Slow Down…or Stop?
July 21, 2010
You’d like my Uncle Lou. He’s 87 years old, intelligent, funny, and one of the best storytellers I know. In another era, he’d probably have been a professional speaker.
He’s also the last surviving member of his generation in my family, since we lost both my mother and my aunt (Lou’s wife) in the last eight months. So naturally, I try to visit him whenever I can, an event that always brings a huge smile to his face.
As always, he shares stories of the old days when he and my father (his fraternal twin) used to get into all sorts of mischief growing up in the Bronx in the 1920s and 30s. Of course, I’ve heard most of these stories at one time or another, but it’s still enormous fun to hear them again, and, specifically, to hear him tell them.
This time, though, he shared a story I’d never heard before. It seems he had been pulled over for running a stop sign some time back in 1965. Okay, he didn’t actually run the stop sign, it was more like a “rolling stop.”
In any case, he got pulled over. The officer approached the car, and asked my uncle if he realized he had run the stop sign. My uncle responded, “But I did slow down…”
At this point, the officer pulled out his “billy club” and began rapidly hitting his other hand with it. As he did this, he said to my uncle, “Imagine that’s your head I’m hitting. Do you want me to slow down…or stop?”
My uncle got the message and got away with a warning.
Sometimes, like a stop sign on the road, life sends you signals. You can ignore them, you can slow down, or you can stop and really consider what these messages are telling you. You may not get in an accident or get pulled over, but ignoring these signs often cause dire consequences.
I’m A Lucky Guy!
July 21, 2010
By David Lawrence, Pangea River Rafting
Michael J. Fox wrote a book entitled, Lucky Guy. I’ve got to say that if you wrote a book about my life right now, you couldn’t pick a better title. I’m one extremely “lucky guy!” Ten years ago I got into the professional recreation business (yes, it’s actually a “real” career opportunity) as a freshly minted college graduate with an English Literature degree and a burning desire to see the West.
For a native son of Virginia, the West meant the Rocky Mountains. When a friend called and asked if I wanted to take a job at a resort in Washington State, my first question was, “Does Washington have mountains like the Rocky Mountains?” Not only did it have big mountains and massive, glaciated volcanoes, the state offered a firsthand degree in outdoor recreation.
Washington is where I got my whitewater rafting start, on the Methow River. The waters of the Methow led me to the Spokane River where I worked as a guide. Those waters led me to Montana and the Clark Fork River, where my wife, Brooke, and I own and operate our own rafting company, Pangaea River Rafting.
I’m one lucky guy because I spend my summers as a raft guide in Montana and my winters in the Cascade Mountains of Washington State as a cross-country ski instructor. Making that kind of lifestyle work as a single twenty-three-year-old was pretty easy when you live on a tight budget. But how do you make a nomadic, recreation-based lifestyle work in your thirties, married, with one child, with hopes of having a couple more, and wanting to own your own house, actually two, one in each state?
The answer is pretty easy: you learn what business you’re really in. At the America Outdoors trade show last year in Reno, NV, I heard Ron Rosenberg present his Outrageous Marketing strategies. I learned from Ron that my business isn’t rafting and skiing; it isn’t even entertainment and teaching – it’s marketing and customer service. The customer service part we got in spades, but the marketing…
I joined Ron’s Inner Circle, read his newsletters, listened to his audio CD’s , reviewed the manuals and supplemental materials, and completed all of the requirements from Ron’s incredible new “Business Self-Defense™ Program.” And I became this weirdly voracious student of marketing!
Because of this, our sales at Pangaea River Rafting increased 15% in one summer. But what’s more amazing, we did this despite losing a whole month of revenue because the rivers were too high to raft! And on top of that, we, like everyone else that summer were battling outrageous fuel costs and operational expenditures. I would have been ecstatic just to duplicate the previous season’s totals, but we blew those numbers away by 15%!
