No. 10 October 2014

When animals relay solely on instincts to stay alive, they are restrained by their instinctual fear and their fear of the unknown.  They never reach their full potential.  Harvey MacKay says people do exactly the same thing.

“In cultures that depend on elephants for labor and transportation, it’s common to tie untrained elephants by their ankles to a bamboo tree, using heavy duty rope.  After three or four days of trying to free themselves, elephants give up.

From that time on they can be restrained by tying one leg to a small peg in the ground – something they surely could escape from with minimal effort.  But with little resistance, the elephants don’t try to get loose.  Despite their superior size, they have learned helplessness.  Do you let your past experiences limit your choices?”

Fear of failure also limits us from reaching our potential.  “The African impala can jump to a height of over 10 feet and cover a distance greater than 30 feet.  Yet these magnificent creatures can be kept in an enclosure in any zoo with a 3 foot wall.  The animals will not jump if they cannot see where their feet will land.  As with so many humans, extreme caution gets in the way of success.”

If you didn’t know you couldn’t do something, wouldn’t you attempt to do it?  “In the 1930’s a leading zoologist concluded after careful study that, according to the laws of aerodynamics, it should be impossible for a bumble bee to fly.  That is because its size, weight, and the shape of its body are all wrong in relation to its total wingspread.

Fortunately, no bumblebees have ever studied aerodynamics – so they just naively keep on doing what they’re incapable of doing.”

Habit often keeps us from reaching our full potential.  “Flea trainers have observed a predictable and strange habit of fleas while training them.  Fleas are trained by putting them in a cardboard box with a top on it.  As you watch them jump and hit the lid, something very interesting becomes obvious.  The fleas continue to jump, but they are no longer jumping high enough to hit the top.

When you take off the lid, the fleas continue to jump, but they will not jump out of the box.  Once they have conditioned themselves to jump just so high, that’s all they can do.  Many people do the same thing.  They restrict themselves and never reach their potential.”

Don’t let your instincts keep you from reaching your full potential.  Life is too short not to live it fully.

U.S. President Harry S. Truman once said, “A pessimist is one who makes difficulties of his opportunities and an optimist is one who makes opportunities of his difficulties." Which do you think will reach their goals, live a happy life, and achieve their dreams?

Imagine interviewing two people for a job opening you have.  Both are equally skilled, but one is always grumbling about how unfair life can be, while the other one talks about what wonderful possibilities exist.  Who would you want to hire?  Whom do you think would do a better job?

Naturally, you would gravitate toward the optimist.  If you choose the pessimist, you would be setting yourself up for plenty of aggravation and disappointment, not to mention the negative impact on your staff and customers.  Pessimism can bring everyone down, not just the person with the negative attitude.  And I believe that's when a pessimist is happiest!

Pessimists see life as one problem after another.  Optimists see life as one opportunity after another.  

Here's a story Harvey Mackay tells about how optimism can be life-changing:   

"Within a seven year time span, a woman's mother died, her husband divorced her, and she found herself living in poverty just one step away from being homeless.  In her spare time, she wrote a book that 12 publishers rejected. 

Finally one publisher accepted her book about a boy named Harry Potter.  And then she wrote a few more books, which became blockbuster movies, and even spawned a theme park.  

J.K. Rowling was an optimist who's now a billionaire.  How far in life would she have gotten by being a pessimist?"

09 September 2014

We've all seen the Quicken Loan ads on television.  They are the #1 online mortgage lender, growing from a startup to a 4,000-employee market leader over the past 25 years.  "They are consistently ranked in Fortune magazine's Best 100 Places to Work and they even won the JD Power award for the highest ranked customer service in an industry that is notoriously unfriendly."  If you ask Dan Gilbert, the Chairman and founder of the company about the key to their success, he'll quickly tell you it's all about the Quicken Loan "ISMs." 

An "ISM" is a suffix that refers to a strong principle or belief.  It is a set of values so powerful it drives the behavior of Quicken Loan's employees resulting in the company's "endless innovation, soaring profits, and market dominance." 

One ISM I particularly like goes like this:  "Every Customer.  Every Time.  No Exception. No Excuses.  Customers don't care how much you know until they know how much you care.  Could it be any clearer?  A great company is built one client at a time.  If you 'wow' every customer every chance you get, then they win and so do you.  It's as simple as that." 

Another ISM is "Ignore the Noise.  Will you allow noise to keep you from winning?  Noise could be from naysayers, something going wrong, sun in your eyes, ball took a bad bounce, dog ate your homework, someone cut you off on the way to work, etc.  A lot of things that seem serious at first glance turn out to be noise.  The noise may fluctuate in volume, but your determination to press on in spite of it (ignore it!) will make all the difference to you and our (company's success)."

Another ISM I like is " There is no 'they' here.  "They' does not exist here.  We are the 'they.'  One team.  United."

If you would like to read all 18 of Quicken Loans ISM's, use this link: 

www.quickenloans.com/press-room/fast-facts/our-isms/     You'll be glad you did.

