Six Steps For Streamlining Business Success

1. Focus on results / outputs, not inputs or processes.


2. Treat co-workers / internal customers as well as external customers.


3. Focus on 80% success—not perfection.


4. Continually raise the bar on providing value to customers.


5. Focus your efforts on your best 20% of customers.


6. Use micro projects to continually test / fail / iterate new forms of value.

Credit Card Fees: Businesses Should Reward Customers, Not Punish Them

There was a recent article in the Wall Street Journal about the Supreme Court agreeing to hear a case about whether local governments can ban merchants from charging fees or surcharges to customers who use credit cards.

This debate is also occurring internationally.  For example, according to the Journal article, the European Union is banning credit card surcharges next year because they say that retailers can't discriminate based on payment method.

However, I think that focusing on the legal issues is missing the larger picture.  From a customer service and innovation perspective, charging customers for using credit cards is a mistake.

Credit and debit payments are the future – whether they are done with "cards", chips, watches, or phones.  Charging an extra fee for the dominate and most convenient payment format will simply drive customers to the competition.

What are some alternatives for merchants?

1. Accept the fee as a cost of business.  Instead, focus your efforts on encouraging your customers to spend more money per transaction.

2. Raise your fees across the board, and offer a discount if customers pay with cash.

3. Offer some other perk (besides discounting) if customers pay with cash.

Never think of punishing a customer, especially when he is actually trying to buy something from you.  Buying should always be a rewarding and hassle-free experience.

DNP (Declining - Not Permitted Technology)

I have worked with several financial services clients, including banks, insurance companies, and trading firms. One of their most vexing issues was dealing with DNP (declining - not permitted technology).  This is technology used in older but critical applications that, while once state of the art, are now considered dangerous because vendors no longer support it and/or have very few employees knowledgable to work on it.

While the application is fully functional and does its job, the DNP technology is frequently core to the application, meaning that the IT staff are not allowed to do any maintenance on it, for fear that the application might not even reboot.

Also, having an application with one piece of DNP technology frequently causes a spiraling effect that results in using other outdated technology.  For example, one banking client of mine had a bulk FX currency application that used an old EJB server that was DNP.  Because the vendor stopped upgrading this server years ago, the server could only connect to Oracle databases using older driver versions that Oracle no longer supported, thus leading to more risk. 

One of the strategic challenges that I have worked on is to decide whether to completely replace the application or if the application can be ported to non-DNP technology.

In different cases, I have recommended both options.  A big determinant is how well the application was developed.  If the developers followed best design principles and standardizations, then it should be possible to swap out the DNP technology.

Frequently, however, the DNP technology was implemented when the technology was "bleeding edge" - before standards were developed.  In those cases, the application interfaces with the DNP technology using customized programming, making it messy to port.

My Breakfast Talk: Turning A Potential Negative into a Positive

This morning, I gave a breakfast talk at my local chamber of commerce. 

It went great, but it could have been in crisis before it started!

Last night, they sent an email saying that the normal conference room they use for talks (which was large, and had an overhead projector / screen for Powerpoint) was severely damaged by a water leak, so they had to move the event to a much smaller conference room.

It meant no projector and, instead of everyone seated comfortably in a large room, they were crammed tightly around a table that took up most of a tiny room.

Instead of panicking, I turned the situation into a strength. I didn't use Powerpoint. Instead, I just talking with them.

I had access to the backgrounds of the business owners, so I used them in my examples. They stopped and paid attention.

It also started a discussion. I ended up only talking for 1/2 the time, and they talked with each other, on my topic (strategic innovation), the info I gave, and their situations.

At the end, they were energized, and I had at least one person interested in doing business with me. A lawyer with an independent practice said he had a corporation as a client who could use my help.

Info World Article: 7 deadly career mistakes developers make

I was quoted in a recent Info World Article:

http://www.infoworld.com/article/3069558/application-development/7-deadly-career-mistakes-developers-make.html

Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) For Innovation

Most of the common KPIs that executives typically look at are good for measuring the financial performance of their organizations.

But, what are some useful KPIs for measuring innovation?

Here are 2 of them:

1. What percentage (%) of revenue / profits are derived from products / services that are less than X years old?

2. Your average sales price (per unit)?

You want both of these metrics to be increasing.

The first KPI helps you track how successful your organization is at creating new products and services that your customers actually value and want to buy.

The second KPI will tell you if your pricing power is increasing (By making it per unit, you discount the effects of customers buying in greater volume).  An increasing average unit price indicates that your customers are receiving (and paying for) increased value, and don't regard your products  / services as a commodity.

Hotel Pillow Origami: Restoring Control Outside Your Comfort Zone

I'm currently in Rhode Island on business and just woke up after my first night in the hotel.

I had a pleasant night's sleep because I took the time to engage in "hotel pillow origami", where I used trial and error, and creativity, to rearrange the pillows into a formation that supported my head, neck, and back.

I'm sure that most experienced business travelers can identify: every hotel room has different beds and a unique assortment of pillows.  Not taking control and finding the right pillow foundation can literally be a pain in the neck.

Taking control in this way shouldn't just be limited to travel and hotel beds.  In business, our careers, and our lives, there are many times we end up outside our comfort zones. In fact, we should want this to happen, because that is where growth and advancement happen.

But, there is no rule that says we have to endure maximum discomfort in these situations.  In fact, I'd argue that the ultimate personal growth happens when we rise to the challenge of uncomfortable change and adapt it to us, rather than just passively accept  new situations.

Reimagining A Commodity

You're a Wisconsin dairy at a time when milk, a commodity, is at historically low prices.  Many mom and pop farmers are struggling.

What do you do?

If you are 1871 Dairy, you copy the microbrewery trend, and become a micro dairy. They first started by providing fresh, organic, grass-fed milk to high-end Chicago restaurants.