I came back to the America Outdoors show this year because I wanted to see Ron and I was able to schedule a one-on-one meeting with him to review my web site. That one-on-one time with him discussing various marketing strategies was worth the fuel costs to drive to Knoxville, Tennessee; it was worth the cost of registering to attend the show; and it was worth all of the membership fees and educational resources I purchased. Because all of this will offer me a return of more than 10 times their value.
The best part, while I was at the America Outdoors conference and attending Ron’s program, he personally presented me with my Black Belt in Business Self-Defense™.
Brooke and I aren’t anywhere near our financial goals, but every day we get closer to making our outdoor lifestyle more financially viable. I know I’m a lucky guy, and I’m also a hard working student of marketing with a great teacher.
Brooke and I want to meet more of Ron’s Inner Circle Members. Just go to this special web page and tell us your story. There’s a special offer waiting there for you…20% off any rafting adventure and a free waterproof camera! (http://www.leaveboringbehind.com/ron.htm)
While you’re there, tell us how you met Ron, a funny joke, or whatever “floats your boat.” We’d love to meet more of Ron’s clients who are pushing the marketing boundaries of their businesses.
For Every Headwind…
June 10, 2010
I love cycling, especially when the weather is beautiful and you get out on the country roads we have north of Raleigh. If you go out in mid May, the smell of honeysuckle and jasmine is overpowering – almost intoxicating.
That’s the good part. The more challenging part of riding on those roads is that they’re, well, hilly. And I’m not talking about pleasant rolling hills, I mean hills – long stretches that go up and up and then up some more.
Generally speaking, though, the rule that “what goes up must come down” applies on the road, and when you get to the top of the hill, there’s usually a downhill stretch you can use to recover: for every uphill, there’s a downhill…
But there is another challenge on the road that can be just as bad as a big hill: the wind. Depending on the weather conditions, you can be facing winds of over 15 mph sometimes, and despite being in an aerodynamic position, or riding in a group, the wind does take its toll.
But, you’d think that if you have a headwind in one direction, then you’d have a tailwind in the other direction: for every headwind, there’s a tailwind…
Unfortunately, as often as not, just when you get to the point on the ride where you’re going to change directions, the wind seems to shift – now coming from the opposite direction, giving you a headwind all over again for the ride back home!
The expression all cyclists know is actually this one:
For every uphill, there’s a downhill; for every headwind, there’s a…headwind!
The road itself doesn’t vary – if it increases in altitude today, it’s the same tomorrow, and the next day. The wind is another story altogether. It can be strong or weak. It can be constant or gusty. It can be consistent, or it can change direction on a moment’s notice.
In business and life, there are constants, and there are variables. The success you have depends not so much on the road you take, but rather on the way you anticipate, plan for, and adapt to the unpredictable, unforeseen, and often invisible obstacles that crop up on the way.
It’s your response to these conditions that determines whether your ride will be a good one.
I Can’t Walk By a Piano
June 10, 2010
Life goes in cycles. There are ups and downs, periods of prosperity and scarcity, and events that end up becoming defining moments in your life.
So with all that uncertainty and constant change, wouldn’t it be great to have something you do that continually charges your batteries?
I found an example of this last week when I was listening to Pandora on my computer at work. (Pandora is a very cool music program that constructs custom “radio stations” based on the music you tell it you like – it’s free and worth a look at www.pandora.com.)
A song came on I really liked by a man named Jon Dahlander. Wanting to learn more about this artist, I did a quick Google search, and found this biographical sketch:
Jon Dahlander can’t walk by a piano. He has to play it. It’s why he’s been kicked out of countless hotel lobbies, bars, and restaurants throughout his life.
This was followed by a quote from Jon himself:
“To me, every piano has a story where it was made, who made it, the kind of shape it’s in, who played it before and what it sounds like now, particularly with one of my songs. So, if I see a lonely piano, I have to play it. It’s like finding a new friend with a common interest.”
Wouldn’t it be great to have something you do – a hobby, an activity, even something at work that gets you this motivated and excited?