In a service business like yours or mine, we all get to offer three kinds of service: good, cheap or fast.  Here's how we should present those options to our customers.  (1) Good service cheap won't be fast.  (2) Good service fast won't be cheap.  And (3) Fast service cheap won't be good.  You really can't say it much better than that!

Harvey MacKay believes persistence is a key to success and shares a few examples of persistence paying off.

"Few people had as difficult a time getting their invention accepted as Alexander Graham Bell.  Even U.S. President Rutherford Hayes said of the telephone in 1876, “… who would ever want to use them?” 

Chester Carlson, another young inventor, took his idea to 20 big corporations in the 1940s.  After seven years of rejections, he was able to persuade Haloid, a small Rochester, New York company, to purchase the rights to his electrostatic paper- copying process.  Haloid has since become Xerox Corporation.

Bette Nesmith Graham, in the 1950s, began using white, water-based tempera paint and a thin paintbrush to cover her typing errors. She sold her first bottle, originally called Mistake Out, in 1956.  Graham later patented the office product.  After starting out with just 100 bottles a month in sales, Liquid Paper was selling 25 million bottles a year when Graham sold it for a reported $47.5 million in 1979.

In 1927 the head instructor of the John Murray Anderson Drama School, instructed student Lucille Ball, to “Try any other profession.  Any other.”  I wonder what would have made him say “I Love Lucy”?

Buddy Holly was fired from the Decca record label in 1956 by Paul Cohen, who was known as Nashville’s “artists and repertoire man.”  Cohen called Holly “the biggest no-talent I ever worked with.” 

Chuck Yeager, the famous test pilot, threw up all over the back seat on his first flight as a passenger.  He vowed never to go back up again, but eventually he reconsidered.  Then he became the first man to break the sound barrier.

These are all examples of ordinary people with extraordinary persistence.  None of these folks was famous or rich or even particularly successful before their big breaks.

We’ve all heard it before, but there really is no substitute for persistence.  In fact, persistence is sometimes as important as talent.  It must come from within.  You either want it or you don’t.  Giving up is not an option.  Don't be discouraged.  It's often the last key in the bunch that opens the lock."

My favorite Mackay example of persistence is this one:  "When I was first starting out, I asked a colleague I respected how many sales calls he would make on a prospect before giving up.  He told me, “It depends on which one of us dies first.”

08 August 2014

Several years ago, I wrote a column about "The Second Ten Commandments." Commandment two stated: “Thou shall not be fearful, for most of the things we fear never come to pass.” Every crisis we face is multiplied when we act out of fear. Fear is a self-fulfilling emotion. When you fear something, you empower it. If you refuse to concede to fear, there is nothing to fear.

Success usually depends on overcoming your fears: fear of taking a risk, fear of asserting yourself, fear of exposing your deepest self to other people, and ultimately, fear of failure. But for some people, the real fear is -- believe it or not -- success itself.

Fear of success can paralyze your efforts just as severely as fear of failure. Avoiding success may seem irrational, but success brings change, and change is often threatening.

Another concern is that co-workers may look to you for advice or assistance once you’ve proven you can succeed. You may lose control over your time or your privacy. Or, you might offer advice that doesn’t work as well as hoped. Then, your achievements might become suspect. And you certainly don’t want to make non-believers of the people you work with.

Another reason we fear success is because it can bring expectations of continued success. Achieving a major goal is hard work. What happens if people expect you to keep doing it indefinitely? Can you continue to produce?

Some people feel actually reaching a goal can be terrifying: What comes next? How will people react? What if your goal turns out to be meaningless? These worries can lead to procrastination and self-sabotage.

Benjamin Franklin had some timeless advice for those who are afraid of success, as well as failure: “The man who does things makes mistakes, but he never makes the biggest mistake of all -- doing nothing.”

Don’t let fear control you.

Seth Godin recently talked about “speedometer confusion” in his blog. That’s a term I wasn’t familiar with. He said, “The number on the speedometer isn’t always an indication of how fast you’re getting to where you’re going. You might, after all, be driving in circles, really quickly.”

“Campbell's Law tells us that as soon as a number is used as the measurement for something, someone will get confused and start gaming the number, believing that they're also improving the underlying metric, when, in actuality, they're merely making the number go up.”

Here are a few measurements Godin shares that are often the result of speedometer confusion. Remember -- the first measurement everyone tends to focus on, often has very little impact on the second, no matter how big the first is. For example, “Money versus Happiness; Income versus Skill; Facebook Likes versus Liked; Tenure versus Competence; Book Sales versus Impact; Twitter Followers versus Anything; Money Raised versus Votes Earned; Weight versus Health; Faster versus Better.”

Make sure the measurement you’re focused on really has value and meaning, and is not “just a number.”

Here’s a story by Aesop that I suspect you may not have heard before. It has a lesson that I think you will find relevant today, even though the story is very old.

“A man had two dogs: a hound, to assist him in hunting, and a housedog, who simply laid around the house. After a good day’s hunt, the man always gave the housedog a large share of his spoil.

