When Does The Learning Curve End?

When Does The Learning Curve End?

Never.

With almost 40 years of business experience under my belt, I still walk smack dab into new levels of learning how to do something new, every single day.  It never seems to end.  In business, new trends are being uncovered every single day.  New introductions are continually designed to improve upon past uses and applications.  New methods for delivering routine products are constantly finding necessary adjustments.  New laws are introduced to modify how business works its patterns.  New technologies are offered daily on how business data is tracked, processed and delivered.  New resources are combined to strengthen new policies for improving consumer support.  The landscape for business is faced with multiple levels of daily changes that no one leader of a business can escape.  The need to add effort to their learning curve increases with time.

The level of knowledge required to operate a successful business is a process that seems addicted to constant change.  Accepting and managing constant change is a requirement for operating a business successfully.  It has become a 'must' for every business leader.  The longer a business owner stays in the field they are trying to master, the more they discover how much more needs to be learned.  This process can eventually run a leader dry.  The challenge to work ahead of the curves and to be always arranged in front of all of the changing curves a business faces is a daunting task.  The simple requirement for securing a healthy effort for managing a business faced with daily changes can easily destroy the spirit of a good business leader.  Good business leaders like to be consistent and accountable for the knowledge they expose in the business they manage.  How do they cope with the ever changing pressures their business model faces?  When does the learning curve become a part of the decisions to stop?  When does the learning curve end?

Funny Business Stuff, #3

How stiff is your current attitude towards your business ownership?  Are you flat with the views of your future perspectives?  Does the 'job' of running your business seem worthless?  Are you tired of carrying all of the load?  Does the business own you more than you get paid to be owned?  Would you like for someone else to step in and save your day?  Is your daily business routine getting too old to appreciate anymore?  Are your thoughts running along side these kinds of questions?  If so, you need to take a break.

I have long prepared my mind and heart to be 'tough' so it can run a business model through any kind of terrible weather.  As owners, terrible weather is no excuse for permitting a weak mind and heart to surface when the going gets rough.  Hardness in attitude is a minimum requirement for business owners who plan to be owners for a long time.

There are a lot of useful benefits for a business owner to possess a healthy level of character hardness.  Unfortunately, some downfalls come with that type of personality package.  One of the downfalls to this effort for preparing some protective hardness in personality is that the business may miss opportunities to become fun.  Operating a good business should include some opportunities to have fun.  As economies drag along at an undesirable speed, small business becomes more difficult to do well.  The art of profiting during hard times is even missed by some of the greatest run businesses in the world.  Even Wal-Mart is producing losing numbers right now!  Some of the best brains in retail, worldwide, are sitting at the helm of that monster ship.  They are hitting icebergs everywhere.  I am not sure they are having fun either.

Be Of Your Word, The Sequel.

Making a pot of coffee is a pretty simple deal.  There are several ways to do it.  Most of us use an electric coffee maker.  You pour 10 cups of water into the top of the machine then fill a container with the filter and add your unmeasured amount of coffee grounds.  Then you slip the holder back into its slot below the drain line of the maker and plug it in.  There you go, an instant pot of coffee.  When we do it enough it becomes involuntary.  We no longer think about the motions we are doing.  The motions move all by themselves.  That is exactly how being "not" of your word becomes.  It eventually becomes a part of our involuntary actions.  It grows into this big gap of credibility that we no longer see or feel.  It becomes an involuntary part of our standard of living.  We actually do not believe we are no longer a person of our word.

When we break our word on little insignificant matters, we feel as if we did not really break our word.  It did not matter enough to make it worth our time to worry much about it.  So we get by.  Each time we break our word on insignificant matters we grow to become familiar with breaking our word when it does not really matter.  Eventually, we begin breaking our word more often.  It seems to be insignificant enough and does not seem to be hurting our image sufficient to do something about it.  Being a person "not" of our word grows into becoming a part of who we are.  It becomes our quietly produced pot of coffee.  We no longer think about it while we are doing it.  It grows slowly as it becomes hidden from the view we hold of our own personal image.  We do not believe we are people that do not keep our words.  Yet we break them every single day.  It is an amazing reality.



