Big Business Wisdom for All Businesses

This month for our business book I decided to take a dive into learning about the company that everyone knows and has had some pretty dramatic and huge gains since their beginning: Amazon. As someone who is building a business/in business you have to have a level of respect for all that they’ve managed to accomplish and the fact that by and large they’ve got a good reputation. On the other hand of course they’re not my favorite company because of how they dominate business and do slide by on some things because they’re so big. But I couldn’t pass up an opportunity to learn about the foundation of what makes them so successful in “Working Backward: Insights, Stories, and Secrets from Inside Amazon” by Colin Bryar and Bill Carr (both guys who worked at Amazon in leadership for many years).

One of the things that stood out to me in the book is what became Amazon’s commitment to doing a really deep dive on things they’re considering adding to their business. This commitment to investigation and putting out a product/service they can be proud of and is desired by the customer started with Jeff Bezos’ commitment to customers first, not competition. By having the various teams in Amazon go through an extensive process to get from idea to proof of concept to launch, not only do they work out many of the kinks, but they’re able to deliver a better product/service too. I know that most of us don’t have the financial resources available to us that Amazon does to do things like this, but I do think we can learn from it and apply the lesson of really doing our homework and researching before we just throw something out into the market and hope it sells.

This ties in with a related point that’s very important: failure isn’t the enemy. One of Amazon’s biggest commitments is to innovation and to never being “too big” to innovate and work on new things. But as we all know, they don’t get it right 100% of the time. Often it’s a case of something that has to be developed a little more, or is a little early for widespread adoption, but sometimes they do completely fail, in which case they accept the lessons they learned and move on. It doesn’t mean that people forgot that they failed, but what company is as big as them that doesn’t have a few failures along the way? So once you’ve done your research as we discussed in the previous point, go ahead and put it out there, even if it only has moderate or minimal success, or downright fails. Why? Because the lessons you’ll learn and new customers you’ll connect with might be exactly what you need to help get you to the next level.

Finally, one of Amazon’s big focuses is on the long term rather than the short term. Of course they want customers to be happy with the order they placed today, but they’re not just focused on the short term wins, they want to be a successful company for decades to come. This extends to their employees as well, because they have a focus on not only hiring (quality) people who will stay with the company for at least 5 years, but also continuing to answer and address the question of what kind of company do we have to be for an employee to want to stay with the company for 5 plus years? Do you make a point in your business of tending to and planning for both present and future? Or are you so busy putting out fires today that you don’t have any time or resources left to plan (and dream) for the future?

There are so many other lessons that we could learn from Amazon that weren’t shared in the book, lessons that apply to us even if we don’t have (and don’t want) a business the size of Amazon, but still can be helpful in building our business. What are some of the things you’ve learned from them?

Details Matter If You Want To Succeed

A new school year has arrived and as families and businesses transition from to autumn and the change of activities and responsibilities for many, I’ve been watching all the transitions, and like many others connecting with new businesses and people. Of course as someone who works with businesses I’m not only looking at things as a customer but also for things that the businesses can do to improve what they’re offering and better connect with not only their existing customers but also be more appealing to new ones. Plus, one of the big topics for so many people right now is the individual both in companies needing to hire and in individuals wanting to make more money to deal with the inflation and economic uncertainty.

So the obvious question is: how can all of these things be more successful? How can we better transition between seasons? How can we stand out and be more successful as businesses? How can we successfully hire people who will do good work for the company for a minimum of 4 years? How can we be more successful individually? Time and again, the answer is always: pay attention to details.

What difference do the details make to your success journey? For businesses and employees, they make your difference, your special qualities, the magic you (and only you) can bring to the table, clear to the people who need to know them, showcase your value and make you stand out from others who might look similar or be part of the same industry. For families, students and teachers, it can make the transition much easier and reduce the number of misunderstandings rather than just accepting them as “par for the course.”

