May 23, 2012

Want To Extend Your Reach? Don't Hire A Babysitter!

        
I assume that most of you who read my blog or subscribe to my newsletter are those who have something to say or sell, whether it’s your own or someone else’s. We’re all trying to be seen or heard and that’s increasingly complicated in a noisy world. 

Wouldn’t you agree?

The problem is that to be successful in the market today, you must possess two strategic assets: a compelling product and a meaningful platform. 

Platform is key. 

Most of us know it and it’s why we spend time networking, developing social media, writing emails and blogs, speaking, trying to connect with potential customers, etc. 

But here’s the issue, simply being on Facebook or Twitter, simply writing a book or newsletter, simply opening the doors of your business… doesn’t matter (unless others know about you and follow). 

That’s why I am excited about a new book from my good friend Michael Hyatt, one of the top bloggers in the world and Chairman of Thomas Nelson Publishers.  It’s called Platform: Get Noticed in a Noisy World. It’s a step-by-step guide to help you navigate the waters so that you can do what works in order to be seen and heard. 

Special: To celebrate the launch of the book this week, Michael is giving away $375.98 worth of free Platform bonus content for those who purchase the book between May 21 and May 25. Complete details are available at http://michaelhyatt.com/platform

As I was chatting with Mike he mentioned something that really stood out to me about building a platform. He said… 

“Accept Personal Responsibility - If you’re thinking of hiring a babysitter for your platform, think again. It is critical that you be 100% committed and the driving force behind its creation and growth. Think about it. Does anyone know your mission, product or service better than you do? Is anyone more passionate about it than you are? Does anyone have as much skin in the game as you do? Expertise, passion, and, frankly, the fate of your career will drive you to create something greater than anything a hired-out marketing team could imagine.” 

Basically he’s saying don’t phone it in and try to pass it off to someone else. If you want to be heard, you have to speak up and be the driver. 

In my years of being an author and speaker I have found that to be very true. Yes, you need to hire a great team and utilize great resources but don’t expect someone else to do all of the work that you too must be active in doing. 

If it’s important, you’ll find a way. If it’s not, you’ll find an excuse. 

I have two three copies of the book to give away - all you have to do is hit the retweet button and make a comment to this post.  

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May 10, 2012

What Tim Draper Looks For In A Startup

Last week, I attended the startup conference in Mountain View, CA. 

It was the center of the startup universe.  There was even Startup Village, a trade show meets speed dating center, where CEOs or techies pitched their ideas and prototypes.  At the end of the row was the Draper Fisher Jurvetson booth, with Tim Draper taking pitches.  Seriously.  

During the general session, Draper talked for 20 minutes about his experiences as a venture capitalst and angel investor.  The burning question for him was this: "What does it take for DFJ to green light an investment in my startup? Revenue? Uniqueness? User engagement?"  He pointed out that winning startups worth investing in must possess three qualities: 

1.  It Is Revolutionary - Your idea will change an industry, and kick a dent in the universe. He liked Skype for how it transformed telco and loved Facebook early on because of how it would redefine neighborhood.  So, if you have an "improve" value proposition, that will not get his socks rolling up and down.  

2. It Solves A Big Problem - He points out that the greatest products are solutions to problems the founder(s) personally experienced.  Your startup must address a big problem, because it's the problem and not the existing players that define a potential market. (Now stop and think about that for a while...).  Tesla, he pointed out, raised a boatload of money because they went after one of the biggest problems in the world, energy shortages.  

HINT: If you want to go shopping for big problems, he pointed out, tune into the burning political issues.  They are usually the problems we care about, especially during an election year.  

3. There Are Healthy Zeros On The Balance Sheet - He talked about one of his most famous investments: Hotmail.  They have a healthy zero on their marketing column, because they used their product as marketing.  Remember, the hotmail email footer viral marketing phenom, where all the early users advertised "Get your free email at hotmail"?  He also liked how Amazon, early on, had zero dollars in inventory logistics costs...because their customers and partners carried all the freight.  

All of these cost-avoiding business model features are indicative of something truly revolutionary, he said in conclusion...bringing us full circle to his original point.  Big ideas kick a dent in an industry.

Does yours? You can email him at tim@dfj.com (PS - don't tell him I sent you, unless you are going to make him a great deal of money.) 

