This amazingly simple formula drives virtually every successful
business. Unfortunately, many entrepreneurs and investors lose sight of
these basic principles.
Success in business, especially in growing businesses, does not
require an ingeniously complex solution. Often, success comes from
mastering the basic fundamentals.
In short, success is about addressing a customer need better than you
or your competitors currently address it. In many cases, the "new and
improved" solution is surprisingly incremental, rather than
revolutionary. Examples abound:
Google, one of the most valuable companies in the world, began as a slightly better search engine.
The Toyota Camry was the best-selling car in America for many years
because it had better gas mileage, was fun to drive, didn't break down,
and was less expensive than other sedans.
Oprah Winfrey dominated daytime TV by tapping into topics for women
in more interesting ways than Phil Donahue and others had done for
years.
Starbucks reinvented the concept of the coffee shop-something that
had been around for generations-by consistently serving good coffee in a
pleasant environment.
As we analyze the drivers of success in these and virtually all other
entrepreneurial successes, we find that there is an extremely basic,
and in hindsight, glaringly obvious, four-step formula common to each.
1. Develop an understanding of customer value.
What's the value equation from the customer perspective? This is
defined, most simply, as benefit minus cost. Many businesses and
entrepreneurs simply don't understand what would make a customer happier
or better off. Often they are trying to fit their product to the
customer rather than identify what product would fit the customer
2. Create a better product or solution for a specific customer.
Because each customer is different, identifying the specific customer
or segment you are targeting is critical. Attempting to be all things
to all people typically results in an indistinct product that benefits
no one.
3. Determine how to scale the product from one customer to many customers.
Once you've mastered the value equation for one customer, you can
focus on finding many customers that think and act alike. Most
management teams try to scale the business before they've created a
valuable product with one customer. It's similar to launching a rocket
to the moon without mastering the aerodynamics. It might have the power
to get there, but it's not going to make it.
4. Develop a business model that allows you to build scale while generating incremental return on Investment.
In the end, you'll need to build a business case for investing
capital to grow the business. If the customer value equation is still in
flux, no amount of growth capital will fix the problem. We like Alex
Osterwalder's business model canvas
as a template for building a solid business model. But, it's important
to calculate how the investment will create a return on capital.
Of course, execution is everything. If business success was as easy
as following a few steps, everyone would be a mega-billionaire. But it's
surprising how many competent entrepreneurs, corporations, and even
experienced strategists develop business models that omit one or more of
these basic steps.
5/9/12
Sales Lessons My Mom Taught Me
My mother taught me everything I really needed to know about selling. Here's her advice.
My mother was a crack sales rep for Bristol Myers, but to me she was mostly just my mom. As such, it didn't occur to me until a few years ago that her "mom advice" was also a sure-fire recipe for sales success.
Here's what I remember:
1. 'No gift until after you write the thank-you note.'
My mom was BIG on thank-you notes. In her mind, it was the height of rudeness to fail to recognize when somebody had sent you a gift. So every Christmas, before we got to actually play with the toys our relatives sent us, we had to sit down and write our thank-you notes.
Years later, I learned that she always applied the same principles in her sales job. Whenever a store manager cut a special order, or allowed her to rearrange the shelf layout, or did anything that made her job easier, she wrote a personal note and mailed it, on exact the same day.
As the result of this simple discipline, store managers always remembered her name, and always took her calls and positively anticipated her visits.
2. 'Always wear clean underwear.'
And, yes, she did add "in case you get in an accident," but only when she gave the advice to my sister. In my case, her advice was, I think, a reflection of her view that the only way to dress well is to dress from the inside out.
My mother observed that, rightly or wrongly, people judge you on your appearance. She also frequently pointed out that, of all the elements that make up your appearance, the one that's most under your control is what you're wearing.
She believed–and I agree with her–that a big part of how your clothes look on you is how you feel about the clothes themselves. It's hard, maybe impossible, to look sharp if you know that you're wearing something tatty, even if other people probably aren't going to see it.
3. 'Profanity shows a lack of imagination.'
This was my mom's unique way of saying "watch your mouth!"–and it's good advice for anyone in business, especially if you work in sales.
Some people in business use profanity (or even obscenity) in an attempt to add swagger to their personas. However, because it's both common and commonplace, "colorful" language usually falls flat and frequently offends.
Unfortunately, swearing is, like most habits, easy to acquire and difficult to break. So expunge the filth from your vocabulary now, before you accidentally make customers wonder whether they want to do business with somebody who's got a potty mouth.
4. 'If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all.'
My mother didn't tolerate malicious gossip and avoided people who did. As a result, the people she worked with (including customers) shared all sorts of things that they otherwise might not have revealed.
Sales is all about trust, and people stop trusting you the minute they minute you trash-talk the competition, your management (worse), or other customers (worst of all).
When you allow venom to creep into your words, it spreads poison over everything. So if you want strong relationships, both personal and professional, hold your tongue when you're tempted to say something unprofessional or petty.
5. 'I don't care if everyone else is doing it.'
I remember being furious at my mom when she said this. She was unfair! She was ruining my social life! She was making me uncool! (The horror, the horror...)
Of course, now that I've got two kids of my own, I know exactly where she was coming from. More importantly, I've come to realize that, just as it's immature to let peer pressure lead you into doing something stupid, it's a losing business strategy to imitate the behavior of other firms in your industry.
That's why I'm skeptical of anyone who claims to be teaching "best practices." Every company is unique and thus must have a unique formula for success. Going with the crowd is the fast track to mediocrity.
6. 'It's no use crying over spilt milk.'
My mom faced a lot of challenges in her life: a stillborn baby in her 20s, a scandal-ridden divorce in her 30s, breast cancer in her 40s. She came through all of it with a (mostly) positive attitude, because she lived in the present and not the past.
I can't ever remember hearing her complain, even once, about what had happened to her. Instead, she made the effort, and largely succeeded, in finding things to enjoy in her life at the time.
That's an incredibly valuable belief to have if your livelihood depends upon sales. No matter how talented you are, no matter how wonderful your product, some deals are going to go south. Focusing on the past is worse than useless. Learn what you can and move on.
Note: My mom died two years ago from complications resulting from reconstructive surgery. I respectfully dedicate this column to her memory.
http://www.inc.com/geoffrey-james/sales-lessons-my-mom-taught-me.html
My mother was a crack sales rep for Bristol Myers, but to me she was mostly just my mom. As such, it didn't occur to me until a few years ago that her "mom advice" was also a sure-fire recipe for sales success.
Here's what I remember:
1. 'No gift until after you write the thank-you note.'
My mom was BIG on thank-you notes. In her mind, it was the height of rudeness to fail to recognize when somebody had sent you a gift. So every Christmas, before we got to actually play with the toys our relatives sent us, we had to sit down and write our thank-you notes.
Years later, I learned that she always applied the same principles in her sales job. Whenever a store manager cut a special order, or allowed her to rearrange the shelf layout, or did anything that made her job easier, she wrote a personal note and mailed it, on exact the same day.
As the result of this simple discipline, store managers always remembered her name, and always took her calls and positively anticipated her visits.
2. 'Always wear clean underwear.'
And, yes, she did add "in case you get in an accident," but only when she gave the advice to my sister. In my case, her advice was, I think, a reflection of her view that the only way to dress well is to dress from the inside out.
My mother observed that, rightly or wrongly, people judge you on your appearance. She also frequently pointed out that, of all the elements that make up your appearance, the one that's most under your control is what you're wearing.
She believed–and I agree with her–that a big part of how your clothes look on you is how you feel about the clothes themselves. It's hard, maybe impossible, to look sharp if you know that you're wearing something tatty, even if other people probably aren't going to see it.
3. 'Profanity shows a lack of imagination.'
This was my mom's unique way of saying "watch your mouth!"–and it's good advice for anyone in business, especially if you work in sales.
Some people in business use profanity (or even obscenity) in an attempt to add swagger to their personas. However, because it's both common and commonplace, "colorful" language usually falls flat and frequently offends.
Unfortunately, swearing is, like most habits, easy to acquire and difficult to break. So expunge the filth from your vocabulary now, before you accidentally make customers wonder whether they want to do business with somebody who's got a potty mouth.
4. 'If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all.'
My mother didn't tolerate malicious gossip and avoided people who did. As a result, the people she worked with (including customers) shared all sorts of things that they otherwise might not have revealed.
Sales is all about trust, and people stop trusting you the minute they minute you trash-talk the competition, your management (worse), or other customers (worst of all).
When you allow venom to creep into your words, it spreads poison over everything. So if you want strong relationships, both personal and professional, hold your tongue when you're tempted to say something unprofessional or petty.
5. 'I don't care if everyone else is doing it.'
I remember being furious at my mom when she said this. She was unfair! She was ruining my social life! She was making me uncool! (The horror, the horror...)
Of course, now that I've got two kids of my own, I know exactly where she was coming from. More importantly, I've come to realize that, just as it's immature to let peer pressure lead you into doing something stupid, it's a losing business strategy to imitate the behavior of other firms in your industry.
That's why I'm skeptical of anyone who claims to be teaching "best practices." Every company is unique and thus must have a unique formula for success. Going with the crowd is the fast track to mediocrity.
6. 'It's no use crying over spilt milk.'
My mom faced a lot of challenges in her life: a stillborn baby in her 20s, a scandal-ridden divorce in her 30s, breast cancer in her 40s. She came through all of it with a (mostly) positive attitude, because she lived in the present and not the past.
I can't ever remember hearing her complain, even once, about what had happened to her. Instead, she made the effort, and largely succeeded, in finding things to enjoy in her life at the time.
That's an incredibly valuable belief to have if your livelihood depends upon sales. No matter how talented you are, no matter how wonderful your product, some deals are going to go south. Focusing on the past is worse than useless. Learn what you can and move on.
Note: My mom died two years ago from complications resulting from reconstructive surgery. I respectfully dedicate this column to her memory.
http://www.inc.com/geoffrey-james/sales-lessons-my-mom-taught-me.html
5/8/12
The Six Enemies of Greatness (and Happiness)
The Six Enemies of Greatness (and Happiness)
These six factors can erode the grandest of plans and the noblest of intentions. They can turn visionaries into paper-pushers and wide-eyed dreamers into shivering, weeping balls of regret. Beware!
1) Availability
We often settle for what’s available, and what’s available isn’t always great. “Because it was there,” is an okay reason to climb a mountain, but not a very good reason to take a job or a free sample at the supermarket.
2) Ignorance
If we don’t know how to make something great, we simply won’t. If we don’t know that greatness is possible, we won’t bother attempting it. All too often, we literally do not know any better than good enough.
3) Committees
Nothing destroys a good idea faster than a mandatory consensus. The lowest common denominator is never a high standard.
4) Comfort
Why pursue greatness when you’ve already got 324 channels and a recliner? Pass the dip and forget about your grand designs.
5) Momentum
If you’ve been doing what you’re doing for years and it’s not-so-great, you are in a rut. Many people refer to these ruts as careers.
These six factors can erode the grandest of plans and the noblest of intentions. They can turn visionaries into paper-pushers and wide-eyed dreamers into shivering, weeping balls of regret. Beware!
1) Availability
We often settle for what’s available, and what’s available isn’t always great. “Because it was there,” is an okay reason to climb a mountain, but not a very good reason to take a job or a free sample at the supermarket.
If we don’t know how to make something great, we simply won’t. If we don’t know that greatness is possible, we won’t bother attempting it. All too often, we literally do not know any better than good enough.
Nothing destroys a good idea faster than a mandatory consensus. The lowest common denominator is never a high standard.
Why pursue greatness when you’ve already got 324 channels and a recliner? Pass the dip and forget about your grand designs.
If you’ve been doing what you’re doing for years and it’s not-so-great, you are in a rut. Many people refer to these ruts as careers.
6) Passivity
There’s a difference
between being agreeable and agreeing to everything. Trust the little
internal voice that tells you, “this is a bad idea.”
Solving the problem isn't the problem
The problem is finding a vector that pays for itself as you scale.
We see a problem and we think we've "solved" it, but if there isn't a scalable go-to-market business approach behind the solution, it's not going to work.
This is where engineers and other problem solvers so often get stuck. Industries and organizations and systems aren't broken because no one knows how to solve their problem. They're broken because the difficult part is finding a scalable, profitable way to market and sell the solution.
Take textbooks, for example. The challenge here isn't that you and I can't come up with a far better, cheaper, faster and more fair way to produce and sell and use textbooks. The problem is that the people who have to approve, review and purchase textbooks are difficult to reach, time-consuming to educate and expensive to sell.
Or consider solar lanterns as a replacement for kerosene. They are safer, cheaper and far healthier. But that's not the problem. The problem is building a marketing and distribution network that permits you to rapidly educate a billion people as to why they want to buy one at a price that would permit you to make them in quantity.
Sure, you need a solution to the problem. But mostly what you need is a self-funding method to scale your solution, a way of interacting with the market that gains in strength over time so you can start small and get big, solving the problem as you go.
http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2012/05/solving-the-problem-isnt-the-problem.html
We see a problem and we think we've "solved" it, but if there isn't a scalable go-to-market business approach behind the solution, it's not going to work.
This is where engineers and other problem solvers so often get stuck. Industries and organizations and systems aren't broken because no one knows how to solve their problem. They're broken because the difficult part is finding a scalable, profitable way to market and sell the solution.
Take textbooks, for example. The challenge here isn't that you and I can't come up with a far better, cheaper, faster and more fair way to produce and sell and use textbooks. The problem is that the people who have to approve, review and purchase textbooks are difficult to reach, time-consuming to educate and expensive to sell.
Or consider solar lanterns as a replacement for kerosene. They are safer, cheaper and far healthier. But that's not the problem. The problem is building a marketing and distribution network that permits you to rapidly educate a billion people as to why they want to buy one at a price that would permit you to make them in quantity.
Sure, you need a solution to the problem. But mostly what you need is a self-funding method to scale your solution, a way of interacting with the market that gains in strength over time so you can start small and get big, solving the problem as you go.
http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2012/05/solving-the-problem-isnt-the-problem.html
What a 9-Year-Old Can Teach You About Selling
If you want your conversations to have a real impact, you need to simplify your message.
I recently read a study that confirmed my suspicion that most people don't remember what we present to them in a sales call. The data suggested that the average buyer in a meeting will only remember one thing–one!–a week after your meeting.
Oh, and by the way: You don't get to choose what that one thing is. Sigh.
So what have sales professionals done about this? They have worked on "honing the message," developing a "compelling unique advantage" and, of course, the ultimate silver bullet: a surefire elevator pitch.
But here's what you're fighting: A world cluttered with information, schedules, packed with more meetings and work than a person can handle. A decision-making process with more people involved in every choice–many of whom know little about your product or service. No wonder so little is remembered; often your audience doesn't even understand much about what you're offering.
What Kids Want to Know
I have a 9-year-old daughter with spring freckles, long brown hair and blue eyes the size of silver dollars. She asks the kinds of questions that on the surface seem so simple:
What does a procurement specialist know about what you sell–or the IT person, or the finance person? The challenge is this: Can you answer the three questions my 9-year-old asked, for your own business?
Hint: There are right and wrong answers for both.
