July 1, 2022 – Is There a Characteristic of Our Founding Fathers That We Need Now?

Main Idea:

Are you facing significant obstacles in your business?  What is the general mood of the country?  Is anything under control?  Are people happy and easy to deal with?  Can you find employees?  Has supply chain issues impacted your business

Expansion of the Idea:

Life is as complicated now as I have ever seen it.  Inflation reminds me of the 70’s and 80’s.  Political activism is extremely polarized.  All of our businesses are facing a lot of uncertainty in almost every aspect.  It is hard to find employees who want to work.  Trying to get new customers is hard because of all of the false ads.  No one believes anything.  The stock market is in a bear market.  Borrowing money is costing more every day.  And technology is changing so fast that it seems like all we do is upgrade software.  On top of all of that is a regulatory environment that is unfriendly to business and extremely uncertain.  It is very easy to get depressed and throw your hands up in the air as if there is nothing you can do

However, as I was thinking about all of these problems, I also started thinking about the upcoming July 4th holiday.  And if you go deeper, if you start thinking about the founding fathers and what they faced, you realize that we have it pretty good.  Or if you think about what is going on in Ukraine, you realize that our problems are really pretty minor.  The key question is how do we navigate all of these issues.  That is going to be different for everyone.  But I think there is one characteristic that we do need and it needs to be developed for us to succeed. 

Optimism

Optimism is one of those special forces that impacts everything and everyone around us.  When you are optimistic, you start to see paths out of problems.  You encourage people around you.  You also attract people because no one wants to be around pessimistic people.  You provide hope.  It also leads to other positive characteristics such as determination, hard work, collaboration and enthusiasm. 

As Zig Ziglar says, “Your attitude determines your altitude.”.  No matter what else happens, the one thing that you can control is your attitude.  If you choose optimism, with a little determination, then you will succeed. 

As we go into the Fourth of July weekend, I hope you can celebrate our nation as well as your future. Just as our founding fathers created a great nation, we can go out and create great businesses.

Next Steps:

• Make a list of things you are optimistic about.

• Make a list of things you are thankful for.

• If you are struggling with optimism, call someone who is optimistic.

• Encourage 3 people today.

• Make a list of the challenges in your business that you are going to tackle.

• If still struggling, reread “The Little Engine that Could”

September 17, 2021 - Are You Looking at Reality from the Right Perspective?

Main Idea:

When you look out the window and it is dark, is it night time?  When an employee tells you that a customer is being unreasonable, do you know if that is correct?  Can someone tell you the truth and still be completely wrong?  If your financial statements show that you are losing money, is that a bad thing?

Expansion of the Idea:

I have a picture in one of my conference rooms that shows a winding garden path.  There are a million pictures that show garden paths.  The unusual thing about this picture is that if you stand to one side and look at it, the picture shows summer.  If you move three feet to the left, it will show the same picture in winter.  This technique is called lenticular display.  When I saw this at an art show, I immediately bought it.  This is a great reminder to me to look for reality from multiple points of view.

Most of us get into ruts in how we see our business, our employees, our friends and even our enemies.  It is easier and quicker to take the previous view of the world and just use that.  And that will work for a period of time.  However, the world is changing rapidly.  For anyone in a service business, you may or may not need to be located close to your customers.  Amazon has completely changed retail and distribution businesses. There is disruption everywhere and you can’t afford to be the last person at a game of musical chairs.  We need to look at everything from multiple perspectives, including those of our customers and employees.  There is no real definition of reality.  There are just multiple facets of it. 

Likewise, there is no perfect way to address this situation.  The most important thing is to realize that our perspective may seem right for us but it isn’t always right for others.  By looking at all points of view, we may find better solutions for all interactions.  This could include:

• Learning more about your customer, employee or vendor

• Asking questions on different perspectives

• Invest time to see how your products or services are used

• Look back at some recent conflicts, lost employees or customers to see if there was some information that you were unaware

One of Stephen Covey’s Seven Habits for Highly Successful People was to seek first to understand and then to be understood.  I think a completely consistent version of this would be to seek first to understand and then build a better solution.   

Places to Start Looking at Different Versions of Reality:

1. Are there issues going on in your business that you don’t understand

2. Revisit important conversations you had with team members to see if your understanding of that conversation was the same

3. Meet with clients to understand their view of what you offer them

4. Talk to outside advisors, including your banker to evaluate their perspective of your service offering

5. Spend some time watching how work is done in your business

6. Ask your team if there are areas that they think you should focus on

I plan on having a zoom conference call on Constraints and Conflict Resolution on October 27 at 1pm CDT. This will explain how to identify your constraints and use the constraint to grow your business.  I know that this sounds like an oxymoron but it works.  I will also introduce a special conflict resolution process to help in your thinking. Looking at reality from different perspectives is absolutely critical to exploit the constraints. This zoom call will be beneficial for all managers, whether in a business or nonprofit.  If you are interested in reserving your spot, please email me at your earliest convenience. 

September 9, 2021 - Is Your Thinking Holding Your Business Back?

Main Idea:

Is “That’s the way we do it here.” popular in your business?  Do you have a lot of debate on how to handle issues?  Do you know what your constraints are?  Are any of them impossible to fix? How creative are you and your team?  When was the last time you took 8 hours off to just think?

Expansion of the Idea:

Two weeks ago, I reread 2 books by Eliyahu Goldratt.  They are “The Goal” and “It’s Not Luck”.  My copy of It’s Not Luck is literally falling apart because I have reread it so many times.  I generally reread these books every 2-3 years.  You might look at them and question my intelligence.  They are simply two business parables with a few key insights.  Yet I find it is important to me to reread these books.  The reason is that some of the answers to business problems are so profound that I need to reread them to keep me focused on the answers.  Like everyone else I can fall into ruts in how I think.  The real genius in the books is the alternative way that Eliyahu Goldratt approaches bottlenecks in business and various conflicts in problem solving.  The key to everything is identifying what your true goals are, looking critically at your situation from the other person’s point of view or sometimes from just another point of view.  As Mark Twain said:

It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you in trouble. 

