Creating dialogue

One of the benefits of blogging is getting into a conversation with readers via the comment area. However, most blogs (at least mine) gain very little traction and don’t spur much discussion. That’s a shame.

Real learning and insight come from the interaction between people. It is in these moments that brilliance is usually found. That insight and learning goes both ways – author to reader AND reader to author.

Communication, at its best, is a two-way street. It involves people. It engages them. It moves from a lecture to a conversation.

So tell me…what can I do to increase the likelihood of you leaving a comment here? Please respond by leaving a comment…

Top 5 survival tips for small businesses – guest blog by Paul Schoening (1 of 3)

The following is the first of 3 posts from our guest blogger Paul Schoening, President of Plan C.  He is bringing a unique perspective on what it takes for a small business to survive.  Over the next few weeks, the remaining posts will outline the other survival tips.  Enjoy!

In today’s climate, it seems like we are seeing more people start their own businesses. Often this first business is based on something that they are passionate about.  That isn’t always a bad idea, but sometimes it can cloud our judgment.

I launched my first startup in 2004 in an industry that was also my passion: Cycling. I assumed if there were enough people like me who were passionate about high-end European bike products, my business would thrive. But just because you like cupcakes, doesn’t mean you will thrive in the cupcake business.

As they say, proof is in the data…

Less than 1 in 3 new companies are still around at the 10 year mark.  The chart below shows the proportion of new businesses that were founded in 1992 that were still in business each year for the next 10 years*.

Source; www.smallbiztrends.comIllusions of Entrepreneurship: The Costly Myths that Entrepreneurs, Investors, and Policy Makers Live ByApril 28, 2008

*While these data look at the 1992 cohort of new single-establishment businesses, the failure rate percentages are almost identical for all the cohorts that researchers have looked at. So, these are pretty much the one through ten year survival rates of new firms.

For me, my passion skewed my business planning and although we had great success in the first 2 years, the final 2 were difficult, ultimately resulting in my divestiture out of the business.  Technically, we did just about everything right: created a business plan, networked effectively, and continually grew sales.  However, we didn’t focus on a sustainable business model that took into account how we’d overcome changes in the marketplace.  For me, it was a fluctuating (i.e., rising) exchange rate that we couldn’t overcome.   Here are the five, sometimes contrarian thoughts, on small business survival based on what I’ve learned:
1. Don’t build a business plan: Wait a minute — aren’t business plans supposed to be Entrepreneurship 101? What about all those popular books telling you that you can’t get to first base without a plan? Not always. To survive, you definitely need to understand the market. You need to know who your competition is, what are the products/services available in the marketplace, who are your potential customers and what is your differentiating value proposition.  But that doesn’t mean you have to create a business plan to achieve that.

One question in a 2002 survey of Inc 500 founders asked whether they had written formal business plans before they launched their companies. Only 40% said yes. Of those, 65% said they had strayed significantly from their original conception, adapting their plans as they went along.  That means that less than 15% built a business plan that they followed.   In a similar vein, only 12% of this year’s Inc 500 group said they’d done formal market research before starting their companies.

Source: Inc. Oct 15, 2002

More important than a “business plan”, you need a sustainable business model that ebbs and flows with your success and growth.  Something that allows you to quickly adapt to new opportunities or threats (i.e., rising exchange rates).

Neither Bill Gates nor Mark Zuckerberg had business plans. They did however create sustainable models for continued growth and survival.  To do this, you must understand what drives your business, your profits and your sales – and understanding what the potential hazards are.   You can help achieve this by forming a small advisory group who meet regularly to bring a “non-passionate” perspective to the table.   These people can provide you with a sounding board so you don’t get stuck in a quagmire because you are only looking at things from your “passion” base.

It is important that this group of advisors has people on it who are willing to be contrarian and point out flows in reasoning and judgment.  The group needs people who are willing to challenge your opinion and assumptions.  It is also nice to have advisors who can advise you in areas where you are not as strong or familiar (i.e., finance or marketing).   Finally, the group needs people who will also bring in ideas and create synergies with other ideas.

Focus on getting the right mix of advisors to take on these roles.  Sometimes that means a bunch of people – other times many roles can be filled by just a few or even just one.  Make sure that you set up regular check-ins with these people.  It doesn’t have to be formal – you can get together with one or two over lunch every month or quarter.  You can go to a basketball game with them.  But make sure that it happens more than just by happenstance.

Confusing your hobby and passion with a good business model is a common mistake. With my “Cycle Import” company I soon learned that it’s not always passion that creates success, but a flexible business model that is sustainable beyond the terminal 3-5 year window.   I could have used a few trusted advisors to help me look out at that time horizon before it was too late.

Comment:

Please let us know what you think by leaving a comment.  Our next blog posting will be up first part of next week…part II.

What are you grateful for?

I occasionally use this blog to write about what I’m grateful for. I’ve found that it helps me keep things in perspective and to keep my attitude positive (even when things might not be going so well).

It would be nice to hear what others are grateful for as well. Take 30-seconds and think about it and then leave a comment. I’m sure we would all appreciate hearing about what your grateful for – particularly with Thanksgiving coming up soon.

Good Night i-Pad

Having a 5 year old and a 2 year old…this was just too classic.

