Zane Safrit

2 Biggest Derailment Factors for Executives

 Erika Andersen, founder of Proteus International and author of Being Strategic: Plan for Success, Outthink Your Competitors, Stay Ahead of Change, joined our show recently. You can listen here for the insights and inspiration she shared.

During the show I asked her:

As people move up in a career ladder, move up in the standard hierarchical, top-down, command and control environment how do they avoid their own American Idol syndrome?

I read a study a few years ago that said the 2 biggest derailment factors for executives were:

• not listening to accurate data from the people around them, and
  

• not having those sources of data; not having people around them who will tell them the truth.

So, not having the people to tell the truth and not willing to hear it when it’s told to them when they do... are the two-sides of the same coin that is shown in this study to be the biggest factor of derailment for executives.

Erika does not present a problem without also offering a solution. She continued.

There are three skills to use to do this [avoid our own American Idol syndrome.]

1. Being a Fair Witness
2. Pulling Back the Camera
   
3. Sorting for Impact or Fit

If you know you have to be a fair witness to accurately envision and move towards the future for you and your company then you will find a way to get that data.

There are two ways to do this.

1. Good leaders put in systems that will collect the data. They have ways of doing employee surveys. They get real data about how people are doing....They have good metric-based ways of getting the data to allow them to be a fair witness.

2. They are smart enough to create the relationships with those that work with them that are based on trust and authenticity. Those people can and will them the truth. And how you do that is you listen to them. If you as a leader can never shoot the messenger...no matter what the message...then that person will come again and again when they have another problem or concern.

If you are engaged consistently with your team in being strategic it’s much more likely to come out as part of the conversation.

She talks more about these three mental skills, the deceptively simple definition of being strategic, and some inspiring client profiles of those who were able to live the daily habit of Being Strategic.

You can read highlights of our conversation here.

FTC disclaimer: Other than two free copies of her book and the joy of learning from her book and her conversations on our radio show there was no compensation. I am way ahead in my life as a result. I hope you are will be, too.

Four Simple Guidelines to Make Work Great

Ed Muzio is CEO of Group Harmonics and the author of the excellent book Make Work Great: Supercharge Your Team, Reinvent the Culture and Gain Influence - One Person at a Time, shared an hour of his time as a guest on our radio show. You can listen here.

During the show I asked him:

What are the four simple guidelines that define the process to Make Work Great, a process you call a special type of moderation?

And Ed answered:

The four things are:

1. Don’t put your career in jeopardy. Do things that help you, not hurt you.

2. Don’t compromise your ethics. Never. Again, common sense. The book talks about ways to be overt and honest about the work you do.

3. Don’t use all your time. Don’t look at it like you’re going to spend 20 hours a week or 40 hours a week and change the culture. Make small changes and realize the benefit. This is about slow changes with lasting effect, not quick changes or programs du jour. Make small changes, realize the benefit, then change again.

4. Don’t get impatient. That's the flip side of don’t use all your time. Develop good discipline and then wait for the rest to take care of itself. It’s like planting a tree. It won’t grow if you keep digging it up and looking at it.

Simple, clear, doable.

I suggest one step to compliment these 4 principles:

Buy Ed’s book: Make Work Great: Supercharge Your Team, Reinvent the Culture and Gain Influence - One Person at a Time.

Here’s a couple of quick reasons:

• His writing is simple, clear, on-target.

• His solutions are simple, clear, doable, pragmatic, logical...low-risk, high-return.

• Personal responsibility. That’s what rang loud and true in his book. We, individually, have the responsibility and the means now to Make Work Great.

Thanks, Ed.

You can follow Ed on Twitter at EdMuzio.

You can join him on Facebook at Ed Muzio.

( I promised I'd try to get him 2-3 more followers...I think he's doing fine on this all by himself. But, a promise is a promise.)

Oh. For the FTC’s disclosure requirements...Ed’s publicist sent me a copy of his book. For free. After that, the only compensation was the opportunity to both read the book and discuss it with the author.

Priceless? I don’t know. But inspiring, useful, and well-worth my time?....Definitely.

Overcoming Obstacles to Posting Your First Blog Post

This may be a late hour to address obstacles to blogging. There are maybe 125 million blogs in existence. This doesn't begin to include 500 million Facebook members, each with their own page, in essence a blog. Nor does it include the 105 million registered users of Twitter...in April of 2010.

However, only 24% of small businesses use social media. And that's double the number from last year.

Blogging is the foundation for any social media effort. (I hate the term campaign...) So, for more small businesses to embrace social media we have to find ways to overcome some of the obstacles to...blogging.

OBSTACLE: What do I write about? I don't have anything to say. That's what one employee said when I offered her the opportunity to blog on company time. I don't have anything to say. I knew otherwise. I suggested she start her day with 10-15 minutes of free writing. Just write. I checked back with her in another week. She'd discovered she did have something to say.

• SOLUTION: Try it. Write for 10 - 15 minutes a day. You'll discover you have something you really want to say.

OBSTACLE: Fear. Some executives may wonder if it's safe to blog. Is it safe to talk on the phone? Is it safe to send an email? Is it safe to have a meeting. People are taking notes, in writing or mentally. And often there is something lost in that translation between your voice and their notes.

• SOLUTION: You're safer writing it yourself.

OBSTACLE: I'm not a good writer.

That is not an obstacle for a leader; it's an excuse. And it's no longer an acceptable excuse. Today's world requires leaders, well everyone really, to have excellent communication skills.

• SOLUTION: Write every day for 10 -15 minutes. You do not have to publish it. But you do you have to write it. Write about anything you want. Just write. Pretty soon, you will see you do have a lot to say and you say in the most unique voice in the world: yours.

• Besides, writing everyday for 10 -15 minutes before you even publish a post is a great way to ...be a good writer.

• It's also the best way to systematically re-innovate your company. Blogging was the best way to do that, according to Tom Koulopolous, author of The Innovation Zone: How great companies re-innovate to bring amazing success and CEO of The Delphi Institute

OBSTACLE: Topics. Subjects. Content.

That's one of the biggest seeming obstacles both to potential bloggers and long-time bloggers.

• SOLUTION 1: List posts generate a lot of traffic. List posts are posts titled with something like Top 10 Ways to....x, and then the body of the post is compromised of that list of 10 ways and a brief explanation of each way.

Ultimately this is a list post.

I have a huge ongoing project of 52 ways to recognize employees. And each week I describe and analyze one of those 52 ways in detail. And at the end of these 52 ways I'll create a book that includes the result of my writing and analyzing each of these steps over the past year.

Already, I've changed my understanding, deepening and broadening it, for why each step works and why and how it connects with the other 51.

And I carve out tip posts from what my radio show guests share during our hour conversation. Those are like bite-sized snacks in between meals. They give some good content and entice you to eat the whole meal, read the whole blog post or listen to their whole show.

• SOLUTION 2: Compare and Contrast Posts. I lean more today towards compare and contrast posts. These require more time. To help me gather data, I use Evernote to help me clip notable news items from any online source. I tag them with key words. Then I review them weekly. Often I find contradictory data, arguments, positions, manifestos. Always, I find myself forced to clarify for myself where the gap exists and why. I write a post to explain the contradictions or contradict them again.

OBSTACLE: They may disagree with me. Hopefully, they will. At some point.

• SOLUTION: Don't worry about it. I learn more from those who disagree than those who say 'great post'. I enjoy the latter more. But those who challenge me, critique me, attack me are always my best teachers.

If you're not pissing somebody off regularly, hopefully your competitors, then you don't have much of a brand. And if people aren't disagreeing with your posts some of the time...you're not writing anything worth reading.

OBSTACLE: Writer's Block. This will happen.

• SOLUTION: Either go out for a quick run or clean-up your desktop. The first one relaxes the mind and stimulates the thinking and creativity at the same time. The second one brings a little order. Gotta have both: creativity and stimulation along with an orderly environment.

I hope this helps.

