Managing the Business

Do you have a system in place to check your work before it ends up in the public eye? Too often, I find that as contractors, we get so pressed by our deadlines we do not build in the time for careful review. It is a tough lesson Peter & I keep learning over and over again.

Today, Julie and I received some great holiday gifts. We ended up rolling around on the floor laughing as we read the tags and labels that came on them.

The Dillian Sakae company had the following label attached to the jacket Julie’s dad received. The label was in Chinese with English subtitles:

.Extra softness and superior warmth provided by using imported raw materials

.Due to not spurting mucus(chemical liquid), so there isn’t any harmful affection on the human body

.A super product of the 21st century which can protect environment because of its excelent fluey, softness, warmth and reusage.

Body is feeling lightly and gently

This kind of linguistic ingenuity is beyond my ability for fiction. Do they have companies who specialize in this stuff or just some poor schmoe in their marketing department?
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This is a guest post from our friend, James. His blog was just awarded #4 in the 2007 top ten blog for writers contest. He and his business partner Harry run a company of more than 30 writers pumping out PLR articles.

“I quit.”

I pronounced the statement firmly (or as firmly as one can get over IM). It was my company, after all. I could certainly do whatever I felt like.

“You can’t quit.” Harry’s statement was just as firm, but it held a note of panic. “You need to run the business.”

I complained. Then I ranted. I eventually lapsed into what I refuse to call whining. A lot of patience and love from my business partner and I didn’t quit that day, but I wasn’t very happy. I had too much work. Those of you who have never been there, don’t scoff and envy me. This is a sucky place to be, when you can’t keep it all together no matter how hard you try. After all, shouldn’t working for yourself be a pleasant affair?
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I started climbing again today. Sitting on the ground stretching, my climbing shoes and my chalk bag at my side, I watched a few people prepare for their ascent. On goes the harness, then the rope gets looped in and tied off in some crazy fancy eight knot that should save your life as you plunge into the abyss. Your buddy checks you. Each buckle gets reviewed, your knot is inspected. Chalk bag, check. Additional cams, clips, check. You approach the wall.

“Is the Belay on?”

“Belaying”, replies your buddy, pulling snuggly on the rope to confirm tension.

“Climbing”, you state. But you don’t grab stone yet.

“Climb on.” Ok, it’s time to begin the ascent.

For a lot of beginning climbers, this routine feels ridiculous and a hindrance. Each step is choreographed, an intricate dance of preparation. That ritual of communication was truly annoying to me until I got dropped 18 feet on my ass. Turn out my buddy was busy with a different ritual, introducing himself to the belayer next to him (and a might beautiful belayer she was).

The point: if you have a business team, do you have a communication ritual? How about with your clients? Is consistent and reliable or are you about to get dropped on your ass?
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I’m taking a scuba class right now. One of the primary laws of scuba diving is, “Never hold your breath”. This is because it only takes very small variations in pressure to collapse your lungs.

I’ve been told more than once, by friends, family, and clients that I’m not responsive enough. This has always been a challenge, as my nature is to wait until i can formulate the right response. However, I rarely end up with enough time to think through the perfect answer. So I hold my breath and hope that i can get back to them soon.

The problem here is one of managing expectations. For example…

Client: Peter, could you please tell me what it would take to do XYZ?
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Ever wish you could just wiggle your nose and force those indecisive prospects to make up their mind? Perhaps help your clients stick to their game plans instead of changing things constantly? Or get your spouse to let you buy that surfboard you always wanted?

There is a powerful technique passed down from master contractor to grasshopper apprentice once a generation. This tale was shared with me a few years ago and has had a vast influence on our income. I call it the power of which-craft. Let me share a story with you about the power of the word “which”…
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Five days ago we placed a post on craigs list for a virtual office manager / administrator. Since then we have received well over a hundred responses. Many we threw away immediately, others we filed for later. Some merited an immediate response directly from my personal iPhone. So, what was the difference?

I would never have guessed before hand, but it seems like experience had very little to do with whom we chose to interview. So many people were incredibly qualified, we had to turn to other selection criteria.

When we sat down to go through the first wave, Peter & I made three piles : Delighted, Satisfied, Unsatisfied. Then we began to sort.
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The definition of insanity is to perform the exact same action over and over while expecting different results.

Plan. Do. Check. Adjust.

I’ve heard it for years. Not a brilliant revolutionary idea. It sounds kind of plain. But, in all honesty, when is that last time we did it? Are you building your business consciously and intentionally, or do you spend each and every day putting out fires at the whim of circumstance?

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July was an intense month. I was gone to Spain on business for 2 weeks (pictures soon). While I was gone, Peter was holding down the fort with a lot of new work, new clients and new team members. Some great successes and some unpleasant lessons.

The question at hand: how to manage quick growth? It’s a bit of a balancing act. Our recent conclusion (not an answer because we don’t actually know yet): you can’t grow constantly. Sometimes you need to purposefully create a short plateau so that you can regroup and organize the team to handle the next round of challenges. If you don’t, the odds are that some important things will fall through the cracks. I thought I would share a conversation with a very close friend of mine, who is also a CEO running an exploding company.

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And Why It Will Happen to You (Maybe) and You Won’t Be Surprised - Part I of II

A colleague gave me a stat yesterday, one that we’ve all heard before in one permutation or another and one that (much like the divorce rate) we’ve all pretty much just came to take for granted. Something like, “80% of Small Businesses fail inside of two years.” Now this is a very meaningful (and potentially frightful) stat for him as he, of course, is running a small business in its first couple of months.

His expression relayed that he obviously did not expect my reaction - I laughed out loud.

Now unexpected laughter is one of the biggest instigators of curiosity there is. And I love it - I’m a BIG fan of curiosity. Never enough of it in the world, if you ask me.

Hence this article.

Here I’m going to address the two most interesting (to me) reasons that Small Businesses fail. The first is easy to understand (but hard for most people to really get through their heads), so we’ll get through it quickly. The second we’re going to spend some time on, ’cause I fully believe it’s the secret to ultimately succeeding. And we all love a secret, don’t we?
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Check out this article by Andrew Neitlich on moving from an independant contractor to a business owner. He makes some solid points about the decision process (making sure you are up to the task) and then walks you through 4 business approaches/models to consider.