What Is Your Proposal Writing Plan?

I am taking a break from writing a very long proposal that I really don’t want to write.  I don’t want to write it because 90% of it is fluff and nonsense.  Some time ago when building my business I went through the “Wants-Don’t Wants” process as it relates to my business.  This type of project was on my “Don’t Wants”.

While reading the biography of John Boyd, simply titled “Boyd”, he had a similar complaint about Pentagon work.  He called it “gold plating”.  He and his team would establish the criteria for a great fighter, and someone would add unnecessary equipment or requirements to curry favor somewhere.  “Gold Plating”.  

In the tech world, specifically the online world, these big long proposals are a form of gold plating.  For instance it, an big proposal justifies the legal department, IT and even public relations charging x hours to look over the Request for Proposal (RFP) along with a host of other jobs.

On the vendor side, it means I too must spend money with Lawyers, Accountants, and Project Managers to get every ones buy in.  On both sides a virtual committee is formed.

Committees are by nature – timid. Based on the premise of safety in numbers, content to survive rather than take risks and move independently ahead. - Ferry Porsche

When we are stripped down to our essentials we perform our best.  This is true of any endeavor in life whether it is man or machine.  The success of Apple has been based on this simple truth until recently.  Where they go from here is anyones guess.

Look at a race car.  Everything you don’t need is taken out to save weight allowing the car to perform better.  Why have insulation when earplugs will work for an hour?  

When you know your business, you can write a profitable quote on one page in a few hours.  When you get the job, then you create the plan.  Much less time consuming for both sides, and therefore less expensive for the client, and likely more profitable for you.

The email from my attorney just came in, so I’ll go back to my proposal writing.  I can’t help but here my own advice in my head: “Learn to say no more often.”

So You Want To Start A Business? Get Ready Then!

The spirit of freedom and responsibility that drives many people to start a business, is what drove the founding fathers to break away and start this country.  The battle cry of "Taxation without Representation" was a catch phrase that simply asked for freedom and responsibility.

Freedom and responsibility go hand in hand, you can't have one with out the other and have society progress.  These days too many people are willing to give up both for security.  Security is a myth that can never be achieved completely.  The most secure people in the world are locked up in solitary confinement somewhere.  I bet those guys would trade for freedom any day.  The question is, would that take the responsibility that goes with it?

Benjamin Franklin is attributed to saying that you can't have Liberty and Security at the same time.  He is right.  They are polar opposites.  With responsibility comes a little bit of risk.  The key to success for today is understanding that you must manage risk in order to succeed.

Most people live in fear of the risk and responsibility of owning a business and therefore never enjoy the freedoms you can earn as the reward for managing the risk and accepting the responsibility.

The barriers to entry form many businesses also keep people out.  Lawyers have to go to law school, pass the bar and still there are hundreds if not thousands of out of work lawyers or lawyers that have a different job.  Just because you make it over the barrier doesn't mean you will succeed.

In a previous blog I encouraged you to act like an independent contractor at your job.  Take more responsibility and manage more risk in exchange for a bit more freedom.  If you could look back through time and watch me when I had a job, I learned to do exactly that from my mentors.  I managed to work a 3/36 schedule so I could fly and play more while at one company.  The deal was I had to outperform the 40 hour scheduled workers by 10% as well.

The company got 44 hours worth of work and only paid 36.  It was a win-win. That mentality gave me the confidence to start my own business.

There are many businesses with very low barriers to entry, such as real estate. You can become a Realtor after a few classes and a test.  Your total investment might only be $300 or so.  The problem is that with such a low barrier to entry there are a lot of people doing it.  This means starting out you will need a lot of patience and persistence to succeed.  Or you need a much better way to get the job done by working smarter, not harder.

The best way to prepare yourself for starting a business is to look at all of the places in your life where you have traded liberty for security.  Do you use unemployment regularly because you can't manage money?  Do you "need" health insurance provided by your boss or the government?  Do you work for someone else for the "security" of a paycheck every two weeks?

Can you manage your life if you didn't have any of these things?  Stepping out on your own can be a scary thing, and at the same time getting over that fear is one of the greatest accelerators on the road to success.  Many of the most successful business owners I know have done the "credit card shuffle" trying to pay bills they didn't have money to cover.

The pain and embarrassment of not making your bills is a defining moment for every entrepreneur.  It is at that moment, you push a little harder and make it, or you give up and "go back to work".  Like many successful people, I have done both at least once.  The difference is that the minute I went back to work, the embarrassment didn't go away.  There was no joy or happiness when that first check came in.