We eventually learn how to accept saying things that tickle the ears of the people we promise.  The promises are usually very small and have little significance in the world of bigness.  We learn how to say what we think they want to hear.  We gradually believe this kind of promise is good for them.  We learn how to say things like, "Sure, that sounds good...we will have to do that some day."  When in fact we really mean something more like, "I don't see that happening."  We are all guilty of this kind of lying.  Call it what it truly is, lying.  We are lying to others and have learned how to accept it because we believe we are not hurting them.  If we believe the lie is of an acceptable "degree" we do not believe it is a lie.  We replace the thought of it as being a lie with a more acceptable method for being nice!  We believe it is better to tickle their ears with a "half-truth" than it is to hurt their feelings with the "more bluntly delivered" whole truth.  We practice this complex system of "half-truths" enough to nearly forget where the limits and boundaries are.  We only adjust the coffee making process when the coffee grounds end up inside the cup we pour.  When coffee grounds end up in our teeth as we sip the cup we poured, we turn our minds back on to make sure our filter is placed in the machinery correctly.  The same holds true with keeping our word.  We apologize for breaking our word when the other party somehow brings it to our minds.  We adjust when the adjustment needs our attention.

Good Intentions, Terrible Pavement.

I Was Walking The Wrong Way.

I had been married for more than 20 years, raising three young women, worked in and around business operations for over 20 years and had served on many community based organizations, when I learned the lesson I am about to share.  I was doing what I thought was the right things to do in my business walk.  Looking back after I learned this lesson, I discovered I had wasted two complete decades worth of energy and effort.  I was walking incorrectly and receiving exactly my just due.

My contribution to all of those responsibilities was nearly a flat line of which I had no idea was occurring.  I was blind to so many critical needs I could not begin to insert them, let alone manage them.  Even so, as much as I was walking incorrectly, I was making some little efforts on the fringe of my activities that were small attempts at making some corrections.  I was ready to learn new things that would help me win more often.

Even though I was willing to look at making some improvements, I was not willing to admit I was traveling in the wrong directions because my intentions had always been good.  I believed in the tyrannical thoughts that good intentions produce good results.  I was not a business man who was trying to do poorly, so why should I change deeper stuff?  My results were fair but not as healthy as they should have been given the effort, time and sacrifice I had been placing on the table.  The road to my business success was not made of smooth pavement and it was painful to manage.  My road to business success had potholes, gravel portions, cobblestone edges and some sections of my path were notoriously dangerous because they were filled with mud-puddles and hidden deep holes.  My business road was not built to allow my travels to run smoothly along the trail to success.  I was not happy with what I was not producing.  As a result, I began to look for better road signs.  I tried to see if the path I was on could be improved.  Maybe, just maybe my road was not exactly the right road to use.

The confusing thing about where my business road was going had nothing to do with how hard I was working.  I was working extremely hard.  I was giving my road a lot of attention.  I would work hard even when I was not at work.  I knew I needed to mentally configure what needed to be done to my business in order for it to survive the road I was on.  My road was too bumpy to travel, safely.  The road repairs were in high need and the risks for getting stuck was tremendous.  Furthermore, my business road was very hard on my traveling equipment...my family, my spirit, my plans, my dreams, my employees, my associates, my equipment, and my bank accounts.  I was looking for some way to make a change that would improve all of those ills.

Fake Flowers Will Not Do The Trick.

Raley's Supermarket Still Exists!

Years ago I lived in Sacramento, California.  I was single, lived in a small single bedroom apartment in a complex that had a lot of quiet neighbors.  I had a designated parking spot and a common recreation room only used by those who were young and social.  I never used it while I lived there.  I was a young workaholic.  I had plans to climb the corporate ladder with the organization where I was employed.  My sites were already focused on my target position with the company where I worked.  Somehow, the rec room did not fit well in that plan.

