As a lifelong sucker for the new year's resolution, it's not surprising that I'm also an advocate for using January 1 as an inspirational start point for business change. However, just as a list of five or ten personal resolutions is hard to remember, let alone to achieve, let's agree that in business too, less may be more.
Start with one important change you want to make. Make it the challenge, concern or irritant that:
A) keeps you awake nights
B) makes Monday mornings tough to face, or
C) drives you to drink... or whatever.
For some business owners, cash flow or profitability rises to the top. For others, it may be the long hours they perpetually work, or an employee that is a perpetual challenge. Maybe you need to write an employee handbook, or promote or reassign a key staff member. Whatever it is, you've been putting it off.
Once you've identified your #1 trigger, the real work begins.
Let's take a complex example first. Cash flow and profitability is a big issue. What is the first and most important step you can take to improve your company's financial situation? Write it down. Write down subsequent or supplemental steps as well. Don't know what the first step is? Do some research, or get some help. This blog and many books on the topic will help. Try Six Steps to Creating Profit for starters. Your accountant may have recommendations for improving your numbers as well. Then, get to work.
In some cases, the change you need to make is less complex but difficult for other reasons. Take the example of working overly long hours. You've probably developed the habit over years. Again, break the problem down. Figure out why you are working too much, and what you can do about it. Do one thing to reduce the hours you work on a regular basis. For example, leave work an hour earlier one or two days every week. Or delegate a few additional tasks to staff members.
When you have addressed your most important single change, or at least have set the desired change in motion, you can move on to a second challenge.
While this approach may sound overly simple, it works well. Business owners have a raft of everyday responsibilities, so big changes tend to get pushed back. By focusing on one important change at a time, you can make it happen faster and more surely than if it remains one item on a long list.
Here's to a happy, productive and successful new year.
Post adapted from Michelle van Schouwen's article in Succeeding in Small Business.
Friday, December 18, 2015
Tuesday, December 1, 2015
Fine-tuning your management style
Forbes contributor and longtime corporate manager Victor Lipman recently published the book The Type B Manager: Leading Successfully in a Type A World. He contends that, while Type A people have long been regarded as the best managers, many of those hard-driving, competitive characteristics aren’t optimal for directing employees. Type Bs, more reflective, slower to anger and in some ways less competitive, may in fact motivate and manage more effectively.
Of course, for any manager – whether Type A, Type B, collaborative, self-motivated, quick or slow to delegate, with great or so-so social intelligence – supervising people can be a challenge.
As managers, understanding ourselves is the first step to unlocking our best performance. Once we better understand ourselves, we can leverage our management strengths and mitigate our weaknesses. The following examples apply to business owners as well as team managers in large companies.
-George, a young, bright and eager researcher, had recently taken on his first management position. Having excelled as a lone wolf, he soon found himself in conflict with the people he was charged with directing. His staff regarded him as condescending and dismissive. Once George became aware of this, he worked to adjust and manage his attitude. Admitting to himself that he did at times consider himself smarter than other people was an important first step, which he eventually followed by 1) not allowing himself to reveal these feelings (even subtly) when they cropped up, and 2) teaching himself to look for and respect a broader range of personal strengths in others (for example, kindness, energy or dedication). In other words, while George had always valued intelligence above all other characteristics in himself and others, as a manager, he needed to look at people in a broader and more compassionate way.
-Miranda had been a manager for nearly three years when she realized she was exhausted. She asked a more seasoned manager to mentor her. The senior manager advised Miranda that she was allowing perfectionism to rule. If Miranda had any concerns that a staff member might not do an outstanding job on a project, she would either micromanage the project or take it over completely. Miranda’s mentor showed her how to back away enough to allow employees to do their jobs as completely as possible, checking in only at specific intervals.
-Jane directed her team well on projects and mission. However, she learned that her close-knit group regarded her as uncaring. She didn’t join them in social events, forgot their birthdays and failed to ask even the occasional “how is your family” question. Jane found a compromise solution. She admitted to the staff that she had been known to forget even her own mother’s birthday, and asked them to keep a calendar of events they wanted to observe as a group, and to give her a heads-up. Jane also marked her online calendar with regular reminders including a bi-weekly “Today, ask someone how they/their family etc. is doing.” The combination of letting her team know she did indeed care about them, while also admitting to them that reaching out personally wasn’t her greatest strength, healed earlier tensions.
-Diego was conflict averse. As a manager, he hesitated to talk with employees about their performance shortcomings, and thus faced ongoing issues with several staff members. Diego began reading about proactive problem management techniques, and came to recognize the shortfalls of his approach. He then planned how he could summon the nerve to discuss problems with employees. He set aside meeting time with individual employees. To make the meeting easier for everyone, Diego would begin each conversation with a positive. “I’ve appreciated your work on the ABC project, which has helped us keep this customer happy. However, I did want to bring up one aspect of your reporting in this project.” He also asked employees to help him devise solutions to the problems he brought up. His thoughtful and collaborative approach helped Diego with what he considered to be the most difficult part of managing people.
-Rebekah was busy, so much so that managing her equally busy staff was starting to feel like a burden. She found a single tactic that helped. When a staff member approached her with a problem, she asked that person to provide at least one, and possibly two, solutions to the problem. This empowered employees, created more options in dealing with challenges, and freed Rebekah – just a little – to cope with other demands of the day.
All managers tread some common ground, so whatever your area of concern, there are probably great books and articles to reference. In addition, seasoned managers are happy to advise or mentor others. So don’t operate in isolation. There’s help out there!