When you are committed to providing details, you move yourself, your business and/or your success journey to a higher level of quality, performance and opportunity that those who don’t care or don’t make the effort won’t ever be able to access or work from. You also set yourself up for more success opportunities than other people do, because when you show that you’re willing to pay attention to details it makes you more attractive others because they know that things will work more smoothly and success in the project or effort is more likely. After all, who wouldn’t rather work, live or do business with someone who pays attention to details and has fewer careless or unnecessary mistakes, knows how to ask questions (and does), works through many aspects and options to a problem before making a decision on a direction to take, communicates the most pertinent details but also has additional information ready when requested, or is considerate of the passage of and sensitive to time?

Yes, I know that it may seem like being detail oriented is one more thing to add to the very long list of things you’re trying to manage and keep a handle on, but time and again attending to the details as an initial part of your success process means that not only will things work more smoothly in the future, you’ll be better prepared and have lower stress for the journey too. And we’re talking about details like making a list before you go shopping, spell checking your emails, organizing your home or office or email, or giving someone your full attention when something is in discussion rather than being on your phone; not the level of detail required to construct a skyscraper, come up with accessible and cost conscious forms of energy, or run a successful multi-musician music festival.

Success can be big and bold, but often it’s the little projects, communications, and details that make most people’s lives and work more productive and successful. What details are you incorporating more consistently into your life that are helping you be more successful?

A Little Respect for Learning

The start of a new school year always brings up a ton of emotions, lots of change, new and different responsibilities and new people. Even for the parents, there are new people and new experiences and new challenges. As I was watching a DIY tv show the other day the homeowner said that one of the biggest lessons they got out of the whole project was the amount of respect that needed to be given to a project of that type and scale. And it got me thinking about how this time of year is really one big lesson in respecting boundaries, respecting whatever emotions people feel, whatever space they need to adjust, and the support to navigate to this new stage in their life. And this respect needs to be for others as they navigate as well as yourself as you navigate too!

If we start with the understanding that it is a challenging season, and we accept it for what it is, rather than fighting it and being miserable about it, it will be a lot easier to find the ways that work for us, accept the support and help we need and get to enjoy at least some of the month of September, and just as important, we’ll hopefully set ourselves up for success for the entire rest of the school year. I don’t know about you, but as a kid I would have loved to get to June and not only be incredibly thankful that I made it and it was finally done, but that the school year really helped me grow and learn as a person with lessons that I felt confident and positive about taking into the future.

So where do we begin? First I think it begins with being open to trying something different. Yes, you’ve “done school” before, but with each new year you’re learning new things and with different people and have different teachers, and I know from my years of schooling and the learning I’ve done since then that there’s almost always more than one way, if not several ways, to do something. Take a simple math problem like ways to get to the number 10: you could add 5+5, you could subtract 10 from 20, you could multiply 5×2, you could divide 100 by 10. All gets you to the same result but there are reasons to do each of them. Sometimes it’s easier to do things one way and other times it’s easier to do it a different way, and you don’t know what options you have until you’ve been given the opportunity to learn all the different ways you can do it.

Second, it begins with something that is so quintessential classroom and school: remembering that you’re not alone in this journey. I’m thankful that most of my teachers were always open to hearing our questions and helping us understand or work through what we didn’t understand. The good news is that even if the teachers in your life or your kid’s lives aren’t the kind to help you/them through things, there are tons of tutors, coaches, consultants and even parents, grandparents and siblings who can step up and help get you and them to a place where you’re not only comfortable but confident too.

Finally, the answer is always patience. I think we do ourselves a disservice often by wrapping education and learning into the tests and finals and months that we do because it segments things in ways that don’t really help us build on what we’ve learned or understand the connections, or do anything but feel overwhelmed with all we’re trying to learn and process at the same time. So a big key to having a successful school year, or any successful learning endeavor, is to be patient with yourself and others who are involved. Part of that patience is about communication and learning how to express what you don’t understand or what you’re struggling with, as well as communicating the information or perspective in different ways that might help the other person learn or understand better.

Yes, learning is a necessary part of our lives, but it doesn’t have to be the necessary evil that it sometimes turns out to be. As you navigate this new school year with your kids, or maybe a new school year for yourself, or just a new learning opportunity that has come your way, I encourage you to have a healthy respect for the time, work, effort and end result that you hope to achieve.

