Author Archive
3 Rules for Business
Posted by: | CommentsThere’s a popular saying that goes, “Rules are meant to be broken!” After all, isn’t that how one breaks out of the proverbial “box?” How could you possibly think outside the box if you’re constantly following all the rules that demand you stay in the box?
In the art classes I’ve taught, many times students would ask me about the “rules.” The “you should always” things. My response to that is that there are no rules. Not in art. What there are are techniques and skills. Once you learn how to use your materials then throw away the rules and let your creativity fly. Experimentation is all about the “what if” factor:
- what if I were to paint on glass instead of canvas? How would the paint react and what would be the effect of light?
- what if I were to position the images at the far right of the canvas, totally unbalancing it visually? Is this “allowed?”
- what if I were to put all the cool colors in the foreground and the warm colors in the background?
In art there are rules to be broken in order for creativity to blossom.
I seem like a maverick don’t I? Well, I’ll turn this around and now say that there are some rules for business that ought not to be broken. That there are contexts in which you truly do want to stay “in the box.” What might these rules be?
Rule #1: Show up every day.
- One of the beauties of having a home-based business, or being a solo-preneur is having the freedom to set your own hours and work when and where you want. That’s fine. It is one of the perks that I happen to love. Having said that, if you want your business to do more than just survive…if you want it to thrive…you have to show up every day. It might mean that you stay on top of your email. I’ve read about people who only read and answer emails once a week. That won’t work if you have set up a business that relies upon people being able to contact you and you them in a timely fashion. Personally I check my email frequently throughout my work day. It does not take me long to handle email…either I answer it, file it or dispose of it. If its something requiring more than a moment or two I will set it aside until an assigned part of my work day when I can devote time to it.
- Showing up might mean staying current with your blog posting or website updating.
- Showing up might mean staying current with your industry through reading and research.
- Showing up might mean staying current with networking – both social and socio-business.
Rule #2: Polish your products and services to a shine.
- My grandfather told me once that if his name is associated with something then he wants to make sure he can be proud of it. My grandfather was an artist and only signed and showed/sold his best work. Don’t have a “grade A” product and a “grade B” product. Either you are proud to offer your products and/or services or you’re not.
- Your customers and clients deserve to purchase the best you have to offer. A tiny business like mine cannot afford a “discount bin.”
Rule #3: Ignore your customers and clients to your peril.
- That might sound a little strong, but without profit your business will fail. We truly operate in a global marketplace now due to the internet. Today I joined a [new to me] businesswoman’s networking website that is international. The founder lives in Iceland. What this equates to is that competition for consumer dollars is fierce – never think for a moment that your product or service is so unique that there is no other that a potential customer could turn to. Give your customers and clients your attention.
- Give superb customer service and added value. And ask for the referral. And ask for feedback.
Break rules when doing so will spark creativity and leave room for “aha!” moments; but keep the rules that give your business cohesiveness and competitive edge.
Consistency is one part of a healthy business
Posted by: | CommentsWhat stands as the infrastructure of your business? If you are a solo-preneur, a home-based business owner or even just a small business with a partner, then the infrastructure isn’t an organizational structure, rather it’s how you do your business. Something holds your business together and keeps it going. I posit that one of the underlying structures for tiny businesses is consistency.
Consistency has as its meaning that of holding together, adhering, maintaining its shape – whatever “it” is. It has a nuance of harmonious agreement between elements of a thing. Thought of in terms of a business, consistency could apply to:
- a suite of services or products
- policies of customer care
- a business’ reputation
- the idea that our “walk” is in harmonious agreement with our “talk”
Is our business’ stated goal and vision in line with [consistent with] the products and services we offer? If my stated business is as a life coach, then my product offerings will not include workbooks about investing. If my stated business is as an insurance agent, then my product offerings will not include workbooks about self-improvement. This is a very simplified example, but to the point.
If my business website claims that customer care emails are promptly answered…are they? Are my actions consistent with my stated policies? Do I wait to hear from my clients or do I have in place a system of contact from me to them? If I state, somewhere in my business materials, that I care for my clients, then do I follow that with actions? For instance, if my business were that of a life coach and my clients signed a contract for services that spanned several months of consultation, do I have built into it a way for myself and my client to give one another non-consulting feedback? I would want to know if the client had questions, if the client understood clearly, if the client were doing the exercises, if the client were regretting the association. Not only do I want my clients to be “happy,” I want them to be getting the value from my business that I say they will.
I think a business’ reputation depends in part on consistency. Do you, in your business, do what you say you will do? Does your product do what you say it will do? Does your service deliver what you say it will deliver? Every product should perform equally with every customer who uses it. Same product. Same service. Client to client. Customer to customer. There should never be a time when favoritism gives one client advantage in your business from another.