Daddy, What Do You Do?
http://www.inc.com/tom-searcy/what-a-9-year-old-can-teach-you-about-selling.html
I recently read a study that confirmed my suspicion that most people don't remember what we present to them in a sales call. The data suggested that the average buyer in a meeting will only remember one thing–one!–a week after your meeting.
Oh, and by the way: You don't get to choose what that one thing is. Sigh.
So what have sales professionals done about this? They have worked on "honing the message," developing a "compelling unique advantage" and, of course, the ultimate silver bullet: a surefire elevator pitch.
But here's what you're fighting: A world cluttered with information, schedules, packed with more meetings and work than a person can handle. A decision-making process with more people involved in every choice–many of whom know little about your product or service. No wonder so little is remembered; often your audience doesn't even understand much about what you're offering.
What Kids Want to Know
I have a 9-year-old daughter with spring freckles, long brown hair and blue eyes the size of silver dollars. She asks the kinds of questions that on the surface seem so simple:
- Daddy, what do you do?
- Why do people decide to hire you?
- Why don't they hire somebody else or do it themselves?
What does a procurement specialist know about what you sell–or the IT person, or the finance person? The challenge is this: Can you answer the three questions my 9-year-old asked, for your own business?
Hint: There are right and wrong answers for both.
Daddy, What Do You Do?
- Right answer: "I help companies to grow really fast by teaching them how to sell bigger companies much larger orders."
- Wrong answer: "Our company helps develop inside of our clients a replicable and scalable process for them to land large accounts."
- Right answer: "We have helped lots of companies do this before, so we are really good at it as long as they are the right type of companies."
- Wrong answer: "We have a proven process for implementation that allows organizations to tailor the model to their market, business offering and company's growth goals."
- Right answer: "Just like when you learned to play the piano: Mommy and I could teach a little, but we don't know as much as your teacher, and teaching you ourselves would take a long time and be very frustrating. Daddy is a really good teacher of how to make bigger sales, and people want to learn how to do this as fast as they can."
- Wrong answer: "We are the foremost expert in this field with over $5 billion in business that our clients have closed using this system. Usually our clients have tried a number of things on their own before we work together and have wanted outside help to get better results."
http://www.inc.com/tom-searcy/what-a-9-year-old-can-teach-you-about-selling.html
Deliver on Deadline Every Time: 6 Tips
Don't let your project slide off the rails before it even starts. Keep your team on track and on time with these tips.
It's the Monday morning staff meeting, and the week's urgent projects are on the agenda. Plenty of assignments for everyone: some that involve a few quick phone calls, and others that will require overtime. How do you make sure you nail every deadline? Share these tips with your team.
Deadlines aren’t bad. They help you organize your time. They help you set priorities. They make you get going when you might not feel like it. And meeting deadlines successfully is one of the best motivating factors out there.
http://www.inc.com/harvey-mackay/how-to-meet-deadlines-under-pressure.html
It's the Monday morning staff meeting, and the week's urgent projects are on the agenda. Plenty of assignments for everyone: some that involve a few quick phone calls, and others that will require overtime. How do you make sure you nail every deadline? Share these tips with your team.
- Start with specifics. When exactly is the deadline? Clarify whether “end of the week” means 5 p.m. Friday or first thing Friday morning. And hammer down the results: What does your client want? How will they measure your effectiveness?
- Negotiate. Better to do it now rather than later. Is the deadline realistic? Suggest alternative dates, or work out what other tasks you should put on hold in order to give the deadline the attention it deserves.
- Break the task down. “Complete big project by Friday” is not an action item. Start with the biggest tasks and break them down into individual steps that have their own deadlines.
- Build in a buffer. As you schedule individual tasks, give yourself a cushion. Mark the due date a few days ahead of the actual deadline so you have time to deal with changes or last-minute emergencies.
- Make it OK for people to ask for help. No one gets extra points for trying to be a hero. It’s far better for the team (and your client) if employees admit early on that they need more time or extra manpower. Check in often; your job as the leader is to help the team remove potential roadblocks before they become full-flown crises.
- Get started. Don’t end the first project-planning meeting without assigning everyone a next step and a deadline. This will help the team focus on the small steps in front of them and not the magnitude of the project ahead.
Deadlines aren’t bad. They help you organize your time. They help you set priorities. They make you get going when you might not feel like it. And meeting deadlines successfully is one of the best motivating factors out there.
http://www.inc.com/harvey-mackay/how-to-meet-deadlines-under-pressure.html
Jim Collins: Good to Great in 10 Steps
Management guru Jim Collins asks entrepreneurs to do 10 things that will
dramatically improve their companies. What are you waiting for?
Researcher and management guru Jim Collins has authored or co-authored six books, including Good to Great and Built to Last. On his web site there are 48 articles written or co-written by him. But speaking at the Womens Presidents Organization’s annual conference last week in Atlanta, Collins boiled it all down. Do these 10 things, he said, to dramatically improve your company.
1. Download the diagnostic tool at jimcollins.com, and do the exercises with your team. Yes, I thought this was self-serving at first. Then I looked it, considered that it’s free and doesn't require you to sign up for anything, and immediately saw his point.
2. Get the right people in the key seats. This comes from Collins’ famous observation that building a company is like driving a bus. You need a driver, but you also need the right people in all the key seats. So, says Collins, figure out how many key seats you have, and make a plan that will make sure you get all the key seats filled by the end of the year.
3. Once a quarter, have a brutal facts meeting. Be careful about who you include in this meeting. You will be discussing just the brutal facts. This is not the time to express opinions or strategize. Repeat: Only discuss the brutal facts.
4. Set a 15 to 25-year big, hairy audacious goal (BHAG). This is a goal that is concrete enough, and ambitious enough, to guide your company’s progress for years. Collins writes that “With his very first dime store in 1945, Sam Walton set the BHAG to ‘make my little Newport store the best, most profitable in Arkansas within five years.’ He continued to set BHAGs, which continued to get larger and more audacious, as his company grew.
5. Commit to a “20-mile march” that you will bring you to your big hairy audacious goal. Collins makes the analogy to someone who is trying to walk across the county. The best approach, says Collins, is to attempt to travel the same distance every day. If you’re on a 2-mile march, says Collins, you don’t bolt 30 miles ahead when the weather is good. You go 20 miles. When the weather is bad, you can’t sit inside and complain – you still have make 20 miles.
What does this have to do with entrepreneurship? In his research, Collins found that companies that perform consistently do much better than those that do spectacularly one year and are feeble the next. That’s because if you overextend in good years, when opportunity appears to be everywhere, you may not have the resources to get through the lousy years. The 20-mile march is a metaphor for the milestone that you can reach day-in and day-out.
6. Place at least one really big bet in the next three years, based on having fired bullets first. No entrepreneur has unlimited resources, just as no small army has unlimited gunpowder (this metaphor may be dated, but you get the point). The best use of limited gunpowder, or resources, says Collins, is to fire bullets to ensure that your aim is calibrated properly and that you can indeed hit your target. Only when you’re sure of your ability to hit your target should you load lots of gunpowder into a cannonball and fire away. “Fire bullets to calibrate. Fire cannonballs to go big,” says Collins.
7. Practice productive paranoia. Collins says he fondly refers to his entrepreneurial subjects as PNFs, or paranoid neurotic freaks. “Successful companies have three to ten times the cash on their balance sheets as their peers even when they are very small,” says Collins. Or as one of the CEOs he studied said to him, “We’re very proud of the fact that we’ve predicted 11 of the past three recessions.”
How exactly can one practice productive paranoia? Collins recommends making a plan that will allow you to go for an entire year with no revenues, and still survive.
8. Get a high return on your next luck event. Collins says that both great and mediocre companies encounter the same amount of luck, good and bad. What matters, he says, is how well they’re able to capitalize on it. Collins refers to this as ‘return on luck.’ “How are you doing on luck?” he asks. “Have you turned your bad-luck events into a big part of what makes your company great? Are you squandering your good-luck events?”
9. Make a to-do list. “If you have more than three priorities, you don’t have any,” says Collins. For every major ‘to-do’ on your list, you should have a corresponding item that you will stop doing. The 'stop-doing' list.
10. Commit to a set of core values that you will want to build your enterprise on, without changing them, for 100 years.
http://www.inc.com/kimberly-weisul/jim-collins-good-to-great-in-ten-steps.html
Researcher and management guru Jim Collins has authored or co-authored six books, including Good to Great and Built to Last. On his web site there are 48 articles written or co-written by him. But speaking at the Womens Presidents Organization’s annual conference last week in Atlanta, Collins boiled it all down. Do these 10 things, he said, to dramatically improve your company.
1. Download the diagnostic tool at jimcollins.com, and do the exercises with your team. Yes, I thought this was self-serving at first. Then I looked it, considered that it’s free and doesn't require you to sign up for anything, and immediately saw his point.
2. Get the right people in the key seats. This comes from Collins’ famous observation that building a company is like driving a bus. You need a driver, but you also need the right people in all the key seats. So, says Collins, figure out how many key seats you have, and make a plan that will make sure you get all the key seats filled by the end of the year.
3. Once a quarter, have a brutal facts meeting. Be careful about who you include in this meeting. You will be discussing just the brutal facts. This is not the time to express opinions or strategize. Repeat: Only discuss the brutal facts.
4. Set a 15 to 25-year big, hairy audacious goal (BHAG). This is a goal that is concrete enough, and ambitious enough, to guide your company’s progress for years. Collins writes that “With his very first dime store in 1945, Sam Walton set the BHAG to ‘make my little Newport store the best, most profitable in Arkansas within five years.’ He continued to set BHAGs, which continued to get larger and more audacious, as his company grew.
5. Commit to a “20-mile march” that you will bring you to your big hairy audacious goal. Collins makes the analogy to someone who is trying to walk across the county. The best approach, says Collins, is to attempt to travel the same distance every day. If you’re on a 2-mile march, says Collins, you don’t bolt 30 miles ahead when the weather is good. You go 20 miles. When the weather is bad, you can’t sit inside and complain – you still have make 20 miles.
What does this have to do with entrepreneurship? In his research, Collins found that companies that perform consistently do much better than those that do spectacularly one year and are feeble the next. That’s because if you overextend in good years, when opportunity appears to be everywhere, you may not have the resources to get through the lousy years. The 20-mile march is a metaphor for the milestone that you can reach day-in and day-out.
6. Place at least one really big bet in the next three years, based on having fired bullets first. No entrepreneur has unlimited resources, just as no small army has unlimited gunpowder (this metaphor may be dated, but you get the point). The best use of limited gunpowder, or resources, says Collins, is to fire bullets to ensure that your aim is calibrated properly and that you can indeed hit your target. Only when you’re sure of your ability to hit your target should you load lots of gunpowder into a cannonball and fire away. “Fire bullets to calibrate. Fire cannonballs to go big,” says Collins.
7. Practice productive paranoia. Collins says he fondly refers to his entrepreneurial subjects as PNFs, or paranoid neurotic freaks. “Successful companies have three to ten times the cash on their balance sheets as their peers even when they are very small,” says Collins. Or as one of the CEOs he studied said to him, “We’re very proud of the fact that we’ve predicted 11 of the past three recessions.”
How exactly can one practice productive paranoia? Collins recommends making a plan that will allow you to go for an entire year with no revenues, and still survive.
8. Get a high return on your next luck event. Collins says that both great and mediocre companies encounter the same amount of luck, good and bad. What matters, he says, is how well they’re able to capitalize on it. Collins refers to this as ‘return on luck.’ “How are you doing on luck?” he asks. “Have you turned your bad-luck events into a big part of what makes your company great? Are you squandering your good-luck events?”
9. Make a to-do list. “If you have more than three priorities, you don’t have any,” says Collins. For every major ‘to-do’ on your list, you should have a corresponding item that you will stop doing. The 'stop-doing' list.
10. Commit to a set of core values that you will want to build your enterprise on, without changing them, for 100 years.
http://www.inc.com/kimberly-weisul/jim-collins-good-to-great-in-ten-steps.html
Core Values Will Create Your Success
Build some real value into your business by building your business on strong values that you determine.
The term value is often tied to a monetary measure—what something is worth in dollars and cents. Fiscal value is a moving target; however, changing with the ebb and flow of the fickle global economy. Where a business owner should focus more effort and energy is not in the value, but the values of his or her company. Those are concrete and change very little over time.
The values of an organization come from the founder. They are there from the very beginning, influencing the building blocks of vision, people and systems. The core values must not only be accepted but truly believed by all other top level executives so it becomes ingrained in each and every employee.
Values are relatively static. Who you are as a person doesn't change radically, for most, and who your company is shouldn't either. As a company evolves so will its core values. These changes should be a fine tuning rather than a complete overhaul.
OtterBox core values are concrete—not touchy-feely affirmations, but actionable attributes. We discuss our core values in terms of business decisions, processes and systems. We've even instituted a reward program aimed at honoring employees who exhibit our core values in their daily course of business. Given the diversity of the values, that's not an easy task. Below are the OtterBox core values and abbreviated definitions:
http://www.inc.com/curt-richardson/core-values-will-create-your-success.html
The term value is often tied to a monetary measure—what something is worth in dollars and cents. Fiscal value is a moving target; however, changing with the ebb and flow of the fickle global economy. Where a business owner should focus more effort and energy is not in the value, but the values of his or her company. Those are concrete and change very little over time.
The values of an organization come from the founder. They are there from the very beginning, influencing the building blocks of vision, people and systems. The core values must not only be accepted but truly believed by all other top level executives so it becomes ingrained in each and every employee.
Values are relatively static. Who you are as a person doesn't change radically, for most, and who your company is shouldn't either. As a company evolves so will its core values. These changes should be a fine tuning rather than a complete overhaul.
OtterBox core values are concrete—not touchy-feely affirmations, but actionable attributes. We discuss our core values in terms of business decisions, processes and systems. We've even instituted a reward program aimed at honoring employees who exhibit our core values in their daily course of business. Given the diversity of the values, that's not an easy task. Below are the OtterBox core values and abbreviated definitions:
- Passion: OtterBox is about an experience and a lifestyle. We strive to be the best at what we choose to do.
- Integrity: We trust if we do the right things, we will get the right results.
- Innovation: Built upon entrepreneurial values, we believe everything can be innovated.
- Strategically Driven: We spend one-third of the year planning and strategizing for the future.
- Adaptable: We are eager to embrace change.
- Partner Relationships: We foster long-lasting, win-win relationships with a focus on the future.
- Systemic: We are the sum of all our parts.
- Accountability: We do what we say we will do.
http://www.inc.com/curt-richardson/core-values-will-create-your-success.html
4 Tips for Inspiring Passion in Employees
Passion is easy for an entrepreneur, but keeping that spark alive as a
company grows is another story. Here are four tips for keeping the fire
burning.
Entrepreneurial passion. It's the cornerstone on which a successful business must be built. As a company grows, that passion must remain intact and infiltrate the entire organization.
Passion is what really made OtterBox stand apart from my numerous other entrepreneurial flare-ups. In the early days of my serial entrepreneurship, I had purchased or started a variety of businesses in tooling and manufacturing. There were successes, but ultimately I ended up back in my garage-a helpful euphemism for not making it pass the small business bump.
