Self proclaimed experts

Listening in a noisy world is difficult. The internet has made everything loud.

Finding an expert today is like having a conversation in a nightclub with a pretty girl, while the base booms through your arteries.

Expertise is hard to find. Everyone is advertising themselves as experts these days. And so few are. 

To make the wrong decision and spend good money after bad experts seems to be more common than ever before.

There was a time when there were only one expert in a category. We knew them, or we knew someone who knew them. They were the busiest. They didn't have to advertise. Customers took care of that for them through word of mouth marketing. 

And then one day, something changed. The internet came along. Choices grew. Business became a battleground.

The busiest couldn't do any more business, so all the others would brawl for the remainder of the pie. They would quarrel on price, service, and time. They would argue who was better. And all claimed to be the best. But customers knew who was the best because their friends would tell them. The BEST was already extremely busy. He didn't need the extra work and therefore didn't need to brag.

Actually he never bragged. 

I was thinking about this scenario recently as it applied to softball. When a newcomer moves to town and wants to play softball, he puts his name on a "spare" list to get picked up by a team. There are about 50 new names every year added to the list. In every case, when that player brags about his ability, he's a dud. 

I watched a guy who was supposed to be really good, strike out four times this week. In a game where strikeouts are rare, he demonstrated his expertise at failing.

In other cases, I've heard guys, with complete humility say that they had played a bit and would like to come out and have some fun with new found friends.  

In a noisy world, when a company brags about themselves, I believe they are overcompensating for something they are not. Just like in softball, the braggarts are not the best. The company that doesn't brag is the better choice.

A lesson about marketing from a hitchhiker

I was driving into work this morning, when I had the urge to pull over and let a complete stranger enter my car.

My mom wouldn't approve, so I didn't do it.

He had his thumb extended wishing to fetch a drive to somewhere unknown. Not knowing if my destination intersected with his, I decided not to stop. I wouldn't have stopped anyways. I've only picked up one hitchhiker in my life, and it was someone I knew.

I worried about the smell. He looked allergic to bath water. The Seinfeld episode on body odour was lingering among my other thoughts.

Then I thought about my friend Paul. He used to hitchhike every weekend two hours each way to see his lovely lady friend back in 1995.

Paul knew he needed to sell himself to the countless cars zooming by. He explained hitchhiking was a numbers game. And that someone always picked him up within ten minutes of starting his adventure.

Approaching this role like any sales job, Paul would put on a tie and suit jacket and carry a briefcase. That usually got him his lift. Who wouldn't pick up a business man in distress? If that didn't work, he would pull out a sign from his briefcase, which doubled as his luggage.

The sign would simply say, "Going home to see my mom". Now that's marketing. He tapped into people's emotions.

How often do we see the hitchhiker who looks like he is on his way to Woodstock? Hair tied back in a ponytail, facial hair that has been growing for a few months, army jacket, with matching hiking boots and wool socks and shorts. Probably has a hunting knife somewhere stashed in his duffle bag waiting to be used on his next victim. The duffle bag matches the army surplus gear.  It's tossed to the side of the road, trying to hide from view waiting for someone to pick them up.

I often wonder who picks up these nomads. It must surely be other nomads who can associate with them. I wouldn't pick them up unless I knew them. There's probably nothing wrong with them, until they decide to pull out that hunting knife and steal my car.

But who wouldn't pick up my friend Paul? Paul sold himself and marketed himself within two seconds that someone zoomed by. He only needed two seconds.  He always found a buyer. It was too good of a deal.

How do we present ourselves in our own marketing?
How does our business present itself?
Are we vagrants looking for a free ride?
Or we built on a purpose that is easily identifiable for all potential buyers?

I believe...

What do you believe in? Think about it. What do you believe in so much that when you sway from your beliefs, your conscience lectures you into sleeplessness.

Have you ever written out a values statement to remind yourself and others what you believe in?

Some of us write them out. But most don't, because they are engrained into our upbringing. They emerge when we have kids as we try to pass them to the next generation.

Most values statement aren't worth much, unless they are read every single day. The problem with a values statement is that it only makes sense to you. And if you don't read it everyday, the statement becomes academic and trivial, lost in the papers of life, while you float in the vast ocean of somethingness, headed toward nothingness, while your conscience beacons you to return to safe shores.

For a values statement to have meaning, it must be written in plain, every day language. It must be void of interpretation. It must be the foundation in which all decisions are made. It must help us make decisions when we are in conflict between two equal but opposite choices.

In a team, a values statement is even more important. The leader wants everyone to choose the right path, when two tempting choices float their way.

If a values statement is vague, the interpretation will be open and the results cannot be predictable.
If a values statement is clear, everyone navigates their choices in the same direction and the destination is not just predictable.

It is intended.

Boring, corporate value statements are written on boards, laminated and posted at the front entrance of most offices. They are neighbours to mission statements, visions statements and they all live in the same useless academic community.

