Entrepid

If brevity is the soul of wit, I can think of no better example than Pick Two.  This little tool is as powerful as it is underused, so I’m doing my part correct that oversight.

Who Knew Software Geeks Were So Smart

Way back in the mists of time, maybe 30 years ago or so, software developers then, like today, were struggling with the unreasonable demands of their customers - both internal and external.  The customers wanted a solution tomorrow, that was bug-free, and didn’t cost an arm-and-a-leg.

Someone very smart came up with a simple solution to communicating the problem to customers and getting them to make tough choices.  It was called “Pick Two”, and did more to crystallize the problem than any lengthy whitepaper could dream of.

• You can have it Good.
• You can have it Fast.
• You can have it Cheap.

          Pick Two.

Just 17 words.  Even shorter than the Gettysburg Address, and just as effective.

Pick Two Applied to Healthcare

Not too long ago, Arnold Kling of EconLog posted his version of a “Pick Two” on healthcare:

• You can have the best quality healthcare.
• You can have unrestricted access to healthcare.
• You can have someone else pay for it.

          Pick Two.

I think this does a great job of summarizing the debate on healthcare in just 23 words.

Delegation and the Business Owner

So, in the spirit of experimentation, I am going to attempt an occasional series of Pick Twos.  Maybe we can create a new Meme together.

Today’s inaugural contribution:

• You can grow your business.
• You can do everything yourself.
• You can have a life.

          Pick Two! 

(To be honest, if you pick the second option, you’re probably stuck with Pick One.)

Think about it.  Agree? Disagree?  If you think you can have all three, prove it.

Have any Pick Twos you’d like to share?  Comments are open.

Joe Pulizzi of Junta42 and Newt Barrett of Content Marketing Today have teamed up to write "Get Content.  Get Customers.", a guide for content marketing.

They’ve put up a companion blog for the book and will give you a free sample.  Check it out.

Next, Conversation Starter has advice on How to Reward (and Retain) People When Money Is Tight.  Here’s a snippet:

• Responsibility along with empowerment is the best motivator
• Recognition inspires, not only the recipient but also others
• Different people see value in different things, so one should strive to understand what is important to individuals working for you. This is especially critical when working in an unfamiliar cultural environment.

Lastly, Jeff Cornwall of The Entrepreneurial Mind says: "Turn Your Competitors into Your Sales Force."

What seems like crumbs to them can become your feast.

Read the whole thing to see what he means.

I came across an article on Forbes.com about the role serendipity plays in careers called "A Pinch of Luck," and it got me thinking about how luck influences business success.  Often, maybe even most of the time, it is a vital ingredient in creating those successes we read about in business publications.

To illustrate my point, here’s a classic thought experiment, with a twist, using a two-sided coin with a 50/50 chance of landing on heads or tails on any one flip.

Imagine that 2,097,152 people "invest" $1,000 each to enter a coin flipping contest.  The rules are simple: on each round of flipping, those who flip heads get to continue and those who flip tails are out of the contest.  This continues until one person is left - the person who has flipped all heads, however many in a row it takes. (It will take 21 rounds.)

All that money that was invested by the participants becomes the prize pool and it is awarded thusly:

• 9th through 64th place finishers receive $10,000,000 each.
• 2nd through 8th place finishers receive $100,000,000 each.
• The sole survivor, and winner, receives the balance of $837,152,000.

Because of the size of the prizes, this contest would receive a great deal of publicity.  Everyone would comment on how lucky the winners were, because everyone knows that you can’t control which way a flipped coin lands.

However, let’s change the scenario from flipping coins to starting up a business. 

Read the rest of this entry »

Chip and Dan Heath, writing in Fast Company, show us "How to sway people’s decisions with the gentlest of nudges."

The basic premise is that people can be influenced to make a decision by how the default position is crafted.

Because inertia is so crucial, world-class nudgers recognize that the default option is critical. Chances are, you weren’t craving the USA Today that came with your last hotel stay, but you just couldn’t be bothered to call the front desk and reclaim your $0.75. (Notice that if the default option were reversed, and you had to call to get your copy, there’d be more trees and fewer infographics in the world.)

Ethics Alert:  if you become one of the "world-class nudgers", remember to use your powers only for good, never evil.

Next, Newt Barrett of Content Marketing Today expands on the recent trend of the internet lengthening the buying process.

This is horrendous news for you if:

• You have no web presence.
• Your website does not make it easy for visitors to find exactly the solution they are seeking.
• Your website does not contain intrinsically valuable content that will put you at the top of the list of potential suppliers.
• Your only e-mail communications with your buyers are self-promoting and irrelevant to their information needs.

Finally, John Jantsch of Duct Tape Marketing says that public speaking is a competetive marketing skill for any and all entrepreneurs.

When you have to get your thoughts down into a concise 30 minute talk and then go out and get instant, sometimes too truthful, feedback it develops character and poise along with an improved message.

Be sure to follow the link to the podcast interview with Tom Antion.

Firstly, Michael Roberto in Conversation Starter gives his take on Growth During a Recession.

He has 4 dead-on points, and here’s one I didn’t think of for my series on Surviving and Thriving in a Recession:

…identify your most critical suppliers and distributors, and determine if any face the possibility of severe impairment to their business due to the economic downturn.