It wasn't that I didn't have passion for all of those businesses. The passion was there, but it wasn't focused. The trick is to harness that passion and focus it into a vision. With OtterBox, I had decided to get out of the business of manufacturing products for other people. Instead, I focused my passion on designing and marketing a product that was of personal interest to me -waterproof, crushproof boxes. That product has evolved and changed as has the passion within the company.
Passion is one of the core values of OtterBox and one that gets special attention. OtterBox has grown from my garage to a company with more than 600 employees and offices around the globe in a 14-year span. Maintaining passion within the company, with all employees, has been of utmost importance.
These four elements have been key to keeping the spark alive:
1. From the top-down
It all starts here. The leadership team must be passionate in order for the rest of the organization to be passionate. Who wants to come to work for someone who is just going through the motions and working for the next professional advancement? When hand-picking company leaders, passion must be top-of-mind. If you can't feel it, neither will the rest of the company.
2. From the bottom-up
Just as the leaders are responsible for setting the example, every employee must be involved in fanning the flame. Employees are the frontline to business partners, the community and customers, so their passion is what bleeds through. Build passion into the hiring process. Recognize and celebrate employee acts of passion as a company.
3. To the farthest reaches
Passion doesn't start and stop at headquarters. Ensuring that remote employees are experiencing and exuding passion can be difficult. We bring all employees to the OtterBox home base of Fort Collins, Colorado for training when they are hired and bring them back for quarterly company meetings. Online meeting and training tools keep people face-to-face daily.
4. In everything we do
Passion must be injected into every part of the business: the product, the company, coworkers, community, etc. From research and development to sales to customer service to shipping, every department must show passion in what they do and how they do it. By empowering employees to get involved in strategy, showing them how their work impacts the organization as a whole and letting them get involved in making a difference in the community, passion becomes a given.
Passion is easy in the early days of a business. Everything is new and shiny. The world is your oyster. Maintaining passion, especially as an organization grows, is the tough part. It's what keeps employees engaged and business partners 'wowed.' Passion is what customers feel when they engage with the brand that makes them advocates.
http://www.inc.com/curt-richardson/4-tips-for-inspiring-passion-in-employees.html
Entrepreneurial passion. It's the cornerstone on which a successful business must be built. As a company grows, that passion must remain intact and infiltrate the entire organization.
Passion is what really made OtterBox stand apart from my numerous other entrepreneurial flare-ups. In the early days of my serial entrepreneurship, I had purchased or started a variety of businesses in tooling and manufacturing. There were successes, but ultimately I ended up back in my garage-a helpful euphemism for not making it pass the small business bump.
It wasn't that I didn't have passion for all of those businesses. The passion was there, but it wasn't focused. The trick is to harness that passion and focus it into a vision. With OtterBox, I had decided to get out of the business of manufacturing products for other people. Instead, I focused my passion on designing and marketing a product that was of personal interest to me -waterproof, crushproof boxes. That product has evolved and changed as has the passion within the company.
Passion is one of the core values of OtterBox and one that gets special attention. OtterBox has grown from my garage to a company with more than 600 employees and offices around the globe in a 14-year span. Maintaining passion within the company, with all employees, has been of utmost importance.
These four elements have been key to keeping the spark alive:
1. From the top-down
It all starts here. The leadership team must be passionate in order for the rest of the organization to be passionate. Who wants to come to work for someone who is just going through the motions and working for the next professional advancement? When hand-picking company leaders, passion must be top-of-mind. If you can't feel it, neither will the rest of the company.
2. From the bottom-up
Just as the leaders are responsible for setting the example, every employee must be involved in fanning the flame. Employees are the frontline to business partners, the community and customers, so their passion is what bleeds through. Build passion into the hiring process. Recognize and celebrate employee acts of passion as a company.
3. To the farthest reaches
Passion doesn't start and stop at headquarters. Ensuring that remote employees are experiencing and exuding passion can be difficult. We bring all employees to the OtterBox home base of Fort Collins, Colorado for training when they are hired and bring them back for quarterly company meetings. Online meeting and training tools keep people face-to-face daily.
4. In everything we do
Passion must be injected into every part of the business: the product, the company, coworkers, community, etc. From research and development to sales to customer service to shipping, every department must show passion in what they do and how they do it. By empowering employees to get involved in strategy, showing them how their work impacts the organization as a whole and letting them get involved in making a difference in the community, passion becomes a given.
Passion is easy in the early days of a business. Everything is new and shiny. The world is your oyster. Maintaining passion, especially as an organization grows, is the tough part. It's what keeps employees engaged and business partners 'wowed.' Passion is what customers feel when they engage with the brand that makes them advocates.
http://www.inc.com/curt-richardson/4-tips-for-inspiring-passion-in-employees.html
10 Ways to Motivate Anyone
Understand the unique brain and personality types of your employees to keep them invested in work. You'll see amazing results.
I am often asked about how I keep employees inspired and productive. It's an essential question since companies today must accomplish more, with fewer people. The most successful start-ups must be lean, nimble, and fierce.
In a nutshell, you should hire bright, energetic, innovative employees. Then offer them the right incentives--the ones that will impact their personal brain and personality types--to keep them mentally and emotionally invested in doing their best.
It's impossible to talk about motivation without mentioning Drive, a book by best-selling author Daniel Pink. (His TED lecture was turned into a fabulous video.) Pink notes that people perform best when they are given autonomy, opportunity for mastery, and the belief that their task is meaningful. He says money is not the best motivator, and that employees want to be "players, not pawns."
Pink believes Google's "20% time," in which employees may spend one day a week on whatever they want is a shining example of how allowing intrinsically-based motivations (a sense of accomplishment or purpose) can flourish. Personal endeavors from "20% time" resulted in Gmail, Google News, Orkut, and AdSense. Long before Google--back in 1948--3M instituted the "15% solution" or "dream time," which yielded both Scotch Tape and Post-It Notes.
There's no question that intrinsic motivation is essential. However, I do not agree with Pink that all extrinsic motivation (raises, bonuses, commissions, awards, titles, flex time, and other perks) is harmful. A skillful entrepreneur keeps employees motivated with a combination of both.
That said, there is no cookie-cutter approach to motivating your people. What inspires one person may leave the next cold. When you understand an employee's thinking and behavioral preferences, you'll be able to maximize his or her enthusiasm. This will help you get your workforce aligned and moving in the same direction, and you'll see incredible returns.
1. Analytical types want to know that a project is valuable, and that their work makes a difference to its success. They need a leader who excels in a particular area, and whose expertise they believe benefits the group. They prefer compensation that is commensurate with their contribution. If they have done a tremendous amount of work on their own, don't expect them to be happy if you reward the whole team.
2. People who are "structural" by nature want to know their work aids the company's progress. They prefer a leader who is organized, competent, and good with details. They like to be rewarded in writing, in a timely manner, in a way specific to the task. An encouraging email is appropriate to communicate with them.
3. Social people want to feel personally valued, and that what they are doing has an impact on a project. They go the extra mile for a leader who expresses faith in their abilities. They prefer to be rewarded in person with a gesture that is from the heart. If your own preference is for written communication, send a handwritten note to a particularly social employee.
4. Innovative employees must buy into a cause. To them, the big picture matters more than the individual who is leading the charge. They prefer to be rewarded with something unconventional and imaginative, and would find a whimsical token of your esteem very meaningful.
5. Quiet staffers don't need a lot of fanfare, but they appreciate private, one-on-one encouragement.
6. Expressive people feel more motivated when assignments are openly discussed and an open door is available. They like public recognition, with pomp, and ceremony.
7. Peacekeepers hope everyone will move in the same direction. They'll never demand a reward or recognition, so it's up to you to offer it.
8. Hard-drivers are independent thinkers. If they agree with you, they'll be highly motivated. They will let you know what they'd like as an extrinsic reward, and they tend to want whatever it is right away.
9. Those who are focused team members must have confidence in the leader and in the project, or their motivation may falter. They want know up front what kind of reward they can expect. Make sure you follow through on whatever is promised.
10. Flexible people go along with the team, as long as a project does not contradict their morals or beliefs. They're also happy with any kind of recognition.
Watch for the weakest link among your employees. If you have a slacker who consistently does less than everyone else but seems to get away with it, this can dampen the motivation of everyone else.
http://www.inc.com/geil-browning/ten-ways-to-motivate-anyone.html
I am often asked about how I keep employees inspired and productive. It's an essential question since companies today must accomplish more, with fewer people. The most successful start-ups must be lean, nimble, and fierce.
In a nutshell, you should hire bright, energetic, innovative employees. Then offer them the right incentives--the ones that will impact their personal brain and personality types--to keep them mentally and emotionally invested in doing their best.
It's impossible to talk about motivation without mentioning Drive, a book by best-selling author Daniel Pink. (His TED lecture was turned into a fabulous video.) Pink notes that people perform best when they are given autonomy, opportunity for mastery, and the belief that their task is meaningful. He says money is not the best motivator, and that employees want to be "players, not pawns."
Pink believes Google's "20% time," in which employees may spend one day a week on whatever they want is a shining example of how allowing intrinsically-based motivations (a sense of accomplishment or purpose) can flourish. Personal endeavors from "20% time" resulted in Gmail, Google News, Orkut, and AdSense. Long before Google--back in 1948--3M instituted the "15% solution" or "dream time," which yielded both Scotch Tape and Post-It Notes.
There's no question that intrinsic motivation is essential. However, I do not agree with Pink that all extrinsic motivation (raises, bonuses, commissions, awards, titles, flex time, and other perks) is harmful. A skillful entrepreneur keeps employees motivated with a combination of both.
That said, there is no cookie-cutter approach to motivating your people. What inspires one person may leave the next cold. When you understand an employee's thinking and behavioral preferences, you'll be able to maximize his or her enthusiasm. This will help you get your workforce aligned and moving in the same direction, and you'll see incredible returns.
1. Analytical types want to know that a project is valuable, and that their work makes a difference to its success. They need a leader who excels in a particular area, and whose expertise they believe benefits the group. They prefer compensation that is commensurate with their contribution. If they have done a tremendous amount of work on their own, don't expect them to be happy if you reward the whole team.
2. People who are "structural" by nature want to know their work aids the company's progress. They prefer a leader who is organized, competent, and good with details. They like to be rewarded in writing, in a timely manner, in a way specific to the task. An encouraging email is appropriate to communicate with them.
3. Social people want to feel personally valued, and that what they are doing has an impact on a project. They go the extra mile for a leader who expresses faith in their abilities. They prefer to be rewarded in person with a gesture that is from the heart. If your own preference is for written communication, send a handwritten note to a particularly social employee.
4. Innovative employees must buy into a cause. To them, the big picture matters more than the individual who is leading the charge. They prefer to be rewarded with something unconventional and imaginative, and would find a whimsical token of your esteem very meaningful.
5. Quiet staffers don't need a lot of fanfare, but they appreciate private, one-on-one encouragement.
6. Expressive people feel more motivated when assignments are openly discussed and an open door is available. They like public recognition, with pomp, and ceremony.
7. Peacekeepers hope everyone will move in the same direction. They'll never demand a reward or recognition, so it's up to you to offer it.
8. Hard-drivers are independent thinkers. If they agree with you, they'll be highly motivated. They will let you know what they'd like as an extrinsic reward, and they tend to want whatever it is right away.
9. Those who are focused team members must have confidence in the leader and in the project, or their motivation may falter. They want know up front what kind of reward they can expect. Make sure you follow through on whatever is promised.
10. Flexible people go along with the team, as long as a project does not contradict their morals or beliefs. They're also happy with any kind of recognition.
Watch for the weakest link among your employees. If you have a slacker who consistently does less than everyone else but seems to get away with it, this can dampen the motivation of everyone else.
http://www.inc.com/geil-browning/ten-ways-to-motivate-anyone.html
4/27/12
A Paradoxical Curve of Money and Effort
Everyone tells themselves a different story about money, but there's no
doubt at all that the story we tell ourselves changes our behavior.
Consider this curve of how people react in situations that cost money.
A musician is standing on a street corner playing real good for free. Most people walk on by (3). That same musician playing at a bar with a $5 cover gets a bit more attention. Put him into a concert hall at $40 and suddenly it's an event.
Pay someone minimum wage or a low intern stipend (4) and they treat the work like a job. Don't expect that worker to put in extra effort or conquer her fear--the message is that her effort was bought and paid for and wasn't worth very much to the boss... and so she reciprocates in kind. The same sort of thing can happen in a class that's easy to get into and that doesn't cost much--a Learning Annex sort of thing. Easy to start, cheap to try--not much effort as a result.
It's interesting to me to see what happens to people who pay a lot or get paid well (2,5). The kids at Harvard
Law School, for example, or a third-year associate at a law firm. Here, we see all nighters, heroic, career-risking efforts and all sorts of personal investment. And yet as we extend the curve to situations where the rules of rational money are suspended, something happens--people get fearful again. Don't look to Oprah or JK
Rowling or the Donald to bet it all--the huge amount of money they could earn (or could pay) to play at the next level (1 & 6) isn't enough to get them out of their comfort zone. Money ceases to be a motivator for everyone at some point.
Most interesting of all is the long black line at zero (3). The curve goes wild here, like dividing by zero. At zero, at the place where no money changes hands, we see volunteer labor and free exchange. In these situations, sometimes we see extraordinary effort, the stuff that wins Nobel prizes. Just about every great, brave or beautiful thing in our culture was created by someone who didn't do it for money. We see the local volunteer putting in insane hours even though no one is watching. We hear the magical song or read the amazing poem that no one got paid to write. And sometimes, though, we see very little, just a trolling comment or a half-hearted bit of commentary. Remove money from the story and we're in a whole new category. The most vivid way to think about this is the difference between a mutually-agreed upon romantic date and one in which money changes hands.
All worth thinking about when you consider how much to charge for a gig, what tuition ought to be, what motivates job creators or whether or not a form of art disappears when the business model for that art goes away.
http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2012/04/storyofmoney.html
Consider this curve of how people react in situations that cost money.
A musician is standing on a street corner playing real good for free. Most people walk on by (3). That same musician playing at a bar with a $5 cover gets a bit more attention. Put him into a concert hall at $40 and suddenly it's an event.
Pay someone minimum wage or a low intern stipend (4) and they treat the work like a job. Don't expect that worker to put in extra effort or conquer her fear--the message is that her effort was bought and paid for and wasn't worth very much to the boss... and so she reciprocates in kind. The same sort of thing can happen in a class that's easy to get into and that doesn't cost much--a Learning Annex sort of thing. Easy to start, cheap to try--not much effort as a result.
It's interesting to me to see what happens to people who pay a lot or get paid well (2,5). The kids at Harvard
Law School, for example, or a third-year associate at a law firm. Here, we see all nighters, heroic, career-risking efforts and all sorts of personal investment. And yet as we extend the curve to situations where the rules of rational money are suspended, something happens--people get fearful again. Don't look to Oprah or JK
Rowling or the Donald to bet it all--the huge amount of money they could earn (or could pay) to play at the next level (1 & 6) isn't enough to get them out of their comfort zone. Money ceases to be a motivator for everyone at some point.
