Pay Attention To Your Wonderful Marketing Avenues, Offerings And Opportunities.

Planning Your Business Success Is A 24/7 Responsibility

As I mentioned in the last post, I am not writing about how to get effectively mean with unwanted prank phone callers.  I used that example as a means to identify how technology has become a seriously vital tool as a life aid.  For a business owner, technology has provided their business model with some wonderfully cool and effective competitive tools.  If an owner is not maximizing how the use of technological tools can increase business success, shame on them.  The owners who are not learning how to use technology as a battery of tools to improve their business success are obviously not very serious about learning how to increase business success.  Period.  There is no other reason why an owner skips learning how to win more often.  The only excuse is that they are obviously not very serious about winning.  Pay attention to your wonderful marketing avenues, offerings and opportunities.

We had a great trip to the mountain cabin.  Wow, no Internet services!  It was a good thing my wife did her event planning online before we left.  The restaurant was quaint, but good food, as promised online by all of the user comments.  The customer activity was very low.  We were one of three other groups in the facility during the meal time hours.  Not much business happening at this small cabin resort.  The seclusion was good for what we were there to enjoy and experience.  I was able to almost finish reading one of my Kindle books.  We had two fireplace fires going almost non-stop in the cabin.  One was burning non-stop in the great room and one going almost constantly in the bedroom.  Keeping them going was easy stuff.  It was nice weather as well.  We went to a small town a couple of times and enjoyed each trip.  We watched some movies and relaxed like most people have forgotten how to do.  It was a wonderful trip.  It is what my wife and I call, "A re-do."  We mark down the things we enjoyed so much that we place them on our repeat list.  Usually we do this kind of thing with a new meal we tried out.  Sometimes we do it on one of our short trips of travel.  This trip qualified as a "Re-do."  It was very restful.  Pay attention to these wonderful marketing desires.

We took a walk around a small lake and a baby deer on the trail tried to adopt us.  She was obviously without family.  She ran up to us many times and tried to become our friend.  She followed us closely for about 30 minutes during one long stretch of walking.  We would stop and talk to her a couple of times and she would approach within about five feet of our position.  A couple of times she got so far behind us that we thought she was gone, only to hear her run back up next to us.  There she was again.  Trying to get our attention.  She only drifted away from us when we could hear a dog barking in the distance.  It got her attention and she finally disappeared.  We did not see her again.  She seemed to talk to us each time we stopped and turned around in her direction.  We asked her where her family was.  She was obviously all alone.  She was just old enough to have recently lost her spotted coat.  She was a young baby, yet.  It was kind of cool to have her walk along with us on that trail.  We even looked outside of our cabin door once in awhile to see if she followed our scent back to the cabin when we returned.  No sign of her anywhere, however.  The dog barking in the distance spooked her pretty good.  She did not want anything to do with the dog.

I liked the idea of having limited electronic services in the remote resort region.  It may actually keep out the hordes of people we were not looking to find.  I am not sure I would suggest eliminating those electronic opportunities as a business move, however.  I might suggest the resort facility have those services provided at the main lodge.  It was absent of Internet services for its guests.  I might disagree with this business move. To a business model that is trying to achieve a quaint marketing presence, other ways can help make that kind of marketing effect happen.  The addition of Internet technology can attract a larger audience that would respect serving quaint desires in other ways.  Although I enjoyed the solitude, the absence of the Internet may limit good future business success.  This is just my opinion.  It is a good thing I pre-downloaded my book to read before I arrived, on my Kindle.  
 
We live in interesting times.  Tighter economics has forced many people to plan out their life activities more differently than ever before.  As I mentioned, my wife has become our great event coordinator.  She has discovered an economical way to find us some very enjoyable things to do on our short trips of travel.  She does a great job 'online' of budgeting the events we enjoy doing.  We are able to enjoy some of the simple pleasures we prefer to see.  Technology is the tool she uses to accomplish those pleasure spending goals.  Is your business placed logically on the best technology paths for us to see what you actually do?  We will not likely attend your business model if you do not use current technology tools.  Pay close attention to this truth.  Learn how to pay closer attention to your wonderful marketing avenues, offerings and opportunities.

We do not believe we are the only customers out there that operate our event planning designs using the Internet as our main source.  Your model may be missing our kind of trade if it does not use the Internet as a marketing tool.  I can assure you that sometime later this week my wife, the event coordinator, will start up her casual work to go hunting for the next short trip we plan to take.  She will use the Internet to go find that opportunity.  Our wonderful trip will motivate her to go find another gem to experience.  I know how she works on this subject of play.  If your model does not effectively use the Internet as a marketing attraction tool, she will not find you.  You will not see our business come your way.  From what I can tell, most resorts could use a good boost in the business arm.  They need more customers.  They need to find a better way to do what they are trying to do.  They need to take their technology work more seriously.  Pay closer attention to your wonderful marketing avenues, offerings and opportunities.  Learn how to dig them out and how to make them become market known.

Most business owners need to make some personal advancements about how they respect the ability the world of technology offers to improve their marketing presence.  They need to quit being afraid of what it can really do.  They may need to open up their minds a bit wider.  Most owners are limiting how much their model can generate.  It is a shame to witness this effect.  I see it everywhere.  Many of these struggling business models do not even recognize the beauty their business models can provide to the consumers they serve.  They get lost as owners into the daily fray of do's and don't do's.  They get bogged down with daily stuff.  They do not take the proper time to discover why they can attract the most customers they prefer to serve.  They do not truly know who they are, what they do and how they attract the people they end up serving.  As a result, they also cannot develop a great marketing plan to get this wonderful word out to others who are looking to be served in this very same way.  It is tragic to watch business owners operate in this day and age and actually refuse to recognize how simple this kind of stuff is to do.  If that is something your model needs help to achieve, for goodness sakes, go get that help.  You are missing great opportunities for healthy income growth.  Quit waiting for people to coincidentally find you.  That is not a good marketing approach.  Pay attention to your wonderful marketing avenues, offerings and opportunities.

Pat Attention...Technology Is Your Friend!

Pay Attention!

