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Ben Franklin was an amazing man - most people are familiar with several of his more famous inventions.  As an outcome of his studies of electricity he invented the lightning rod.  He also invented the bi-focal glasses that he’s often pictured with (he was both near and far sighted and got frustrated with having to switch glasses while he was working).

Beyond that, he’s also credited with creating the first Fire Insurance Company, he came up with the idea behind Daylight Savings Time and he helped form the first Library (as their known today) in 1731.

However, in addition to all of those great accomplishments, Franklin is also arguably the father of Social Networking (at least as it pertains to business). 

One of the better definitions of Networking that I’ve seen comes from Bob Burg - author of Endless Referrals:

Networking is the cultivating of mutually beneficial, give and take, win-win relationships.

Old Ben certainly knew a thing or two about the power of relationships and networking - even back in the 1700s!  He drove a lot of the ideas that make networking what it is today.

 

Ben Created the Junto - the first Networking Group?

After a pretty challenging childhood and teenage years, Ben Franklin ended up in Philadelphia in 1727 at the age of 21 trying to make a name for himself.  One of the many things he did during this period was to create a club called the Junto.

I found a great write-up on the history of the Junto at the Mutual Improvement blog - check out the article, but here are a couple of highlights:

It was a club established to debate questions of morals, politics, and natural philosophy and to exchange knowledge of business affairs, which took as it’s goal the “mutual improvement” of its members.

The Junto was one part Toastmasters, one part Rotary Club, but its civic output was amazing.

Franklin’s Junto was unabashedly interested in personal success, yet the members show a deep understanding that their reputations and happiness would be best served by helping others.

In other words the Junto included a lot of the best qualities you might find in many modern networking organizations - Chambers, Tip Clubs, Service Organizations, etc.

I don’t know that it was the first networking group ever (Aristotle and his buddies probably got together on a regular basis outside of the classroom) but it certainly is a clear precursor to modern business networking groups (and online social networking groups) that you can find in every corner of the country.

Ben pioneered the idea of ‘Pay It Forward’

The idea of Paying It Forward was popularized in 2000 by the book by Catherine Ryan Hyde and subsequent movie “Pay It Forward”.

“You see, I do something real good for three people. And then when they ask how they can pay it back, I say they have to Pay It Forward. To three more people. Each. So nine people get helped. Then those people have to do twenty-seven.” He turned on the calculator, punched in a few numbers. “Then it sort of spreads out, see. To eighty-one. Then two hundred forty-three. Then seven hundred twenty-nine. Then two thousand, one hundred eighty-seven. See how big it gets?”

The author went on to create a the Pay It Forward Foundation to generate momentum behind the idea that anyone can make a major impact by helping someone else.

But it was Franklin that is credited with coming up with the concept in the first place in a letter he wrote to Benjamin Webb in 1784.  I don’t think it’s an accident that most successful networkers and business people believe that the best way to help yourself is to help others.  Ivan Misner, the founder of Business Networking International coined the motto “Givers Gain” to reflect a very similar concept.

Ben just knew a lot about being successful in business

Here are a few quotes from Mr. Franklin:

He knew it was important to invest in learning from others:

An investment in knowledge always pays the best interest.

He knew that it’s actions that you take and not what you say that really mean something.

Well done is better than well said.

And finally he knew that a focus entirely on money and material things will tend to make people not trust you.

He that is of the opinion money will do everything may well be suspected of doing everything for money.

So when you go to your next Networking event, or the next time you Twitter to your contacts, think about the foundation that was paved almost 300 years ago by Ben Franklin.

What are your thoughts on networking or Ben Franklin?  Share them here in the comments below.

Shawn Kinkade - Kansas City Business Coach

Back in the early 90’s the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) had a difficult problem to solve.  Their goal as an organization was to improve quality of life by communicating proven problems.

One of the problems they discovered was that movie popcorn, although a tasty treat, was bad for you.

Really, really bad. (like 80 grams of saturated fat for a large serving bad!)

However they quickly figured out that just telling people that popcorn was bad didn’t really make much of a splash - in fact it didn’t even make a ripple.