Now, they are opening a micro dairy, where they will build a small milk processing plant in downtown Chicago, far away from the actual Wisconsin farms.

They will offer small-batch, exotic flavored milks, creams, yogurts, etc. such as adding blackberry-basil or banana-almond butter to fresh milk.

In this way, they have added value, and elevated milk from a commodity to a unique, premium  product for which they can charge more.

Are there creative twists that you can add to pain-vanilla portions of your business, to create awesome value for your customers, which will inspire and delight them?

Zoinks! What About The Customer, Scooby Doo?

Last night, my younger son got a Scooby Doo pirate play set - complete with action figures, a pirate castle, and a canon that actually fires a plastic missile!

He was all excited and, as soon as he woke up this morning, wanted to play with it.

Before he could however, one major struggle soon presented itself - opening the set!

It ended up taking me over 10 minutes to open the box (let along put the thing together). First, I had to open the outer box. Then, I had to pull out the whole set, which was tied down with 7 pieces of wire and screwed to a base using 3 screws. I had to get my tool box!

Then, all the action figures were sealed in a solid layer of thick plastic that could probably stop bullets. I had to press down with a heavy-duty pair of scissors to open it up.

Then, I had to pull out the figures through the plastic opening without its sharp edges severing my wrist.

Why do all the toy makers do this?

Why do they make all their packaging customer-unfriendly?

1. It complicates their logistics.

2. It adds unnecessary cost.

3. It annoys the heck out of your customers.

It's About The Client's Success, Not Your Ego

I just completed a high level design of a new software process for a client.  

But today I found out that the client's system already has a feature that can do what they want - it just has to be turned on and configured.  They didn't know it was there. It would save them hours of implementation, not to mention that the feature is already tested.

So I told them that my design is ready, but also told them about this other software and recommended that they go with that solution.  I have no issue with my design not being used.

I've worked with people whose egos would be hurt if their "baby" wasn't used, but I've never had any qualms about discarding my hard work if better ways present themselves.

 I KNOW I'm good, so I don't need the validation.  I know the client will be more impressed because they are getting great value from me.

Holistic Marketing and Social Media

In today's era of social media, marketing is now holistic throughout your firm.  All your employees - no matter what their job titles are - serve as de facto marketers.

A helpful sales clerk could get praised on Facebook, while a rude waiter experience might result in a Twitter rant.

Your company needs to take advantage of this - especially since we are in an age of information overload.  Traditional ads are no longer effective and even potentially useful content (such as blog posts and articles) is frequently ignored.

To turn your employees into actual marketers, they must become producers/innovators and promote by creating actual products and services that give value.

For example, as part of its marketing, a restaurant could get their chef to demonstrate simple recipes on its You Tube channel.  Then, they could expand on this by getting him/her to offer weekly cooking classes, for a nominal fee, at a time when the restaurant is closed or business is slow.  The classes could be promoted in the restaurant and online.

Business Synergy and Why Value Creation is Abundant

The best way to grow and market your business is to continually innovate and add value for your customers.

One way to do this is through collaboration.  A lot of innovation and value creation happen at intersections - between products, disciplines, and services.

I saw a reminder about this today when I read how Dunkin Donuts and Mondelez have created Oreo and Chips Ahoy based Coolata coffee drinks, and donuts.

Collaborations and synergy opportunities like this are endless - which shows abundance, because value can be created out of thin air, simply by combining things which already exist.

Always Keep Things Simple

If there is one rule for success, I believe it's "keep things simple." 

I know that, ironically, this advice sounds, well, simple. But, don't underestimate how hard it is to follow.

Human nature is such that we have an urge to complicate things. We think it shows off our abilities, sophistication, and intelligence. We hide behind complexity to mask our insecurities. We think that if we only do the simple stuff, we are "naked" - there is nothing special to distinguish us and we are replaceable.

The truth is we are replaceable no matter what we do. Employees, businesses, suppliers, vendors, etc. - they can all get replaced by their competition. But, if you keep things simple, and succeed, and give a delightful experience to your customer (everyone has a customer), you have a better chance to stick around.

Simplicity, success, and customer delight go together because, when you keep things simple, they tend to be robust - less goes wrong, and there is less to maintain and less to breakdown. Simplicity leads to accuracy, reliability, and lots of "up time".

Walt Disney: "Plus It!"

I read that Walt Disney always liked his "imagineers" to keep pushing the envelope - increasing the value they generate.

Whenever they would do or create something, he would always exhort them to "Plus it!"

One story is that, after Disneyland opened,  Disney wanted to spend $350,000 to create a Christmas parade on Mainstreet.  His accountant objected, saying that customers will already be in the park and won't be expecting it.

Disney replied that that was the reason they should do it (it wasn't expected).

Especially in this age of global competition and attention scarcity, how are you pushing beyond the expected to shower your customers and prospects with value?

Give Enough Value That They Can't Ignore You

The art of marketing can be boiled down to one sentence:

Give Enough Value That They Can't Ignore You

Today we are no longer in the "Information Age."  We have a glut of information.  There are tons of books, blogs, websites, etc. out there, and more added every day.  Information is no longer a valuable commodity in short supply.

Instead, we are in the "Attention Age."    Attention is the new scarce resource.  With our limited time and capacity, how can we choose and organize information to meet our needs?

If you are trying to market and sell something, it is very easy to be lost in the noise.  People have to filter tremendous amounts of data, quickly.  Unless you have something valuable to offer them, they won't give you any attention.

People don't want to hear your sales message, or even an "informercial" that is 30% info and 70% pitch.  Instead, you need to give them valuable content they can put to use - no strings attached.  Then, you build credibility and can hopefully build a relationship with people so they think of you when they need your product or service.