Originally published in Succeeding in Small Business.
Of course, for any manager – whether Type A, Type B, collaborative, self-motivated, quick or slow to delegate, with great or so-so social intelligence – supervising people can be a challenge.
As managers, understanding ourselves is the first step to unlocking our best performance. Once we better understand ourselves, we can leverage our management strengths and mitigate our weaknesses. The following examples apply to business owners as well as team managers in large companies.
-George, a young, bright and eager researcher, had recently taken on his first management position. Having excelled as a lone wolf, he soon found himself in conflict with the people he was charged with directing. His staff regarded him as condescending and dismissive. Once George became aware of this, he worked to adjust and manage his attitude. Admitting to himself that he did at times consider himself smarter than other people was an important first step, which he eventually followed by 1) not allowing himself to reveal these feelings (even subtly) when they cropped up, and 2) teaching himself to look for and respect a broader range of personal strengths in others (for example, kindness, energy or dedication). In other words, while George had always valued intelligence above all other characteristics in himself and others, as a manager, he needed to look at people in a broader and more compassionate way.
-Miranda had been a manager for nearly three years when she realized she was exhausted. She asked a more seasoned manager to mentor her. The senior manager advised Miranda that she was allowing perfectionism to rule. If Miranda had any concerns that a staff member might not do an outstanding job on a project, she would either micromanage the project or take it over completely. Miranda’s mentor showed her how to back away enough to allow employees to do their jobs as completely as possible, checking in only at specific intervals.
-Jane directed her team well on projects and mission. However, she learned that her close-knit group regarded her as uncaring. She didn’t join them in social events, forgot their birthdays and failed to ask even the occasional “how is your family” question. Jane found a compromise solution. She admitted to the staff that she had been known to forget even her own mother’s birthday, and asked them to keep a calendar of events they wanted to observe as a group, and to give her a heads-up. Jane also marked her online calendar with regular reminders including a bi-weekly “Today, ask someone how they/their family etc. is doing.” The combination of letting her team know she did indeed care about them, while also admitting to them that reaching out personally wasn’t her greatest strength, healed earlier tensions.
-Diego was conflict averse. As a manager, he hesitated to talk with employees about their performance shortcomings, and thus faced ongoing issues with several staff members. Diego began reading about proactive problem management techniques, and came to recognize the shortfalls of his approach. He then planned how he could summon the nerve to discuss problems with employees. He set aside meeting time with individual employees. To make the meeting easier for everyone, Diego would begin each conversation with a positive. “I’ve appreciated your work on the ABC project, which has helped us keep this customer happy. However, I did want to bring up one aspect of your reporting in this project.” He also asked employees to help him devise solutions to the problems he brought up. His thoughtful and collaborative approach helped Diego with what he considered to be the most difficult part of managing people.
-Rebekah was busy, so much so that managing her equally busy staff was starting to feel like a burden. She found a single tactic that helped. When a staff member approached her with a problem, she asked that person to provide at least one, and possibly two, solutions to the problem. This empowered employees, created more options in dealing with challenges, and freed Rebekah – just a little – to cope with other demands of the day.
All managers tread some common ground, so whatever your area of concern, there are probably great books and articles to reference. In addition, seasoned managers are happy to advise or mentor others. So don’t operate in isolation. There’s help out there!
Originally published in Succeeding in Small Business.
Monday, November 2, 2015
A Short Guide to Smart B2B Marketing Launches
The good news about B2B marketing is its ultimate practical nature. To misquote Chaucer, “Value will out.” In the majority of cases, business-to-business purchasing is driven by practical considerations including but not limited to:
-Clear and understandable value your offering brings to the buyer
-Timing, as B2B purchases are typically made only when needed (sometimes later!)
-Reputation, because business purchasing decision-makers are often risk averse
-The right price, because the bottom line matters and competition, both direct and indirect, can be fierce; but remember, the lowest price on the market may connote “cheap” so play your cards right
-Problem-solving and pain reduction, because business is nearly always tough and your offering should make it easier
The other good news about B2B marketing launches is that, if you do your homework, you can pretty nicely identify and target your prospective buyers.
-Decide if you have one or multiple vertical markets to reach (schools, hospitals and hotels or just one of these)?
-Determine who is likely to make and to influence the buying decision.
-Research the way these people, as a group or singly, like to get their information (websites, trade shows, social media, video, print or online media, word-of-mouth, search engines, inbound marketing)?
-Remember that delivering your message via multiple methods and media will generally give you stronger results than the Monomaniac Approach of one form of outreach forever.
Once you’ve done some homework and you have your B2B product or offering ready to go, leverage your knowledge and tell your story.
-If your offering is “news” (and a new product or service of value typically is news), treat it as such, with media outreach, video how-tos, social media, trade show exhibition, eblasts, advertising, and lots more.
-Follow up with ongoing “drip” marketing, telling stories, creating case studies, continuing to advertise, and offering advice of value.
-Remember that when you are sick and tired of deluging the market with the same old messages, your prospects may just be beginning to notice them.
-Do you have a high-value offering and key prospects? Consider conversion marketing, in which you reach out to these same people multiple times, in a range of different ways.
-Can you become the expert in the solution you are offering? We may be getting tired of hearing the term “thought leadership,” but it still matters. Offering counsel, expertise and value through presentations at trade shows or conferences, writing white papers, blogging, and publishing articles makes your expertise, and if properly done, your offering top-of-mind.