One day, the hound, feeling much aggrieved at this, reproached his companion, saying, “It’s tough working so hard, while you, who never assists in the chase, luxuriates on the fruits of my exertions.”

The housedog replied, “Don’t blame me; it’s our master’s fault. For rather than teach me to work, he taught me to depend for subsistence on the labor of others.”

How do you feel about the hound and the housedog?

Harvey Mackay tells a terrific story about Alexander the Great.

“On his deathbed, Alexander the Great summoned his generals and told them his three ultimate wishes: 1) The best doctors should carry his coffin; 2) The wealth he had accumulated (money, gold, precious stones) should be scattered along the way to his burial; and 3) His hands should be left hanging outside the coffin for all to see.

“Surprised by these unusual requests, one of his generals asked Alexander to explain. His response: ‘I want the best doctors to carry my coffin to demonstrate that in the face of death, even the best doctors in the world have no power to heal. I want the road to be covered with my treasure, so that everybody sees that the wealth acquired on earth, stays on earth. I want my hands to swing in the wind, so that people understand that we come to this world empty-handed and we leave empty-handed after the most precious treasure of all is exhausted -- time.’

“Time is our most precious treasure because it is limited. We can produce more wealth, but we cannot produce more time. The ultimate mystery: None of us knows how much time we really have.”

Use the time you have left wisely.

No. 7 July 2014

In 2014, online sales in the United States are forecast to grow about 15 percent in comparison to the 5-percent growth predicted in traditional retail stores sales. This persistent growth of e-commerce reflects an alteration in the purchasing patterns of consumers. And it is making many big-box retailers reconsider business models that focus on real-estate portfolios for the generation of sales.

The result is that many retailers are allocating more of their capital expenditure budgets to the construction of their e-commerce platforms and supply chains rather than expanding their brick-and-mortar stores. For example, Home Depot recently announced that it would invest $1.5 billion this fiscal year in further developing its online store.

What happens when focus is on increasing sales by opening additional units? Big box retailers, including Home Depot, observed that adding more and more stores, each serving a more limited group of households, makes each store less profitable. No wonder Home Depot is increasing its focus on its online platform.

Keeping the big picture in focus, one can’t forget that Home Depot had 2,263 retail stores in the United States, Canada and Mexico at the end of FY 2013, generating 96.5 percent of its total revenue! Online operations generated 3.5 percent of total revenue at the end of FY 2013.

But online sales for FY 2013 grew at a 52.6-percent rate compared to a total net retail sales growth of 5.4 percent. So now you know why Home Depot is investing in online operations to grow future sales and not investing in increasing the number of store locations.

In a similar vein, Kiplinger’s Washington Letter says, “Troubles continue to mount for mid-tier retail chains like Sears, JC Penney, Office Depot, etc., retailers usually found near or in malls.”

Kiplinger’s suggests that mid-tier retailers’ “core customer base is rapidly deserting them. As retirement looms and households shrink for middle-income baby boomers, that group is cutting back on spending, and younger shoppers are not being lured by new products and displays. Other customers are increasingly opting to buy from discounter or upscale stores, squeezing mid-tier sellers from both ends. Intense online price competition hurts, too. Many stores will disappear, and some chains aren’t likely to survive.”

As more stores are shuttered, the big losers will be malls who will “have a harder time finding new tenants. Mall store rents will drop and so will foot traffic. Normally, 10 percent of mall storefronts are empty at any given time, but today it’s 15 percent to 20 percent.” The only “sure bet” to make is that change will continue, in the retail channel and in our industry. You can bet on it.

I bet most of you have never heard of Dave's Soda & Pet City, a seven-store chain based in Agawam, Mass. Ninety-eight percent of the business is pet-related and 2 percent is soda. Since its beginning in 1975, its owner Dave Ratner has built a customer-first business.

Here are a few customer service tips -- some familiar, some not -- Ratner uses every day: “1) When there is a problem, make it no problem. Make returns easy, solve customer problems in a nanosecond, and enable your employees to say, ‘What can we do to make it right?’ 2) Connect with your customers -- it's all about storytelling. 3) Develop emotional ties with your customers. Ratner gives gift cards to pet shelters, which then refer customers to his stores and publicize it. 4) It's not about metrics -- it's about being nice. At Dave's, if you aren't nice, you can't work there. Ratner writes personal thank-you notes on many occasions. 5) Do best what your competition does worst. Dave's focuses on having minimal out-of-stocks because its biggest competitor, Petco, has plenty of those. 6) Personalize everything you do. Dave's has its own brand of dog food, and on the back of the can is a message from Ratner: ‘Thanks for trusting me with the health of the creature you love more than anything in the world.’ 7) Be an expert resource for your customers. 8) Make sure all employees are working as a team. It's like a car with eight cylinders. If they are all good, everything is fine, but just one being down causes a big problem, and too much attention gets paid to that cylinder.”

Why don’t you try one of Ratner’s tips and see if it makes a positive difference in your business?

“When Janet looked at her pay stub, she was pleasantly surprised to learn that her company had deposited more than her normal wages into her bank account.

