Business Insights

28 Punches That Cause Black Eyes in Business

blackEye Champs don’t take punches they can block or avoid. With good form, discipline, and training, Champs elevate their game at all levels.

Champs rarely get knocked out.

So, what about those black eyes we keep getting as hard fighting Entrepreneurs?

It’s from taking avoidable cheap shots with poor form, bad training, lack of discipline and being unfocused. That’s what causes those black eyes in business.

When you are a scrappy and ambitious upstart, you do the time and the hard work to stay in the ring. You survive your way to success. You train and work through the challenges, you begin to see growth and victories. This creates the illusion of being a champ.

But this does not make you a champ, merely a fighter.

Where real victory comes from

The champ has a comprehensive understanding of what creates victory. A real champ knows the today’s victory is the result of weeks, months, even years of intentional actions.

And a great champ in business looks less and less at the victory itself and more and more with the struggle within. The champ knows conquering the struggle one-by-one results in victory. These victories are the real wins that matter, because conquering at this level is true elevation, not luck, windfall, or brute force.

The opposition within your business

Are you a champ or just a scrappy fighter? Are you focused on the victory, or the things blocking it?

Are you getting black eyes from things you should be overcoming instead of enduring?

Understand what causes struggle and you’ll know what’s preventing your greatest victory.

Here’s some common sources of unnecessary black eyes. Address these and see new levels of success in your business and go from a fighter to a champ.

Customers

The lifeblood of the business is its customers yet many businesses struggle to know them, serve, them, keep them and get more of them! In fact, businesses often:

Do not know who their customer is or how to keep them.
Do not know how to serve and multiply their customer base.
Do not speak the same language as the customer often using inside terms and jargon instead of clear “what’s in it for me” language the customer understands.
Do not know the value of one customer and what that customer is worth in one sale or over the year with repeat business
Do not view customers as the priority and lifeline of their business.
Inconsistent in their customer development efforts.

Marketing

As a discipline, marketing is the one function of the business that is specific about driving sales and attracting and keeping customers and should be consistently growing and evolving. Unfortunately marketing is often the most neglected area of the business. Most businesses:

Do not know how to market and therefore struggle to leverage and use their staff for sales and marketing initiatives and constantly question their customers and business.
Do not have ongoing strategic plans for sales and marketing efforts.

Do not know how to differentiate, position and build value in the business.
Do not have a consistent image, presence, and voice and often use “me too” marketing that’s ineffective and wasteful.
Overwhelmed by the sea of available marketing and advertising options available and how to effectively use them.
Do not know how to develop and execute meaningful business building initiatives.
Do not have the marketing and sales mindset and often start and stop these efforts as activities instead of viewing them as core competencies.

Sales

All good marketing results in sales activity and all sales staff should be in harmony with marketing efforts, messages and appeals. Sales should be a natural extension of the marketing process. However most businesses:

Do not take ownership of sales and align it with their core values and marketing efforts
Do not create sales tools that move prospects through the buyers continuum.
Do not include a clear call to action or ask for the order.
Do not see staff (sales or customer service) as a marketing asset, business builder, or brand shaper.
Do not have daily, weekly and monthly plans that work in harmony with marketing to drive sales with follow through.
Do not have an ongoing plan to turn cold prospects into warm connections over time.

Priorities

The most common thief lurking inside a business is the one that looks like an important project, assignment, or initiative that steals time and resources with no positive impact on the business. Most businesses struggle with priorities and often:

Do not have a true understanding of how to run the organization to generate expected results.
Do not see the important and necessary work around them because they are stuck inside the business, inside the fog of war doing the daily grind.
Do not know how to drive innovation or progressive improvement in the business.
Do not keep a current pulse on best practices, what matters to their customer, or what drives the business forward.

Systems

The backbone of the business is it’s systems and most businesses rush to get their billing systems, employee management systems, and operational systems in place but fail to put sales and customer systems in place. In fact, most businesses:

Do not implement or develop sales systems that understand the sales cycle from beginning to end.
Do not implement lead generation systems that use the web and various types of marketing to create prospects, early stage buyers and repeat customers.
Do not have a referral system in place resulting in dormant sales simply because you are not tapping into your already satisfied customer base.
Do not understand what customer and prospect touch points can and should be automated and where to have direct interaction that furthers the sales or retention of customers.
Become indecisive or have a haphazard decision making system and way to evaluate business opportunities, marketing opportunities or sales opportunities.