The last time I was shuffling money and missing payments, I dug in, and when that next client signed on, and that next check came in, it was a rotating beacon of emotions.  First it was relief that turned to joy that turned to ecstasy, and within weeks, more clients, more books started selling, and more work came in.

If I didn't have to scrape to find quarters for the dollar menu, would I be where I am now?  I can't say for sure.  The biggest mistake you can make is getting locked into a failing method.  I will admit when I dug in, I also changed my approach.

Don't get locked in on one idea, try to listen to the clients and figure out why they aren't buying and adjust accordingly.  More importantly, in the infamous words of Winston Churchill, "Never, Never, Never, Give Up."

What Are The Real Keys To Success?

As you know, I have been trying to fine tune the "formula for success" so that more people can create a lifestyle that they want, not just one they settle for.

I want to help you find a better way to live your life that fits you.  You can't be me and I can't be you, but we are both human and so the rules must be similar.

Recently I found the book was worth adding to my reading list for my clients and sharing with you.

The book is Cal Newport's "Be So Good They Can't Ignore You".  Cal Newton argues that chasing your dreams is a waste of time.  I agree.  You can have all the passion in the world for something but if the world doesn't it want it that way from you, you will go broke.

Like many people there are several things that I am passionate about.  I accept that those passions will not provide me sufficient income to maintain the lifestyle I expect. Instead those passions are my hobbies.

What he says to do is act like Steve Jobs at Apple.  Steve created a bunch of products and saw what worked and what didn't and he kept fine tuning based on the feedback of the market.  Remember the Newton?  Even the original iPhone (or should we call it the "Classic" now?) wasn't really much to speak up.  The bugs weren't worked out until the iPhone 3G.

Do the same thing in life.  Pursue a bunch of things and when you find one you like and that the market keeps asking your for, become great at it.

One of the aspects I really enjoy about blogging is the feedback from the market. It doesn't matter how many people comment on my blog, Facebook page or Twitter feed. When they do, I always appreciate it and try to respond in kind.

The metric that I really like however for blogs are the number of reads, and the number of reposts. It's very easy to see what people want to hear about from me when I look at those metrics. When I write about flying airplanes the scores are dismal. When I write about building a business or real estate empire the graph shoots off the page. There is no question what people want me to write about.

If you are at a crossroads, or stuck on a plateu, keep visiting this blog, or check out our new jumpstart program opening in March.

Which is Better, Verizon or AT&T?

After 35 days now with Verizon, I think I know who is better between Verizon and AT&T.  35 days ago, I left AT&T for two simple reasons,  Unfortunately I did it during a very busy time for me.  This made for a great test though.  You need your technology to work most when you are busiest don't you?

The reasons for leaving AT&T were a slightly better price at Verizon, and  I knew it worked in my house.  Every time my AT&T phone rang, I would run to the window or out the front door and hope to catch the call.  

When your income depends on catching calls, this really shouldn't be an acceptable scenario.  Several times I stopped by the AT&T store to complain and try to get  a "femto-cell".  A femto-cell is a little wifi box that lets you talk on wifi in your house.  My sales skills failed me and after two years of trying, I still had no way to take a call in my house.

I did find a V-Tech home phone that connected to my cellular, but then I started missing texts.  I felt like I couldn't win with AT&T.

Sprints price and unlimited data plan looked great on paper, but I quickly found that all of the cellular companies have these complex pricing plans for phones and data plans, and I knew that Verizon would work.  A salesman that came to my house had a Verizon phone that made calls without a problem in my house.  

Since I couldn't tell if Sprint really was any less expensive, I went with what worked and chose Verizon.  

The First 15 Days

Of course upgrading from the iPhone 4S to the 5S was a nice change.  The iPhone 5S is significantly faster, and takes better pictures.  The data speeds really didn't look much different though, even on WiFi at home.  That surprised me a little.  I have used complex websites to do some anecdotal testing with my neighbor who is still on AT&T.  Standing out front, both phones download the sites at about the same speed.

One problem I have with the iPhone is it's insistence on using WiFi.  The problem for busy people arises when you enter into a "free WiFi" area that you have used before.  The phone goes stupid until you "renew lease" on the WiFi and sign up again.  That should be an automatic option for the "remember this network".  

Day ten though I was caught off guard and suddenly the value of Talk and Surf became a problem, partially due to the WiFi issue.  Getting off of an airplane in Reno, running to the office, I received a call from a casting agency in Los Angeles asking for my availability for a commercial the next day.  When I tried to access my calendar I couldn't.