-Learn as you go. You may later realize that the benefit you ranked as third in importance when you launched turns out to be #1. Revise and leverage. You may find out that schools really want the product you thought was ideal for hospitals. You may discover that your best customers buy one or two right away, and that the biggest prospects take two years to get you a purchase order. Smart B2B marketers are ready and able to adapt to realities and changes in plans.
-Repeat. Keep improving your offering, your messaging, your targeting, and your sales. Once you have the hang of this, you’ll want to keep at it.
-Clear and understandable value your offering brings to the buyer
-Timing, as B2B purchases are typically made only when needed (sometimes later!)
-Reputation, because business purchasing decision-makers are often risk averse
-The right price, because the bottom line matters and competition, both direct and indirect, can be fierce; but remember, the lowest price on the market may connote “cheap” so play your cards right
-Problem-solving and pain reduction, because business is nearly always tough and your offering should make it easier
The other good news about B2B marketing launches is that, if you do your homework, you can pretty nicely identify and target your prospective buyers.
-Decide if you have one or multiple vertical markets to reach (schools, hospitals and hotels or just one of these)?
-Determine who is likely to make and to influence the buying decision.
-Research the way these people, as a group or singly, like to get their information (websites, trade shows, social media, video, print or online media, word-of-mouth, search engines, inbound marketing)?
-Remember that delivering your message via multiple methods and media will generally give you stronger results than the Monomaniac Approach of one form of outreach forever.
Once you’ve done some homework and you have your B2B product or offering ready to go, leverage your knowledge and tell your story.
-If your offering is “news” (and a new product or service of value typically is news), treat it as such, with media outreach, video how-tos, social media, trade show exhibition, eblasts, advertising, and lots more.
-Follow up with ongoing “drip” marketing, telling stories, creating case studies, continuing to advertise, and offering advice of value.
-Remember that when you are sick and tired of deluging the market with the same old messages, your prospects may just be beginning to notice them.
-Do you have a high-value offering and key prospects? Consider conversion marketing, in which you reach out to these same people multiple times, in a range of different ways.
-Can you become the expert in the solution you are offering? We may be getting tired of hearing the term “thought leadership,” but it still matters. Offering counsel, expertise and value through presentations at trade shows or conferences, writing white papers, blogging, and publishing articles makes your expertise, and if properly done, your offering top-of-mind.
-Learn as you go. You may later realize that the benefit you ranked as third in importance when you launched turns out to be #1. Revise and leverage. You may find out that schools really want the product you thought was ideal for hospitals. You may discover that your best customers buy one or two right away, and that the biggest prospects take two years to get you a purchase order. Smart B2B marketers are ready and able to adapt to realities and changes in plans.
-Repeat. Keep improving your offering, your messaging, your targeting, and your sales. Once you have the hang of this, you’ll want to keep at it.
Tuesday, September 22, 2015
Before you launch: Imagine your product has failed. Conduct a pre-mortem.
Positive thinking is great. Blind spots... not so much.“What could possibly go wrong?” is certainly a question that merits asking during any product or project’s development. However, a managerial technique known as the pre-mortem takes the process a critical step farther.
The pre-mortem process in three easy steps:
“We haven’t launched this product yet. But let’s imagine that it’s a year after the scheduled launch – and the product has failed. Okay, everybody, what went wrong?”
To give your team the opportunity to answer this question as thoroughly, as thoughtfully, and in as many ways as it merits, you’ll want to follow a process that encourages prospective hindsight, a method of thinking as if something has already happened.
First of all, set aside two hours. Sure, you are busy developing the product. Make no mistake (yes, that’s a play on words) you are NOT too busy to perform a pre-mortem, which is far less painful and expensive than the potential post-mortem you will perform when and if the product fails. Start with a two-hour meeting. Select a facilitator.
Second, have everyone in the room begin by independently writing down all the possible reasons for the product’s failure. Have each participant read one reason from his or her list, and repeat the process until all potential reasons for failure have been vocalized. Meantime, the facilitator writes down every reason.
Third, discuss.
And, finally, post-meeting, plan and make changes to accommodate what you’ve learned through exercising prospective hindsight via the pre-mortem. This may require additional team meetings. Again, it’s time well spent.
The research on pre-mortem effectiveness:
Harvard Business Review reported that “Research conducted in 1989 by Deborah J. Mitchell, of the Wharton School; Jay Russo, of Cornell; and Nancy Pennington, of the University of Colorado, found that prospective hindsight — imagining that an event has already occurred—increases the ability to correctly identify reasons for future outcomes by 30%.” Using prospective hindsight allows team members to think out some of the lurking problems that haven’t been brought into the light of day in ordinary planning meetings. It slows the rush toward completion to allow more balanced perceptions to arise.
******
“Why did our product and its launch fail?”
Participants' sample answers
We failed to market aggressively and one of our competitors then seized the market advantage as if we hadn’t been first.
We didn’t ask the market if it was interested in this product – and no one was.
We didn’t make sure the technology worked seamlessly. Early fails damaged our image.
Production was too expensive, and we tried to charge more than the market would bear.
A recession killed demand for “extras” and our product wasn’t a must-have.
Consumers slammed it in reviews.
Our CEO cut the budget just as we launched and we didn’t get to trade shows.
We didn’t train the sales team to sell this complex offering, so they kept selling the old stuff instead.
Thursday, September 17, 2015
Ownership tactics: Managing a company when there is way too much to manage
As originally published in Succeeding in Small Business
:
One of the concerns associated with owning a small business is not being able to juggle it all, and thus risking that "it all" falls apart. If like many business owners, you love running your business, it’s a risk you want to mitigate.