As an encore, he agreed to sing a song acapella for us: The Risk Master. I shot this jerky video, just to share here with you!

 

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May 07, 2012

About my new venture: Net Minds

It's time for me to spill the beans about a startup I've co-founded.  

The company is called Net Minds, and we are a networking service that partners authors with all the talents they need to produce great books that are effectively promoted.  We believe the future of publishing is in groups, think joint ventures.  

Currently, if you have an idea for a book, you either go the traditional route (sell the book to a corporate publisher) or self-publishing.  The former is harder than ever to achieve and the latter is ... the wild wild west.  We are in the middle: offering quality partners for quality ideas. 

Right now, to use Lean Startup speak, we are in "Minimum Viable Product" mode, producing books the net minds way using concierge services.  We've signed a handful of authors and built teams around them, mostly by dividing up the book's equity/royalties.  Such books include Nerve Breakers by uber-musician Mark Schulman and Finding The Next Steve Jobs by Atari founder Nolan Bushnell. 

Between now and our public launch, we are focused on acquiring high-platform projects like the above and stocking our database with editors, designers, marketers and publicists that would like to work on Net Minds projects.  If you know of any, please send them to our Partner Signup Page or share this blog post via Twitter or Facebook (below). 

It's the first startup I've believed in enough to be a founder of, and I am very excited about the quality of our team and the dent we are going to kick in the publishing business.  Over the next few months, you'll see more blog posts about the Net Minds journey, covering new topics like Publishing or Startups.  

 

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April 26, 2012

Why Lunch Is A Bad Setting For Real Business

One of worst techniques you'll pick up in business is "let's do lunch." 

It sounds like a great device for conducting business, be it a pitch or project work.  Often, your offer is accepted, after all, we have to eat!  It sounds less ominous than, "I'd like to setup a meeting to come talk to you about X."  

While it's easy to arrange, conducting real business during the meal is like running an obstacle course or conducting an orchestra with one hand tied behind your back.  Think about all the distractions: The server, the food, the cleanup, the other people eating, and so on.  It's a miracle if you can finish an entire idea without being full-on interrupted. 

There's no way to take good notes (to document what you promised to follow up on), present anything visual or to brainstorm.  Sure, you can try and use your iPad in lieu of a laptop, a slide deck or a whiteboard...but it's still sub-optimal. 

Nope, I'm changing my ways effective immediately.  Meals are no longer a venue for conducting real business for me.  Sure, I can get-to-know-someone better over a meal, say a potential employee or business partner.  But I'm not going to pitch anything or work through project details unless I'm in a professional environment...at work! 

As one seasoned movie honcho told my friend: "Don't invite me to lunch if you want to sell me something.  Set an appointment at my office to come pitch me if you really want my business!"

 

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April 16, 2012

Three compensation innovations that will change your culture

That which is compensated, is motivated.  Nothing more, nothing less.

Between my speaking and consulting, I have many opportunities to compare comp plans and the resulting corporate cultures they create.  If you want to have a strong customer service culture, for example, you'll need to aim all compensation plans at achieving it.  If you want to have a strong entrepreneurial gene in your, generously reward the risk takers.  

It's sad, though, that in sales cultures, we get stuck in the Quota/Bonus pay out trap.  By trap, I mean that most companies reward sales and management, based mostly on financial performance.  It's easy for this to lead to a weak culture (what-have-you-done-lately) that overly rewards the people that are close to the money - and marginalizes those close to the real work. 

Here are three comp plan innovations that ensure a strong sales cutlure: 

1.  The 50/50 - When you give a bonus to a sales person, structure it so she gets 50% for her self and then distributes the remaining 50% to a team mate (or several people) that was a top contributor to her success.  

2. The Net Promoter Slice - When you strucutre annual bonus, leave a big slice (say, at least 25%) for a measurable non-revenue metric.  In this case, if you want to have a strong customer focus, the Net Promoter Score is a great indicator of success.  So tie comp to it, and watch behavior change. 

3. The Company Bet - At Interface, compensation is driven in part by the company's sustainabiltiy performance. The company's Mission Zero initiative is companywide and everybody's expected (and comp'd) to contribute. Last year, Google changed compensation so that every single employee's annual bonus is impacted by the success of their social network, Google+.  This certainly increased cooperation across the company, and made the company intiative every single person's business.