I have learned to never say yes, without looking at my calendar.  I let other people add events for me, so I need to see it before saying anything.  Here was the first failure for Verizon.  I couldn't talk and surf without renewing my lease since I had been to Reno just two weeks earlier and used the free WiFi.  While I was trying to figure out how to get WiFi to work, the casting agent got bored and told me to call her back.  By the time I stopped, renewed my lease and checked my calendar and called back, she found someone else.  Good work lost.  Lucky for me I have plenty to do. If acting was my main job, that could have been an expensive call.

On Day 15 it happened again, I couldn't talk and surf at a critical time.  More work lost.  I had no idea that I was using data so much when I talk.  You don't realize how many apps need a data connection until you turn it off.  I was no longer thinking that Verizon was the clear winner, AT&T might have a chance for me to switch back at this point.  Oddly, AT&T hadn't called or written even once to ask why I left or how they could get me back.

Day 20 I was in LAX, five bars, and I couldn't get any data, cellular or otherwise to work while sitting on the airplane during a delay.  Another Verizon customer said this was quite normal at LAX, and AT&T still had not called.  Day 24, the same thing happened at LAX.

Day 30 - Trade back day.

Here is where I blew it.  Day 30 was Black Friday.  The last day I could switch back to AT&T and not pay a HUGE penalty at Verizon.  That is what you call really bad trial period planning.  There was no way was I standing in line to trade back from Verizon to AT&T, and since AT&T hadn't called or written even once, I decided to stay home, avoid Black Friday and put up with Verizon for 23 more months.  

Here is where it gets weird, and I have to ask who is running marketing at AT&T.  Day 32, I started getting daily "specials" from AT&T.  They should know the fee to switch back now  is over $700 for two iPhone 5S phones.  Why would I switch back now?  Day 15-29 are the key days to get back a disgruntled cellular customer, and I didn't hear a peep.  Once the bill is set in stone, then they write?  

To make it even more interesting, AT&T started sending me marketing surveys on day 40 with a series of "did you know" questions trying to lead me back to AT&T.  Why are they beating around the bush?  Why didn't they call me on day 21 and say "How is that Verizon working, and what do we need to do to get you back".  My reply would have been simple, "It isn't, and a femto-cell will seal the deal".

At the end of the day, without question for anyone on the go, the ability to talk and surf is critical.  As much if not more so than coverage in my house.  If you own a business, are in sales, marketing or any form of self employment, AT&T is the winner.  If you work in an office, have good WiFi at home and don't travel much, Verizon is the winner.  It's that simple.

Is Your Tech Guy Overselling IT?

#OfficeNetwork

How much technology do you really need in the office?  I am not talking about the stuff you see like your desktop computer, the tablet or your phone.  What I am talking about are web servers, mail servers, routers and hubs, and things you never see unless you are the IT guy.

Recently I spent some time with two different clients this month and was amazed at how much in house technology they had.  Both of these businesses have less than 15 employees full time in the office, and 10 employees out on the road.  Here are their setups starting from the wall to the desk:

Business 1 10 Users, 6 client interactions per day:
ATT UVerse Modem 15 Static IP Addresses
Juniper Router
-Microsoft Small Business Server - Required for software used in house
-Microsoft Exchange Server - Used for basic email functions
-Digital Tape Backup Drive - Used to Back Up Bothe Servers
10 Desktop PC's with 18" LCD Screens
All users have iPhones


Monthly IT average $3000

Business 2, 12 Users, 45 Client Interactions per day:
Time Warner Cable Modem - 50 Static IP addresses
Cisco Router
2 x Apple Airport
-Microsoft Exchange Server - Basic Email Functions
-Microsoft Small Business Server - Financial and Data Storage
-Specialty Server for software package
8 Desktop PC's with 20" screens
2 Desktop Macs
2 MacBooks
12 iPhones

Monthly IT average $2100

In both cases, I couldn't see any reason to have an in house server for email or basic functionality.  A network drive, sometimes called "Network Addressable Storage" or NAS drives, would have worked just fine.  The difference? About $3000 up front plus $500 a month in support.  Additionally neither needs the MS exchange server now that they have gone to the iPhone as the mobile platform.  Yes Exchange does a lot more, but they aren't using it.

The last monthly cost is the static IP addresses.  Business one needs it for a subscription service they have to purchase for each computer.  I am suspicious though that the vendor doesn't have an option for dynamic IP addresses.   The second business was hosting their website data on their server but not the website. It was a crazy system to support.  Additionally of the 50 static IP addresses only 5 were in use.

