Winning and losing based on the decision to act

Working on a major project, I asked the applicants to perform a simple task.
It was a dream building exercise.
I wanted to learn more about the applicants' thought processes.

The task had a deadline of midnight on the fifth day.
A response on 00:01 would not be considered for the free program I was offering.

Almost half of the applicants didn't respond.
One quarter responded in the last three hours, displaying possible signs of procrastination.
One quarter responded in the first three hours showing initiative or lack of anything else to do.

I learned something from this exercise.

The desire to get results is negated by the inability to act.

It doesn't matter how much you want something, if you are unwilling to do the work, you will never get it.

Goals + Action = Realized Dreams

If you negate the action, you negate the dream.

Goals + Inaction = Unrealized Dreams

My parents taught me to always be willing to do the work. I can hear my dad still preaching, "I didn't raise any lazy kids in this family"...

What are you putting off tomorrow?
What are you waiting for?

More importantly what are you trying to achieve?

It doesn't matter how much money you have, the ability to envision your life five years out is possible. Have you thought about what your life will look like in five years from now?

So here's my challenge to you.  Message me privately if you'd like.

"Although perfection is impossible, let's now imagine your life will be perfect in five years.

Describe your life when it will be perfect. What needs to be implemented into your life for this "dream" to be realized? How do you have to change personally to achieve perfection?"

Please don't cop out and say that your life is already perfect or it will be perfect when you win the lottery. I'm looking for honesty. 

Are you willing to complete the challenge or are you going to do nothing? Your choice. You win and lose by your decisions to act.

Goals + Action = Realized Dreams
Goals + Inaction = Unrealized Dreams

To finish off my story from above, by not responding half the candidates self selected themselves out of a free program, paid for by a couple of sponsors. The program might be the launchpad the entrepreneur needed to propel their business toward their dreams. 

But we'll never know because of their choice to not act.

The dating scene of business

Do you remember the dating scene?

When we were preparing for the date, we'd all cleaned up. Shower, shave, cleaning up our uglies. We put our best foot forward to impress the other person. Forget about intentions. Forget about where that date could lead. Forget about maybe meeting your future wife or husband. At that moment all we were trying to do was meeting someone new.

People don't get married based on a first date.

Transactions with a customer is exactly like a first date.
The customer is trying you out.
A test drive...
The customer is trying to decide if you're worth a second date.
The customer has not decided if this relationship is worthy of her loyalty.
She is not committed to the business yet.
She's still dating other businesses.

When a customer has decided that you are worthy of her ultimate interest in your business category, the relationship becomes bonded.

Customer loyalty is like a marriage. The customer is the wife. The business is the husband. The customer will allow for mistakes. She will forgive you for minor mishaps.  She may even forgive your major mishaps depending on how committed she is to the relationship. However the minute the customer feels that her commitment to the relationship is greater than the commitment the business has to the relationship the dreaded thought of divorce enters her thought process.

Losing a dating customer is unfortunate.
We expect it.
Losing a married customer is devastating.
She takes her stuff along with some of ours too.

80% of revenues come from 20% of customers.
That's Pareto's law.
The customers who drive that much volume are married to the business.

The goal in business is to create and keep a customer. The best customers are the ones in the 20% category. As a business owner, you want to be as big of a polygamist as possible. Convince the best ones to marry you. And marry as many of them as you can.

Marrying the brand is what marketers call brand loyalty.

For the relationship to remain strong there needs to be a give and take mentality. However, just like real life, its the husband that doesn't listen enough. Forgiveness comes at a price.  That price is based on the promise to change.

No change = Empty promises
Empty promises = Distrust
Distrust = Divorce

When the customer divorces the brand she takes only two things she owns in the relationship, her wallet and her influence.

And the business suffers from the divorce until it converts a new dating prospect into its next wife continuing the vicious cycle until real change is achieved.