I was off work on a week day and feeling pretty good.  I had just received a management promotion the day before.  My boss gave me the day off to celebrate.  I also completed the prior week by working some very long hours several days in a row.  A day off was due.  I got up later than normal that morning.  I had some ideas on what I wanted to do for the day.  One thing for sure, I needed to go to the grocery store to re-stock on some food.  My cupboards were dry.

Fake Flowers With Long Plastic Stems And A White Bar Code Label

My apartment was a couple of miles away from a very good Raley's grocery store on American Drive.  I got dressed, brushed my teeth and pulled my car out of its designated spot and headed to the store.  It was a day of sunshine and normal community activity.  I arrived to the grocery store, got my cart and walked the isles.  Everything was par usual.  When I finished tossing items into the cart I rolled up to check out, paid for my goods and loaded my car.  I started the car to leave the parking lot and head home.  When I came to the exit way leading onto American Drive, the parking lot was lined with beautiful hedges that had some kind of fresh smelling flowers.  I manually rolled down my window to get a better whiff of their fragrance.  I had to keep looking both ways to get out onto American Drive, it was a busy boulevard.  When I got an opening, I darted out to beat the oncoming traffic.  Bam!  Something hit the passenger side of the front of my car.  It was a young boy on a bike.  He flew over the hood and onto the opposite side of the sidewalk.  He rolled and landed on his arms and face.  His bike bounced out into the street, next to the curb and out of the traffic patterns.  I jumped out to see if he was fine.  His bike actually hit my front wheel with his front bike wheel.  It tossed him over the hood of my car and onto the ground of the other side.  He was hurt a little bit but jumped up, grabbed his bike and wanted to get out of there very quickly.  I tried to convince him to stay to be checked out but he was able to get back on and quickly rode away.  I stood there in shock.  I noticed he went back in the direction he was coming from.  He changed which way he was going.

I never saw or heard from him again.  I figured he should have been in school and was either late or skipping classes on that late morning.  Whatever the case, it got my attention.  He was going too fast on his bike, riding the wrong way on a sidewalk hidden by a hedge of flowers.  He did not expect to have something go wrong while he was slightly breaking several common, but to him, insignificant rules.  He probably grew up believing fake flowers will do just fine!

Do Not Blame An Empty Bucket, Fill It Up.

Every business leader has faults.  Every fault will cost that leader something very dear.  Good business leaders understand this truth.  During the battle of every business front, the war to win is easier to see than it is to do.  Good business leaders understand this.  To a leader, this kind of information is not brand new news.  Leaders witness, work and accept these types of truths every day.  That is why they are more comfortable performing in leadership roles.  Business operators are leaders.  However, not all leaders are good business operators.  Just as it is that not all business operators are good leaders.

However it spreads out, all leaders are like buckets of water.  Leaders carry the water in the stream of business activity.  Leaders do the twisting, the turning, the repair of the unpredictable liquid work in the stream of challenges that appear each day.

Some leaders are larger buckets than others.  Those leaders can carry a bigger load.  The river to their business model is very large.  As their river gets larger, the same holds true for their challenges.  In order for stronger leaders to perform well in a larger business model, having a stronger bucket to carry is a helpful tool.  To whom much is given, much is expected.  This Christian philosophy is an accurate depiction of one of the silent, yet mysterious truths about the measures of success a great leader must endure.  Rub against this truth and it may devour the leader.  Get in harmony with its ways and the stream of challenges become less surprising and more manageable.

Some leaders are smaller buckets but they know a closer source of water to tap.  So as they need more water to manage, they can quickly recover the missing supply.  If this kind of leader manages a large stream of business activity they do not carry as large of a load on each challenging trip.  They are blessed to find a nearby source to replenish their water needs so they can carry smaller loads much quicker.  These types of business leaders move quickly, but efficient.  Some of these types of business leaders have less leaks in the side of their buckets.  They cannot afford to have very many leaks...the water they carry is less than the stronger ones of the bigger bucket types.  The larger buckets carry more patch repair kits.  They go to prayer less often and only when the bucket drains out faster than the fire of challenges they are managing to put out.  Regardless of the size of their strength, all leaders are like buckets of water.