It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.

The last two years have created a lot of issues that we have to deal with.  Almost everyone has employee problems.  Anyone that sells products also has supply chain problems.  If you don’t sell products then you go back to employee issues.  Customers have changed buying patterns, maybe a couple of times.  Taxes have changed as often as a parent changes a newborn’s diaper.  And no one knows really what to expect going forward.

What should we do?

We really need to think about three things:

1. What are our goals?

2. Where do we stand right now?

3. What is holding us back from achieving our goals?

Most of us have a bottleneck or constraint in our organizations. This bottleneck is neither bad nor good.  It is just a constraint.  All of our competitors have constraints also.  The issue for us as managers and leaders is to figure out how to exploit the constraint.  However, to do this, we need to get rid of our old way of thinking that includes:

1. We definitely can’t afford to do that.

2. We never want to offer that service.

3. I am the only one who can do this task.

4. My team is holding me back.

There are a number of other phrases that I could write.  But I think you get the point.  We have a no in our mind and that “No” cannot be sandblasted out of there.  However, instead we need to think about doing something that we think is impossible and figuring out how to make it happen.  Too often, the only thing holding us back is our thinking.  And the next thing holding us back is our team’s thinking.  To move forward, we need to establish a culture of trust where the team can share their opinions and ideas in a safe environment.  And we need to share with them.  I like Benjamin Franklin’s quote:

We must all hang together or we will all hang separately.

Wherever your business or organization is right now, we need to improve.  And like most things in life, the improvement needs to start with us. And it doesn’t cost us anything to change our thinking.

Questions or Ideas to Consider:

1. Read the book “The Goal”

2. Do you have clear goals?

3. Do you know where your constraints are?

4. Do you have a solid plan to address those constraints?

5. Do you have a safe culture?

6. Does your team think you have a safe culture?

I plan on having a zoom conference call on Constraints and Conflict Resolution on October 27 at 1pm CDT. This will explain how to identify your constraints and use the constraint to grow your business.  I know that this sounds like an oxymoron but it works.  I will also introduce a special conflict resolution process to help in your thinking.  This zoom call will be beneficial for all managers, whether in a business or nonprofit.  If you are interested in reserving your spot, please email me at your earliest convenience. 

August 26, 2021 - Are Measurements the Key?

Main Idea:

How important are grades in schools?  Do you ever have great years and at the same time you know that something was incredibly wrong?  Do you ever have horrible years yet you made incredible improvements in your business?  Do key performance indicators matter?  If they don’t then how can you manage your business?

Expansion of the Idea:

Most of us have heard statements like “You can’t manage what you can’t measure” or the alternative statement that you “Manage what you measure”.  We have been ingrained with the need for measurements, key performance indicators and accountability.  And yet at the same time we look at some intangibles and we know instinctively that we can’t measure them.  I view financial statements as absolutely critical for providing feedback on your operations.  However, when looking at financial statements, the financial statements show how we did and where we stand but it doesn’t show how we have invested for the future.  When you start thinking about all of this it leads to the following question:

Should we use measurements to manage and, if not, how do we approach management?

I was reading an interesting article this morning.  The author proposed that we change a metaphor such as “Curiosity killed the cat” to something like “Curiosity fed the cat”.  What does that do to our thinking when we look at something a little different?

I started thinking about what that could mean to measurements and management.  What if we changed the above statements to the following:

1. You must manage what you can’t measure

2. You must decide how to manage what you measure

What does that do to your approach?  For the items that you can’t measure, then you need to figure out how to manage some of the following:

• Relationships: employee, customers and vendors

• Culture

• Personal investment in your team

• Creativity

• Fun

For the items that you can measure, it is important to make sure that you are measuring the right things and then how to use them.  There is no perfect balance between short term profitability on product lines and the lifetime value of a customer.  Those two measures are at odds with each other.  Another example would be employee efficiency versus employee effectiveness. 

Managing people and our businesses can be a black hole.  The issue for each of us is to identify what is going on in our businesses and to try to identify what we don’t know.  This can only come from having clear goals and creating the right management systems.  We have to have the right balance of using measurements and managing everything else. One of my favorite authors is Eliyahu Goldratt who said:

Almost all decisions based on cost accounting are utterly wrong.

The bottom line is that management is a lot more than just following the measurements.  There is no one size fits all.  It requires a lot of work. 

Questions to Consider:

1. Do you rely on financials and key performance indicators to manage your business?

2. How much time do you spend managing the other items?

3. Have you laid out a system to manage everything, both the items you can measure and those you can’t?

4. Do you get input from your team on areas to improve your management?

5. Do you know how much you and your team have learned this year?

July 30, 2021 – Do You Have Friction?

Main Idea:

What causes you to hesitate to go to a ball game?  Do you enjoy upgrading your cell phone? Why do you hesitate to go to the dentist?  How much fun is it taking a 3 year old to the grocery store with candy everywhere?  Do you dread having to swap out your work computer?

Expansion of the Idea:

I was recently notified by my cell phone company that my phone will no longer work after January 1, 2022 due to technology changes.  My phone isn’t that old but technology is constantly changing.  I hate changing phones for two reasons.  First, it takes a week to get the new phone working with all of the apps.  Second, the terms of the deal on the phone are always changing and I never know if I am getting a good deal or a bad deal.  As a result, I put off replacing phones or upgrading when I should. 