Then they decided they needed to get creative to get the point across.

They called a press conference and presented a large box of popcorn on a table.  Then they added a plate of bacon and eggs to the table.

Then a Big Mac and Fries.

Then a steak dinner.  The popcorn had more fat than all of that other food…COMBINED!!!

As they say - and as you might remember, the rest is history.  The media jumped all over the story and within a few weeks national Movie Chains started changing the way they made the popcorn - they got rid of the coconut oil and came out with healthier alternatives.

The CSPI had made their idea sticky - not only did people get it, they passed it along to friends (and they told two friends and so on and so on).

That’s the essence behind the book Made to Stick by Chip Heath and Dan Heath.  They analyzed what made some ideas ‘work’ and others just pass by the wayside and developed a set of rules that anyone can use to make their own ideas ’stickier’.

All in all, this is one of the best books I’ve read in a long time (business or otherwise).  The authors are consistently using great examples to make their point (not surprising considering that concrete examples are one of the 6 rules to make things sticky).

However they go beyond just sharing the examples, they have at least 1 case study per chapter that breaks down the details between an effective and ineffective message to help prove their point.

The other thing I really liked was the overall style and tone of the book - far from being a dry textbook or detailed how to book, there are a lot of genuinely funny anecdotes and points that make the book really move along.

You definitely need to read the book to really get the points, but at a high level there are six key qualities shared by ideas that are Made to Stick: 

• Simplicity - strip it to the core
• Unexpectedness - surprise is important
• Concreteness - details stick with people
• Credibility - if I don’t believe it, I won’t remember it
• Emotional - much more compelling than logic
• Stories - something I can relate to that has a point

Using these qualities, you can see why ideas like the urban myth about Kidney Harvesting, or how Jared lost weight at Subway, or how Nordstrom’s communicates the idea of customer service.

If you’ve got ideas you need to communicate (and really who doesn’t) then I would strongly recommend Made To Stick - it’s an enjoyable read with lots of practical, tangible ideas. 

Have you read the book?  Share your thoughts in the comments.

Shawn Kinkade  Kansas City Business Coach

photo by Katiew

Networking is all about establishing mutually beneficial win-win relationships with people that you know, like and trust (and vice versa). 

Unfortunately it can be really difficult to develop those kinds of relationships in traditional professional networking environments.

Enter the opportunity of the dinner party.

In his book on networking and relationships “Never Eat Alone” Keith Ferrazzi outlines his recommended approach for regular dinner parties as a key networking strategy.  I don’t know that everyone is going to have access to big name celebrities as the ‘anchor tenant’ for your get together as recommended by the book, but an occasional informal get together with people that you’d like to get to know better can be a big help to making connections.

If you’re like me, there are a lot of people you know informally - well enough to wave to them across a parking lot, but you’ve never really had an in-depth discussion with them.  Find a good mix of those people that seem like they would be fun and/or worthwhile to get to know and pull together a dinner party to break the ice.

If you’re going to give this a shot, what are some the key points to make it successful?

How many people to invite?

This probably depends on your comfort level as a host - depending on how large your space is, you can start running into a lot of logistical issues if you get too large (# of places to sit, # of dishes, chairs, etc.).

My recommendation would be to keep it manageable at 4 to 5 couples - no more than 12 people total.  8 to 12 people gives you plenty of opportunities to have great side conversations, but is a small enough group that you can all participate when you’re at the table.

Who to invite?

It can be really difficult to bring together a whole group of complete strangers - unless they’re pretty outgoing, it may be hard to get the ball rolling conversationally.  Try to pick out a group that has some commonality - kids go the same schools, they used to work at the same company, they are in similar industries, etc. and ideally go with at least some direct connection within the group besides just you (i.e. 2 of the 4 couples know each other fairly well).

From a networking perspective, target people that have to potential to be helpful referral partners or prospects (but remember you are NOT selling).  Obviously you can do this for purely social reasons, but if you’re trying to build a better business network, you might make some different choices.  Not everyone needs to be a target contact, but at least include a couple.

What to have?