Business leaders of all sorts become buckets of water in various sizes.  Unfortunately, the results of their performance is often times measured by how fond they are felt, not always by how much water they carry.  Good leaders get this.  They understand how to find enough water to carry in their bucket, regardless of who likes or dislikes the size or condition of the bucket they have become.  Good business leaders do not measure how much they are liked, they measure how much water they can carry.  Good leaders understand successful performance is not measured by how much they are liked.  Successful performance is better measured by how much they contributed to the winning cause of the mission they set out to perform.  Good leaders work closer to results than they do to likenesses.  Good leaders get this.  Good business leaders learn how to make sure there is enough water in the bucket they carry to manage the fire of challenges they face each day.  Good business leaders do not expect someone else to find the water they need to fill their bucket when it becomes dry.  If you have these qualities, your business will find favorable results.  You may not be well liked, but your business model will have good endings.  Always.

Coaching That Finally Breaks Through!

Every business owner could use some helpful hints on how to improve their business affairs.  Once in awhile I will be moving along my business trail and hear something that sounds so relevant that I wonder why I did not have this piece of knowledge before.  Sometimes I learn about how to do something so much better and it causes me to think about how much time I could have saved over the years...had I known about this piece of information earlier.  There is no end in sight for learning new and better ways to perform our business leadership duties.  The opportunity for learning new things is always there unless of course we have closed down the doors to an open mind.

Everyone has an open mind.  To some business leaders the doors might be closed, but the open mind is still there.  I am sure many of you have heard the phrase that you cannot teach an old dog new tricks.  Hogwash.  I recently met an octogenarian who was texting her granddaughter in Texas on her mobile phone.  She was standing behind her husband in an old farm store in the Pacific Northwest.  When I saw what I thought she was doing I walked up to inquire.  She not only shared how she has learned how to text her grandchildren, she also texts her great grandchildren on a weekly basis.  I asked her if she had a computer.  She answered positively.  I do not think these tricks came from her historic background.  She is an old dog who is learning new tricks.  It can be done.  She did not look like some exceptional and extraordinary person.  She did not appear to be technologically gifted.  I think she has refused to close the doors to her open mind.  I think she is a perfect example of how coaching can easily break through the closed barriers we all tend to form as we shut doors in our minds to chambers that still work just fine.  Whatever the case, I was impressed.

Coaching that finally breaks through is a learned trick for some business leaders to help them erase many forms of terminal stagnation.  I do not care if you are a builder, a boat maker, an owner of a sandwich shop or a computer technician, you will stagnate if you do not keep an open mind.  Each of you should take this octogenarians tip and open the doors to your mind.  There is another old saying, "The teacher appears when the student is ready."  Learn how to be a leader who is always ready.  What types of steps can a business leader perform that will help to ensure they maintain an open and "coach-able" mind?

Irritated Vs. Encouraged, A Business Dilemma.

"Motivation" is one of the difficult to describe words in Websters Dictionary.  Words can have more than one source of direction.  The word "motivation" is one of those words that can have more than one source of direction.  The two most common sources for "motivation" are to be irritated enough to do something versus to be encouraged enough to do something.  These two sources present the business owner with a tall dilemma.  Is the owner irritated enough to do something good or encouraged enough to do something good?  These forms of motivation come from completely different sources.  It is from these sources that determines how a business owner will be motivated.

Websters Dictionary  describes both of these sources as being a contributor to some form of motivation.  When a person gets irritated enough they can become motivated to react and behave in a particular fashion.  The same holds true for someone who gets encouraged enough to react and behave in a particular fashion.  I once had a business mentor tell me to stay mad long enough to do something about it.  He said being mad enough is more effect to cause change than feeling good about making a change.  I tend to agree.  I have proven that theory more often in my life than I care to admit.  When it comes to motivation, getting irritated is far more effective than feeling encouraged.