These issues are not random.

In fact, they are linked together like links in a chain. Most businesses are so busy grinding along and lack the professional and educational disciplines of leadership, sales and marketing that they have not seen the connection. And it’s killing their business!

Champs would see these as little thugs and remove them. A real champ would not allow these struggles to drain power, energy, momentum and impact in their business.

How do these common issues continue to surface up?

The nature of business is the same, but the mechanics and the marketplace have changed dramatically. Same fight, different ring.

If you are dealing with these issues, you have to be more diligent in your business building efforts. You have to fundamentally understand your customer and realize they have more information, more options, and more alternatives then ever before. It’s no longer good enough to just be in business providing a product or service.

You have to more focus and intention with your customer gathering activities (sales and marketing).

You have to elevate your business output because the expectations are rising, the market is full of alternatives and if you look like everyone else, sound like everyone else, and don’t know your customer then you’ll never rise to the top.

A champ rises to the top by overcoming these issues within the business.

(photo credit: Mike Nelson)

Business Core Values or Die!

By Justin McCullough

Every business has core values, a set of beliefs and ideas that define you as an organization.

Values show in how you hire, fire, train, build, communicate, negotiate, serve, market and react within the market. For very small businesses your core values as a person often create the core values of your business. But not every business had defined their core values, instead many businesses pick and choose values situation by situation usually without even knowing it.

Business owners often struggle to know who they are as a company and because of this, they often look, feel, and sound different as a company according to who’s doing the talking and what the situation is. This is especially bad in customer service, sales and marketing situations where it can create conflicting ideas about the business, the promises the company is making, and your value to the customer.

As it turns out, it’s hard to be something that you are not, both in life and in business. Core values are not something you post on a wall or put in a memo, they are something you live and breathe daily and intentionally. They guide decisions and often make decisions for you. They put things in perspective and provide the foundation you stand on.

By now you’ve heard about Zappos, the company Amazon bought for $847 Million dollars that started with two or three guys trying to sell sneakers online. They didn’t have new products that had never before been seen, infact they sold the same brands you already had access too at local stores. They didn’t have an awesome advertising agency and a huge ad budget. However, what they did have that no one else did, was core values that guided them every step along the way. When you read “Delivering Happiness” by Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos, it’s very clear that his core values as a person drove the core values (and success) of the company.

Here’s Zappos 10 core values:

Deliver WOW Through Service
Embrace and Drive Change
Create Fun and A Little Weirdness
Be Adventurous, Creative, and Open-Minded
Pursue Growth and Learning
Build Open and Honest Relationships With Communication
Build a Positive Team and Family Spirit
Do More With Less
Be Passionate and Determined
Be Humble

If this is new information for you, just Google “Zappos Family Core Values” and dig in and be sure to watch the video where Zappos employees are talking about the core values they are guided by and believe themselves.

You, as the small business owner are driving the core values of the organization. So, who are you?

The DNA of core values is shaped by these keywords:
Integrity, Honesty / Truthfulness, Trust, Commitment / Diligence, Order / Cleanliness, Humility, Service, Respect / Dignity, Justice/ Fairness, Grace / Compassion, Forgiveness, Consideration, Accountability, Excellence, Value, Quality.

What do you stand for?

Trust, honesty and integrity may have been your response. So, why do you have contracts and agreements then? Why do you have escape clauses in your service proposals or no guarantee to your sales transactions? Why do you let employees say things that are not true or you don’t deal honestly yourself with employees or customers?

When you stand for something, you stand firmly for it – not wavering and not sometimes nor only when it’s convenient.

If you stand for quality, then guide your business with quality. Put systems and tools in place that uphold your expectations of quality and make sure that what the customer sees represents quality to them while matching your expectations of quality. You cannot stand for quality but then be so frugal that you do not invest in quality. You cannot stand for quality but have no quality control or evaluation process. You cannot stand for quality and hire inexperienced workers who have no understanding or ability of producing quality themselves.