Thoreau said, “The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.” Make this summer the time you find something new to be passionate about.
Have You Ever Seen This Before?
June 1, 2010
Back in April we took a mini-vacation to Washington, DC, to celebrate Lorie’s birthday, and to get together with some very close friends – two couples we’ve known for over 25 years.
It was the week of the Cherry Blossom Festival; the weather was perfect, and the trees were in full bloom. Wanting to explore and get some exercise at the same time, we went to a bike-rental shop near the Old Post Office, and rented some “hybrid” bikes for the day.
Since Cherry Blossom Week is one of the busiest tourist weeks in DC, there was a line to rent the bikes, but nothing really inconvenient. That’s because people were starting their rides at different times in the morning, depending on when they got up and made their way out of their respective hotel rooms.
Dropping off the bikes was a different story altogether, because with the exception of a few people who returned them early, everyone else was bringing them back at the same time.
Being a “process hound,” I couldn’t help but be puzzled at the very long line of people waiting to return their bikes, take care of the paperwork, and finalize the payments.
First, you handed your bike to one of the employees who took it from you into the building. There was no receipt, no checklist to make sure you returned your helmet or lock, and no way to prove that you had actually returned the bike. An unscrupulous person could have given the bike to a friend, gone on to the long return line, and later claimed that, “I gave the bike to the guy in the shorts.” There would be no way to prove otherwise.
Okay, now on to the line. When you finally got to the counter, you gave the person your name; they went rifling through a plastic file box until they found your receipt, and then processed your payment manually; whether by cash, check, or credit card.
As I watched this, all I could think was how inefficient this was – both in terms of their staff utilization, and, more importantly, the time they were making their customers waste standing in line.
They could have completely streamlined the whole process by asking themselves the simple question, “Have I ever seen this before?” In other words, is there any other situation like this where they might have a process I could borrow, adapt, or emulate?
Think about it for a minute yourself – can you think of a business that’s similar to this? Where you rent a vehicle for a period of time, and then return it and settle your payment? Of course! The car-rental business.
The process is very simple there: you pick up the vehicle; use it; and then bring it back to the lot. But instead of making everyone stand in line (a dicey thing to ask people to do when they have flights to catch) they have an attendant with a barcode scanner who logs in the vehicle, confirms that you’d like to pay for it with the card already on file, and then prints you the receipt…all in the span of about 30 seconds.
As an aside, when I suggested this to the manager on duty, she mumbled something about how much something like that would cost, and said to send her some information.
I didn’t bother to follow up with her, because (1) she was going to be more concerned with what it cost instead of total return on investment, (2) she didn’t seem to understand that the current situation was problematic, and (3) she lacked the imagination to see something that was working in a “parallel” industry could be adapted to her own.
When faced with a problem, the first thing you should ask yourself is “Where have I seen this before?” There’s rarely a need to start from scratch and “reinvent the wheel” – someone has been there before you, faced a similar issue, and discovered a solution you can use.
A little research, a little initiative, and a little imagination can go a long way towards getting you the results you want!
The “Bagel Philosopher”
May 19, 2010
Last week, I told you about the guy in the bagel shop who came up with a simple but elegant process to nearly double the throughput at the store. What I didn’t mention is that he was also a philosopher of sorts – a keen observer of life from behind the counter. Let me explain…
In case you missed last weeks’ issue, here’s a quick summary: before the server behind the counter puts the cream cheese on the current customer’s bagel, he takes the next customer’s order. Since most people like their bagels toasted, he cuts the next person’s bagel, puts it in the toaster, and then completes the first customer’s bagel.
By doing this, he avoids making everyone wait – including himself – while the bagel makes its way through the conveyor on the toaster.
I immediately recognized this as brilliant – in the same way I’m always impressed when the banquet people at a hotel actually pull the tables away from the wall – allowing people to access the food from both sides of the buffet table.
When I complimented him on this process, I also observed that it really only worked if everyone wanted the bagel toasted. He said, “Yeah, that’s kind of important, but it’s kind of like life – everything usually works out at the end of the day.”