Most interesting of all is the long black line at zero (3). The curve goes wild here, like dividing by zero. At zero, at the place where no money changes hands, we see volunteer labor and free exchange. In these situations, sometimes we see extraordinary effort, the stuff that wins Nobel prizes. Just about every great, brave or beautiful thing in our culture was created by someone who didn't do it for money. We see the local volunteer putting in insane hours even though no one is watching. We hear the magical song or read the amazing poem that no one got paid to write. And sometimes, though, we see very little, just a trolling comment or a half-hearted bit of commentary. Remove money from the story and we're in a whole new category. The most vivid way to think about this is the difference between a mutually-agreed upon romantic date and one in which money changes hands.
All worth thinking about when you consider how much to charge for a gig, what tuition ought to be, what motivates job creators or whether or not a form of art disappears when the business model for that art goes away.
http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2012/04/storyofmoney.html
4/24/12
Get Your Focus Back: 7 Tips
When you're at work, you are literally paid to hunker down and focus
on something. So why is it that's the very place where you get so little
done?
Recently I wrote an article about the habits of highly productive people. Based on the reactions to that story (and there were many!), here's the problem: You're in an epic battle against distractions at the office. And between your ever-pinging email, your buzzing cell phone, not to mention your 12 different social media profiles, most of the time you're on the losing side of that battle.
So here's part two of my conversation with Tony Wong, a project management black belt whose client list includes Toyota, Honda, and Riot Games, to name a few.
Below are his tips for getting your focus back:
1. Be punctual
First and foremost, know that simply being on time allows for more time to be productive. On a less obvious note: When you make yourself be punctual, you begin training your brain on the smallest level to deliver on your commitments. You can make a direct correlation between the people who are on time and those who successfully complete their projects.
If you find that you’re never on time, it’s because you’re over-committed. Sticking to a schedule will help you scale back and make only the commitments you know you can uphold.
2. Prioritize
It seems easy—but it’s not, because there are usually too many variables that define the success of prioritizing.
Being productive is not about doing everything on your list. In fact, it’s just the opposite— it’s about prioritizing the things that will get you to your goal and not doing the rest. If something doesn’t matter or isn’t relevant for you to get to your goal, don’t do it—the pressure is off. That’s the key to prioritization.
You're in an epic battle against distractions--and most of the time you're on the losing side. Here's how to fight back.
So, Identify four things you need to get accomplished today that will move you forward to accomplish your
goal. Write them on an index card and keep it in sight. This way, if you do get distracted it’s a constant reminder of what you should focus on.
3. Eliminate
Tired of distractions? Eliminate them! If the hustle and bustle of office life is too loud, bring headphones to work. Only let yourself check your phone and email once every three hours—out of sight is truly out of mind.
Also, be aware that laziness can make us do a thousand unimportant tasks. You might feel busy, but you’re not achieving your goals—it’s counterfeit productivity. If you know this is true in your life, make a point to steer clear.
4. Choose accuracy over speed
Tony’s mentor, who also happens to be a Navy Seal, likes to say, “Speed impresses, but accuracy kills.” You can furiously throw out punch after punch, kick after kick, but it only takes one accurate blow to take out your opponent.
At work, often you can do the work of dozens of emails and meetings with one well-written message. When you’re feeling off, don’t communicate—don’t send emails, don’t schedule meetings, don’t call anyone. Those feelings of anxiety and stress will come through your communication. Wait until you’re cool, calm, and collected—then communicate. It will show confidence, credibility, and will create impactful communication.
5. Organize
This one may seem obvious, but how many people actually organize their workspace? Productivity thrives in a clean and tidy environment. At the end of the work day, put everything back in its place—that way, you can jump right into work tomorrow morning.
6. Relax
When you’re relaxed, not frantic and rushed, so you’ll be able to see what’s working and what’s not. You’ll see with clarity what you should work on and what you should ignore.
Being relaxed allows you to get into “the zone,” which is essential to gaining focus. If it helps with your golf swing, it will do wonders for your work ethic. We often think working is shoulders up, back tense, and furiously typing—but that’s simply not true.
7. Be healthy
This one is easy: Take care of your body. Eating breakfast, exercising, and actively recuperating do wonders for your workday.
Additionally, aim to sleep for seven to eight hours every night. People who don’t get enough sleep are less effective. They may not realize this, but it’s true. The way to a more productive, inspired, joyful life starts with sleeping well.
http://www.inc.com/ilya-pozin/get-your-focus-back-7-tips.html
Recently I wrote an article about the habits of highly productive people. Based on the reactions to that story (and there were many!), here's the problem: You're in an epic battle against distractions at the office. And between your ever-pinging email, your buzzing cell phone, not to mention your 12 different social media profiles, most of the time you're on the losing side of that battle.
So here's part two of my conversation with Tony Wong, a project management black belt whose client list includes Toyota, Honda, and Riot Games, to name a few.
Below are his tips for getting your focus back:
1. Be punctual
First and foremost, know that simply being on time allows for more time to be productive. On a less obvious note: When you make yourself be punctual, you begin training your brain on the smallest level to deliver on your commitments. You can make a direct correlation between the people who are on time and those who successfully complete their projects.
If you find that you’re never on time, it’s because you’re over-committed. Sticking to a schedule will help you scale back and make only the commitments you know you can uphold.
2. Prioritize
It seems easy—but it’s not, because there are usually too many variables that define the success of prioritizing.
Being productive is not about doing everything on your list. In fact, it’s just the opposite— it’s about prioritizing the things that will get you to your goal and not doing the rest. If something doesn’t matter or isn’t relevant for you to get to your goal, don’t do it—the pressure is off. That’s the key to prioritization.
You're in an epic battle against distractions--and most of the time you're on the losing side. Here's how to fight back.
So, Identify four things you need to get accomplished today that will move you forward to accomplish your
goal. Write them on an index card and keep it in sight. This way, if you do get distracted it’s a constant reminder of what you should focus on.
3. Eliminate
Tired of distractions? Eliminate them! If the hustle and bustle of office life is too loud, bring headphones to work. Only let yourself check your phone and email once every three hours—out of sight is truly out of mind.
Also, be aware that laziness can make us do a thousand unimportant tasks. You might feel busy, but you’re not achieving your goals—it’s counterfeit productivity. If you know this is true in your life, make a point to steer clear.
4. Choose accuracy over speed
Tony’s mentor, who also happens to be a Navy Seal, likes to say, “Speed impresses, but accuracy kills.” You can furiously throw out punch after punch, kick after kick, but it only takes one accurate blow to take out your opponent.
At work, often you can do the work of dozens of emails and meetings with one well-written message. When you’re feeling off, don’t communicate—don’t send emails, don’t schedule meetings, don’t call anyone. Those feelings of anxiety and stress will come through your communication. Wait until you’re cool, calm, and collected—then communicate. It will show confidence, credibility, and will create impactful communication.
5. Organize
This one may seem obvious, but how many people actually organize their workspace? Productivity thrives in a clean and tidy environment. At the end of the work day, put everything back in its place—that way, you can jump right into work tomorrow morning.
6. Relax
When you’re relaxed, not frantic and rushed, so you’ll be able to see what’s working and what’s not. You’ll see with clarity what you should work on and what you should ignore.
Being relaxed allows you to get into “the zone,” which is essential to gaining focus. If it helps with your golf swing, it will do wonders for your work ethic. We often think working is shoulders up, back tense, and furiously typing—but that’s simply not true.
7. Be healthy
This one is easy: Take care of your body. Eating breakfast, exercising, and actively recuperating do wonders for your workday.
Additionally, aim to sleep for seven to eight hours every night. People who don’t get enough sleep are less effective. They may not realize this, but it’s true. The way to a more productive, inspired, joyful life starts with sleeping well.
http://www.inc.com/ilya-pozin/get-your-focus-back-7-tips.html
4/17/12
4 Vital Interview Questions to Ask
Most candidates can hack your interview questions to tell you what you want to hear. But if you approach it right, not these.
Most job candidates feel interview questions can be decoded and hacked, letting them respond to those questions with "perfect" answers.
And they're right, especially if you insist on asking opinion-based job interview questions.
(Quick aside: Is there really a perfect answer to a question like, "What do you feel is your biggest weakness?" I think there is: "If that's the kind of question you typically ask, I don't want to work for you.")
Asking opinion-based questions is a complete waste of time. Every candidate comes prepared to answer general questions about teamwork, initiative, interpersonal skills, and leadership.
That's why you should ask interview questions that elicit facts instead of opinions. Why? I can never rely on what you claim you will do, but I can learn a lot from what you have already done.
Where employee behavior and attitude are concerned, the past is a fairly reliable indication of the future.
How do you get to the facts? Ask. Ask an initial question. Then follow up: Dig deeper to fully understand the situation described, determine exactly what the candidate did (and did not do), and find out how things turned out. Follow-up questions don't have to be complicated. "Really?" "Wow... so what did he do?" "What did she say?" "What happened next?" "How did that work out?"
All you have to do is keep the conversation going. At its best, an interview is really just a conversation.
Here are my four favorite behavioral interview questions:
1. "Tell me about the last time a customer or co-worker got mad at you."
Purpose: Evaluate the candidate's interpersonal skills and ability to deal with conflict.
Make sure you find out why the customer or co-worker was mad, what the interviewee did in response, and how the situation turned out both in the short- and long-term.
Warning sign: The interviewee pushes all the blame and responsibility for rectifying the situation on the other person.
Decent sign: The interviewee focuses on how they addressed and fixed the problem, not on who was to blame.
Great sign: The interviewee admits they caused the other person to be upset, took responsibility, and worked to make a bad situation better. Great employees are willing to admit when they are wrong, take responsibility for fixing their mistakes, and learn from experience.
Remember, every mistake is really just training in disguise... as long as the same mistake isn't repeated over and over again, of course.
2. "Tell me about the toughest decision you had to make in the last six months."
Purpose: Evaluate the candidate's reasoning ability, problem solving skills, judgment, and possibly even willingness to take intelligent risks.
Warning sign: No answer. Everyone makes tough decisions, regardless of their position. My daughter works part-time as a server at a local restaurant and makes difficult decisions all the time - like the best way to deal with a regular customer whose behavior constitutes borderline harassment.
Decent sign: Made a difficult analytical or reasoning-based decision. For example, wading through reams of data to determine the best solution to a problem.
Great sign: Made a difficult interpersonal decision, or better yet a difficult data-driven decision that included interpersonal considerations and ramifications.
Making decisions based on data is important, but almost every decision has an impact on people as well. The best candidates naturally weigh all sides of an issue, not just the business or human side exclusively.
3. "Tell me about a time you knew you were right but still had to follow directions or guidelines."
Purpose: Evaluate the candidate's ability to follow, and possibly to lead.
Warning sign: Found a way to circumvent guidelines "... because I know I was right," or followed the rules but allowed their performance to suffer.
Believe it or not, if you ask enough questions some candidates will tell you they were angry or felt stifled and didn't work hard as a result, especially when they think you empathize with their "plight."
Good sign: Did what needed to be done, especially in a time-critical situation, then found an appropriate time and place to raise issues and work to improve the status quo.
Great sign: Not only did what needed to be done, but also stayed motivated and helped motivate others as well.
In a peer setting, an employee who is able to say, "Hey, I'm not sure this makes sense either, but for now let's just do our best and get it done..." is priceless.
In a supervisory setting, good leaders are able to debate and argue behind closed doors and then fully support a decision in public - even if they privately disagree with that decision.
4. "Tell me about the last time your workday ended before you were able to get everything done."
Purpose: Evaluate commitment, ability to prioritize, and ability to communicate effectively.
Warning sign: "I just do what I have to do and get out. I keep telling my boss I can only do so much but he won't listen.... "
Good sign: Stayed a few minutes late to finish a critical task, or prioritized before the end of the workday to ensure critical tasks were completed.
You shouldn't expect heroic efforts every day, but some level of dedication is important.
Great sign: Stayed late and/or prioritized - but most importantly communicated early on that deadlines were in jeopardy. Good employees take care of things. Great employees take care of things and make sure others are aware of potential problems ahead of time just in case proactive decisions may help.
Obviously there are a number of good and great answers to this question. "I stayed until midnight to get it done," can sometimes be a great answer, but doing so night after night indicates there are other organizational or productivity issues the employee should raise. I may sometimes be glad you stayed late, but I will always be glad when you help me spot chronic problems and bottlenecks.
Like with any other question, always evaluate a candidate's answers to this question based on your company's culture and organizational needs.
Few candidates can bluff their way through more than one or two follow-up questions. Turning the interview into a fact-based conversations helps you identify potential disconnects between the candidate's resume and their actual experience, qualifications, and accomplishments.
And you'll have a much better chance of identifying a potentially great employee, because a great employee will almost always shine during a fact-based interview.
http://www.inc.com/jeff-haden/4-vital-interview-questions-to-ask.html
Most job candidates feel interview questions can be decoded and hacked, letting them respond to those questions with "perfect" answers.
And they're right, especially if you insist on asking opinion-based job interview questions.
(Quick aside: Is there really a perfect answer to a question like, "What do you feel is your biggest weakness?" I think there is: "If that's the kind of question you typically ask, I don't want to work for you.")
Asking opinion-based questions is a complete waste of time. Every candidate comes prepared to answer general questions about teamwork, initiative, interpersonal skills, and leadership.
That's why you should ask interview questions that elicit facts instead of opinions. Why? I can never rely on what you claim you will do, but I can learn a lot from what you have already done.
Where employee behavior and attitude are concerned, the past is a fairly reliable indication of the future.
How do you get to the facts? Ask. Ask an initial question. Then follow up: Dig deeper to fully understand the situation described, determine exactly what the candidate did (and did not do), and find out how things turned out. Follow-up questions don't have to be complicated. "Really?" "Wow... so what did he do?" "What did she say?" "What happened next?" "How did that work out?"
All you have to do is keep the conversation going. At its best, an interview is really just a conversation.
Here are my four favorite behavioral interview questions:
1. "Tell me about the last time a customer or co-worker got mad at you."
Purpose: Evaluate the candidate's interpersonal skills and ability to deal with conflict.
Make sure you find out why the customer or co-worker was mad, what the interviewee did in response, and how the situation turned out both in the short- and long-term.
Warning sign: The interviewee pushes all the blame and responsibility for rectifying the situation on the other person.
Decent sign: The interviewee focuses on how they addressed and fixed the problem, not on who was to blame.
Great sign: The interviewee admits they caused the other person to be upset, took responsibility, and worked to make a bad situation better. Great employees are willing to admit when they are wrong, take responsibility for fixing their mistakes, and learn from experience.
Remember, every mistake is really just training in disguise... as long as the same mistake isn't repeated over and over again, of course.
2. "Tell me about the toughest decision you had to make in the last six months."
Purpose: Evaluate the candidate's reasoning ability, problem solving skills, judgment, and possibly even willingness to take intelligent risks.
Warning sign: No answer. Everyone makes tough decisions, regardless of their position. My daughter works part-time as a server at a local restaurant and makes difficult decisions all the time - like the best way to deal with a regular customer whose behavior constitutes borderline harassment.
Decent sign: Made a difficult analytical or reasoning-based decision. For example, wading through reams of data to determine the best solution to a problem.