How would I set up businesses that size?  In fact just about any business can use this model if you have less than 20 desktop systems.  In fact now I see iPads with keyboards and proprietary apps and that whole setup is less than what I listed above.

Here is exactly what my two offices look like:

Verizon FiOS Router - WiFi off, set to Modem only Mode.
Apple Airport Extreme Router(s)
Netgear ReadyNAS Network Drive
Virtual Web Hosting with Email Service, 1and1 and GoDaddy are two good ones we support in our office.
Desktop PC or MAC as required.

This is exactly our setup, I don't use the Verizon FiOS Router for simplicity reasons, and in an all MAC business, you could use the Apple Time Capsule instead of the Netgear Ready NAS.  All of our email is stored on the servers at 1and1, as is our website.  We back them up to a DVD each month.  The NAS Drive is backed up weekly since that is where our customer records and financials are stored.

Western Digital even calls one option "mycloud", meaning you own it.  While I like virtual email and web hosting to save money, you should own your data in a physical sense.  That is why we use the NAS drive.  Our setup has all of the capability needed for both businesses and would have cost over $10,000 less.

Do you want to see your IT guy more often or do you want $10,000 or more in your bank account?

What Is An Autopilot Business - Can It Be Done?

Lately I have been involved in several discussions about creating a business and setting it on autopilot.  I find autopilots to be a great analogy.  More so since I am a former military instructor pilot and a commercial airline pilot.

What business isn't is a "fire and forget missile".  That is the mistake many owners make.

So What's the difference?

Simply put, a fire and forget missile is exactly that.  You get it all set up, chase down your target and as soon as you fire the missile, you go chase another target.  The missile will go get the target all by itself.  They are quite scary toys when you get on the wrong end of them.  Just like sending a salesman out on his own, and customers getting away, jets have several tricks to protect themselves from a fire and forget missile.  If you don't make sure the missile shot down the target you just might find yourself the target.

Autopilots are much more like an investment grade or "seventh level" business.  If you don't know what a seventh level business is, Gary Kellers Red Book explains it pretty well.  He teaches independent real estate agents how to build a business and put it on autopilot.  The methods work for any business.

What most people don't realize is that an Autopilot is nothing more than a three dimensional cruise control.  Ironically, most autopilots have very limited ability to control the engines of the airplane, so using the autopilot at the wrong time can make things worse.

In a car when you set the cruise you still have to steer right?  Before the autopilot, all we had in the airplane is trim.  Trim keeps the airplane at the same altitude and in the same direction if all other things are equal.  If the wind changes, you need to change trim.  Temperature changes, you need to change trim.

Next came the autopilot.  It could correct for wind and temperature, but it doesn't have eyes or talk to the radar. If you set the autopilot and there is a big storm you still have to make adjustments to the system so you don't fly into the storm.

This is exactly where most business owners get into trouble and why I make good money teaching them how to fix the damage they did to their own systems.  Even the best franchises can have this problem.  The owner gets the business all set up, hires a good manager and as soon as everything is ok,  they feel like the autopilot is on so they step out.  

Pilots NEVER leave the flight deck even with the autopilot on.  Why not?  Things change.  

Weather, traffic, fuel and the systems are all variables the Autopilot can't see or react with.  At least one pilot is always up there monitoring the systems and the autopilot.  I check in on my business all the time.  Truly successful people live between very blurred lines of work and vacation for this reason.  

Notice I said at least one pilot is always up there monitoring the systems.  I didn't say the Captain was always up there.  My first lesson in leaving my business alone for a short period was the first time I went on a cruise.  I didn't have a cell phone or pager for four days.  After nearly having a nervous breakdown, I slept over 18 hours.  When I got back to the port and checked in, my number two did a great job.  There were a few glitches, but nothing catastrophic.

When I got back, I made some minor adjustments, and also decided to do it more often.  The trick is not to totally walk away.  Just like an autopilot, monitoring and adjusting is essential.

Even real estate investors and long term stock investors need to check in once in a while.  I like to see my investment properties at least once every three months.  I also give my cards to the neighbors and let them know that if my tenants are a hassle to please call me anonymously.  

I also have a simple program on my computer that shows green/red for my stock investments on a three month average.  Every three months or when I see red, I look at the stocks.  I don't buy penny stocks or gamble.  That means watching it every day.  That isn't autopilot.  Even the best companies can make mistakes or fall out of favor, and once every three months has turned out to work for me.

As systems and information get better, we can act like drone pilots, and control several drones from one location.  As long as there is a person in charge of each drone, and you just check in once in a while to verify everything is ok, you can actually run several businesses on autopilot at once.  