I was reminded of the basic concept of business friction in a book that I recently read called Friction: Passion Brands in the Age of Disruption by Jeff Rosenblum and Jordan Berg.  The whole concept is that we should be creating passionate fans of our businesses by eliminating friction that exists in our industries and in our businesses.  I know that I had tried to make my business easier to do business with but this concept of friction goes much deeper.  Eliminating friction is about creating businesses that our customers are passionate about.  It is putting us in alignment with our customers. 

General examples of friction could be:

• No one answers the phone

• Website is out of date and doesn’t address questions

• Cost of switching services is too great

• Service problems are not fixed quickly

Specific examples of friction could look like this:

• CPA firm – tax surprises

• Law firm – surprise on the bill

• Retail store – long lines or insufficient inventory

• Distribution company – packages are delivered late

• Construction industry – inability to adhere to time tables

• Service industry – won’t tell you when they will be there

• Auto repair – car isn’t fixed after you pick it up

• Lawn maintenance – ruts from cutting right after rain

Friction is everywhere. In the past couple of years Covid has amplified the problem.  I know in my industry the biggest issue is business and tax surprises.  To the extent that I have been successful in helping clients plan better, I have reduced friction.  But I know that I have a lot of other friction points that I need to improve on.  All of us have these problems.  It is up to us to identify what these friction points are and then to create systems and policies to help eliminate them or at least mitigate them.  Some things are out of our control.  However, even when things go wrong and they will, we can communicate with our customers and keep them informed.  Sometimes that is all we need to do. 

Questions to Consider:

1. Make a list of the top 5 friction points in dealing with your business.

2. Add on the next 10 friction points.

3. Discuss this with your team and add on additional friction points.

4. Make a plan to work on the points

July 16, 2021 – Do You Have Noise in Your Decision Making?

Main Idea:

Do you consistently make great decisions?  Are there things that impact your decisions that you had no clue that they existed?  How many decisions do you make that turn out to be disastrous and it was obvious why?  Do you have a system for making important decisions?  Why are we so good at seeing other people’s bad decisions but don’t recognize our own?

Expansion of the Idea:

Early on when I was building my business, it was obvious to me how certain clients made less than optimal or even bad decisions.  My solution to that was to build better financial systems, help educate them and then provide a sounding board.  The net result of all of this was that their decision making improved but it still was far from perfect. 

Then I started looking inward and realized that my own decision making was less than ideal.  I didn’t pay attention to some warning signs with clients or employees.  I didn’t read the tea leaves on changes in the industry.  I realized that I was making the same mistakes my clients were making.  I started looking for common errors and I identified a few things.  I put systems in place for hiring employees.  I set up a more rigid criteria for new clients.  There are a number of items that improved but I still wasn’t satisfied.

About a month ago, I learned of a new book coming out.  This book explained why my decision making was still not where it should be and some of the factors that are impacting it.  The book’s name is “Noise” by Kahneman, Sibony & Sunstein.  The book is a little hard to get through because it has a lot of psychology and statistics, but it has some fascinating ideas about our judgments.  A lot of the examples are in the legal system but the application is true for how we run small businesses.  The book really gets into the variations in judgment that are over and above bias.  Bias is the easy part to understand.  This could be racial, or it could be things like optimism which could bias how we evaluate people.  Or it could be something like confirmation bias which confirms something we already suspected.  Noise goes beyond that.  It could be any of the following:

• You hear on the news about how saving taxes is critical in this economy.  As a result, you implement tax saving strategies when what you really need a cash flow plan.

• You hire an employee based on your gut which is tied to the fact that the potential employee was referred in by a big customer.

• You hire an employee who is a great talker. 

• You give a customer an additional 30 days to pay because they have been a long-time customer, ignoring the fact that their industry is having major issues.

• Your identity was just stolen and then you had to make a major decision about a new product line. 

• You had to put your dog down and then you had a career counseling session with a potentially problematic employee.

• You are in a good mood because you just became a grandparent and then you discuss raises for your team.

• Your decisions are different in the morning when you are refreshed versus the afternoon when you feel like a slug.

The point with all of this is that some of our decisions are influenced by factors that may or may not be related.  We live in an interconnected world which is good but it can be a problem when you are making major decisions.   It is important to realize that we do have a problem with noise in our decision making.  Only then will we implement steps to improve our decision making.  Most of the improvement centers around improving how we make decisions and creating systems to make better decisions. 

I might have been on the right track early on but I didn’t go far enough to really help clients.  However, if you think about your decisions and judgments and ways to improve them, you will improve your business.  And this doesn’t require more sales or employees.  It is amazing that you can improve the business just by improving how you think. 

Questions to Consider:

1. What would be the financial impact if you decided the opposite on 5 key decisions you have made?

2. How do you make decisions?  Is it solo or with a team?

3. Does your team go along with everything you say or do they push back?

4. Do you encourage your team to think for themselves?

5. Do you have a method for making key decisions?

June 25, 2021 - Are You Playing Defense All the Time?

Main Idea:

Are you conservative by nature?  When was the last time you took a chance?  Are you afraid of making mistakes?  Is your team afraid of making mistakes?  Are all mistakes equal?  Do you applaud when someone tries something new and fails?

Expansion of the Idea:

For the last couple of weeks, there have been some good soccer matches on television.  Some of the games have been part of the Copa America tournament which is the tournament for South America.  The games have been fascinating even if I don’t know any of the players on the teams.  It is great to watch a sport where athletes are using their gifts and playing at an extremely high level.  The other night Brazil played Columbia in Brazil.  The experts were all predicting a Brazil blow out.  And then a weird thing happened.  Columbia scored 10 minutes into the match on an unbelievable play.  (If you like soccer, find the video clip online.  It is good.)

All of a sudden, Columbia is winning and Brazil is playing from behind which just doesn’t happen.  Brazil started to put pressure on Columbia who played tremendous defense.  The problem was that they didn’t even pretend to try to control the ball or attack.  Whenever they got the ball, they just cleared it to the other end of the field and went back on defense.  They were able to play like this for 70 minutes which is remarkable.  But the inevitable happened.  Brazil scored and tied it up.  And with about 1 minute left in the game, Brazil scored the game winner.  And Columbia went home with a loss.

