I am going insane…

November 12th, 2008 Chris

OK – I know I have been super delinquent. The fact is I am going insane.

I have officially max’ed out and it was stupid. And I think there is a lesson here.

When I first went to work with Colleen, I suffered from ego-interruptus. That is, the small amount of respect and industry recognition I had obtained as the CTO was a bit addictive. Nothing like telling the story over drinks about briefing Congress or pioneering a new high-growth market. It’s a long way to writing copy and working on a web page design.

So, I went to take on additional challenges that would feed my ego. First, I got a teaching gig at our local University’s MBA program. Then I joined a colleague in doing Product Management training at a large technology. What was I thinking!?!

And it’s not like there was nothing to do with our micro-business. I’ve got things back from last December I’ve not done yet.

But now, I sit here – working from 6am to 11pm each day and doing nothing as well as I’d like. And worst of all, I’m hurting the business that allows us to have a great lifestyle and is going to help us retire.

It must stop. After my current commitments, I am going to re-focus on the one business that’s most critical to us. And if my ego suffers once and a while… in the words of a good friend of mine (and a former post), I’ll have to “suck it up, princess.”

C.

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Confronting Reality

October 7th, 2008 Chris

Colleen came home for a brief pit-stop before leaving me again - this time leaving for …ah… Actually, I can’t remember where. I stopped trying to track her travels. Not that I don’t care - it just doesn’t matter in this day of cell phones and blackberries (surely iPhones?).

Until yesterday, I thought Colleen had the utmost faith in my work ethic. I had hoped that despite being out of sight when she was travelling, she trusted that I continued to work hard. However, my faith in her faith was a bit shaken when she got home yesterday and asked what the heck I was doing.

I don’t know why – I was in the office, leaning back in my chair with my feet on the desk and my eyes closed.

While I would be fibbing if I said I had never taken advantage of a mid-day siesta to restore engery and vitality, this time I swear my mind was whirling away.

I had just watched the record drops in stock markets but it wasn’t the fact that we’ll now need to work till we’re 80 to retire. It was wondering what fundamental changes this means to our business.

I remember reading a great book, Confronting Reality, shown above. It made the case that people who run businesses need to step back and recognize key market trends. More importantly, it is critical to recognize these realities and act.

An example cited in the book was an American business intensely trying to increase efficiencies in their American operations in the face of increased competition from lower cost suppliers. The prescription was to Confront Reality: Competitors were taking advantage of overseas manufacturing and all the fine tuning in the world wasn’t going to make an American plant competitive. Confronting Reality meant facing the fact that only through moving product overseas would the business continue to be competitive. Strategic action – not tactical – was needed.

So, in today’s tough economy, we all could tweak away with pricing and marketing copy. Or we could Confront Reality. Reality that the economy is going to change what customers are attractive, change what they want to buy and change how they buy it.

So with my eyes closed and my chair-back definitely not in the upright position, I was trying to do figure out what fundamentally was going to change for us:

• What value was the customer looking for. Growing sales versus maintaining sales in a tough market, etc…
• What product the customer was looking for. High-end customized solutions versus cost effective off-the-shelf products…
• etc…

If you haven’t sat back with your eyes closed (or paced, or went for a run, or whatever works for you) and ran through the realities of your situation, you are setting yourself up to be a victim of the times versus someone who capitalizes on the times.

C.

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Suck It Up, Princess

October 2nd, 2008 Chris

I can’t stand complainers. I’m sure we’ve all met them – those people that have a thousand excuses why they aren’t doing better, be it in work or their personal life.

There is absolutely no point in being miserable when confronted with challenges. When faced with a bad economy or a failed business initiative, you have two choices: 1. deal with it, or 2. use it as an excuse to fail.

I heard the best line ever from a friend who isn’t typically a complainer. Out of character, one day he was bemoaning something and was told to Suck It Up, Princess. It succinctly and brilliantly represented view.

Someone asked us the other day if we’re worried about the bad economic climate impacting our business. We said No! While banks fail and large companies call down their revenue and profit numbers, being a micro business actually makes it easier.

Easier because you might as well just accept the reality of external challenges. You aren’t going to change the economy. You have no choice to accept the external environmental conditions and move to dealing with it.