Many of us charge ourselves with everything from payroll to sales to doing key projects. Plus, not only does your workday often not end when your employees (if you have them) go home, but family, home and other obligations may then kick in full force.
During the very early years of my strategic marketing company, I often towed along my first and then also my second baby boy, or kept them playing (or fussing) next to me as I worked in my office. The boys spent so much time listening to me talk with clients that the oldest thought his last name was “van Schouwen Associates.” Those early years taught me that running a company while actively raising children was not going to be a picnic. Multitasking, stamina and a sense of humor were must-haves. (By the way, the boys grew up to have great career skills. Perhaps they learned something useful while in their playpens and strollers.)
Later challenges including recessions, employees gone feral, sudden widowhood, and usual and unusual client concerns further inspired me to hone a set of time-and-sanity management tactics and reminders. Several are based on wisdom shared with me by other business owners. (Thank you all.) Some are obvious, some less so.
-The toughest times to manage your business are 1) when personal matters intrude and 2) when your business is facing major challenges. Recognize that in most cases, the level of crisis and responsibility will not remain at peak forever. This may help you cope.
-If your situation is likely to remain at “high peak responsibility” and you are not sure you can handle it, prioritize your areas of involvement, delegate where you can, drop what you must, and focus on what matters most. Solicit professional or other competent help in determining how to do this, if you can. Not all balls need to be juggled forever, or by you personally.
-Don’t lend your emotions to every aspect of your business or your personal life. Some potentially heart-wrenching matters must sternly be relegated to mere “process” or “administrative” status, and not allowed to drive you crazy. Life is way too short.
-Each day, update a typed or handwritten “to do” list that includes both business and personal tasks. Place at the bottom or in a separate column those items that can be postponed. This way, you know you haven’t forgotten them, and they can simmer on the back burner, duly listed, rather than continually popping into your mind. You’ve got this.
-Remember that you own the place. If you need to take two hours midday to see your mother’s doctor in East Podunk, do it. If you need some personal time to breathe, take it.
-Assigning “time chunks” is a great way to segment your days. Create your own. For example, eight am to noon, when you are fresh, do your hardest business tasks. Take a walk at lunch… and eat something, for heaven sake. After lunch, meet with an important client. Two to three thirty polish off those personal tasks that must be accomplished during business hours (we all have them). Then, finish up the easier, less taxing work that must be done by you today, and go pick up your kids, your dog or your groceries, and hopefully relax. Own your time.
-Learn what energizes you and what saps you. I love traveling and working with clients. Afterwards, returning to my office or my house from a long trip marks the exact moment when my typically high energy level plummets to zero. I try to schedule such returns so that I’m done with the day’s business work when the trip is through.
-Scale and organize your business so it serves your goals. A business with too many time demands or pressures is ultimately exhausting. Make it a goal to run a business that enriches not just your checkbook but your life. This may mean hiring more people to help get the work done faster, or outsourcing non-central tasks.
-Read for inspiration on the business and life you want. A couple of recent books I recommend if you want to energize and refresh are Choose Yourself by James Altucher and The Hard Thing About Hard Things: Building a Business When There Are No Easy Answers by Ben Horowitz.
It’s a great achievement to tap into your own resources as a business owner, and improving your time management is a rewarding evolutionary process.
:One of the concerns associated with owning a small business is not being able to juggle it all, and thus risking that "it all" falls apart. If like many business owners, you love running your business, it’s a risk you want to mitigate.
Many of us charge ourselves with everything from payroll to sales to doing key projects. Plus, not only does your workday often not end when your employees (if you have them) go home, but family, home and other obligations may then kick in full force.
During the very early years of my strategic marketing company, I often towed along my first and then also my second baby boy, or kept them playing (or fussing) next to me as I worked in my office. The boys spent so much time listening to me talk with clients that the oldest thought his last name was “van Schouwen Associates.” Those early years taught me that running a company while actively raising children was not going to be a picnic. Multitasking, stamina and a sense of humor were must-haves. (By the way, the boys grew up to have great career skills. Perhaps they learned something useful while in their playpens and strollers.)
Later challenges including recessions, employees gone feral, sudden widowhood, and usual and unusual client concerns further inspired me to hone a set of time-and-sanity management tactics and reminders. Several are based on wisdom shared with me by other business owners. (Thank you all.) Some are obvious, some less so.
-The toughest times to manage your business are 1) when personal matters intrude and 2) when your business is facing major challenges. Recognize that in most cases, the level of crisis and responsibility will not remain at peak forever. This may help you cope.
-If your situation is likely to remain at “high peak responsibility” and you are not sure you can handle it, prioritize your areas of involvement, delegate where you can, drop what you must, and focus on what matters most. Solicit professional or other competent help in determining how to do this, if you can. Not all balls need to be juggled forever, or by you personally.
-Don’t lend your emotions to every aspect of your business or your personal life. Some potentially heart-wrenching matters must sternly be relegated to mere “process” or “administrative” status, and not allowed to drive you crazy. Life is way too short.
-Each day, update a typed or handwritten “to do” list that includes both business and personal tasks. Place at the bottom or in a separate column those items that can be postponed. This way, you know you haven’t forgotten them, and they can simmer on the back burner, duly listed, rather than continually popping into your mind. You’ve got this.
-Remember that you own the place. If you need to take two hours midday to see your mother’s doctor in East Podunk, do it. If you need some personal time to breathe, take it.