Dinner Party sounds like a fancy get together, but it doesn’t have to be.  Start with something you’re comfortable cooking and ideally something that can mostly be prepared ahead of time.  Learning a new dish while you’ve got 10 people watching you probably isn’t the way to go.

Burgers or Chili are both fine choices as are steaks or more elaborate entree dishes - once you’ve had the chance to prepare a few things, it gets easier to do the next time around.

You should also plan on having a couple of appetizers that are ready when the first people get there.  Try to have a mix so that there’s something that most people would like (although don’t worry about trying to totally please everyone).

A couple of side dishes to go with the main dish are  a good idea, but again you don’t need to go overboard.  Focus on things that you can make ahead of time to minimize the cooking and prep time while people are there.

A simple dessert is a great way to wrap up evening - if there’s something you really like or like to make, go with that.  Otherwise brownies or chocolate chip cookies are always going to be popular.

Drinks?

Finally, you should have a mix of drinks - at least a couple of non-alcoholic options to go with a beer or wine selection.  If you want to have a mixed drink, prepare it ahead of time, but I wouldn’t recommend a full bar approach - it can be really expensive, it’s hard to get everything everyone might want and you will end up spending a lot of time making drinks which makes it difficult to connect with the guests.  Learn a bit about wine - there are a lot of great wines for ~$10 - $15 a bottle in both reds and whites and most liquor stores that carry a good selection of wine are happy to make recommendations depending on what you’re eating.

The most important thing is to keep in mind the reason for the Dinner Party in the first place - to get to know some new people, let them get to know you and to have a good time.  You’re not their to sell and you shouldn’t focus on talking about work or business (although it’s likely to come up on it’s own).  What you should focus on is making sure everyone is interacting and enjoying themselves and you will almost be guaranteed to make some new connections.

Do you do Dinner Parties to extend your networking?  I’d love to hear thoughts or stories on things that have worked or not - share them here!

Shawn Kinkade  Kansas City Business Coach

Photo by spacemonkey

Small business can be a pretty wild ride.  You land a big deal, have a big day, hit on all cylinders and you are on top of the world!

Then you start doing the work, you focus on delivery, you’re working really hard…in your business.  It’s a sweet, fast ride downhill all the way.

You deliver the goods, the service - what ever it was the client wanted and then you realize, you’ve got nothing lined up for tomorrow.

You’re at the bottom preparing for an uphill climb of marketing to get you that next influx of business. 

You are on the roller coaster business cycle and unfortunately it’s all too common and if you don’t figure out how to manage it, it will eventually sink you.

Knowing it’s an issue, what can you do to get out of this painful cycle?

Plan ahead to smooth out the curves

The first step is to map out an overall marketing strategy - ideally for the whole year.  It doesn’t have to be terribly detailed, in fact it can fit on a page or two, but plan ahead and lock up some dates for initiatives.

Maybe it’s a direct mail campaign that coincides with going back to school.  Maybe it’s a quarterly seminar / workshop and you need to reserve the date and work backward to plan when you would start driving attendance.  It could be reserving the month when you are going to redo  your website and work on Search Engine Optimization issues or locking down the dates for starting to work with a business coach. 

The important thing is to spend some quality time developing a plan - even if  you don’t stick to it exactly (and you probably won’t) just having something to work from will make a big difference.

Use multiple strategies to keep smooth acceleration

Optimizing your website is a long term marketing play for most businesses.  It can have a big lift over time, but it’s not likely to do anything for you this month…or even the next  3 months.

Conversely something like direct mail and phone follow-ups are very time sensitive.  If you wait 2 or 3 weeks after the prospect receives the direct mail, you might as well not call, they’re not going to remember who you are.

Networking or presenting workshops would be more medium term strategies.  You are actively pursuing contacts, but it may take a while for things to come together.

The key is to have a mix of several strategies operating at once, 1 or 2 short term activities every month, a couple of medium term and some long term things going on in the background.  A business that has 10 strategies running consistently is on top of the game and probably not getting big swings, just continued growth.

