Have You Created a One Eyed Monster?

December 17, 2007

Do you have a task, or several in your business that you keep putting off? Have you stopped to think about why you keep putting it off? Is it a difficult task? I bet it isn’t.

Did you know, the business tasks you tend to put off most aren’t often the most difficult ones? They’re usually the ones you don’t want to tackle because you’re concerned about the possible outcome.

Of course, the outcome may not necessarily be bad. In fact, often the outcome of not completing the task is worse. But somehow, in the back of your mind you create a terrifying one eyed monster. It is the worst possible thing that could happen as a result of completing the task in question.

The trouble is, it’s easy to create several of these one eyed monsters in no time at all. I should know - creating them is one of my biggest weaknesses. And for this, I deserve a double dope slap, because I understand what I’m doing, and I should know better.

But the good news is, it’s easy to fell these monsters in one swoop. And the more we kill, the easier it becomes to tackle even bigger one eyed monsters. Let me show you how.

1) Look at the task you’re dreading. Then write down everything you will need to do to accomplish it. If it is a big task, break it down into smaller chunks and tackle on each day. Also, write down everything you will need to do the task and make sure you have each item to hand. It’s easy to avoid doing something if you don’t have all the necessary tools in front of you.

2) Before you begin - grab a notebook and write down the following:

What is the monster? What is the worst thing that could happen as a result of carrying out the task?

How much are you dreading carrying out the task on a scale of one to ten, with ten being the highest?

How much are you dreading the outcome once you have completed the task on a scale of one to ten, with ten being the worst possible scenario?

Then, when you’re done - write down the following:

How difficult did you actually find the task on a scale of one to ten, with ten being the highest?

How bad was the outcome on a scale of one to ten with ten being the highest?

The point to this exercise is to prove to yourself that in most cases, your fears regarding these one eyed monsters are exaggerated. Plus, next time you have a similar task to complete, instead of putting it off, you can refer to your notebook and remember that your fears were entirely unwarranted.

Posted by cathlawson | Filed Under Planning | 1 Comment

Should a Kid Be In Business - Or Is It Just For Dragons?

December 16, 2007

My daughter wants to go on Dragon’s Den to raise the capital to open a spa. Now, she’s gone on and on about wanting to open this spa for the last year or so. But, the trouble is, she only 10 years old. Yet, she doesn’t see why some of the people with truly awful business ideas should be allowed on the program instead of her.

If you’ve never watched Dragon’s Den before it’s a program where potential entrepreneurs pitch their business ideas. And a select few will receive an investment from one of the celebrity entrepreneurs in return for a huge chunk of their business.

Now, I think my daughter would give the Dragon’s a brilliant pitch. She’s done it on me, and she has some great ideas on making her spa different. Plus she says it will open in the evenings (when she’s finished school) as opposed to during the day, which will be better for her customers as they can come after work.

The trouble is, even if she does manage to get on the show, I don’t think she will be satisfied with the Dragon’s offerings. She’s already asked grandad to put up the capital, but in return, she wasn’t willing to give him more than 10% of the business.

Also, there’s the ethical issue. I know there’s a lot of young entrepreneurs out there. But, should we really be encouraging kids to set up in business when they really should be spending a few more years just being kids?

In an earlier post, I mentioned the teenager Ashley Qualls, who recently turned down an offer of $2.5 million for her business. But the business has also caused a rift between family members.

And Rosalind Gardner recently blogged about Carl Ocab, a fourteen year old who is currently number one on Google for the phrase “make money on line.”

Make money on line is a difficult phrase to get a high ranking for and it’s also an extremely lucrative one. In fact, you would expect it to take years, but Carl did it in just a few months.

Of course, age doesn’t matter on the Internet and kids tend to be more technically savvy than us adults. Plus many schools are now teaching students about business, which is great.

But, do you think kids are too young to be in business? One one hand, I feel that kids should spend more time just being kids. Yet, on the other hand, I remember too well when people were telling me I was too young to do certain things. Then, before I knew it they were telling me I was past it!