However, on the next payday, her paycheck was significantly less than what it should have been, and she went to her boss to complain.

‘I’m curious,’ her boss said. ‘Why didn’t you say anything when we overpaid you the other week?’

Janet responded: ‘I was willing to overlook one mistake, but two is pushing it.’”

I wonder what Janet’s boss thinks about her now?

No. 6 June 2014

John Calipari is one of the most fascinating basketball coaches you will ever meet.  He is calm and animated at the same time.  He is intense yet introspective.  He loves to – and lives to – win.  And he always, always, always lives by the credo, “Players First.”  His new book bears that title.

But perhaps his most valuable lesson is that he tells his players to “Fail fast.  Don’t be afraid to try new things.  Don’t be afraid to experiment.  Fail fast and we’ll correct.” 

Michael Jordan, one of the best players to ever play the game of basketball, says it best when talking about the power of failure: "I’ve missed more than 9000 shots in my career.  I’ve lost almost 300 games.  26 times I’ve been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed.  I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life and that is the main reason I have succeeded."   Failing often means you’re attempting to be more successful no matter what the odds.  That in itself is a sign of success.

Seth Godin recently talked about the difference between a doctor and a plumber.  It’s not what you think!

“The plumber, the roofer and the electrician sell us a cure. They come to our house, fix the problem, and leave.

The consultant, the doctor (often) and the politician sell us the narrative. They don't always change things, but they give us a story, a way to think about what's happening.

Often, that story helps us fix our problems on our own.  That’s why the best parents, teachers and bosses are in the story business helping their kids, students and employees solve problems on their own.”  Helping others solve problems by using a narrative is a solution we should all be interested in developing.

Harvey Mackay tells a terrific story about Bernie Marcus, the former CEO of Home Depot.  Mackay interviewed Marcus for his 2004 book We Got Fired! … And It’s the Best Thing That Ever Happened to Us (Random House).  What Marcus learned in 1978 from a close business friend on how to respond to being fired at age 49 changed his life forever.

“In 1978, Bernie Marcus was fired as the CEO of Handy Dan Home Improvement Center chain by Sanford C. ‘Sandy’ Sigoloff, who ran the parent corporation, Daylin.  Bernie was 49 years old and had never been fired before.  He called it ‘the low point in his life.’  Bernie was wounded and aching.  His first and only thoughts were about getting even.

‘It’s interesting when you have a low like this, you reach one point where you have a chance of coming out or not coming out,’ he said.  ‘If you come out, you’re better than you ever were.  If you don’t come out, you become what they commonly refer to as a loser.  If you come out, it’s usually because of the influence someone has on you.’

Fortunately for Bernie, that influence was Sol Price, founder of Price Club, which has since become part of Costco.  Price phoned Bernie and invited him to dinner at his home in San Diego.

Bernie arrived for dinner and got right to the point:  ‘My contract with Daylin was worth a million dollars.  Sandy broke the contract.  I want to get back at him.  Right now I’m suing Sandy for that million.’

To wage the suit, Bernie said he was eating up cash like it was going out of style.  Price understood, and the strategy he offered was truly priceless.

After dinner, Price took Bernie to a room in his house filled with papers stacked five to six feet high and no furniture.  They were all depositions from a lawsuit Sol had been involved with.  He told Bernie that the lawsuit consumed much of his energy and strength for three years of his life.

Price told Bernie:  ‘Why are you spending your young life suing somebody?  Why don’t you just forget about it and go on and live your life?  Otherwise, you’re going to end up with a room like this.’

The next morning when Bernie woke up, he said he really woke up.  I called the attorneys and said, ‘You’re off the case.  End the litigation.  I’m going on with my life.’

Just where did Bernie go?  One year later in 1979, he and Arthur Blank launched The Home Depot, which became the fastest growing retailer in U.S. history.

You will never get ahead of anyone as long as you are trying to get even with them because in order to get even with them, you have to stoop to their level.  If you didn’t like their tactics, why would you want to emulate them?

I am not in any way advocating being a patsy for another’s bad behavior.  But you must weigh whether bringing another person down will lift you up.  Take the high road whenever you can – it’s usually not too crowded.  

You must also consider what exacting revenge does to your physical and mental health.  Will it really make you feel better?   Consider the words of Martin Luther King, Jr., an advocate for forgiveness and peace:  ‘The old law about ‘an eye for an eye’ leaves everybody blind.’”

No. 5 May 2014

In a typical December, parcel carriers see their volumes peak mid-month. Last Christmas, however, more shoppers waited to the last-minute. Amazon Prime customers, for example, believed they had no reason to order early. In short, the December peak happened as forecast, but within this multi-week peak was a much bigger spike in activity concentrated in the last few days before Christmas that was just too big for UPS, in particular, to handle.

While all this was occurring, Amazon issued a congratulatory press release that lauded the fact that they had signed up 1 million Amazon Prime members in the third week of December and that demand was so great that it had to suspend enrollment.

But while delivery failures contributed to the profit hit, which the Amazon Prime program played a role in, the bigger hit comes from the Amazon Prime program itself.  Amazon Prime is a loss leader that enables Amazon to steal market share from traditional retailers.