Automate to minimize the downtime

Finally, the other big key to avoiding the ups and downs is to really put things into a marketing system and automate where you can.  In this case, a marketing system is a series of repeatable tasks that can be documented, delegated and in some cases, automated.

A great example of an automated marketing process is the use of an auto responder for people that contact you via your website (or otherwise).  The easy example would be a prospect downloading a white paper you developed in exchange for sharing their email address.  From their, your auto responder will follow up with that person over a period of several months, sharing valuable information and occasionally pitching the appropriate offer for the next ‘low hurdle’ offering.

People will buy when they’re ready to buy - the job of the automated system is to stay in front of them in a helpful nice way until that happens.

What other ways can you think of to smooth out the ups and downs of a small business?  Share them below.

Shawn Kinkade Kansas City Small Business Coach

 

Photo by tylerdurden1

For any business endeavor that goes beyond a single person probably the biggest driver for success is clear communication.  The good news is there are some amazing new technologies / products coming out that can revolutionize how your team communicates.

If you think about it, that clear communication starts with the vision for the product, the service, the strategy, the plan and the approach.  Then the work starts and it’s critical that everyone is on the same page - they’re communicating status, they’re communicating issues and they’re communicating ideas, suggestions and next steps.  Finally,  someone in charge is communicating milestones, progress and what lies ahead.

Hopefully everything is clear, timely and to the point.  If not…something will get screwed up.

It’s amazing how much things have changed through the years.  At one point, everything was paper based (TPS Report anyone?).  Phone calls and face to face meetings were used to review all of that paper.

Communication today

Paper’s not going away anytime soon, but you do have some alternatives - as a small business owner you have access to tools like Google Docs which lets you create and share all sorts of documents online (it’s free and easy to use - there are also several commercial variations).

In addition to all of the document management and project management support, now there’s a new kind of tool on the market - a business variation of Twitter, kind of a cross between instant messaging, email and forums.  Twitter asks you to briefly (140 characters) answer the question “What are you doing now?”.  These business variants ask “What are you working on now?” and they’re intended for your working partners (as opposed to the world or social connections).

I’m sure there will be several players in this space, but the first one that was announced was the winner of this year’s Techcrunch 50 show that concluded earlier this week.  The product is called Yammer and it demonstrated why it was the winner by signing up 10,000 people from 2,000 companies on the first day of their launch.

There are a lot of cool things to really like about the ideas behind Yammer - first of all the business model is brilliant.  In order to use it, you simply sign up using your business email address and you are automatically assigned to your business ‘group’.  95% of the functionality is free, but the catch is that if the business wants to manage the tool (and the messages and the participants for their company) then they need to claim the group and sign up for the paid service - at a cost of $1 per user per month.  Obviously that’s going to be expensive for a Fortune 500 company with 50,000 employees, but realistically they aren’t the target market - major corporate players will create their own solutions in house (or do without more likely).

The real winners are smaller companies, especially those with knowledge workers that work remotely that want a great way to keep up with what everyone is doing.

The other application coming out (that I’m aware of….I’m sure there are several more) is Present.ly .   Present.ly is still in a beta phase so there’s not a lot of detailed information, but on the surface appears to be fairly similar to Yammer.

Anyway you slice it, the future of communications for teams, especially those that work remotely, is pretty amazing - especially when you think about where things were just a few years ago.

On a somewhat related note - another company that presented at the Techcrunch 50 was Geekvolution - the next generation of social networks targeting the self-proclaimed Geeks of the world.  Not only is it a cool idea with a lot of promise, but it was also started just down the road from Kansas City in Lawrence - check it out if you get a chance.

Would you use a service like Yammer?  I’d love to hear your thoughts on why it would or wouldn’t be useful to you.  Share in the comments.

Shawn Kinkade  Kansas City Business Coach

photo by marcomagrini 

Think about the huge number of problems that would go away if everyone was transparent and focused about who they were and what they’re doing.

I’m sure there are people out there that will say this is a naive view, but I believe that transparency can be a huge driver for success.  Yes there are bad people out there that will attempt to take advantage of you, but building your processes and communications around the bad apples instead of the rest of the world doesn’t make any sense.