Lessons in Leadership: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr

Sunday, August 28th, is the anniversary of the March on Washington in 1963 and his “I Have a Dream” speech, so I thought it would be appropriate to talk about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr this month. As I was doing some research for this post and looking back through photos taken of him, I was struck exactly how young he looked in them. Dr. King was known for his words, his faith, his strength of character, and his leadership. To so many he seems larger than life, and I think as a result we sometimes forget that he was killed when he was 39. Let’s take a look at a few things we can learn from his life to apply to our lives and leadership.

One of the things that impresses me the most about Dr. King is the progress he made. I’m sure that he wished he made more progress (and that we made more progress than we have since he was killed), but he’s a great example of a leader who kept trying, kept pushing, kept working, kept connecting, kept speaking up, and kept going even in the face of many challenges. Of course he wanted more and faster progress, but that didn’t stop him from sticking to his values, doing the best job he could, and continuing to push forward. Are you as committed to making progress in your business and with the people who you lead? Are you accomplishing at least something each and every day that will help move your business, your team, your customers and/or your community a step forward?

Another lesson we can learn from Dr. King was his willingness to have conversations with and get connected to people. If you go and read some of the articles out there about Dr. King and his work, you’ll see that it reads like a who’s who of the times because he knew so many people. Yes, some of that was because of how big of a name he was for the civil rights movement, but I think it is also about who he was. One of the biggest reasons why I think he made so much progress is because of his ability to connect with and work with both those in leadership and those who are part of the “masses.” Are you working as a leader to connect and partner with other leaders in your local area (even if you’re a mostly virtual business)? What about other leaders who have a similar leadership or business perspective? How much time do you devote to connecting with your team and employees or the customers you serve? Investing in people always pays good dividends.

Finally, Dr. King was both a present-day and a visionary leader. What does that mean? It means that he lead on topics that were important in his time, for example seating for everyone everywhere all the time, as well as topics that were part of a better future for everyone that weren’t so tangible, for example the famous lines from his “I Have a Dream” speech where he talks about “One day…” and all the things that he hopes will one day happen if they all come together for positive change. No, every dream and every business isn’t something that will be relevant today and in the future (50+ years from now), but often the case is that we can work on both the present and future, building something that’s important and helpful today, as well as will have a positive impact on the future. Even if you don’t have a business that will last forever, that doesn’t mean that you can’t focus on the impact that the products/services your customers buy from you today will have on their future (for example the memories that a family will make around a table with the food they bought from you for that holiday celebration).

What are some of the things you’ve learned from Dr. King about leadership and being a leader?

It’s OK to Baby Step to Success

When I stop and think about it, I’m reminded of the fact that some of aspects of our lives are the way they are because it makes a whole lot of sense for them to be set up that way. One of those big aspects is the idea that we communicate the passing of time primarily in hours and days, not years. Why does this matter? Because talking in terms of years can be really overwhelming both from a “this is what happened in the past year” and a “we have how much more of the year to go?!” sense, not to mention trying to plan everything!

Overwhelm and burnout didn’t start in 2020, but it certainly has made some big headlines over the past few years. There are many components and contributions to our overwhelm or burnout, including the uncertainty we face in the world and how well we deal with the various stresses that come in and out of our lives. But time and again one of the major factors to the overwhelm is time. How many times have you felt overwhelmed because you can’t imagine how you’re going to get it all done in the amount of time you have? I know many of us feel this way, and unfortunately the more we focus on the lack of time we have, the harder it is to work through our overwhelm and into producing results.

So this week as you work on your success projects, I encourage you to try to focus more on taking things a step at a time, and less on how much time you don’t have. If you’re working on something that really matters it won’t matter if it takes a little longer than you wanted it to for you to get it done well, what matters most is that you keep walking that success path one step at a time, one action at a time. Maybe what we need most is to remind ourselves of history and how many amazing structures and civilizations were built back in the BC times, because as the saying goes “Rome wasn’t built in a day.”