If that is the case, why do so many business owners run away from irritations?  Furthermore, why do so many business owners gravitate towards words of encouragement?  Let's take a deeper and more honest look at these two differences.  Business owners are leaders, correct?  If so, don't leaders examine truths and motivational opportunities?  Maybe, maybe not.

Feel The Pulse Of Your Market

Every country, every separate region, every consumer sector, every location and every little town has a market pulse.  If business owners had the ability to travel, for a complete month, into different market regions...they would discover how different the market pulse is in each area they tried.  Feeling the "pulse" in different markets is an art.  Business owners who perform this duty well are owners with an artistic touch.  Knowing what to buy and when to buy it for resale is no easy task.  Marketing the pulse of your particular region is truly an art form.

Some products are tried and true sellers in any market.  Some products are occasional winners in most markets.  The real trick is to move products well where the market reads are difficult to know unless you have experience moving products in that region.  A good deal of the art to knowing what will move and what will not is to have a lot of regional experience in your particular market area.

Many business owners work hard on studying the demographics of a particular area.  Others pull up a gob of data materials reflecting the previous patterns of product sales for that region.  Some owners rely on examining media movements to determine the timeliness of trends and consumer fashion changes.  Then there are a few owners who possess the skill of an artist and actually "feel" their way into new marketing changes that work well for their businesses.  Whatever the case, every market region has completely different driving segments that move the consumer demands in the fashion they desire.  Business owners must accept this game as part of their ownership responsibility.  Owners have the duty to "feel the pulse of their market."  How do they know when they are hitting that pulse correctly?

Small Retailers...Make Your Move, Now Is The Time!

Now is the time.  The slow economy has lingered around long enough.  By now the suppliers who supply products to your marketplace are tired of feeling the pinch of less than robust activity.  They are done with it.  This feeling is also part of the sales meetings each of those suppliers routinely attend.  They want volume to occur, and soon.  They are doing whatever they can to make this recovery happen.  Some salespeople in certain territories have been let go due to poor sales results.  The pressure is on.  Famous brand name makers are hurting just as much as you are.  They need to improve their sales figures.  This is very good news for you, if you are a small retail business.  It is opportunity time.

If you are a small retailer who has always wanted to add a famous brand name product to your mix of offerings, but were too small to be considered, now may be your best time to give it a whirl.  You may be ripe for getting the approval from a brand name maker to carry their line in your store.  Brand names give your retail business credibility.  I am sorry the market behaves in this fashion.  Unfortunately, this part of marketing genius is true.  Brand names lift up your retail stores credibility.  Famous brand names have worked hard and have invested a ton of money trying to get the consumer to recognize who they are.  The famous brand names have also succeeded at that effort.  You need to stand next to these brand name products as a partner worthy of giving them a home where your customer can find them.  Your credibility as a worthwhile retailer is standing at the doorway of making that move happen.  I believe this to be the perfect time for you to make that move.  Famous brand name products worked their careers trying to successfully brand their name.  Branding their name recognition into the minds of the consumer was their ultimate goal.  Many of those efforts were very successful.  The consumer recognizes those name brands as credible sources to consider when they decide to buy a product they make.  Those brand name products have a high need right now to begin their economic recovery process.  They need new volume to make that happen.  You can be one of their options to increase that volume.  It is not that difficult to do and the timing is perfect.  Take a look.

Funny Business Stuff, #2.

Bandit!

One customer several years ago came into the furniture store I was operating and wanted to know if one of my particular brands of recliners had a two-for-one special.  She described how she went to a major city and was offered from a 'big box' furniture store retailer in that city a two-for-one recliner special on this particular name brand.  I asked her how much the two would cost her.  She replied, $699.  She said they advertised this particular brand of recliner as a two-for-one special.  She requested that I match the deal...two-for-one.  All of my recliners in that brand were marked on my display floor at prices ranging from $299 to $399 at that time.  She wanted me to deliver two of those recliners to her home at one of those prices, $299 or $399.  I told her I was not running a "marked-up" two-for-one special on this brand.  She insisted that I meet the competitors price offer and sell her two recliners for my floor price of one.  She wanted one particular style number on my floor and it was priced at $299 each.  She insisted that I meet the competitors offer and sell her two of those numbers at $299, grand total.  Patiently I worked with her to help her "see" what the competitor was doing.  In essence, they were selling her two-for-one at a grand total price of $699.  I was offering her the same number at a total price of $598!  she became upset that I would not meet the two-for-one offer and stormed out of the store, with her last comments about having to go all the way back to that city store to get the deal!