Great sign: Made a difficult interpersonal decision, or better yet a difficult data-driven decision that included interpersonal considerations and ramifications.
Making decisions based on data is important, but almost every decision has an impact on people as well. The best candidates naturally weigh all sides of an issue, not just the business or human side exclusively.
3. "Tell me about a time you knew you were right but still had to follow directions or guidelines."
Purpose: Evaluate the candidate's ability to follow, and possibly to lead.
Warning sign: Found a way to circumvent guidelines "... because I know I was right," or followed the rules but allowed their performance to suffer.
Believe it or not, if you ask enough questions some candidates will tell you they were angry or felt stifled and didn't work hard as a result, especially when they think you empathize with their "plight."
Good sign: Did what needed to be done, especially in a time-critical situation, then found an appropriate time and place to raise issues and work to improve the status quo.
Great sign: Not only did what needed to be done, but also stayed motivated and helped motivate others as well.
In a peer setting, an employee who is able to say, "Hey, I'm not sure this makes sense either, but for now let's just do our best and get it done..." is priceless.
In a supervisory setting, good leaders are able to debate and argue behind closed doors and then fully support a decision in public - even if they privately disagree with that decision.
4. "Tell me about the last time your workday ended before you were able to get everything done."
Purpose: Evaluate commitment, ability to prioritize, and ability to communicate effectively.
Warning sign: "I just do what I have to do and get out. I keep telling my boss I can only do so much but he won't listen.... "
Good sign: Stayed a few minutes late to finish a critical task, or prioritized before the end of the workday to ensure critical tasks were completed.
You shouldn't expect heroic efforts every day, but some level of dedication is important.
Great sign: Stayed late and/or prioritized - but most importantly communicated early on that deadlines were in jeopardy. Good employees take care of things. Great employees take care of things and make sure others are aware of potential problems ahead of time just in case proactive decisions may help.
Obviously there are a number of good and great answers to this question. "I stayed until midnight to get it done," can sometimes be a great answer, but doing so night after night indicates there are other organizational or productivity issues the employee should raise. I may sometimes be glad you stayed late, but I will always be glad when you help me spot chronic problems and bottlenecks.
Like with any other question, always evaluate a candidate's answers to this question based on your company's culture and organizational needs.
Few candidates can bluff their way through more than one or two follow-up questions. Turning the interview into a fact-based conversations helps you identify potential disconnects between the candidate's resume and their actual experience, qualifications, and accomplishments.
And you'll have a much better chance of identifying a potentially great employee, because a great employee will almost always shine during a fact-based interview.
http://www.inc.com/jeff-haden/4-vital-interview-questions-to-ask.html
4/13/12
Do More in Less Time: Tips From an Efficiency Expert
Jason Womack's book Your Best Just Got Better explains how to keep from being interrupted. It also identifies the perfect time of day to make a difficult call.
Author Jason Womack's broad grin and twinkling eyes aren't an act--he has been happy every single time I've met him. After teaching high school for five years, Womack worked with the David Allen Company, giving over 300 seminars on "Getting Things Done." He's passionate about helping others through his work and through his books. His latest, Your Best Just Got Better, has some simple and useful elements entrepreneurs can learn. I had a conversation with him at the South by Southwest Interactive festival in Austin, Texas, event last month.
What are the key take-aways of the book for entrepreneurs?
The core of the book is about working smarter by managing time, thinking bigger by building your network and vision, and finally "making more"—which is not always about money. When you've reached a certain point you can ask "What am I here for, how can I contribute?"
You said, "entrepreneurs need to know when they're done." What does that mean?
Often, people are a year into their business, but just scratching by. They want to be in the business, but they're about to fall into the classic e-myth problem, and they're going to work in the business and be stuck there. "Is the way that I did things going to be the way I continue to do things?" In the initial part of the book are lessons to gain control of how you are working. One of the efficiency factors is to know when a project is finished--good rather than great--just good enough.
What's a good example of "just good enough?"
You reach a pivot point and you have to do something, like let go of an employee that is good rather than great. You don't get a renewal, or you lose a contract, you cut a loss or abandon a partner firm. In most instances it's harder to fire someone and train someone new, or get a new partner, but in the long term that's the effort it takes to go from good to great.
You emphasize thinking time for entrepreneurs—but they're so busy...
Thinking time is a significant piece of Chapter 5. Small business owners may look at one of these pivot points as time to reflect on "how I messed up," but I'm encouraging them to use it as a time to move forward and leave behind what they thought was working.
People learn in different ways--auditory, visual, kinesthetic. So what do they need to hear, to start to attract that next level of information to get them to their goal? What conference, what podcast, or who can they call to hash out their idea? What do they need to see, look at, or watch? If I tried something that didn't work, I might seek out a video, an infographic, watch a TED talk, anything to get inspired, to get out of where I got stuck. Remember, it's not that I failed--it's that I need to keep moving.
What are some tips for working effectively?
How often are you interrupted? One client is an architect with a staff of 15. One of his staff interrupted him 27 times in 2 days. So they created a process of intervention. They wrote down what they needed to discuss on 3 x 5 cards and met at 10 a.m. and 3 p.m. In a month they had cut out interruptions and were working more efficiently. They cut back on emails as well. Ask, "If I have my employee wait 2 hours, will she find an answer instead of waiting for the answer?"
What are other tips for efficiency?
I call people on the :53 of the hour. "Hi, it's 10:53, I have an 11 o'clock. But can we talk and get a conversation started?" There's a 7-minute window for a transaction—I share something or I get something quickly. This is not for starting a new problem or building a relationship. Afterwards I follow up, send a note or set up a plan.
How can people "think bigger?"
The people someone connects with the most are their influencers. I suggest they meet once a month with someone they want to add to their network: a successful author, blogger, businessperson or speaker who is willing to hang out and move dialog forward. People love to help, but beyond that, they love knowing that they helped us. But we don't usually teach mentees how to debrief their last mentorship discussion. For auditory person, I have them call two weeks or 10 days later. For visual learners, write a letter, etc. That way the mentor gets a specific object that gives them the feedback, and encourages them to do more of what is working. If someone mentoring me makes a recommendation—I have to do it. I have to read a book, watch a video, they suggest. If I don't, it lets mentor know that I'm wasting their time.
http://www.inc.com/howard-greenstein/efficiency-and-effectiveness-tips-from-author-jason-womack.html
Author Jason Womack's broad grin and twinkling eyes aren't an act--he has been happy every single time I've met him. After teaching high school for five years, Womack worked with the David Allen Company, giving over 300 seminars on "Getting Things Done." He's passionate about helping others through his work and through his books. His latest, Your Best Just Got Better, has some simple and useful elements entrepreneurs can learn. I had a conversation with him at the South by Southwest Interactive festival in Austin, Texas, event last month.
What are the key take-aways of the book for entrepreneurs?
The core of the book is about working smarter by managing time, thinking bigger by building your network and vision, and finally "making more"—which is not always about money. When you've reached a certain point you can ask "What am I here for, how can I contribute?"
You said, "entrepreneurs need to know when they're done." What does that mean?
Often, people are a year into their business, but just scratching by. They want to be in the business, but they're about to fall into the classic e-myth problem, and they're going to work in the business and be stuck there. "Is the way that I did things going to be the way I continue to do things?" In the initial part of the book are lessons to gain control of how you are working. One of the efficiency factors is to know when a project is finished--good rather than great--just good enough.
What's a good example of "just good enough?"
You reach a pivot point and you have to do something, like let go of an employee that is good rather than great. You don't get a renewal, or you lose a contract, you cut a loss or abandon a partner firm. In most instances it's harder to fire someone and train someone new, or get a new partner, but in the long term that's the effort it takes to go from good to great.
You emphasize thinking time for entrepreneurs—but they're so busy...
Thinking time is a significant piece of Chapter 5. Small business owners may look at one of these pivot points as time to reflect on "how I messed up," but I'm encouraging them to use it as a time to move forward and leave behind what they thought was working.
People learn in different ways--auditory, visual, kinesthetic. So what do they need to hear, to start to attract that next level of information to get them to their goal? What conference, what podcast, or who can they call to hash out their idea? What do they need to see, look at, or watch? If I tried something that didn't work, I might seek out a video, an infographic, watch a TED talk, anything to get inspired, to get out of where I got stuck. Remember, it's not that I failed--it's that I need to keep moving.
What are some tips for working effectively?
How often are you interrupted? One client is an architect with a staff of 15. One of his staff interrupted him 27 times in 2 days. So they created a process of intervention. They wrote down what they needed to discuss on 3 x 5 cards and met at 10 a.m. and 3 p.m. In a month they had cut out interruptions and were working more efficiently. They cut back on emails as well. Ask, "If I have my employee wait 2 hours, will she find an answer instead of waiting for the answer?"
What are other tips for efficiency?
I call people on the :53 of the hour. "Hi, it's 10:53, I have an 11 o'clock. But can we talk and get a conversation started?" There's a 7-minute window for a transaction—I share something or I get something quickly. This is not for starting a new problem or building a relationship. Afterwards I follow up, send a note or set up a plan.
How can people "think bigger?"
The people someone connects with the most are their influencers. I suggest they meet once a month with someone they want to add to their network: a successful author, blogger, businessperson or speaker who is willing to hang out and move dialog forward. People love to help, but beyond that, they love knowing that they helped us. But we don't usually teach mentees how to debrief their last mentorship discussion. For auditory person, I have them call two weeks or 10 days later. For visual learners, write a letter, etc. That way the mentor gets a specific object that gives them the feedback, and encourages them to do more of what is working. If someone mentoring me makes a recommendation—I have to do it. I have to read a book, watch a video, they suggest. If I don't, it lets mentor know that I'm wasting their time.
http://www.inc.com/howard-greenstein/efficiency-and-effectiveness-tips-from-author-jason-womack.html
4/12/12
3 Strategies to Adopt From Apple
These three product strategies you can lift from Apple's playbook and incorporate into your growing business.
It's no surprise that Apple has kicked off 2012 with a bang. Profits are soaring, its stock price is up by more than 80%, and the new iPad has been touted as one of the company's most successful product launches in history, which is saying a lot considering the tech giant's recent history.
What has made product launches at Apple so successful, and what can you learn from them to benefit your own business? Here are three important lessons.
1. Price your products to customer segments.
Often lost in the anticipation of Apple's launch events are the subtle changes the company makes to its product portfolio. When Apple launched its most recent iPhone a year ago, it reduced the price of its 3G version to $99. During its most recent launch of the new iPad, it reduced the price of the iPad 2 by $100. In both cases, Apple established a market for additional customer segments.
This strategy allows Apple to capture high margins with early adopters and drive penetration among a broader, more price conscious audience at a later date. Not every company has product launches that allow it to adopt this strategy, but there are always opportunities to evolve and re-price a successful product to address the needs of a new and different customer segment.
2. Keep your eye to the future.
Success and growth elicit expectations. As Apple continues to launch innovative products, the expectations rise. Each Apple event seems to be met with more anticipation than the last, and technology pundits spend months leading up to the events with conjecture about Apple's "next big thing."
To its credit, Apple has never stopped innovating. iPad sales for Apple's fiscal first quarter increased 111% over the year-ago quarter, and the company still maintains 74% market share in tablets. Amazon, Blackberry, Samsung, and others have all launched tablets over the past year each with features that they believed provided an advantage over the Apple. But Apple's continuous innovation and forward focus have allowed it to stay ahead of competitors. There's a lesson there for any business that thinks it can ride the coattails of a single successful product for the long term.
3. Listen to your customers.
With the advent of social media, customers have a variety of avenues available to them to express their opinions on a particular company or product. But even if your company isn't a common topic of bloggers, there are more old-fashioned ways to listen to your customers. What's unique about Apple's two most recent product launches, the iPhone 4s and iPad, is the remarkably minor changes the company made to create an abundance of demand.
The new iPad, for example, is not all that dissimilar from the iPad 2. A new screen, 4G, faster processor, and better camera top the list of major developments, but there hasn't been a total redesign of the product. But the new iPad addresses some of the major concerns customers have expressed since the initial launch of the iPad in 2010. By directing product development to the voice of the consumer, Apple was able to benefit from the most successful tablet launch in its history. Listening to your customer is something a firm of any size can do.
There are few companies that compete with the size of Apple, and fewer still that have been as successful as Apple over its most recent stretch. But the formula that has defined Apple's success is not restricted to the economy's behemoths. The key tenants to Apple's growth can be applied to a business of any size.
http://www.inc.com/karl-and-bill/3-strategies-to-adopt-from-apple.html
It's no surprise that Apple has kicked off 2012 with a bang. Profits are soaring, its stock price is up by more than 80%, and the new iPad has been touted as one of the company's most successful product launches in history, which is saying a lot considering the tech giant's recent history.
What has made product launches at Apple so successful, and what can you learn from them to benefit your own business? Here are three important lessons.
1. Price your products to customer segments.
Often lost in the anticipation of Apple's launch events are the subtle changes the company makes to its product portfolio. When Apple launched its most recent iPhone a year ago, it reduced the price of its 3G version to $99. During its most recent launch of the new iPad, it reduced the price of the iPad 2 by $100. In both cases, Apple established a market for additional customer segments.
This strategy allows Apple to capture high margins with early adopters and drive penetration among a broader, more price conscious audience at a later date. Not every company has product launches that allow it to adopt this strategy, but there are always opportunities to evolve and re-price a successful product to address the needs of a new and different customer segment.
2. Keep your eye to the future.
Success and growth elicit expectations. As Apple continues to launch innovative products, the expectations rise. Each Apple event seems to be met with more anticipation than the last, and technology pundits spend months leading up to the events with conjecture about Apple's "next big thing."
To its credit, Apple has never stopped innovating. iPad sales for Apple's fiscal first quarter increased 111% over the year-ago quarter, and the company still maintains 74% market share in tablets. Amazon, Blackberry, Samsung, and others have all launched tablets over the past year each with features that they believed provided an advantage over the Apple. But Apple's continuous innovation and forward focus have allowed it to stay ahead of competitors. There's a lesson there for any business that thinks it can ride the coattails of a single successful product for the long term.
3. Listen to your customers.
With the advent of social media, customers have a variety of avenues available to them to express their opinions on a particular company or product. But even if your company isn't a common topic of bloggers, there are more old-fashioned ways to listen to your customers. What's unique about Apple's two most recent product launches, the iPhone 4s and iPad, is the remarkably minor changes the company made to create an abundance of demand.
The new iPad, for example, is not all that dissimilar from the iPad 2. A new screen, 4G, faster processor, and better camera top the list of major developments, but there hasn't been a total redesign of the product. But the new iPad addresses some of the major concerns customers have expressed since the initial launch of the iPad in 2010. By directing product development to the voice of the consumer, Apple was able to benefit from the most successful tablet launch in its history. Listening to your customer is something a firm of any size can do.
There are few companies that compete with the size of Apple, and fewer still that have been as successful as Apple over its most recent stretch. But the formula that has defined Apple's success is not restricted to the economy's behemoths. The key tenants to Apple's growth can be applied to a business of any size.
http://www.inc.com/karl-and-bill/3-strategies-to-adopt-from-apple.html
4/11/12
Psych! 5 Brain Tricks to Make Customers Buy
Want to increase your revenue? It's time to get smarter about how your customers' minds really work, suggests a new book.