Start with one sentence or one paragraph, one load of dishes or one closet, one email or one social post, one walk or one swim, one snack or one meal, one job search or one interview, one session with a therapist or pastor, one homework assignment or test to study for, one kind word instead of a word of judgement, one positive thought instead of a negative one. Start with just one action or one step, then another, and another, and build from there as slowly, but consistently, as you need to. I love many things about the world and time that we live in, but the lack of patience isn’t always one of them. Don’t fall for the lie that you have to get it right on the first try or have to get it done all in one effort. You don’t. When you’re facing overwhelm or not sure how you’re going to get something done, break it down into small pieces that you can manage, in the time you have. What success will you be able to achieve this week when you work with more manageable plans that you can believe in and feel confident achieving?

Making Time for Nature

One of the things I love most about summer is how free we are to explore the world. Yes, of course we have to be mindful of heat exhaustion and sunburns but the ability to basically throw on pans/shorts and a shirt and grab some drinks and snacks and get out there and do stuff is one of the reasons summer is my favorite season. Yes, in spring and autumn you can do the same, but there’s always the cold to consider then as the water hasn’t warmed up yet or there could be early snowfalls, which is why I remain steadfast in my love of summer.

Summer is also the time that so many of us have more freedom in our schedules, whether that’s because our companies give us more flexibility about our schedules or the kids are off from school so we make the time, so it seems easier and even almost required that we get out there and live a little more. And even with all the places we go, as stressful as vacations can be (even though we’re supposed to be more relaxed because of them), and things we do that are so different from our normal, I still think we’re less stressed and healthier emotionally and physically when September rolls around than we would be if we didn’t take whatever our version of a break is in the summer.

As I watched the first, very early, leaves of autumn drop to the ground this week and saw all the back to school ads everywhere, one of the themes that has been running through my heart is that we need to commit to doing better when September rolls around and things get pushed back into that faster, busier pace. Even if we make a practice of continuing our morning/evening walks, keep taking the dog to the dog park a couple of nights a week, commit to at least one weekend a month of doing new and/or active things within a couple hours’ drive of our home, or continuing to have a beverage outside on the porch/deck with our partner at the end of the day, I think it’s really important that we make fresh air, time in nature and changes of scenery part of our regular life activities as long as physically possible (don’t get frostbite or have to build an igloo just to have that outdoor time). I’m excited to discover the difference in my physical and mental health after the autumn as I incorporate this focus into my life. Are you planning to make it a point to include outdoor time in your autumn?

“It’s amazing the difference A bit of sky can make.” Shel Silverstein

Does Your Business Really Care?

Lately I’ve been dealing with some less than satisfactory customer service. I’ve been lied to by multiple companies and multiple people from those companies, gotten the runaround from others, and it’s been one frustrating experience after another. I know that the pandemic has really stressed, stretched, complicated, shook up and confused our businesses in so many different ways. It has not been any shade of predictable since 2020 for anyone, so even though some companies and people have done well over the past years, no one has had an easy time of it. But as I was dealing with my customer service issues I read an article from a speaker and business owner I respect that raised a new level of concern, one that we don’t always think about even as we recognize that customer service issues aren’t anything new. Mark Schaefer wrote:

“One close friend told me that an airline desk attendant broke down in tears in front of him. She was so ashamed of what was happening to her customers and so frustrated by the outfall of the airline’s problems.”

Can you guess what my new concern is? That companies have let the pandemic be their excuse to allow poor customer service to exist and to be further lacking in their support and empowerment of their employees. Scary, right? Yes, we talk about how important customer service is for businesses and we talk about it from a customer perspective, often blaming the employees for things they have absolutely no control over. So in many ways what the pandemic has done is take away all of the curtains and reveal exactly how little some companies care not only about their customers, including long term ones, but also their employees. If the customers and the employees are frustrated enough to be in tears, it says to me that too many businesses don’t really care about anything except their bottom line.