In the airplane, there is usually a "relief" pilot who joins the co-pilot, so there are still two sets of eyes on everything, and a free person to get the Captain if something goes really awry.  My friend that owns a dozen big name burger joints has a manager at each location and two GM's that float among all the location just like he does.  When he goes on vacation, he still checks the deposits every other day and the two GM's know how to get ahold of him.  Blurred lines between business and vacation.  

So can you put a business on autopilot?  Absolutely, as long as you respect the limits of the autopilot.  The Autopilot doesn't replace the pilot, it just frees him up to do other things from time to time.

The Carrot and Stick For Better Business Success

In earlier posts I discussed going outside of the envelope.  As a pilot we would train by leaving the envelope in a spin, and recovering to the normal realm of flight.  There is a step I didn't mention. In military flying, because the training puts you closer to the edge of the envelope so often, and you spend so much time outside of it to gain understanding of aircraft performance, the jets have ejections seats.

If you go into a spin and you get below an altitude that will allow you to recover, you simply eject and save your life.  You can always get a new airplane.

While not a proud moment in my life, having to walk away from a business I spent 8 years building, it was the right thing to do.  The business went into a spin and did not have the finances to recover.  I ejected, regrouped and went back into business.  Most who eject in business will never go back.

Knowing when to bow out of the game is just as critical to success as pushing forward.  Just like being in an airplane there are some indicators that the spin is getting too low and you need to do something differently and quickly or you are going to need to eject out of the business.  A late ejection is called a bankruptcy.

Running a business is a challenge that very few will ever try.  Fewer yet will be successful at it, and a big part of my life has been spent understanding why.  A few will have failed in one business only to succeed in another as I did.  Without doing this I don't think I could have the understanding I have now.

Within the business all of the people have an effect on the outcome.  If you don't believe it, you are looking at your business all wrong.  Paying someone to do nothing at all still takes money away from the bottom line and therefore effects the outcome of your business.

When everyone is clear on what the mission is of the business and is properly trained in their jobs, the owner is only there to make minor course corrections and keep everyone moving forward.  The owner acts more like an interested investor or a coach when the business is set up right.

During the early days of Apple, Microsoft and Cisco, there were a lot of ups and downs. The people that stuck it out made millions on their stock options.  The success of the company created their individual financial success.

As a leader, your job is to make sure that there is a stick, and it is used only when needed.  Too much discipline, unfair attacks or any kind of discrimination just hurt the business.  Failing to enforce the rules  of the business can be worse.   In my successful businesses my employee turnover was near zero.  In my failed venture, I had 80% quarterly turnover of key employees.  The business had a major problem and I couldn't see it until I ejected and could look at it without having the worry of making payroll.

These days I spend way more time hiring and turn away new business when I don't have the people or capital to service the customer properly.  I know how hard it is to turn away good money, but if you can't earn it, you have to turn down the work until you are ready.

Employees, staff and contractors all need to know what the "sticks" are for not making the goals.  A friend of mine just got a promotion at his company because someone falsified some records.  The stick was a swift termination.  This is exactly the right thing for the company to do.  They don't do it often, but when they do find a salesperson falsifying records, the zero tolerance policy is enforced.

Being "nice" has no place in decision making at this level of the game.  If the person is lying on paper, they will lie to you and your customers.  They need to go.

Of even greater importance are the carrots.  The rewards for doing great work must be there.  Just like you need to give yourself rewards, you need to learn what your employees really want.  When you learn that and give it to them as a reward for exceptional performance.  When you do, they will deliver and keep delivering.

Most owners don't take the time to learn about their employees and find out what they really want.  You can't learn what sticks they'll fear and respect so you won't need to use them if you don't know your staff.  Likewise, you can't learn the rewards if you don't know who they are either.

Know where you want your business to go, know what your people really want and don't want to go and you are off to a great start.  There is more but if you don't get this part right the rest won't matter.

Success Is Determined Before You Start

In racing, business and life, success is determined before you ever start.  What do I mean by this?  Steven Covey in his famous Seven Habits book said to "Begin with the end in mind".  He was right.

If you don't read the entire book though, you might skip a few steps.  Recently I had the pleasure of sitting down with Tyler Tadevic of TruSpeed Motorsports.  Tyler and Team Owner Rob Morgan had just returned from the Rolex 24 hours at Daytona.  A race nearly 3000 miles from their home turf.

Winning Daytona is an amazing feat.  Just finishing is a major accomplishment for any racing team.

