Business

Just the other day, I had one of those flashes of brilliance (at least I think so).  It involved crossing over out big production product (Proximity) into the service world.  Well, instantly, I felt like I hit the jackpot.  This is one of those things that really ties our entire offering together.  Now it’s not a production product and a service product.  But it can packaged as a giant service suite.  My head began swimming with the possibilities of tieing in all my utilities that I’ve been designing, and on and on…

That’s when the other side of the coin hit me.  Why the hell didn’t I think of this sooner?  I mean for crying out loud, my partner and I had even mentioned doing this multiple times in the past.  But it was always just a passing comment, “when we get time we can do this”…  you know those comments.  That’s when I felt pretty stupid.  I mean really Piehl…  this idea has been just sitting there waiting for you pluck off the ground at your feet.

So…  once I got past that 🙂  I again began to realize that idea don’t always hit us until we are ready for them.  When we’ve talked stuff like this in the past, it was already around a feature or product aspect.  It wasn’t about the big picture.  It wasn’t about providing an all encompassing offering, making our stuff even more unified…  it wasn’t about me become more invested in both sides of the house, instead of just the developer of a production tool.

So, remember, it’s ok to feel like a moron for a few minutes.  But then come back to reality.  The ideas really do come to us when we’re ready for them.  Me, I needed more marketing knowledge before I could really see this for what it was…  A perfect way to position our entire offering to everyone.  This doesn’t take anything away from the awesome tool we made to compete with MES systems.  Just the contrary.  We now have 2 totally different customer bases to market the same product to.  Like I said, in the title…  a little bit of both…  but just remember, when the idea hits, run with it right now.  Don’t waste too much time, because when that initial boost is gone, it could get shelved along with the other things to “work on when we get time”…  which is never.

Thanks for reading,

This is another one of those tips I got Perry Marshall.  When he first asked the question, it seemed obvious  I’m good at SAP, particularly Service Management and Variant Configuration.  That was easy…  but he gave us a homework assignment.  He said email 7 people that know you very well, it’s best if they’ve known you for at least 5 years.  And said, ask them 2 questions:

What is my unique capability?

What do I naturally do better than most people?

So, I did it.  Wow, was I surprised and flattered at the answers I got.  While some of my friends told me I was good at SAP, it was my friends that focused more on my general talents.  They tended to tell me things like ability to focus, drive projects to conclusion, simplify the complex, translate the function to technical.  Now, when I look back at my career, I can see all of these skills in myself.  More importantly, when I started to look at the list of things my friends said about me, in general, these are the things I really enjoy doing.

For example, I love problem solving.  I love finding clever solutions to keep things generic, but still meet the needs.  Those are also the times I find myself in a state of flow…

So, if you’re anything like me, you might take for granted what your true skills are.  More importantly, those skills are where you start to make the $1000/hr.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m good at the minor book keeping, and I’m trying my best to learn this marketing stuff.  But I also know it’s not what I’m best yet…  but, if I can take some of the things my friends told me, I might be able to apply those to new skills that will truly launch my business.  If you’re serious about taking yourself to the next level, you need to do this exercise.

Thanks for reading,

I was recently listening to Perry Marshall, and he was talking about something that really hit me.  He starting talking about delegating your workload.  And delegating sounds like a great idea in theory, but being a small business guy, I don’t have a lot of people I can delegate things too.  But when Perry started explaining that delegation can be contractors, part time people, or even just a virtual assistant that works for you an hour/day, it started to hit me that delegation is good.  That’s when he went into a better explanation of what delegation means.

A lot of people look at delegation as “here, do this for me and let me know when it’s done”.  Literally, just throw it over the wall and forget it.  This is abdication, and this is absolutely what you DO NOT want to do.  As soon as throw something over the wall, it either doesn’t get done, slips through the cracks, and can potentially cost you a lot of time and money to fix.

Now, Delegation is best described as a four step process:

1. Request – this is where you ask someone to do something for you.  Pretty straightforward.  What do you want done, how do you want it done, when do you need it by, etc.  All the details you need to do a clean hand off.

2. Negotiation – this is where the other person tells you what they can do.  This might be a later date, or less functionality.  For example, I can build you the project plan by next Friday, not Monday when you originally asked for it.  Then you have to decide if you can wait that long, or if there is an alternative (perhaps have it partially completed by Monday, or find someone else to do it).

3.  Perform the task.  This is where the other person takes the agreed upon specifications from step 2, and does the work.

4.  Accept the task.  This is by far the most important step.  this is where you need to review what was done, and determine if meets your needs, if the other people lived up to expectations, or did they delivery something half complete.  If it isn’t done right, it’s now your responsibility to get it finished, or return it back to the party that did the work, and reject it.

Now, the whole idea behind this is that you one way or another, you are still responsible for anything you delegate, and it’s still your job to verify it was done to your standards.  If you accept it, then it’s on you for anything done incorrectly.

