does a business owner fall into the frustrating and disappointing habit of letting himself down?
Working alone has many benefits, but just as many pitfalls. Entrepreneurial-minded people typically love the magic moment when an idea is born. We also enjoy creating the strategy. But implementation? Well, that’s another thing altogether, isn’t it? Structure, accountability, routine; these words may be foreign to your vocabulary if you are a creative, right-brained person. I’m not saying that hard-working entrepreneurs are incapable in these areas, but I do believe that implementing things from beginning to end and fine-tuning the process is often much more challenging – and yes, sometimes impossible for the entrepreneur. And if you are a solopreneur without a team to complete the details and some of the implementation, you might get pretty frustrated. It's like trying to fit a square peg into a round hole when you try to engage your brain in activities that just don’t feel natural to you.
While lack of resources is often a problem, there is another obvious drawback to being a solopreneur - the lack of accountability.
Learn more about help resources here.
Low and Cost Free Resources
Why Fly Solo? Delegate!
Successful business owners most often engage a coach and/or participate in Mastermind groups or the like. There are so many benefits to these relationships that I can’t even go into them all, but one that seems to be a common denominator for many entrepreneurs is the accountability factor. When the stumbling blocks are worked out and a plan in place, they feel more inspired to follow their tasks through to completion prior to their next coaching session. As one small success after the other leads to larger success and increased profits, the payoff really becomes obvious. This accountability seems critical to their success.
Making a commitment to yourself is a great start, but sometimes it feels OK to let ourselves down. You might find yourself making excuses (yes, they are typically excuses) and allowing things to elevate in urgency until you have so many fires to put out that the well runs dry. Instead of exhausting yourself like this, why not set up an accountability strategy?
If you believe that you can’t afford coaching, there are other methods. Try to find a group coaching environment that may be more affordable. A Mastermind group may raise the bar for you as you challenge and support one another. Or, how about a simple “accountability group”? Recently, a small group of my friends began such a group and each person simply commits to completing several tasks prior to meeting at the coffee house the following week. As a group of stubborn, like-minded ladies, no one is going to come to coffee having failed at their commitments!
Think about what motivates you to do the detail work and follow through on your ideas. Blocking out even one hour a week can make a huge difference if you block not only the time, but the interruptions as well. Turn off the phone, close your email application and focus on your “to do” list.
Who do you know who will hold your feet to the fire? Someone who will encourage you and offer up the occasional “atta boy” when you’ve stretched beyond your comfort zone? Success is a beautiful thing – even the small successes - and accountability could be the key!
http://www.inc.com/marla-tabaka/how-accountability-creates-success.html
Sound familiar? You are not alone. I see it all of the time and I’ve experienced some of it myself. But why? We’re passionate about our businesses and our ideas. We believe we can manage it all. And we certainly have the drive and desire to succeed, don’t we? So with all of this going for him, why does a business owner fall into the frustrating and disappointing habit of letting himself down?
Working alone has many benefits, but just as many pitfalls. Entrepreneurial-minded people typically love the magic moment when an idea is born. We also enjoy creating the strategy. But implementation? Well, that’s another thing altogether, isn’t it? Structure, accountability, routine; these words may be foreign to your vocabulary if you are a creative, right-brained person. I’m not saying that hard-working entrepreneurs are incapable in these areas, but I do believe that implementing things from beginning to end and fine-tuning the process is often much more challenging – and yes, sometimes impossible for the entrepreneur. And if you are a solopreneur without a team to complete the details and some of the implementation, you might get pretty frustrated. It's like trying to fit a square peg into a round hole when you try to engage your brain in activities that just don’t feel natural to you.
While lack of resources is often a problem, there is another obvious drawback to being a solopreneur - the lack of accountability.
Learn more about help resources here.
Low and Cost Free Resources
Why Fly Solo? Delegate!
Successful business owners most often engage a coach and/or participate in Mastermind groups or the like. There are so many benefits to these relationships that I can’t even go into them all, but one that seems to be a common denominator for many entrepreneurs is the accountability factor. When the stumbling blocks are worked out and a plan in place, they feel more inspired to follow their tasks through to completion prior to their next coaching session. As one small success after the other leads to larger success and increased profits, the payoff really becomes obvious. This accountability seems critical to their success.