3 Most Common Complications in Presentations

Sam Harrison is the author of a fabulous book titled: IdeaSelling: Successfully pitch your creative ideas to bosses, clients and other decision makers. He joined the show recently. You can listen here.

Sam’s a veteran of pitching ideas: He’s has been on all sides of creative communications, marketing and branding – the agency and freelance side, the client and corporate side and, most recently, the academic and consulting side.

He is an in-demand professional speaker and member of the National Speakers Association, presenting highly rated seminars and keynote talks to agencies, firms and associations throughout North America and beyond.

He also teaches creativity, writing and presentation-skills classes at Portfolio Center and he’s worked with a bunch of Fortune 500 clients.

Good presentation skills are key to presenting new ideas that drive innovation that drive new markets and products. Oh, and these all work together to create jobs, btw.

One of the top buzzkills for a presentation is making it too complicated.

I asked him:

What are the three most common complications in a presentation?

And he answered:

Narrowing it down to three is tough.

1. Overwhelming the audience with our research.

2. Presenting the idea in the same way that we created it. Creativity is sometimes a messy process. It takes a lot of going in different directions to create an idea. Sometimes we try to make that pitch flow in the same way. We need to make it more of a linear flow, A goes to B goes to C.

3. Not helping the audience visualize our idea and how it plays in the real world.

We leave the listener with confusion or vague ideas about how our ideas can help.

Now. This post was a nice trip down memory lane. I remembered what a great guest Sam was on the show: fun to listen to, satisfying to learn from. And I remembered what a fabulous book, IdeaSelling: Successfully pitch your creative ideas to bosses, clients and other decision makers, Sam has written. Every page offers practical tips and wisdom, reminders and resources, to help you successfully pitch your ideas to bosses, clients and other decision-makers like your colleagues or customers, too. You should buy it.

You should follow Sam Harrison on Twitter with his username of ZingZone.

And you should listen to our show here.

3 Tips to Release Our Imaginative Superpowers

Tamara Kleinberg, Chief Imaginator of Imaginnibles, was a guest on our radio show. ( You can listen here.)

We talked a lot about her work with clients helping with innovation, creativity and passion and...our innate imaginative superpowers.  More particularly, we talked about how releasing our dormant imaginative superpowers is a first step towards innovation, creativity and passion for our work.

I asked her:

We’re all busy, we’re all scrambling. What are three tips you can share that will help our listeners release our imaginative superpowers?

And she answered:

Here’s the secret juice. I think that strengthening the Imaginative Superpowers is like going to the gym.

You can do it in even 10 minutes a day. Exercise our creative mind and provide it fuel we could tap into it...

Here are the three things that anyone can do:

1. Doodling. Doodling lets us open our mind and relieves that stress on the brain and helps us with memory.

2. Movement. Movement is a huge part of it. You’re getting more oxygen to the brain. Take your pen and paper and draw the music you hear when you’re in a restaurant. Music really does open up the mind.

3. Draw a Stranger. Go to a Starbucks; draw a stranger and show the stranger their drawing. You realize whatever they have done is great. What it helps us realize is that there are people out there willing to collaborate with us. I would encourage everyone to do this.

Now, see? We all can open our dormant imaginative superpowers with these steps. There's no club to join, no interruption in our day, no sacrifices....all upside.

Imagine your world surrounded and supported by others who are in this same process of re-awakening their imaginative superpowers. First, let's acknowledge the hard-bitten types and agree that, at times, it could be chaotic. Fine. Now, let's move on and see how much fun, how exciting, how passionate the workday would be. Every day would be a day of discovery. And in that process would be:

• discoveries of new solutions to unresolved challenges,

• new ideas for new products,

• new ideas for new markets,

• new ways to be more efficient and thereby

• free up time to explore these new ideas,

• new ideas for business model innovations,

• new ideas for new ways to make more money....

10 minutes a day. That's why they call them imaginative superpowers.

Thanks, Tamara!

3 Things WE Can Do to Boost Our Career Well-Being

Tom Rath, co-author of Well-Being: The 5 Essential Elements, was a guest on our show recently. (You can listen here. Highlights posted here. )

We talked about his global research that led to this book (great book!) and categorizing the 5 essential elements of our well-being. The essential elements of well-being are:

Social well-being is about having strong relationships, including love, in your life.

Financial well-being is as much about how you manage your money as it is how about much money you have. Spending it wisely is pretty important.

Physical well-being is pretty much self-explanatory. We found out a lot about sleep and importance of a sound night’s sleep in providing a reset for the next day.

Community well-being. That may be the one element that differentiate between a good life and a great life, the ability to give back to the community.

Career well-being.

That's the most important one. Well-being in our career is a leading determinant in our well-being in other areas. If we can answer yes to the question of Do we like what you we do every day in our work? then we are well on our way to finding well-being in these 4 other areas. That applies across cultures in 150 countries where Tom and his co-author conducted research.

I asked Tom:

What are three things you recommend anyone can do to boost their career well-being, prevent Monday morning heart attacks and cancel their anti-depressants?

And he generously shared these three tips:

Well the first thing is identify what some of our strengths are and what are the moments where the time flies by and you enjoy what you are doing.

The 2nd things is find someone who can be a mentor, someone who cares about and will invest in your progress over time.

The 3rd thing is make sure you invest in and think about good friends on the job. We clearly recommend organizations create an environment where people can have close friends, even best friends at work. Those employees who have a best friend at work are 7 times as likely to be engaged at work. Without a best friend at work the chances of being engaged are 1 in 12.

There is more, much more, in this book. Fascinating, in-depth, research and actionable steps we all can take today to...enhance our well-being and the well-being of those around us.

A Few To-Do's to Bring Better Focus

I am not an expert on maintaining focus. I am constantly curious, quick to move on to the next item, and impatient. On the other hand, I have found a few principles and a couple of to-do's that if honored and taken...can harness that curiosity and urgency. I share these ideas only for those share a similar challenge, whether from their internal or external environments. 

Here’s what works when I work these steps:

START THE DAY BEFORE

Focus today starts the day before.

* Prepare tomorrow’s to-do list today. I prepare my to-do list at the end of the day before I turn my computer off. Or I prepare it just before I go to bed.

This heads off any distractions and starts the day with a little bit of urgency and excitement.

* Go to bed early. That works for me. For some, going to bed late works better. This also implies:

• no caffeine after lunch.

• turn off the computer at night. Walk...away. The results make this easier for me.

SHORT TO-DO LIST

I keep it short. Only 3-5 big items are listed. These are the items aligned with my personal and/or business reasonable aspiration or hoped-for future.

I once listed ...everything on my to-do list. Drove me crazy, into a frenzy, all day. I found I made less progress, lost perspective more, was less able to respond to the daily interruptions, and came away more frustrated.

But everything cannot be important. 3-5 big items are important. Finishing or at least making progress on them is important.

GO HOME

I promise everyone that the work will be there tomorrow.

But, their solutions await some quiet time, some re-creation time, some relaxation time.

Deadlines must be met, sure. But, how many times have I walked away from a persistent problem only to find the solution pop up as I relaxed on a run, driving home, going for a walk, about to nod off at night...And how many times have I created bigger problems when forced on a solution only for my convenience.

Go home.

EXERCISE REGULARLY.

Do something. Do it regularly. Walking, running, swimming...chasing the dog, chase your kids...chase your spouse.

Do something and do it regularly.

DO WHAT YOU LOVE; DO WHAT YOU MUST

Yes, tasks must be completed. Customer calls must be taken...immediately. Family needs are a priority.

But, carve out some time each day to do what we love. Over time, we find we spend more time with more people doing what we love together.

Some readers may want more specific steps. Here are links to some longer, more detailed, lists with some excellent tips and perspectives.