Tyler and I spend nearly an hour talking about the race, and looking at the car.  The car that TruSpeed entered came home a total loss.  The engine was hanging on by a thread, even though no one could see it.  If you grabbed the alternator you could shake the engine.  Several parts of the car were missing due to contact with other cars and stationary objects as well.  It looked like one tired pony.

Tyler was beaming and with good reason.  TruSpeed left their home in Orange County's Costa Mesa and headed east with one goal.  Finish.  Tyler and Rob were smart enough to recognize the height of the challenge they were undertaking and set a goal that was just out of reach for many teams.

56 teams started the race at the 2013 24 hour race at Daytona, and not all of them finished.  Even experienced teams couldn't make it the entire 24 hours.  Daytona is a shining example of why endurance racing is different.

TruSpeed is probably best known for Driver Patrick Longs record winning season in 2011.  Those are "sprints" according to Tyler.  Daytona is a marathon.

TruSpeed didn't finish Daytona by showing up and racing.  They started planning long before getting to the track and analyzed every decision based on the one goal.  Finish the race on the track.

The method that Tyler Tadevic and Rob Morgan used to put together the right plan with the right car and the right drivers to finish Daytona works in business and marketing too.  When you have a single target like "Finish the race on the track" or "Be the best Pizza Place", you can look at everything you do and very quickly and effectively see if it is working or not.

When I say this applies to everything I mean everything your business does.  If you are a plumber who specializes in being the fastest and lowest cost water softener installer, you can quickly look at your trucks, your email campaign, your direct mail post cards and your website and say "does this say we are the best water softener guys period?".  If not dump it and start again until everything you do reflects your one thing.

What is your single mission for this year, or what is your business target?  does your advertising say that?  Ask potential customers to make sure, because we all tend to see what we want to see, not what we are really doing.

Living With Windows 8, Is It The New Coke of The PC World?

Our office computers are now pushing four.  In business computer land that is an unheard of age.  Weekly crashes and blue screens have been the norm.  Clearly the hardware can’t keep up.  

After a week of looking around, we ended up in the Microsoft store and started to really like the idea of Windows 8 and the instant information on the home screen using “tiles”.  Maybe it should be called Windows Tiles Instead of Windows 8.

Eventually, we were convinced to buy a Windows 7 PC and upgrade to Windows 8 Pro with Media Center.

The initial installation to Windows 8 was the easiest upgrade I had ever done.  Literally just insert DVD , click three agree boxes and off it went.  The PC was a brand new HP AIO with a 23” screen.  The plan was to get a serial adapter and then use a second 22” HP screen we already had.

Not one single glitch or hardware error during the upgrade. Everything appeared to work perfectly.

Setting up email with Windows Live Mail was pretty straight forward.  It did ask if our server was POP or IMAP and then when we chose POP a window appeared that says “Windows Live Mail Does Not Support POP, Please contact your provider for IMAP”.  Why not just say that on the previous screen?  

After setting up the initial screen “Tiles” on Windows 8, we really liked the ability to see a snapshot of your world on one screen.  This is the perfect solution for a kitchen tablet, or shared family PC that isn’t used for work.  Much better than the small screen iPad and since the tiles updated, you always have the latest information, at least that is the idea.  With HP AIO computers starting at just $799 for the touchscreen models, it makes sense to have a 20” tablet in the kitchen for controlling lights and easily reading recipes.

This is also the failing of Windows 8.  Windows 8 might just become the catalyst of change in our office, and not one that Steve Ballmer is going to be happy with. 

Knowing there were major changes to the thought process and operation of Windows 8, I let a lot of things go in my two initial articles about Windows 8.  I assumed the problems I was having were simple user errors and I would learn how to do it right later.

Wrong.

After setting up Mail, the next thing I wanted to set up was our server access.  It took a while but I found a help file article to map network drives.  The “Desktop” tile quickly became my tile of choice.   I couldn’t “Map” any of our music or photo folders on the server to the “libraries” on the PC as I could in Windows 7.  While I was going back and forth between the “desktop” and the “home” screens I noticed the weather wasn’t doing what I expected.

With our old PC’s we had several “gadgets” on the right side displaying time and weather in several cities.  Calling Tony at Renew Services in Indianapolis during a major snowstorm would just be a waste of time.  I set the tile up to monitor five different cities.  Instead it only showed New York, New York weather.  New York wasn’t one of my five choice.

I got sidetracked here and tried the weather channel ap and the weather bug ap, and neither of them would display more than one city.  I expected it to rotate through the cities so in 45 seconds or so I would get to see all of the information.  That didn’t happen.