Last night some young kids were playing on their telephone.  It turned out to be a cell phone.  They called my home phone to play 'tricks' on my phone line.  I was sound asleep when the first call came through.  It startled me as any middle of the night phone call usually does.  I had been sleeping for about 40 minutes.  Late night calls to our home phone line usually means there is some kind of trouble brewing somewhere in my family.  We are not a family who calls each other in the sleeping hours of the night unless it is an emergency.  Therefore, when the land line rings in the middle of the night we usually get a little prepared before we answer it.  It might be a piece of emergency news.

I answered the call.  It was a young girl playing games on the phone trying to ask me who I am.  I politely asked her to identify herself and why was she calling me.  She just kept on asking me who I am.  I recognized that she was not making a serious phone call so I told her I was going to hang up.  I hung up.  Immediately the phone rang and it was her again.  She asked the same question.  I asked her to identify herself.  She thought that was real funny.  She continued to ask me who I am.  I hung up.  She repeated this action four more times.  On the last one I told her I would be calling the police to get them involved with this foolish act of harassment.  I hung up and called the police.

The officer that answered the line told me it was considered menacing and harassment.  He described several options to me and told me how I could press charges if I wanted to follow-up on the issue.  He said the charges can be different for different areas where we live.  All telephone harassment laws are protected by the Telecommunications Act of 1996.  He said the phone companies actually take these kinds of foolish games very serious.  He told me where I could find some numbers to call so I could report this activity to those telephone companies.  I did exactly that.  I also asked him not to call that caller nor go visit them, which he offered to do.  I discovered I also have a phone feature that can trace the caller's number, even if they try to use *67 to block their in-coming caller ID.  I looked the phone number up on my phone tracing system.  I found the phone number of that caller.

Pay attention!

I went to the Internet and discovered two locations where that number was registered.  One was a cell phone number in one area and the other was a land line in a separate area.  For ninety nine cents on my credit card I was able to obtain the owner of the phones name, location of residence, annual income, the count of household residents living at that location, what each of their incomes were, where their last registered employers were located for each person at that location, whether or not they had committed recent crimes and if any vehicles were registered under each of those names located at that residence.  This is a true report that I could download.  Pay attention!

Since 911 in America, new opportunities have become readily available to common residents and have been increasing security potential to the tech savvy world.  When I was younger I suspect I made a couple of prank phone calls in my life.  I was not going to hurt or destroy this young ladies life by pursuing something this foolish with any serious charges.  I did not have that desire and I shared my perspective about this little issue with the officer I spoke with on the phone.  He was convinced with how I felt and therefore shared with me some of these current research opportunities.  I think he shared them with me because he trusted that I would handle the information I find with good respect.  I would and I did.  I was more impressed and surprised at how easy it was to gather this kind of important and private information about a stranger to my sphere of information.  Ladies and gentlemen, there are no more secrets.  You can be found very easily.  Your private information is digitally floating out there shared easily and commonly in hundreds of unique data bases.  If a person knows exactly where to go to gather that private information it is easy to extract.  General searches might not do the trick, but specific websites that officials use are very precise.  Pat attention!

We live in a whole new world.  A prank phone caller has no idea how all of this information can become so readily available with the silly little call they think they made, anonymously.  Little do they know it is rather easy to gather information about where this person goes to school, where her parents live, what they drive, where all of them are employed and how much they earned last year.  This information is no longer a secret.  It is no longer hard to find.  Pay attention!

Granted, it took some time and effort to extract this information.  However, the truth still remains...it was available to find.  I used this prank phone call experience to develop the example of how important it is to get serious about what you do in your business model.  I have traveled a lot of times in my career.  In fact, today I am heading to a cabin in the woods for a couple of days.  My wife and I are taking some time off to go sit by a fire near a lake in the woods.  We are taking our Kindles.  We have some movies we rented to play while we are there.  We roasted some fresh coffee beans a couple of days ago and they will be ready to grind and brew while we are there.  We will be looking to visit one of the local restaurants in the area a couple of times.  I checked them out online.  They have customers who have rated how each one performed what it does for its trade and services.  I read each post.  I already know which one we will be attending.  Pay attention!

Want To Increase Your Business Odds? Operate Cleanly.

Careful, Try Not Sweeping Your Tough Issues Under The Rug!

Repeat business.  Broom sweeping tricks.  Creative cleverness.  Closed off listening tools.  All of these business characteristics are vital to helping your business model increase its chances for success.  Every business owner finds it much nicer to see their business model perform better.  When the business model does not perform well, the pressure increases for a lot of things owners do not like to manage.  Pressure comes when the business model does not perform well.  When the money gets squeezed below what the business needs to spend to operate well, the pressure increases to the owner.  Every single business owner knows what that kind of pressure feels like.  It never feels really good.  Once that kind of pressure mounts, the owner begins to search for ways to release that pressure.

Owners start to trim back the inventory they buy and own.  They cut back on the utilities.  They reduce the amount of operational supplies they purchase.  They trim down the employee benefits they once offered.  They limit the amount of over-time and employee pay that they can comfortably impose.  They reduce the amount of personal income they draw from the business they own.  They begin to place more and more current money obligations onto their personal credit cards to buy more time before those debts need to be satisfied.  They try to find other creative ways to extend more payments and money obligations to future time frames.  They try to stretch out making complete payments to the current debts they are faced to pay.  They begin adding up many ways to place current obligations onto stretched out credit plan payments.  They lay employees off.  They sell current assets to generate new sources of money in-flows.  They liquidate items they decide are no longer needed.  They may even take on a new partner, selling part of their ownership away, to generate cash to pay off mounting debts.

Any business owner who does not recognize some of these methods of business management are owners who have been either very lucky or fairly new in the business game.  New owners may not have developed enough time to build their business up large and long enough to witness what it takes to struggle through some of these kinds of money-pinched times.  Others who have not had to manage these kinds of economic challenges are either very lucky in their model and industry segment or they have some personal access to some wonderful funding sources they can tap into to fund the losses their model produces.  Those are the ones who are the least worried about poor operations.