• 18 ways to Stay Focused at Work, David Cheong

• Tips for Staying Focused and Productive, by Liz Bywater, PhD

• 5 Tips for Staying Focused, an Eclectic Mind by Maria Langer

• Five 5-Minutes Tips to Staying Focused, by Business Pundit

What do you do to bring, keep, return focus to your day? Share them. We all need all the help we can get.

Four Actions That Eliminate Small Pie Thinking

Tim Sanders was a recent guest on my radio show. He spoke about small pie thinking. Small pie thinking is a phrase so descriptive I nodded my head and understood. And I remembered some folks who had it. And I remembered that I, too, have it.

He talked about small pie thinking in the context of his book: Saving the World at Work: What Companies and Individuals Can Do to Go Beyond Making A Profit to Making a Difference.

I asked Tim:

What are three things people can do right now to eliminate the small pie thinking?

Here's what he answered:

1. Deal with yourself – feed your mind good stuff. You have to stop absorbing all the negative stuff.

2. Change the conversation at work. Stop gossip; stop talking about lack and the negative.

3. Set an example and give. If you want to create abundance, show and share what you have. Compassion is contagious-give until it hurts.

4. Find a smart strategic way to give and focus on what you have, not on what you lack.

See. These are steps we all can take. Maybe, we can't take the entire step at once. Maybe, we can't take all 4 steps today. But we can take a baby-step today. And another one tomorrow. And the next day.

Step 2 is a big challenge for me. Who doesn't love some good gossip? On the other hand, as I feed myself good stuff and surround myself with good people, the negative and the juicy gossip tidbit become well, less, juicy.

Notice that Tim leads by example. I asked for three things and Tim gave 4.

You can listen to our conversation here.

You can read excerpted highlights from our conversation here.

3 Steps to Daily BP or Blogging Practice

Recently I talked about the parallels between daily blogging and daily batting practice. What Batting Practice Offers Business Bloggers

For those who were left inspired by the parallels but still wondering how to incorporate a daily session of BP in your busy day here’s three steps that should take you up to plate.

1. Prioritize it.

Schedule it on your calendar or to-do list.

Schedule it for the same time every day.

Make it the first thing you do each day.

Take your daily blogging practice at the start of every day. I find myself a little brighter, sharper, more creative and inspired at the start of every day. Blog before the rush of distractions interfere with writing anything of more substance than a 14-character tweet.

2. Prepare for it.

Batters warm up before they enter the batting cage.

Bloggers warm up before they begin to write. A blogger’s warm-up is reading, listening.

Reading, listening, can take place anywhere: at your home, at a restaurant, media of choice, books, ebooks, blogs, tweets, youtube...the key element is listening. There are tools like Evernote, delicious, favorites on twitter, your facebook friends and their updates that make it easy to start the day with listening. Use them.

Don’t know how? Ask. Ask me. Ask Google. Ask those you trust who use those tools. We all have had to learn and we like to help.

3. Don’t stop until you write.

Some days the ideas and the writing will all come together in a beautiful two-part harmony. Flow. Joy. Happiness. Productivity.

Other days, they act like two strangers who can barely speak each other’s names. And on those days it’s your job to bring them together. Hand-eye coordination is mastered in the batting cage. Idea-writing coordination is mastered on the daily blogging practice.

Don’t stop until you write does not mean you have to publish. It does mean you have to write. Save those posts where you struggle as drafts. Come back to them later. I guarantee there will something useful gained from not only saving them as a draft, but reviewing them.

Batters bat their way out of a slump. Bloggers blog their way out of a slump.

3A. Keep writing...

On those days where the ideas and the writing will all come together in a beautiful two-part harmony...keep writing. Keep writing for the time set aside...or longer. You can publish all your results that same day. Or you can schedule them for a later date(s).

A batter keeps batting when his bat is hot. A bloggers keeps blogging when their brain is hot.

Reminder: Blogging aps let us blog from home, the airport, from our offices...anywhere, offline or on. Blogging practice is merely writing practice. Unlike batting practice, you can take blogging practice from almost anywhere.

Highlights from My Conversation with Todd Sattersten, author of Fixed-to-Flexible

Todd Sattersten joined the show last week. We wanted to talk about his new, and great book: Fixed to Flexible: Four Simple Lessons About Cost, Price, Margin and The OptionsAvailable to The 21st Century Business.

You can listen to our conversation here.

I’m a firm believer in that if you admire and respect folks, well, you should tell them. Right to their face or voice in this case. Todd’s one of those rare individuals who...packs a heart with smarts. Intellectually, Todd could hold his own with almost anybody. And those who may not, there may be a few...he’s smart enough to listen until he can.

And for those he clearly surpasses, he’s kind enough and articulate enough to make them feel they are his equal, sharing their unique solutions and views of the world. Those two, the big heart, the sharp mind, get applied creating friends and partners and fans wherever he goes because he helps them reach their goals. And quietly allows them all the rewards.

Any business, any size, can benefit from reading Todd's new book. And it’s free as a download.

Let’s talk about your new book. Fixed to Flexible: Four Simple Lessons About Cost, Price, Margin and The Options Available to The 21st Century Business.

Congrats. When did it go live?

It went up on Groundhog Day – my most favorite day of the year.

Our friend, Erika Andersen, has a phrase I love. The phrase is reasonable aspiration or hoped-for goal. What was your ‘reasonable aspiration’ or ‘hoped-for goal’ in writing this book?

There has been so much conversation around price in the last couple of years. I thought I could connect a different set of pieces together that people may have not thought of or seen before. I wanted people to think differently about what pricing means and what options people have available to them. Understanding that you have more options creates more power as you go to do things.

How will you know when you have reached it? What will change about your life?

I know I have reached it already because of the feedback. I have received more feedback on this project in just two weeks than all the feedback on the 100 Best Business Books of All Time.

Note: Todd co-wrote with Jack Covert of 800CEORead. Also, a great book.

There is clearly something that is ringing true with people regarding cost, margins, price and decisions.

How has it changed your life?

The way it has changed my life is that it make me realize that I need to do more projects.

You compiled a lot of research and case studies for this book. Where were you most surprised? Was it some data or a case-study?

I think the thing I found most interesting was a case study on a company called EverNote. They are a web-based service: I like to call it digital memory. You can upload anything and store it. I think it pulls together a whole set of ideas of the next business models that will evolve. It is a free service – about 2.2 million people utilize it for FREE. It is fully supported by 40,000 that pay $5.00 a month for the premium service. His model actually works and I love seeing that.

Note: Todd's interview with EverNote's CEO

Note: I use Evernote. It’s surprisingly cool, simple and very useful. And I've just touched some of its uses.

Who is your audience? More specifically, describe thereader you had in your mind as you wrote this book.

I was speaking to the sort of person that is like you and I, Zane: independent- creatives that are doing a variety of projects for people, whether they are assisting with customer service or graphic designers, copy writers or people with project ideas they want to commercialize. Pricing is the single most important decision people have to make and I didn’t really see a good resource to help with this. People need to know how to charge, what their products are worth, and different options. I think it ended up appealing to a wider audience but it was focused towards people who are trying to launch a project and how they should go about doing that.

Why do they need this book? What pain of theirs are you solving?

1. The unique connection of stuff. It connects the dots. It pulls together material that probably is spread over ten books and 50 websites.

2. It solves the pain of what am I going to do? They are not sure of their options. I try to convince people that there is a wider array of options available to them in terms of how they are going to market.

What are the 4 simple lessons about cost, price, margin and the options...?

If you are in business you concentrate on these things:

1. Costs - Costs are always going down. You have to manage with that. For the last 20 years the costs of hard drives have gone down 5% per quarter.

2. Price - Price is a signal. One concept I talk about is anchoring and you can sway someone’s perception about cost or product by anchoring them with a number beforehand. For example retail price tags: here is the old price- here is OUR new price.

3. Margins - Margin is when you connect price and cost together. It is the most important measure in business. It is like your weight. How many calories are you taking in versus how many you are burning tells you where your weight is at. You have control over price and costs.