Retailers live this kind of life occasionally.  If you own a business for very long it is inevitable that you will bump up against these type of experiences.  Every business owner can sit down with other business owners and begin to share these odd experiences they have witnessed.  Once they get started on the "one-ups-man-ship" process they will begin to recall many of their old oddities they have forgotten.

Funny Business Stuff.

Be Careful When You Share Your Stories!

Every business owner has a library of experiences they witnessed in their career which placed a permanent mark in their mind, an unforgettable moment.  Some of those unforgettable moments were serious experiences leaving a battle scar recorded somewhere on the path of their business trail.  Not all of those scars remain a painful mark.  Some of them are very funny now, if not then.  Some of them were just "plain 'ol strange."  Every once in awhile, it is worth a page flip or two to open some of those funny experiences up again.  To spend some time reviewing how crazy some of those things were is quite amazing.

Maybe you could use a laugh or two.  Maybe you have a special one you could share with the readers.  You are welcome to add a comment or two, just keep it clean.  Some of the best ones involve relationships that are not always healthy.  Keep the names and places confidential.  If you choose to share one, be respectful...please.

I decided to share a few of the classics I have witnessed in my business walk.  The best ones are about relationships and near misses.  Some of these mentally recorded experiences included employees, some were offered by customers and others came from complete strangers.  The thing that makes them so strange is the reality of their existence.  They did occur.  Believe it or not, they did occur.

Many years ago I was selling furniture in my store to a middle aged couple.  I knew the husband a little tiny bit but did not know his wife.  They were shopping for a new mattress.  I led them upstairs to the mattress department.  They were not acting particularly strange nor were they acting in a comical mood.  In fact, they were a bit stressed out and seemed to be chipping back and forth at each other with the nature of cutting comments.  I almost left them alone to allow them to shop on their own.  It was clear they were not having a good time.  Sometimes you get customers that do not want to be out and about shopping together.  These two did not want to be out doing what they were doing.  They made it clear.

Clever Business, Are You Practicing It?

Have The Courage To Make The Right Decisions.

Small business decisions are already very difficult to perform.  Until someone has actually done the ownership deal, nobody can fully grasp the magnitude, the levels of complications, the importance and the sheer volume of critical decisions that must be made in order to do well.  Only a small business owner can fully appreciate that last statement.

The sheer volume of right details needed to be managed to help permit a small business a better chance for winning profitably is overwhelming.  Again, only a small business owner can truly appreciate that last statement.  What's more, try doing those necessary right decisions in a rotten economy and you have a near perfect picture of what lies ahead for small business owners.  It is a daunting task.

Even so, once a small business owner begins the trek to operate their business, the attention to small but important decisions begins to build.  Every decision in the beginning is a critical decision.  Eventually, every decision begins to matter a great deal.  For example, a simple decision to open for business one half hour later may have a significant impact on traffic flow.  That decision may save the small business an "X" number of dollars per day but can actually cost more in revenues that cut deeper in the year than the savings could ever justify.  Pre-planning the 'cost-saving' math to make the decision does not always work.  The owner who made the decision may not discover this truth until many months later.  What seemed like good 'cost-cutting' math and a simple decision in the beginning, turned out quite serious and costly down the road in too much lost revenues.  Small business owners live this kind of life.  Their little decisions can become big monsters.  Eventually, the small business owner begins to learn how to "street fight" their way through the challenges they discover.  As they begin to learn how to "street fight" they also learn how to become very clever.  These techniques in decision making help to produce a better chance for winning.  But there are some dark sides to being too clever.  Let's take a look at what that means.