First of all, let's talk about repeat business.  Did you know it is the cheapest business you can generate?  What does it cost to go find a new customer?  Try to figure out what that cost is to your business.  Take your total revenues, $100,000 annually, divide that total by the customers you sold, 10 people, and use that figure, $10,000 per customer, to establish your per customer base income.  Now take your total cost of operations, $95,000 annually, and divide it by the total revenues generated per customer, $10,000 each, so you can determine what it cost you to find those 10 customers, $9,500 each time.  In this case, it costs your business $9,500 to find each customer.  What if one of your regular customers comes back to buy again?  What if 10 of them come back again?  What if 10 of them come back every single month?  Now what does it cost you per customer?  If 10 come back every single month in the year, 12 months, that makes 120 total customers annually.  Now your cost per customer was reduced from $9,500 per customer to about $792 per customer.  This example assumes that no new business volume of increases were realized during this same year.  Your model produced $100,000 of annual revenues.  The more customers you generate with the same amount of activity the lower your customer cost becomes.  Repeat customers help you to achieve those lower costs.

Your current customers are the cheapest ones to reach.  They will cost you the least amount of business expense to re-sell.  Repeat business is good to business.  Does your model do all that it can to encourage repeat visitors?  Make sure your model is designed to maximize this effect.  There are a ton of ways to make sure your customers come back again and again.  Learn how to improve these operational and marketing disciplines in your business model.  I truly understand how raw this simple example was to define.  Even though the numbers in this example are too raw for reality sake, they do highlight how important repeat customers are to your business success.  I could write several separate blogs on this single subject alone.  Get good at repeat business.  It helps your model to reduce its costs.

Broom sweeping tricks.  I like this one.  There are a lot of owners who use a lot of ways to sweep things under the rug.  They have developed many interesting ways to avoid certain responsibilities that come to surface in uncomfortable ways.  They develop really interesting broom sweeping tricks.  An employee may request a weekend off on an important upcoming holiday that usually requires every staff member to be present at work.  That employee came to the owner well in advance with the time off request.  The owner replies with some weak response like, "We will see.  Let me think about it and I will get back to you."  Wow, what a nice move with the sweeping broom!  Tuck it under the rug for now!  Maybe the hard request will quietly go away?  Broom sweeping tricks.  They are my favorite business leadership error.  I like them a lot.  Owners use the broom on too many important subjects.  Owners need to develop greater courage to be clear about what it is they need to protect.  Look that employee strait in the eye, with total respect, and describe how important it is to your business model that they be present on those important selling days.  It has nothing to do with fairness.  It has all to do with responsibility.  Do not get confused.  Remain clear about how your model needs to meet its total demands.  "No," is an alright answer to give.  Deliver it properly, however.  Try to avoid using the broom.  Sweeping too much stuff under the rug will build up a mound that will trip you later.  I like the broom sweeping tricks.  Some of them are my favorites.

Pay Closer Attention To The Smaller Business Details

When I start writing about subjects that come from good experience I hope they go to those who can use them well.  We all need to make a certain amount of healthy mistakes in order for us to develop a good gauge in how things should or should not go.  Most of the time, it is in the mistakes we make that our best lessons arrive.  Without those gauges of comparison we might not discover a better way to do some of the things we need to do.  Our mistakes provide the accurate view that shows us the way we ought not to go.  Although mistakes do not always reveal which way is the right way to go, they certainly help us determine which ways are wrong.  I am one of those leaders who hates making mistakes.  I am also one of those long time operators who knows how valuable a mistake can become.  I do not wish them upon anyone.  However, I am glad they arrive once in awhile.  In most cases, correction was needed.

Many years ago I remember coming into my office and discovering one of my employees alone sitting in my desk chair.  She was kicked back with her feet on the desk while she was reading some literature.  It looked like a comedy scene from Saturday Night Live.  It actually startled me a little bit.  I played along with the situation and put my stuff away as I usually do when I enter my office to go to work.  I calmly asked her, "What are you doing?"  She was giggling a little bit about the stuff she had been reading.  She said with all sincerity, "I am reading all the personnel files.  There is some really funny stuff in here."  My response was, "Excuse, me?"

We experience some of the most interesting adventures in our leadership lives.  Some of the best stuff cannot be made up.  Some of the most shocking events arrive with no warning.  I have always felt it would be good reading to produce a book that is composed of all of the interesting and weird stuff that business owners have experienced and endured.  Write a book much like a journal that reports all of the unreal events and happenings that owners have witnessed in their long trail of leadership work.  It would become one of the more funny books filled with truthful material that will shock one reader after another.  People never cease to amaze me.  Thank goodness for people.  We make life very interesting.

Pay closer attention to these smaller business details.  It matters more than anyone of us can imagine.

This young lady, sitting in my desk, did not care if I had arrived.  She did not seem to blink with my arrival on the scene.  She truly did not know this kind of stuff was not her business to be pulling out to read.  She had the oak drawer of the personnel file pulled wide open and a couple of folders laying on my desk.  I suspect the ones on my desk were the ones she had already finished reading.  Keep in mind, I am an owner who actually performs routine performance reviews.  I document those events.  I keep them placed in each employees personal files.  They are stored in my private office.  She was tucked away comfortably in my private office, smack dab sitting in my office chair reading those files.  No big deal in her mind.  She even had a file open in her hand with the pages out while she was describing to me what I wrote about that particular employee.  I was stunned beyond words.  At first, I thought it was a joke.  As I stood there in shock long enough I discovered how serious she really was.  She truthfully did not appear to know how wrong this process was while she shared with me what the file in her hand revealed.  I tried to move my jaw back to its original place on my face.  I could not budge it.

My next words that came out were on the order, "What...(with a long pause)...are you DOING?"

My jaw was still parked in the lower position on my face.  My eyebrows were standing at their highest attention.  I looked much like the look we all know that is represented by the deer in the headlights expression.  I did not know how to respond to what I was seeing.  She caught me off guard.  I could not hide that fact.  It was written all over my face and emotions.  I started to slowly shake my head back and forth in total amazement.  I then closed my eyes and began shaking my head back and forth in quick, sudden movements telling myself, "No, no, no."

"Put those file away!"  I said.  "Those are private files!"  I continued to lecture her about how wrong this kind of stuff was to do.  I began my firm description about how wrong this kind of action was on her part.  I described how wrong it was in several ways.  She got up and said she did not know it was wrong to read about the people she knows.  She described how she agreed with a lot of the stuff I wrote about each one of them.  She described how she thought some of the stuff was some really funny stuff.  I still had trouble keeping my jaw lifted up to its original position on my face.  I was still shaking my head slowly back and forth.  She seemed to not care about the seriousness of the position I was trying to express.  We all make some simple mistakes that can come back to bite our work.  This was one of those simple days.  I gradually removed that young lady away from her employment in my company.  I still bump into her once in awhile out in the community where we both live.  Each time she says hello to me I recall that special day.  I still walk by her with some special amazement still in my mind.  I can still see my jaw parked in its lower garage.  That was over 25 years ago.  That experience was one of those lessons that has me not only lock, but today, password protect every personnel file I ever post.  I do not want to witness that kind of jaw work ever again.