Making a commitment to yourself is a great start, but sometimes it feels OK to let ourselves down. You might find yourself making excuses (yes, they are typically excuses) and allowing things to elevate in urgency until you have so many fires to put out that the well runs dry. Instead of exhausting yourself like this, why not set up an accountability strategy?
If you believe that you can’t afford coaching, there are other methods. Try to find a group coaching environment that may be more affordable. A Mastermind group may raise the bar for you as you challenge and support one another. Or, how about a simple “accountability group”? Recently, a small group of my friends began such a group and each person simply commits to completing several tasks prior to meeting at the coffee house the following week. As a group of stubborn, like-minded ladies, no one is going to come to coffee having failed at their commitments!
Think about what motivates you to do the detail work and follow through on your ideas. Blocking out even one hour a week can make a huge difference if you block not only the time, but the interruptions as well. Turn off the phone, close your email application and focus on your “to do” list.
Who do you know who will hold your feet to the fire? Someone who will encourage you and offer up the occasional “atta boy” when you’ve stretched beyond your comfort zone? Success is a beautiful thing – even the small successes - and accountability could be the key!
http://www.inc.com/marla-tabaka/how-accountability-creates-success.html
5/3/11
How to Use Game Mechanics to Reward Your Customers
Your customers hoard airline miles and covet their status-symbol black American Express. What was once called "consumer incentives" is now known as "gamification"—and here's how to integrate it into your company and win consumers' hearts and minds while you're at it.
By Christine Lagorio | May 3, 2011
There's a green card. Then there's silver, gold, and platinum. And then there's the Centurion—the black American Express card. Which do you want in your wallet?
A handful of luxury brands have for decades used promises of status to encourage customers to spend more through loyalty to their brands. Today, brands of all stripes are experimenting with the psychology of status and power in rewarding customers. A generation raised on video games is wired to love incentives—and that doesn't just mean freebies.
Consider Foursquare, a company built entirely on a game-design model. Users earn badges—virtual reinforcing awards—for checking in at places they encounter when going about their daily life. As a bonus, they're alerted to money-saving deals nearby. Eight million people have downloaded the Foursquare app, and use it to check in. It is as if the company has tapped into airlines' frequent-flier rewards program possibilities—without itself offering a tangible reward.
The new rewards ecosystem is a marketer's dream. But the first thing to understand is that it's simply game mechanics at work. This strategy of applying game-design principles to things that aren't otherwise considered games has been dubbed "gamification." And the growing popularity of adopting gaming tactics—which are useful not only to encourage loyalty but also to gain metrics by which to track consumer behavior—means it's no longer just the realm of large companies with sizeable marketing budgets.
"Historically, customer engagement was something big brands did a lot better due to full scale loyalty programs," says Gabe Zichermann, a blogger who authored Game-Based Marketing and who hosts of the Gamification Summit. "That's because they had the budgets to do that. JPMorgan Chase can offer rewards miles, when your café on the corner can just do, say a buy-10-get-one-free card."
That's changing. Countless start-ups are incorporating game-design strategies, hoping to eventually grow revenue off of consumer data, or by using a combination of data plus game-mechanics to influence consumer behaviors. Here's how the experts suggest going about adding a game layer to your company.
Rewarding Customers Through Gamification: Why Game Mechanics?
People are hard-wired to enjoy positive reinforcement. And, well, play is fun.
Consider golf: Social interaction aside, why would anyone go to a course and attempt to hit a tiny ball into a far-away hole? "If we were thinking of standards of productivity, we would just invent a machine that stands over the hole and sort of shoots the balls into the hole," explained game designer Jane McGonigal, who studies the social and mental impact of gaming, at her South by Southwest Interactive festival keynote speech this year. "Instead, playing the game is something entirely different."
Gaming reinforces players through positive feelings generated by achievements, which are perceived through points, badges, discounts, or any award—tangible or not. Game mechanics are, simply, ways of generating those positive feelings.
"Foursquare was a really great early example of this happening," McGonigal says. Foursquare started this whole trend of making achievements and giving people badges for doing stuff."
