How To Do More By Doing Less

There is a saying that “If it were easy, everyone would do it.”  Last night I was watching the Amazing Race.  It was interesting to watch a team try and land a LearJet simulator.  As an experienced pilot I found it remarkable how frustrated the teams got.  The last place team took twelve try’s and that was just a landing, no emergencies or bad weather.

Before I could laugh at the teams results, my wife said “Wow, I could never do that!”  and she has been in simulators.  Having nearly 12,000 hours of practice flying airplanes and simulators, I am pretty confident I could have done it in one try.  Two at worst, and if it took two I would be pretty embarrassed.  If asked to fill in for one of the teams like a “phone a friend” I would have gladly stepped in because after all of my years of practice it would be relatively easy for me to do.

Many books have been written on mastering a skill with 10,000 hours of practice.  The idea is that if you do anything for 10,000 hours you will be pretty good at it.  There are two other factors though.  One is natural talent.  

Are The "While We're At Its" Killing Your Day?

The Four Hour Christmas Tree and Train

Have you ever had one of those days where you felt like you didn’t get anything done?  One of those days where you are sitting at dinner an hour late and can’t seem to remember actually doing anything?

Have you ever had a project take several times longer than expected?  Something you thought would take a day and it took a week or maybe even longer.  

Does this happen to you on a regular basis?  It used to happen to me all the time.  When I ran a custom home electronics company, something most people would call a “Home Theater” business, it plagued us regularly,  The builders we worked with called it the “While we are at its”.  During construction the homeowner would see something they missed or didn’t like and decide to change it mid stream and poof, two days are added to the project.  

NAS Drive or Server, Which Should You Choose?

One of the personality traits that the military and airlines look for in pilots is a combination of perseverance and dedication to perfection.  There is a slang for this, and yes most people just say I am a little xxxx retentive.

When you put that together with a guy who has started several different businesses including a business focused on small business technology, some people think they have found their “go to guy” when they have a technology question.  A good portion of the calls I get from clients have nothing to do with my current business, instead they are related to one of my past businesses.  Since this question is a regular one, and not everyone has my number, I thought I would share a little knowledge about Small Business Servers, Windows Home Server and NAS systems.  My apologies to those computer support people reading this.

Grow A Small Business By Doing Less

In today’s market, small business owners have more going on than ever.  If you have a small business you are probably wondering “What is going on?”  You probably feel like there are so many opportunities, that you can’t possibly handle them all, and if you don’t handle them, you might be wondering how you are going to stay in business.

I have a lot of friends and customers who feel just like you do.  After doing a lot of research to understand how some small businesses make it and others don’t, I found something.

Scott Bourquin in 68' Mustang GT

It is pretty typical for a business owner to fail once, twice or more before really hitting their stride.  I wondered why that was.  I know I fall into this category.  When I took over my dad’s little mail order auto parts business, I didn’t know anything about anything in business.  I knew I had parts for 67’ and 68’ Mustangs, and a couple of customers who owned 67’ and 68’ Mustangs. 

Improve Your Business Just a Little Each Day

As a business owner, it is sometimes hard to sit down and read a book.  Most of the business owners I work with try to read something that helps their business and they don’t always get through it.  The chapters are too long or they just run out of time.

Over the weekend I sat down with a book that had very short chapters.  Most of them three pages, four if they had a cartoon included.  This is an easy book to keep on your desk and read just one chapter each day before you start work.  

The Daily Drucker was the first book I read this way.  Before that I had used Benjamin Franklins method for self improvement.  Not to the letter, but the same plan.  Each week I would work on just one thing.  Ben Franklin created four personal resolutions, and from those thirteen virtues.  He would work on one virtue each week.

As a business coach this method works  very well when the students take it to heart.  Sometimes they want to fix everything now.  All that does is teach us the habit of failure.  The Daily Drucker was the longer course with simpler lessons.  The truth is I usually only did two or three “daily” items each week.  I think I needed more work than Drucker expected.

If You Cut Your Costs To Zero, That Is What Your Business Will Be.

Step Back And Get A Better View

So what is more important, making more money or having the lowest costs?  Every business owner takes a different approach to managing the finances of the business.  If you read the business section of just about any paper, there is some one talking about how to reduce costs, or some executive blaming higher costs.  Generally when I work with business owners, I have very little influence on cutting costs so I focus on how to make more money with what they have.

Build the Most From the Least

This weekend I came home from Houston Texas with a plaque that I couldn’t have earned a few years ago.  This might sound a little funny, but bear with me for a moment.  If you run a business, you need a hobby.  Sometimes your hobby is purely an outlet of stress, other times it is a place where you can let your mind do some background processing and clarify problems you have in life or in your business.  This is how successful people see a way around obstacles in life.  Sometimes, your hobby is a reflection of the problems in your life that need to be corrected.