We need to pay closer attention to these smaller business details.

Who's Fault Is It When Our Employees Do Not Perform Well?

Improve Your Proper Leadership Learning

Control how you get all riled up.  A good leader does not expose how fired up they are about how mad they can become about a common issue.  Stay calm while standing in the middle of a test when things happen to go wrong.  If a leader does not like how a challenging issue surfaced, that is one thing.  To lose control of their emotions because of that challenging issue is altogether another thing.  Good leaders need to remain under control during the time when things are not going well.  A high level of control and respect comes in very handy when the leader is faced with having to 'lay the law' down.  An emotionally out of control leader who delivers a demand for improvement when things are not going well is not an effective leader.  Learn how to master this art.  It will help add value to your leadership style.  Employees perform better on a more consistent basis when they respect the leader who is appointed to guide their way.  Control how you get all riled up.  Who's fault is it when our employees do not perform well?

I was raised by a tough set of parents.  Often times my father would lash out and yell at us to get our attention on a subject he felt we needed to hear.  He had a way with his frustrations that used fear and intimidation to get done what he wanted to have done, in the way he preferred to see it done.  There usually was no mistake in how that process worked.  He was a very social and friendly person.  His social skills were top notch.  They would come alive when they were needed most to save his face when he just finished a bout of frustration.  Without those components in his personality traits he may never have been able to lead anyone to any type of good patterns of performance results.  His social skills were good enough to save the detrimental anger methods he used to lead lead his employees.  The damage his anger methods produced were often times saved by the good social skills he possessed.  However, long term he could not hold a good employee for more than one or two years.  The good ones usually moved on to more respectable grounds.  Good employees place respect a lot higher up on the requirement scale of personal needs.  Who's fault is it when our employees do not perform well?

Leaders who fail to maintain a consistent level of good respect for the work their employees perform are the leaders who will always be searching for better employees to do the jobs that need to be done.  Better employees have better skills.  They carry more understanding for the things that command higher respect.  As a result, they do not usually remain employed in an environment that does not perform or respect how they are personally treated.  When the work environment has a poor leader who does not respect the employees for what they provide those good employees will search to find somewhere else to perform what they know is good to produce.  Good employees go where the respect is the highest for what they do.  If you have surrounded yourself with employees who are not very good at what they do, maybe the good ones are not coming around where you are leading?  It may be time to evaluate which came first, the chicken or the egg.  Who's fault is it when our employees do not perform well?

I was taught how to 'control' my employees.  That was my up-bringing.  I learned how to perform that part of my business functions from my leader, my father.  In my early business career, he was the only leader I used as my template of study.  I did exactly the same kinds of similar things he would do.  The fruit does not fall very far from the tree.  My father was strictly a self-taught business owner.  He moved his way around the learning trail by hook or crook, modifying his actions by trial and error.  His education came strictly from the school of hard knocks.  Every single bloody nose was how he learned a new lesson to apply.  That is how my father managed his leadership skills.  That is how I learned to do the same things in the same ways.  I developed much of the same characteristics in my leadership traits that were passed on to me from the leader I had.  That is how most of us develop the styles of operations we honor and support.  We put out the very same things we took in.  We cannot put out Chinese language if we never put it in.  Good leadership techniques are not a natural thing that can be performed well.  They need to be taught.  Good leadership skills do not just magically appear.  As you might expect, my father would argue this point with me.

He would argue that my college education has hurt my leadership skills.  He has made that very same expression in the past.  He would also argue that my leadership skills were tainted by the ten years I attended a professional leadership organization for improved learning.  He would describe how those leadership lessons were filled with a bunch of loaded crap.  He has said that to me before.  He would also argue that having chosen a series of good business mentors has been the worst thing that I have ever done in my business career.  He has told me that their influence on my thinking has taken away my liberty and will.  He has said that kind of stuff to me in the past.  Now I share this kind of tough stuff with no disrespect for who my father was.  I loved him deeply.  He was my father.  He has since passed away.  My love and respect for him and what he accomplished in his life has actually increased.  He was a tough leader who had developed some very strong 'self-taught' ways about how he liked to treat his employees.  The truth is the truth.

My father was successful for forty years in his own business model and his 'self-taught' ways kept him afloat in the model he led.  However in contrast, during the past five years alone my leadership position has led many employees to produce more volume in that five years than my father ever produced in a lifetime.  I left his employment nearly 20 years ago.  I set out on my own.  I wanted to produce more than what was able to be produced in the environment I was raised to understand.  I believed that there was more to know about how good leadership could produce greater results.  I went to go find out if that was true.  Guess what?  It's true.

Pure Leadership Comes With A Huge Price.

Obstacles Can Change The Way We Lead

How does pure leadership mask its way through our lives?  Easy.  It just does.  It finds the path of least resistance and away we go.  Pure leadership is a commodity of character that is extremely rare.  Most of us have no idea how to practice it.  Yet, none of us truly believes we lack pure leadership in our management style.  I meet a lot of leaders in my business travels.  There has only been a handful of those leaders who truly met the accurate profile of pure leadership.  They are a rare commodity.

I work on that simple subject more than I work on anything else in my career.  I am a long way away from being one of those great leaders of pure principles.  I can think back, however, to remember those few leaders who have crossed my life path that carried the traits of pure leadership on a routine basis.  I can picture them in my mind.  I can remember great lessons I have learned from how they performed when the heat was on.  They possessed very special skills.  When it comes to the day to day routine characteristics, they did not appear to be anything greater than the very special leaders they are.  However, when a fire of problems suddenly hits the scene of action their special skills come directly to the surface and do the right things when the right things were needing to arrive...every time.  They practiced pure leadership.  It is fun to watch this occur when the test is the highest.  Pure leadership works best when nothing else will.  Only a few leaders understand what it takes to practice this art.  Unfortunately, most of the pseudo leaders in this world believe they have arrived with pure leadership all sewn up and in the bag.  Not true.  Most leaders lack what it takes to own pure leadership in their style of play.  It is a clear cut subject with a lot of gray surroundings on this truth.  Most leaders will deny that they do not possess the deeper traits that come standard in the characteristics of a pure leader.