As I listened to those words, it occurred to me how they weren’t limited to preparing bagels, but, in fact, they applied to most aspects of life. Virtually every day we face challenges – some minor, some more serious, and some on a level that they can bring everything to a grinding halt.
What I’ve noticed is that in most cases, ultimately things do work out okay – it just doesn’t seem like it at the time. Or, in the words of the bagel guy, “Everything usually works out at the end of the day.”
That’s true. It’s just that sometimes it’s a really long day.
So the next time you find yourself faced with an overwhelming obstacle, try not to let the sheer enormity of it defeat you. Rather, try to find a solution; work at it one step at a time; and remember that most things do eventually work themselves out.
Don’t Overheat!
May 6, 2010
A few months ago, I wrote about a situation with an overheating laptop that caused the cooling fan to run constantly, creating a constant wind-tunnel kind of noise in my office.
I never did find out the cause, but I did discover that the overheating only occurred when I put the laptop in “sleep” mode – when I shut it down or used the “hibernate” mode, the problem didn’t occur.
So, rather than spend hours and hours trying to track down the problem, I take the simple and direct course of action: I just don’t ever put the computer to sleep.
But as I thought more about this, I realized that there was another lesson to be learned from this whole situation.
When the computer is working hard, the temperature of the CPU (the computer’s central processing unit) goes up, and you need to throttle back on the CPU by asking it to do less, or cool it off by increasing the fan speed.
The CPU is the computer’s brain, and if it’s not working correctly, something is going to break down. In fact, if the CPU starts running too hot, the computer’s circuitry is programmed to simply and unceremoniously shut down the computer – regardless of what you may doing at the time.
In much the same way, you need to do the same thing when you get overloaded – either lightening the load (even if only temporarily) or finding a way to “cool down” with exercise, breaks, or other diversions.
That’s why taking regular vacations is essential – if you just work non-stop, then your brain will start to overheat, and you might experience some kind of “personal shutdown.”
The “Unit President Concept”
April 21, 2010
It’s definitely a challenging time in the business world. Despite showing small periodic signs of imminent recovery, the economy is still throwing up roadblocks to success.
But as we’ve been discussing in this newsletter – almost since the very first issue over ten years ago – it’s not so much the external factors that keep us from achieving our goals, but rather our own internal limiting beliefs.
In fact, as a result of reading these articles, you’ve probably had a few great ideas you’d like to have tried, but may have run into resistance from the “powers that be” because “it’s just too outrageous” or “it won’t work in our market” or “our customers would be offended.” (By the way, these assertions are rarely true – a fact that can easily be determined by some very easy and very inexpensive testing.)
So now may be the perfect time to try out one of my favorite business concepts: the Unit-President Concept. Here’s how it works…
Take out the organizational chart of your company – you know, the hierarchical set of blocks that shows the big boss on top, the next bosses below, and so on, until you get to the bottom level of the company.
If you’re the box on top, then congratulations for making it there, or for having the guts to create a business that puts you there by default. This means you are the boss, so what are you waiting for? It’s your money, or your bonus on the line, so try something out, test it thoroughly, measure the results, and make your decisions based on fact and data and not on feeling and conjecture.
But what if you’re not the “big box” on the top? No problem. Let’s say you’re the next box. Just take a pair of scissors and cut away everything on the chart that’s not your box or any of the boxes below you in the organization. Now look at the chart: you are the boss! You’re the “president” of your group, so start acting like the president and implement strategies that will being you measurable success!
But what if you’re just an individual contributor – and you don’t even have a box on the org. chart? No problem! Create an org. chart that just has your name on it, and draw a box around it. Congratulations – you’re now the president of your own job! Granted, it’s a group of only one person, but still it’s your group.
This is the Unit President Concept – so whichever group you have influence over – even if it’s only your own individual position – should be viewed as a stand-alone company, as if your job was outsourced to you and you had complete control over how to deliver the results.