Giving customers something positive encourages additional interaction with your brand, service, or product. For this very purpose, LinkedIn added a progress bar that documents user-profile completion. But that's not its sole purpose.
"Filling out your profile, that's a behavior LinkedIn wants to motivate. The progress bar is this total insight to your progress as a user," says game designer Gabe Smedresman, who designed the iPhone game Crazy Boat, and who is working on a social-interaction app called Gatsby. "That taps an innate human desire to complete things, and not leave things undone. That's what games do—they are systems that give people pleasure."
For LinkedIn, the benefits are straightforward. Giving users even perceived achievements harnesses users motivation in a way that gives the company more loyal users who are more invested in the service. As a bonus, it collects more data on its users.
Rewarding Customers Through Gamification: Status is Everything
Much of rewarding your best customers used to be done through giving them gifts, discounts, or freebies. Game mechanics are becoming so good at reinforcing customers that some experts are asking: Why reward customers by putting something free to them in their hands when so much of what feels good is in their heads?
"In the old view of things, we think, 'Well, if we do anything for our customers, we should just give them free stuff.' But free stuff is the old view," says Zichermann. "Now we know that status, access, and power are both easier to give and reward customers better."
Take the café on the corner Zichermann referenced earlier. What would happen if instead of giving customers a free coffee every now and then it made a priority lane for faster service to reward loyalty?
"It's not that free stuff isn't good, it's that the consumer can price the free stuff, eventually. They know that a coffee costs $2.00." Zichermann says. "They cannot put a value on status, access, and power benefits very well—and they tend to overestimate the value of these things."
Status rankings seem to be fundamental to humans' worldviews—and that's about feeling loved by something you've invested energy, time, or money in.
When JetBlue Airways was just starting out in the early 2000s, it didn't have a loyalty program. Instead, it offered a bevy of customer services that other airlines didn't consistently: Leather seats, customizable in-flight entertainment, snacks aplenty, cheap tickets, and consistently kind employees. That wasn't enough.
That lasted exactly two years before enough customer surveys mounted up begging for a frequent-flier program that the True Blue miles program was founded. "This is true with every industry. It's going from a nice-to-have to a must-have," Zichermann says. "It's a way for small companies to take advantage in their market vertical."
He posits that gamifying an aspect of your company could be more beneficial than was early-adopting social media. "How many more sales we get from our Twitter feed is still unclear to people," he says. "But as soon as you get someone hooked on your system versus someone else's, the harder it is to switch, and that's profits."
Any coupon-clipper or group deal-site aficionado knows that it feels pretty good to snag a deal the Joneses might not have spotted. Consider LevelUp, one of the newest group-deal websites. Its premise: Purchase a Groupon-like deal, say, $10 worth of ice cream at Toscanini's in Boston for $5. Instant win. After you purchase that deal, another is offered to you, perhaps 60 or 75 percent off ice cream from the same shop. Bonus point.
"It's kind of a re-molding of what was kind of a passive job of coupon clipping 40 years ago," says Samantha Skey, the chief revenue officer for Recyclebank, a business that works with communities build household incentives into recycling or saving energy. "It's an activist buyer who is gaming the system to get the best deal when she goes to buy those lemons. That consumer—and her desire to do the right thing and feel smart and get a good deal—is at the heart of what we do."
Recyclebank's business is to profit from cities actively processing less trash and doing more recycling, but go to its website, and it just looks like fun. "Earn points. Get rewards. Better the planet," it reads.
Rewarding Customers Through Gamification: Constantly Consider Your Customers' Motivation
In building a system to deliver rewards for your customers, it's important to consider first your goals. Are you primarily attempting to encourage brand loyalty—or are you trying to meet new customers? Are you trying to give customers something light and fun—or are you looking to amass more valuable customer data?
Next, consider within a system what specifically about your audience or customer base you can specifically reward. Simultaneously consider any aspects that could potentially turn them off. For example, if you're targeting a young audience of early adopters for whom sharing neat things or achievements with friends is natural, offer social-media sharing into your rewards system. But that might not work for everyone.
Brian Burke, the research vice president at Gartner, a global research firm that published a study on the expanding reach of gamification for companies, said that different people are motivated by different responses, so finding a good fit—particularly regarding social media and asking customers to disclose information—is key.