What you stand for, IS what you are.

What you stand for, IS what you stand on when it comes to your business, your employees, your customers and your sales and marketing. The same goes with any ideas like fairness, affordable, practical, fun, friendly, and accessible and so on.

When you begin to see the power, confidence, and guidance of defined core values and a consistent view of what you stand for, you’ll be whole and complete in all that you do. You will not be double minded, confused, or tempted to go off course in your hiring, customers, marketing, or sales because you will know what you stand for and what you stand on!

How do you treat employees?

Did you know that how you treat your employees is an indicator to how your employees act toward your customers? Where employees are treated poorly, you can expect to see customers being treated poorly. When customers are mistreated, you’ll see the results in your sales.

So, are you building up or tearing down your employees? Are you educating them with an expectation of potential or reprimanding them with an expectation of continued problems? Are you setting them up for success with ongoing training, mentoring, and progressive growth opportunities?

If you want your company to thrive, start looking at your employees as a marketing asset. Minimize bad habits with your employees and enable them to fairly represent you and encourage them as being important and valuable and they will act that way to customers as well.

The act of implementing, educating and honoring core values along with an appropriate change in office-wide bad habits will be enough to see noticeable change. More importantly, it will place a firm foundation under your entire business and all layers of staff. This consistency will pay big dividends and keep everyone on the same page.

Look at the actions of your employees and see the results.

It’s not uncommon to have bad experiences in fast food establishments, but occasionally you’ll have a standout experience that includes a clean building, friendly cashier, overall pleasant atmosphere and the meal you expected. In those experiences, you can be certain that the franchise owner or manager there cares for their employees. Happy, cared for employees make happy customers.

Do you see areas where you can improve your environment, training process, and daily communication with employees? Look for areas where employees are in direct contact with customers and you’ll see how they are directly affecting your sales and marketing.

Whoever is on the frontline with customers is controlling the mainline of sales.

How do you treat customers?

This is where the rubber meets the road. No customers, no business. It’s that simple.

Core values or not, when it comes to customers, they are the final decision so how are you treating them? Like a transaction or nuisances? Like family or old friends?

I can’t tell you how important this is. All the marketing in the world cannot overcome bad behavior with customers. If you treat your customers poorly, you’re going to fail – period. They are your lifeblood and without them, you die.

50 Pieces of Wisdom for Entrepreneurs

By Justin McCullough

Here is a list of 50 wide sweeping conclusions, thoughts, and truth’s from my business life.

Spend a moment and reflect on your business and efforts. What needs attention? Pick one, two, or ten of these and run with it!

A company should seek to engage their customer
Present authority and authenticity
Lead, share and follow
Accept your brand is fluid and customers shape your brand (more than you do)
Build the purple cow inside the company, marketing flows from that
Work hard to stay connected with the customer you already have
Appreciate your customer and they will appreciate you
We are all marketers and sales people – including your customers – don’t forget this
People are different, make sure you can speak to all the different ways people are
We all want “more”, “free”, “special” and “exclusive”, how can you actually give this?
How can you build a community around you, or better said, how can you be essential to the community that cries out to exist?
Thoughtful marketing works
Thoughtful communication works
Transactional marketing is short lived
Create momentum. Turn momentum into something with staying power. Keep that going.
Internal dialogue isn’t the same as external dialogue – know your audience
Question what you want and what you will model to get it
Recognize when your point of reference, example, model, analogy is flawed in reference to your direction – it can only get you so far
Look for patterns and frameworks more so than replication of all details
Sales is a transfer of confidence
Rapport is trust plus comfort
A sale is just one part of a much bigger experience
Sales funnels are really about conversations. The sooner you can have them, the better. Conversations usually start way before a need is known to result in a sale. What are you doing for those early conversations?
You know the customers point of view at purchase but what about their views, needs, wants before the purchase? Know this and you’ll have more customers when they really are ready to buy.
Everyone has a willingness and desire to buy when it fits. What fits?
Provide clues and validation along the way
Don’t fall into the monetization loophole
Monetize the “right things” not “everything”.
Don’t monetize your joy, love, or happiness
Deliver “a ha” moments, eye-openers, and “wow”. It’s universal currency.
Be a magnet not a mousetrap
Love is the ultimate like – show love
Likeability? Why not lovability?
Tell your story, make it easy for others to repeat your story.
Open conversations, not dialogues.
Think about iterations and revisions – not brilliant first drafts
Success is never about one great and flawless idea, it’s the result of competent intentional progress
Act on moments of interest
Harness the muse, inspiration, and momentum
Ideas become real and actionable when they get intentional exercise in the physical
Yes, it is time sensitive
Do today what you can do. Even better if you do today what you thought you’d do tomorrow.
Pretty pictures and appearances cant mask the superfluous. Bring substance, depth, meaning.
What do your actions, beliefs, culture, and core values represent? Make that consistent in the business and marketing otherwise you’ll always be out of alignment.
Promise. It’s an active not passive act.
Objectives should be connected to goals – write them both down and do the objectives to reach the goals.
Anyone can create.
Rethink your proposal. Did it include that one thing that so clearly says you matter?
Smile – often.
Gratitude, appreciation, acts of kindness and love make an impact on the receiver while also making you feel better and changing you for the better – so do it daily for best results