With a background in finance and marketing, Rick Nicholson owned two highly successful restaurants before selling them to start a consulting business. His current company The Restaurant Ninjas provides tools to the foodservice industry to become more profitable. His book, "The Art of Restaurant Theft" can be downloaded for free at www.therestaurantninjas.com

You can subscribe to Rick's weekly email newsletter and his thoughts on business, life and everything in between at:

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It was 1995 all over again

Power and the money, money and the power
Minute after minute, hour after hour

I stepped into a worm hole, as the trekkies would say.

Imagine going back in time to 1995. Coolio's "Gangsta's Paradise" was blaring on the radio. The show about nothing ruled the small screen. Computer animated toys dominated the big one.

Toy Story is based on toy's having feelings. What if a restaurant had feelings? More importantly what would a restaurant say if it could talk?

I went to KFC this weekend. The tiled floors, wall paper, seats and countertops hadn't been renovated since 1995. On one wall, the owner proudly displayed pictures of the business after each renovation. The first picture was the original building in 1965. The second was the restaurant in 1985. I was standing in a restaurant last renovated in 1995.

Most franchised restaurants require its franchisees to renovate the space every 10 years as part of the franchise agreement. Having owned and worked in a franchise environment, there are times when it seemed the 10 year "refresh" was a waste of money. Seeing this restaurant was a reminder why that refresh is so important. Nostalgia can be a great thing when we're reminiscing, or looking at old pictures or movies. Nostalgia can also be a wonderful marketing tool for the business trying to promote an earlier, simpler time. 60's Diners, drive-in theatres come to mind.

This restaurant wasn't nostalgic. I couldn't see the cleanliness past its old and tired legs. It was like an old grandma. Although sweet, and cheerful, the sex appeal had withered away with age.

Cursed by knowledge, I look at the lack of a renovation as a reason for the owner to make more money. Not investing in a renovation that I know exists screams out the owner doesn't care about his customers. His passion is gone. His pursuit of growth is fanned out. His success is shrinking. He may own the building without debt. He might not go to the restaurant everyday anymore.

He's apathetic. More importantly complacent. His customers are rewarding him and the franchisor for their lack of motivation. The value of the business is sliding.

Sliding only happens one way. 1995 was a good year. It belongs in our memories, not in the present KFC...

Everybody's running, but half of them ain't looking
What's going on in the kitchen, but I don't know what's cookin'
They say I gotta learn, but nobody's here to teach me
If they can't understand it, how can they reach me
I guess they can't, I guess they won't
I guess they front, that's why I know my life is out of luck, fool

Lyrics are from Coolio's "Gangsta's Paradise".  The fight for survival, learning, and change is eerily similar to what a restaurant goes through in the battlefield of consumer demand. 20 years later, this restaurant is talking to us through a song from the same year of its last rebirth.

Reactivity versus Proactivity

Ball one.  Inside.
Ball two. Too deep
Ball three.
Thwack! The ball zoomed by my head. This wasn't the first time this guy had done it this evening The hardest hitter in the city and he fired a loaded gun at my head as he hit the softball with the force of a dragon that lost her baby to a softball pitcher.

Why is it called a softball?
There's nothing soft about it when it hits me.

What did I ever do to him?
I thought we were friends.
He's a competitor playing a sport that I treat like a game.

I had a choice. The first words out of my mouth were emotional.  The prefrontal cortex wanted to fight. It was my first reaction...instinct. I was being reactive when forced into a dangerous situation.

After I calmed down and realized what had happened, the problem worked its way to the neo cortex of the brain. This area is responsible for problem solving. With that I looked for the solution to stop the monster from pointing his gun at me anymore.

Dr. Stephen Covey refers to this second level as proactive.

In the reactive state, things happen to us. People make us feel bad. We are not responsible. It's someone else's fault. Our choice is simple: Fight or flee.