One of my consulting clients made a deep investment into sales force automation, which not only streamlined their business, but likely ensured a huge gain in customer performance. After begging sales staff to enter all order information into it for over a year, they made a tweak to the commission plan: Fail to enter all your required information into SFA, and you don't get paid on the deal! That fixed things very quickly, and despite the VP Sales fear's, no one quit the company over the change.  

As you can see, there are several ways to shake up the carrot-and-stick to drive difference types of performance than...just making money for the company.  By the way, Dan Pink's latest book Drive suggests that money isn't our only motivation - so take that into account. 

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April 06, 2012

Is Your Company Culture All In?

Recognition experts Adrain Gostick & Chester Elton have pivoted from recognition to culture with their new book, All In: How The Best Managers Create A Culture Of Belief and Drive Big Results. And well they should, as today, culture is more important to your company than ever. 

Why? Transparency, the cloud and a new generation that needs a dollup of purpose with their paycheck.  Bad cultures are now a matter of JobVent record.  With the cloud, startups spring up like weeds, requiring less capital than ever.  The Millenials will bail on a bad boss, a negative group or a company they-just-don't-get. 

Think of your company culture as the operating system of the entire group.  It focuses human energy towards specific programs, gives and enforces commands and makes necessary connections or deletions.  In Gostick and Elton's view there are effective cultures and disfunctional ones.  The effective ones satisfy the customer, the talent and usually the owners.  The bad ones cause the company to sputter or shutter through ineptitude, inconsistency and negative behavior.

They decided to write the book after repeated requests by their clients to address it in their consulting work.  In working with several companies, they quickly realized that culture was one of the most important areas a CEO needed to focus on.  Bad culture = inconsistent results for everyone involved. 

So, they commissioned a massive study (300k people) with Towers Perin and validated some assumptions and uncovered 7 areas of excellence that every manager or leader could learn from. The first idea: Define Your Burning Platform is a winner in my view.  Too many managers forget about this.  Why are we doing this?

Get the why right and the group comes together organically.  Humans rally around a shared vision of value.  You can connect with what the company is doing for the world (Delivering Happiness or Mission Zero).  You can connect with what you are doing to respond to your competition (Steve Jobs loved this one).  You can even connect with what your group is doing to respond to a company edict or challenge (eg., the Don Ostler story from my 3rd book.) 

The point of this chapter is that the foundation of widespread belief is a sense of purpose.  Making money isn't enough, you must trigger a Maslovian need: Pride, Survival, Actualization.  

Pick up the book, spend a few hours learning about how to innovate your culture at work.  This is an important topic and I hope it takes market share away from the Leadership Category (which I find oversubscribed these days...a subject of next week's post here.)

 

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April 03, 2012

How To Make Someone's Life At Work

A touching thing happened on the way to my last keynote speaking gig. 

The night before, I attended the company's dinner function, which started with a retirement sendoff for Marc.  He was a long time manager and employee of the company.  As we were served food, a stream of co-workers presented their account of the difference Marc made, including funny slides and inside jokes.

Over and over again, presenters stressed how much Marc had influenced them and made a difference in their life.  At the end of the half hour ceremony, a slide collage played while "In My Life" by the Beatles played over the sound system.  Everyone, especially Marc and his wife, choked up during this touching moment.  I did too, and I don't even know him.  It was all the attention to detail, the thoughtfulness of the troupe of co-workers that organized the ceremony.  It was love.

The next day, before my talk, I congratulated him.  He replied, "I feel like my life was made last night." From a psychological standpoint, his reaction makes sense.  Abraham Maslow would call this a moment of self-actualization, the highest need we have as humans.  Marc was publicly and personally made in that his contributions were acknolwedged sincerely by people he cared about and respected. 

"You just don't see that enough these days," was a common phrase I heard at breakfast that morning.  It's been a few years since I've seen such a staged recognition event (I've attended a few heart-tuggers that Career Builder put on for their top performers - including flying in family and creating custom videos.)  Most companies likely are too busy to stop, kiss the roses, and put on the thank-you for their best.  Maybe leaders fear creating jealousy?