Micro-manager Gives Death by 1000 Cuts.

By Justin McCullough

The lines of leadership and management often blur in smaller organizations.

This blurring of the line, however can come at a price to employee retention, training and quality especially when you have micro-managers on staff.

The leader and manager are very different and the micro-manager is even further separated in their impact on the organization and the people within it. Before we get to micro-managers, though, let’s cover the basics of a leader and a manager just to get you jump started on the right track.

Quoting from, “Learning to Lead: A Workbook on Becoming a Leader”, pg. 9. Perseus Books / Addison Wesley, 1997):

The manager administers; the leader innovates.
The manager maintains; the leader develops.
The manager accepts reality; the leader investigates it.
The manager focuses on systems and structures; the leader focuses on people.
The manager relies on control; the leader inspires trust.
The manager has a short-range view; the leader has a long-range perspective.
The manager asks how and when; the leader asks what and why.
The manager has his or her eye always on the bottom line; the leader has his or her eye on the horizon.
The manager imitates; the leader originates.
The manager accepts the status quo; the leader challenges it.
The manager is the classic good soldier; the leader is his or her own person.

As you can see, the leader and the manager have different approaches to the business at hand and both impact the organization in different ways. However, the micro-manager is almost always the most harmful.

The micro-manager has taken his management role to extreme limits and has put his iron fist around the way the organization moves, grows (or more likely doesn’t grow) and operates on a daily basis. This micro-manager is so committed to one way, one process, one method, one output, one way of thinking that they are no longer able to see change, maintain relevance, encourage leadership, identify opportunities or truly see weaknesses.

The micro-manager develops a narrow view of the world and begins to squeeze out talent, passion, and the desire to excel forcing people to meet a prescription of success instead of a measure of success.

The truth is that a micro-manager no longer encourages people to know “why” to do things, only “how” to do things. The micro-manager often wants obedience more than achievement and blind acceptance of regulations and protocol. Seldom does the micro-manager help an organization since these people tend to keep their team stressed over minutia and mindless adoption rather than exploring options and fostering problem solving and high-levels of ownership in the work. The micro-manager often breeds people who complain and create excuses often repeating back the policy, guideline, or protocol saying “they did it exactly as they were told too”.

If you are in an organization were the end results are criticized because of how you got there, not the actual results, or if your daily actions are so measured it has become more important to measure than to do the actual work, or if you fear leading in your workplace because you aren’t following protocol at the detriment to the company then you may very-well be trapped under the influence of a micro-manager.

If your organization has established processes and seasoned employees (not all newbies) then you don’t need a micro-manager. What you need is a balance between empowered leadership and concerned management. You need just enough slack in your line to do the work as you wish, but no so much the work falls apart. Good leadership will give you more to work on and good management will give you more slack.

Good companies will train up leaders over managers. Great companies will put micro-managers at lower levels to police critical elements without letting them rise to the top where they can choke out their staff and company by limiting all growth and potential in the people and processes.