Amazon’s 10-K demonstrated just how big a drag on profits this program really is. Supplemental information about outbound shipping results showed that for every $1 in shipping fees Amazon collected, they spent more than $2, for a total shipping loss of more than $3.5 billion.  That’s not pocket change.

Did you recently notice that the annual fee for Amazon Prime was increased?  Well, now you know why.

Have you ever heard about the “Zeignark effect”?  It’s named after a Russian psychiatrist who discovered that a waiter could remember incomplete orders more easily than those that were served and complete.  Further study showed that people are 90 percent more likely to remember tasks that are undone than those they completed. 

That makes some sense, but it also causes tremendous stress rather than pride of accomplishment.  There will always be work to be done, but stop and smell the roses – or the crocuses and daffodils – occasionally!   You’ll be glad you did!

In a recent Seth’s Blog, Seth Godin had this to say about money: “Money’s pretty new.  Before money, we traded.  My corn for your milk.  The trade enriches both of us and it’s simple.

‘Money, of course, makes a whole bunch of other transactions possible.  Maybe I don’t need your milk, but I can take your money and use it to buy something I do need, from someone else.  Very efficient, but also very abstract.”

As we ceased to trade, we moved all of our transactions to the abstract world of money.  And in this abstract world, “we’re constantly re-evaluating what money is worth.  Five dollars to buy a snack box on an airplane is worth something very different than $5 to buy a cup of coffee after a fancy meal, which is worth something different than $5 in the grocery store.  That’s because we get to pretend that the five dollars in each situation is worth a different amount.”

The value of that five dollars changes in our mind based on what and where we’re using it.

Godin’s conclusion is that “pricing based on cost makes no sense whatever, because cost is not abstract.  Pricing based on value does make sense because value is abstract.”  And that value changes in each situation, just like the value of $5 does for different products and where they are purchased.

My conclusion is: What we are willing to pay for something we want has no relationship to the actual cost of the item, but rather the value it has to us.  If that’s true or even partially true, how should that affect how we price what we sell in our own businesses?

A sales rep, an assistant and their manager are walking to lunch when they find an antique oil lamp.  They rub it, and a Genie comes out.  The Genie says, “I'll give each of you just one wish.”

“Me first!” says the assistant.  “I want to be in the Bahamas, driving a speedboat, without a care in the world.”  Poof!  She's gone.

“Me next!” says the sales rep.  “I want to be in Hawaii, relaxing on the beach with my personal masseuse, an endless supply of piña coladas and the love of my life.”  Poof!  He's gone.

“OK, you're up,” the Genie says to the manager.  The manager says, “I want those two back in the office after lunch.”

Moral:  Always let your boss have the first say.

No. 4 April 2014

We have all been told that if we would only collect more data about our business or our customers or our industry, we would be so much smarter, our marketing would magically become more successful and we would see instant results in revenue growth and satisfied customers.  If you believe that, then you and I need to talk about a bridge I’m selling. 

Jake Sorofman, in a recent HBR.org Blog, states that “Data, alone, isn’t what makes marketing move the needle for business.”  But he does believe that while “data can play a leading role in developing strategy and bringing precision to execution, it does nothing, absolutely nothing – to stir motivation and create the desire that makes cash registers ring.  Data is important, but it is content that makes an emotional connection (with a customer.)  Marketing leaders must remember that true brand intelligence lives at the intersection of head and heart, where the emotional self meets the analytical self.”

Sorofman lists “four strategic leverage points that allow marketers to deliver the right offers and experiences to the right customer at the right time while optimizing engagement and conversion rates.”  The first leverage point is “observing customer behavior to gain new insights.”  The second is “engagement, where you make impersonal brand messages more humanized, resulting in greater customer acceptance.”  The third leverage point is “inspiration, where moments of human insight and perception are captured, indexed, and harvested for strategic advantage.”  And the fourth is “automation, where speed and precision are used to target offers and experiences across channels for continuous optimization based on measured effectiveness.”

If you are so focused on your data that you misjudge or overlook the emotional connection you must make with your customers with your content and message, your marketing efforts will never be fully successful.

We’ve all heard the description used sometimes to describe a person that states, “He or She is a class act!”  Harvey Mackay says that “Class is hard to define, but easy to recognize.  Similarly, the absence of class is easy to detect – and a serious flaw for anyone who aspires to be successful.”

Mackay continues by saying “class is not an ‘act.’  It’s a deep-seated way of life for those who possess it.  Having class involves good manners, politeness, and pride without showboating, empathy, humility, and an abundance of self-control.  The actions of class-act people speak louder than their words.  You can see it in their body language and the way they carry themselves.  Class always shows without being announced.”

“People can tell if you have class by the way you interact with others.  If you have class, you don’t need much of anything else to be a winner.  If you don’t have it, no matter what you do, it won’t make up the difference.  Money, notoriety or success by themselves won’t give you class.  Class comes from within, not from external sources.”