"There is some portion of the target audience that's likely to never engage because they find it creepy," he says. "Other segments of the population play games to develop relationships and find social interaction. Inherently, you're never going to reach 100 percent of the population."
Burke says his research into motivation and game-play, when conducting the study that determined that by 2015, 50 percent of companies that manage innovation and research will use gamification to drive innovation, he found that not all people play for the same reason. While he classified people into categories of explorers, achievers, and killers—those with an "I win, you lose" mentality—and those who play just for the social interaction. "There are some people out there who want no one else to know anything about them, and there are other people who want to push social interactions and foster bonds," Burke says.
For Games that Give, a company that builds Facebook games for brands, consumer-sharing is essential to a game's success. The goal for a Facebook game with heavy brand-integration is the same as any basic marketing: Eyeballs. So, going viral through heavy online sharing of scores, successes, and enjoyment of the game by players is key. But it's also a tricky thing to encourage.
"You really only have between five and 10 seconds to make an impression on people, so you use little tricks," says Adam Archer, one of the founders of Games that Give. "At what point do you ask people to share with their friends? They are most likely to share right after they've won something."
And sharing online might just be more valuable than word-of-mouth—because it's easy to track. But it's part of the same mission, Zichermann says.
"What you're trying to do with gamification as a business owner, is identify your most loyal fans, engage them to both generate more revenue for you and fire them up to become brand evangelists for you," Zichermann says.
Rewarding Customers Through Gamification: Don't Creep Out Your Customers
The danger of offending consumers' senses of privacy is a detail of which to remain consistently aware.
"With gamification, you have access to the underlying behavioral data in a massive scale way. Instead of flying blind, you can know exactly what people are doing on your site," Smedresman says. "After you have that, this non-blindness of what people are doing, you can start manipulating that. That's gamification."
GroupMe might offer group chat today, but tomorrow, it might suggest places for active groups to go meet, and spend money, Jared Hecht, one of the company's founders, told Inc.com at SXSW.
"It means that people who have a vested interest in manipulated consumers' behavior are going to be a lot more sophisticated about that," Smedersman says. "It's going to be our jobs as consumers to be mindful as to when we're being exposed to these incentivisers."
Rewarding Customers Through Gamification: Build in an Autonomous Feel-Good Aspect
With every consumer motivated by slightly different impulses and rewards, consider one of the most influential customer trends of the decade: Going green. Pushing customers toward feeling like they're doing good—either for themselves, or a greater cause—can be another powerful motivator. In the case of Recyclebank, it's lowering your electricity use or landing more of what comes into your house in packaging from the grocery store in your recycle bin.
"We've done side-by-side comparisons: If you integrate a socially responsible theme to the brand, you can see an increase by 40 percent in engagement—the time they spend in the game—over 40 percent in retention, and over 50 percent higher virality," Archer says. That means the user is more than 50 percent more likely to invite their friends to play, or, in other words, to become an ambassador for the brand.
While Games That Give develops entire autonomous game systems to represent a brand, Nissan has adopted just a few game mechanics for its Carwings, a system that keeps track of all of your car's fuel use, battery status, efficiency, and more. The program not only gives you feedback on your efficiency, but also puts your stats in competition with those of other Nissan Leaf drivers.
Is the big green pat on the back enough of a reward for your customers to continue interacting with a giving-back gamified system? Maybe not, says Skey of Recyclebank.
"I wish I could say the rewards are secondary, but I don't think they are yet," Skey says. With that in mind, Recyclebank rewards its users with grocery and goods coupons. "It would be great to get to the point where diminishing your footprint and increasing your eco-IQ was reward enough."
Rewarding Customers Through Gamification: Additional Applications
If Burke and Gartner are correct, the corporate applications for these game-design tactics are going to go way beyond customer rewards. Consider, Burke suggests, that Michellin uses online alternate-reality portal Second Life as a training program for enterprise architects.
"I believe that employee performance in a company environment is a growing use," Burke says. "Companies are starting to—instead of using a training manual or holding quarterly reviews—move toward a social-networking environment for performance and performance feedback."