You may or may not care about soccer.  But the principles of pressure and defense apply to all of our small businesses.  Columbia played not to lose and as a result they lost.  All of us know this but we do it anyway.  We don’t take a chance on a new product or service.  We fail to trust an employee with a critical new project.  We don’t want to offend a key customer even though it might cost us a key employee.  We are afraid of switching vendors even though lead times and quality have been deteriorating?  There are a number of situations where we play not to lose instead of playing to win. 

The key thing with mistakes is what kind of mistake it is.  If it is a mistake trying something new or looking into a new product, that is acceptable.  If it is a mistake of failing to backup the computer system, that isn’t.  Mistakes of aggressively trying to win are the types of mistakes we are looking for.  We want to put safeguards in where we can but we have to try new things.  As the legendary coach of UCLA John Wooden said,

“The man who is afraid to risk failure seldom has to face success.” 

If you are not achieving the success you would like, then maybe you have been working not to lose. 

Questions to Consider:

• What have you failed at recently?  What did you learn from it?

• Have you punished people for making mistakes? 

• Have you rewarded failure when people are trying something new?

• Is fear of failure embedded in your culture? 

• Or, do team members like to try new things?

June 11, 2021 – What Do You Need to Retire?

Main Idea:

Do you have people or systems that just aren’t working anymore?  Are there pieces in your life that are holding you back?  Do we hang onto things too long?  Why are rental buildings for storage space popping up everywhere?

Expansion of the Idea:

The other night I heard someone on the radio who did not have it.  The broadcast sounded awful and was almost embarrassing.  It was obvious that this person should have retired last year. Historically this person was very good but age, energy and life caught up with him.  You see the same thing with professional athletes who stay one year too long.  Instead of going out on top, our last memories of that athlete show the downside of aging.  On the other hand, I recently have heard about a lot of people who if asked to go back to the office have decided that they are just going to retire.  A lot of people have critical decisions now and their future hangs in the balance. 

The same is true of ourselves and our businesses.  There are a number of things that might need to be retired in our businesses.  They include:

• Ourselves

• Someone on our team

• Systems and Processes

• Computers and Equipment

• Customers

• Vendors

• Key Relationships, such as referral sources and professionals

• Product and Service Offerings

• Anything described by “That’s How We Do Things Here”

Covid 19 and the pandemic have completely altered the business environment.    Chances are you have embraced increased use of technology over the past year.  Two years ago, most people would not know what a zoom call is.  Now, everyone from 6 to 80 has probably participated in at least one call.  That changes everything.  And not always for the better. 

Now is a great time to reevaluate everything you are doing. 

• Do we need to stop going to our customers and just connect by Zoom? 

• Or do we retire Zoom and be more intentional about visiting our customers? 

• Are there team members who are not embracing new technology? 

• Have customers buying habits changed enough that some previous services or products are no longer desirable? 

• What systems or processes are no longer giving you the information that you need? 

• Have you lost touch with key referral sources and are having trouble reconnecting?

There is no end to possible questions or possible new paths.  The key is to take some time and lay out your vision for the future.  You need to decide your future and how you will achieve it.  Henry Cloud writes in his book, “Necessary Endings”, the following:

“Your next step always depends on two ingredients: how well you are maximizing where you are right now and how ready you are to do what is necessary to get to the next place.  And sometimes that depends on ending some of what is happening today.”

Questions to Consider:

1. Is there anything in my business that I need to end?

2. Is there anything in my personal life that I need to stop?

3. Are there ideas or processes that are holding us back?

4. Is there something that created your success but is now a liability?

5. Discuss this with your team and get their ideas.

February 12, 2021 – Are You Winning the Game of Life?

Main Idea:

Did you play the Game of Life when you were a kid?  What was the feeling when you raced to the end and collected the money for retiring first?  What happened when you had set backs?

Expansion of the Idea:

Recently my mom had a house fire that was started by a faulty extension cord. It pretty well destroyed the second floor and did a lot of damage to the first floor and basement.  She is perfectly fine but now has a major disruption to her life for the next 6-8 months.  She lost a few important documents but they are replaceable.  Overall, she came out of this in pretty good shape.

I was thinking about this and it reminded me of the Game of Life.  As a kid, when you played that game, you had setbacks but you kept focused on the end goal.  The end goal was to retire with the more money than everyone else.  (I think we might need a little better goal.  However, that was the goal of the game.)  You hoped that any setbacks were minor.  You stayed focused on getting the finish. 

The difference between the game and real life is that real life setbacks are very emotional and can completely wipe us out.  Yet, we can sometimes control the effect of the setback.  All of us will get setbacks and some of them are major.  However, we can minimize the impact by planning and doing some things in advance.  These plans would include:

• Safety, such as smoke detectors in the house. 

• Health, both personal and our business  

• Emergency, both physical and financial

• Risk analysis, investments and operations

• Relationships, who you can count on and who counts on you

These types of plans are not what I would normally talk about.  However, when there are crises, such as a house fire or Covid, some of the above areas are the most important things for you during that period.  By thinking about these things in advance, we can sometimes control the severity of the problem as well as starting the recovery process a lot quicker. 

Questions to Consider:

1. What is my goal?

2. What obstacles are there to achieving my goal?

3. What are the possible setbacks in life and in my business?

4. Are there things I should do differently to minimize the negative impact of the setbacks?

5. Do I have an emergency plan? 

6. If so, does my spouse and family know what it is?  Or at work, do my key employees know the plan?

January 29, 2021 – Are You Thankful?

Main Idea:

When was the last time you wrote a thank you note?  When was the last time you received one?  Are they even relevant in the digital era?  What do they accomplish?