Roger Dooley wants your business to succeed. So he's laying down the facts and dissecting recent brain and behavior research to enable you to tap into consumers' brains.
Fact No. 1: People aren't always rational thinkers. In truth, research shows that a huge amount of decision-making is actually based on subconscious factors.
In both his new book, Brainfluence, and in a recent interview, Dooley offered several ways to use "neuromarketing" to do a better job persuading consumers.
1. Clean Up Your Font
Are you using a stylish, elegant font on your signage? It's time to dump it.
A study shows that more ornate fonts make people assume a task to be more time-consuming than when the same task is explained in a clearer font. This could make your products or services seem slow or even tedious--and no one wants a purchase that'll take forever to assemble or start using.
"Probably nine times out of 10 the simpler font is going to be the better choice," Dooley says, "because the text will be more likely to be read, for one, and you'll better convey information."
Bottom line: Go easy on consumers' eyes; use a clear, easy-to-read font such as Arial, for product and service descriptions as well as any instructions.
2. Don't Show Them the Money
A restaurant currency study showed that patrons tended to be more price-conscious when dollar signs appeared alongside the prices on menus. If there was just a solo digit, by contrast—no dollar symbol, no decimal point—then spending went up.
"When people see a currency symbol like a dollar sign or a euro symbol, that … activates a part of the brain that can sometimes help the marketer, but often not," Dooley says.
Bottom line: If you're a restaurateur, take dollar signs off the menu to increase your sales.
3. Remember the Senses
Customer transactions are about more than facts and figures. Getting smart about sensory appeal can also help a brick-and-mortar business.
Look for environmental elements that you can control, like pleasant scents—even if your products don't naturally have a smell. "You can create a scent environment that is pleasant, memorable, and distinctive that reinforces your branding," Dooley says. "The scent will then trigger consumers' senses and create a desire for that [the product or service]." Tests have shown that scents in shopping areas can increase sales.
And don't overlook the music, which can also affect customers' buying decisions. One test, for instance, found that when a wine shop played French or German music, it increased sales of wine from that country.
Bottom line: Find creative ways to tempt customers' senses.
4. Respond to Customers
Nobody likes being ignored—so make sure you can provide real feedback to social media messages and posts.
Dooley cites one study that looked at people who complained via social media about a company or its products. When they got a prompt response—even if it wasn’t an actual apology—the majority of customers either removed their negative comment or revised it with a positive addendum. So take a minute to acknowledge what was said; it's worth your time.
The customer doesn't need to be right every time, Dooley acknowledges: "But you'll almost never score points when arguing with a customer. You may win the argument, but you'll lose the customer."
Bottom line: Keep your cool and respond to customers promptly.
5. Tell a Good Story
Statistics are great. But you need people to pay attention to your numbers to help drive sales. Our brains are wired to process stories in a more engaged way, Dooley says: Brain scan work shows that when people read a story with a lot of action elements, their brains actually mimic the motions.
So whether you're citing case studies or designing ads or other promotions, draw customers in by weaving facts and favorable information into a story format. A great story can engage customers on a deeper level; this also increases word-of-mouth marketing. "In general some of your information should be in a story format to keep your reader engaged," Dooley says, "because if it's all facts and all statistics, you'll lose a lot of your audience."
Bottom line: Turn percentages and figures into a good tale to capture—and keep—your customers' attention.
http://www.inc.com/caitlin-berens/roger-dooley-brain-tricks.html
Roger Dooley wants your business to succeed. So he's laying down the facts and dissecting recent brain and behavior research to enable you to tap into consumers' brains.
Fact No. 1: People aren't always rational thinkers. In truth, research shows that a huge amount of decision-making is actually based on subconscious factors.
In both his new book, Brainfluence, and in a recent interview, Dooley offered several ways to use "neuromarketing" to do a better job persuading consumers.
1. Clean Up Your Font
Are you using a stylish, elegant font on your signage? It's time to dump it.
A study shows that more ornate fonts make people assume a task to be more time-consuming than when the same task is explained in a clearer font. This could make your products or services seem slow or even tedious--and no one wants a purchase that'll take forever to assemble or start using.
"Probably nine times out of 10 the simpler font is going to be the better choice," Dooley says, "because the text will be more likely to be read, for one, and you'll better convey information."
Bottom line: Go easy on consumers' eyes; use a clear, easy-to-read font such as Arial, for product and service descriptions as well as any instructions.
2. Don't Show Them the Money
A restaurant currency study showed that patrons tended to be more price-conscious when dollar signs appeared alongside the prices on menus. If there was just a solo digit, by contrast—no dollar symbol, no decimal point—then spending went up.
"When people see a currency symbol like a dollar sign or a euro symbol, that … activates a part of the brain that can sometimes help the marketer, but often not," Dooley says.
Bottom line: If you're a restaurateur, take dollar signs off the menu to increase your sales.
3. Remember the Senses
Customer transactions are about more than facts and figures. Getting smart about sensory appeal can also help a brick-and-mortar business.
Look for environmental elements that you can control, like pleasant scents—even if your products don't naturally have a smell. "You can create a scent environment that is pleasant, memorable, and distinctive that reinforces your branding," Dooley says. "The scent will then trigger consumers' senses and create a desire for that [the product or service]." Tests have shown that scents in shopping areas can increase sales.
And don't overlook the music, which can also affect customers' buying decisions. One test, for instance, found that when a wine shop played French or German music, it increased sales of wine from that country.
Bottom line: Find creative ways to tempt customers' senses.
4. Respond to Customers
Nobody likes being ignored—so make sure you can provide real feedback to social media messages and posts.
Dooley cites one study that looked at people who complained via social media about a company or its products. When they got a prompt response—even if it wasn’t an actual apology—the majority of customers either removed their negative comment or revised it with a positive addendum. So take a minute to acknowledge what was said; it's worth your time.
The customer doesn't need to be right every time, Dooley acknowledges: "But you'll almost never score points when arguing with a customer. You may win the argument, but you'll lose the customer."
Bottom line: Keep your cool and respond to customers promptly.
5. Tell a Good Story
Statistics are great. But you need people to pay attention to your numbers to help drive sales. Our brains are wired to process stories in a more engaged way, Dooley says: Brain scan work shows that when people read a story with a lot of action elements, their brains actually mimic the motions.
So whether you're citing case studies or designing ads or other promotions, draw customers in by weaving facts and favorable information into a story format. A great story can engage customers on a deeper level; this also increases word-of-mouth marketing. "In general some of your information should be in a story format to keep your reader engaged," Dooley says, "because if it's all facts and all statistics, you'll lose a lot of your audience."
Bottom line: Turn percentages and figures into a good tale to capture—and keep—your customers' attention.
http://www.inc.com/caitlin-berens/roger-dooley-brain-tricks.html
12 Ways to Attack Any Challenge
Stuck in a rut? Need to accomplish the impossible? Step right up. Here's how to get started.
Whenever I'm discussing a challenge—okay, fine, whenever I'm whining about a problem—my wife eventually interrupts and says, "Yeah, yeah. I get it. So what are you going to do differently?"
Her response would be fairly frustrating if she wasn't right. Discussing—okay, fine, whining—never helps. The only way to overcome a problem is to do something differently.
But there's no reason to wait until you're forced to make a bad situation better. There's a better approach. Why not be proactive and turn average into awesome?
Especially since it's easy: Just employ one of the Five As of Awesome. (Wait—did I just channel my inner Tony Robbins?)
All you have to do is pick one of the following things to do differently:
Accept
Be who you are. I would like to ride a motorcycle like this guy. Or climb like this guy. Or run a company like her. Or change the world like him.
I won't.
And, for the most part, I'm okay with that, since I can always be a better me. I can ride faster or climb better than I do now, and I can make a bigger difference in the lives of my family and friends.
Think about the people you admire and pick a few of their qualities to emulate, not their accomplishments.
You can't be them.
The cool thing is, they can't be you.
Let others be who they are. Your customers, your vendors, your suppliers... they aren't going to change. Don't expect them to.
Pick one source of frustration and decide what you will do differently, including, possibly, walking away.
When you stop focusing on negatives you may start to notice the positive qualities you missed. Rarely are people as bad as you make them out to be—and if they are, it's up to you to make whatever changes are necessary.
They won't.
Assist
Help an employee. Don't wait to be asked. Pick someone who is struggling and offer to help.
But don't just say, "Is there some way I can help you?" Be specific: Offer to help with a specific task, or to take over a task for a few days, or to work side-by-side.
A general offer is easy to brush aside. A specific offer not only shows you want to help, it shows you care.
Help a superstar. Counterintuitive? No way.
Compared to others, the best-performing people don't need help so they rarely get it. As a result they're often lonely, at least in a professional sense.
Offer to help with a specific task. Not only will you build a nice interpersonal bridge, some of their skills or qualities might rub off on you.
Help anyone. Few things feel better than helping a person in need. Take a quick look around; people less fortunate than you are everywhere.
For example, I conducted an interview skills seminar for prison inmates (after all, who needs to know how to deal with tough interview questions more than a convicted felon?) It only took an hour of my time and was incredibly rewarding.
Most of the prisoners were touchingly grateful that someone—that anyone—cared enough to want to help them. I got way more out of the experience than they did.
Analyze
Change measurements. Over time we all develop our own ways to measure our performance.
Maybe you focus on time to complete, or quality, or end result. Each is effective, but sticking with one or two could cause you to miss opportunities to improve.
Say you focus on meeting standards; what if you switched it up and focused on time to complete?
Measuring your performance in different ways forces you to look at what you regularly do from a new perspective.
Change benchmarks. If you develop apps it's fun to benchmark against, say, the success of Angry Birds. Setting an incredible goal is fine—if you don't aim high you won't reach high—but failing to hit a lofty goal can kill your motivation.
So choose a different benchmark. Look for companies or people with similar assets, backgrounds, etc. and try to beat their results. Then, after you do, choose another target.
Aim for the heights, but include a few steps along the way. The journey will be a lot more fun.
Approach
Go opposite. If you haven't reached a goal then what you're currently doing isn't working.
Instead of tweaking your approach, take an entirely different tack. Pick one goal you're struggling to achieve and try a completely different approach.
Sometimes small adjustments eventually pay off, but occasionally you just need to blow things up and start over.
Drop one thing. We all have goals. Often we have too many goals; it's impossible to do 10 things incredibly well.
Take a look at your goals and pick at least one that you'll set aside, at least for now. (Don't feel bad about it. You weren't reaching your goals anyway, so what's the harm in dropping a few?)
Then put the time you were spending on that goal into your highest priority. You can't have it all, but you can have a lot—especially when you narrow your focus to one or two key goals.
Change your workday. Get up earlier. Get up later. Take care of emails an hour after you start work. Eat at your desk.
Pick one thing you do on a regular basis, preferably something you do for no better reason than that's the way you always do it and therefore it's comfortable, and do that one thing in a different way or at a different time.
Familiarity doesn't always breed contempt. Sometimes familiarity breeds complacency, and complacency is a progress and improvement killer.
Adopt
Choose a new habit. Successful people are successful for a reason, and that reason is often due to the habits they create and maintain.
Take a close look at the people who are successful in your field: What do they do on a regular basis? Then adopt one of their habits and make it your own.
Never reinvent a wheel when a perfect wheel already exists.
Choose someone to mentor. I learn more when I teach than the people I'm trying to teach. (Hopefully that says more about the process of teaching than it does about my teaching abilities.)
When you mentor another person you accomplish more than just helping someone else. You build your network—and more importantly, you learn a few things about yourself.
http://www.inc.com/jeff-haden/12-great-ways-to-turn-average-into-awesome.html
Whenever I'm discussing a challenge—okay, fine, whenever I'm whining about a problem—my wife eventually interrupts and says, "Yeah, yeah. I get it. So what are you going to do differently?"
Her response would be fairly frustrating if she wasn't right. Discussing—okay, fine, whining—never helps. The only way to overcome a problem is to do something differently.
But there's no reason to wait until you're forced to make a bad situation better. There's a better approach. Why not be proactive and turn average into awesome?
Especially since it's easy: Just employ one of the Five As of Awesome. (Wait—did I just channel my inner Tony Robbins?)
All you have to do is pick one of the following things to do differently:
Accept
Be who you are. I would like to ride a motorcycle like this guy. Or climb like this guy. Or run a company like her. Or change the world like him.
I won't.
And, for the most part, I'm okay with that, since I can always be a better me. I can ride faster or climb better than I do now, and I can make a bigger difference in the lives of my family and friends.
Think about the people you admire and pick a few of their qualities to emulate, not their accomplishments.
You can't be them.
The cool thing is, they can't be you.
Let others be who they are. Your customers, your vendors, your suppliers... they aren't going to change. Don't expect them to.
Pick one source of frustration and decide what you will do differently, including, possibly, walking away.
When you stop focusing on negatives you may start to notice the positive qualities you missed. Rarely are people as bad as you make them out to be—and if they are, it's up to you to make whatever changes are necessary.
They won't.
Assist
Help an employee. Don't wait to be asked. Pick someone who is struggling and offer to help.
But don't just say, "Is there some way I can help you?" Be specific: Offer to help with a specific task, or to take over a task for a few days, or to work side-by-side.
A general offer is easy to brush aside. A specific offer not only shows you want to help, it shows you care.
Help a superstar. Counterintuitive? No way.
Compared to others, the best-performing people don't need help so they rarely get it. As a result they're often lonely, at least in a professional sense.
Offer to help with a specific task. Not only will you build a nice interpersonal bridge, some of their skills or qualities might rub off on you.
Help anyone. Few things feel better than helping a person in need. Take a quick look around; people less fortunate than you are everywhere.
For example, I conducted an interview skills seminar for prison inmates (after all, who needs to know how to deal with tough interview questions more than a convicted felon?) It only took an hour of my time and was incredibly rewarding.
Most of the prisoners were touchingly grateful that someone—that anyone—cared enough to want to help them. I got way more out of the experience than they did.
Analyze
Change measurements. Over time we all develop our own ways to measure our performance.
Maybe you focus on time to complete, or quality, or end result. Each is effective, but sticking with one or two could cause you to miss opportunities to improve.
Say you focus on meeting standards; what if you switched it up and focused on time to complete?
Measuring your performance in different ways forces you to look at what you regularly do from a new perspective.
Change benchmarks. If you develop apps it's fun to benchmark against, say, the success of Angry Birds. Setting an incredible goal is fine—if you don't aim high you won't reach high—but failing to hit a lofty goal can kill your motivation.
So choose a different benchmark. Look for companies or people with similar assets, backgrounds, etc. and try to beat their results. Then, after you do, choose another target.
Aim for the heights, but include a few steps along the way. The journey will be a lot more fun.
Approach
Go opposite. If you haven't reached a goal then what you're currently doing isn't working.
Instead of tweaking your approach, take an entirely different tack. Pick one goal you're struggling to achieve and try a completely different approach.
Sometimes small adjustments eventually pay off, but occasionally you just need to blow things up and start over.
Drop one thing. We all have goals. Often we have too many goals; it's impossible to do 10 things incredibly well.