It's not too much of a stretch to imagine a system in which an employee is awarded a badge or points for a speedy and well-crafted response to a boss's e-mail. But what about a system that tracks employees' behaviors in order to quantify work completed? What about crowdsourcing research and development? What about incentivising word-of-mouth promotion? Countless applications abound, both inside the walls of a company and out.
Now that companies are thinking outside of credit-card color-schemes and flight miles as rewards, not even the virtual sky is a limit to what can be done in this space.
http://www.inc.com/guides/201105/use-game-design-to-reward-your-customers.html
By Christine Lagorio | May 3, 2011
There's a green card. Then there's silver, gold, and platinum. And then there's the Centurion—the black American Express card. Which do you want in your wallet?
A handful of luxury brands have for decades used promises of status to encourage customers to spend more through loyalty to their brands. Today, brands of all stripes are experimenting with the psychology of status and power in rewarding customers. A generation raised on video games is wired to love incentives—and that doesn't just mean freebies.
Consider Foursquare, a company built entirely on a game-design model. Users earn badges—virtual reinforcing awards—for checking in at places they encounter when going about their daily life. As a bonus, they're alerted to money-saving deals nearby. Eight million people have downloaded the Foursquare app, and use it to check in. It is as if the company has tapped into airlines' frequent-flier rewards program possibilities—without itself offering a tangible reward.
The new rewards ecosystem is a marketer's dream. But the first thing to understand is that it's simply game mechanics at work. This strategy of applying game-design principles to things that aren't otherwise considered games has been dubbed "gamification." And the growing popularity of adopting gaming tactics—which are useful not only to encourage loyalty but also to gain metrics by which to track consumer behavior—means it's no longer just the realm of large companies with sizeable marketing budgets.
"Historically, customer engagement was something big brands did a lot better due to full scale loyalty programs," says Gabe Zichermann, a blogger who authored Game-Based Marketing and who hosts of the Gamification Summit. "That's because they had the budgets to do that. JPMorgan Chase can offer rewards miles, when your café on the corner can just do, say a buy-10-get-one-free card."
That's changing. Countless start-ups are incorporating game-design strategies, hoping to eventually grow revenue off of consumer data, or by using a combination of data plus game-mechanics to influence consumer behaviors. Here's how the experts suggest going about adding a game layer to your company.
Rewarding Customers Through Gamification: Why Game Mechanics?
People are hard-wired to enjoy positive reinforcement. And, well, play is fun.
Consider golf: Social interaction aside, why would anyone go to a course and attempt to hit a tiny ball into a far-away hole? "If we were thinking of standards of productivity, we would just invent a machine that stands over the hole and sort of shoots the balls into the hole," explained game designer Jane McGonigal, who studies the social and mental impact of gaming, at her South by Southwest Interactive festival keynote speech this year. "Instead, playing the game is something entirely different."
Gaming reinforces players through positive feelings generated by achievements, which are perceived through points, badges, discounts, or any award—tangible or not. Game mechanics are, simply, ways of generating those positive feelings.
"Foursquare was a really great early example of this happening," McGonigal says. Foursquare started this whole trend of making achievements and giving people badges for doing stuff."
Giving customers something positive encourages additional interaction with your brand, service, or product. For this very purpose, LinkedIn added a progress bar that documents user-profile completion. But that's not its sole purpose.
"Filling out your profile, that's a behavior LinkedIn wants to motivate. The progress bar is this total insight to your progress as a user," says game designer Gabe Smedresman, who designed the iPhone game Crazy Boat, and who is working on a social-interaction app called Gatsby. "That taps an innate human desire to complete things, and not leave things undone. That's what games do—they are systems that give people pleasure."
For LinkedIn, the benefits are straightforward. Giving users even perceived achievements harnesses users motivation in a way that gives the company more loyal users who are more invested in the service. As a bonus, it collects more data on its users.
Rewarding Customers Through Gamification: Status is Everything
Much of rewarding your best customers used to be done through giving them gifts, discounts, or freebies. Game mechanics are becoming so good at reinforcing customers that some experts are asking: Why reward customers by putting something free to them in their hands when so much of what feels good is in their heads?
"In the old view of things, we think, 'Well, if we do anything for our customers, we should just give them free stuff.' But free stuff is the old view," says Zichermann. "Now we know that status, access, and power are both easier to give and reward customers better."