Expansion of the Idea:

A few weeks ago, my wife bought an article of clothing online.  During this past year, most people have transitioned to buying most things online.  Online shopping is great because of the convenience.  The downside is the loss of connection.  The buyers are isolated and make the purchases.  The sellers aren’t connected to their customers.  What was unusual when my wife received her purchase was that within a day or two, she received a handwritten thank you note from the particular store that fulfilled her online order.  It was a very nice note written by the store manager.  My wife was surprised by the note.  She could not understand how the store manager could take time to write that note.

What is the impact of a simple thank you note?  Do you think that store has created a better connection with my wife and with all of their customers? 

They probably don’t write a thank you note for all orders.  But even if it 1%, they have improved their relationships by a lot.  The positive goodwill will generate referrals.  More importantly, I think it sets a tone of thankfulness inside the company.  I would guess that the store manager is probably a good boss.  That would create a whole cycle of better service and loyalty which will improve our businesses. 

What does this mean for us?

I know I could definitely improve in this area.  While I think I am thankful, I know I can express it more often.  In the current environment, it is so easy to get caught up with all of our problems.  And, every business has some issues right now.  When this occupies all of our time, it is easy to get focused on ourselves.  We lose sight of all of the important people in our businesses and our lives.  Here are some of the people that might need to be considered:

• Spouses and Family

• Employees

• Customers

• Vendors

• Advisors

• Support people, such as delivery people

• Referral sources

Each of us has some specific people that are really important to us.  We need to make sure we show our thanks.  A handwritten note might be best.  Sometimes, it might be just a quick response to a text or email.  Anything we can do to improve connections will benefit us personally and our businesses.  But it all starts with us deciding that we are thankful.

Your Action Plan:

1. Who are you thankful for? 

2. Write a note.

January 15, 2021 – Has Your Cheese Moved?

Main Idea:

What made you successful in the past?  Was there a particular product, service or system that was critical?  Can you name it and quantify it?  Is it just as important today as it was five years ago?

Expansion of the Idea:

20 years ago, Spencer Johnson wrote the book “Who Moved My Cheese”.  Most of us have read it, thought it was good and then promptly put it away.  However, it is just as timely now as it was then.  The basic story is about two mice in a maze who lost their cheese.  They have to find new cheese.  The cheese is a metaphor for what is important to us.  Five years ago, most businesses were doing fine and we became complacent.  Things have changed.  We have to find new cheese. 

What does this mean in today’s context?

We have to decide what will be important for us for the upcoming year.  We must know our financial numbers and key performance indicators that tell us how we are doing.  However, we can’t use the same old numbers that we used in the past.  We should be more intentional about what numbers we use and set goals for those numbers.  Here are a few ideas on things to look at:

1. Customer profitability and retention

2. Lead time and costs of acquiring new customers

3. Employee engagement and performance

4. Business operations and systems

5. Cash flow projections and budgets

6. Vendor and supply chain performance

7. Product and service performance and viability

8. Leadership and Management performance and development

9. Risk management and potential bottlenecks

There is nothing new in my list.  However, what needs to be new is how we apply it.  Most small business owners don’t make full use of key performance indicators.  And during 2020, those numbers were worthless for some industries.  For 2021, I think it would help all of us if we became very intentional about what our goals are and put together the models to make sure we are on track. 

I think that 2021 will be a very difficult year even after the vaccine is rolled out and we have herd immunity.  People’s attitudes and habits have changed.  This could impact their buying habits as well as their goals.  We might lose key employees or customers.  By planning now, we can set ourselves up for success and minimize the potential for failure.  There will be a new normal.  We need to know what it will be and how we can thrive.

Here are some questions or comments to consider:

• Read or reread “Who Moved My Cheese”

• Define what is your cheese.

• What is my action plan for 2021?

• Do I have full key performance indicators, cash flow plans and budgets for my business?

• Have I identified my top 2 or 3 key performance indicators for special scrutiny?

• If not, create them based on expected reality for the new year?

• Determine what additional actions you need to do to make 2021 successful.

December 31, 2020 – Is it Time for Reflection or Action?

Main Idea:

Have you been reflecting on the past year?  Or was it so bad you want to forget everything?  Are you excited for the new year?  Do you long for the good old days?  Or are you afraid you will never see those again?

Expansion of the Idea:

This has been an interesting year.  For some, it has been one of the worst years of their lives.  They may have lost their jobs or their businesses, family members have died, kids are struggling with school, moms and dads struggling with kids at home, racial tension and a whole host of other issues.    For others it has been a problem for their lifestyle and maybe a small hit economically but they have not been hurt financially.  For most, it is somewhere in between. 

The question is what to do with 2020 and more importantly how should we approach 2021.

I think it is important to not throw away 2020 without looking back and listing out what you might have accomplished or learned (besides keeping more toilet paper on hand): 

• For most of us our technology has improved, such as using Zoom calls

• We are not taking things for granted, such as kids going to school

• We are better at prioritizing our work lives

• We have improved our efficiency at work

• We have eliminated some unnecessary items because we needed to

• We have looked at supply chains and vendor relationships to see what is working and what isn’t

• We have gotten more creative

The point is that there can be some good that comes out of this year.  But it will only be good if we identify it and systematically implement it going forward. 

Here are some questions to consider:

• What did I learn from last year?

• What do I want to learn next year?

• What did I do wrong last year?

• What do I need to do better next year?

• What positive accomplishments did we make this year?

• What do I need to build into my plans for next year?

• What do we need to eliminate going forward?

• Do I have the right team that is adaptable and creative for the future?

• What relationships were strained and need to be repaired?

• What relationships need to be ended?

• Do I have a firm action plan for 2021?  If not, build it.

I hope everyone has a great 2021.  As Peter Drucker states,

“The best way to predict the future is to create it.” 

I look forward to serving you in 2021. 