What do I mean by transparency?

Let people know who you are.  Don’t hide behind a screen name, a business name or just being an anonymous presence.  (That’s not to say that you can’t be creative with screen names or business names, just make sure people can learn more about you somewhere else).

Transparency is about having an opinion and sharing it openly (this is an area I need to work on - I’m good with sharing the opinion, I just don’t always have a strong feeling on things).

Transparency is about having a sense of humor and / or a personality that can shine through in your stuff.  This can be a challenge in the heyday of Political Correctness and I’m not advocating that you do anything unprofessional, but there’s a lot of leeway between dry, boring and corporate and crossing the line.

How can transparency help you for Marketing?

I’m a big fan of Naomi Dunford - author of Itty Biz, a blog on Home Business Ideas and I’m becoming a fan of a Havi Brooks - author of the Fluent Self.

Although the writing is fantastic and they both have great ideas, what really makes both of these sites (and women) shine is that they absolutely embrace being themselves, enjoying what they do and putting it out there. 

In other words, the reason they are getting a lot of well deserved attention is because they’re smart, funny and transparent.  They are honest (perhaps to a fault) and not afraid to let the language fly.

Most of us aren’t that interesting (or funny unfortunately), but that doesn’t mean you can’t put your own personality out there.

There will be people that don’t like you. 

There will also be people that do like you.

But that’s a lot better than people that don’t care at all.

How can transparency help you for Sales?

I’m convinced that Brute Force marketing and sales are no longer productive ways to grow your business.

People don’t want to be cold called.  They don’t need more long copy sales letter (online or in the mail box).  People want solutions to their problems and they want to buy them on their own schedule from people that they Know, Like and Trust!

If you’re transparent, I can easily determine if I Know, Like and Trust you.  If I don’t, I won’t buy from you.  If I do and if you have a good product that solves my problem, not only will I buy, but I will likely become an advocate for you and extol your virtues to the world.

If you’re not transparent?

I can’t get to know you - I don’t know if I like you and I’m fairly sure that I don’t trust you.

No sale!  Even if you send me an email, a direct mail, call me and accost me at my house - I’m still not going to buy anything (and I’ll start warning everyone I know to stay away from you).

How can transparency help you for Leadership?

There’s a reason why Dilbert and The Office are popular - for a lot of cubical dwellers they do a pretty good job of describing what life is like on the inside of the corporate world.

If you’ve ever worked for a manager that wasn’t transparent, it can be a terribly frustrating experience.  They pass along inexplicable directions and tasks using the company line to explain what’s going on, only to reverse course a couple of weeks later using the same justifications!

As a transparent leader, people know what you’re doing, why you’re doing and how it impacts them.  The extreme business example of this is using Open Book Management to run the company, effectively letting all of the employees in on what’s going on with the bottom line.

It’s been my experience that leading people that know what’s going on is a lot more effective than the alternative.

Do you have any other good example of being transparent or where transparency would make things better?

Share them here - I’d love to hear other opinions on this.

Shawn Kinkade  Kansas City Business Coach

photo by extranoise 

Blogging is a great way to promote your business.

There are a lot of great reasons why you should Blog for your business but the catch-22 is that blogging without any readers doesn’t make any noise in the forest (you know what I mean).

As I’ve discovered over time, although it’s pretty straightforward (not easy mind you, but straightforward) to blog consistently and with good intent.  However, getting people to find you and check out your blog (and subscribe) is a whole different ball o’ wax.

I would argue that quality (of readers and of postings) is way more important than quantity, but still everyone wants to grow their readership and more importantly become part of a blogging ‘community’ of similar interests.

That’s why I think Michael Martine at Remarkablogger came up with a great opportunity to Get Web Traffic. 

• Check out the aspiring bloggers on the comments list
• Sign up for their feeds if it’s something cool that you would enjoy
• Leave a comment and let ‘em know someone is reading them

But definitely make sure you check out Remarkablogger because he almost always has something worthwhile to say!  (also don’t forget to comment here!!!) 