The proactive state, we have a choices. We find a solution without getting emotional. Things just happen. They don't happen to us. We are responsible for the choices we make. We can adjust our thoughts or actions to remedy the problem.

When the ball zoomed by my head, I stared my friend down. This was the third time he had done it that night.

"What the hell?", I screamed.
"I don't want to walk", he responded nonchalantly, as if it were no big deal.
"I like you but you're being an idiot".

As the problem left the prefrontal cortex and entered the proactive area of my neo cortex, the solution became quite simple.

My choice: continue to let him fire away at me with reckless abandon or walk him on purpose. Give him the thing he doesn't want the most.

For the rest of the evening, the monster was given a free pass. He was no longer given the right to hit the ball. The game isn't about winning or losing. I play the game to have fun. There's nothing fun about going to Emergency for a softball contusion. Because of his actions, he took away my fun.

He never demonstrated he was going to change, so I took away his. And in the process, I got mine back. Walking him four times almost guaranteed the loss.

Losing was a lot of fun when we lose this way.

Next game we play, I am going to ask him if he's going to play nice. If not, he can walk all night again. His choice will dictate my next move.

It's wonderful having choices while taking responsibility for my actions. The weight of another person's actions can weigh heavy causing frustration, distrust and anger.

Stranger Danger

Mom told me to never talk to strangers. Her message penetrated my thinking to a nuclear core. To this day, I don't like talking to strangers.

I'm introverted to begin with. Talking to someone I don't know is stressful, uncomfortable and a  awkward. I do it, but I'd like to have a recording of some of these conversations. I probably sound like a pimple faced 12 year old fumbling for words between the "umm's and aah's". 

I went out of my way to speak to two strangers today. Doing what makes us uncomfortable is like water on a plant. It helps us grow.

The first stranger was hanging out at the hospital with a placard protesting the killing of babies as a means of birth control. Thinking this guy probably has a story, I started a conversation with him to find out why he was wasting a beautiful summer day protesting abortion.  He glared at me as if I were bothering him in his defiant protest of a woman's right. He stared at someone over my left shoulder  and explained that his personal relationship with Christ was his motivation. He offered me twice a DVD as he pursued his goal of spreading the Word in apostle-tic fashion.

Seeing countless people protesting abortion over the years, I often wondered what sparked these demonstrations. I don't think they work. But this stranger is working off purpose and I admire him for that. Raising two adopted children, I'm not pro abortion either. My babies were one decision away from being in a trashcan and that thought haunts me at times. I'm not willing to stand on a pedestal screaming out my opinions on the matter, despite this blog. I applaud this seemingly crazy man for his right to express his speech freedom. 

The second stranger was my barista at Starbucks. She painted my Frappacino like Davinci. Her intensity although focused was due to lack of experience.  Her magical smile beamed when I complimented her on an otherwise faceless drink. To which she confirmed what I already knew: she was new at Starbucks.

Two strangers in the light. Neither causing anyone harm. Both working for different purposes. Both strangers likely never to cross my path again. Today, I talked to both of them, learning a bit about them. Slowing my day, smelling the roses that others leave in their path I found a touch of joy.

The stranger danger message is hard to erase from my organic harddrive. There is little to no danger in communicating with complete strangers. I'm no longer a kid. No one is going to lure me into a white cargo van with candy.

Where there was fear, today I find a hint of joy. How strange is that?

Restaurant Days

Sometimes I think I never want to own another restaurant. I am good at it. I know how to make money at it. I like the work. It's the ever revolving door of staff that disturbs me.

But I'm looking at them again.

As I processed these thoughts, I ate at my favourite sandwich shop for lunch. The place was packed. Customers were waiting up to fifteen minutes for their sandwiches. The manager was visibly upset. The kids working behind the counter were hopelessly running around trying to figure out what they had to do next. An employee was called in and started helping right away moving the line a bit quicker.

The whole display was quite tiring. The manager used to work with me. He is known to lose his cool. I wonder how long he can handle the stress. He might be a grenade with the pin already pulled.