Walking the talk and talking the walk are cute but true ways to say that you deliver what you advertise. Every time. That your products and services are in harmonious agreement with your business goals and vision. I have a favorite asian food eatery in my community that has a particular dish I really enjoy. This business also offers home delivery. Over the past two years, I have ordered this dish about eight times utilizing their home delivery option. Every single time, the food is delivered in the space of time the hostess said it would arrive; it has been hot; it has been packaged in such a way that none spilled; and it has been consistently delicious. Every time.
Makes me wonder if some people get into a business and don’t realize that they might have a “hit” or two that people will want time and again. Makes me wonder if these people realize they will have to deliver this “hit” many, many times and that it will need to be consistently wonderful each time. Musicians are like that…there are some songs a singer becomes famous for and that song will follow that singer for the rest of time…and crowds will want to hear that particular song sung by that singer and will want it to be sung just as beautifully as the first time. For the business person, being consistent with products and services can get tiring…but these same products and services are new to each new client and customer.
Healthy businesses are those who are consistent with every aspect of their business, from products to customer care.
Being in Business is Risky Business
Posted by: | CommentsHaving a business of your own is a bit like being a creative writer. A creative writer loves to ask and answer the question: what would happen if….? What would happen if:
- the title character were a woman instead of a man
- the title character were 75 years old and slightly deaf
- the title character had a side-kick who was independently wealthy
- all the action took place over the course of 3 days
- the setting was ancient Egypt
- the setting was in the Dark Ages
- the setting was 10 years into the future
A creative writer doesn’t see the “what if” question as risky…rather she sees it as opening doors, possibilities and opportunities. Without the convention of the “what if” it would be difficult to posit the possible. The same is true in a business.
Having a business of your own often involves risk and wondering “what if?” What if:
- you decide to go it alone as a solo-preneur…what are the implications of that?
- you decide to go into business with a partner…what would that look like?
- you limit your business to your local community only…does your community have the population size in your business niche to offer you enough business?
- you decide to have both a local business and an online presence…can you handle the possible case overload?
In building your business asking yourself the “what if I did this or that” kinds of questions can help to direct your creative thinking and help you to evaluate what you really and truly want to do. Once the business is up and running, there is still risk…still the “what if” questions to ask. What if:
- you take a vacation…can your business handle your being away from it for 5 days…10 days?
- you become ill…do you have a procedure built into your business to handle the inevitable down days?
- an outside, unforeseen natural or economic catastrophe occurs…do you have contingency plans in place for things like fires, floods and recessions?
- your business becomes too popular…can you turn away clients/customers?
- your business requires a new marketplace…can you retool?
Without risk there is no business; but risk doesn’t have to be thought of as negative. Rephrased as “what if” questions, risk becomes a way to look anew at your business…and keep you fresh and on your toes.
Everyone making predictions for 2010
Posted by: | CommentsEverywhere you look lately folks are making business predictions for the New Year 2010 and I’m going to chime right in. My topic is marketing.
First, however, I want to give you my definition for marketing – it is not quite what others might say.
Marketing is telling everyone, everywhere:
- what your business is, where it is, how to find it
- what your product/service is, what it can do for the consumer, why they need it, why they want it
- how your business differs from others that are similar – what your uniqueness’s are, what makes your business so very special
- why the consumer should/ought to exchange their precious dollars and cents for your product/service
Marketing is telling everyone, everywhere in every way that people can and do receive information:
- newspapers, magazines and direct mailers – the hard copy kind, the newsprint ink that smears on your fingers and the flyers, brochures and sales letters that come in the snail mail; AND the online versions: newspapers online, magazines online and email ads that come both solicited and unsolicited
- television ads, radio ads – both via traditional tv and radio vehicles and online versions
- internet banner ads, classified ad sites, display ad boxes on social media sites
- social media relationship building
- weblogs and forums and other self-publishing arenas where messages about anything and everything under the sun, moon and stars can be shared
A business’ marketing department is usually tasked with:
- designing the message
- crafting the message delivery system
- delivering the message
- measuring the results of both the message and the delivery system
My prediction about marketing for 2010 is that we all begin to realize that calendars are human conventions and that time is an amorphous mystery – we are actually calendar-less. What 2010 is going to bring is already around us. I came across a great article on Social Media Today that has some fantastic information on this very topic. The article, “2010: The Year Marketing Dies…(Subtitled) Or at Least Marketing as We Know It!” by Augie Ray, has these points – among others – that I find worthy of comment here [from the article]: “… Of course, if marketing burns to the ground in 2010, a new and more powerful marketing will rise from the ashes. The role of the new marketer [I picked the 3 of Mr. Ray's 8 points that spoke to me the most]:
- Won’t be to plan bursts of communication on a yearlong calendar but to respond to and be part of the ever-changing dialog with consumers,
- Won’t be to count friends, page visits, eyeballs, readers, or viewers but to measure changes in consumer attitude and intent,
- Won’t be merely to talk at consumers but to listen and engage one to one….”