Shawn Kinkade  Kansas City Business Coach

photo by ePi.Longo 

I’ve been hearing from clients and business owners a lot recently that their biggest issue is that they need is more time in the day.

Unfortunately you can’t create time - technically you can’t even manage it, it marches on pretty much at the same pace (although subjectively it can certainly feel faster or slower).

Although you can’t create time, there are several things you can do to make that perceived time crunch much less of an issue.  Previously I talked about 10 Ways to Get More Done and covered some great ideas to help make you more productive but the focus for today is from an angle of simplicity.

I’m inspired by Leo Babauta - author of Zen Habits - here’s a post on 10 things you can do to simplify your life that I thought was compelling.

What can you do to ‘create more time’?  Below are some ideas to get you started.

1.  Start with the Big Rocks

I don’t remember where I first heard this, but it’s a pretty widespread time management practice - there’s a great write-up in more detail at A List Apart.  The way this works is that you imagine your day as a large jar and all the stuff you do, have to do, want to do, can do are rocks of various sizes, from grains of sand all the way up to ‘big rocks’.

The Big Rocks symbolize the high priority, high payoff important activities - as defined by YOU!

On a normal day, most people will just fill in their jar with whatever is closest - or more likely other people will throw gravel and sand in your jar for you.  The problem with this approach is that the Big Rocks won’t fit in - unless you put them in first and then you can fit in gravel and sand around them to get a really full productive day jar.

So the key to really making this work is 2 fold:

First identify what’s really important - maybe it’s exercise, maybe it’s spending some time with your kids or family, maybe it’s the top 2 or 3 things you do that really drive results / money in your business.  What are your top priorities - things you should be spending time on.

Once you’ve identified those ‘Big Rocks’, then put them in your weekly schedule (you could also do it daily, but I find weekly is easier to deal with).  Block out chunks of time and hold on to focusing on those Big Rocks.

You’ll be amazed at what a difference it can make!

2. Declutter

We had a discussion in one of my Advisory Board Groups last week about strategies for productivity and one of the members talked about the decluttering approach he’s taking and already seeing benefits from.

Many of us of are (or live with) pack rats and I believe owning a business or managing people tends to reinforce the tendency that we need to keep everything.  This is a big problem for me - I hate to admit it, but I’ve still got documents from a corporate job from over 10 years ago!

There are exceptions - when it comes to financial documents (invoices you’ve sent or paid, taxes, etc.) you likely need to have a good process for keeping stuff at least for a few years.  You also want to make sure you can take advantage of re-using good work, presentations, documents, whatever that you’ve done previously (although it shouldn’t be a hard copy).

Beyond that, you should be getting rid of just about everything else.  Realistically you’re not suddenly going to purge everything all at once and maintain a clear workspace going forward, but the first step in solving a problem is admitting you have one. 

What you can do is systematically purge those things that are nagging at you - when you come in the room and look away from that pile of stuff that’s been on the shelf next to your desk for the last 6 months, perched precariously…

Start with that.  Then pick 1 area a week for the next few weeks and see what kind of progress you can make.

Meanwhile develop a mindset and a habit that challenges keeping stuff going forward.  One idea that I like - try getting rid of 2 things for every new thing you bring in.

The reason the whole decluttering thing is important is because it tends to represent unfinished business or ‘open loops’ in the Getting Things Done parlance.  The more open loops you have, the more likely you will be distracted or just not functioning at peak efficiency.

Declutter and become more efficient (kind of like defragging your hard drive).

3.  Less is More

I wasn’t sure if it made sense to add this in - it does overlap with both of the points above, but I think it goes well above and beyond decluttering and prioritizing.

When I say Less is More the point is that almost everyone is trying to do too much (myself included).

What skills do you have?

There are a couple of ways to look at this:  First from the perspective of innate skills.  I’m pretty good at a lot of things, but I know I’m not as good at financial book-keeping type of activities as a CPA or a book keeper.  It’s not that I can’t do it, and I’ve certainly learned a lot while I’ve been doing it, but it’s not a good use of my time.  For most business owners this should be outsourced (By the way, I know some good CPAs if you’d like an introduction…).