Since I had a pretty big screen I tried to load several tiles.  Windows 8 wouldn’t let me load the same tile twice.  I could only see the weather in one city without clicking the tile.  WeatherBug said they were working on a fix.  

Back to drive mapping.  In Windows 7 it was a two step process of mapping a drive and then adding the folders in the drive to the library.  In iTunes it was worse.  Again I assumed Apple wants me to buy their toys.

In Windows 8 it can’t be done easily.  At least no way that I found.  Next of course was mapping the photos drive so we would have easy access to them for creating customer websites.   This is where the big problems started.  I still haven’t found media center, even though we bought “Windows 8 Pro with Media Center”.  What we found were tiled versions of pieces of media center, that wouldn’t allow mapping of our server for media access.  I tried the XBox music interface, and no luck there either.

Finally it was time to simply work.  We tried to Upload the latest non-cloud based versions of Office and Expression Web.  We also tried to set up mail.  POP is no longer supported.  

Using iMap we were able to get Windows Live Mail to work.  We couldn’t get mail to tile though, only “fence post”.  I say fence post because it takes a full vertical slice of your screen.  Instead of a 3x3 tile or “window” that can hide behind a word document, mail is displayed as a 3” wide vertical stripe on the screen.  

Even in “desktop” mode, the fence post was all I could figure out.  We couldn’t open a document, two browsers and an email window or tile on one desktop to do basic research and write copy for a web page.  Microsoft has trained us to work this way for 20 years, Apple and UNIX followed suit.  Tiles or “Windows” overlapping on a screen are how most business computers are operated.  It is how screen manufacturers sell bigger screens.

Much of Windows 8 is designed around working in "the cloud".  While I see the "cloud" as a great tool, it is also a scary bet for business.  When there are 4 major accounting software packages, and all the data is on your computers, if your vendors goes under, your company keeps running until you get new software and migrate the data.  With over thirty "cloud" based accounting systems charging monthly fees, what happens when they shut down and your accounting goes with it?  I want my business software on my servers in my office with no service fees.  The cloud is a great backup or mirror service for my data, but not a primary source.

Also I am too cheap to spend $14 every flight to connect.  Why not get all of my email while sitting in the airport on free WiFi and respond while flying, then sync up when I land.  Do we really need to be that connected?

Enough about my thoughts on the cloud.  Eight hours after the box was opened and Windows 8 loaded, we decided that Windows 8 isn’t ready for business.  It was the New Coke of Operating Systems.  We attempted to go back to Windows 7 using the DVD we created in the beginning and the PC failed.  It turns out Window 8 installs easily because it eliminates your ability to go back.  The only way to return to Windows 7 is some command prompt work, formatting hard drives and reloading from a complete set of Windows 7 OEM discs according to the phone support people at HP.  Back in the box it went, and back to the store.

As Apple narrows the price gap with $599 Mac Mini’s packing all the power of a desktop, Microsoft has reason to be concerned.  Apple didn’t make iOS separate from OS X because it was cheaper.  They did it because it is what people need to maximize the devices they have.

As an alternative to Apple OSX for the home, Windows 8 is a great information center.  As a tablet interface, Windows 8 is the best available.  As a phone interface.  Same.  As a PC in a work environment, it hands the keys to Apple, which is where I am going today.  Tomorrow, the Mac Mini will be the first Apple desktop in my office ever.  

Mobile might be growing in leaps and bounds, but desktops still are the foundation of the machine that mobile is built on.  Windows 8 isn’t a foundation, OS X is becoming one quickly.

Google Coupons For Reno Nevada

Do you have a small business in Reno Nevada that isn't online yet or isn't getting the customers online you know it should?        I have some good news,  Google just sent me a handful of $100 off Adwords coupons to help get your business online.  Now you can start on online marketing and SEO program and get $100 credit towards your Google Adwords Advertising FREE.  Did I say F.R.E.E Reno?

You say you don't have a website for your Reno Nevada business?  That's ok.  A website isn't required.  If you want one, how about 25% off until I run out of the cards?  We have a basic website package that is just $500 for businesses like yours in Reno.

I know that the economy in Reno isn't the greatest right now, but we all know it is a great town with great people.  Lets keep it rolling.   Barron's (March 19, 2012) says that housing will bottom out in the next twelve months.  I think Reno will be among the first cities to hit bottom.  Right after our famous Nevada neighbor to the south, Las Vegas.

Our office in Reno is part of the economy here too, so we want Reno to succeed and therefore we want you to succeed.  Advertising online with a website and Google Adwords isn't only about getting new customers in Reno, but it is also about keeping in touch with your past customers.