So remember, delegation is not just handing it off and hoping for the best.  It’s still a process, and you still need to validate it was done correctly.

thanks for reading,

Continuing the discussion on the Service Notification ROI, today I wanted to talk about the maintenance plans.  At first glance, the maintenance plan is more of a feature than a benefit.  Now in marketing 101, I’ve had it beaten into my head, benefits not features…  Well, the concept of the maintenance plan actually fits both concepts…  at least if you look at it the right way.  The maintenance plan becomes a huge time saver if your business does any sort of repetitive service.  Let’s go with an example everyone can relate to, oil changes…

In the auto service industry, everyone is familiar with the idea that you should change your oil every 3000 miles or 3 months.  Well, using a maintenance plan, you could have a notification generated every 6 weeks.  The notification would be for someone to send an email or a coupon to remind the person they have an oil change coming up soon.  Now the amount of automation you build into this is up to you.  But I’d be willing to bet that if you look at your industry there is at least some repetitive tasks that you could schedule.

Now, creating a notification or service order doesn’t really take that long, neither does sending an email.  What does take time is monitoring a list, running a report, or checking a database to see who is who should be contacted, or who should be receiving a notification of upcoming service.  If you set a plan one time, then you get to “set it and forget it”.  This has multiple benefits, you get the obvious benefit of not having to babysit your marketing.  But far more important, you move into the automated marketing world of keeping yourself in your customer’s minds.  You get the chance to remind them of the value of “regular oil changes”, you get to offer them a discount if you choose, and you build a stronger relationship with your existing customers.  The stronger the relationship, the more likely your customers will talk about you to their friends…  giving you that perfect opportunity to get new customers and take care of them just as well as your existing customers.

Pretty solid ROI in my mind.

thanks for reading,

Well, if you anything like me, you often find yourself in the position of being the go-to guy/gal.  While this is initially flattering, you feel pretty good, everyone comes to you with the hard questions… you are in demand, you have job security…  all good things right???  Well, you quickly find this to become a tedious nightmare.  Why?  because everyone around you stops thinking, because they have you to do it.

I actually started venting to my wife, and she brought up some pretty valid, but annoying points.  It’s up to me to walk people through everything I do, teach them my thought process, and then write the whole thing down.  Now, if you know me at all, you know this sounds like absolute hell to me.  In my mind, this is the process, I could spend all that time training, and they probably won’t get it, so I’ll end up having to do it anyway, so….  I might as well just do it.  OR  I can do it much faster myself than training someone else, so I might as well do it.

I’m hoping you see the flaw in this logic.  Because if something ever happens again, I’m stuck doing that same tedious work.  So every time this same issues comes back, it thrown back on my plate.  Now, that doesn’t make it any easier to hand it off, and go through the training effort.  But, there is another secondary win that I often forget about.  When you teach someone else how to do it, they can often empower themselves to take the “next step” of doing something similar, using the same thought pattern.

So this post is mostly a reminder to myself of a few things.  1.  My wife is almost always right… (shhh don’t tell her), and 2.  it is worth it to train someone else so I can move onto more important tasks.  As Perry says, do that $1000/hr task, instead of the $10/hr…

Thanks for reading,

I recently read an email from my new marketing guru, Perry Marshall, and he put out a very simple question.  This question really made me stop and think.  The question was are you thinking or are you working?  Initially, it seemed like a pretty simple answer, I’m problem solving, I’m answering questions, I’m typing a blog…  of course I’m thinking…  Right???  But he then went on to explain that thinking…  real thinking, isn’t the day to day minutia that I get bogged down on.  Just because I’m using my brain, doesn’t mean I’m thinking…

Thinking is when you’re really coming up great ideas.  it could be next big application, or a way to find really qualified prospects that I never figured out before.  So, this is the real magic of the business.  Now, don’t get me wrong, the day to day thinking is required, but the more time you can spend doing the important thinking, the better your business can succeed.

Perry’s example was the great ideas he comes up with when he’s not thinking about working.  Vacation, taking a bike ride, etc…  Now what hit me is the power of this.  And it really is true.  All of my best ideas have hit me when I’m not thinking about work.  i’ve had some great ideas sitting on the airplane, or reading a book on the beach.  The problem is that I don’t spend much time away from work.  So, the blinding truth that struck me is that I don’t spend enough time away from work.  Thus, I’m spending all my brain power doing the $10/hr work, instead of the $1000/hr work that i need to be doing.

So, with all of this, are you thinking or are you working???

I’d love to hear your thoughts,
thanks for reading,

I’ve lately had a few weekends, where I’ve played solo dad with 2 kids for 3 to 4 days a stretch.  Now, this has actually reminded me of a valuable lesson.  If you want to do your best, stick with what you’re best at.  Don’t see the connection?  well, stay with me.  I used to have an infinite amount of patience.  I could deal with any person, hang out for too long in any situation, even awkward social situations, just because I saw the “potential” benefit.  When I was younger, that usually revolved around women 🙂  After a full weekend with the kids on my own, I’ve discovered, those patience have disappeared.