Take the café on the corner Zichermann referenced earlier. What would happen if instead of giving customers a free coffee every now and then it made a priority lane for faster service to reward loyalty?
"It's not that free stuff isn't good, it's that the consumer can price the free stuff, eventually. They know that a coffee costs $2.00." Zichermann says. "They cannot put a value on status, access, and power benefits very well—and they tend to overestimate the value of these things."
Status rankings seem to be fundamental to humans' worldviews—and that's about feeling loved by something you've invested energy, time, or money in.
When JetBlue Airways was just starting out in the early 2000s, it didn't have a loyalty program. Instead, it offered a bevy of customer services that other airlines didn't consistently: Leather seats, customizable in-flight entertainment, snacks aplenty, cheap tickets, and consistently kind employees. That wasn't enough.
That lasted exactly two years before enough customer surveys mounted up begging for a frequent-flier program that the True Blue miles program was founded. "This is true with every industry. It's going from a nice-to-have to a must-have," Zichermann says. "It's a way for small companies to take advantage in their market vertical."
He posits that gamifying an aspect of your company could be more beneficial than was early-adopting social media. "How many more sales we get from our Twitter feed is still unclear to people," he says. "But as soon as you get someone hooked on your system versus someone else's, the harder it is to switch, and that's profits."
Any coupon-clipper or group deal-site aficionado knows that it feels pretty good to snag a deal the Joneses might not have spotted. Consider LevelUp, one of the newest group-deal websites. Its premise: Purchase a Groupon-like deal, say, $10 worth of ice cream at Toscanini's in Boston for $5. Instant win. After you purchase that deal, another is offered to you, perhaps 60 or 75 percent off ice cream from the same shop. Bonus point.
"It's kind of a re-molding of what was kind of a passive job of coupon clipping 40 years ago," says Samantha Skey, the chief revenue officer for Recyclebank, a business that works with communities build household incentives into recycling or saving energy. "It's an activist buyer who is gaming the system to get the best deal when she goes to buy those lemons. That consumer—and her desire to do the right thing and feel smart and get a good deal—is at the heart of what we do."
Recyclebank's business is to profit from cities actively processing less trash and doing more recycling, but go to its website, and it just looks like fun. "Earn points. Get rewards. Better the planet," it reads.
Rewarding Customers Through Gamification: Constantly Consider Your Customers' Motivation
In building a system to deliver rewards for your customers, it's important to consider first your goals. Are you primarily attempting to encourage brand loyalty—or are you trying to meet new customers? Are you trying to give customers something light and fun—or are you looking to amass more valuable customer data?
Next, consider within a system what specifically about your audience or customer base you can specifically reward. Simultaneously consider any aspects that could potentially turn them off. For example, if you're targeting a young audience of early adopters for whom sharing neat things or achievements with friends is natural, offer social-media sharing into your rewards system. But that might not work for everyone.
Brian Burke, the research vice president at Gartner, a global research firm that published a study on the expanding reach of gamification for companies, said that different people are motivated by different responses, so finding a good fit—particularly regarding social media and asking customers to disclose information—is key.
"There is some portion of the target audience that's likely to never engage because they find it creepy," he says. "Other segments of the population play games to develop relationships and find social interaction. Inherently, you're never going to reach 100 percent of the population."
Burke says his research into motivation and game-play, when conducting the study that determined that by 2015, 50 percent of companies that manage innovation and research will use gamification to drive innovation, he found that not all people play for the same reason. While he classified people into categories of explorers, achievers, and killers—those with an "I win, you lose" mentality—and those who play just for the social interaction. "There are some people out there who want no one else to know anything about them, and there are other people who want to push social interactions and foster bonds," Burke says.
For Games that Give, a company that builds Facebook games for brands, consumer-sharing is essential to a game's success. The goal for a Facebook game with heavy brand-integration is the same as any basic marketing: Eyeballs. So, going viral through heavy online sharing of scores, successes, and enjoyment of the game by players is key. But it's also a tricky thing to encourage.
"You really only have between five and 10 seconds to make an impression on people, so you use little tricks," says Adam Archer, one of the founders of Games that Give. "At what point do you ask people to share with their friends? They are most likely to share right after they've won something."