I know how you feel about spending money on your business right now, and online advertising and marketing are the least expensive methods in Reno when it comes to reaching customers.   This is something you must consider.  Right now you have a choice, invest in your business and be a leader in the recovery of the Reno economy, or look away while your business does the same thing tomorrow it did yesterday, or maybe even less.

Call Now 775-589-2655 or drop me an email with your business name and Address and I'll send you one of these cards.

Maybe you tried online marketing in the past, or your website isn't bringing in any business.  Here are my first questions.  When you picked the company to build the website for you in Reno, did they know the Reno market?  Were they a Reno Company?  Do they even know business or was it just "a guy" that builds cheap websites?

My family has been serving Reno for over 30 years.  Our SEO and Online Marketing Business in Reno is lead by people who know business, not just web geeks.  Don't worry, we have those too.  Our customers all over the west have seen 40% to 1200% growth in business due to online traffic we helped them create.

One note up front.  Really good online performance takes three to six months to really get traction.  When a customer makes it past 6 months, they make it for good.  We have had some of the same clients since 1995.  Not many other SEO and online marketing companies can say that.

We can't take all the credit for the high flying businesses.  All we can do is reach customers in Reno and Sparks for you.  If you take good care of the customers, then we have an army helping us help you.  All you need to do is call me or send an e-mail to get started today.

Is it worth a few hundred dollars to move your business forward?  Call Today and get $100 of free Google ads
775-589-2655

Get $100 Of a New Adwords Campaign

Simple Tools To Grow Your Business

Every day I meet with people who own or run a business.  I don't spend a lot of time in government offices now that I am retired from the Air Force Reserves.  I like meeting and talking with business owners and leaders because they all understand the concept of "Mission".

My wife is a real estate agent, actually a Realtor (tm), and for the first time since I have known her, she now has a sense of "Mission".  Gaining the sense of mission is one of the fastest and least expensive changes you can make in your life when it comes to achieving success at any level.

Let's say I want to lose weight, and get down to 180 pounds.  Everytime I pass an ice cream store, I ask the question of mission.  Will this ice cream cone help me lose 180 pounds?  If it hasn't, and I am taking it as a luxury, have I done the exercise to add it today?  The key difference between someone trying to lose weight and being on a mission to lose weight is the work to lose weight is done first.  If I plan to be at 180 by June and I am on track and ran an extra mile today to earn the luxury of the ice cream, I can treat myself.  Otherwise I have to keep walking.  Today I kept walking.

Business is no different.  If you want to make $100,000 this month in whatever you do and you make it a mission, decisions are much easier.  When your buddies call to go to the ball game, you can look at your numbers and know that you are ahead of track or behind.  If it is the 15th and you have already made $90,000.  You can either work on the last $10,000 or go to the ball game.

On the 25th of the month and if you are at $90,000, your actions will tell everyone including the universe itself if you are on a mission or just set a goal.  The person with a goal, will say "$90,000 is close enough." and go to the game.  The person on a mission will stay and work.  There is no "close enough" when it comes to real missions in real life, only success or failure.

Learning to accept the concept of mission is one thing, disciplining yourself to live it is another.  The right side of my white board in the office has initials for several goals I have currently.  Together they spell out the focus of my mission.  I look at it several times a day and it makes me thing smarter about decisions.  My goals cover a few areas today, and I highly suggest that you start out with just one target at a time for your mission.  As you get better at hitting targets, then you can add more targets to shoot for simultaneously.  The worst thing you can do is list to many targets and not hit any.

What is your first target?

The Best Business Improvement Program Ever? Create a Whiteboard of Success for Under $200.

Last night a good friend of mine lost his job.  He asked me what he should do next.  Of course I said "Read my book."  I knew he already had a copy, so buying the book wasn't a problem.  Buying the book isn't the best business improvement program for $200, but it might be the best one for $15 even if the cover is goofy.  (A free signed copy to anyone with a better cover idea that I use.)

Losing a job can be an amazing experience and opportunity if you look at it the right way.  He did.  He hadn't read the book, but he did skip ahead to the next book which I haven't even written yet.  He just knew what to do because we have worked together for a long time and he knows how I think.  I think everyone should act like they are their own business.

What I am going to give you today is the best trick I have learned in helping people improve both their personal life and business life.  If you hire me to work with you on this it is going to be thousands of dollars, and I am giving it to you free.  Why?  Let's be honest, if it works for you and your business grows, I hope you'll hire me as your virtual Chief Marketing Officer or The Bourquin Group as your online marketing agency and SEO

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 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.

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. 

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.