-Assigning “time chunks” is a great way to segment your days. Create your own. For example, eight am to noon, when you are fresh, do your hardest business tasks. Take a walk at lunch… and eat something, for heaven sake. After lunch, meet with an important client. Two to three thirty polish off those personal tasks that must be accomplished during business hours (we all have them). Then, finish up the easier, less taxing work that must be done by you today, and go pick up your kids, your dog or your groceries, and hopefully relax. Own your time.
-Learn what energizes you and what saps you. I love traveling and working with clients. Afterwards, returning to my office or my house from a long trip marks the exact moment when my typically high energy level plummets to zero. I try to schedule such returns so that I’m done with the day’s business work when the trip is through.
-Scale and organize your business so it serves your goals. A business with too many time demands or pressures is ultimately exhausting. Make it a goal to run a business that enriches not just your checkbook but your life. This may mean hiring more people to help get the work done faster, or outsourcing non-central tasks.
-Read for inspiration on the business and life you want. A couple of recent books I recommend if you want to energize and refresh are Choose Yourself by James Altucher and The Hard Thing About Hard Things: Building a Business When There Are No Easy Answers by Ben Horowitz.
It’s a great achievement to tap into your own resources as a business owner, and improving your time management is a rewarding evolutionary process.
Friday, May 22, 2015
Intrigued by inbound marketing?
After all, what could be better? Put the word out about your products, services and expertise, and watch customers come to you, ready to do business.That’s what inbound marketing seeks to do. And that’s why it should be part (major or otherwise) of your mix going forward.
Where to start?
1) Consider some of the top tactics for inbound marketing:
• Content marketing (blogs, white papers, articles, speaking engagements, more)
• Social media
• Search engine optimization (SEO) both organic and pay-per-click (PPC)
• Remember that marketing techniques traditionally thought of as outbound can be inbound as well. For example, media relations, in which your stories are in the press, online and off, is the earliest form of what’s now called “content marketing”
2) Select a “team” of approaches that plays together well. Repetition of your key message points through different tactics, and building familiarity through continued presence in multiple venues, helps assure your inbound marketing is a winner.
3) Make sure you deliver a meaningful message. Content marketing and social media should usually be less overtly promotional than traditional outbound marketing. But make sure prospects know what you can do for them, and make sure they care about what you offer. Don’t be so subtle that prospects don’t hear what you really need to say.
4) Track your results. Track all the relevant metrics you can, from readership to clicks to purchase inquiries. Make sure you monitor your budget so that you assign your dollars where they best support the business goals you’ve set.
5) Integrate outbound marketing as well. Traditional outbound marketing is alive, well and effective. It reaches where content marketing may not be able to go (that is, reaching out find prospects before they even start looking for a topic, solution or brand) and can either make the sale or soften the prospects to be receptive to inbound marketing.
6) Inbound and outbound, but not hidebound. At vSA we believe that the very best marketing is integrated marketing. With a well-crafted mix of inbound and outbound, you will capture the most - and the best - opportunities out there.
Friday, April 17, 2015
Worst practices in business: Who DOES that?
You’ve hea
rd of business best practices, of course. They are the subject of books, articles and seminars nearly every day.
Far less often do people talk about the all-too-common everyday worst practices that can annoy your customers and vendors, slow your progress, squander your opportunities, and eventually, lead to serious harm or failure for your small business. You may have experienced many of these either from the customer or vendor side.
But who on earth would routinely behave in ways that could have such a negative impact on their business’ short- and long-term well-being? In fact, these everyday “worst practices” are surprisingly common:
• Fail to provide project or delivery updates when your customer requests them
• Turn in projects late or incomplete
• Over-promise, then under-deliver – and deliver when it’s too late for the customer to request changes
• Cut corners in quality and refuse to make good when requested to do so (or at best make good reluctantly)
• Don’t return phone calls or respond to emails from business associates in a timely manner
• Don’t show up when you say you will; make them wait
• Forget you asked for a meeting at your office, and be out at another meeting when your guests arrive
• Take the attitude that if they want your business, vendors should be available to answer your calls 24/7, holidays, weekends and late nights included
• Argue about price, even if the price you’ve been given seems fair (you can always save a little more, right?)
• Demand that vendors rush to do your work – every time
• Then, don’t pay the vendors for a long time – and make them inquire repeatedly about payment
• Lose your vendors’ invoices – every time, if possible
• Refuse to track your time, expenses, sales, and work product, and then blame everyone around you for poor profits
• Insist that you’ve “always done it this way”
• Think of business as a “zero-sum-game” – one person wins and the other must lose
• Assume that everybody else does business just the way that you do, and that you can go on this way indefinitely
In fact, you can get away with some of this for some period of time. One day, however, your customers may wander away, your vendors fail to jump to attention, your employees bail, and your profits vanish.
Before that happens, if you have an inkling that some of this sounds just a little like you, keep this list handy, and cross off each behavior as you eliminate it from your own everyday practices.
rd of business best practices, of course. They are the subject of books, articles and seminars nearly every day.Far less often do people talk about the all-too-common everyday worst practices that can annoy your customers and vendors, slow your progress, squander your opportunities, and eventually, lead to serious harm or failure for your small business. You may have experienced many of these either from the customer or vendor side.