Easier because you are more nimble. Shifting messaging and marketing collateral takes a larger organization tons of time and requires all sorts of internal gyrations. The micro business can decide to change their value proposition in the morning and be done by dinner. For example, changing from our services help you capitalize on this booming market to our services ensure you increase sales, even in a tough market.

Easier because you will be targeting a particular niche in a large market and, regardless of the overall economy, there is always a niche that continues to grow and spend money.

So, next time you are feeling sorry for yourself – stop. Too much is on the line. Accept the reality of the situation and decide how to act to deal with it.

C.

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Shmalance

August 22nd, 2008 Chris

I was out for a beer with a friend the other day (surely not again) and I mentioned my upcoming vacation to P.E.I. I was recounting how it’s always a bit of a challenge finding a place that works for us. We have very specific requirements: must take a dog, must be near the water, must have a dishwasher (I gave up “roughing it” years ago), and must have high speed Internet.

He thought I was insane. Why Internet?

Well, it’s pretty simple. Neither of us can stand being out of contact with the business and there is always something that needs to be done.

I’d like to say it’s unique to our micro business but I’ve actually always found it way less stressful to stay in contact with the office and not come back to a mountain of issues. Just an hour every day to knock off some emails and ensure someone takes care of any urgent issues.

But with our micro business, it’s really not an option. There is simply stuff that needs to get done. Stuff that can’t wait two weeks. It’s really the downside of your vacation partner being your business partner – there is no one that can handle all the issues while you’re gone.

I’m not complaining. I love the lifestyle of having our own business. I bring the dog to the office, have shaving down to a semi-weekly ritual and don’t even ask when the last time was that I wore pants. Of course, Colleen has it tougher as she actually has to travel around and meet with clients. And wear pants.

It is just the simple fact that your back-fill is limited and so there is never really a complete “down-time”. And given that our business is the sole source of our livelihood now, I’d rather bring my laptop, connect up and do a bit of work on vacation.

And besides, without a laptop, how could we have settled our debate yesterday on who sang “Take On Me”?

C.

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Are you a CEO or a COO?

August 14th, 2008 Chris

I was out for dinner and drinks with a few friends last night (surely not again). We went to our regular sushi place and then to the pub for a few pints. These are guys that I used to work with so we get to share our war stories of working in a mid/large company and all the insanity that ensues. I do suspect our company had more than its fair share with the prevailing hypothesis that there was way too much lead in the water in Dallas. What company you ask? I’m afraid that discretion demands that its identity stay private although evENTUally I may reveal it…

There is always an interesting contrast between life in the big company versus the micro business. Apparently, it is very surprising that Colleen and I haven’t killed each other. When I joined Colleen about a year ago, I did say that my criteria for staying in the business after one year was that we had to raise revenues enough to keep me in the lifestyle to which I had become accustomed and there were no homicides.

This perception of our potential for mutual-violence is not uncommon. When I left the big company and went to work with Colleen, about half of our friends predicted that our bodies would be found by authorities, interlocked in mutual strangulation.

What’s the source for this perception? Probably it’s because the way Colleen and I approach business is very different. And I believe that is precisely why we work well together.

When discussing this last night, my friend asked if I behave the same way now as I did in my former company. He was kind enough to clarify his question along the lines of the following: “I mean, are you still a real a**hole?”

I’d like to think that this is a kind of euphemism for someone who is focused on business objectives and makes honest feedback a priority in all his communication. But it is true that sometimes this has been at the expense of people’s feelings. The way my brain works is very simple: what’s the business strategy, what is the plan to achieve it and is a particular activity in-line with that plan.

So when someone suggest working on something that is less important than other activities or does not contribute to the business strategy, I tend to provide honest feedback. The other night, Colleen made the suggestion that we develop a particular piece of marketing collateral, a welcome package for some customers at a conference. In three separate emails, I immediately responded with the following feedback on the idea: (no word of a lie, these are verbatim):

• We do not have welcome packages. Please feel free to add other stuff for us to give you that doesn’t exist.
• And I think we should have revenues of one billion dollars every day. How’s sales going?
• And I would like the magical beer fairy to give me a beer every night while I work on stuff that we needed one month ago.

