Friday, July 25th, 2008
Archive for the 'Achieving Goals' Category
Friday, July 25th, 2008
Sunday, July 20th, 2008
The other day, a friend and I were chatting about accomplishments and how they impact people differently. They can either hold a person back, or help a person move forward. The choice is up to each of us.
If we focus on the accomplishment and judge future actions by its scale, the accomplishment can become an anchor that hold us back. It can prevent us from trying new things, things where we might fail.
At the other extreme, some say to “let it go.” It seems to my friend and me that, taken literally, they are forgetting to learn from experience.
Doesn’t it make more sense to learn from accomplishments (and failures) and to use the lessons learned in other areas? If so, accomplishments (and failures) can help us move forward and move in many different directions. At that point, it is just a matter of deciding on the opportunities that are of greatest interest to each of us.
Saturday, July 19th, 2008
When Connie Customer looks at a potential supplier, what does Connie want and need to know?
Reverse the roles for a minute and put yourself in Connie’s shoes. What would you want to know if you were looking at a potential supplier?
At the end of the day, the thing you want to know - the ONLY thing you want to know - is that, if you select the potential supplier, the potential supplier will help you meet your business goals.
In order to reach this conclusion, you will probably want to look at a variety of things such as:
- Does the potential supplier work with customers that are like you?
- What has the potential supplier helped these customers do?
- How has the potential supplier worked with these customers?
- When issues arose, how did the potential supplier deal with them?
- What results did the potential supplier help the customers achieve?
Past experience of a firm is not a guarantee of future results. A supplier may have been great in one context for one customer, but might be unable to help a different customer or the same customer achieve a different goal.
Now that you know what Connie needs to know, what can Connie do to make sure that the potential supplier helps Connie achieve her business objectives?
Saturday, June 21st, 2008
While talking with a friend the other day, I realized that he was seeing the situation as having a lot of obstacles, rather than looking for opportunities.
Business owners always want more money than what they have to work with. Speaking from experience, this is as true of a Fortune 100 company like AT&T as it is of a small established business like Illahe Lodge on the Rogue River or a new business like my friend wants to start.
Too often, people like my friend are held back because they don’t have the $X (whatever “X” may be in their case), the education, or the experience that they believe is required to start a business. Successful business people find ways to rethink the issue so that the obstacles are removed. They can do this in a variety of ways including:
- Finding alternate funding sources, perhaps including sources that will help provide assets the business needs
- Starting smaller and growing their business as their knowledge, skills, customer-base, and abilities grow
- Simplifying operations to a level that is sustainable and expanding into other areas over time
- Building alliances with competitors, customers, creditors, or complimentary firms
The next time that you are thinking about starting a business, perhaps these ideas will help you see ways to turn “obstacles” into “opportunities.”
Wednesday, June 4th, 2008
The other day, a friend told me about a blog and asked for my ideas. The blog was intended to generate revenue or, at least, lead to business opportunities. It wasn’t working though, as far as he could tell.
I’d faced this issue a couple years ago, so I knew what the person was saying. You try and try to write things that will be of interest to others, yet you see no return on your investment. Why? What can you do about it? Are there better options? Let’s consider those three questions.
Why
Blogging can consume far more resources than it returns in revenue. This is particularly true when one is creating a general blog, rather than a blog that is limited to a single, narrow topic.
A few thoughts about the issues with blogging for business…
Time. It takes a lot of time to build a relationship and, until a relationship exists, customers are unlikely to buy. This is particularly true in an online environment where so many sites are competing for attention.
Offering. If a person is providing an inexpensive, low risk solution to a problem, a buyer may be comfortable making the purchase based on one or two articles. If the “product” is less tangible, the purchaser may want more information.
Prior experience. If everyone else does something in a way that doesn’t work, potential customers have great difficulty believing that you can do something in a way that will work.
Readers. Think about who is reading your blog. Do these people need the information that you are sharing? More importantly, do they believe that they need the information? Often times, the readers may not recognize themselves in the blog that you are writing. When they do recognize themselves in the blog, they may conclude that you will address the issue down the road or they may lack funding to buy the services and products you offer.
Time and contacts. A former student who specialized in telemarketing said that it takes an average of eight calls before a potential customer should be expected to purchase what the telemarketer is offering. Online, would this number be any less? How many blogs contain eight articles that would be of interest to the same person?
Expectations. A lot of information on the internet is available for free. This creates an expectation that all information can be obtained for free.