But who on earth would routinely behave in ways that could have such a negative impact on their business’ short- and long-term well-being? In fact, these everyday “worst practices” are surprisingly common:
• Fail to provide project or delivery updates when your customer requests them
• Turn in projects late or incomplete
• Over-promise, then under-deliver – and deliver when it’s too late for the customer to request changes
• Cut corners in quality and refuse to make good when requested to do so (or at best make good reluctantly)
• Don’t return phone calls or respond to emails from business associates in a timely manner
• Don’t show up when you say you will; make them wait
• Forget you asked for a meeting at your office, and be out at another meeting when your guests arrive
• Take the attitude that if they want your business, vendors should be available to answer your calls 24/7, holidays, weekends and late nights included
• Argue about price, even if the price you’ve been given seems fair (you can always save a little more, right?)
• Demand that vendors rush to do your work – every time
• Then, don’t pay the vendors for a long time – and make them inquire repeatedly about payment
• Lose your vendors’ invoices – every time, if possible
• Refuse to track your time, expenses, sales, and work product, and then blame everyone around you for poor profits
• Insist that you’ve “always done it this way”
• Think of business as a “zero-sum-game” – one person wins and the other must lose
• Assume that everybody else does business just the way that you do, and that you can go on this way indefinitely
In fact, you can get away with some of this for some period of time. One day, however, your customers may wander away, your vendors fail to jump to attention, your employees bail, and your profits vanish.
Before that happens, if you have an inkling that some of this sounds just a little like you, keep this list handy, and cross off each behavior as you eliminate it from your own everyday practices.
Monday, April 6, 2015
The hard, critical work of updating your business premise
[caption id="attachment_2350" align="alignleft" width="316"]
Michelle van Schouwen and her treasured Mac SE, circa 1988.[/caption]
First published in Succeeding in Small Business.
Our marketing company, van Schouwen Associates, LLC, has been in business since 1985. That’s three change-filled decades.
Early on, we had a Mac SE; it was great for words but too slow for design work. Before that, we made do with my manual typewriter from college! We had a huge stat camera and a darkroom, too… but more important than all of that is the fact that we operated in a whole different business environment.
At one time, say, around 1985, it paid to be a "full service ad agency." Now we have determined that, in our case, it is far better to be neither "full service" nor an "ad agency." Business analysts in fact have written such cheery articles as How Ad Agencies Can Avoid a Death Spiral.
In this post, I’ll share the strategies and tactics that allowed us to change and thrive – rather than circling the drain as many other companies have done.
Unplanned potential obsolescence has loomed as a possibility for many companies – take Bakers Furniture in Stafford Springs, CT, closing its doors after being a well-respected retailer for over two centuries (and the oldest furniture store in the United States). Avoiding obsolescence is a big deal.
Updating your business is tough. How much easier is it to come to work each day and do what you did the day before? The answer: It IS easier, until you have too few customers, too few sales, too many stronger competitors, and/or a dim future.
In vSA’s case, we’ve made updates to our business model over time. As the company’s president, I’ve made it a policy that every week I must set aside time for what I (somewhat sardonically) call “Big Thoughts.”
To stimulate these Big Thoughts, I make sure to:
-Continually read articles, books and blogs created by the smartest businesspeople and relevant thinkers – from consultants to entrepreneurs to climate change experts and social policy developers.
-Ask our customers what they need, what they don’t need, what’s changing (and a whole lot more). Even when I don’t enjoy the answers, I absorb and deal with them.
-Listen to my staff.
-Create off-the-cuff notes, visions, elevator speeches, Q&As, and more – all for my own creative thinking process.
-Question my own assumptions and give weight to my own priorities for the company. See, for example, my recent Succeeding in Small Business post Make conscious decisions about growing your small business.
-Pay consultants when I need fresh thinking specific to my company. “(Know what you don’t know.”)
-Avoid clinging to the past. Avoid clinging to fantasies.
-Recognize 1) that arguably, the primary purpose of a business is to make money even if that means a pivot in services or purpose; 2) that change is constant and accelerating; and 3) that you can often develop new opportunities when old ones fade away.
For our company, the concept of being a “full service ad agency” was nice 30 or even 15 years ago. However, we found that it became more useful to focus on business-to-business (B2B) customers. We found as well that it was smart to develop sector expertise within the B2B category. We also found that we place a lot less advertising than we did 30 years ago, and that we are in fact not really an “ad agency.” Oh well.
Best, we realized that we are fantastic at launching things – “things” that range from new companies to new products to messages. We can, within our proven capabilities, conduct the whole marketing launch, from strategy to tracking and everything in between.
Today, van Schouwen Associates is a B2B launch marketing company. The hard work of updating the company now allows us to do work that matters to our customers, and work that matters to us.
Need further inspiration to change? Check out six successful companies who have changed their business strategies in recent years.
What will updating your business premise mean for your company?
Michelle van Schouwen and her treasured Mac SE, circa 1988.[/caption]First published in Succeeding in Small Business.
Our marketing company, van Schouwen Associates, LLC, has been in business since 1985. That’s three change-filled decades.
Early on, we had a Mac SE; it was great for words but too slow for design work. Before that, we made do with my manual typewriter from college! We had a huge stat camera and a darkroom, too… but more important than all of that is the fact that we operated in a whole different business environment.
At one time, say, around 1985, it paid to be a "full service ad agency." Now we have determined that, in our case, it is far better to be neither "full service" nor an "ad agency." Business analysts in fact have written such cheery articles as How Ad Agencies Can Avoid a Death Spiral.
In this post, I’ll share the strategies and tactics that allowed us to change and thrive – rather than circling the drain as many other companies have done.
Unplanned potential obsolescence has loomed as a possibility for many companies – take Bakers Furniture in Stafford Springs, CT, closing its doors after being a well-respected retailer for over two centuries (and the oldest furniture store in the United States). Avoiding obsolescence is a big deal.