4. Options - You Have Options. There are more ways than you realize how to go to market. Price discrimination is a way to create different price points for the consumer.

Time is another point. I am trying to connect all the commercial aspects of business together: sales, customer service, purchasing and pull these into one bundle and say you have many options and flexibility in terms of how you go to market.

28:57

Which lesson did we, collectively, fail as a country in the run up to this recession?

The one thing that strikes me is that money was cheap. When Greenspan set the discount rate to zero, it was here pricing got way out of whack by the fact that cheap money was available. As we are trying to get back to some semblance of order now, but I don’t think we will get past some of the problems we have been experiencing for the last 20 years.

Does our economic recovery wait while we learn this lesson? Or does one of the other 4 lessons turn us around?

It is interesting watching the status quo and the players in creating the situation we have got ourselves into.

We have a ton more options available to us.

Let us believe that we are smarter than we were. We need to understand that emotion is a powerful driver in decision-making and we need to have some speed bumps – breaking mechanisms in our free market system and they need to be balanced to stop the things that have happened over the past couple of years.

Do the 4 lessons apply equally to small businesses and large?

Yes they do. The power of the e-book is that I believe small businesses have a greater ability to apply these lessons than big business. Big business runs a little differently and small businesses are more flexible and creative in going to market. In the digital realm you have even more options, especially in book publishing. You can choose your price. I think small business has the ability to be more creative, but you have to get over the fear of pricing and product offering.

Let's say you're founder of a startup. Which lesson would keep you awake at night wondering if anybody gets it at your startup?

It continues to be price because there is no perfect answer to price. On the cost side, you can price shop the cost of the needed product. You can pay what you want to pay. When you get into the pricing aspect, there are many things that don’t have a set price – like a home or a car. There is plenty of leeway.

I am a big fan of cash-flow. That's the number I always talk about. Cash makes you king. Keep the cash flowing in and you are the king. And with banks no longer lending to small businesses, it's even more important. You reference a quote from Bo Burlingham of Inc magazine that says gross margin is the most important. Why is gross margin so important?

It tells you how hard you have to work. It tells you how many sales you need. As a business owner, at the end of the day you need to know that you make enough money to thrive. If you don’t understand the margin, you can very easily get yourself under water. Companies go out of business because they run out of money. The margin is what you get to take home at the end of the day. Margin tells you time. You need to be bringing in more money than you are spending.

44:47

In your book, great book again, you talk about an experiment by behavioral economist Dan Ariely usingWalt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass. What was that experiment?

Dan has done a lot of interesting experiments on how we perceive value. He wanted to see how his students would perceive value. He told them that he was going to have a poetry reading and it would cost $2.00 to attend. He sent out an email and only 3% would attend. This was not very promising. He made a second offer – which was free attendance. The percentage jumped to 35%.

He approached a second set of students and told them that he would pay them $2.00 to attend. 59% said they were interested. He then made a different offer, saying that the event would be free. The attendance rate dropped to 8%.

The response rates depended on the initial offer. The point is that you have a much more significant ability of how people value your product than you realize. You can construct value around what you do.

As I read it, I kept thinking about the efforts of the Big Three recently to offer more and more incentives to buy. Yes, they increased sales. But did they create repeat customers? Would making their products free have helped? What would have happened if they let the buyer determine the price of the car?

You have to understand that if it is a pay what you want, you may not recover your costs to provide the product or service. You might need a “lower limit.” I think it is tough for someone who offers a physical product to use this methodology.

What books are you reading?

Most books that are coming out are around the idea of action and work. It started with Dan Pink’s Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us. It was a simplified model of how we should think about motivation.

Seth Godin’s book: Linchpin: Are You Indispensable? One of the ideas is how when we used to go to work, someone always told us what to do. Now we have to create our own maps. Defeat the “lizard brain.”

2 days ago I talked with Chip Heath, co-author of “Switch: How to Change Things When Change is Really Hard” which is about change.

(Listen to Todd's interview with Chip Heath.)

Rework by the guys from 37 Signals. It is about work and how we do stuff.

Thanks, Todd.

My testimonial for Todd's book. This is a short book. But I found the content and ideas and yes formulas made it a powerful book. A book I wish I'd read...a few years ago. All of it was so good, compact, crisp, I first grumbled what a headache. Disclaimer: I'm an art major. But as I read it again and again I saw the beauty of it. It opens the door to seeing your business in a brand new light, a light that can allow you to create new products, new services, new markets, with compelling gross margins and cash-flows to make and keep you king.

It’s your choice

There was a TV ad ( back in the day when a remote wasn’t handy) about air filters for autos. And the tag line was You can pay me now or you can pay me later.

Obviously, the first option, pay me now for their high quality air filter, was preferred as it was cheaper immediately and in the long term.

You can take that same tag line and apply it to your employees, their training, their culture, their tools and resources and the mission and purpose they can create.

You can pay now or you can pay later. It’s your choice.

You can now with your trust and training.

Wegman's Food Market chose to pay now. It lets its employees make their own decisions no matter what the customer situation. “No customer is allowed to leave unhappy.” is the rule. They invest in 40 hours per year on training to back up their employees’ natural instincts to do the right thing.

Their employee turnover is 7.5% vs their industry average of 19%.

Zappos chooses to pay now. It spends 4 weeks training their new hires. And then, at the end, offers them a bonus of $1000 to leave.

1% of their new hires take the offer and leave.

BTW, Zappos grew from $2 million in sales to over $1 billion in sales...in less than a decade.

Zane’s Cycles ( I love this company already) allows prospects to take bicycles for test rides. Yeah, ok, you might say. But these bikes can cost as much as $6000. Yeah, ok, you’re still saying. And Zane (smart guy, you can tell from the name.) lets them test ride these bikes without asking for ID, credit card, any type of collateral.

Less than 1/10th of 1% of the bikes they sell each year are stolen. Of 4000 bikes sold, only 5 have been stolen or taken for a test ride that hasn’t ended, yet.

Oh, and their annual growth rate is 23% since they opened in 1981.

What is your employee turnover rate? Is it less than your industry average? How much do you pay then to recruit, train, re-train, clean up the messes from your employee turnover?

What is your growth rate? Would you be willing to let less than 1/10th of 1% of your products walk out your door if you could reach 23% annual growth rate?

Clearly, these decisions are part of a fabric of decisions that create a culture where employees and customers are trusted, trained, given the tools and resources to succeed in delivering an inspiring experience for themselves and their customers.

Clearly these decisions cost money. And time. And patience.

But given their results, is their really a choice? Obviously there is as some, most, companies have chosen differently.

You can pay now or you can pay later. It’s your choice.

Note: these examples came from Jeanne Bliss in her book I Love You More Than My Dog. I love this book. Not more than my dog. But I love this book. She includes many, many, examples of how companies and the 5 decisions that create customer loyalty. And Jeanne spoke with me last week about her book, our shared passion for great customer service and the companies that deliver it. You can listen in streaming on-demand at this link.

Top Three Myths of Customer Service

Barry Moltz burst 19 myths about customer service.

He burst them wide-open in his excellent book, B-A-M! Bust a Myth: Delivering Customer Service in a Self-Service World.

He was a guest recently on my radio show. I asked him during the show the following question:

You list 19 customer service myths in your book. What are your favorite three myths?

Here's what he answered:

1. The customer is always right. This was started in the 1900s by a French hotelier. Guess what, they are not always right and it is not good for business if we treat the customer like they are always right.

2. Customer service is just plain common sense. That is just plain ludicrous. Just like any other skill, it needs to be trained and developed. I think this is why Zappos does so well. They train their people.

3. Under promise and over deliver. Why are you under-promising?

You can listen to all of Barry's thoughts on his book, what role customer service plays now (hint: VERY important), first steps to create your own version of BAM Good Service, and more.  Just listen in streaming on-demand at this link.

Here are more highlights from my conversation with Barry Moltz.