One of my longer term hobbies has been racing in the 24Hours of LeMons series.  No, that isn’t a spelling error, it really is lemons.  The cars are junk, literally junk. 

The idea in the 24 Hours of Lemons is that you are supposed to take a junk car that you paid $500 or less for, and race it.  There are a lot of safety rules and track rules and team rules.  When my friend and business associate, Gabrielle Magno of Maxxom Communications in Houston and I first came up with the idea for the team, we both tried to do everything.  We couldn’t get other people to help or pay money to be on the team.  Just like many small businesses, we were targeting the wrong customer base.  Just because someone is our friend, it doesn’t make them a team member.

What Will Your Retirement Be Like?

Will You Spend Retirement At The Beach?

I was having a conversation with one of the people I work with pretty regularly.  He is getting close to retirement so we discussed all kinds of interesting things.  He doesn’t have any children and has no desire to leave a “legacy” behind.  He is worth over a million dollars and has a healthy retirement account.

The conversation started off with his house.  He wants to sell it and buy a nicer place on the water somewhere with a very large down payment.  Because the market is down he thinks this is a good time to buy.  I couldn’t agree more.  Then he took a tangent I never expected.  He wants to take out a reverse mortgage where the payments he gets will cover the first mortgage until he dies.  Ideally he figures that when he dies he will have nothing in his home for equity.  The house will just go to the bank.

So I asked what happens if he needed the equity to buy into an assisted living facility or had some other major expense come up, or what if he outlived the reverse mortgage and had to start making payments again.  He didn’t have an answer.  He was more worried about getting to enjoy every penny, or to put it into his words, “be a mega consumer”. 

Build Your Business With Standards and Rules

He has a Destination, What is yours?

Aren’t successful businesses built with good rules?  Shouldn’t every business have rules and standards for everything to succeed?   Pilots use rules to fly, the big burger chains like McDonalds and Burger King use rules to make burgers and the government is loaded with rules.  Last I heard Pilots were doing a pretty good job getting people where they wanted to go, the burger chains were making good money because the rules create a product that people are comfortable with.  As for the government, ok I’ll skip that one.

As a commercial rated pilot for over a quarter of a century, it is pretty rare that I go flying without a purpose, reason or direction.  Even as a student pilot, I had a purpose when I went flying.  All the while I considered my flying career a success.  When I fly, there is always someplace to go, something to see, or something to do in the airplane.  Isn’t that a lot like business? When a pilot starts out, he has a destination or an aim point, a plan to get there and a few thoughts in case the plan doesn’t work out.  The rules are simply guidelines to stay in.

Who Is Your Perfect Customer? You?

Knowing your customer is critically important for a business to grow and prosper.  I work with my clients and students on this all the time.  In my book, So, Now What, I had dedicated a chapter and worksheet to helping business owners like you figure out exactly who the perfect customer is.  Every once in a while someone approaches me and they show me how they did the work, filled out the worksheet and it didn’t help them in their business.  When that happens, like any good business owner, writer or teacher, I start by looking in the mirror to see what I did wrong.  And in this case, as in most cases, it was something I did wrong.

Not Quite a Theater, a Great Media Room

When Mr. R called and went over everything happening in his business, and I could tell nothing had changed in three months, I went back and re-read the chapter in the book.  Everything looked ok there.  I revisited my notes from past conversations with Mr. R, nothing there.  Finally I looked at Mr. R’s notes on his perfect customer and I couldn’t help but laugh out loud.  My wife came running in to ask what was so funny, and even my dogs where worried.  I had her read the information on the guy’s perfect customer.  We both immediately knew what I did wrong in teaching and in the book. 

What Is Your Customer Really Worth?

Lately I have had more than one discussion on the lifetime value of a customer.  While there a few businesses that are one shot programs like wrongful death attorney’s, most other businesses have a long term value and benefit if they can maintain a customer relationship.  Every owner I talked to wanted more customers, and agreed that the customers they have are the most profitable.  So when I wanted to add a customer relationship program to the mix, why do they hesitate?

It is a very interesting phenomenon and attitude among business owners.  All of them will track how many customers are added to their “list” but they rarely track how many leave.  Online marketing is an interesting field because the total list is always a moving target.  If we forget about the existing customers for even a minute, they fall off the list faster than we can hit the refresh key.

So why is it that an owner will spend a small fortune on online advertising and not a penny to engage the existing list and make sure they don’t go anywhere else?  I don’t know.  The Harvard Business School has a pretty cool calculator to estimate the lifetime value of a customer. 

Where Are You Going?

There are some great lessons in life that everyone can learn from taking flying lessons, shooting lessons or learning how to drive a race car on the track.  All of these lessons apply to business as well.  Paul Newman was a great actor and race car driver.  John Travolta, a great pilot and actor.  Many business owners that are very successful race cars, fly airplanes or hunt.  Is there a connection here?