Jack Canfield, in his book The Success Principles, lists some reasons why being a class act helps you succeed.  He writes, “People want to do business with you or become involved in your sphere of influence.  They perceive you as successful and someone who can expand their possibilities.  They trust you to act with responsibility, integrity and aplomb.  Class acts tend to attract people who are at the top of their game.”

So look closely at your network of friends, co-workers, customers and so on.  Are they class acts?  Whether you realize it or not, they are a reflection of you.

Harvey Mackay says “the good news is that if you don’t like what you see, you can change.  Make a decision to recreate yourself as a class act and see what kind of people you start attracting.  Do fewer things, but do them better.  Change your behavior for the better.  Raise the quality of your attitude.  When you have a higher level of personal standards, you get better treatment from everyone around you.  Once you’re a class act, you can say a lot without ever uttering a word.”

No. 3 March 2014

Have you ever written an obituary for your company or brand?  I didn’t think so.  Continue reading to learn the reasons Denise Lee Yohn thinks you should.

In her recent Harvard Business Review (www.hbr.org) Blog, Yohn asked if your company or brand ceased to exist, would anyone care? She went on to ask, “Would journalists write headlines heralding your past achievements, or would their stories simply add you to a list of bygones? Would analysts express disappointment, or would they point to indicators that made your death predictable? Would employees wonder how it could have ended, or would they have known it was inevitable? Would customers mourn your passing, or would the demise of your brand go unnoticed?”

Yohn suggests an exercise for you to do that will help bring clarity to what people perceive is the “essence of your brand or business.” She says, “Think of your brand as though it were a person -- the type of person the brand would be if it came to life today and was executing all that the brand entails with consistent excellence.” Then, “pretend you are a reporter for a local newspaper who must write an obituary for this person, your brand, who just passed away today.”

Here are some questions she says you must answer in this obituary: “What was the person’s (brand’s) biggest accomplishment in life? What will it be remembered for? Who did the brand leave behind? What did the brand leave unaccomplished? Who will mourn or miss the brand, and why? What lessons can be learned from the brand’s life? What can be learned in the wake of its death? Now that the brand is gone, what will take its place?”

“Once you’ve completed the column,” says Yohn, “write a headline to capture the essence of the obituary -- that headline, in turn, often captures the essence of your brand.”

“How do you build the kind of brand that would be missed? How do you carve out such a distinctive position and create such a powerful emotional connection (with your customers)?” adds Yohn. “You drill down to the core of your existence to identify the essential enduring value of your brand -- and then you design and run your business to execute relentlessly on that core brand essence. When what you stand for is clearly expressed and delivered in everything you do, every day, you (will) make an indelible mark on people’s hearts and minds.”

Knowing what you, your business and your brand stand for and delivering that essence of excellence every day will touch your customers in a way that will bring them back to your business, time and time again.

Shane Parrish, in his excellent Farnam Street blog (www.farnamstreetblog.com), tells a story about “The Man Who Never Quit.” You may have heard it in the past, but it’s worth hearing again. It is an amazing story and true.

When he was 7 years old, this young boy’s family was forced out of their home and off their farm. Like other boys his age, he was expected to work to help support the family.

When he was 9, his mother died.

At the age of 22, the company he worked for went bankrupt, and he lost his job.

At 23, he ran for state legislature in a field of 13 candidates. He came in eighth.

At 24, he borrowed money to start a business with a friend. By the end of the year, the business failed. The local sheriff seized his possessions to pay off his debt. His partner soon died, penniless, and he assumed his partner’s share of debt as well. He spent the next several years of his life paying it off.

At 25, he ran for state legislature again. This time, he won.

At 26, he was engaged to be married. But his fiancée died before the wedding. The next year, he plunged into a depression and suffered a nervous breakdown.

At 29, he sought to become the speaker of the state legislature. He was defeated.

At 34, he campaigned for a U.S. congressional seat, representing his district. He lost.

At 35, he ran for Congress again. This time, he won. He went to Washington and did a good job.

At 39, when his term ended, he was out of a job again. There was a one-term-limit rule in his party.

At 40, he tried to get a job as commissioner of the General Land Office. He was rejected.

At 45, he campaigned for the U.S. Senate, representing his state. He lost by six electoral votes.

At 47, he was one of the contenders for the vice-presidential nomination at his party’s national convention. He lost.

At 49, he ran for the same U.S. Senate seat a second time. And for the second time, he lost.

Two years later, at the age of 51, after a lifetime of failure, disappointment and loss (and still relatively unknown outside of his home state of Illinois), Abraham Lincoln was elected the 16th president of the United States.

The next time you consider giving up when faced with setback, consider this story. Imagine how the world would be different today if Lincoln gave up after his first setback…or his second…or his 10th?