3 easy steps to insure 29% of your employees care

Paul Herr, author of Primal Management, was a guest on my radio show last week. We spoke about his book, his Horsepower Survey, the science of employee engagement and the current state of affairs in creating engaged employees.

In his brochure for his Horsepower Survey, he writes that a recent Gallup poll found only 29% of employees care about their work. The other 71% just go through the motions.

I asked him: What are the three most popular ways companies inspire only 29% of their employees to care about their work?

His answer:

You mean how do companies screw up about motivating their employees? We can’t blame companies for this – it is just the complexities of modern civilization and emotions of motivation.

There are some specific things that companies do that stop or harm the motivational engine:

1. One would be having a hyper-rational stand offish attitude towards employees and looking at them as objects – not having true and authentic relationships with your workforce. That is the key problem.

2. Another one is lack of praise. There is an extreme lack of attaboys out there.

3. This whole hierarchical command structure doesn’t work well with human nature. All the glory goes to the people at the top and everyone else is left out.

In summary,

1). remember you’re the boss and they’re not. Make sure they understand that in every action you do. Make sure they look at the org chart regularly to see you prominently listed ABOVE them.

2). Don’t praise. In fact, don’t allow eye contact from those who labor to make you look good, earn your bonus.

3). Keep all the glory for yourself. You’re higher on the org chart, right?

But...if you want to insure the inverse, that 71% of your employees care here are some tips:

1). Remember they’re your boss. Your role is to serve. You do that by providing clear direction, removing obstacles, providing tools and resources, embracing their ideas as their ideas arise from their experience and desire to succeed. ( Implied in that is that you, we, stop using the term 'employee'. I don't have an effective replacement. I'm working on it, though.)

2). Praise early, often and late. If you can’t find reasons to do that, then revisit the previous tip.

3) Give the glory away to those who deserve it. By insuring they achieve it, deserve it, you prove your worth as a leader.

Oh. And if you’re still not motivated to make these changes then consider the cost. It’s estimated it costs our economy $1.3 trillion when 29% of us care about our work. Does it make you squeamish to think what it costs your company?

You can read more highlights from our conversation here.

You can listen in streaming on demand at this link to our full conversation.

PS: You should.

Highlights from My Conversation with Barry Moltz, Author of B-A-M! Bust A Myth

Customer Service is the new marketing. For me this seems so...well, obvious. But, then I came up through the ranks of frontline customer service. What was your business other than serving customers? I love the esoterics of business models and partner deals and joint ventures. While the freemium business model today and the eye-ball business model of the 90’s are useless by themselves, they always made me chuckle. So I guess that’s some value-add. But all of their success came back to serving customers in a way that no one else could serve them. Otherwise, especially these days, as customers we can take our wants and needs, our attention, our word-of-mouth, our loyalty, oh and our purchases...somewhere else. And do it in a snap.

Barry Moltz shares this view. In fact, I believe it’s embedded in his DNA. Barry’s founded and run small business with success and failure for 15 years. He’s the author of three books:

• Bounce: The path to true business confidence

• You need to be a little CRAZY: The truth about starting and growing your business

•  Bust a Myth: Delivering Customer Service in a Self-Service World.

We discussed his latest book BAM: Bust a Myth: Delivering Customer Service in a Self-Service World and Barry’s thoughts in his book, how and why a serial entrepreneur found the religion of customer service and what it can mean for your company’s success.

You can listen in streaming on-demand at this link.

First off, I gotta say I’ve always been a fan of yours. That didn’t mean I agreed with what you wrote, how you wrote it. But you wrote it, shared it, shared your successes and failures. And got up and did it again, amen. And I always benefited. And clearly there are many of us. Thank you.

Now, let’s talk about this new book: BAM: Bust a Myth. I love it. I love that a serial entrepreneur puts Customer Service first by busting myths about it.

Why, as an entrepreneur did you feel the need to bust these myths about customer service?

I think when people start a business they keep thinking that a competitive advantage is a patent they have. I believe that unless you are a monopoly, the only advantage you have is the customer service you offer.

You list 19 customer service myths in your book. What are your favorite three myths?

1. The customer is always right. This was started in the 1900s by a French hotelier. Guess what, they are not always right and it is not good for business if we treat the customer like they are always right.

2. Customer service is just plain common sense. That is just plain ludicrous. Just like any other skill, it needs to be trained and developed. I think this is why Zappos does so well. They train their people.

3. Under promise and over deliver.

How did you come about to this realization? With most businesses, customer service is always last on their mind. What transformed you to the fact that it is the only sustainable advantage for business today?

I think that over the last ten years, being a speaker, consultant and coach, it is the only competitive advantage that I have. It is more than lip service. We need to be serious about it.

I was coming in from Chicago yesterday and I caught a cab and half way through the trip the taxi driver had forgotten to turn on the meter. I knew how much it would cost from my house to the airport! When he had picked me up, he took luggage, put it in the trunk and opened the door for me. When we arrived at my house, the fare was posted at $15.00. I gave him $30.00 for his great customer service.

We need to train everyone from the top down –making CS training effective.

Just the common act of courtesy and connecting is sometimes lost with what we are teaching today.

The biggest thing is that most people who call with a concern just want to be listened to. They want to know that someone cares. Customers just want to know they have been heard – their concern has validity at the moment.

Myths usually contain 2 elements. A lack of good data and an excess of convenience for their believers. What data was missing that created these myths? Whose convenience was supplied with the spread of these myths?

I think people are just plain lazy.

People want to deliver at a cost effective price.

People don’t have training or action to make it happen.

People think it is common sense- every customer is the same. It is not true. In BAM, we talk about that what a satisfied customer is changes from customer to customer, from situation to situation. THAT is why Customer Service is so difficult to do well in a company.

A good sign that a myth-buster is on to something is when those with vested interests in maintaining their myths push-back. They disagree, they call you names, they fight you, then they accept. What kind of push-back have you had?

People say this is nonsense – asking why we need yet another book on Customer Service?

Society is not getting it yet. The essence of Customer Service has changed over the past couple of years.

One is that businesses are location independent and you have to have a sustainable customer advantage like Customer Service.

The second thing is web personalization that companies do has changed the whole playing field. Customer Service is changing because of social media and the web. You can tell 10s of thousands of people and it goes viral.

I’m going to push back on one. Myth Number 10. Unhappy customers tell their stories to more people than happy customers.

I don’t have the reports and studies that support this. But, I remember seeing 3-4 studies that support this. Anecdotally, though I try not to, I tend to tell more people about a disappointing company than a satisfying company.

Where’s the gap? What am I missing?

I think a lot of people like to complain. There are a lot of people out there who just want to talk about what happens to them.

What about the people in the middle? The companies have to find these people who don’t say anything.

Chapter 3 in your book is titled Determining the Value of Customer Service. What is the Value of good customer service or BAM-Good customer service for a company?

I think this is the crux of the book. The only reason why we should offer BAM good customer service is because it makes good economic service for business. The bottom line is giving great customer service will make your business more money.

How does it answer these three questions from a company’s perspective?

1. What’s in it for a company?

2. Why should they care?

3. Why should I believe?

Long term they are going to:

• get more customers,

• retain more customers, and...
  

• make more money.
  

IF they can just realize they have the information and skills, but they are just not using them.

I’ve worked at companies where they calculate the value of a customer by subtracting the costs of a customer service call from the total expected revenue of that customer. You take a more comprehensive approach in assigning customer value.

We have a detailed formula called "Customer Value Calculation" and we look at 8 different items because we need to understand if a customer is valuable and profitable.

How much revenue do they bring in?

Do these people pay on time?

We also look at referrals. They can be positive and valuable.

How long have they been with us?

Are they a major brand?

The 8 items are:

1). Revenue ( add points based on customer's rank in revenues paid)

2). Timing ( add 2 points)

3). Referrals ( add 4 points )

4). Additional Products They Buy ( add 3 points)

5). Feedback They Give You ( add 1 point )

6). Stickiness ( add 2 points )

7). Brand Power (add 4 points)

8). Unhappy Customer (subtract 2 points)

Note: See Page 65 - 66 for more details.