What are your thoughts (on kids in business - not on whether I’m past it or not)? Please share in the comments section below.

Posted by cathlawson | Filed Under Running a Business | 4 Comments

Don’t DaVinci Your Customers

December 15, 2007

Unlike the Davinci Code, there shouldn’t be any hidden meaning or code behind the picture you paint of your business. And there is one thing worse than a business that doesn’t do what it promised it’s customer. It’s a business that promises the customer something that it can’t possibly do.

Think about it, if you make your customers promises that you can’t possibly keep, you might get their money. But you’ll also get all the following:

1) Complaints and customers demanding refunds.
2) They’re unlikely to use you again.
3) They’ll tell all their friends you suck.
4) If you’re really bad, they may tell the whole world about it via an internet review.

The travel industry is notorious for not living up to their promises. How often have you stayed in a hotel that is better than in their promotional photos and description? I’m guessing it’s not many.

And whatever type of business you own, you can learn a lot from mistakes made by the travel industry.

a) If you use pictures to sell your product or service, make sure they at least accurately represent what you’re selling. Don’t glam the photos up to make your product look better, or the customer will feel let down as soon as they see it.

Believe it or not, many hotels touch up their pictures to make them look much better than they are. So, any customer seeing their website or glossy brochure is going to feel let down as soon as they arrive.

b) Don’t post fake reviews about your business on the Internet: Some companies post glowing reviews on the Internet, making wild claims that their business can’t possibly live up to.

For example a couple of years ago, we were spending an evening in Glasgow. We planned to go to a really nice restaurant at One Devonshire Gardens, which is one of Glasgows best hotels. It might have made sense to stay there too, but there were many glowing reviews on trip advisor recommending a boutique hotel down the road. Many reviewers claimed that the hotel was much better than Devonshire Gardens.

For us - better and cheaper was a no brainer. But, the reality was quite different to the Trip Advisor reviews.

We arrived in the dark. Looking back, if we’d arrived in the daylight, we’d probably never have gone in at all. It wasn’t even a proper hotel. There was no reception area and the corridor was in darkness. Eventually, after knocking on the door several times, we were greeted by a scruffy rastafarian, with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth. In short - the place was a total dump - we were actually scared to go to sleep.

We never got round to posting a real review on Trip Advisor - we don’t even remember the hotel name. But, you can bet that many visitors did.

c) If you’ve already made promises that you can’t keep don’t lie to your customer to cover up, as this will only annoy them more.

For example, one of my administrators made a mistake when booking a job. Instead of owning up to the customer she told them we were going to be late because the van broke down. Of course the customer discovered the truth and was furious. And after that, they did not trust anything we told them.

d) Don’t use the bait and switch technique - Many businesses will offer something for sale that doesn’t exist in attempt to lure the customer into buying a higher priced product.

For example, I was looking for a digital camera online. I found a suitable one that had immediate availability and could be delivered in two days. But a couple of days later the camera company called me to say the camera was out of stock. They could offer a better, higher priced alternative and it would be with me in 2 weeks. Well you can imagine how I felt - they’d completely wasted my time. I had to wait two extra weeks and pay more money too.

Posted by cathlawson | Filed Under Mistakes | 5 Comments

Are You A Doormat?

December 7, 2007

Are you a doormat in business? Do you let staff, suppliers and anyone else who crosses your path walk all over you? Do you spend hours trying to rationalise the behaviour of some assh..e who ripped you off, then wind up feeling sorry for them because they must have had a bad childhood?

Do you worry that you might not be suited to business, because of your wimpish ways? It’s true, you could really screw things up if you don’t change. But, the good news is, changing is v easy. Let me show you how I did it.

You see, I used to be a doormat. In fact, I spent a long time desperately trying not to be one. But, I let people get away with murder - especially members of staff. And you all know what happens when you do that - they don’t just want to commit murder anymore. They want to barbeque you and eat you too.

Here’s a couple of very similar examples - one from my doormat days, and one about the new reformed me, so you can see the dramatic change:

To give you an idea of how big a doormat I was, whilst I was still with Rainbow, one of my technicians asked if he could have compassionate leave the following day, as his wife was feeling very down, and he didn’t like to leave her alone.