The value of public recognition goes beyond how it makes the recipient feel.  It shapes the culture too, teaching others that their contributions are appreciated and will be recognized.  In all these ceremonies I've attended, no one was thanked because he killed his numbers.  He was thanked because he helped and cared about his people.  

Culture is a conversation about the way things are done around here.  How's yours?  Do you regularly stage recognition events to promote gratitude and giving ?  Next time you have an event or meeting, find a reason to say thank you to a contributor and don't forget the details, the pictures and special guests to make it memorable.  Who knows, you might make someone's life. 

 

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March 22, 2012

Four Things I Learned From Eric Ries of the Lean Startup Movement

Last year, I was blown away by The Lean Startup by Eric Ries. 

It was the top read of the year for me, and the most impactful book on my business life since Good To Great.  Why? Because the Lean Methadology changes the game, whether you are a startup or a big-old-company.  

When you are Lean, you interact with customers from the get go, pivot until you find that nuts-crazy-busy product/market fit.  Then you learn how to cycle through the process faster and faster over time.  This way, you build products and processes people really want, and eliminate most of all waste from the system.  Whew.  That's the kernel of the book, basically.  

This Monday, Eric was in LA for a fireside chat at a LeanLA/StartupUCLA event.  He talked for an hour about the book, took some questions and I had a chance to meet him as well.  Here's what I learned: 

1. Failure Is A Chance To Learn - He believes that successful companies have many little failures that add up to verified learning and market intelligence.  The reason you need to have the courage to launch your 'minimum viable' product, is so you can prove your assumptions wrong (or just maybe, right!).  The longer you stay stealth, whiteboarding out the future, the longer it takes you to LEARN.

2. Conduct Scheduled Pivot-Or-Persevere Meetings - He suggested every 8 weeks for startups.  In this meeting, you analyze what is working or failing and consider making radical changes to the business.  Sounds scary, but here's his twist: If they are regular, then the employees don't freak out when you have one of these meetings! This way, between meetings, everyone is measuring what matters, in anticpation of the next Pivot-Or-Persevere summit. 

3. Culture Springs Up From Your Processes - This is a new spin of what I've always thought (culture is a conversation about how things are done around here).  His point is that we create explicit and tacit processes at work, and through repition, they create our opearting system down to the individual leader.  How we react. You can't 'create a good culture' he says, you design and manage processes with your values in mind. A strong culture ensues.

4. First, Do The Standard Work - Eric is deeply influenced by the Japanese Lean movement for manufacturing and specically by The Toyota Production system, an obsure book by Taiichi Ohno. One of the most profound points of the book is that we must understand the standard work first, before we can customize it.  Standardization is only bad when we are locked into processes in the face of adversity (pivot!).  

I could see the people in the crowd react to this viscerally.  We live in a world where no one wants to master the fundamentals, instead, they want to innovate from day one.  But what Eric points out is that the innovators of history from Miles Davis to Steve Jobs first and foremost, understood and practiced the Standard, so as to have a real foundation to build upon. 

If you haven't already, read The Lean Startup. 

Read the transcript of Eric Ries talking about Taiichi Ohno.

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March 16, 2012

The Value Of Friday Shout Outs

For leaders of all types, here's an assignment: Hand out some praise today. 

Think about how long a weekend can be for someone who feels under appreciated or over worked. It's emotional stew time, and you aren't around to defend yourself.  When Monday rolls around, your team members are not refreshed.  They are back to the grind. 

When Tom Ward was turning around Barton Protective Services in Atlanta, he employed a tactic of catching someone doing something right, then on Friday, reporting it to the company.  He realized something important: That which gets rewarded gets repeated.

Take a look around you today and make an effort to notice good work.  Effort, outcome, thoughtfulness, tenacity .... all attributes to admire.  Start with your team, fan out to adjacent groups and staff and even consider partners or customers.  When you lock in on your gratitude recipeient, remember: 

1. Be Specific! General praise doesn't ring true.  Talk about the action, the result and how you feel about it.  This will also ensure you are giving praise that others can respect. 

2. Be Generous. If it's a team effort, take the time to identify all the players. Don't let the most outspoken or popular get all the cred. 

3. Be Visual.  A cryptic atta-boy email isn't as impactful as something you can see.  We live in a Pinterest world of the picture, not the word.  