No. 2 February 2014

A dealer, who wishes to remain anonymous, recently sent me an email asking if a lot of dealers who are “aging out” of actively running their businesses look to “angels” to buy them out or do they just close up and sell off their assets, especially when one of their kids does not want to take over and continue the business.  He tells me he is the sole family survivor of a family lawnmower shop that went out of business primarily due to a major catastrophic act of nature, and he chose not to rebuild and reopen.  Now he’s not sure that was the right step for him to take.   He’s been talking to local and regional dealers in his area, and he says they are all asking him to buy them out.  Even the owners of the largest dealership in his area are “aging out” and their son, for whom they kept the business running and successful, has opted out of taking over, leaving his parents hoping they’ll find an “angel” to buy the business or be faced with selling their assets for what they can get.

In the early 1970’s, when I first joined this family-owned distributorship, I noticed right away that our dealer customers were “old” - appeared to be near retirement age.  Now my perspective was certainly influenced by the fact that I was in my mid-20’s, but nevertheless, I worried that our customer base was going to die-off in just a few years.  Many of those older dealer owners did retire, just like older business people do, and sold off their business assets to a multiplicity of other dealers or in a few cases, had a relative take over management.  “Angels” were very few and far between.  But new service dealers kept appearing, often “popping up” close to new concentrations of residential areas.  They saw a future and took a chance, often borrowing the start-up money from a bank rather than hoping for an “angel” backer.  When they were willing to go to the bank because they believed in themselves that much, I was motivated to help them succeed.

For a long time, I’ve thought that successful dealerships, especially those run by owners who had been re-investing in them for many years, were perfect for their kids to take over.  The investment in assets over the years meant that the son or daughter had a solid foundation that didn’t require a huge initial investment and could be paid for over time.  The business real estate might need sprucing up, but the inventory was typically paid for, as was the building and equipment.  The kids had a head-start, in many ways.

If the kids choose to do other things, then the owners have to find another successful dealer who was interested in a branch location, or an entrepreneur who wanted a successful business to buy, not someone else’s failure.  Otherwise, assets could be sold piecemeal to different businesses and owners.

Dealerships come and go, just like any other business.  I’ve read numerous articles on what makes one dealership successful and another one not.  Bob Clements can and will tell you in a day’s seminar how to be successful in an OPE sales and service operation.  The information is out there for the asking.  But at the end of the day, it still comes down to internal drive, planning and a desire to want to be successful.  It’s a challenge you can win, but no one ever said it would be easy.  What would you tell this sole survivor of a business that was washed away in a flood and who isn’t sure of what the right path is for him to take?  I would be very interested in your thoughts.  Please share them by dropping me an email.

"Bad habits are like a comfortable bed,” a pundit once noted, "easy to get into, but hard to get out of." Sticking with what's comfortable might be one of the deadliest habits of all.

In the bullfighting arena, expert matadors have long gained an edge by pinpointing a bull's comfort zone. Former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina has studied this phenomenon. "In bullfighting there is a term called querencia. The querencia is the spot in the ring to which the bull returns," she explains. "Each bull has a different querencia, but as the bullfight continues, and the animal becomes more threatened, it returns more and more often to his spot. As he returns to his querencia, he becomes more predictable."

What are the consequences of predictability? "In the end," Fiorina says, "the matador is able to kill the bull because instead of trying something new, the bull returns to what is familiar (i.e. his comfort zone)."

Many businesses retreat to their comfort zones when challenged. A new form of competition emerges or threatening research undercuts a core product. This is bad news, and who wants to hear that?  "Bad news isn't wine," former Secretary of State Colin Powell once said. "It doesn't improve with age."  The key is how you take the bad news and what you do about it.  Just be sure you don’t keep doing the same thing over and over while expecting new and better results.

No. 1 January 2014

Anne Mulcahy, former Chairman and CEO of Xerox, recently shared this business advice, which I think you'll really enjoy:  “(1) Don’t waste precious time fretting about things over which you have no control.  (2) Delegate the easy stuff and hold on to those things that are challenging and difficult because that is how you grow.  (3)  Learn from the mistakes of others, because you can’t live long enough to make them all yourself.  (4) Get out of your office.  Henry Ford was once asked why he made a habit of visiting his executives when problems arose rather than inviting them to his own office.  ‘I go to them to save time,’ Ford explained, ‘and besides I’ve found I can leave their office a lot quicker than I can get them to leave mine.’”  And my favorite, (5) “Open you ears and close your mouth.  Remember, the only thing that can come out of your mouth is something you already know. Shut up and learn.”

Harvey Mackay tells this story about Anne Mulcahy when she was asked by Fortune Magazine what was the best advice she had ever received in business?  She said, “It occurred at a breakfast meeting in Dallas, to which she had invited a group of business leaders.” 

Mackay continued, “One of them, a plainspoken, self-made, streetwise guy, came up to Mulcahy and said: ‘When everything gets really complicated and you feel overwhelmed, think about it this way.  You gotta do three things.  First get the cow out of the ditch.  Second, find out how the cow got into the ditch.  Third, make sure you do whatever it takes so the cow doesn’t go back into the ditch again.’”   If you break that thought process down, it covers just about any situation you can think of.  Think about it.