Take a look at your goals and pick at least one that you'll set aside, at least for now. (Don't feel bad about it. You weren't reaching your goals anyway, so what's the harm in dropping a few?)
Then put the time you were spending on that goal into your highest priority. You can't have it all, but you can have a lot—especially when you narrow your focus to one or two key goals.
Change your workday. Get up earlier. Get up later. Take care of emails an hour after you start work. Eat at your desk.
Pick one thing you do on a regular basis, preferably something you do for no better reason than that's the way you always do it and therefore it's comfortable, and do that one thing in a different way or at a different time.
Familiarity doesn't always breed contempt. Sometimes familiarity breeds complacency, and complacency is a progress and improvement killer.
Adopt
Choose a new habit. Successful people are successful for a reason, and that reason is often due to the habits they create and maintain.
Take a close look at the people who are successful in your field: What do they do on a regular basis? Then adopt one of their habits and make it your own.
Never reinvent a wheel when a perfect wheel already exists.
Choose someone to mentor. I learn more when I teach than the people I'm trying to teach. (Hopefully that says more about the process of teaching than it does about my teaching abilities.)
When you mentor another person you accomplish more than just helping someone else. You build your network—and more importantly, you learn a few things about yourself.
http://www.inc.com/jeff-haden/12-great-ways-to-turn-average-into-awesome.html
4/9/12
7 Ways to Screw Up a New Employee
Want that new hire to get off to a great start? Forget about following these nuggets of conventional wisdom.
Check out most advice about welcoming new employees to a company and you'll learn giving them plenty of time to "get comfortable" and "settle in" helps ensure they get off to a great start.
That, and long lunches with team members and plenty of water cooler small talk so they "get to know other employees as people."
Please.
The first few days of employment are critical. New employees are a lot like cruise ships: Once their course is set—especially if that course is the wrong course—it takes significant time and energy to change their direction.
Here are seven ways, in those first few days, that you can set the wrong course and screw up a new employee:
Play welcome wagon.
Strong interpersonal relationships, positive working relationships, lasting friendships... all those come later, if ever. You hire employees to work, not build personal relationships.
Absolutely be polite, courteous, and friendly, but also stay focused on the fact the employee was hired to perform a job--and jobs involve work. Let new employees earn the respect and friendship of others through hard work and achievement.
It's impossible to make good friends in a few days, but it is possible to hit the ground running.
Train comprehensively.
Many training guides say providing a broad context for every task is critical for new employees.
Wrong: Initially, a new employee doesn't need to know how they fit into the overall operation. They need to know how to perform the tasks you hired them to perform. Leave the comprehensive overview approach for later, when they are better able to put their role into context.
Besides, people best learn to master complex tasks when those tasks are broken down into smaller, more manageable chunks. Teach specific processes and let new employees demonstrate mastery of those processes.
Then start to introduce a more comprehensive view of job functions and how those functions tie into other operations and efforts.
Think of it this way: How can you understand how your role fits into the broader organization when you don't even know your role?
Be slow to give feedback.
New employees are tentative, nervous, and tend to make mistakes; it comes with the territory. So it may seem harsh or unfair to correct or critique, but if you don't, you lose the opportunity to set the right tone.
Unless the job involves creativity, every task should have a right way or best way to be performed. Expect new employees to do things your way at first; bad habits are easily formed and very difficult to correct.
Fail to set immediate, concrete goals.
Successful companies execute. A new employee should complete at least one specific job-related task on their first day.
When they do, not only do you establish that output is all-important, new employees go home feeling a sense of personal achievement. Whole days spent in orientation are boring and unfulfilling, and they make the eventual transition to "work" harder.
Make each day a blend of orientation and real work.
Make them wait.
It's hard to coordinate new employee orientation and training. Supervisors, trainers, and mentors get delayed or called away. (After all, they have other jobs too.)
But when that happens what message have you sent? New employees who sit waiting—we've all been in that position and hated it—decide you don't value continuous performance.
My first day at one new job I was pulled out of orientation and sent to shipping to help load trailers. All hands were on deck, including the CEO, and I learned right away that job descriptions are important but the mission is everything.
Let them immediately modify processes.
Of course there is a better way to perform just about any task. Hopefully new employees will find better, faster, cheaper ways to perform their jobs.
In the first few weeks, though, a new employee should not be allowed to reinvent your wheel until they fully understand how your current wheel works.
Be polite, but ask them to hold their ideas for now.
Talk about empowerment.
Empowerment is a privilege. Empowerment is not a right. A new employee should earn the right to make broader decisions, to take on additional authority, or to be given latitude and discretion. Earned empowerment is the only valid empowerment culture.
Give new employees the tools they need to succeed. Then let them earn greater authority and privilege. Accountability and responsibility should always precede privilege.
Don't worry: Great employees will be eager to show they deserve your respect and trust.
http://www.inc.com/jeff-haden/7-ways-to-screw-up-a-new-employee.html
Check out most advice about welcoming new employees to a company and you'll learn giving them plenty of time to "get comfortable" and "settle in" helps ensure they get off to a great start.
That, and long lunches with team members and plenty of water cooler small talk so they "get to know other employees as people."
Please.
The first few days of employment are critical. New employees are a lot like cruise ships: Once their course is set—especially if that course is the wrong course—it takes significant time and energy to change their direction.
Here are seven ways, in those first few days, that you can set the wrong course and screw up a new employee:
Play welcome wagon.
Strong interpersonal relationships, positive working relationships, lasting friendships... all those come later, if ever. You hire employees to work, not build personal relationships.
Absolutely be polite, courteous, and friendly, but also stay focused on the fact the employee was hired to perform a job--and jobs involve work. Let new employees earn the respect and friendship of others through hard work and achievement.
It's impossible to make good friends in a few days, but it is possible to hit the ground running.
Train comprehensively.
Many training guides say providing a broad context for every task is critical for new employees.
Wrong: Initially, a new employee doesn't need to know how they fit into the overall operation. They need to know how to perform the tasks you hired them to perform. Leave the comprehensive overview approach for later, when they are better able to put their role into context.
Besides, people best learn to master complex tasks when those tasks are broken down into smaller, more manageable chunks. Teach specific processes and let new employees demonstrate mastery of those processes.
Then start to introduce a more comprehensive view of job functions and how those functions tie into other operations and efforts.
Think of it this way: How can you understand how your role fits into the broader organization when you don't even know your role?
Be slow to give feedback.
New employees are tentative, nervous, and tend to make mistakes; it comes with the territory. So it may seem harsh or unfair to correct or critique, but if you don't, you lose the opportunity to set the right tone.
Unless the job involves creativity, every task should have a right way or best way to be performed. Expect new employees to do things your way at first; bad habits are easily formed and very difficult to correct.
Fail to set immediate, concrete goals.
Successful companies execute. A new employee should complete at least one specific job-related task on their first day.
When they do, not only do you establish that output is all-important, new employees go home feeling a sense of personal achievement. Whole days spent in orientation are boring and unfulfilling, and they make the eventual transition to "work" harder.
Make each day a blend of orientation and real work.
Make them wait.
It's hard to coordinate new employee orientation and training. Supervisors, trainers, and mentors get delayed or called away. (After all, they have other jobs too.)
But when that happens what message have you sent? New employees who sit waiting—we've all been in that position and hated it—decide you don't value continuous performance.
My first day at one new job I was pulled out of orientation and sent to shipping to help load trailers. All hands were on deck, including the CEO, and I learned right away that job descriptions are important but the mission is everything.
Let them immediately modify processes.
Of course there is a better way to perform just about any task. Hopefully new employees will find better, faster, cheaper ways to perform their jobs.
In the first few weeks, though, a new employee should not be allowed to reinvent your wheel until they fully understand how your current wheel works.
Be polite, but ask them to hold their ideas for now.
Talk about empowerment.
Empowerment is a privilege. Empowerment is not a right. A new employee should earn the right to make broader decisions, to take on additional authority, or to be given latitude and discretion. Earned empowerment is the only valid empowerment culture.
Give new employees the tools they need to succeed. Then let them earn greater authority and privilege. Accountability and responsibility should always precede privilege.
Don't worry: Great employees will be eager to show they deserve your respect and trust.
http://www.inc.com/jeff-haden/7-ways-to-screw-up-a-new-employee.html
4/5/12
5 Things Remarkable Bosses Never Do
I recently described what remarkable bosses do. A number of people emailed and asked, "That's a great list, but flip it around: What things should I not do?"
Glad you asked.
As a leader what you don't do can sometimes make as much or even more impact than what you do. Here are five things remarkable bosses never do:
Say, "I've been meaning to apologize for a while..."
You should never need to apologize for not having apologized sooner.
When you mess up, 'fess up. Right away. You certainly want employees to immediately tell you when they make a mistake, so model the same behavior.
If love means never having to say you're sorry, leadership means always having to say you're sorry.
Deliver annual performance reviews.
Annual or semi-annual performance appraisals are largely a waste of time.
Years ago my review was late so I mentioned it to my boss. He said, "I'll get to it... but you should know you won't hear anything new. You've already heard everything I will say, good or bad. If anything on your review comes as a surprise to you I haven't done my job."
He was right. The best feedback isn't scheduled. The best feedback happens on the spot when it makes the most impact, either as praise and encouragement or as training and suggestions for improvement. Waiting for a scheduled review is the lazy way out.
Your job is to coach and mentor and develop--every day.
Hold formal meetings to solicit ideas.
Many companies hold brainstorming sessions to solicit ideas for improvement, especially when times get tough.
Sounds great; after all you're "engaging employees" and "valuing their contributions," right? But you don't need a meeting to get input. When employees know you listen they bring ideas to you.
And if you must ask, the better way to ask for ideas is to talk to people individually and to be more specific. Say, "I wish we could find a way to get orders through our system faster. What would you change if you were me?"
Trust me: Employees picture themselves doing your job--and doing your job better than you--all the time. They have ideas. Sometimes they have great ideas. Be open, act on good ideas, explain why less than good ideas aren't feasible... and you'll get all the input you can handle without a formal meeting.
Create development plans.
Formal development plans are, like annual performance reviews, largely a corporate construct. You should know what each of your employees hopes to achieve: Skills and experience they want to gain, career paths they hope to take, etc.
So talk about it--informally. Then assign projects that fit. Provide training that fits. Create opportunities that fit.
Then give feedback on the spot. "Develop" is a verb. To develop requires action. "Development" is a noun that sits in a file cabinet.
Call in favors.
I know lots of bosses who play the guilt game, like saying, "Mark, I was really flexible with your schedule while your son was sick... now I really need you to come through for me and work this weekend."
Generosity should always be a one-way street. Be flexible when being flexible is the right thing to do. Be accommodating when being accommodating is the right thing to do.
Never lend money to friends unless you don't care if you are repaid, and never do "favors" for employees in anticipation of return.
Remarkable leaders only give. They never take.
http://www.inc.com/jeff-haden/5-things-remarkable-bosses-never-do-thursday.html
Glad you asked.
As a leader what you don't do can sometimes make as much or even more impact than what you do. Here are five things remarkable bosses never do:
Say, "I've been meaning to apologize for a while..."
You should never need to apologize for not having apologized sooner.
When you mess up, 'fess up. Right away. You certainly want employees to immediately tell you when they make a mistake, so model the same behavior.
If love means never having to say you're sorry, leadership means always having to say you're sorry.
Deliver annual performance reviews.
Annual or semi-annual performance appraisals are largely a waste of time.
Years ago my review was late so I mentioned it to my boss. He said, "I'll get to it... but you should know you won't hear anything new. You've already heard everything I will say, good or bad. If anything on your review comes as a surprise to you I haven't done my job."
He was right. The best feedback isn't scheduled. The best feedback happens on the spot when it makes the most impact, either as praise and encouragement or as training and suggestions for improvement. Waiting for a scheduled review is the lazy way out.
Your job is to coach and mentor and develop--every day.
Hold formal meetings to solicit ideas.
Many companies hold brainstorming sessions to solicit ideas for improvement, especially when times get tough.
Sounds great; after all you're "engaging employees" and "valuing their contributions," right? But you don't need a meeting to get input. When employees know you listen they bring ideas to you.
And if you must ask, the better way to ask for ideas is to talk to people individually and to be more specific. Say, "I wish we could find a way to get orders through our system faster. What would you change if you were me?"
Trust me: Employees picture themselves doing your job--and doing your job better than you--all the time. They have ideas. Sometimes they have great ideas. Be open, act on good ideas, explain why less than good ideas aren't feasible... and you'll get all the input you can handle without a formal meeting.
Create development plans.
Formal development plans are, like annual performance reviews, largely a corporate construct. You should know what each of your employees hopes to achieve: Skills and experience they want to gain, career paths they hope to take, etc.
So talk about it--informally. Then assign projects that fit. Provide training that fits. Create opportunities that fit.
Then give feedback on the spot. "Develop" is a verb. To develop requires action. "Development" is a noun that sits in a file cabinet.
Call in favors.
I know lots of bosses who play the guilt game, like saying, "Mark, I was really flexible with your schedule while your son was sick... now I really need you to come through for me and work this weekend."
Generosity should always be a one-way street. Be flexible when being flexible is the right thing to do. Be accommodating when being accommodating is the right thing to do.
Never lend money to friends unless you don't care if you are repaid, and never do "favors" for employees in anticipation of return.
Remarkable leaders only give. They never take.
http://www.inc.com/jeff-haden/5-things-remarkable-bosses-never-do-thursday.html
4/4/12
6 Ways Successful People Stand Out
Substance trumps style in the long run. Here's how to make the kind of impression that lasts.
Bosses spend the vast majority of their time helping other people succeed: employees, customers, vendors and suppliers... the list goes on and on.
Helping other people succeed is your job, but it's also your job to focus on yourself, at least part of the time.
Why? Your success creates success for others--and success requires, at least in part, standing out from the crowd and being known for something.
Of course there are different ways you can stand out. For example, you can be like this guy.
Okay, maybe not.
There are better ways:
Be first, with a purpose.
Lots of business owners are the first to arrive each day. That's great, but what do you do with that time? Organize your thoughts? Get a jump on your email?
Instead of taking care of your stuff, do something visibly worthwhile for the company. Take care of unresolved problems from the day before. Set things up so it's easier for employees to hit the ground running when they arrive. Chip away at an ongoing project others are ignoring. Whatever you choose, do it consistently.
Don't just be the one who turns on the lights--be the one who gets in early and gets things done. The example you set will quickly spread.
Be known for something specific.
Meeting standards, however lofty those standards may be, won't help you stand out.
Go above the norm. Be the entrepreneur known for turning around struggling employees. Be the business owner who makes a few deliveries a week to personally check in with customers. Be the boss who consistently promotes from within. Be known as the person who responds quicker, or acts faster, or who always follows up first.
Pick a worthwhile mission and excel at that mission.
Create your own side project.
Excelling at an assigned project is expected. Excelling at a side project helps you stand out. The key is to take a risk with a project and make sure your company or customers don't share that risk.
For example, years ago I decided to create a Web-based employee handbook my then-employer could put on the company Intranet. I worked on the project at home and a few managers liked it but our HR manager hated it... so it died an inglorious death. Bummer. I was disappointed but the company wasn't "out" anything, and soon after I was selected for a high-visibility company-wide process improvement team because now I was "that guy."