Pure leadership, it is an altogether different animal.  On a day to day basis, pure leaders are not usually very much fun to share time with.  They do not especially make very good "happy go lucky" friends.  Pure leaders are not especially casual about producing friendship traits.  Friendship is properly recognized as one of the things that gets in the way of pure leadership decisions.  Pure leaders refuse to play favorites.  They seem to be strong enough to ignore those tainted tugs.  Most of the pure leaders I have met did not possess the most friendly day to day characteristics.  If I wanted to go out with some friends and have some fun on any given evening, those pure leaders were not especially the ones I first thought about when I invited my friends to join me.  Yet if I was stranded on a sinking ship in the ocean, they would be the first people I would invite to help me save our way.  Pure leadership is composed from a combination of disciplines that produce a completely different series of human traits than what we commonly see in most human beings.  That is why it is so rare.  None of my friends practice pure leadership.  I like them.  They are my friends.  They do not possess pure leadership disciplines.  I have a mentor who does possess pure leadership disciplines.  He is not my friend.  Not really.

I once had a friend become my boss when his business model became troubled to manage.  He asked me to join his model and help him fix how it was going wrong.  We talked about what I would be asked to do, how I would be performing my help and how he would share his leadership with the rest of the people who make up the organization he built.  We had some very deep discussions about the potentials we might experience when I came aboard.  He set up an evening meeting with his wife and children to discuss the roles each of us would be playing to help his model repair where it was wounded.  It was an uncomfortable session.  It was clear that his business challenges were deeply rooted inside that room of people.  Shortly after the meetings he and I shared and that evening session with his family, I came to one simple conclusion.  If I accept this position to help this owner re-direct his business model to become more successful, I would need to accept also that our friendship just got erased from the face of this earth.  The two relationships are not the same thing.  Pure leadership and friendship are not the same thing.  They are opposites.

In order for me to be as effective as was necessary to help right what was going wrong I would need to be removed from my friendship ties.  I would need to turn on my best pure leadership skills.  Without that approach I know our efforts would eventually deliver much of the same kinds of results they were already producing.  More trouble would remain.  I did not want to produce those kinds of results.  He did not ask me to join his business model to produce more of those kinds of same effects.  When we came back together after meeting the family he and I both discussed how our friendship would be removed.  It was a heavy conversation between two guys as friends.  I took the job.  He accepted my role.  Pure leadership comes with a huge price.

We did fix all of the fires he was managing and his model did turn the corner and win.  It grew faster than it had ever grown which produced new challenges that did not once exist.  The family felt more entitled to receive than it had ever once expressed in the past.  Their desire to consume some of the increasing profits was an insatiable desire that began to grow out of control.  It became problematic.  The once clear promise he and i made to each other of maintaining clear lines as to "who drives what" eventually broke down.  The owner became cornered by the pressures of this new set of family challenges that he became confused with who and what was more important to him and his future.  As his confusion increased, his pure leadership suffered.  One day we both sat at a small coffee shop and looked directly into each others eyes.  I tapped him on the top of his hand and we said good bye.  My work in that organization was over.  Our friendship was completely gone, his was confused and in a state of loss.  We accomplished the business plans we had originally planned to do.  We were not confused at what it would cost.  Pure leadership comes with a huge price.

His business was why I was hired to help.  Our mission was clear.  His family would not be my responsibility.  That was something he needed to do all by himself.  We fixed the business model.  That was the whole reason why I was hired.  It was time for me to exit and time for him to go to work on the family matters that were burning out of control.  His future was no longer my responsibility.  We parted friends for the last time.  That was almost ten years ago.  I have only seen him on brief crossings two other times since that coffee shop parting.  Pure leadership comes with a huge price.

Reach Out And Test Your Leadership Skills.

When I first started writing this blog about business subjects I did not truly expect so many readers to come to these pages.  I expected to see maybe a few readers come looking for helpful information once in awhile.  That was kind of where my mind was sitting at the time I started to begin this blog.  In fact, I was not expecting to become a regular writer who found himself posting nearly every single day.  I also knew I was not a good writer.  My grammar is lacking accuracy in many ways.  I am aware of that truth.

I started posting business ideas thinking that eventually this blog could become a useful tool to invite some business owners to develop the courage for allowing readers to contribute successful tips for others to see.  I thought it might be kind of a nice place for business operators to come and discover how others are solving similar problems.  It could be a place where business owners could go do some deeper personal work without feeling like they are getting publicly exposed to the personal environment they call their regional home.  It might become a blog that offered helpful tips about the deeper stuff owners need to work on in order to help them win more often.  I was hoping those owners could find that kind of personal help in a private way.  I felt they could find a blog like this provide some interesting and deeper thoughts about issues they protect but need improved, on a no cost basis, that could provide them a safe platform to begin some work on personal improvements without damaging their egos in front of those they serve.  It could become a safe and low cost place to improve self.  Those were my initial thoughts.

I have become surprised at the kind of reach this medium has produced.  For example, I never expected to have over 100 readers come in nearly each day from Russia, alone.  I never expected over 60 readers come into the blog on a routine basis from Croatia.  I certainly never gave it any thought that every day readers would come into the blog from over 40 countries.  In the beginning I had no idea surface about that potential.  I never expected the volume of readers to increase as it has done month after month.  This month alone, another record month has just crossed the volume line.  I am amazed and surprised.  I see readers come into this blog from countries I know nothing about.  I see many of those readers repeat visit.  I did not expect to reach the breadth of readers that this tool can reach.  It is an amazing thing to witness.  I am looking at the date of the month and the volume of readership occurring and sitting at my desk in amazement.  It is a very humbling thing to see.  I truly did not expect this kind of response.  The level of responsibility that comes with this kind of movement is a little bit scary.  I am confident I will not embarrass anyone, but it does wake me up to a couple of things.

First of all, I need to make sure I produce good content for the readers to review.  I do not have the right to waste their time.  It irritates me when random solicitors do not understand how this basic fundamental works.  If you are an owner of a company that is designed to randomly solicit new customers through technology spam, you and I have some deeper teaching on the subject of producing value we need to perform.  You may be destroying your success efforts long before you get out of the gate to run the race.  We need to talk.  I have come to recognize how critical it is that I write relevant stuff.  I must use the readers time efficiently.  I cannot just randomly jump into their private space and expect to capture their complete attention.  I need to earn it.  Good content and relevant stuff are vital minimums.  It is a huge responsibility.