I remember having a values statement stare at me everyday in one of my office jobs. Our leader read in Harvard Business Review that it would get lost at the front desk, so he got all the middle and senior managers together. We spent two days in a hotel conference room developing our new mission, vision and values. The process was interesting. And I felt good about it because I was included in the process. After the two days were complete, we felt like we had direction. He laminated them and put one in every office as a constant memory of what happened on those two days.  It didn't change the culture of the organization. It didn't change the work ethics of the employees. It didn't do a damn thing except make him our leader look like he was a smart strategist.

The problem was with the leader. The first item on the values list was respect. He lacked respect for his staff and would fire them if someone looked at him the wrong way. His vision was never going to work because he didn't align with the values statements.

You can learn a lot about someone when you know what they stand for and what they stand against.

There's a better way. And simpler too.

At a recent class, I was asked to write out my belief statements. I had to articulate what my business stood for, in every day language.

I wrote them out. And so did everyone else in the class. We shared them, and we realized that the simpler the statement the more powerful the message.

The simpler the statement, the easier it is to remember.
The simpler the statement, the easier it is to follow.

When values are written clearly, they can be guiding principles.

There is one rule in developing "I believe" statements. They can't sound corporate-y. They have to be written in every day language.

What are your "I believe" statements?

Here are the ones I recently developed for my new business.

This wasn't developed by a committee.
It's not up for discussion.
It will be a guide for everyone in how we act.
There are no exceptions for any person, including the owner.
And no one is perfect, so we'll deal with each mistake in a human, respectful way.


We believe work is sometimes hard, but it doesn’t have to go unappreciated. 
We believe work should be fun. 
We believe that people come before profits. 
We believe that no one is perfect, and there’s always a more human way to deal with issues. 
We believe that we could laugh a lot more. 
We believe that customers deserve our best. 
We believe that karma is a bitch, so we work hard to not upset her. 

Finding good people to work with

Mona likes working in her business. She works hard. Her dad taught her that skill. He owns five different businesses.

Every morning, her dad would leave the house before she got up. Many nights, she would be in bed before he came home. 

She spent the next 13 years watching and learning from her dad. Her dad is a hard ass and works his people to extremes mentally and physically.

Mona used to work for me. At 18 years old, her work ethic could battle even my own. I was proud of her. She was dependable, trustworthy and respectful to my business and my own personal needs.

She was not perfect. Mona didn't like working with people who didn't share her work ethic.  I didn't promote her into management because I worried she would destroy the team culture I built.

Despite all of her strengths, she was never going to be one of my managers. She is more than capable to manage things. My managers had to LEAD people. I didn't think Mona had the leadership gene.

One day Mona accepted a job with her dad and she left me. I was sad to see her leave. Good people like Mona don't come along every day.

It wasn't long before she realized that working for her dad was never going to work. They were from the same fruit bowl. With her dad's help, Mona built a business she could call her own. 

It was a great business with line-ups of customers, loads of revenue, and bucket fulls of profit. But little by little, the customers eroded and profits went with them. 

Mona didn't realize she wasn't capable of leading people. She knew how to work hard. She knew how to treat customers. She didn't know how to lead her own staff. So they quickly quit after a few months of abuse. 

The hamster wheel of hiring had begun.

I sat with Mona and asked her what her number one complaint was. It was the same answer I always get. "Staff! If I could clone myself I wouldn't have any worries", was her answer.

Mona didn't want a business. She wanted a personal revenue stream. She fails to understand that without staff, nothing gets done.

I was at Mona's business today. The toilet wouldn't flush. It was no big deal. It needed a bit of a push. It's something I have done a hundred times at home. With no plunger in the bathroom, I had to tell one of the employees. The employee gave me a disgusted look, remarked about it being a dirty job and then went to the stockroom to retrieve the plunger. I watched her walk to the bathroom, pinching the plunger between her thumb and index finger like the previous usage was vaporizing onto her fingers. 

Mona wasn't here today. Her staff would rather not be here. It's not her staff's fault. 

Mona hasn't led them. 

Working with minimum wage staff with minimum wage mentality isn't easy.  

It starts with the hiring process. 

How do you hire your staff? 

What selection process do you use?

Sometimes the key to a good hire is the use of a good employment ad.

Here's a sample of two different employment ads. Which would you rather work for considering the compensation is about the same?

Leadership starts with the first communication that a new potential employee sees.

Ad #1: 

We are looking for the right fit for our brand. 

We are looking for positive, outgoing, energetic and skilled team members for our Kithcen Team. The applicant must have minimum two years of experience. All applicants must be available for evenings and weekends.

Ad #2:

Wouldn’t you like to work for someone who treats you like a person and not a number? 

Working in the restaurant industry should be fun. It’s not a job. Well of course it’s a job. But it doesn’t have to feel like one.

Here’s what XYZ Company believes in:

We believe work is sometimes hard, but it should never be unappreciated. 

We believe work should be fun.

We believe that people come before profits.

We believe that no one is perfect, and there’s always a more human way to deal with issues.

We believe that we could laugh a lot more.

We believe that customers deserve our best.

We believe that karma is a bitch, so we need to work hard to not upset her.

XYZ Company is a new restaurant coming to ABC town. We are now hiring counter service employees to start in mid June.