Point One I find significant and is one with which I totally agree – marketing is no longer a ‘January through December’ message plan – in fact I’d say this has been outmoded for some time now. Consider that technology moves so quickly that in the electronics industry, as example, things are outmoded within a couple months – what good is a 12-month message plan for something that has a version 14.0 coming out only 6 weeks after version 1.0? [okay that's exaggerated, but not by much].
I think what is important is to have a message that is not so much crafted as it is a photograph or hologram of what the product or service actually is and what it’s value actually could be to the end user. In other words, not one message for niche A and a different message for niche B…the same message but told in as many ways as is relevant to the receiving system in place.
Point Two is very important and very misunderstood. I’ll be the first to recommend to a business, large or small, that having a business profile on Facebook and LinkedIn is a good idea. However, it is not the number of friends and contacts the profile has…rather it is the quality and the reason for putting up the profile. You might have a business profile on Facebook because it is one place where you can link your Twitter updates and new blog posts…it gives you a wider population for sharing news and views. Let’s say you launch a new product. You write a post about it on the blog on your business website. You announce the new product release in a Twitter update AND you tweet your blog post – both of these show up on your Facebook profile as new updates…in this tiny example you can see that three separate populations now know about your new product release. The ROI will not be in numbers of page views or friends but in the chatter about your business and in sales.
Point Three is awesome. Traditional marketing is indeed talking at the consumer. New marketing is talking with the consumer; it is a conversation. One cool way of marketing is being done online with the vehicle of reviews. Right now my husband is researching plasma television sets and blue ray players. Yes, we have gone to the retail stores and looked at them and spoken with the salespeople. He has read what the “experts” are saying about the various brands but what is having the greatest impact on him is what other consumers are saying. Amazon.com has used the review feature for some time and it is a great way to gauge what some people’s experiences are with products. The example I’ve linked to here is for Paula Deen cookware – towards the bottom of the page are the consumer reviews.
I think what marketing needs is a change of clothing. Instead of marketing being about selling your product or service, marketing ought to be about engaging the consumer in a conversation about his or her needs and wants and how your product or service can meet or fulfill that. In 2010 pure sales won’t be enough. Added value will be key.
Happy Holidays! May the New Year bring you and your family many joys.
Think long-term solidity rather than short-term success
Posted by: | CommentsThere is no denying that this past year of 2009 has been tough economically for nearly everyone. In the U.S., 35 states were reported to have an unemployment rate of over 5% as reported for October on CNNMoney. That is a lot of people without jobs and income. My home state of California currently has an unemployment rate of 12.3% according to today’s CNNMoney report – even though the headline states, “The unemployment rate is falling!”
Forbes [dot com] on December 16 had a great article by John Zogby doing a bit of forecasting for 2010 – the highlights from his article:
- “…Look for sluggish consumer spending to continue-If you produce or market luxury retail products, the keywords should be high value, high quality and longevity
- The Misplaced Assumption: That the unemployment rate really reflects employment. It has always been a lousy number. It ignores people who have given up looking for work as well as part-timers. What we really need is an indicator of how people survive. Who are the potential entrepreneurs?…”
I think the end of the year is a good time to reflect on what has transpired the preceding 12 months. In my personal experience I know of two businesses that have closed; one business that had to close their brick-and-mortar shop and operate strictly online; and one person who was laid off in 2008 and still has been unable to find employment – he has now started his own business, but in an area totally unrelated to his working skill set. Layoff was even a specter in the company for which my husband works – twice during this past year pink slips were handed out. Even in my own business I have made changes.
So, what is my point? My point is that people who do have jobs, do have businesses and are looking ahead to 2010 might take a second thought to what they might do to secure long-term solidity rather than how they will meet next month’s bills.
Entrepreneurs are forward-looking, innovative-thinking creative individuals. Starting your own business in the first place took courage, research and passion. I think it’s going to take those same things to see us through the recession. While sitting of an evening during these holidays with a cup of eggnog and plate of decorated cookies, maybe have a pad of paper and pencil and do some revisiting. Remember back to when you first began your business – what was your belief level:
- in your initial business idea
- in your dreams
- in your goals and milestones
- in your company and product or service
Has anything changed? Has the current economy changed your direction? Have you lost clients or customers and now you need to either (1) find new markets or new ways in which to communicate with your market; or (2) find a new product or service that will better serve a more spending-conscious consumer? Or, maybe the change in the economy has brought you even more customers and clients [some types of business consultancies or life coaching businesses]- maybe what you need now is a re-evaluation of your abilities to handle a larger client load and ask (1) can you continue to offer the degree of customer service you were previous to the new case load; and (2) are you still able to give added value to each and every consumer experience with your business?