Second of all, I must learn how to improve my message making skills.  I may not be the best writer but my messages must make the most out of the limited time the reader has to use.  Effective messaging is also a critical minimum.  Readers need to go away from this blog with at least one good nugget they can use.  I cannot leave them empty handed.  That, too, is a huge responsibility.

These are things that I had not completely considered when I first began writing this blog.  They are things that have come to light as the readership has increased.  This blog has come to my attention that it is more about getting good stuff better understood than anything else.  Business owners just want to win more often.  That is all they want to do right now.  They want to improve the use of their personal time and get back more returns than they are witnessing right now.  Business owners want to become better secured than ever before.  All we want is to make sure our returns can provide what we need to live our desired patterns of life.  We want to make sure our dreams can really come true.  We want to work on improving our ways to make sure our island can be reached.  We own and operate the bridge we are building because we believe it is our chance for doing what we need to do to reach that island.  I want the kind of lifestyle I want.  I do what I do because I believe it is the mechanism that will help me to reach that lifestyle I am dreaming to be.  This is where most of the readers are quietly thinking.  They want to win more often.  That is why they are searching for more ways to do better work.  They want to improve their returns.

Throw Your Name Into The Customers Hat For Hire!

The Dreaded Job Interview Is Coming Soon!

Yesterday was an interesting day.  I put my name in the hat to apply for a divisional leadership position with a slightly troubled retail organization.  They have experienced five leadership changes in the past decade.  Five hopefuls have come aboard to try to correct a floundering operation.  Five of those leaders have left the ship with troubling results.  When the leadership slot opened up this time, I threw my name into the hat.

I am a junkie for this kind of challenge.  I see holes in their bucket that I would like a chance to see how well their people can learn how to plug them.  Most business models are suffering through this terrible economic period of time.  However, some retail business models stand a better chance at making it than others.  The ones who seem to be reporting good numbers are managing better shaped business models.  They have good management in place.  They have good plans moving about in the hallways of their daily grind.  They are always working to improve the ship they are trying to operate.  They have grown in good depth for the kind of people they hire and employ.  They have a great sense for seeing what changes need to be addressed and managed.  Those are the companies that have found a way during these tough times to report great volume growth in an otherwise rotten economy.

I track some of these winning business models.  I like the way they function in these tough times.  I like to frequent their retail operations.  They seem to have good employees with very friendly approaches to the kinds of things they do well.  They go to work with great respect that they are at that place to help their customers get served in the best way possible, without slobbering all over the guests.  It is usually a refreshing experience.  I also like the way the product gets discovered, chosen for sale and how timely their products continue to be added to the total mix of their offerings.  I like to examine the winners.  One of my most current retailers I like to examine is the Pier I Company.  They have become one of my favorite shopping experiences.  I have noticed how much they have improved their management and product work in the past ten years.  Their model deserves some praise and recognition.  I recently decided to check them out financially.  My suspicions were peaked enough to go visit a website that revealed their economic status.  Guess what I found?  Their numbers are very good.  I am not surprised.

When a good model catches our attention we tend to refer them to our acquaintances.  It is a natural thing to do.  I like to share good ideas and good recommendations to my friends and associates.  It adds credibility to my library of life contacts.  This kind of living pattern has good value.  We usually like to be known as someone who offers good suggestions to the people we know.  It is part of the reason why we gather friends in the first place.  This kind of positive exchange increases our self worth.  We like that kind of stuff.  I am just as much a junkie for that kind of stuff as I am for finding good business models to talk about.  Pier I is one of those nice finds.  They are good at what they do and they surround themselves with employees who want to be there and who want to add more value to what they do.  It is kind of unique in how they arrange their timeliness to match the desires of the people they employ.  It is a piece of great leadership management.  Competitors should take a short field trip to study such a good model.  Go become one of their customers for a day.  Go to examine how well they do what they do.  Go there to pick up some tips on how your own model can benefit from duplicating some of their winning ways and concepts.  It might become a great working exercise.  I do these kinds of things often.  It helps me sharpen my skills.  I recommend it.

Business Owners Need To Think Deeper

We Can Tell When We Forgot To Think Deeper

Does our mouth and the thoughts that flow out of our mouths participate in being an active part of our vision?

That kind of question is a heady one.  It requires some deeper thought.  Most leaders do not want to think this hard.  If they catch themselves over-thinking an issue, they fear they might get into trouble making moves in territories they do not fully understand.  For the most part, very few leaders like to make decisions in areas they do not knowingly understand.  Making decisions with too many unknowns is the perfect ground for making mistakes.  We all hate to make mistakes.  Our fear for criticism runs too high.

Doing some hard thinking requires our complete and devoted attention.  That means we cannot multi-task during the time we need to perform serious thinking.  For some reason we have come to believe that this kind of work is non-productive.  We think if we are not doing several things at once, we are less productive.  Although that notion is not true, we protect it often as if it is.  We have become so used to making the best use of our time that we plod through our time chips trying to multiply how much we can get done.  When we slow that process down to stop and do only one single thing, like think about one single subject deeply, we feel inadequate with what we are getting done.  As a result, we do not devote the proper attention to doing some serious thinking about one single heady thought.  We tend to graze over a deeper thought and treat it like the rest of the other ones flowing by our minds on a moment to moment basis.  We try to jam five dollar bills into a small hole that should be seeing a fifty dollar bill go.  We squeeze very little value into a full space that could use something more valuable going in.  Leaders get easily trapped by this simple process.  Most of them do not even see it coming.

Heady concepts are everywhere.  We just fail to devote proper attention to them.  They come to our leadership areas in single file.  They do not travel to our view in groups of volume like all of the other thoughts we deal with daily in our management ways.  Heady concepts take more time to review.  Who has that kind of time?  We are too busy jamming five dollar bills down a tiny little hole.  We do not have time to slow that process down enough to place fifty dollar bills into that hole once in awhile.  We are busy keeping up with being busy.  I love to walk up to someone who is working hard.  I will ask them how they are doing.  They will usually answer with this phrase, "Boy, I've been really busy."  We love to be busy.  We love to tell people how busy we are.  I once had one of my business mentors tell me to become more productive, not more busy.  There is a huge difference between these two concepts.