Avoid the death of a thousand cuts by limiting the reach of the micro-manager, your bottom line will thank you for it.

Are Customer’s Worth It? Surprise, Surprise.

By Justin McCullough

One customer. Just one. What are they worth?

Have you stopped to think about the value of just one customer?

It’s said that our greatest cost goes into developing new customers. Why do you have a store? For customers. Why do you have a business card? For customers. Why do you have a website? For customers. Why do you go to work everyday? For customers.

That’s a lot of stuff just for a customer. In fact most of us don’t have enough customers. We want more!

So, why is just one customer so valuable?

Well, it’s because the customer is worth a lot more than we give credit too. In fact, the value of one customer is much greater than most of us realize.

I’ll use Jessica, my hair stylist as my example. Hi Jessica!

Ok, so Jessica charges $15 for my haircut and I happily give her $20 for the service.

So, my customer value? $20 right?

No, oh no, not even close.

You see, I started getting my haircut with Jessica 4 years ago. That’s the beginning of Jessica’s “just one customer” experience with me.

So, 10 haircut’s a year at $15 (but for me, $20) = $200 per year.

Ok, so 4 years at $200 = $800.

That’s the common expression of a customer’s “life-time” value. (The estimation of their value over time as a repeat visitor after becoming a customer.)

So just one customer, me in this case, is worth $800 to Jessica right?

Nope. More.

A lot more.

Because of me, my two sons get their hair cut by Jessica too.

Let’s say that’s $400. Plus my wife get’s her hair cut with Jessica now. Let’s say that’s $400 too.

To Jessica, I’m easily worth $1600 as a customer not a measly $15 to $20.

And when you add to the fact that I tell other people to get their haircut with Jessica, my value continues to increase as a referral source.

This isn’t about haircuts.

It’s about you. Your business. And the value of just one customer.

I think it’s time to put pencil to paper and see if you value your current customer for what they are really worth.

Can you see the value in just one more customer?

Have you done the math?

Project Management for Normal People

By Justin McCullough

Project Management for Normal People

While at SOBcon in Chicago, I was talking about project management with the folks at my mastermind table and I went on a quick riff about how I essentially project manage all my projects from book publishing to website launches and marketing plans to business plans and nearly everything in-between.

The discussion was quick, but it’s a great topic to elaborate on.

This article is about project management and includes:

A video on what I believe makes a great project manager
A basic outline of what a project manager does
A few resources to really dig deep and learn about project management processes

This article is based on the past 15 years of launching websites, books, newspapers, magazines, and managing video and photography shoots as well as the management of advertising campaigns among other things link events, business plans, marketing plans.

NOTE: I am not a “Project Manager” by title. I consider myself to be a Champion for the project and if you are trying to turn ideas or projects into a reality, you should be a Champion too.

This (almost) short video opens up on some of my fundamental ideas on Project Management and sets the tone well for the rest of this article. Watch it to learn about my thoughts on Human Capital.

What Makes a Great Project Manager from Justin McCullough on Vimeo.

In the video, that was not a direct quote from Seth Godin. In Linchpin, Purple Cow, Free Prize Inside (affiliate links) and his blog he talks about championing projects and shipping and I guess I just wanted to name drop

10 Things Great Project Managers Do:

1 – Champions the project.
This includes accepting the responsibility of success or failure of the project from the very beginning. Accept the responsibility right off the bat because you’ll be the first one blamed for it if there are problems or failure, so may as well own it from the start so its easier for you to deal with.

2 – Facilitates communication and becomes the info hub.
You will always be the center of the communication for all internal and external constituents. Use good judgment and common sense in your communication, maintain a “can do” attitude and always be the first to check in or follow up. Always be the keeper of current information and share it freely. It helps people understand what you are about and if you offer to help, not just criticize or enforce objectives, you’ll be a friend and ally to the project.