Next, Peter Paul Roosen and Tatsuya Nakagawa offer us "Give Yourself a Productivity Boost: Learn from Kodak’s Transformation" in Lifehack.

They interviewed Jeff Hayzlett and David Lanzillo of Kodak about their F.A.S.T program.  "A" is for Accountability and "S" is for Simplicity - and in my view Simplicity makes Accountability a whole lot easier.  It’s to easy to dodge responsibility when you can hide behind complexity.

Finally, BusinessPundit tells us how entrepreneurs can use social media in The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Social Media.  The post has links to a number of resources, so you might want to save a copy to your desktop.

This is the first of what I plan to be weekly links of interest - posted every Tuesday.  So, for our inaugural Tuesday links…

Jeff Cornwall, of Belmont University’s Center for Entrepreneurship and blogger at The Entrepreneurial Mind, posts on the importance of microbusinesses in the American economy.

Don’t misunderstand my point. I like high growth. high potential businesses. We get a few coming through our program and they are challenging, interesting, and fun to watch. I hope we get more.

But, they are not the heroes of our entrepreneurial economy. That title belongs to the average entrepreneur who will never get a dollar from a venture capitalist — who builds a successful business seemingly out of almost nothing.

Next, Dawn Rivers Baker of The Journal Blog points out the phenomenon of microbusinesses with big revenue. 

Now, here is my question: now that people are starting to notice that it really is no longer necessary to enlarge your organization in order to make a lot of money, will they stop sneering at microbusinesses for long enough to support the microbusiness way of growth?

Be sure to follow the link to the Information Week article as well.

Lastly, Ben Yoskovitz of Instigator Blog offer us How to Use Perks and Rewards in Startups to Get the Best Talent.

And for the most part what this really means is that it’s very difficult to motivate people.

It’s very hard to truly motivate employees. Yes, working at startups can be hugely rewarding. But ultimately, most of the motivation has to come from within.

But all is not lost!  Read the rest for some good ideas from Ben.

From Seth,

“If you work in an urgent-only culture, the only solution is to make the right things urgent.”

Amen!

Mark Cuban, of Dallas Mavericks fame, has a post on his rules for startups.

My favorites are:

1. Don’t start a company unless its an obsession and something you love.

2. If you have an exit strategy, its not an obsession.

4. Sales Cures All.  Know how your company will make money and how you will actually make sales. (emphasis mine)

 

He also links to a post, How to Save Money Running a Startup, by Jason Calacanis that has some really good tips for cost control that can be used by an existing small business, not just a start-up.  Be sure to read the comments too for some other good ideas.

Earlier this week I was in the market for a trailer hitch. The automobile dealer wanted about 3 times what I thought was a fair price (Hello, Volvo?) and I heard from a couple of people that U-Haul did a good job at a reasonable price.

U-Haul can tell you on their website which locations are nearby and what services they offer. Some only rent trucks, so I could bypass them. With a list of phone numbers I proceeded to call the locations that offered trailers and trailer hitches.

Unfortunately, not all locations offering trailer hitches had “trailer hitch mechanics” on site to install them. And the ones with mechanics couldn’t get to me for at least three weeks.

After an hour’s worth of research online and another hour of unsuccessful telephone conversations I gave up and decided to take a different direction. I was prepared to spend money with U-Haul, but they made it next to impossible to do so. They could have made it easy.

How difficult would it be to show online which locations actually install trailer hitches. And, how difficult would it be to show available times and allow me to book an appointment online? Making it easy for me would have created a happy customer for U-Haul.

Also, as a highly motivated buyer with a deadline I would have been willing to pay extra for speedy service. Are trailer hitch mechanics so valuable that the company can’t get one to work an hour of overtime for a customer willing to pay an extra $50 or $75?

I’m not singling out U-Haul, we’ve all had experiences with businesses making it difficult to spend money with them. If I had one piece of advice it would be this:

Put yourself in your customer’s shoes. Attempt a buying transaction with your own company and see where the kinks are. You might just be surprised.

Mark at Productivity501 uses an example of a client’s accounting system to illustrate the importance of integrating processes over having “best of breed” software.

“If you choose your solutions based on integration instead of features, you’ll increase your productivity–even if you have to sacrifice some features. If you choose your solutions based on features and ignore the integration aspect, the time savings benefits will be greatly reduced.”

My response is a hearty “Amen!” If I had a nickel for every dysfunctional work process I’ve seen I could stop working for a living and blog full time. I’ll go a bit further than Mark, though, and say that lack of integration isn’t just limited to software. Processes can break down for a whole host of reasons:

People – if you have employees who just cannot work as part of a team, the best designed work process will not function to its potential.

Physical Space – if people, or departments, who should be working together are too separated physically, communication is thwarted. While modern communication tools are great, and have done wonders for keeping people connected, there is no substitute for the regular, spur-of-the-moment face-to-face contact.

Strategy – by this I mean the lack of communicating the strategy to your people. It doesn’t matter if it’s because a strategy doesn’t exist or because you don’t communicate that strategy to the rest of the organization – if your people are making decisions in a vacuum they won’t all be on the same page.

These are just off the top of my head. I’m sure there are plenty of others. Care to add your two cents?

One last bit of wisdom from Mark:

“A well designed integrated process with average tools is much more productive than the best tools, but no integrated process.”