OK, it seems I really am an a**hole.

But here is the great part – it works for us. Why? Two reasons: 1. Colleen is used to my foul mouthed drama and 2. It complements her strengths. We’ll focus on #2… and leave #1 to Dr. Phil.

Not only is Colleen a fantastic sales gal, critical for our business, she also is a great visionary. And she believes there is nothing we can’t do. This is fantastic as it challenges us to do stuff that a more conservative person wouldn’t. She is open minded and constantly looking for ways for us to think different. And it has paid off huge dividends.

And here in lies the balance – we can both agree what the overall strategy for the business is and then come up with a compromise plan to do it. Compromise in that Colleen will want to do 1000 things and is easily distracted by “bright-and-shiny” objects, and I will want to do three things and ignore everything else less critical. In the end, we come up with a balance between boundless optimism and pessimistic realism in our ability to execute.

As I said, in the end it works. Colleen will challenge us with doing new, crazy things without any thought to how it will actually get done and I will ensure that what we do lines up with what we’re trying to achieve as a business and make sure we can actually achieve it.

I would challenge you to figure out what type of person you are: crazy, creative CEO or grumpy, focused COO. That’s the easy part. The hard part is being willing to find someone: co-worker, friend, mentor, etc… who gives you contrasting thoughts about your business and taking them to heart.

Luckily for me, I’ve got no choice. I live with that person…

C.

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Fall In Love with Your Inner Plagiarist

June 24th, 2008 Chris

A friend of mine was telling me the tale of a marketing communication person that, faced with a tight deadline (the most charitable rationale ascribed) to produce some web copy, liberally borrowed from a competitor. Of course, there was much a do about this: company can’t plagiarize…blah, blah blah. I hoisted my beer and likewise lampooned the poor individual.

Fast forward a few months and – low and behold – I have become an unabashed, recidivist plagiarist. While this probably sounds worse than it is (especially if you try to say it out loud three times fast), it still is a pretty big change for me. I come from an environment where thought typically needed to be original and marketing product had do be developed from scratch. The result was a lot of hunched backs and banging keyboards as new prose was developed for each marketing piece in the business.

I’m not saying that’s bad – nothing would be worse than having a CxO prospect get it in their head that a technology company rips off IP from another – even if it is just the marketing stuff. So much for thought leadership. But when it’s just you against the world – that just doesn’t seem as important.

Case in point, we do a fair bit of email marketing (ad passim, ad nauseum) and we’ve been having pretty good results to date. Then, the other day an email from a guy named Dan Kennedy arrived. He sells marketing systems and has a pretty amazing track record at writing copy that sells, a lot. Let’s just say his hobby is horse racing (owning, not betting).

What’s interesting is that this email really didn’t impress me. It wasn’t very well formatted and was pretty aggressive in it’s language – really challenging the reader to take action. But this guy is a wizard so I said what the heck. I took it, changed a few words to fit to our business and let ‘er fly.

Now, here is my rationalization on why it’s OK:

1. We don’t compete with Dan Kennedy guy so we’re not really hurting him.
2. He’ll never find out (OK – that one is lame)
3. We’ve attended a conference hosted by him where he has encouraged folks to apply his work.

So, I think he’d be OK with it. I’ve discussed this with a few other micro business owners and discovered that I was a plagiarism light-weight. People were borrowing whole marketing campaigns, verbatim from other’s who have had success. Again, in different markets so as to not be completely egregious.

This is really part of a broader principle that is key for micro business owners: success leaves tracks. When your small team is continually faced with a mountain of projects to get done to sell more – why reinvent the wheel. You can just look across the fence and see what people in related industries are doing to be successful. What are your neighbors doing:

• What does their web site look like?
• What is the order process for their product?
• What is the wording on their google ads?
• What suppliers do they use?
• What do their sales letters look like?
• How is their store laid out?
• etc…

Remember – this is not necessarily the same as gathering competitive intelligence. It’s about finding people in similar businesses and discovering what they’ve done to be successful. Then blatantly copying them.

Oh yeah – the plagiarized email I sent. It sold three times as much as the best one I’ve ever done from scratch.

C.