3 – Defines, interprets and shares expectations. Often.
Even the best and most talented minds can be paralyzed if they are unclear on expectations. This includes responsibilities, process, timeline, tasks, deliverables, budget and PAYMENT for services. Some of the biggest issues I’ve ever had with experts on a project have stemmed from their incorrect assumptions on when they would get paid or the intent of the project all because I trusted “they were the expert and would know what was expected”. Appreciate the expertise, but honor the client and the project by clarifying the details and setting expectations. Those connected to the project will appreciate you for it and know that you run a tight operation that sets the project on the path of success. We all want expectations, so give them.

4 – Asks questions and is not a no-it-all.
Great project managers don’t know the in’s and out’s of every job required to complete the project, but they do know the people involved know their job. Great project managers ask the right “why” and “how” questions often in order to uncover real issues, real deliverables, real expectations etc. The why and how aren’t asked so you can learn to do their job, they are asked so you can learn how they see themselves fitting their jobs into the project on time and on budget. This is a key part of understanding the work to be done as well as the expectations or challenges of the people involved in the project.

5 – Knows the steps, what’s next, and where things are going.
To successfully champion any project you must always be aware of the deliverables, milestones, tasks and pinch-points or bottlenecks in the project. While you might think “everyone” understands how important the project (the client, the budget etc) is, none of them will be married to the entire project end-to-end like you are, so always know who’s doing what, when, where, why, how and then what’s next. When in doubt, remember that you are the map and if you don’t know what’s next it’s likely to cause a pinch-point that will cost time and money. Be the map and know what’s next.

6 – Inspects what is expected.
Plotting dates, budgets, milestones and tasks are essential. Large projects will have many items – enough to warrant project management software, but regardless of size, the tools you use, great project managers inspect what they expect. The tighter the project is on time and budget, the closer you have to be with your follow-up (inspection). See, follow-up is a nice way to say it, so follow-up often.

7 – Eternally represents the solution not the problem.
The best project managers internalize the issues and problems and determine next steps and solutions to the problems. As a champion of the project it’s your place to find the solution proactively and keep the project moving forward. It’s nice when it happens, but never assume someone else will jump in with a solution to bail you out. Again, you are the champion of the project so it is you who represents the solution so always represent that solution so the project can be completed.

8 – Owns the bad news, shares the good news.
Great project managers take the punches and share the successes. That’s just the way it works so don’t throw your vendors, partners and employees under the bus to save face. Always own the bad news personally and share what you are doing to fix it. And by all means, celebrate every victory, every win, everything good with the ones who did it – never take the credit for yourself.

9 – Cares.
Great project managers care about the client, the people involved, the project and it’s success. If you care, it will be obvious. If you don’t care, it will be obvious too. When you care it’s much easier to get results.

10 – Knows how to ship.
You must be results oriented and the best project managers help things get unstuck and ship. Everything ships including the final project. Ship on time (or early) on budget (or under budget) and you’ll have a winning project and a remarkably important role in your organization, your ideas, and your success. Focus on shipping and you’ll do great.

Learn More About Project Management and the Process.

I personally try not to use project management software and I have never received formal training in project management which means there are a lot more skilled project managers (as in skilled in the craft, the software, and the formal process) than I am.

However, I have launched about 200 websites, several newspapers and magazines, several books and many many many advertising initiatives that have all gone well without project management software or certification as a project manager. I think you can too. This is one area where a desire to succeed and learn means you don’t need to be certified in order to be great at it.

In my experience, most clients don’t care how you deliver on their goals and objectives. They only care that you meet and exceed their goals and objectives. In my opinion that’s all that matters too. My hope is that this article will help you understand the core aspects required to champion a project and become a great project manager.

If you want to dig deeper into the formal processes of project management, here’s some good content to sink your teeth into.

My personal methods are something of a mashup between the Agile Method and 37 Signals approach mixed with SCRUM and Stage-Gate processes. These techniques have been folded in over the last 8 years or so, but prior to that I was literally just learning as I went and still delivering so don’t get tied up on ingesting all this at once.

Good luck on your project management efforts and don’t hesitate to share your experiences or ask for help.

Business Insights

Where real victory comes from

The opposition within your business

Customers

Marketing

Sales

Priorities

Systems

10 Things Great Project Managers Do:

Learn More About Project Management and the Process.

Are you trying to figure out what to do next with your career?