Here's an example of what Adobe gives out to MVPs.  

A culture of appreciation is a sustainable one.  Friday is a platform, an end of the grind week opportunity, for you to help create one by your example.  When you take this lead, you are fulfilling what Napoleon Bonaparte identified as the leader's role: To define reality, then give hope. 

 

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March 14, 2012

The Power Of One Audacious Person

One of my favorite speaking topics is about the power of one person. 

One person, or a small group of likeminded individuals, can accomplish anything. Likely, they have more power than mega-organizations, due to their nimbleness and ambition.  One of the greatest impacts a conference can have on an organization is to unleash this type of thinking!  Leaders then align this energy towards the mission and vision - and presto, big things happen.. 

It's not just a matter of enthusiasm.  That's necessary for the change-the-world person, but not sufficient.  This was my study focus for a few years, while writing my third book, Saving The World At Work.  There are three key ingredients that all roll up to unlimited power: 

1. Be Audacious - When Martin Luther pinned his note to the church door, he defined the concept. Ask for the seemingly impossible. Challenge the wrong headed and unjust.  Risk all by asking for all. Consider, what's the worst that can happen? 

In 1989, City Year officials asked Timberland for 50 pairs of boots for a local project in Boston. Intrigued with the program, CEO Jeffrey Swartz Jr. approved the donation. When Jeffrey visited with City Year co-founder Alan Khazei, he had no idea what he was about to be pitched. Jeffrey commended Alan on how City Year was saving and improving lives, pining that he wished Timberland could do the same. Alan pounced on this with an audacious request: "Let me show you how you can..." then he pitched a merger of sorts, where Timberland made a deep investment in City Year by giving all employees a week off annually to volunteer there.  Ever audacious Alan asked for City Year to office at Timberland, and have access to its resources: Legal, HR, etc.  

Since then, City Year's strength has increased exponentially, due to an audacious request. 

2. Be Judicious - Alan Khazei showed good judgement, striking while Swartz was waxing philosophical. That's the next ingredient - ask for the impossible very intelligently.  For Joyce Lavalle, at the time a regional director for sales at Interface, it was the key to her success.  

More than timing, she understood protocol.  If you want to ask for the impossible in order to change the world, make sure you ask the right person! Her daughter had sent her a great book on business and ecology at a time when Joyce's sales reps were telling her that Interface (a carpet company) needed to form a sustainability program to attract future clients.  

Ray Anderson, the founder and CEO of Interface, wasn't a fan of the green movement at the time. He bristled at the social-responsibility arguments that looked like cost drivers to him. But Joyce just knew that if she got this book into his hands, he'd realize it was a smart long-haul move.  She knew that if she tried to deliver it, she'd fail. He didn't know her and it would be takent wrong.

So she asked her boss, a VP back at corporate, to arrange for the book to appear on his desk.  It did, Ray read it, and Interace was transformed in less than three years into the most sustainable carpet company in history.  

3. Be Tenacious - It's going to take some time, and some serious persistance if you want to change the world.  You'll need a long term plan, and a thick skin to withstand criticism and adversity. For Louise Young, that was her secret - along with her audacity and judiciousness.  

She was a quality assurance manager at defense contractor Raytheon.  Her mission was to bring domestic partner benefits to the company; where it would acknowledge same-sex unions by offering health, club and death benefits to partners.  Imagine how hard of a sale that would be to a mostly-military executive group.  For several years, she served on the GLBT stakeholder group and built relationships with VPs from different parts of the company.  

She developed a reputation as a warrior for this cause.  She also built up a business case for it in two areas: Productivity & Recruing Talent.  In 2001, SVP at the time, Bill Swanson, invited her to speak at the company's first diversity/hr summit. There were 400 business managers in the room, and you could her a pin drop as she made her simple plea for business-sanity. (See a clip of it here).  

After the talk, she handed out cards and forged relationships.  Within a year, Raytheon stunned the business community by enacting a comprehensive domestic partner benefits program.  The Dept of Labor gave them an award for diversity and inclusion a few years later.  She combined all three of the ingredients into a winning way to accomplish what most of us would think of as impossible.

In her remarks, she quotes Margaret Mead: "Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has."

 

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