Of course, I hope this isn’t you and isn’t the case for your business. But if you don’t put much effort or many resources into your customer service program, if you tell employees that it’s OK to lie to customers so that they stick around for another billing cycle, it you tell employees to be as vague and slow as possible, if you care more about the cost of returns, if you’re OK with employee turnover because it means you can hire less expensive people, or you’re OK with things because you’re still making a profit hand over fist, it’s time to take a serious look at your business and what you’re putting out into the world. Because while the day isn’t here yet that there’s a reckoning, soon enough it will be here and you’ll wonder where all the customers have gone and why no one wants to work for your business. I don’t want to be part of a business that looks vastly different “behind the curtain” than it does in front of it. I want to be leading a business I’m proud of, my employees are proud of and my customers are proud of. What about you?

Intentional Success

I believe in luck. The way things happen sometimes has absolutely convinced me that sometimes we just get really fortunate with how serendipitously things happen. That it’s that perfect alignment of people and places and resources and time and things just work out even better than we could have dreamed about. Of course, some of us call it by other names like blessings or gifts from God, but regardless of the name you give it, it’s hard to explain how some things work out as perfectly as they do, especially if things work out in ways that you weren’t planning for or didn’t think of.

But most of the time when it comes to success luck is only a small portion of the reason why we’re successful. Most of the time we have to take intentional actions to get to success. There are several layers of this. First we have to be intentional about what success we want to achieve. If we don’t know what our end goal is not only is it hard to plan for, but it’s hard to get excited about and be motivated to work on. Second, once we’ve got that end goal clearly established, we have to create a well thought out plan on how we’re going to get there. That plan may change or be adjusted but we need to do the necessary research and create a plan or strategy for what we think based on what we know now that we think will get us to that goal. Third, we have to be intentional about the actions we take on that path to success: actions that line up with the plan we crafted and are likely to be those that will get us one step closer to where we want to go. Finally, we have to be intentional about how consistently we move forward towards our goal. Yes, some days/weeks we’ll be able to make more progress than others, but we should be able to see progress happening towards our goals.

What difference does intentionality make? It means choosing and remembering to make fun shaped pancakes instead of the usual round blobs because your kids like them. It means getting your car tuned up before things fail or fall off. It means you have regular practices in place to keep your relationship with your partner healthy like weekly information meetings, regular date nights, down time spent together etc. It means preparing ahead of time for vacations you take (more than just the day before you leave). It means taking the time to reach out to people when you think of them in little and big ways. It means thinking short and long term about situations. It means choosing your friends carefully and therefore hopefully avoiding difficult situations in the future. It means being smart about what you eat and what you do with your body so that you don’t have big health issues when you get older. It means having supplies on hand for an impromptu hot chocolate or ice cream sundae party because you know the value of having those moments with your family. And so many other things that can make big and little differences in your life and the lives of people you know.

If you’re ready for more success or more predictable success, start getting intentional about success and how you’re going to get there. What will you be intentional about this week?

Treasuring Summer

I’ve been hearing from lots of authors and business owners that a certain time of year has arrived that pulls them away from their work like no other: back to school time. Of course, you go into so many stores and you see all the autumn and school stuff out for sale on the shelves, and the last couple of nights have been much cooler, so signs of that incoming change are everywhere. Back to school is a transition that has touched many a parent in ways they weren’t expecting, especially as bigger transitions happen, like kids going to their first or last year of college or kids going from the younger grades to the upper ones and switching schools for the first time. It’s super emotional for them even if they’re not typically emotional people.

I don’t know about you, but I’ve been experiencing a related but different set of transition related emotions: that of the rapidly approaching end of the summer. I’ve absolutely missed drinking cups of hot tea while working (I definitely work better when I drink the hot beverages than the cold ones), but other than that, there’s only one or two other things I really miss when we’re in the summer. As you may know or may have guessed, summer is my favorite season, so I always wish it would last a little longer than it does (and no, I’m not encouraging that happening because of climate change). But in talking with some people over the last week I’ve really worked hard these past few days on embracing every moment of summer that I can.

