Aug
4
5, 6, 7, 8…Who do you Appreciate?
Filed Under Entrepreneurism, Leadership, Management, SEO / SEM, Sales
Your people…that’s who!!! What people? Employees, vendors, investors, and customers. Note: I did not put the customer first. The customer does not ALWAYS come first…because some customers are better off being sent to your competitors. Great post on that right here…I’ll write more on my vehement belief that customer service is crucial but clients do not always come first. Back to that later; on with the countdown:
- Develop a personal brand,
- Learn the language of early stage finance,
- Invent a bionic product or service,
- The five W’s (and one H) of sales,
- Recruiting away your weaknesses – We all have strengths and weaknesses; not everyone is as perfect as Lindsay Lohan or Paris Hilton. However, we don’t have to wallow in our own filth just because we lack the genius of Sergei Brin or the fluid sales skills of Bill Clinton…we can simply hire, recruit or partner away our problems!! This starts with recognizing your limitations, understanding the basic roles that every company requires (even startups), and then being a strong enough person to realize that strength comes from resolving problems and not by ignoring them or pretending these weaknesses do not exist. If you can’t sell…you can’t sell. If you stink at finances…admit it and move on. A few key words: Partnerships -be careful and lay it all out early. Hiring – be careful and lay it all out early. Outsourcing – be careful and lay it all out early.
- Feed the beast – Marketing & branding. Not yourself, but your company’s products and / or services. Pick a niche, and announce to the world your amazing expertise and the gifts that you bring to humanity through your new venture. Ideally, this is a well crafted, well thought through game plan for expanding the world’s knowledge of your company. Marketing is the support system for sales. Your carefully branded message, supported by well developed marketing efforts feeds your sales staff, who in turn feed the company. One final note about marketing and branding: the web has introduced a new paradigm to this venue, currently being ignored by many ad agencies and pr firms. The web eliminates, in many cases, the idea of the “integrity of the media”…but the social web reverses that and empowers the people’s message. That means they are definitely going to talk about you online, and that will be perceived by many as “truth”…might as well join in and try to guide or manage the message.
- The secret to managing people - Many hundreds of millions of dollars are spent (and earned) every year as business owners and managers try to figure out that elusive target of managing others to efficient and profitable performance. Most of these otherwise fantastic books and speakers miss the key point of management…leading by example. Leverage, through technology, capital or people is the easiest way to insure your business can grow or at least sustain as you sip Bahama-Mamas on the beach. You will never be able to leverage people if you do not know how to recruit, train, motivate and lead them (i.e. manage away mediocrity). Truth is…they tire of the speeches, the harassment and the “motivational” ass-kicking. What they really want to know is…WWJD…What Would Jefe Do? Do you come in late and expect your people early? Do you refuse to sell, service, or dig into details? Do you set the right example…nearly all of the time? If you don’t, you should expect them to follow suit. They will do half of what you do when they are duplicating positives and 300% your efforts when duplicating negatives (because that is usually more fun). You better get GOOD at managing others, managing managers, and managing yourself. BTW – when managing others, consider Machiavelli’s book The Prince, which can be summed up with, ‘It is best if one is both loved and feared. Given the difficulty of uniting both in one person, one ought to inspire fear in such a way that, if he does not win love, he at least avoids hatred.’
- Learning to snorkel – Last year, I snorkeled for the first time on a trip to Belize (stayed at Francis Ford Coppola’s Turtle Inn…awesome). OK Boo-Boo, I may be a little slower than the average bear…because it took me a while to figure out that I had to breathe through this tiny little apparatus, and if I went nuts wearing myself out…the hole never got any bigger for me to suck oxygen through. I had to keep it unobstructed and had to bring it above water every now and then. Cash flow to your business is an awful lot oxygen to a slightly overweight man ten feet under the water…you need it to survive and you better pay close attention to its availability. Recently a restaurant opened close to my office. It was busy, had decent food, and looked like it was going to be successful…then one day it closed down with no notice. Happens every single day, probably the most common destroyer of businesses (especially new businesses)…the owner ran out of money. Some businesses eat money faster as they grow more and more successful. My company, Pop Labs, has a similar financial model. Our cost to provide service is much higher during the first 3-6 months than the cash flow brought in by a new client. Thus, our success eats more cash than the business spins off on new clientele; the more successful we are, the more cash we need. You MUST manage cash flow daily; insure you have enough for your payroll, client services, key vendors, etc. Guess who gets paid last? You. Isn’t being the owner awesome!!
Just two more to go…nine (9) and ten (10) are about your goals and obligations. Leadership ain’t easy, nor is ownership; but when done right…it generates safety and security beyond the simple appearance of a “good job” or good benefits. If you are serious about starting a business…get ready to fight, every day of your life, for a while…because, as Tom Hank’s character said in A League of their Own, “If it wasn’t hard, everyone would do it. It’s the hard that makes it great.”
Comments
Leave a Reply