We all admire elite athletes, for many different reasons.  Dr. David Yukelson from Penn State University recently published a list of key characteristics associated with mentally tough elite athletes.  The attributes Dr. Yukelson describes also work well for business people, no matter what business they are in.  Yukelson's four attributes are:

•         "Self-Belief - Having an unshakable belief in one's ability to achieve competitive goals.
•         Motivated - Having an insatiable desire and internalized motivation to succeed.
•         Focused - Remain fully focused on the task at hand in the face of distraction.
•         Composed/Handle Pressure - Ability to regain psychological control and thrive on pressure."

These are not easy attributes for anyone to attain.  That's why not everyone is an elite athlete.  But a little practice on your part will help you be better prepared to take on the challenges that constantly arise in your own business.

There is a poem called The Victor about mind over matter (i.e. mental toughness), often attributed to C.W. Longenecker.  What does “mental toughness” mean?  Harvey MacKay defines it as: "conditioning your mind to think confidently and being able to overcome frustration."  Some people believe that mental conditioning is as important as physical conditioning.  We've all seen a team "rise to the occasion" and win a game that no one gave them a chance of winning.  We point to our forehead and say it was "mind over matter."  A win that came about because one team believed more than the other that they could win the game.  And they did.  So can you.  But only if you believe.    C.W. Longenecker’s poem The Victor follows:

If you think you are beaten, you are. 

If you think you dare not, you don’t.
If you like to win but think you can’t, it’s almost a cinch you won’t.

If you think you’ll lose, you’re lost.
For out in the world we find success begins with a fellow’s will.
It’s all in the state of mind.

If you think you’re outclassed, you are.
You’ve got to think high to rise.
You’ve got to be sure of yourself before you ever can win the prize.

Life’s battles don’t always go to the stronger or faster man,
But sooner or later, the man who wins
Is the man who thinks he can!

No. 12 December 2013

In a recent interview in the November 3rd edition of the Sunday New York Times, David Cote, the Chairman and CEO of Honeywell, talked about how making good decisions is critical to the success of a business.  A decisive business leader “wants to make decisions often and quickly (i.e. ‘give me what you’ve got and I’ll make a decision’.)  And the lower you are in an organization, you can get away with a lot of that and you’ll be applauded for it.”

“But with bigger decisions, you can make bigger mistakes, so you really have to think about the kind of decision you’re making.  Is this a decision where if I’m wrong, there can be significant ramifications?” 

“What I’ve taught myself to do is to tell everybody that this is a preliminary decision and we will go through it again in a day or two, because it’s so important to get it right.”

“If I’m very decisive and I surround myself with people who just want me to make decisions, then we’ll go off the cliff at 130 miles an hour, because at some point I’ll be wrong.  What I need are people who want to come to their own conclusions and are willing to think independently, and can argue with me in the right way so I can (keep the process) objective as opposed to emotional.”

“There’s this phrase I use a lot when I teach leadership classes at Honeywell:  ‘Your job as a leader is to be right at the end of the meeting, not at the beginning of the meeting.’  It’s your job to flush out all the facts, all the opinions, and at the end make a good decision, because you’ll get measured on whether you make a good decision, and not whether it was your idea from the beginning.”

In running our businesses, we spend a lot of time making decisions.  And each decision we make has a huge impact on our success, so it pays to make every decision as good as we can.  David Cote is suggesting that we can make better decisions when we’re armed with all the facts (i.e. you’re never as well informed at the beginning of a meeting as you are at the end.)  That’s something you should consider the next time someone pressures you to make a quick decision.

I hope you’re celebrating the Holiday Season with family and friends and not setting new world-records for eating the most food at a family get-together.  Sometimes you want to say out-loud:  “Wait a minute, this isn’t an eating contest, is it?”

Here’s my favorite Charles Schultz story that really puts “what’s important in our lives” into perspective:

“Every time I see these questions make the rounds via email around the Internet, I’m reminded of what truly is important in life.  Don’t answer the questions. Just read it to the end, and you'll get the point.

1. Name the five wealthiest people in the world.

2. Name the last five Heisman trophy winners.

3. Name the last five winners of the Miss America Pageant.

4. Name ten people who have won the Nobel or Pulitzer Prize.

5. Name the last half dozen Academy Award winners for best actor and actress.

6. Name the last decade's worth of World Series winners.

How did you do?

The point is, none of us remembers the headliners of yesterday. These are no second-rate achievers. They are the best in their fields. But the applause dies. Awards tarnish. Achievements are forgotten. Accolades and certificates are buried with their owners.

Here's another quiz. See how you do on this one:

1. List a few teachers who aided your journey through school.

2. Name three friends who have helped you through a difficult time.

3. Name five people who have taught you something worthwhile.

4. Think of a few people who have made you feel appreciated and special.

5. Think of five people you enjoy spending time with.

Easier?

Give yourself credit for remembering the people who really made a difference in your life.  They didn’t have the most credentials, the most money or the most awards.  They just cared about you.  Whose life have you made a difference in recently?”

Remember that you have a choice every day about how you approach life and the people around you.  Make it positive.  Make it thankful.  Count your blessings.  Then share a few.  Happy Holidays!