Now, how does this tie into business?  Very simply, taking care of the kids is not what I’m best at.  My wife on the other hand, does an incredible job.  She understand how to keep the kids occupied… me on the other hand, I’m trying, but it’s always a struggle.  when I finally get the kids to sleep, I’m exhausted.  This is no different than business situation.  When you’re doing what you’re good at, it energizes you, rather than drains you.  While you can’t stop doing everything that drains you (at least not right away), the more time you can spend doing what you’re good at, the better off your business will be.  Perry Marshall calls this doing $1000/hr work, rather than $10/hr work.  when you focus on doing what you do best, you get closer to that $1000/hr.  Anything else, is better to let someone else do, if you can…

While this obviously won’t work in homelife, you can utilize this in your professional life.  So take it from me…  stick to what you’re best as much as you can.

Thanks for reading,

I recently got a great trip from my marketing guru, and that is to “ruthlessly unsubscribe” from every email you don’t read.  You know, this is great advise.  If you’re like me, you pay way too close attention to your inbox.  Whenever I see an email come in, I compulsively have to check and see what it is.  Now, rationally, I look at this and say I shouldn’t do it…  but I can’t seem to help myself.  This makes the advise even more valuable.  Who really cares about the latest Home Depot advertisement, or what HP laptop is coming to store.  The problem is that an email is an email.  Even if I look at it for 3 seconds, then press the delete, I still burned 3 seconds, plus the time I lost taking my attention off of important tasks.

Now, even unsubscribing takes times, but happily it’s a one time event.  The idea is to get rid of every email you don’t read anyway.  This could be the coupons from Gap, or the latest blog from someone you read 6 months ago.  If you don’t read it, don’t get it.  Save yourself the effort of deleting it.  I started doing this 3 days ago, and it’s amazing how many junk emails I get that I’ve just tuned out.  So, it’s still taking some of my time, but now it’s a one time thing, rather than deleting the emails on a daily basis.  There are still some that I’ve kept…  mostly because I’m not sure if it’s worth it.  But the idea of is, if I don’t see the email, it won’t burn my time.  I consider you take this advise.  Remember, in this hectic life, every little bit helps.

Thanks for reading,

In today’s fast paced world, and constant deadlines, it can be very easy to get lost in everything you need to do.  This quickly becomes a very depressing environment to be stuck in.  I’m guilty of this quite a bit.  So, it’s important to remember how far you’ve come.  I don’t care if it’s a project, a business, or a marriage.  It can be very easy to focus on what you haven’t accomplished.  Whenever this mindset starts to get you down, I encourage you to try the following…

Write down everything you are proud of.  Pull out a notebook, and just start writing.  Enter as many things as you can.  Don’t confine it to any one area of your life.  This simple exercise forces you to look back at all of the good things you’ve done or accomplished.  For example, you can proud of overcoming your fear of heights by going up into a skyscraper, or you can be proud that you fixed those shelves in the garage on your own.  It doesn’t matter…  the whole idea is to shift your mindset to what you’ve done, because it will help remind you that you are capable of accomplishing all the things left on your list.

I encourage you to make this a regular habit.  Either just re-reading your list, or adding to it for everything you accomplished recently.  It’s important to remember that you can be just as proud of little things, as big things, and often the little things are more valuable to the people in your life.

Take it from me, I often get hung up on all the things I want/need to accomplish, so i really need to look back.  It’s a quick refreshing exercise to shift you into a positive mindset.

thanks for reading,

Well, I confess, this is all new to me, so I’m again in learning mode.  I’m just about to try my first experiment.  So I went over to Surveymonkey and created a free survey, and sent it off to a list I had in mailchimp (apparently, I have a thing for monkeys).  Now, the idea behind this isn’t to know every detail about my users, but to help me get that rough pass of who I should even be talking to.  Now, I have a decent list of people that I email from time to time, but I know very little about them, including if they might just be marketers.

The idea behind the survey is that if I can at least gage who is willing to answer the answer the survey, I can at least judge for those people if I should even leave them on the list, or if they sign up by accident.  In my mind, the best thing I can do is to cut out all the “prospects” that don’t even use SM or PP.  Why even bother sending them emails?

Now, if you’re curious, this is the survey.  As you can see, it’s pretty elementary, but it gives me that machete pass to see if I’m even talking to the right people.  If someone answers the survey and say we don’t use SM or PP or VC, well, I probably don’t have much to offer them.  On the other hand, if someone responds to me, and gives me a big laundry list of things they hate about SAP, I know they are passionate…  so, let’s see if anyone answers.  If you’re bored, take my survey 🙂  I can at least feel better if I get one answer 🙂

https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/9BD39BB

Thanks for reading,