October 2, 2020 – Is It Time To Plan for Next Year?

Main Idea:

Has this year hit you like a Mack truck?  Have you spent most of your time reacting to Covid, political craziness, uneasy economy, unrest, supply chain issues, unstable labor force, panicking customers, regulatory issues, or ________________________?  Are you sick of spending all of your time at home?

Expansion of the Idea:

This has been a crazy year for so many reasons.  Just when it seems like it can’t get any crazier, something happens and collectively we agree that it belongs in this year.  There has been so much outside of our control.  It is easy to get to a point where we just sit at home and wait for what is going to happen next.  There are a lot of pity parties that are being celebrated throughout the US.

The real problem with this is that we get to the point where we think everything is out of our control.  Even the businesses, that are doing okay, are out of their normal patterns because they can’t do things like they would normally do them. 

There is disruption and chaos everywhere.  What should we do?

We are just starting the fourth quarter of the year.  This is a perfect time to start planning for year end and next year.  Obviously, none of us have a clue what will happen with presidential elections, stock markets and all of the other variables that could happen.  But we can start planning.  The more planning we do, the better off we will be to face the upcoming challenges once the economy opens up and life gets back to some semblance of normal.  (I don’t know if normal is the right word here.)

A basic framework for the planning that needs to happen is as follows:

• Evaluation of where you currently are

• SWOT Analysis of what you are doing right and wrong and what the challenges and opportunities are out there.  (See the video on my website.)

• Goals for the next year.  (They must be realistic.)

• ·1-4 action plans on achieving your goals based on the different possibilities of what might happen.  This would include a main plan along with contingent or ancillary plans.

These plans need to include the personal as well as the business side.  On the business side they need to include the following:

• Cash flow and financial planning

• Tax planning

• Marketing plan

• Employee plan

• Risk analysis

• Operational plans

There are other areas that might need to be added to your plans based on your situation.  The point is that you need to start making those plans now.  Of course, things never turn out as you planned.  But the act of planning will improve your businesses and you will be ready for some of the challenges.

Here are some questions to consider:

1. Am I ready for year end?

2. Do I have a robust plan for next year?

3. Am I the only one who knows what that plan is?

4. Am I good at communicating my plans?

5. Have I involved my team, including external advisors, in planning?

If you have any questions on implementing this idea, please contact Tim FitzGerald.  There are a number of videos on the website that outline how to do some of this planning.  Also, I plan on offering three specific Zoom calls over the next month.  They are:

1. Tax Planning for Business – October 13 at 4p

2. Tax Planning for Individuals – October 20 at 4pm

3. Estates, Wills & Trusts – October 27 at 4pm

If you are interested in signing up for the Zoom calls, please email Tim FitzGerald and you will be added to the list.

September 11, 2020 – Is Customer Service Dead? (Part 2)

Main Idea:

Have you seen great customer service lately?  Is your team capable of giving great customer service?  Have they been doing so lately?  What has been missing?

Expansion of the Idea:

Do you remember where you were 19 years ago today?  Chances are you remember that day vividly.  Our nation absorbed a punch to the gut and we floundered for a few weeks.  Even after that, most businesses were disrupted for quite some time.  The stock market was dropping and no one really had good answers.  The real problem was that there was a sense of isolation.  When bad things happen, we tend to get into our own shells and we don’t want to come out. 

How did we get out of that?

The key to our recovery from 9/11 was between our ears.  We made very good choices for a while.  We came together as a nation.  We decided that we were not going to let 9/11 define us.  A lot of very good things happened in the couple of years after 9/11.  Obviously, we never want that to happen again, but we became less concerned about ourselves and more concerned about others.

We have some of the same problems now with the pandemic.  It has isolated us and created a lot of hardship for a lot of the world.  We don’t have the same social networks that we used to have. For our small businesses, our employees are not able to interact with each other and with customers like they are used to.  Something is lost. 

Just like after 9/11, we can fix a lot of our problems ourselves.  For small business owners, this starts with you.  Small business owners are facing unprecedented levels of financial issues, employee issues, supply chain problems and technology issues.  It is very easy to retreat and get into a “me versus them” mentality.  Instead of feeling sorry for ourselves, we can reach out to people who lift us up.  We can look for help to figure out our business issues.  We were made to be social and to interact with others.  When we do this, we can fix ourselves.  Then we can help support our team and then ultimately our customers.  Our job during this period in time is to connect people even more so than normal.  When we do that, attitudes will improve and that will have a tremendous impact on customer service. 

Here are some questions to consider:

1. Am I connected with my team and customers?

2. Does my team feel isolated?

3. Do my customers feel connected to our businesses?

4. When was the last time I called a customer or team member for no apparent reason?

5. What can I do to help team morale?

On this day of remembrance, be thankful that we live in the United States and have the freedoms that we do.  Thank a first responder for their service which is the ultimate in customer service.

September 4, 2020 – Is Customer Service Dead? (Part 1)

Main Idea:

Have you struggled getting your calls returned?  Are you able to solve your online problems or questions?  Does everything take 50% more time to do?  Do you feel that there is just a missing link in all transactions?

Expansion of the Idea:

I have noticed that small businesses have not been operating at peak efficiency since Covid 19.  I have been trying to get a window replaced at the office.  This should have been a two-week process.  Instead it has been a couple of months and I don’t know when it will get done.  This may not be fault of the glass repair business as they may be waiting on the glass company.  But it is a supply chain problem or a service issue.  They could have called me and told me that they were having delays in getting the glass and I would have been perfectly fine.  The problem is that I am left not knowing what is going on. 

Covid 19 has completely upended business and how we operate daily.  We have been forced to adapt and try things just to survive.  There have been financial implications as well as complete shutdowns of a number of industries and slowdowns for most of the rest.  There are a lot of people working from home and as a result the normal workflow has completely changed. 