Along those same lines, for a lot of business owners there are manual elements to marketing, selling or administering their business that are also not good uses of their time. 

If you could use that time to focus on high value activities, how much more money could you make?  If it’s a positive number, then you should probably be trying to figure out how to outsource - at least the stuff you really don’t like.

What’s the focus of your business?

The second way to look at Less is More is that more than likely you are not keeping a tight enough focus on your business and on your activities.  You and your business are really good at something - possibly you are really good at 2 or 3 things. 

From a personal perspective, it’s difficult to have the passion and the skills to be great at many things.  If you focus on what you’re great at and drop the rest (or refer it out or outsource it) then you will be more successful in the long run.

From a business perspective, prospects and people that want to refer you will not engage with you unless they have a good handle on what it is that you do.  If you tell them you do everything, you might as well tell them you do nothing. 

“I don’t know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everyone.”  - Bill Cosby

They don’t have a way to categorize you and they have no way of figuring out how you can help them, so they will just leave you floating.

Are you doing activities, services, products that don’t really fit with your overall approach but you thought it was a worthwhile add-in?  Maybe now is the time to figure out how to transition those things out and bring yourself and your business back into focus.

How do you create more time?

I’d love to hear more ideas of how busy people get the right things done.  Post a comment and let me know what think.

Shawn Kinkade  Kansas City Business Coach

I realized I had developed a full fledged habit the other day when my daughter used my standard ‘morning’ phrase to me when I was leaving the house the other day.

With parenting, I’ve come to realize that there’s not really a good way to prepare for everything you’re supposed to do - as the kids get older, you encounter new situations and as the parent, you’re supposed to know what’s going on and what to do.

As an example, a few years ago when our kids starting going to school and waiting for the bus, I realized that I should probably send them out into the world with something a little more directional and (hopefully) inspiring than just - ‘See ya’ or the ever popular and simple ‘Good-bye’ as they walked out the door.

But what do you say in those kinds of situations?  I still haven’t found the user’s manual for our kids and I’m not sure it would cover those kinds of things anyway.

I played around with some gimmicky ideas like “Go get ‘em Tiger!’ or “Knock ‘em dead!”, but those didn’t feel right and actually don’t contain any real useful ideas.

Although I’m afraid it shows my lack of creativity, I ended up with:

“Be Good, Have Fun, Learn Something”.

Although it’s not catchy, now that I’ve been using it for a few years, I think I’m onto something.  I didn’t really intend it this way - but if you think about it, it’s a pretty good mantra to live by.

Be Good

Although I think some rules were made to be broken and that it’s sometimes better to ask forgiveness rather than permission, in general it’s important to do the right thing and not get in trouble (especially for kids) - you really can’t go wrong with this one.

Have Fun

This is a piece of advice that I really feel strongly about (and it’s generally not considered important for adults).

When you think about it, most working adults spend more time with their business or their job then anything else they do - in a lot of cases, it’s more than half of your waking hours!

Don’t you think you ought to do more than just tolerate that time?  If you’re not in a position where you legitimately have fun at your job or your business (and I wasn’t a couple of years ago) - start making plans to fix that as soon as you can.

Life is too short.

Learn Something

This is another that I think gets overlooked a lot - who has time to learn anything?  In my opinion, if you’re not learning something, then you’re on the path to oblivion.  There are so many cool things out there that you could learn and it doesn’t take that much effort to get exposed to new ideas.

For me - I try to learn new stuff every day - a lot of it’s about technology or business, but I get a fair share of new ideas about philosophy or what makes people tick as well.  Someday I’d like to learn to play the guitar or relearn how to play Tennis or Golf or cool places to travel or how to take better pictures or…well you get the idea.

What do you live by?

I’m curious what other people use as a guiding principle for this kind of thing.

What’s your mantra - either to your kids or to yourself.

Share your thoughts here - I’d love to hear them.

Shawn Kinkade  Kansas City Business Coach

Stephen Heiner is a client of mine and the owner of Get Smarter Prep - an ACT/SAT test preparation company (the scores you need for the schools you want).  Get Smarter continues to do very well  - although he did go through some challenging times in last couple of years.