The guy had only been with us for about a month, and I didn’t know anything about his wife’s mental state. So, although we were snowed under at work, I agreed to give him the time off.

As you can probably guess, I used to pay people when they were off work on compassionate leave. So you can imagine how upset I was a couple of weeks later when I discovered that they guy hadn’t stayed at home with his wife at all. He’d spent the day doing some work on the side for one of our most difficult customers, using one of my vans and my equipment.

So, what do you think I did? Well, I felt a bit cheated and I told him I was disappointed. But, he said that he honestly didn’t realise he was doing anything wrong. And I believed him. I figured that some people simply don’t know the difference between right and wrong, and they can’t help it - it’s probably down to their upbringing.

With hindsight, I was a complete sap. Anyone who can make up an horrendous lie like that and insinuate that their wife is on the verge of suicide knows exactly what they’re doing. And of course, when you let people get away with cheating you once - they’ll do it again and again.

Have you ever been in that situation and been just as big a doormat as I was? So, how do you change? Well, this was something that I took a long time to grasp, but once you get it, it’s so simple that you really can change overnight.

First, in any business - especially a start up, you need to understand that if you let anyone take advantage on you, it could really harm your business - in fact, it could ruin it. And this is something you have to keep in mind.

Now, if you’re not good at putting yourself first, it helps if you have kids. Think of it this way, if your business suffers, you might not be able to put food on your table, so your kids suffer too.

So just keep repeating this over and over again: “If I’m a doormat in business - my kids will suffer.” And make sure it’s the first thing you say to yourself whenever someone is trying to rip you off.

It may sound simplistic, but it really works. And if you don’t have kids - use someone else who’s dependent on you, whether it’s your partner, an elderly relative, or your cat.

I can promise you - it worked for me, and I’m no longer a doormat in business. In fact, recently, I found myself in a similar situation to the one I just described. But I reacted quite differently.

You see, I make it clear at interviews that I don’t tolerate people doing any plumbing work on the side whatsoever. Anyway, we recently had a job where the customer just wanted us to do the more complicated work, as her son in law was doing the rest.

But, it turned out that her son in law wasn’t doing the work at all. The woman thought it would be cheaper to pay our plumber cash to do the work on the side - using our gear of course. And we might never have known, except he pulled to bits some work that another contractor had done. So she paid him for that work, and deducted it from the other contractors payment. Well, I bet you can guess who called us to tell us what had happened.

I confronted the guy and he couldn’t see what he’d done wrong. Now, If you already have a business, you’ll probably know how much it costs to market your services to customers. In fact, often with a new customer, you’re lucky if you break even on the first job. And in the first few months of a new business, you can’t afford to pay yourself a penny, so it makes things even harder when your staff steal your work.

And this guy had only been with us for two or three weeks when he did this. Can you imagine how much he would have ripped us off if he’d stayed with us for longer?

We fired him. And I also wanted to deduct the money he’d charged the customer from his wages, but decided it could cause a legal dispute - which nobody needs, so I just decided to deduct a small amount for the use of our van and equipment.

You might think my reaction seemed harsh and you couldn’t possibly do the same. But, you can and you must. If you struggle - do the following:

1) Repeat to yourself over and over again - “This person is harming my children (elderly mother, cat, goldfish, or whatever)” and focus on that thought.

2) Don’t involve anyone else in the decision making process. For example, in the above situation, Stuart had a chat with the guy and felt sorry for him. So, when he started making excuses for the guy etc and going over the what if’s, I just politely told him that I didn’t want to know.

3) If someone has ripped you off, don’t allow yourself to feel guilty for dealing with the situation effectively. Focus on the mantra in point number one. And don’t allow yourself to think about the consequences for the other person. And, if any such thoughts do slip into your mind - remind yourself that they didn’t care about the harm they were doing your business, when they ripped you off. And they didn’t consider the consequences this might have on your children/elderly mother/cat/goldfish.

Posted by cathlawson | Filed Under Mistakes | 11 Comments