I think there is.  All of these skills, running a business, acting, flying, shooting and racing require planning and practice.  In the end they all have a target of some sort.  The actor wants to make you think it is really happening to him, whatever it is.  The pilot has a plan of where he is going before he ever gets in the airplane.  The race car driver knows every corner of the track and the fastest way around them.

So how does this relate to the business owner?  There is an often over looked or mis-applied rule of success.  Successful people have a direction and an aim point.  When was the last time you saw someone you thought was successful and said "he can do anything?"  I would guess never.  The best heart surgeon is a heart surgeon, not a podiatrist that does heart surgery on Saturdays.

The businesses that are the most profitable with the least effort are those that have a definite direction and aim point.  Look at any major business.  Dominoes Pizza for example.  No live music, no bar, just pizza, hot and fast.  It doesn't matter if you make the worlds best pizza if everyone thinks that you are running a bar.  And if you are running a bar, you better have some really cold beer and don't worry too much about the pizza.

So what is your direction?  If you aren't sure, I got a deal for you, I just dropped the price of my book on the Kindle to $2.99.  I wrote it to help more people figure it out, and with the economy the way it is, I figured I can reach more people at $2.99 than $16.99.  Find your direction, pick an aim point and go find success!

Can You Succeed Without Failure?

Failure.  Just looking at the word can make some people stop reading.  Fear of failure is what stops most people from succeeding.  Failure means you pushed beyond some limit.  The problem is if you don’t fail, you never learn the limits.

I can tell you about failure first hand.  I pushed the limits of USAF pilot training and lost an F-16 job.  I learned quick enough that I was able to get back in the limits and still fly for 15 more years. 

In business if you don’t fail once in a while, you aren’t pushing your business to be it’s absolute best. 

I can spend a lot more time on this but Honda has been kind enough to post a great video on failure I think is worth watching.  Here is the link http://dreams.honda.com/#/video_fa

Keep Your Eye On Your Targets for Your success

One of the smartest things I ever did was move into a neighborhood I couldn’t afford.  On the surface this sounds stupid, so please let me explain why it wasn't.  This wasn’t a neighborhood of new fancy tract homes that all of the other couples my age were moving into.  This was a neighborhood full of what my friends called “old people and junky homes”.  My wife and I both liked the neighborhood because you had to pass by a winery while cruising down a road lined with old walnut trees to get there.  The area just had a great romantic feel and was very close to both of our offices at the time.  There was also a private country club featuring a championship golf course.

Years earlier I had discovered this little area of about 100 homes while out on a Sunday drive.  My wife and I later set our sights on living in that area at any cost.  We would scrimp and save and just about when we thought we could afford a house out there, the prices would go up.  We drove the neighborhood at least twice a month.  We thought we knew every street and every house in the area cold.  We went to every open house, and knew all the real estate agents.

Eventually we were the last of our friends in our old neighborhood.  Everyone had moved away into some “cool” area.  Some new tract of houses with a neighborhood pool, or that was closer to shopping would attract our friend’s attention.  I knew it wasn’t right for me to move into one of those neighborhoods so I stood my ground and waited. 

Is A Business Strategy Important to Building a Business?

Recently I have been working with a couple of business owners who are stuck on the whole strategy thing. These owners want me and my company to take over their internet marketing, you know SEO, pay per click and all of that kind of stuff. The problems is they can't clarify their strategy for us. My rules are pretty simple, no strategy, no marketing. The simple reason is I want to keep clients for a long time.

What I have learned in 20 years of owning and building businesses is that anyone can grab an opportunity, throw money at it and fail. I don't want these clients because I am lazy. Not lazy because their business is too hard to market, but lazy because I don't like chasing down new clients if I lose one.

Before we had the strategy requirement in place, clients would last anywhere from six months to about a year and a half. The few that have been with us over five years all have two things in common. First they have a strategy. While the strategy has changed a little over time, we have been involved with the changes so we could change the marketing to meet the needs of the client and their market.

The clients that we took on who were opportunists and didn't have a strategy would not see the progress they expected and jump on the next opportunity. Every six months we had to completely revamp their marketing. In the world of the internet, consistency is a critical component of success. The first month of any campaign is the most expensive, and we usually lose money getting a client set up. In fact most of the time, you don't see real progress for two or three months.

When a client jumped from opportunity to opportunity it was like getting an entirely new client. None of them would pay the higher fees of the first month, so each time they "re-invented" their business we lost money. The clients with a strategy are all still in business, still clients and still profitable.

Stay Fit and Healthy To Better Help Your Business.

One of the hazards of being a business owner is getting caught up in the day-to-day operation and minutia. Staying fit is difficult for most people already in becoming a business owner can make staying fit even more difficult. Finding a fitness program that works and doesn't destroy your schedule can be a huge bonus for a new business owner who is already completely time stressed.