The same works for a business owner. Experiment with a new process or service with a particular customer in mind. The customer will appreciate how you tried, without being asked, to better meet their needs, and you'll become "that guy."
Put your muscle where your mouth is.
Lots of people take verbal stands. Fewer take a stand and put effort behind their opinions.
Say you think a project has gone off the rails; instead of simply showing everyone how smart you are by pointing out its flaws and revamping the timeline, jump in and help fix it.
It's easy to criticize what's wrong or to talk about what should be changed or could be improved. The people who stand out are the ones who help do something about it.
Show a little of your personal side.
Personal interests help other people to identify and remember you. That's a huge advantage for a new business or a company competing in a crowded market.
Just make sure your personal interests don't overshadow professional accomplishments. Being "the guy who ran a marathon" is fine, but being "the guy who is always training and traveling to marathons so we can never reach him when we need him" is not.
Let people know a little about you; a few personal details add color and depth to your professional image.
Work harder than everyone else.
Nothing--nothing--is a substitute for hard work. Look around: How many of your competitors are working as hard as they can?
Not many.
The best way to stand out is to try to out-work everyone else.
It's also the easiest, because you'll be the only one trying.
http://www.inc.com/jeff-haden/6-ways-successful-people-stand-out.html
Bosses spend the vast majority of their time helping other people succeed: employees, customers, vendors and suppliers... the list goes on and on.
Helping other people succeed is your job, but it's also your job to focus on yourself, at least part of the time.
Why? Your success creates success for others--and success requires, at least in part, standing out from the crowd and being known for something.
Of course there are different ways you can stand out. For example, you can be like this guy.
Okay, maybe not.
There are better ways:
Be first, with a purpose.
Lots of business owners are the first to arrive each day. That's great, but what do you do with that time? Organize your thoughts? Get a jump on your email?
Instead of taking care of your stuff, do something visibly worthwhile for the company. Take care of unresolved problems from the day before. Set things up so it's easier for employees to hit the ground running when they arrive. Chip away at an ongoing project others are ignoring. Whatever you choose, do it consistently.
Don't just be the one who turns on the lights--be the one who gets in early and gets things done. The example you set will quickly spread.
Be known for something specific.
Meeting standards, however lofty those standards may be, won't help you stand out.
Go above the norm. Be the entrepreneur known for turning around struggling employees. Be the business owner who makes a few deliveries a week to personally check in with customers. Be the boss who consistently promotes from within. Be known as the person who responds quicker, or acts faster, or who always follows up first.
Pick a worthwhile mission and excel at that mission.
Create your own side project.
Excelling at an assigned project is expected. Excelling at a side project helps you stand out. The key is to take a risk with a project and make sure your company or customers don't share that risk.
For example, years ago I decided to create a Web-based employee handbook my then-employer could put on the company Intranet. I worked on the project at home and a few managers liked it but our HR manager hated it... so it died an inglorious death. Bummer. I was disappointed but the company wasn't "out" anything, and soon after I was selected for a high-visibility company-wide process improvement team because now I was "that guy."
The same works for a business owner. Experiment with a new process or service with a particular customer in mind. The customer will appreciate how you tried, without being asked, to better meet their needs, and you'll become "that guy."
Put your muscle where your mouth is.
Lots of people take verbal stands. Fewer take a stand and put effort behind their opinions.
Say you think a project has gone off the rails; instead of simply showing everyone how smart you are by pointing out its flaws and revamping the timeline, jump in and help fix it.
It's easy to criticize what's wrong or to talk about what should be changed or could be improved. The people who stand out are the ones who help do something about it.
Show a little of your personal side.
Personal interests help other people to identify and remember you. That's a huge advantage for a new business or a company competing in a crowded market.
Just make sure your personal interests don't overshadow professional accomplishments. Being "the guy who ran a marathon" is fine, but being "the guy who is always training and traveling to marathons so we can never reach him when we need him" is not.
Let people know a little about you; a few personal details add color and depth to your professional image.
Work harder than everyone else.
Nothing--nothing--is a substitute for hard work. Look around: How many of your competitors are working as hard as they can?
Not many.
The best way to stand out is to try to out-work everyone else.
It's also the easiest, because you'll be the only one trying.
http://www.inc.com/jeff-haden/6-ways-successful-people-stand-out.html
4/3/12
How to Keep a Superstar Employee Happy
Can't offer extra money or a better title? You may not need either to get your top employee to stick around.
Dear Jeff,
One of my employees is outstanding, but I’m worried because I can tell she is starting to look for greener pastures. Unfortunately I don’t have much to offer her. What can I do?—Marcellus Fignon
Most businesses have “that” employee: smart, energetic, self-motivated, consistently outperforms peers, takes on formal and informal leadership roles, steps up when there's a challenge... forget an iPad 3, Apple needs to develop a cloning device.
But that employee is also hard to keep, especially if your business is small and your resources are limited. She wants to advance, professionally and financially. That's a problem when you can’t promote her or pay her more.
You know other employers would snap her up in a heartbeat. What can you do?
Start by addressing the issue before she brings it up. Be honest. Describe how important she is to your business. Explain why a raise is not possible. Discuss the current lack of openings. Most importantly, admit you know she has opportunities. Don't let that be an elephant in the room.
And never make promises or dangle the hope of opportunities that may not come through. You'll be tempted, but resist the temptation. Don't say, “In six months I feel there might be opportunities for promotion,” unless you absolutely know that is true. Don't say, “Next year I’ll definitely be able to give you a significant raise,” unless you absolutely know you will be able to.
When false hopes are unfulfilled, great employees are gone.
But don’t despair. More often than you might think, employees don't leave companies, they leave bosses. Outstanding employees are loyal employees. So be a great boss: Honest, loyal, and constantly seeking to improve the skills of your employees.
That’s the best way to keep great employees, even those who occasionally yearn for other opportunities.
Then keep creating informal opportunities that allow her to expand her skills and continue to shine. Ask about her long-range goals and create opportunities that will help her reach them. If she eventually wants to own her own business, that’s perfect—get her involved in everything.
If she’s smart—and clearly she is—she’ll recognize how valuable those experiences are.
Will that satisfy her, at least for a while? Hopefully so: I was once in a similar situation and it satisfied me. I was glad I stayed.
Just don't go overboard. All of your employees deserve development opportunities. Spread the wealth.
Great employees understand that other people deserve opportunities too.
http://www.inc.com/jeff-haden/how-to-keep-a-superstar-when-you-have-little-to-offer.html
Dear Jeff,
One of my employees is outstanding, but I’m worried because I can tell she is starting to look for greener pastures. Unfortunately I don’t have much to offer her. What can I do?—Marcellus Fignon
Most businesses have “that” employee: smart, energetic, self-motivated, consistently outperforms peers, takes on formal and informal leadership roles, steps up when there's a challenge... forget an iPad 3, Apple needs to develop a cloning device.
But that employee is also hard to keep, especially if your business is small and your resources are limited. She wants to advance, professionally and financially. That's a problem when you can’t promote her or pay her more.
You know other employers would snap her up in a heartbeat. What can you do?
Start by addressing the issue before she brings it up. Be honest. Describe how important she is to your business. Explain why a raise is not possible. Discuss the current lack of openings. Most importantly, admit you know she has opportunities. Don't let that be an elephant in the room.
And never make promises or dangle the hope of opportunities that may not come through. You'll be tempted, but resist the temptation. Don't say, “In six months I feel there might be opportunities for promotion,” unless you absolutely know that is true. Don't say, “Next year I’ll definitely be able to give you a significant raise,” unless you absolutely know you will be able to.
When false hopes are unfulfilled, great employees are gone.
But don’t despair. More often than you might think, employees don't leave companies, they leave bosses. Outstanding employees are loyal employees. So be a great boss: Honest, loyal, and constantly seeking to improve the skills of your employees.
That’s the best way to keep great employees, even those who occasionally yearn for other opportunities.
Then keep creating informal opportunities that allow her to expand her skills and continue to shine. Ask about her long-range goals and create opportunities that will help her reach them. If she eventually wants to own her own business, that’s perfect—get her involved in everything.
If she’s smart—and clearly she is—she’ll recognize how valuable those experiences are.
Will that satisfy her, at least for a while? Hopefully so: I was once in a similar situation and it satisfied me. I was glad I stayed.
Just don't go overboard. All of your employees deserve development opportunities. Spread the wealth.
Great employees understand that other people deserve opportunities too.
http://www.inc.com/jeff-haden/how-to-keep-a-superstar-when-you-have-little-to-offer.html
You Screwed Up. Now What?
We all make mistakes. It's how we handle them that makes the difference between a simple "Oops," and an epic fail.
It happens. We’re all human.
Everyone makes mistakes. It’s the way they’re handled that can mean success or failure to a business. Our team is no different. We work extra hard to fix problems quickly and earn back the trust of our employees or customers.
Not everyone is so conscientious. Take, for example, our soon-to-be-former payroll provider. Errors that could have been remedied quickly have now rolled into one huge epic fail.
Despite repeated requests for our year-end W-2s, they arrived 1) more than a week late, 2) ugly as hell, and 3) incorrect. Any of these would be horrible. But this was special. Our payroll report arrived accompanied by reports from other companies, complete with the social security numbers of their employees. The payroll provider missed both calls they had scheduled to discuss these errors with us, our names were frequently misspelled, and the payroll company placed blame on our employees for screw-ups in their process. Let’s say we’ve got a bit of an issue on our hands.
So, what should you do when you make a mistake?
1. Listen. The person you let down might need to get her disappointment or anger off her chest. Just listen. Don’t make excuses. Don’t interrupt. Don’t even try to respond right away. Listen. Let it sink in. If there’s a way to repair things, you’re hearing it right now, so pay attention.
2. Own it. You or someone on your team made a mistake. No finger-pointing. Fans of Pixar’s A Bug’s Life know Hopper’s first rule of leadership: Everything is your fault. Here, we call it falling on the sword. Sometimes, it’s the only thing you can do before starting to make it right. Be sure the person you’ve disappointed knows you understand the mistake belongs to you.
3. Be contrite. In our business we ask consultants, “Do you want to be right or do you want to be rich?” You will not convince someone of anything else when they feel they were wronged. You might be angry. You might be embarrassed. But what you need to show the person you let down is that you are contrite and humble. Everything and anything else will not make things better.
4. Make amends. You can offer to fix the problem or come up with perfectly good ideas about how you might patch things up. If the person wants a letter of apology to make things square, get them a personal note from a top executive. If they want a discount, do it and throw in something else they didn’t ask for. It’s the “little bit extra” that speaks volumes and may even strengthen the relationship in the long run.
Note: I’m not suggesting you let someone take advantage of the situation. There are real jerks out there. You can’t give them what they want if it’s completely unreasonable. Own the mistake, give a heartfelt apology, and extend a powerful “above and beyond” gesture.
5. Be careful. Just because you’ve made amends, don’t think everything is back to normal again. Be even more mindful of the wronged customer and go to great lengths to ensure your product or service exceeds their expectation. Until you get an unmistakably clear signal that all is well again, stay in the penalty box. And for goodness sake, spell his or her name correctly while trying to fix the problem.
6. Learn from it. Someone I respect says, “Always make new mistakes.” As long as you’re still a human you’re going to make mistakes, so get used to it. A true leader learns from mistakes and uses the experience to grow and change in positive ways. If you really come to understand the consequences of your mistake, then there’s a much better chance you won’t do it again.
Every mistake says, “We don’t give a damn about you,” unless you go above and beyond to prove that mistake was just that -- an extremely rare, sub-par event.
I wish I could tell you the payroll company followed these steps to repair the damage done by their errors. Heck, we’d be thrilled just to have accurate payroll, responsive account reps and our name spelled correctly on messages. I guess it’s time to find another payroll provider that will give a damn about us.
http://www.inc.com/rene-siegel/you-screwed-up-now-what.html
It happens. We’re all human.
Everyone makes mistakes. It’s the way they’re handled that can mean success or failure to a business. Our team is no different. We work extra hard to fix problems quickly and earn back the trust of our employees or customers.
Not everyone is so conscientious. Take, for example, our soon-to-be-former payroll provider. Errors that could have been remedied quickly have now rolled into one huge epic fail.
Despite repeated requests for our year-end W-2s, they arrived 1) more than a week late, 2) ugly as hell, and 3) incorrect. Any of these would be horrible. But this was special. Our payroll report arrived accompanied by reports from other companies, complete with the social security numbers of their employees. The payroll provider missed both calls they had scheduled to discuss these errors with us, our names were frequently misspelled, and the payroll company placed blame on our employees for screw-ups in their process. Let’s say we’ve got a bit of an issue on our hands.
So, what should you do when you make a mistake?
1. Listen. The person you let down might need to get her disappointment or anger off her chest. Just listen. Don’t make excuses. Don’t interrupt. Don’t even try to respond right away. Listen. Let it sink in. If there’s a way to repair things, you’re hearing it right now, so pay attention.
2. Own it. You or someone on your team made a mistake. No finger-pointing. Fans of Pixar’s A Bug’s Life know Hopper’s first rule of leadership: Everything is your fault. Here, we call it falling on the sword. Sometimes, it’s the only thing you can do before starting to make it right. Be sure the person you’ve disappointed knows you understand the mistake belongs to you.
3. Be contrite. In our business we ask consultants, “Do you want to be right or do you want to be rich?” You will not convince someone of anything else when they feel they were wronged. You might be angry. You might be embarrassed. But what you need to show the person you let down is that you are contrite and humble. Everything and anything else will not make things better.
4. Make amends. You can offer to fix the problem or come up with perfectly good ideas about how you might patch things up. If the person wants a letter of apology to make things square, get them a personal note from a top executive. If they want a discount, do it and throw in something else they didn’t ask for. It’s the “little bit extra” that speaks volumes and may even strengthen the relationship in the long run.
Note: I’m not suggesting you let someone take advantage of the situation. There are real jerks out there. You can’t give them what they want if it’s completely unreasonable. Own the mistake, give a heartfelt apology, and extend a powerful “above and beyond” gesture.
5. Be careful. Just because you’ve made amends, don’t think everything is back to normal again. Be even more mindful of the wronged customer and go to great lengths to ensure your product or service exceeds their expectation. Until you get an unmistakably clear signal that all is well again, stay in the penalty box. And for goodness sake, spell his or her name correctly while trying to fix the problem.
6. Learn from it. Someone I respect says, “Always make new mistakes.” As long as you’re still a human you’re going to make mistakes, so get used to it. A true leader learns from mistakes and uses the experience to grow and change in positive ways. If you really come to understand the consequences of your mistake, then there’s a much better chance you won’t do it again.
Every mistake says, “We don’t give a damn about you,” unless you go above and beyond to prove that mistake was just that -- an extremely rare, sub-par event.
I wish I could tell you the payroll company followed these steps to repair the damage done by their errors. Heck, we’d be thrilled just to have accurate payroll, responsive account reps and our name spelled correctly on messages. I guess it’s time to find another payroll provider that will give a damn about us.
http://www.inc.com/rene-siegel/you-screwed-up-now-what.html
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