Resource limits. Speaking from personal experience, most of my clients and potential clients can find the information that I offer on the internet… Somewhere. If they go that route though, they will expend a lot of time and make a lot of mistakes. Looking at this from a client’s perspective, which is more important - time, absence of mistakes, or money? An established firm may conclude that time and absence of mistakes are most important. New businesses are more likely to conclude that money and saving it is the most important.
What can you do?
When faced with a challenge, it is important to find ways to turn that into an opportunity. A couple options that I considered with blogs were subscription-based blogs and growing readership.
One option that my friend tried was to create a subscription-based blog. I didn’t try this option so I can’t speak from experience on that. It seems to me that a subscription-based blog might be effective, if a person had a narrow focus. With a broad focus, it is harder to appeal to all people. Previously, I’d suggested that a group of us get together and create a subscription-based blog that would be a bit like an online magazine. Who knows if that approach would have worked…
A second option in this situation would be to focus on growing the readership. With regular, loyal readers, a blog is more likely to be discussed. From these discussions, some people (either readers or writers) may spot new opportunities. They may mention the blog or the author to others who will need the person’s help. Readership might be grown through marketing, public speaking, including the blog on business cards, presence in online communities, and a variety of other solutions.
In my case, there was a better option. For others, this may not be the case.
Better options?
When faced with a challenge, it helps me to focus on what has worked in the past. For me, that meant cutting down on my online efforts and beefing up my offline ones. This approach may be wrong for some, and that’s okay. Each of us has to use strategies that work for us.
When I talk with people about topics that matter to them, they often find value in what I am saying. Rather than throwing ideas out to see what sticks, I simply returned to that approach. For me, that takes the forms of face-to-face discussions, email, and telephone. Others may be able to carry on such discussions via a blog, and I accept this.
As I told my friend though, try a variety of options and choose the ones that work best for you.
Regardless of what this means for your business, I hope that you will take care and make it a great day.
Monday, November 5th, 2007
The other day, I was reading Fortune’s October 1, 2007, issue. The topic was on leadership and great leaders. It led me to think a bit about leadership. In many organizations, leadership is weak. Instead of leadership, we find managers and bosses, rather than leaders.
What is a leader? How is that different from being a manager or a boss? What makes a leader? Those are three questions that we will discuss today.
What is a leader?
It seems to me that a leader is a person who other people choose to follow. Leaders can be found at all levels of an organization.
When important decisions are being made, leaders are the people that ideas are bounced off of, regardless of the person’s level or official role. Think about the people that you look to and talk with when you are making important decisions. Why do you rely on them? What factors do they have in common?
How is a leader different from a manager or a boss?
That is a challenging question. Certainly, a leader needs to be a good manager. Many good managers are ineffective leaders. Think about some of the managers you know. How many of them would you follow? What would stop you from following the others?
Often, managers focus on process and adherence to rules. What I’ve experienced is that managers see rules as having value in and of themselves. Rules are to be followed. In contrast, leaders see rules as tools to help legitimate ends be achieved. If a rule is preventing the legitimate end from being achieved, a leader is likely to take a step back, look at the rule and ask if it is working correctly. If the rule is broken, the leader tries to fix it.
So, if that is what a leader and manager do, what does a boss do? A “boss” is someone who has been given a position of responsibility. Sometimes, a boss is a great leader or a good manager. In other cases, a boss is someone who got there by the Peter Principle (people being promoted to their level of incompetence).
What makes a person a leader?
There are exhaustive lists on this. Every “leadership” specialist or consulting firm probably has one. Many articles attempt to list the characteristics of a leader as well.
It seems to me that the key to being a leader is found in the details. How does the person earn others’ support? How are followers developed? Does the person model the behavior that will help others become leaders?
The characteristics that I think of when I think of great leaders include:
* Investing the time to learn the business or subject
* Learning to communicate effectively with others
* Developing listening skills and listening with an open mind
* Inviting dialogue and discussing differences of opinion
* Making it safe for people to make mistakes and disagree
* Helping people learn and develop their skills
* Encouraging followers to reach their potential
What do you think? Do these ideas track with your own and your experiences?
Saturday, October 27th, 2007
The other day, Sally asked for help with her business. Sally wanted people to make referrals to her. When asked who would be a good referral, Sally said, “anyone who needs my services.”
How many referrals was Sally likely to receive with such a response? Sally may receive referrals from such a response, but the referrals are likely to be all over the map.
What happens though if Sally tells the person how to identify a good referral? It may lead to more referrals, better referrals, and greater confidence in the referrals that are made.
The starting point when seeking better referrals is to know what problem you help a person solve.