Most small business owners thought that this was a 2 or 3 month issue and as a result only put patches on their operations and systems.  However, it is clear that this is a longer-term problem and our systems need to be redesigned or at a minimum need to be modified to accommodate a different way of creating a superior customer experience. 

Have you driven past a Chick Fil A in the past three months?  It almost doesn’t matter what time you drive by them.  They are always busy.  I thought that there is no way I would get into one of their drive throughs.  That was the case until my wife and I had the grandchildren for a week.  I was amazed at how quickly they ran cars through the drive through.  They could only have done that if they completely changed their procedures and systems.  While they may not be doing quite the volume that they did before Covid 19, they are completely maximizing their potential.  And they are doing it through systems and great customer service.

It is clear that our world is going to be changed for a while, and we need to plan for the future.  We need to look hard at our systems from our customers point of view.  Here are some questions to consider:

1. If we have employees working from home, have we optimized the customer interfaces?

2. Is our website streamlined for remote access?

3. Do we need to bring employees together more often because of the separation?  (This can be virtual but it needs to be intentional.)

4. Have we looked at our supply chains to determine if there are changes in vendors?

5. Do we have systems to keep customers informed?

6. Do we have systems to keep employees informed?

7. Do we need to change our physical space?

I hope you have a great Labor Day weekend. 

May 15, 2020 - What is Critical to Your Success?

Main Idea:

Has your business changed during the pandemic?  Are you comfortable with where you are and where you are going?  Is the world changing around you too much and you aren’t sure where you fit in?  What is success going to look like in 4 months?

Expansion of the Idea:

It has been interesting listening to various analysts talk about whether Major League Baseball will reopen this year.  There are a lot of moving parts in connection with keeping players safe and at the same time creating the right environment for playing ball.  The owners leaked some information to put the players on the defensive.  The players are digging their heels in and will not renegotiate how much they are paid.  The whole thing comes down to money.  The problem is that no matter what, everyone is going to take a huge financial hit this year.  The one thing that I have not heard much about is whether or not the fans will watch the games online and start to go to the ballpark when it opens up.  The owners and the players seem to be taking it for granted.  And this could create a huge long-term problem for MLB, especially if they don’t agree and baseball is deferred until 2021.

There are a number of critical pieces that each party must get right.  The owners must make sure that they are not committing financial suicide.  The players have to maximize their income since it will be cut by at least half.  The minor leagues will probably be decimated since they won’t have any revenue.  Everyone has to be able to do this safely, which is probably impossible.  And all of this is assuming that there isn’t a huge second wave of infections. 

I don’t know the answers to any of the above.  The point is that it requires a lot of time and discussions to determine what is critical.  All of the stakeholders need to be involved.  The end solution has to work for everyone. 

The same is true for our businesses.  We need to define what is critical for our success.  This could include:

• Sacrificing the present for the future

• Looking into alternative methods of delivery of our product or service

• Changing how we sell

• Changing what we sell

• Changing who we sell to

• Lowering our margins

Each of us has different things that are critical for our success.  My critical success factors have changed dramatically over the last 2 months.  Now one of the most important things is the financial (and mental) health of my business clients.  This is something that I was always focused on but now it is absolutely critical because clients can’t just get out of a hole because the economy is completely different. 

All of us need to spend the time thinking about this and working through our businesses to define this.  By focusing on what is critical, we have improved our odds of getting through this period.

Next Steps

1. Have you identified what is critical to your business?

2. Can you measure it?

3. If not, brainstorm with your team to think through your business.

May 1, 2020 - Are There Other Ways to Look at This?

Main Idea:

Have you looked at your business from a customer, a vendor, an employee or someone else’s eyes?  When you look at your business do you see the same things?  Do you get stuck in ruts on which reports you look at?  Do you think you have done everything you can to fix your problem?

Expansion of the Idea:

On Tuesday morning I was working from home and I received a call from my 5 year old grandson on Facetime.  He asks me:

Papa, do you want to play Legos?

This caught me so off guard that I said yes.  Of course, my grandson lives 120 miles away and I didn’t have any Legos nearby.  But I was able to play Legos with him for about 20 minutes.  (It also gave his mom a short respite.)  He was perfectly happy and we had a good time.  I could have spent a year thinking about what to do with him over Facetime and I would never have come up with his simple solution. 

The same is true for a lot of our businesses.  Sometimes asking questions like a 5 year old is the best idea for our businesses.  He didn’t think of the reasons why it would not work.  He just asked. 

With all of the craziness in the world, are there questions that can help solidify (or save) your business.  Here are a few that might get you started.

• Should we get rid of our offices?

• Should we hire more people as opposed to cutting back?

• Should we change our supply change even if it will cost us money?

• Should we get rid of our biggest customer?

• Should we go after lower dollar customers?

• Is there better technology for us?

• Should we discontinue a product or service line?

• Should we spend more in certain areas?

There are a lot of additional questions.  I am not looking to commit financial suicide with this.  But some answers lead to some surprisingly counterintuitive results.  These types of questions can frequently be brought up when doing a strategic planning session or SWOT analysis.  But it is a process that can be spread throughout your whole team.  They can cover any of the following:

• Planning

• Finances

• Operations

• Human Resources

• Vendors

• Customers

• Marketing

• Product or Service Lines

• Relationships

• Technology

All of these areas have some sacred cows that no one even thinks to question.  And most of the times, they are sacred cows because they are the right answer.  But not always.  And that is the point.  When we can ask the right question, probe in the right area, explore systems and basically verify everything, we can sometimes find some gold in our businesses that can be used to really push the business forward.  The key is to start looking.

What is Your Surprise Question?

Next Steps

1. Are there areas in your business that are struggling?

2. What are the critical assumptions in that area?

3. Brainstorm with your team.

April 10, 2020 - What Is Our Path Forward?