Updating your business is tough. How much easier is it to come to work each day and do what you did the day before? The answer: It IS easier, until you have too few customers, too few sales, too many stronger competitors, and/or a dim future.
In vSA’s case, we’ve made updates to our business model over time. As the company’s president, I’ve made it a policy that every week I must set aside time for what I (somewhat sardonically) call “Big Thoughts.”
To stimulate these Big Thoughts, I make sure to:
-Continually read articles, books and blogs created by the smartest businesspeople and relevant thinkers – from consultants to entrepreneurs to climate change experts and social policy developers.
-Ask our customers what they need, what they don’t need, what’s changing (and a whole lot more). Even when I don’t enjoy the answers, I absorb and deal with them.
-Listen to my staff.
-Create off-the-cuff notes, visions, elevator speeches, Q&As, and more – all for my own creative thinking process.
-Question my own assumptions and give weight to my own priorities for the company. See, for example, my recent Succeeding in Small Business post Make conscious decisions about growing your small business.
-Pay consultants when I need fresh thinking specific to my company. “(Know what you don’t know.”)
-Avoid clinging to the past. Avoid clinging to fantasies.
-Recognize 1) that arguably, the primary purpose of a business is to make money even if that means a pivot in services or purpose; 2) that change is constant and accelerating; and 3) that you can often develop new opportunities when old ones fade away.
For our company, the concept of being a “full service ad agency” was nice 30 or even 15 years ago. However, we found that it became more useful to focus on business-to-business (B2B) customers. We found as well that it was smart to develop sector expertise within the B2B category. We also found that we place a lot less advertising than we did 30 years ago, and that we are in fact not really an “ad agency.” Oh well.
Best, we realized that we are fantastic at launching things – “things” that range from new companies to new products to messages. We can, within our proven capabilities, conduct the whole marketing launch, from strategy to tracking and everything in between.
Today, van Schouwen Associates is a B2B launch marketing company. The hard work of updating the company now allows us to do work that matters to our customers, and work that matters to us.
Need further inspiration to change? Check out six successful companies who have changed their business strategies in recent years.
What will updating your business premise mean for your company?
Monday, March 16, 2015
Top five truths to review before your marketing launch
Recently I had the privilege of speaking to a group of entrepreneurs and business leaders to share facts they needed to know for any marketing launch.There is nothing better than speaking to a crowd to vet what matters most to real businesses launching real stuff. It was a great experience, and I look forward to giving the same presentation again.
Among the 50 facts I shared, there are perhaps five basics that are most important for launchers to understand. These can form the overlay for all your efforts to follow.
1. You should exercise the full power and the breadth of launch marketing.
If you can offer “something” and it’s worth offering at all, it’s probably also worth launching. This means that you can conduct a marketing launch not only for a new product or service, but also for your brand, your messaging and even your point of view and organizational changes.
2. Many companies give up marketing at the least indication that “it’s not working.” Yet if you keep on marketing, you are already one BIG step ahead of the game. Many times, it takes repeated exposures to a brand, product or idea before a prospect becomes a buyer. By giving up too soon, you fail to achieve that critical number of prospect touches.
3. On the other hand, if you don’t believe what you’re saying, don’t say it. Sometimes we’ve worked so hard on something that we feel we have to keep pushing it along, no matter what. Consider the principle of sunk costs. Peddling a bad concept? Selling a product that should be retired already? Adapt, pivot or drop it.
4. ROI is important… and you won’t always have the means to track it. Sure, it’s important to make sure you’re getting results. But there are some really great forms of marketing (media relations, speaking engagements and cause marketing are just three examples) with which you won’t always be able to quantify precisely the fruits of your efforts…especially not immediately. Don’t get caught up in bean counting. Do the marketing anyway.
5. Assure prospects that they are not about to make a mistake in dealing with you. People seldom buy what they can’t understand. Fear, uncertainty and doubt (FUD) kill the sale. Solving the problem of FUD makes the sale. Just remember, fear of regret is a very powerful anti-motivator.
Remember that basic wisdom - that which is most easily forgotten - can take you far.
Thursday, January 15, 2015
A dozen considerations to build and protect your small business’ reputation
Among the most important assets a small business can have is its good reputation. In many cases, this reputation is an umbrella that includes the reputation of the business itself, your own professional and personal reputation, and the apparent attitudes and behaviors of your employees. This article was first published in Succeeding in Small Business.
You have probably heard Warren Buffett’s sage words on this topic, but they are relevant here, so we will repeat them:
“It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you’ll do things differently.”
In both good times and bad, your reputation will serve you well. It may win you customers. It will make your day-to-day interactions more often pleasant than not. It also helps assure that you are treated with respect when times are tough and you could use help, advice or even another couple of weeks to pay that invoice sitting on your desk.
Start with just 12 ideas to help you develop and keep a great reputation:
1. Whatever you stand for as a business, make sure it’s well-intentioned. In other words, don’t run a business whose premise is to rip off customers in any way. (And yes, such businesses certainly do exist. Ever heard the phrase “tourist trap,” for example?)
2. Make sure you fulfill your business’ promise in the everyday choices you make. In How Google Works, authors Eric Schmidt and Jonathan Rosenberg describes the meaning of Google’s famous mantra as follows: “Yes, it genuinely expresses a company value and aspiration that is deeply felt by employees. But “Don’t be evil” is mainly another way to empower employees… Googlers do regularly check their moral compass when making decisions.” As a small business, you should do the same.
3. If you feel that business conditions are starting to demand that you relax your ethical standards, it is likely time to change the business, not your standards.