 

 

With all the new ways of communicating – the old fashion bedtime story is still one of my favorites – but I’m not sure how long it will be for our children.  Your thoughts?

Behavior is what matters

For all my passion and research into motivation I have to respectfully admit that motivation by itself is shit. By itself, motivation doesn’t do anything. The most motivated people in the world sometimes still just sit on their butts.

What is needed is behavior.

It doesn’t matter if motivation is intrinsic or extrinsic. It doesn’t matter if my motivation applies to the A Drive or the D Drive (or the B or C Drive for that matter). If I don’t start or stop doing something (i.e., behavior) then the amount of motivation I have is a moot point.

Motivation is important in that it leads to behaviors. Motivation is one of the key elements in achieving behavior change (starting or stopping something). But it is only one part. The guys from Vital Smarts, Patterson, Grenny, Maxfield, McMillan and Switzer came out with a book called “Change Anything” not too long ago. It sheds light on this problem. While it mostly talks about individual change, but their insights can be applied to all motivation. They state that when we fail to change, “…when it comes to personal change, we think first of our own lack of motivation.” The problem with this belief is that there are a number of other factors that influence whether or not we actually change.

Change is hard. That is why motivation is important. It is the gas that powers the change engine. We need it to push through the difficult times and persist with our change effort. Again, Patterson et. al., talk about the other influences on whether or not we change – there are social factors and environmental factors. We can be motivated to loose weight all we want, but if we hang out with people who are always going out and eating big meals and just watching T.V. and if we have a packet of Oreos in the cupboard and no carrots in the fridge – it is much harder (and some might say – even impossible) to change.

When we are designing motivational programs for our employees, we need to understand that no matter how good our incentive program is or how well we activate the 4-Drives – our employees will be hard pressed to change if the social and environmental aspects are stacked up against them. If we want greater collaboration and teamwork, not only do we need to design the compensation plan so that it supports that, but we might have to look at how we configure our work space and what activities we allow while at work. If we want to get people out in front of customers more, we need to explore what are the routines that we have our employees do that inhibit this or what are the social/cultural pressures that might get in the way of this behavior.

So it boils down to understanding that while motivation is important, it cannot be the only thing that we focus on. We need to broaden our perspective to understand how motivation fits into the larger behavior picture.

And so while you might be motivated to agree or disagree with me – I’ll only know if you leave a comment (and thus, do a behavior). Click on “leave a comment” below.

Thanks.!

Left Brain versus Right Brain

Love this! Great visual that highlights the difference between our right brain and left brain thinking styles…

 

This is another good visualization too

 

Just remember, we all have a full brains!  That means that we are both right and left brain thinkers.  Make sure you tap into both sides of your brain.

Do you need a mini-sabbatical?

Do you need a break?

For those few of you who might have noticed, the number of blog postings on this site over the last two months has been significantly down.  This was on purpose as I realized that I needed a sabbatical of sorts from writing.

After my crazy experience of working through Hurricane Irene (see here) I was a little burned out.  I could tell because the writing ideas that had come easily (well relatively easily) to me before, were now few and far between.  There was not that burning desire of “Wow – I need to share this with people.”  In fact, it was just the opposite, whenever I came up with an idea, it was, “Who cares?”  I was burnt out on it.  It was adding stress to my life (more than what I felt was necessary) and was becoming an “issue.”

So I cut back.

Not completely, but enough that I felt like I was taking a break.  I did not post every week.  The posts that I did do were short and mostly updates.  I tweated less.

I did not take a complete sabbatical.  I still worked.  I did my day to day things.  I jumped into creating some new workshops.  I worked on developing some new business ideas with a friend.  I sold a bunch of projects for this fall/winter.

But I didn’t write.

And it felt like I had some time off.  I felt like I had a break.  Which is what I needed.

And I found out a few things.

1. The world did not end (I knew that would be the case, but still, one never really knows)

2. My readership dipped, but when I did post something, it popped back up right away

3. I want to write stuff again (now that I’ve had some reflection time

You should try it

Most of us don’t have the opportunity to take a real sabbatical.  However, I bet that each of us could find one or two things that we could take a sabbatical from.  For me it was writing this blog and keeping up on the social media stuff.  By taking a conscious break from it, I feel more motivated to do it now.

What is your mini-sabbatical going to be?  What do you need a mini-break from?  Is it new product development?  Leadership meetings?  Working on next years annual conference?   New sales?  Worrying?

And remember, the world won’t end…even if you think it might.

For your mini-sabbatical

1. you need to reduce your thinking on the topic/issue (not completely give it up)

2. You should give yourself a set amount of time to take off (I did it for two months, but I could see it working in as little as two weeks)

3. Keep a journal or log of ideas that come to you regarding your mini-sabbatical area – but don’t work on those ideas (this is to help with your motivation later)

4.  Do things so that you don’t fret too much about what you’re not doing (I did not look at the number of viewers to the blog because I knew that it would probably distress me)

5.  Remember, the min-sabbatical is supposed to rejuvenate you – if you feel it adding more stress, you need to change something about it (either how you are doing it or the fact that you are doing it at all)

Leave a note and share your ideas on this.  Let us know how it goes.