Main Idea:

Are you feeling completely out of control?  Have you thought about what life is going to be like in two or six months?  Are things so crazy that you have thrown up your hands in despair?  Do you know you need to do something but aren’t sure what?

Expansion of the Idea:

Dwight D Eisenhower said “In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable.”

All of us are affected by Covid-19.  Some businesses are thriving but there is pressure on the businesses and the employees.  Other businesses are completely shut down until the stay at home orders are lifted.  And a lot of businesses are somewhere in the middle.   Once the stay at home orders are lifted, some businesses will be able to go back to business as usual, others are going to see a decline from where they are now.  But most just don’t know how this will work. 

There are uncertainties in almost every area of our business such as:

• Overall business environment and economy

• Cash flow

• Customers – needs, tastes and their cash flow

• Employees

• Supply Chain

• Social Distancing and Physical Interaction

• Mistakes of the Leaders

• Relationships

• Trust

The coronavirus issues have impacted our world at our core.  Our leaders have done some things right and a lot wrong.  The same is true for us.  Most of us have messed up some part of handling the variety of issues that have surfaced. We can look at this and get upset or we can look at it as a great big educational learning.  I think the people and businesses that survive and actually prosper out of this are those who are learning from the mistakes and then using those to improve the future. 

To move forward, the first thing that all of us have to do is to examine our attitudes.  Right now, it is extremely rough for those who have lost work or their business is shut down.  If they have school age kids, they are realizing that they are going to have to do home schooling for the next two months.  It is very easy to get into a victim’s mindset.  If you are struggling with this, I would encourage you to read my weekly idea from last week. 

When our attitudes are in the right path, then we can move our businesses forward.  This is going to require a lot of planning and dissecting our businesses to make sure that they are structured for the new reality.  We need to develop a true working business plan that will help us think through our new reality.  Part of my plan is to offer a weekly Zoom conference call with my clients where I will walk through a key part of the business plan.  I am also starting to make a list of what I learned today or things I need to learn.  This may be something about a client or it may be a system that is partially broken by having to work from home.  Just by putting a few things on a piece of paper, you are starting to take control.  And that is a muscle that needs to be built back up.

Next Steps

1. Evaluate what your attitude is.  Are you looking forward or backward?

2. Start working on your business plan.  If you need help, ask.

3. Make a list of things you are learning.  This can be critical because you will see different things than your team.

4. Sign up for the LEADING THROUGH A CRISIS conference call.

April 3, 2020 - What Do I Have?

Main Idea:

Have you just lost a third of your net worth in the stock market?  Do you feel like your business is going bust because of the coronavirus?  Are you afraid that you will lose a close friend or family member to the virus? Do you think that you will end up at home with your 5 & 7 year old for the next 5 years?

Expansion of the Idea:

Our lifestyle changed completely when the Covid-19 virus came to the US.  Very few people realized the extent of the damage it could do.  Almost no one took it as serious as we should have at the very early stages.  But when it took over, we all realized that life as we knew it was gone.  It will come back but it might look a little different.  Either way, we have the next few months of social distancing, economic hardship, stress on relationships, uncertainty, fear and restrictions on what we do.  And we just missed opening day of Major League Baseball.  We feel like we are in a bad dream where we are just going through the motions. 

All of that bad stuff is reality.  And it is natural to focus on the negative stuff.  If we had 100 customers buy something from us in a day and one of them complains about price, that customer will haunt us.  We will worry whether we are pricing our products properly.  We don’t think about the fact that some people are going to complain about something no matter what.  It still sticks with us.

However, there is another reality that we don’t focus on.  This other reality is always there and is probably more real than the negative reality.  We are so blessed we take things for granted.  We overlook a lot because we stress about what we just lost or don’t have. 

Here is my list of what I do have and am extremely thankful for:

• My faith

• My spouse

• My kids and their spouses

• My grandkids (They are really a little higher on the list.)

October 27, 2010 - Have You Earned Respect?

Main Idea

Have you been told by your child that you say one thing but do something else?  Do you hear from politicians that they are looking out for you but then they have their hand in your wallet?  Have you had a business dealing with a company that espouses customer service yet the reality does not include service? 

Expansion of Idea

Next Tuesday is an important day.  It is an election that will dictate the business and political environment for the next two years.  I will be extremely glad when the day is passed if for no other reason that I am sick and tired of the political ads.  I do think that this is a critical time for our country and I have been following some of the races.  One race that seems really odd is the California governor’s race.  Republicans are doing pretty well across the country and yet Meg Whitman, who is a Republican, is trailing Jerry Brown, who is a Democrat.  She was doing very well until it was revealed that she had not voted in previous elections.  (There was also another allegation about hiring an illegal immigrant.)   However, the lack of voting in previous elections tells Californians that she doesn’t care.   Whether or not she cares is actually irrelevant.  The apparent hypocrisy of telling everyone that she will help fix their problems when she has not voted in the past will probably prevent her from being elected even if she is the better candidate.  Voters are sick of the double talk.  They want someone who will treat them with respect. 

I think that this is carrying over to all of our organizations.  Employees want respect.  Customers want respect.  They want us to do what we say we will do.  All of us fail at this sometimes because life gets in the way and we cannot honor all of our commitments.  That doesn’t mean that we can’t try to do the right things.  We can look at our businesses and see if we are doing what we say we will do.  We can look at our commitments and honestly assess whether or not we can do them.  Do we have the right staffing levels to provide the service that our customers want and need?  Hypocrisy creeps into all of our lives in very subtle ways.  It is obvious when we look at politics.  It may be equally obvious when we look at our businesses from our customer’s point of view.

Questions to Ask Yourself           

1. Are you honoring your commitments to your coworkers or customers?

2. Are there systems issues that are preventing you from doing the right things for your customers?

3. Are you doing the best that you are capable of?