Let's ask that question again.  Only this time, let's listen to the question more deeply.  Let's give that first question some uninterrupted attention.  Let's zero in on the fifty dollar bill and lay down at least ten of the fives for just a second.  Does our mouth and the thoughts that flow out of our mouths participate in being an active part of our vision?  Think about this concept.

Everyone has some kind of future vision.  Some are filled with empty thoughts.  Some are filled with negative potentials.  Some are filled with wonderful dreams.  Some are surrounded with guarded hopes.  Some are skeptical wishes and desires.  Some are tunneled wants that secretly dominate how we think.  All of us carry some kind of future vision.  There is no blank screen of how we see our future.  If we have a blank screen viewed in our future, that is our vision.  We all have a future vision.  It might be a blank vision, but we have one.

Since we all have some kind of future vision that rests in our minds, we should take a look at how that vision dominates the way our mind thinks.  Our mind does the thinking that our mouths generally reveal.  I cannot spew out something that I have not put in.  I must first place it into my mind before I can dump it out.  This is basic math.  Everyone can add one and one to get two.  That is simple stuff.  It is basic math.  Likewise, everyone can see how we must first put in to be able to dump out.  Our mouths roll out what was once placed in.  This is basic math.  So far, no rocket science here.  Nothing heady to disturb our moving minds.  Easy thoughts and ideas.  Now back to the heady question.  Does our mouth and the thoughts that flow out of our mouths participate in being an active part of our vision?  Well of course they do!  Now the answer gets much more clearer.  It works just like the chicken or the egg question.  Once you know the truth, the answer comes out easily understood.  Have you ever seen an egg lay a chicken?  No.  Never.  Have you ever seen a chicken lay an egg?  Yes.  Lots of times.  Now that you know the truth, the answer becomes easy.  Chickens lay the eggs.  The eggs come second.  It ain't rocket science.  Heady mind work is simple when you belly up against the truths.

Yes, the stuff that comes out of our mouths is the same stuff that harbors space in our minds.  It goes into the mind first.  What we allow in becomes how we speak out.  That is why so many leaders do not perform great leadership.  They do not protect what is going in.  It ain't rocket science.  It ain't as heady as one might think.

We need to pay closer attention to fifty dollar bills and quit grabbing fives to do the job.  We need to slow down and think better.  We need to learn how to use the mind more often and more productively.  We need to slow down busy and start doing productive.  We need to devote less time doing and more time to studying.  We need to begin a better exercise program for the mind work we do.  We need to increase our serious thought work.  Business owners need to learn how to think deeper.  We need to stop flashing the volume of lights we allow to dominate the millions of thoughts we daily process.  Business owners need to think deeper.

Customers Are Your Best Salesman

Know Exactly What This Includes!

I did a previous post on how to attract customers.  It has a lot of continued readership.  The title seems to attract a lot of visitors.  That gives me the indication that this subject is driving a lot of business owners to seek out more information on how to attract more customers.

There are a lot of reasons why customers go where they go to purchase what they purchase.  When we become one of those places where they go, it gets fun.  Business can and should be fun.  I have worked for many models that were not fun.  Good business is hard to do in those environments.  It is also difficult to grow one of those models.  Somehow a business model that carries an atmosphere of being no fun is a business model that does not generally produce great results.  Being fun to participate in winning is one of the silent keys to making sure your model wins for a longer period of time.  That does not mean that making your business fun to do will guarantee better financial success.  It will not.  Being fun to do is not the key driving force to producing great financial success.  It helps, but it ain't the key reason.

Customers, however, like to hang out in a business model that is more fun to experience.  They do not want the fun to interfere with how quickly they need to get their problems solved, but they do enjoy it when that happens and it always seems fun to have that kind of good service completed efficiently.  I was standing in a business model yesterday that had one of their routine customers approach me.  This model just recently had to make a serious management change.  It was the kind of management change that nobody enjoys performing.  This customer expressed an interesting opinion about the change.  He defined how he liked the manager that was being removed.  He also felt that the rest of the staff in this operation was a group of really good people.  He expressed how he understood that sometimes certain things had to be done to maintain proper order in an organization.  He said he respected that tough set of responsibilities.  He thought if there was any good time to make that kind of tough move, this was that time.  He said he felt comfortable with doing his business with any of the other staff members because they always seem to make his experience a fun thing to do.  He said that is one of the main reasons why he comes to do business in this place.  It has become one of his pleasures when he needs something they offer.  Think about those most valuable comments.  Would customers say things like that about your staff?

Customers are your best salesman.  They will tell others why they should select your model to do their business.  They will network your business model to people you do not normally reach.  This is especially true about web-based business models.  I have done a lot of business with websites I would never have found if it were not for the word of mouth selling someone shared with me about the qualities they liked from the site they described.  I originally went to those website business models because someone I trusted referred those sites to me.  It is that simple.  I continue to use some of those sites because I also like them myself.  I also refer them to others.  I have also become one of their silent salesman.  Customers are your best salesman.  If they are not happy with your business model, they will not be as apt to refer your model to others they know.  The customer who pulled me to the side yesterday to express how happy he has been with the business model that had to make a serious management change is one of those who passes the good word around.  He is one of those who has become a good salesman for the business he uses.

Connecting well with the customer you see is a vital piece to how well they will share what you do for your customers.  Other customers like to know who does this kind of respectful business.  They will give your model a try if someone else tells them about how good you are.  That is how you reach the people you may never get to reach.  That is how growth quietly occurs.  That is how you insulate yourself away from the negative cycles of a tough economy.  That is exactly how you break volume and growth records.  You operate well with the way you treat your consumer base.  They will become your best salesman.  When your customers become part of your army to market what you do, look out competition.  Your competitors will not enjoy knowing how well you attract those additional people to frequent your model.  It will irritate your competition.  They will begin to "bash" what you do well.  Your customers will recognize this kind of play and draw closer to those things your model does very well.  If you have those important things down pat, you will reinforce the good characteristics of your "consumer attractions and abilities" to the ones who like what you do and they now become strong supporters in the world of networking that becomes your new secret army.  Consumers are your best salesman.