Brand power is very important. If I as a speaker can drop names of who I have done business with, it helps my brand. It translates into additional business. The customer’s brand brings value to your brand.

In chapter 6 you talk about How to deliver BAM-Good Customer Service in a self-service world. What’s the first step? Why?

This is a good point.

1. One thing you have to do to BAM your own company is to bust your own myth. What things are holding you back from offering really great customer service?

2. Then you have to define customer service for your company as you want it to be.

3. After that you must determine the economic value of your customer. It doesn’t have to use the same formula that I use, but a comprehensive way to value your customers.

4. We have BAM Blockers. What gets in the way of you offering great Customer Service? What processes or systems prevent this?

5. You have to write your own manifesto.

6. Decide how you will measure and deliver Customer Service?

7. How do you handle the atypical customer that color outside the lines from the best to the worst.

28:31

What are the most important metrics that report a company’s BAM Good Customer Service?

The Net Promoter Score or repeat business and referrals.

In your current business, what would be 3 metrics you would use to confirm you are delivering the Customer Service you want your customers to have?

1. How much biz do people do with me?

2. Do they pay their bills on time?

3. Do they refer me to other people?

I love the 3 question survey that delivers the The Net Promoter Score. The survey is called The Ultimate Question survey. The Ultimate Question starts with the ultimate question How likely would you be to recommend us to your friends...etc. On a scale of 0 -10 with 0 being definitely would not and 10 being definitely would...how likely are you to recommend us to a friend or colleague?

You reference Fred Reichheld and the Net Promoter Score ... methodology. What do you think of it?

I like it. One of our questions is “How can I make your more satisfied?” That is what I believe is one of the ultimate Customer Service questions.

Another thing I really like about this chapter is you customized this for 3 stakeholders: The CEO, the manager, the front-line Customer Service person. And rather, than be the expert, you offered a series of questions they should ask themselves. You’ve already burst myths, shouldn’t you bring order to their world by offering a plan?

I think we do offer a plan in the book. I believe the most help we can offer is to ask the right questions and they can bring that back to their business, it will go a much longer way to help that company. One size does not fit all. Ask the questions that fit for you and this will make a long term difference.

One stakeholder not included is the sales person. What are your thoughts on that?

They are front line and very important! That would be a whole new book.

If asking your customers what they want, what they think about your service is so important...and it is...why do so many companies avoid it?

First of all, I think people are lazy. Customer Service is what any one customer thinks at one particular time that will make them satisfied. As I said, it is not one size fits all. It is difficult and they don’t want to tackle that problem.

Secondly, I think most people can’t handle the truth.

Now what happens when their answers are just unreasonable? You talk about firing customers? In a recession? When does a company fire a customer?

We go through many things in the book to identify this. If you go through the process, you can realize if the customer is going to actually cost you more than the revenue you are bringing in or it deflects you from bringing in new customers. It is not in line with your business. It is not an overnight process though.

What are the first steps in that action plan to fire a customer?

1. You have to identify who those customers are.

2. If you are no longer helping them.

3. If your skills are no longer needed.

4. They are disregarding your advice.

5. They are not part of the business.

6. They aren’t willing or able to pay the price.

7. They are not profitable, legal, or ethical.

Then you go on and revisit the Customer Service evaluation. See what they are really giving to you and see then how you can replace that revenue. Start dropping hints to them.

Erika Andersen, in her book Being Strategic, uses the term reasonable aspiration or hoped-for goal. What was yours in writing this book?

I think again was to make Customer Service new again. To show in self-service and social media world that Customer Service is the new marketing.

You don’t always have a chance today to interact directly. You have an opportunity to be more personal if you just do it right.

I want people to understand that things have changed and if you don’t do things right, you won’t have business for too long, unless you are a monopoly.

How will you know when you reach it?

I think depending on the measures and metrics you use, those things will change. You will know that when you have happy customers, they will stay.

Let’s leave with a story. What’s been your best customer service experience recently? And what myths were burst to deliver that experience?

I am getting ready to go to Asia and I went in to MooseJaw looking for various types of items in the store. I found a pair that I liked, but I hate to buy shoes unless I know the costs from Amazon and Zappos. After the salesperson showed me the shoes, she saw that I was looking up prices on my iPhone. She said you don’t have to look it up – let’s go to our computer right here.

THIS was great customer service for me. The price was about the same and I bought them right there.

43:12

People buy when they are ready to solve their pain.

What myths did MooseJaw bust to deliver that experience?

1. They really said how am I going to make this person more satisfied?

I am more satisfied knowing that I got the best price. They busted the myth that you shouldn't encourage customers to comparison shop.

I believe the woman was really trained to do this.

What has been the worst customer experience lately?

Yesterday with AA. I was on a standby flight out of CT. I had called and knew there were seats available. When I got to the gate I asked about a seat and the attendant said she couldn’t give me a seat because it was a small plane and had to make sure "there was enough fuel to take you.

BUT if you confirm your reservation by paying me an additional $50.00 I can definitely take you. "

I am an Executive Platinum flyer with AA and travel thousands of miles every year.

I always stress the life time value of the customer. This was not BAM good customer service in any manner.

I saw that you wrote a great blog post, Small Business Needs More than Just Presidential Talk. It was in response to President Obama’s ideas on spurring small business and entrepreneurs.

What is disconcerting is that enough is not happening. Money is not flowing downwards.

Where can people find you, follow you, connect with you, on the web?

• Main Website

• B-A-M Good Customer Service

• Twitter: Barry Moltz

• LinkedIn

Thanks, Barry.

6 Steps to Overcoming Writer's Block

You blog, you tweet, you podcast, you youtube...you encounter writer’s block. All of these social media resources turn us all into...writers. And writers face writer’s block eventually.

I’ve blogged almost daily for 4 and 1/2 years now. There are a few things I have found work to overcome writer’s block. Here they are:

Write: There’s only one way to overcome writer’s block and that’s to write. Bring up your word doc or bring up a sheet of paper and pen/pencil. Then write on it.

That act alone gets me out of my head. It stops the I don’t have anything to write. I’m not inspired...Can I have some cheese with this whine. Ok, I don’t say that last sentence; my wife does. Deservedly.

Now I’m looking at, in my case, the screen.

Now I start to write.

Write the keyword. Not sure what to write? Write the keyword. If the topic is innovation then write the... innovation.

Now, write the first thing that comes to mind. I write a few sentences. Now, usually, I am off to the races.

Gather your sources

To do that, I scan through my twitter lists and groups on Hootsuite.

I have gathered tweeters into either Twitter lists (big list) or HootSuite groups (filtered list). Each list/group is organized for the daily meme on my blog: healthcare, small business/leadership, social media/marketing/branding, innovation/collaboration, failure and its role in our success. That’s the memes Monday - Friday.

Each day I can scan that group for their links and conversations.

I favorite the tweets of interest. Favoriting, in either the Twitter or Hootsuite, works and feeds to both.

I also review my rss reads. I have them sorted by categories of interest: social media, small business, leadership, innovation. These are some of the daily memes for my blog posts.

Identify a common thread.

I always find 3-5 favorites around a common theme. It could be several perspectives with the same opinion. Or it could be same issue, differing opinions.

That begins to jog my brain. Either I see conflicting opinions, contradictory data or consistent data and conversation on that common theme.

Drill down.

Now I click on the links in these favorited tweets. That step is to gather more detailed information, supporting quotes, broaden my perspective and educate both myself and my readers. It definitely works for the first and I hope the second.

By now, I have the content I need and my brain and fingers are now engaged.

Some other steps and resources.

Caffeine: Tea, coffee, espresso, whatever. They are called stimulants. They stimulate. Sometimes a little mental stimulation from my favorite wonder-drug, caffeine, is all I need.