And sharing online might just be more valuable than word-of-mouth—because it's easy to track. But it's part of the same mission, Zichermann says.
"What you're trying to do with gamification as a business owner, is identify your most loyal fans, engage them to both generate more revenue for you and fire them up to become brand evangelists for you," Zichermann says.
Rewarding Customers Through Gamification: Don't Creep Out Your Customers
The danger of offending consumers' senses of privacy is a detail of which to remain consistently aware.
"With gamification, you have access to the underlying behavioral data in a massive scale way. Instead of flying blind, you can know exactly what people are doing on your site," Smedresman says. "After you have that, this non-blindness of what people are doing, you can start manipulating that. That's gamification."
GroupMe might offer group chat today, but tomorrow, it might suggest places for active groups to go meet, and spend money, Jared Hecht, one of the company's founders, told Inc.com at SXSW.
"It means that people who have a vested interest in manipulated consumers' behavior are going to be a lot more sophisticated about that," Smedersman says. "It's going to be our jobs as consumers to be mindful as to when we're being exposed to these incentivisers."
Rewarding Customers Through Gamification: Build in an Autonomous Feel-Good Aspect
With every consumer motivated by slightly different impulses and rewards, consider one of the most influential customer trends of the decade: Going green. Pushing customers toward feeling like they're doing good—either for themselves, or a greater cause—can be another powerful motivator. In the case of Recyclebank, it's lowering your electricity use or landing more of what comes into your house in packaging from the grocery store in your recycle bin.
"We've done side-by-side comparisons: If you integrate a socially responsible theme to the brand, you can see an increase by 40 percent in engagement—the time they spend in the game—over 40 percent in retention, and over 50 percent higher virality," Archer says. That means the user is more than 50 percent more likely to invite their friends to play, or, in other words, to become an ambassador for the brand.
While Games That Give develops entire autonomous game systems to represent a brand, Nissan has adopted just a few game mechanics for its Carwings, a system that keeps track of all of your car's fuel use, battery status, efficiency, and more. The program not only gives you feedback on your efficiency, but also puts your stats in competition with those of other Nissan Leaf drivers.
Is the big green pat on the back enough of a reward for your customers to continue interacting with a giving-back gamified system? Maybe not, says Skey of Recyclebank.
"I wish I could say the rewards are secondary, but I don't think they are yet," Skey says. With that in mind, Recyclebank rewards its users with grocery and goods coupons. "It would be great to get to the point where diminishing your footprint and increasing your eco-IQ was reward enough."
Rewarding Customers Through Gamification: Additional Applications
If Burke and Gartner are correct, the corporate applications for these game-design tactics are going to go way beyond customer rewards. Consider, Burke suggests, that Michellin uses online alternate-reality portal Second Life as a training program for enterprise architects.
"I believe that employee performance in a company environment is a growing use," Burke says. "Companies are starting to—instead of using a training manual or holding quarterly reviews—move toward a social-networking environment for performance and performance feedback."
It's not too much of a stretch to imagine a system in which an employee is awarded a badge or points for a speedy and well-crafted response to a boss's e-mail. But what about a system that tracks employees' behaviors in order to quantify work completed? What about crowdsourcing research and development? What about incentivising word-of-mouth promotion? Countless applications abound, both inside the walls of a company and out.
Now that companies are thinking outside of credit-card color-schemes and flight miles as rewards, not even the virtual sky is a limit to what can be done in this space.
http://www.inc.com/guides/201105/use-game-design-to-reward-your-customers.html
Are You CEO Material?
Ask yourself...
Sooner or later, every growing company reaches a point at which the entrepreneur behind it should start wondering whether he or she is the right person to be CEO. The answer has a lot to do with the company’s stage of development. The person who’s right for the start-up phase may not be right when the business reaches the management stage. Veteran entrepreneur Norm Brodsky found out the hard way that he was a terrible manager.
So how do you know...
Brodsky suggests there’s no tried-and-true formula for evaluating a prospective CEO. Ultimately, of course, the proof is in the pudding: How does the company perform? By the time you see the results, however it may be too late. That said, here are the five criteria Brodsky uses in evaluating a person’s ability to handle the responsibilities of a CEO.