Is It Your Business Model Or Your People That Carry The Best Talent?

Your Talent Pool Must Be Developed From Within

I have known some very talented people.  They have good brains that work well and seem to be able to surround those brains with great personal skills.  I have seen some of that excellent talent work well in many organizations.  One thing I have noticed in the past forty years of business experience, however, those very talented individuals tend to jump around from organization to organization.  I am not certain why, but it seems that the most talented ones move from company to company a lot.  Those with talent seem to like to get involved with leap frogging in their careers.  They seem to know how great their talent is and work it to find a better personal outcome.  They get caught up in the game of looking for a better deal.  They jump up over the current deal to land a better one somewhere else.

I have not actually employed one of these people.  My history of hiring has notincluded very few strong talented people.  I have employed some greatly skilled young people who in time have grown to become very good leaders in other organizations at a later time in their career, but not ones who had those skills from the outset.  Three good reasons come to mind.  Number one, people with great skills will not coming circling jobs in smaller business models like our smaller organizations.  That kind of talent will circle business models with a larger economy of scale.  Two, most small business owners do not desire to hire someone with too much talent because they know the model cannot hold them.  Finally, they also will not hire someone above their own talent level because they fear they cannot handle the pressure a talented individual would bring to their own personal ego of skills.  Very few of us will admit that truth, but it is true.

In the end, great talent will not be coming our way soon.  Therefore, we must build the talent pool from within.  If we truly believe we can go out into the world of unemployed people and begin the search for someone really talented to help us build a monster success, we may be living in a tall world of unrealistic dreams.  I suggest we take another path.  I do not like the odds of this prospect.  I know all things are possible, but the energy and cost it would incur to go searching for that one very talented leader who would desire to head up our small business organizations is not something our time and budget can absorb.  Play the better odds.  Build a system that helps nurture this kind of leader.  Then when that grown up talent decides to leap frog over your organization you are primed to build another great replacement.  All you need to do is find who is developing from within your great system that will fit that bill and promote them along.  It should be from within that you will discover the best talent you can enjoy.  It is your business model that carries the best talent...not the individuals.

When you sit down to privately evaluate the talent pool you employ, do you also sit down to examine how well your business model design is talented?  I am not talking about your business policies, pay, bonus structure and benefits.  I am talking about the respect your model design actually supports your internal business employment human development skills and opportunities.  Is your business model designed and structured to add great value to the lives of those who have a desire to grow and learn more?  How does your business model help to nurture these kinds of things and how does it help to retain and feed the internal desires of these kinds of people?  What great designs in this area of attention does your business model offer?  Does your model have a plan to build this kind of employee?  If not, why not?

Where Is Your Business Mentor?

We Dislike It When Someone Tries To Change Our Direction

Moving targets can be frustrating when you don't know where they are headed.  When a goal gets set in our minds we like for it to be reachable and realistic.  We also do not want that goal to move away from us as we get closer to reaching the mark.  We will get frustrated if someone moves the mark of that goal further out away from us as we get closer to it.  Humans do not handle being frustrated very well, especially if we are mistreated for doing well.  We will show our frustration in creative but evident ways.  We may look cool and calm on the outside but inside we are cunning and creatively dynamic about how we treat being mistreated.  Our built in wiring for tolerance is usually completed with wires too short to do an adequate job of performing long lines of deep tolerance.  Most of us are very impatient.  Our tolerance factors are in short supply.  When someone cheats us once, we can quickly react in a negative way.  We do not have a great deal of tolerance for that kind of treatment.  We show that intolerance in many creative ways.

One of my best business mentors met me while we were actually doing business.  He was a new customer of mine.  I was preparing a bid on some large remodeling efforts he and his wife were planning to do in their home.  It was the early nineties and his business models were screaming in success.  I was asked to be included in the bidding process for a lot of improvement work they planned to do in their home.  I won that bid.  I was given the work to complete.  It was a significant project for my little business.  I was able to get to know this couple closer because I spent a lot of time in their home doing this remodeling project for a few weeks.  They actually shocked me by paying me up front!  They were going away for two weeks on an African Safari.  We sat down before they left and discussed in great detail how they wanted the work to be completed.  They gave me a check and the keys to their home.  However, I told them this project would take about a month to complete.  I wanted them to be aware of the fact that this project would not be completed while they were away on their trip.  They understood.  The project went well.  They loved the work when they returned and I finished it in about three more weeks.  It was an excellent experience.

This business project introduced this couple into my life.  They eventually became part of an important chapter in our life travels.  My wife and I became very good associates with this couple through this simple business introduction.  He became my business mentor for nearly ten years.  We have both moved on to other parts of the country and are doing our business work in separate worlds now.  However, those ten years were filled with many great lessons and a ton of wonderful business experiences.  I am a different business operator today than I could ever imagine I might be.  His influence on how I changed the ways I managed what I owned is forever respected.  My views, my disciplines and my tolerance has improved tremendously thanks to his persistence to help me change.  Looking back, I was a big project.  I am sure I wore them both out.

Head strong, self taught business owners are a dime a dozen.  I was one of those cheap commodities.  I had some good values going for me but my main stream of activities was to practice volume producing, equivocal selling.  You know the type.  I was a master of that art.  I could easily sell products I did not own.  It never occurred to me that I had to own the inventory to sell it.  All I had to do is find it at a price I could live with when they took possession of what I bought and sold them.  It was simple math to me.  I became an artist at this process.  I owned a furniture store retail operation that commonly ran a product turnover ratio above nine points all day long.  I was always selling stuff to customers that I did not have in stock or own.  Customers of mine would describe to me other items that they truly wanted to own and I would go find them and place them in their homes.  I ran a very good special order program.  My banker would point out my turnover ratio every time we did a financial review.  He was always amazed at the high product turnover my stores ran.  My volumes of sales well exceeded the inventory I carried.  I would easily turn my inventory nine times per year.  Special orders are instant turnover.  That helps your overall numbers greatly.

This new business mentor liked some of the things I did in my business model.  He also discovered some of the things I did not do very well.  Looking back, he was a master at getting me to change where I would otherwise refuse to change.  His leadership art was painted over my stubborn ways.  He helped me to become a much better business operator.  End of seminar.  I learned how to function better in the models I owned.  Many of the most important changes I have made happened only because of his artful patience and creative leadership.  He helped me to improve tremendously.