But beyond the success, Stephen has created something that’s bigger.  He’s created a product that his customers talk about - and go out of their way to tell others about.  He’s created a large number of advocates that are the biggest key to his success.

So what’s his secret - how has he transformed his buyers into advocates that go out and sell on his behalf?

First let’s take a look at some of the struggles:

 

Shotgun approach to Marketing

Like a lot of small business owners, Stephen struggled to find a formula that really worked for his business.  Although he has a fairly narrow target market in the sense that it’s parents of Juniors in high school, logistically there’s a challenge in the best way to really get in front of that group in the most effective way.

Again, like a lot of small business owners, Stephen tried out many different kinds of marketing - magazines, advanced networking (Stephen joined 11 Chambers at once), direct mail, and various PR ideas.  None of these was necessarily a bad choice and they did have the benefit of getting his name out into the marketplace, but with money and cash flow always an issue it was impossible to be consistent.  Which meant it was difficult to be effective.

Studies show that prospects need to see your message multiple times before they are really going to notice and consider buying.  By jumping across lots of different marketing efforts, a lot of the target market didn’t get a consistent message - largely wasting a lot of that effort (and a lot of money…)!

Being the focal point for the business (working IN the business)

Stephen is a fascinating guy - a former marine that’s currently pursuing an MBA, extremely well read, doesn’t own a television and confident in many strong  opinions on diverse topics like religion, politics, education and business.

However, Stephen made the mistake that a lot of business owners make early on (often because they don’t have a choice) and did everything in the business himself.

Every key decision, every detail and most of the actual work was done by Stephen.  As a small business owner, that’ may be the way you have to start out, but as you grow it’s critical that you build something that’s bigger than you can be by yourself.  Eventually you have to be able to successfully delegate and let go of the reins.  You still need to know what’s going on, but you have to take yourself out of the critical path. 

Your job as the business owner is to look at the strategic picture and work ON your business.

Stephen aggressively started pursuing that idea towards the end of last year and as of last week he believes that he has achieved a situation where the business can run, successfully, without his active presence (if it had to).  (Which is a good thing since he’s going to school almost full time to get his Master’s degree…).

The big reason for his success…!

There are several reasons why Stephen is successful - here are a few of the highlights:

1. Stephen is a first class tutor on his own (formerly freelance) before starting Get Smarter.  He developed the company by leveraging those skills and only working with other instructors that demonstrate the ability to be first class tutors as well.
2. Stephen turned the Test Prep model on it’s side by offering unlimited Friday office hours to the students at no additional cost and using materials directly from the Test Creators instead of developing his own materials and selling them for extra profit - which is what a lot of the other Test Prep companies do.
3. Stephen has committed to a Student to Teacher ratio of 8:1 for his classes - the lowest ratio in the country for Test Prep (or other instruction for that matter).

As you can probably imagine, the decisions above aren’t the low cost approach.  Stephen offers a superior product at a price point that’s higher than most of the industry.  However the results clearly indicate that you do get what you pay for.  When an improved score can generate thousands of dollars in scholarships, that extra investment of a couple hundred dollars is certainly well worth it.

But beyond all of that, what has really made Stephen successful is the relationships that he (and the company overall) have developed with their clients.  Not only does he consistently over deliver (on purpose) but he and his staff go out of their way to develop positive, helpful relationships with the students and the parents.

One example that happened recently is that Stephen had some late sign-ups that inadvertently created the situation of 9 Students in 2 of the classes.  Since the 8 to 1 ratio is really just an internal guideline, Stephen could have easily and justifiably let the situation slip and let it go at that.

Instead he wrote a letter to the parents of all the students in those 2 classes apologizing for going for the 9 students in a class (instead of 8)…and he wrote everyone of those customers a $100 check and an offer to talk with them in further detail if necessary - that’s $1800 that he didn’t need to spend (and couldn’t necessarily afford…) just to make sure he was doing the right thing for his customers.

Is it any wonder that his customers go out of their way to be an advocate for Get Smarter?

Shawn Kinkade Kansas City Business Coach