Even if you are fortunate enough to live in Southern California so you can take advantage of my friend Chad Morris's program, you can at least watch his videos. Chad is done something very cool and outlined his entire program for busy executives in an easy to watch video format. If you don't think you have the time to stay fit, invest a few minutes to watch the videos and then reprioritize your time so you can make this exercise program work for you.

A Letter To The President

Normally I don't write letters to politicians, but I felt this letter to the president was worth sharing with anyone in small business.  Feel free to copy it and send one yourself.

The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500

Dear Mr. President:

I am writing this letter to you in response to your selection of Jeff Immelt to run the Jobs Council.

Selecting the man that built GE, Jack Welch, might make sense, but his replacement doesn’t.  Mr. Immelt like many bankers and large corporate leaders have been quick to accept help from the government and slow to work towards the goal of a better country.

It is the small businesses that the country depends on, not those who are chosen to be members of the S&P 500.  Your thoughts of working with businesses to solve the problems of the country are on the right track.  A council of small business owners are what you really need.  Big banks and big business need to be disrupted from time to time in order to prevent a larger melt down. 

Todays Internet Marketing Tip - Are You Yelping?

This is going to be short and sweet.  If you own a business, you need to be on Yelp!.  Why?  The simple fact is you need to stay in touch with what your customers are saying about you and your competition.  While there are at least a dozen similar websites with mobile apps that we watch for our customers.

For a small business owner, the most important is probably Yelp!.  If you have time, look at the others to see if you have more ratings and reviews somewhere else.  If not, get on Yelp! and stay in touch with your business and your customers.

There are two sides to Yelp!.  One for customers and one for business owners.  You need to be on both as an owner.  As the customer, you can see what your customers are saying about the competition and what you can do to improve your relationship with them.  Improving your relationship will improve the business automatically.  If you have a smart phone, the Yelp! app is free.

The business owners side of Yelp! will allow you to post correct information about what you do, where you are, what your hours are and other information that potential new customers need to know.  When this information is wrong because you didn't sign up and you made Yelp! guess, then your potential new customers start off with the wrong expectations.

Get on Yelp!, set the right expectations from the start and see new customers every day.

A Quick Start On The Internet

In todays market place, having a website that is easy to find is critical to your business success.  The bad news is there are over 1 million new websites being added to the internet every day.  These new websites are all after the same eyeballs and dollars that you are.  The yellow pages don’t work anymore and you’ve tried pay per click ads only to blow your budget and give up.  What is a business owner supposed to do?

The good news is that the search engines are making enough money and are starting to listen to complaints about fake or misleading advertising pages.  Google is starting to look closely at websites to make sure that there is a real business behind it.  Even the big domaineer sites are starting to add content that is almost worth reading. 

A Focused Business Strategy should Lead to a Focused Marketing Strategy.

Yesterday I was putting around Orange County in my favorite little car, a 1966 Mercedes 230SL.  There is something mystical about this car that creates an immediate love or hate response just like Beetles and Mini Coopers do.  The people that own them are more often than not smiling while they are driving around.  There is just something fun about it.  The controversial Pagoda Top of the late 60’s model Mercedes SL’s  has been the butt of jokes by many great automotive writers.

For me however, there is nothing cooler than putting up PCH in my little convertible.  The only thing missing is a cup holder.  As a Porsche engineer once told me “We make cars to drive, not to enjoy a Coca-Cola.”  Since I still have an addiction to Diet Coke, I am pretty familiar with every McDonalds in the Reno-Lake Tahoe area and Orange County, my two major hangouts.

As long as I can remember I have been going to McDonalds and In-n-Out.  My dad liked the chocolate milkshake and coffee at McDonalds better so we went there more often, at least that was his story.  I think it was because the owner of the McDonalds franchise next door to his office was a patient and we were getting free food.

Resolutions for 2011

Closing out 2010, I had a conversation with a guy about starting his own business. He really wanted to do it but he just couldn't give up the security of working for somebody else. I explained to him that security is a mindset which is based on the confidence you have in your own environment. You can work for a big company or government and you put your trust in them that they will protect your environment and your job. When you give away that trust you are hoping to exchange it for security. This is a false confidence that you receive when you trade your time for money.

If you look at the current state of the economy you can see businesses failing right and left and government workers losing their jobs almost as quickly. Security in the sense of somebody else taking care of you is gone. The truth is it has never been there. It is only when you trust in yourself and invest in yourself that you continue to build your internal confidence so your security is unfazed by outside influences.

You should never let anyone else be responsible for your security blanket this is the easy way out and it never lasts. As we go into 2011 there are a few simple things that are very hard to do yet can make a huge difference in your life. Some might call the secrets, I just call them the obvious things that most people won't bother to do.