I wasn't sympathetic, sad, happy, scared, anxious nor stressed as I watched the restaurant theatre.

There was a time when I would've wanted to help these poor comrades get through their rush. There was a time when I could actually sense their pain.

Today, the only feeling I had was fatigue. I was losing my energy the longer I watched the slamming of doors, the constant running, and hurried conversations.

I can find the energy to get into that grind again. But today I felt a bit lazy not caring about the issues on the other side of the counter.

I recently volunteered to work at a benefit Pancake breakfast. No one ran like crazy chickens. The customers were well served. And I had a blast. So I know I can still enjoy the business. But no one was paid. We had all kinds of volunteers and there wasn't a balancing act between labour, food cost and sales.

Having worked in restaurants for the past 10 years, some people look to me as a restaurant guy.

I have a lot of respect for those who want to run a restaurant. But I don't envy them.

Having worked on farms, in fish factories, in offices, and in a cubicle, the hardest job I ever had was in a restaurant.

And it looks like I'm going to get back at it. Lord help me. I may be losing my mind.

Mission or commission

Why do you want to get into business?

I ask new entrepreneurs this question to get to the heart of their motivation.

Getting into business is crazy. Less than 5% of the population are entrepreneurs. Some estimate the number of entrepreneurs will climb to 50% in the next 20 years. And 85% of businesses fail in the first five years.

I believe businesses fail because the entrepreneur opened the business for the wrong reasons. Not knowing the difference, not having the right teachers, they go down a dark, scary path which ends in wreckage.

Let's discuss compensation of an entrepreneur:

For the first two years, there isn't any money to pay the entrepreneur a salary. The money coming in has to pay operational expenses, inventory, and/or rent. If the entrepreneur indebted the company to pay for equipment or assets, the interest and principal has to be paid from that cash.

Are you ready to work for less money than you could get as an employee?
Are you ready to work harder than you ever did as an employee?
Are you done working for someone else because of something bigger than money?

Don't ever get into business because you want to make money. Money is easy to make. Someone will pay you every two weeks and you get your weekends off if you choose the employee path.

Are you working for a mission or a commission?

Commissions come from being a good salesperson. Missions come from a deeper desire. They don't surface because it would be nice to do.

I was an employee for ten years after university. I loved what I did. I went to work everyday with a smile on my face. Stress was low. The money was good. I wanted more money. I wanted nicer things. I wanted fancier vacations, and sugary cars. But I wasn't making a difference.

In trying to buy a business, the employee in me, would never have quit my job. I wanted to buy a business, but I liked my comfortable lifestyle just as much. I wanted children. I wanted to be able to pay my mortgage. I didn't want to lose everything I had worked so hard to get.

Looking back on that time, I realize I had nothing. Funny how perspective does that.

It was like I stood at the edge of a cliff with a paraglider. I wanted to soar but I didn't know how to fly. I didn't want to fall to the bottom of the chasm. I never would've jumped on my own. I was scared. An asshole pushed me.

Once pushed the little bird in me had a choice, learn to fly or die. I reached for the outstretched branches trying to pull me back to employee safety.  But every branch looked like the asshole that pushed me off the cliff. And that's when I made the choice that changed my life.

I wanted to live. I wanted to soar. I wanted to be my own man. I didn't want to look over my shoulder waiting for the office politics to show me the door. I didn't want to be told what to do.

The decision was easy.  Looking back, I didn't have a choice. Live happy or compromise my one and only life for the safe bet. It came down to my mission. I couldn't achieve my mission as an employee.

And that's how I decided to become an entrepreneur. I burned my boat as I rushed the entrepreneurship shores, knowing there was no way I was going back from where I came.

Do you have a compelling reason why you want to get into business? If it's for money or time, do yourself and your family a favour, keep the job.

If you want to start or buy a business because of a greater cause, you may have a chance.