What does that look like for me or maybe for you? It means extra snuggles with your partner on weekend mornings because kids don’t have sports yet. It means taking an extra 30 minutes at the end of the day to sit outside with a beverage and enjoy life. It means playing an extra game of backyard baseball before making dinner. It means taking advantage of the good weather and doing things outside that you might usually just stay inside to do. It means an extra s’more before kids go to bed (the extra sugar at bed time is OK because they don’t have early school mornings yet). It means taking your coffee and breakfast outside to enjoy before the day gets super hot. It means taking your lunch break outside on a shady picnic bench. It means meeting friends and family at the beach or pool or around the grill or going camping together or putting off meeting again until the autumn if they’re “allergic” to the outdoors so that you can enjoy the last days of summer. It means agreeing to another visit to the local homemade ice cream or donut shop for those special treats you only really have time for or are available in the summer.

Yes, I’m absolutely suggesting being selfish and not adhering to those perfect schedules and long lists of commitments that we all have. Summer, much like those special moments of Christmas and Thanksgiving, should be treasured. With as hot as summer is, it basically removes our ability and stops our attempts to be perfect, and encourages us to reflect, laugh, love, relax and dream more than we do at any other point of the year. It gets us out of our comfort zones and abilities to plan things perfectly and gives us an opportunity to do something that’s maybe even better or more important: really make an effort to treasure the life and experiences we have. No, summer’s not perfect, but very little is, so the goal isn’t to put summer on a pedestal, but rather to take advantage of these days that you know you’ll regret not living to the fullest when the autumn arrives again.

Simply Better Business

Sometimes I have to wonder what we’re trying to achieve as businesses with all the hoops we make our customers jump through. I was reading about an idea that’s not really new but seems to be making the rounds again about how little social sites like it when posts include links because of course, the social sites want to keep you scrolling rather than clicking away, so of course they’re encouraging people to use fewer links by having the algorithms favor posts without links. If you’ve been in the marketing world a while you’re like, “no, that’s not new at all,” and you would be right, because it’s something we’ve talked about since ‘clickbait’ became a term and even before that, and we business people had to come to terms with the fact that not every customer can be brought in by flashy lights and tricked into becoming a customer or subscriber.

So the question for today: why can’t we (why don’t we) make things simpler for the customer or potential customer? Of course some businesses do make things as simple as possible for their customers, but time and again some things stick out that make me wonder what we’re trying to accomplish as a business.

For example: why don’t we include tags/categories on our blog posts (do we expect people to search back through hundreds of posts or just know what topics we write about?)? Why do we send a sentence or two of context and a link back to a blog post or article rather than sending the whole article/blog post? Why do we communicate our product in ounces when everyone else uses pounds (because we all love doing extra math?)? Why do we make our sales pitches and descriptions so short (is it possible to run out of text space?) or include only one picture (there’s only one good side?)? Why do we combine our login and signup page on our website? Do we really gain enough readers/subscribers when we gate our content to make it worth gating? Do we have to make them search through 10 pages of products or can we include better sorting and elimination options to help them get to what they’re looking for (one of the biggest stores in the world is guilty of this)? Do we really need all that information from a subscriber up front, or can we start with the basics and invite them to share more with us as part of our welcome sequence or at some other time in the future when we’ve got a relationship established? Why don’t we post our hours on our storefronts and our websites and our social accounts (because they won’t make the effort to stop in when we’re open?)? Why don’t we have some night hours in addition to some weekend hours (because, doesn’t everyone operate between the hours of 8a and 6p Monday-Friday)? Why don’t we include options for subscribers to update their information in our email newsletter footers (because unsubscribes are so much better?)?

I’m sure I could keep going, and you probably have lots of things that you could come up with that just seem so overly complicated in some of the businesses you do business with, but I think I’ve established my point. When we make it easier for customers to interact with us, learn from us, do business with us, share about us, and buy from us, not only are they more likely to do business with us, we make them more confident in their commitment to us as a business they like to do business with. Yes, I’m sure you’ve got at least some reasons for why you do things the way you do (good reasons of course, not: “I haven’t had time to update it” or “that’s too much work”), but are those reasons keeping you from customers who would do business with you or share about you with others who would do business with you? Take a moment this week to see if you can make your customers a little happier by simplifying one or two things. It might end up making things simpler and better for you too!