We all need to pay the monthly bills of course. But this past year’s burden of trying to stay ahead can have the result of putting us in “survival mode” and cause us to forget what we’d like our business to look like in ten year’s time. Survival business tasks are very different than long-term business building tasks. We may need to do both. The point of my conversation is that in surviving we ought not to forget the long-term. Remembering where we’d like to go with our businesses may stimulate some creative thinking to get us there. Happy Holidays.
The Work that Women Choose to Do
Posted by: | CommentsThere was a time in my life when the work I did was work I could get…sometimes survival mode dictates our direction. I’ve worked as a waitress, a receptionist and file clerk to earn a paycheck. Those were not choices, those were positions available. And I almost didn’t get those because I was “over qualified.” In fact my first waitressing job I very nearly didn’t get simply because I had a college degree. But I was also a single mother with a tiny baby and no other choices at the time.
Looking back I’m grateful to past employers because it allowed me to feed my family, pay my bills and get on with living. And now I’m at a place in life where I do get to choose my work and it’s a great joy.
I love knowing what other women choose to do for their work. I have a friend, a true entrepreneur, who is both a painter and a gallery owner. She loves both sides of her life – the artistic creator who paints her fantastic surrealistic pieces, and the business woman who plans and markets and keeps the books. I have an aunt who, after the passing of her husband, has taken a huge role in the operations of his business…something she previously did not do – and she’s discovered she’s quite good at it.
On December 1, a new book in a series of “Heart of…” books became publicly available [Borders bookstores and Amazon.com] titled, “Heart of a Military Woman.” Now there are a couple women’s stories in this book that I want to mention because of the work they chose to do, but I want first to mention the authors themselves: Sheryl L. Roush and Eldonna Lewis Fernandez. What these two women choose to do as their work is fascinating and exciting.
Sheryl Roush is, from the book, “…an internationally top-rated speaker, and was only the third woman to earn the elite Accredited Speaker designation from Toastmasters International…she is the President/CEO of Sparkle Presentations, Inc…” From her website, “…She has presented over 3,000 programs in nine countries….” I think this is terrific, that there is a woman in the ranks of top inspirational speakers in the world. This is a business category that needs more woman role models for up-and-coming female speakers. Public speaking…not to mention inspiring and encouraging others from a stage…is something I have no gifts for and I admire those who can.
Eldonna Lewis Fernandez is a retired Air Force Master Sergeant with 23 years of honorable military service. Her choice of work in the military is one of the stories in the new “Heart” book [in the same chapter in which is my own short essay - I was a journalist during my service in the U.S. Navy] that I find fascinating. She served in the Honor Guard. How many of us have ever given much thought to the Honor Guards we see at military or presidential funerals, leading off parades and even at airports welcoming international dignitaries? Even when I was in the military, I didn’t give thought to this crack team. From her essay Eldonna says, “…The Honor Guard is about precision in military honors…My entire experience on the Honor Guard is one I’ll cherish for a lifetime….”
What she chooses to do now is just as fascinating [Pink Biker Chic - what a cool name!] – from Eldonna’s website: “…serves on the board of the International Empowerment Education Foundation, and coordinates the speaker’s bureau for the Women’s Peace Campaign. She is also a member of the District One Toastmasters Community Speakers Bureau…Eldonna is affectionately known as the Pink Biker Chic™, a biker and empowerment coach for women – utilizing the PINK principles of – Power, Integrity, Nurturing, and Knowledge….”
The “Heart of a Military Woman” book has another essay about a woman who chose a job unusual…one you don’t hear about or read about – that of cargo handler. I know that planes get loaded with “stuff” and that someone has to do the loading, but I never gave thought to the importance of it until I read this essay. It’s written by a marine captain who saw this woman’s skill and leadership for himself when he worked with Petty Officer Raquel Santiago, USN. There is a romantic ending as these two people ended up marrying before he spent a tour in Iraq.
Raquel’s story as described by Captain Gravseth is heartwarming and motivating. Raquel’s reserve unit was called to Singapore after that horrible tsunami in 2004. Cargo came into the area by the tons but it wasn’t leaving in an organized fashion to help those who needed it. From the essay, “…Orchestrating the action, the feisty Latina from New York inspired her weary team to continue. With entire nations depending on these supplies getting to their devastated homes it was the cargo handler’s most important mission ever…For the first time since the global disaster, a U.S. Navy cargo ship would leave Singapore at full capacity.…” This is inspiring work that shows the power of leadership a woman can bring to an unusual job.
None of us is one-dimensional. Raquel is also a jewelry artist, her designs, RSVanity, can be found here.
I still see articles in news magazines about glass ceilings, but I’m convinced that there is no work a woman cannot choose to do. Yes, she may have to fight her way in and yes there may be some work that will require adaptations in order to do – women will never be as physically strong as men – but we can adapt. Someday it will not be headline news when a woman achieves leadership.
