I am a fan but I hate you

I watched you enter a league of professionals. You were truly one of a kind. It was fun watching you dominate a league of men, when you were only a teenager.

Then something changed. You wanted more. And by wanting more, you got less from me. I stopped cheering for you. You are the best. But you're also a whiner.

Nobody likes a whiner.

I love talent. And when I see it, I drool over it. It's awesome to watch.

And you have it in spades.

But man, I hate you now. I can't explain it. I cheer against you.

History doesn't deserve your greatness. Despite it all, you're not only the best of a generation, you may be the best of all time. But I still hate you.

Whiner, go back to South Beach. Cleveland doesn't need you. They deserve better. I hope they get a title one day but not when you're there.

Your return to your hometown was a public relations move and I hated it the day you decided to come home. As you try to rebrand yourself, I know you for who you really are.

Whiner.

Splash, splash.  Let's go Warriors.

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.

Finding your purpose

Purpose is a funny thing that only comes from conscious beings.

I never thought much about purpose before three years ago. I lived my life, tried to be good to others and pursued my goals.

But then something happened on the way to death. I realized that one day there would be a knock on the door and I would no longer be here.

The urgency of creating something of extreme value became important. I was looking for my purpose. I didn't want to live a wasted life.

Not that I was looking for fame. I wanted to be able to laugh on my deathbed knowing I had accomplished something important in my time here.

In my first year of business school, we learned about the importance of mission statements.

I translated what I learned from business into a personal mission statement.

And I missed the point badly.

The reason for the mistake is businesses don't understand mission statements. Follow someone who doesn't know what they're doing and you'll end up in the same ditch, eventually.

As this was swirling in my head, I decided to open another restaurant. Again I wrestled with purpose and mission of this new business. It bothered me. I was supposed to have these answers for clients and I couldn't even come up with them for myself.

One sleepless night, while thinking about purpose, mission and trying to figure out what I stood for, I came to the realization that I did not have the answer. I had to seek it out from others.

Then I was enlightened by a brilliant nine year old, who just happens to be my son.

I asked my kids what the purpose of this new business was going to be. My ten year confirmed what most would say, "It's about making money".

Then my nine year old, who LOVES money, articulated so clearly why it couldn't be about money. I have been trying to tell businesses for years why money could not be the purpose. And he told us in a couple of sentences why businesses fail.

To put this into context, my nine year old doesn't do very well in school. He loves money. He counts his birthday and Christmas money at least three times per week. We've had to take away his wallet because he would roll around in it if we would let him. When I say, he loves money, I mean he LOVES money. Every winking moment, he thinks about, associates it to things and wants more of it.

But here's what he told his sister and I that morning around the breakfast table.
"It can't be about money. It will make you look selfish. No one wants to buy anything from someone who is selfish".

And there it was. The answer I was looking for. In the lack of a real purpose, people and businesses are thought to be SELFISH. In a selfish transaction, it's a dog eat dog world.

You want my money, what are you giving me in return.
Where's the discount?
Give me what I want and I will give you what you want.

That's simple transactional buying. It's the biggest pitfalls most businesses fall into.
And it can be avoided by existing on purpose.

I walk into my favourite coffeeshop and I don't know their purpose.
The default is to make money.
The default is selfish.

I go to buy a car or a sofa. The business talks about how it's going to save me money.
I'm not dumb. I know my savings are translated into profits for the seller.
Now I want a bigger discount.
I will price shop because no one is taking care of me, but me.
SELFISH

The opposite of SELFISH is GENEROSITY.

What are you generous with?
Time, Money, Education, Happiness, etc?
How do you promote them in your life or in your business.

So there it is. This new business will stand for generosity. It will be a giving corporation. It will take care of its employees, its customers, its community.

I'll share more about Generosity as it relates to marketing in my next blog.

Business and friendships

If you could own an audience, to the point where they would listen to every word you said, and then acted on your words, what would that be worth?

Is it better to talk to more people screaming from he mountaintops hoping that someone will give a shit enough to listen? Or is it better to have a few friends who like you, respect you enough to listen, and honest enough to not talk behind your back?

Business has lost its way.

Despite what you think, a business does not have to be all things to all people.  It has to be all things to the "right" people.

It is the job of your marketing team to find the "right" people.

Jesus Christ wasn't able to convince all the people.
Why would business people think they can?

Let's paint a picture.

You own a jewelry store and you want to sell 1 more diamond engagement ring each week.

Typically, a smart marketing person would ask questions like,
"Who's the target audience"
"What's your budget"
"Where does the target audience hang-out"

Then, they would market to the target audience screaming from the mountain top hoping someone will listen in their busy lives.

Most won't hear the message.
Some will hear it and not care.
Some will hear it, and consider your product while they shop the best deal, which may not be with you.
Almost no one will buy from you without price shopping first. You haven't earned their respect.

All you got was their attention.

Sustainable business is based on small friendships.

We don't find friends by yelling at them.
We don't find friends by talking to as many people as possible.

Friendship isn't a numbers game. And neither is good marketing.

There are fundamental rules for a friendship to work.
1. We have to want to be around each other.
2. We need to trust each other.
3. We want to help the other person without asking anything in return.

Businesses have forgotten the rules of friendship.
Most businesses want only one thing - money from its customers. And in exchange they offer a product or service.

We call that a transaction.
Not a friendship.

The first time a "target customer" hears a commercial, there has to be a connection in the message. No likeable message, no potential friendship.  As the target continues to hear the ad,  increases in likeability leans toward respect.

Respect is trust's mirror image.

Trust builds confidence and pushes action. When the "target customer" decides to interact with the brand and gets the same experience the ad made him feel, he will buy.

The purchase decision was already made through the emotions the ad created. The experience at the business reinforces the emotion.

Business isn't a numbers game. Let your message hang out with potential customers. Some will hate what you have to say. Some will love it. Let the ones who love it enter your friendship circle. Tell stories. Listen.

Don't yell or brag. In other words, don't be an asshole. Being an asshole attracts other assholes. Assholes aren't good for business unless you sell toilet paper.

With time, there will be new, cool, people hanging out in your business, wanting to buy from you.

Marketing is easy.
Good marketing is hard.

How many friends has your business made recently?