P. S. Post a comment or send me a note and I’ll forward you that email…

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Taking a Buzz Saw to the Trees (Figuratively)

June 17th, 2008 Chris

I have a laundry list of issues that make me dangerous in our business. One of the top ones is that I have strong focus on execution. While on the surface that can be good, it does represent a major risk. I get so focused on the closed loop of the plan, execute, measure and evolve process, that I sometimes miss the ideas out of left field that can represent real break-throughs in the business.

In a bigger company this isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Some folks are head’s down get ‘er done people and some are more strategic planners. They complement each other.

In a micro business, there just aren’t that many of you. So you can’t afford to be one or the other. If you keep your head down and focus on execution, you’ll miss major opportunities to learn from what others are doing and those crazy ideas that make growth go non-linear.

So what’s the best way to take back out of the forest and explore some new ideas? I find the best way is to get together with others in small businesses – out of the office. Not that it was easy for me to do this…

Colleen, however, is great at it. She is part of a marketing group targeting entrepreneurs called Glazer-Kennedy (www.dankennedy.com). When she first joined, I had a major fit because it was expensive to join (I’m also a cheap bastard). But I’m now a convert.

It’s not necessarily that everything I hear is directly applicable to our business or even that I agree with evertyhing – but it does force me to think outside the box. I find that even 1-2 days out of the office, listening to others talking about stuff that does and doesn’t work leaves us with pages of ideas for Colleen and I to try.

Even just one or two of the things we learn make major differences in our business. A couple of months ago, it was a tip for our web site that more than doubled our newsletter sign-ups. This time, we’ve got a number of suggestions for making sure that members in our coaching program understand the benefits of upgrading to high levels. Just one or two ideas more than pay for the investment to be part of the group and are critical to getting our revenue to ramp higher.

But you don’t necessarily need to go and spend money and join a group. I also have a group of friends who get together and brain-storm on each other’s businesses over breakfast (or occasionally a beer). I believe this concept is called masterminding but I refuse to refer to it as such as I think it’s the goofiest name I’ve ever heard… But the result is the same – one or two great ideas that emerge that could take our business to the next level.

If you’re like me and can get trapped in execution mode, you need to force yourself to take a step back at least once every 3 – 6 months and expose yourself to other perspectives. That fresh look could make the difference between micro business success and failure.

C.

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It’s Not Scottish…

May 22nd, 2008 Chris

This will sound completely contrarian but I think the whole “4 hour work week”, “outsource everything you can” is crap. In short: if you’re not working your butt off – what are you doing?!

I’m not completely a outsourcing luddite – I do believe that certain business essentials need to be outsourced for one of two reasons:

1. Skill sets. I am not an accountant, a lawyer or a graphics designer. Those are all tasks that we outsource. Even if I wanted to do those things – I can’t. So we pay people to do that work.

2. Opportunity cost. This is the one where Tim Ferriss and I really deviate. I am incredibly picky and given my druthers, would have my hands on every piece of the puzzle. Unfortunately, there are only some many hours in the day and something has to go…

What do I mean “something has to go…”? That means, unless I’m willing to hire another person that I can micro manage, it has to be outsourced because I’m not ready to work more than 60 hours a week (I have in the past but I’d really like to have some modicum of non-work stuff in my life). So it means prioritizing what effort is done in house and outsourcing the stuff that has less risk of impacting the customer.

For example, I am really picky about how customer facing stuff looks. I wasn’t happy with some of the way stuff on our web looked so I undertook to update it. I knew enough to get done what we wanted so I brought it in house. On the other hand, while we could print out and collate 200 copies of a work book for one of Colleen’s clients, we don’t have time – so off to the printer it goes.

Think I’m crazy? Do you know the CEO of Starbucks has been known to pick the size of font on store signs and the color of cups? This is the guy that built and runs a bazillion dollar empire. He could outsource it or delegate it (an option in a non-micro biz) but he doesn’t. Finding the time to personally ensure a positive customer experience pays.

So, if you only want to work four hours a week, I think Tim Ferriss has a good plan. But I also assume you don’t care if your business grows – otherwise, you’d use those other 56 hours. There is always more to be done.

Otherwise, perhaps its time for a gut-check: are you really passionate about your business?

C.

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