Are you a leader?
First, a CEO has to be a leader, not simply a pied piper. Entrepreneurs are pied pipers. We play seductive melodies, conjure up wonderful images, and entice people into following us. Leadership is different. It calls for keeping a watchful eye on the business and making sure everyone understands what must get done. You need to create a sense of urgency about that.
Do you possess foresight?
Second, a CEO should have the ability to see around corners—that is, to recognize well in advance what has to be done for the good of the business—so that the company is always leading the industry rather than trying to catch up.
Do you love solving problems?
Third, a CEO needs a passion for problem solving. You have to be able to figure out quickly which problems require your attention and which don’t, and then focus relentlessly on getting the big ones solved. It helps to be sort of a person who feels acutely unhappy until a problem is fixed.
Is your ego too big?
Fourth, a CEO has to be able to put the company ahead of his or her ego gratification. Entrepreneurs enjoy the spotlight. That’s fine when the company is establishing itself in the marketplace, but it can become a problem later on. You need to be willing to do what’s best for the company at any given moment, which may include staying out of the spotlight.
Are you financially savvy?
Finally, a CEO must be financially literate in a way that goes beyond accounting. As CEO, you need to be able to use the numbers, not just to understand what has happened but to help you spot trends, identify problems, and head off trouble before it hits you.
What do you think?
Now, there are obviously many other traits not mentioned here, such as having a good strategic sense, working well with people, knowing how to delegate, and on and on, Brodsky says. “I value all those qualities, but the CEO has a special role to play. He or she is responsible for the success of the company as a whole. For that reason, I believe the five criteria I’ve mentioned are the ones to focus on. Do you agree. Lew me know.”
http://www.inc.com/ss/recognizing-what-makes-a-great-ceo
Sooner or later, every growing company reaches a point at which the entrepreneur behind it should start wondering whether he or she is the right person to be CEO. The answer has a lot to do with the company’s stage of development. The person who’s right for the start-up phase may not be right when the business reaches the management stage. Veteran entrepreneur Norm Brodsky found out the hard way that he was a terrible manager.
So how do you know...
Brodsky suggests there’s no tried-and-true formula for evaluating a prospective CEO. Ultimately, of course, the proof is in the pudding: How does the company perform? By the time you see the results, however it may be too late. That said, here are the five criteria Brodsky uses in evaluating a person’s ability to handle the responsibilities of a CEO.
Are you a leader?
First, a CEO has to be a leader, not simply a pied piper. Entrepreneurs are pied pipers. We play seductive melodies, conjure up wonderful images, and entice people into following us. Leadership is different. It calls for keeping a watchful eye on the business and making sure everyone understands what must get done. You need to create a sense of urgency about that.
Do you possess foresight?
Second, a CEO should have the ability to see around corners—that is, to recognize well in advance what has to be done for the good of the business—so that the company is always leading the industry rather than trying to catch up.
Do you love solving problems?
Third, a CEO needs a passion for problem solving. You have to be able to figure out quickly which problems require your attention and which don’t, and then focus relentlessly on getting the big ones solved. It helps to be sort of a person who feels acutely unhappy until a problem is fixed.
Is your ego too big?
Fourth, a CEO has to be able to put the company ahead of his or her ego gratification. Entrepreneurs enjoy the spotlight. That’s fine when the company is establishing itself in the marketplace, but it can become a problem later on. You need to be willing to do what’s best for the company at any given moment, which may include staying out of the spotlight.
Are you financially savvy?
Finally, a CEO must be financia
lly literate in a way that goes beyond accounting. As CEO, you need to be able to use the numbers, not just to understand what has happened but to help you spot trends, identify problems, and head off trouble before it hits you.What do you think?
Now, there are obviously many other traits not mentioned here, such as having a good strategic sense, working well with people, knowing how to delegate, and on and on, Brodsky says. “I value all those qualities, but the CEO has a special role to play. He or she is responsible for the success of the company as a whole. For that reason, I believe the five criteria I’ve mentioned are the ones to focus on. Do you agree. Lew me know.”
http://www.inc.com/ss/recognizing-what-makes-a-great-ceo
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