Aerobics: Same principle is at work here. The increased aerobic functioning is stimulating. Heart beats faster, pumps more blood, delivers more oxygen. And where is the biggest train station for the greatest amount of blood newly replenished with oxygen? The brain. Think about it. Or go for a run.

Deadlines: Deadlines push me out of the indulgence of obsessively word-smithing. And, I do write better, often, under pressure. Many people do.

Sleep: None of this works if we are chronically sleep-deprived. Do not pass go, do not waste time on anything else than this issue. Do this first. This is a systemic issue. The points above are tactical steps you can take to solve an immediate challenge. Sorta like having good tactics and a bad strategy. See the difference? No? Get some sleep.

I'm done.

Try these, some or all of them. Let me know if they work for you.

Got better ways to break writer's block? Share them in the comments. We all need all the help we can get. We all have great and wonderful ideas waiting to be expressed.

Photo credit: iStockPhoto, Joe Cicak.

4 Themes from 3 Startup Successess

BusinessWeek profiles 3 startups and their keys to success. Their businesses are a dog and horse boarding ranch and kennel, an architecture design firm and a staffing provider. The companies and links to their sites are listed below.

I was struck by the themes they shared in their success.

Do what you know, what you love, and that utilize your strengths.

Ultimately, owning your own business is a labor of love. You better love your labors because you’ll be laboring a lot.

Hire the best people. Hire people better than yourself.

It’s the players that win the game...Hire people better than me and make sure those hires get in the habit of hiring people that are better than them.

Part of my growth strategy was to pick people who have expertise in areas that we didn't.

You expand your number one asset. That's your human asset. That's the asset the creates, delivers, sustains and grows your brand. Finding better people means finding better assets to grow your business.

Manage your cash

• Fire your clients when they can’t pay their bills.

• Recycle. Cash. Recycle, reinvest, cash into your business.

• Pay off your debt fast.

• Lengthen your revenues. Add to your current revenue sources.

Network, network, network.

Word-of-mouth remains the best, most effective form of advertising.

Get out in your community. I get out there in the community and I have a good working relationship with the area veterinarians. Most of my business comes from word of mouth. I do almost no print advertising.

Companies Profiled:

* Resource Options provides staffing solutions to the construction, environmental, engineering and information technology industries.

* Space Architectural Design, making the world a better place, one space at a time.

* BYD Ranch and Kennel, where no job is too big or too small, our main desire is to make you feel like part of the family

3 Ways to Build Your Tribe

I spoke with Ed Welch earlier this year. Ed is the author of 101 Ways to Destroy Your Tribe. You can download it for free at his website Tribe Building. Listen at this link to Ed's thoughts on his book, why he wrote it, what it meant, and Ed's ideas on building sustainable tribal connections with your customers

Ed's expertise in ways to destroy a tribe, a brand, comes from his passion in building tribes and customer connections. Ed's also a keen and humble observer of business. He shared 3 ways to build your tribe.

1. When a customer walks away, make sure they have a good feeling. You want your customers to know and feel that you care.

2. Actively seek out customers to help your business. If you are real honest with your customers, they will share their preferences and thoughts about your company. Call and ask them their opinion. By doing this small, simple gesture, your customer will also feel valued and pleased to provide you with their inner most thoughts about your company. This will help to build your tribe.

3. Do not follow the tips in the 101 book.

Note the ratio of ways to build a tribe of loyal customers to ways to destroy your tribe of loyal customers; it's 3:101. 3 ways to build it; 101 ways to destroy it.

Thanks, Ed. Go OSU!

PS: Just for dark humor, and due diligence, here's Ed's 4 Favorite Ways to Destroy Your Tribe. Read it. Chuckle at them. Audit your brand's promises and your delivery of them. Make sure you're not killing your brand, softly, with them.

Radio Show Guest Highlights: Krishna De, founder of BizGrowth News

Krishna De is an award winning digital marketing, brand engagement and social media author, speaker, commentator and mentor. Her expertise in personal branding and leveraging online marketing and social media is featured in several highly acclaimed books including World Wide Rave published by Wiley and The Career Doctor: How To Get And Keep The Job You Want published by Currach Press. She is considered by the media and clients alike to be one of Europe’s leading brand engagement, Employer Branding, Personal Branding, digital marketing and social media communications strategists.

She joined me last week to talk about social media, personal branding and what’s changed over this past tumultuous year.

She joined me recently on my BlogTalk Radio show. You can listen in streaming on-demand at this link to our conversation.

Krishna De. How are you? Where are you? What are you doing? No one wants stalkers but you’re always up to something grand. So bring us current.

I am still in the place of educating and encouraging people to adopt social media with business leaders. The economy has definitely had an impact on communication plans.

Looking at your website I see you have a completely new site with masterclasses in twitter, linkedin and Facebook, and a mastermind class in Biz Growth. You offer all sorts of free resources for marketers. You use video, podcasts, text posts and more. Let’s talk about the free content. Why free? Why do you and so many others like bloggers, offer free advice, wisdom and content.

I was running an even yesterday for a digital media marketing group. Some of the members of the group do not believe in sharing anything with anyone on their website. I take a totally different approach. If I can provide you with content and sharing what people will be interested in, there will be some people who will become clients, while others will just take the information and run with it on their own. I do believe that if you share that information and are generous with it, it will all come back to you. The content there has really benefited me and my readers. I want to make sure that if I am the person for you, you have learned enough about me and I have taken the risk out of getting to know me.

Out of all of the content on your site, which one generates the most tangible results? And why do you think that is?

Looking at the analytics and tracking, sometimes it is a surprise to me and it also depends on how easy it is for people to find content. Video is huge this year too. One of the things that I have found is that people still like audio. I do put show notes and content around them too. There are still audios that are popular from over five years ago. People can listen at any time in any location.

What has been the biggest shift in social media and in the past 12 months? What has been the driver for that change?

Twitter has exploded in the past year. I have seen the adoption of Twitter by celebrities, reporting information which has lead to journalists watching for breaking news.

Facebook has made very significant changes for businesses with their pages. I also see that companies are starting to explore other platforms.

The Fortune 500 companies are becoming more involved. Video has also had an impact. Some services have also come and gone: Magnolia was a social bookmarking tool here. That is long gone now.

I look at social media communications as a platform strategy, how is my content, what is my risk plan, how am I making sure that I am out there. I may have a preference, but I have to be in many places in order to meet the needs of my audience. We can’t just stick with our preferences as we may limit our reach. I try to look at it as how do I meet you, the potential customer, on YOUR terms, where you like to play?

I like to think about it in the Harry Potter experience. Great Brand! Some people like to watch the film. Others like to listen to the audio book. Others like to watch the DVD. Others want the personal experienced in the theatre and still others want the book. It can be challenging for us, but we must think about repurposing our content to meet all of the needs.

What social media resource or resources are you using now that you weren’t last year? Why?

I have! I might try something out and explore different areas and some of my time each week is learning about them to enable me to share them. Posterous is one that I registered with as an easy way to blog. I tested it out awhile ago. I actually just went back to it after one year and saw others exploring it. I like the new platform. I use this tool as an adjunct to my other social media. It lets me bring new content and different ideas – I can also cross link to other platforms. I really like it. It is another way to bring it all together.

28:10

Where or with what community is social media having its biggest impact? Business? Government? Teens? Moms?

Government: we have had local elections here upping their game with social media.
Charity: many non-profits are exploring it. We have Twestivals to raise funds for charities. Also organizations like LiveStrong have gone global. Here Lance Armstrong had put out a tweet about a ride…1200 people showed up to ride. The word spread from just one tweet! It was amazing. When he was meeting people, they wanted to know how was the LiveStrong conference. They weren’t asking about cycling. They also inquired about his thoughts on Dublin.

There are doubters about the power of social media. Why do you think there is still some hesitancy?

I did some workshops this week…there was a group of Facebook people and also some Twitter skeptics.