4. Lead by example. Especially if you have employees, recognize that company culture develops top-down. If the CEO is a miserable you-know-what, employees often start to behave the same way. If she is savvy, wise and good-natured, her staff will tend to follow suit. Here is a good article from The CEO Institute on this subject.
5. Off-hours, continue to be that great person. Don’t have temper tantrums in the mall, underpay the babysitter, get drunk and carouse in public (or drive under the influence) and don’t be rude to people. This is always good advice, but as a businessperson with a reputation to maintain, you have one more reason to make it so.
6. Watch your keyboard! In these heady days of social media, that can be easier said than done. Your one rash or inopportune social media post or your one furious letter to the editor can go farther than all the carefully-thought-out communiques you’ve issued all year.
7. Make changes whenever you need to. This includes customer and business direction moves, staffing changes, and other alternations to course, difficult or not, that keep your business healthy. In the long run, doing the right thing for the company is good for your reputation as a savvy business owner. BUT…
8. Whenever possible, don’t burn bridges and don’t make enemies. In most circumstances, you can handle change either the right way or the wrong way. Don’t be nasty when you stop using a vendor. If you must fire an employee, help him maintain his dignity. Be deferential to competitors. BUT…
9. When that’s not feasible, minimize the unpleasantness. It buys you nothing.
10. Get involved in something positive. Pay it forward, share your expertise, give your time. Maybe you’ll coach a team, serve on a board, support a non-profit, or mentor a young person. Do this consistently, not just for your reputation, but also because it feels good and is a good thing to do. (See my post “I gave at the office:” 17 ways to give back that are good for you and your small business in the Succeeding in Small Business blog).
11. If you have employees, make clear to them your expectations for customer service, work performance, decorum, dress, and anything else that is important to your business reputation. What’s more, employees with terrible reputations outside the office will unfortunately reflect poorly on your company as well. Within the bounds of your legal rights as an employer, strive to have respectable, nice people working for you.
12. Give yourself the mental space and sources of relaxation and renewal you need to maintain your own wellbeing. It is a lot easier to maintain the standards described in this article when overall, you are reasonably happy, rested and calm.
A good reputation will be your reward.
You have probably heard Warren Buffett’s sage words on this topic, but they are relevant here, so we will repeat them:
“It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you’ll do things differently.”
In both good times and bad, your reputation will serve you well. It may win you customers. It will make your day-to-day interactions more often pleasant than not. It also helps assure that you are treated with respect when times are tough and you could use help, advice or even another couple of weeks to pay that invoice sitting on your desk.
Start with just 12 ideas to help you develop and keep a great reputation:
1. Whatever you stand for as a business, make sure it’s well-intentioned. In other words, don’t run a business whose premise is to rip off customers in any way. (And yes, such businesses certainly do exist. Ever heard the phrase “tourist trap,” for example?)
2. Make sure you fulfill your business’ promise in the everyday choices you make. In How Google Works, authors Eric Schmidt and Jonathan Rosenberg describes the meaning of Google’s famous mantra as follows: “Yes, it genuinely expresses a company value and aspiration that is deeply felt by employees. But “Don’t be evil” is mainly another way to empower employees… Googlers do regularly check their moral compass when making decisions.” As a small business, you should do the same.
3. If you feel that business conditions are starting to demand that you relax your ethical standards, it is likely time to change the business, not your standards.
4. Lead by example. Especially if you have employees, recognize that company culture develops top-down. If the CEO is a miserable you-know-what, employees often start to behave the same way. If she is savvy, wise and good-natured, her staff will tend to follow suit. Here is a good article from The CEO Institute on this subject.
5. Off-hours, continue to be that great person. Don’t have temper tantrums in the mall, underpay the babysitter, get drunk and carouse in public (or drive under the influence) and don’t be rude to people. This is always good advice, but as a businessperson with a reputation to maintain, you have one more reason to make it so.
6. Watch your keyboard! In these heady days of social media, that can be easier said than done. Your one rash or inopportune social media post or your one furious letter to the editor can go farther than all the carefully-thought-out communiques you’ve issued all year.
7. Make changes whenever you need to. This includes customer and business direction moves, staffing changes, and other alternations to course, difficult or not, that keep your business healthy. In the long run, doing the right thing for the company is good for your reputation as a savvy business owner. BUT…
8. Whenever possible, don’t burn bridges and don’t make enemies. In most circumstances, you can handle change either the right way or the wrong way. Don’t be nasty when you stop using a vendor. If you must fire an employee, help him maintain his dignity. Be deferential to competitors. BUT…
9. When that’s not feasible, minimize the unpleasantness. It buys you nothing.
10. Get involved in something positive. Pay it forward, share your expertise, give your time. Maybe you’ll coach a team, serve on a board, support a non-profit, or mentor a young person. Do this consistently, not just for your reputation, but also because it feels good and is a good thing to do. (See my post “I gave at the office:” 17 ways to give back that are good for you and your small business in the Succeeding in Small Business blog).
11. If you have employees, make clear to them your expectations for customer service, work performance, decorum, dress, and anything else that is important to your business reputation. What’s more, employees with terrible reputations outside the office will unfortunately reflect poorly on your company as well. Within the bounds of your legal rights as an employer, strive to have respectable, nice people working for you.
12. Give yourself the mental space and sources of relaxation and renewal you need to maintain your own wellbeing. It is a lot easier to maintain the standards described in this article when overall, you are reasonably happy, rested and calm.
A good reputation will be your reward.
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