You may not have all the perks of the “official” president, but there’s a measure of satisfaction, and far more latitude than you think in how you go about accomplishing your objectives. Make something happen this week – and congratulations again on your “promotion!”
The Tile Guy Goes to School
April 14, 2010
Most of us understand the importance of education. We encourage our children to do well in school, and learn everything that’s needed to become productive members of society, whether at college or by learning a trade.
Unfortunately, for many people, this commitment to education stops as soon as they get caught up in the day-to-day challenges of life.
It doesn’t have to be this way, of course; there are countless opportunities to continue learning in your personal and professional lives. Our Inner Circle Gold Coaching Members, for example, get a live webinar each month on a specific marketing topic, and an additional monthly “open critique” webinar where they can get their materials and web sites reviewed.
So I was both surprised and delighted when we started talking with the contractor who’s installing a tile back splash in our kitchen.
He asked what Lorie and I did for a living, and when we explained what we did, he said that he could sure use some help in that area, since his business has slowed considerably since the recession hit. Most of his work, it turns out, had been in new construction, where a single customer (a builder) could keep him busy for an entire year. (Please don’t miss the hidden warning here about having just one big customer…)
When I asked him what he was doing with all the down time, he shocked me by responding that he was taking electrical and plumbing courses so he could become proficient in those areas and become a one-stop-shopping source for his customers.
This is a great idea, and a fantastic use of “down time” that would otherwise be unproductive. In a time when many people use this time to complain about how bad the economy is, our tile guy is taking advantage of this time to increase the value he’s able to bring to his customers, which will, in turn increase his personal income.
What are you doing with your down time? A good friend of ours who commutes for several hours each day listens to books on tape. Another person is learning a language during her commute time.
There are always opportunities to further your education – are you taking advantage of yours?
Still Rockin’ After 45 Years!
March 25, 2010
We might as well continue our “musical theme” this issue, since we went to a concert last night. It was the Moody Blues, the ground-breaking pop/blues/orchestral group responsible for 13 Top-40 songs, and 14 Top-40 albums, including two that reached the #1 spot: “A Question of Balance” and “Seventh Sojourn.”
Originally formed in 1964, after a few personnel changes, the classic lineup (Justin Haywood, John Lodge, Graeme Edge, Mike Pinder, and Ray Thomas) was responsible for all of the groups hits between 1966 and 1978.
Okay, not that we’re done with the history lesson (don’t worry, there won’t be a test) let’s talk about the concert last night, and see what we can learn that will help us in our businesses…
1. Of the three original band members still performing with the group (Haywood, Lodge, and Edge) the first two were still in great form – their voices and technical abilities showing no signs of wear, despite their respective ages of 63 and 64 years old.
Good news for some of us for whom 60 is a lot closer than it used to be, and good news for you, since it means you can continue to do things you love to do a lot longer than we used to think possible.
2. Graeme Edge had, unfortunately, slowed down quite a bit. Just a year away from 70, his performance on the drums was a shadow of the manic, out-of-control style of the group’s earlier days. Still, he was giving it everything he had, and was a crowd favorite. But just so you don’t think the music suffered, there was a second drummer: the talented and energetic Gordon Marshall who has toured with the group since 1991.
In this case, it’s important to make sure you have backup plans in place in case something goes wrong in your organization, or someone isn’t able to work up to par for a while.
3. The audience was interesting to watch – I would say the average age was about 50, which meant there were people in their 60s and even 70s up out of their seats and dancing in the aisles. I know, that’s kind of a frightening image, but it’s also a joyful one: that a particular song or group can connect with people on such a personal level is a cause for celebration, and the band members seemed to both enjoy and appreciate the effect their music was having on the audience.
You may not be “A Singer in a Rock & Roll Band;” the very sight of you stepping around the corner may not get everyone in your office standing and cheering, but you do have an impact on the people around you by what you do and how you interact with them.
Whose life have you touched today?