One company I met with is ready to move forwards with Social Media. They were concerned about: could someone impersonate us on Twitter? On another level they were concerned that they don’t get something right.

There is fear and some companies don’t understand the use of social media. I tell them they need to at least start listening. Companies must monitor their brand online. They have to learn where to start.

They want to know how much time does it take to start, how long does it take to put up a post and so forth. It is about educating them and letting them make the choice for each of those channels. They have to learn how to do a couple of things really well. They can learn what they can do quickly and how to repurpose their content.

41:48

Start with one thing, understand it and move on-they can’t just quit after a short amount of time. They must learn to integrate it and see the power of social media. Many of the platforms are easy for us to access, but we need to set up enough time to educate ourselves on how to use them. It is worthwhile to invest the time to learn the platforms and invest in your business.

People have to find out for themselves what is relevant for their audience. It is good to test different platforms to see what works best and get your feet wet. Know what your goal is, who you want to connect with.

What are three misconceptions about social media to building a brand?

1. It is not relevant for you. For most businesses social media could enhance your communication plan either inside your business or with a particular stakeholder group.
2. It is free. The platform might be free, but the investment could be either time or money to invest in it.
3. Using an intern. You can’t just use someone who is young and inexperienced. I am not suggesting that they can’t do it, but they may not be the best choice for your communication plan. It can be more hurtful for your business. You need someone who is going to engage.

Can you share with us one case study with a client who “got it,” what did they do and what was the result?

One organization had gone to the search engine to answer a question that had to do with some specific training and their answer came up in a tweet, which was connected to a Facebook page, which had all of the details of the training and information they needed. They then booked that program (which was actually one of my clients).

Another case study was with a new business that hadn’t even launched yet but they are building their network, making friends and getting linked back in the search engines. They are building themselves to be credible in their area.

What are three four ways to build a strong personal brand?

1. Remember you already have a brand. Whether you know it or not or have tested it, you have a personal brand. Does it represent you and what you want people to see?
2. You cannot afford not to be found. You must be found in the search engines. You must look for yourself.
3. Do not leave your reputation at risk online or in the real world. Find out what people are going to find out about you online. You need to know this. Search your reputation. It is a great tool. Do that Google search for yourself every month and make sure it represents your professional profile.
4. If you are in the job search mode, consider LinkedIn!

You share great quotes on your website. Can you share with us you favorite quote:

You are what you tweet! 
 


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The Dirty Little Secret of Word-of-Mouth Marketing

Wha’? Word-of-mouth marketing has a secret? And it’s...dirty?

Maybe that’s harsh. Ok. Word-of-mouth marketing has an Uncle Ernie. Uncle Ernie’s not as big as a gorilla. But, he’s in the living room. And, everyone else is either ignoring him there or sitting at the table where Thanksgiving Dinner's being served.

Uncle Ernie here is the word-of-mouth that’s happening right now with your business. That’s right. Your business generates word-of-mouth marketing. Right now. In fact, your business has generated word-of-mouth advertising and marketing since before it even opened the doors for business.

Word-of-mouth was how you recruited your employees during your startup phase.

Word-of-mouth was how you convinced investors.

Word-of-mouth was how you sold your first product.

Three things about your Uncle Ernie, your organic inspired authentic Word-of-mouth, are too often forgotten:

1. You built your company from the ground up on a foundation of word-of-mouth. It’s how you gathered your core group of original stakeholders. They’re the ones who believed you. Believed your words. These core stakeholders are your first employees, your first investors, your first partners, your first customers
2. Only with word-of-mouth did you create your period of fastest growth.
3. You. Made. It. Happen. You brought Uncle Ernie, word-of-mouth for your organization to life. You gave it purpose, focus, meaning. That You includes your stakeholders: customers and employees, partners and vendors.

So, what happened? You forgot about what Uncle Ernie could do, had done for you. You forgot what you needed to do to keep that relationship strong with your original stakeholders.

You went off on your own. Understood. Part of growing up.

You got new friends. You wanted to run with the cool crowd. You turned your company into a poseur with pretty colors, a funny cartoon. You let your new friends take you off-reservation with a community site staffed with their interns pretending to be your customers.

Cool. We all make these mistakes.

Now that you have, and maybe costs are getting out of hand or revenues have stopped growing, go find Uncle Ernie. Give him a call or DM or email.

Call up your original stakeholders. Ask them how you wow them now. If you wow them now. Ask them how you wowed them, then. Ask them how they want to be wowed now.
Reacquaint yourself with those first customers. Ask them how are they doing? What do they need now? What are their big challenges? Do they still recommend you? Why? Why are they still loyal to you?
Do that with your employees. Have a heart-to-heart conversation. Revisit those glory days. Ask them how you/your brand got off track. Ask them to tell you how to get back on track, first with them, then with everyone else. They know.
Do the same for your partners and vendors.

Then ask your new friends, and their interns: What HAVE you done for me and my stakeholder and in particular, Uncle Ernie?

And save a piece of pie for your uncle. He’s earned it. So have you.

10 Legal Tips for Your Startups

Wow. This is a great list. It's comprehensive. It's well-written. It's written by an expert. 10 Essential Legal Tips for Startups at Formation, by George Grellas, a business and corporate lawyer specializing in early-stage tech startups with offices in Silicon Valley. 

Here's some highlighted excerpts from the post and my perspectives:

1. Set up your legal structure early and use cheap stock to avoid tax problems.

No small venture wants to invest too heavily in legal infrastructure at an early stage. If you are a solo founder working out of the garage, save your dollars and focus on development.

Bam! Right there, the author shows he understands the startup's reality. And he offers a realistic solution. Realistic here means: cash-flow sensitive.

2. Normally, go with a corporation instead of an LLC.

There are special cases where an LLC makes sense for a startup but these are comparatively few in number (e.g., where special tax allocations make sense, where a profits-only interest is important, where tax pass-through adds value). Work with a lawyer to see if special case applies. If not, go with a corporation.

Ok.

3. Be cautious about Delaware.

Delaware offers few, if any advantages, for an early-stage startup. The many praises sung for Delaware by business lawyers are justified for large, public companies. For startups, Delaware offers mostly administrative inconvenience.

Wow. Ok. I'd never heard this clarification before. But administrative inconvenience for a startup means death. Startups cannot afford administrative staff. Any administrative inconveniences then are handled by the founder or 1 of the other members of the already-short staff. Not good.

4. Use restricted stock for founders in most cases.

If a founder gets stock without strings on it, and then walks away from the company, that founder will get a windfall equity grant.

Makes sense. But when does a founder lose their role as primary decision-maker at the time stock is issued? This advice reads like "shutting the door after the cows are out". But, I'm sure I'm missing a key detail or two.

Regardless, the advice applies equally to all those who follow the founder into the startup. And founders and their minions often paint a picture of the future with pastels and soft hues of trust and conquering the world and people living saintly values of altruism.

6. Get technology assignments from everyone who helped develop IP.

Founders sometimes think they can keep IP in their own hands and license it to the startup. This does not work. At least the company will not normally be fundable in such cases. Exceptions to this are rare.

Ok. End of discussion. Anything that restricts funding options is not healthy for the startup.

8. Consider provisional patent filings.

Many startups have IP whose value will largely be lost or compromised once it is disclosed to the others. In such cases, see a good patent lawyer to determine a patent strategy for protecting such IP. If appropriate, file provisional patents. Do this before making key disclosures to investors, etc.

About the Author

George Grellas is a Silicon Valley business and corporate lawyer specializing in early-stage tech startups. He founded and heads a firm of startup business lawyers

I've never met Mr. Grellas. But,; in the event I found a tech startup I'll want to visit with him. You should, too, in that event. He has set up a firm of; startup business lawyers who have helped a lot of startups since 1984 in Silicon Valley. (Since 1984. That means he's survived the booms, the busts, the netscapes, and everything else in Silicon Valley over the past 25 years. )

Link to article from LegalRiver on Twitter.