The 8020Info Water Cooler

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The 8020Info Water Cooler
Issue #96 - Vol. 6 No. 16
20 November, 2006

1. How An Advisory Board Can Help Your Business

Advisory boards are becoming more common for small businesses, as entrepreneurs reach out to appoint a team of advisors from experts, mentors, and other small business owners they know. "A Board of Advisors can do more to make your business grow than any other comparable expenditure," advises consultant Anita Campbell, on Smallbiztrends.com. She says the reasons to have one are:

Expertise you can't buy: Advisory boards typically bring a combination of skill sets that are totally out of reach for most small businesses. And you don't have to wait for a meeting to access it: Good advice is just a telephone call away.

Business contacts when you need them: If you choose board members with diverse backgrounds, their Rolodexes can become one of your most valuable assets.

The benefit of a board of directors without the hassles: You reap the benefit of the advice a board of directors provides, without all the formalities, expenses, and loss of control.

Simple and inexpensive to set up: They can be as informal as a breakfast meeting twice a year or a working meeting once a quarter. Often the advisors will work without compensation, but you might offer a modest fee. However, to get the most from your advisors, you want to ensure they regularly receive information about your business, and clearly understand their roles.

A personal sounding board and mentoring: An advisory board can help you to deal with weighty issues, offering support and guidance as your business evolves.

2. Don't Rush To Change -- Talk About It First Top

Change efforts often fail. One way to improve your odds is to openly talk with employees before and during your change program. "Good conversations about change in the workplace are the best protection against the natural feelings of insecurity that employees feel when establishing a new work pattern," Amita Tandukar reports in Business Review Weekly.

The groundwork should begin by discussing these issues:

"What would you do?" Find out from employees how they would manage the change process. The input gives them a greater sense of involvement and should offer useful ideas.

"What do you think might change?" Listen to their fears.

"What's in it for you?" Help them to see the benefits the change promises them.

"What do you know about the organization's effectiveness?" Be transparent about financial results to gain trust and help them to understand why the change is needed.

"Who has the final decision?" Remind employees that you carry the ultimate responsibility for the final strategy and results.

After the change has started, make sure to follow up with these queries, at regular intervals:

"Do you think the strategy is on track?"

"Did anything surprise you during the change process?"

3. Keeping Customers Happy Starts Early    Top

Keeping your customers happy after the all-important first purchase, so they might remain continuing clients, begins before the purchase, Inc. columnist Norm Brodsky notes. For instance, find out how long the customer waits to pay its bills. If not, friction could occur when you are assuming the new corporate client will pay within 30 days and its accounting people are figuring they will pay in 90 days, as with other suppliers. The relationship can go downhill from there.

Beyond that, show your intention early to do whatever is necessary to ensure that the customer will be happy after the sale. Brodsky's own records storage company was recently the only competitor for a law firm's business, and yet he asked to visit that firm's offices. "What if we don't select you?" asked the firm's manager. "Then we'll have spent a day with some nice people," replied Brodsky. In the end, that visit -- and the promise it offered of better care -- won the client.

4. New Ideas: Look For The Worst Solution    Top

Most brainstorming and idea generation focuses on finding the best idea. But in Shake That Brain, consultant Joel Saltzman suggests finding the worst idea possible, and then tweaking it so that it will work. He cites the creative think tank hired to promote the wearing of summer-weight wool clothing. The worst way to promote it, they decided, was to let a bunch of sheep loose in New York's Central Park. Playing with that notion they developed a winner: Some models wearing summer-weight wool clothing walking sheep on leashes down Madison Avenue.

Sometimes it can be tough to find the worst idea possible, but keep trying and vote to select the worst alternative. Once that loser is selected, tweak it into greatness. "It may sound like a magic act but it works every time," he says.

5. Zingers    Top

As a 29-year-old unexpectedly promoted to captain of his ship, Gordon Houston, who today is CEO of the Port of Vancouver, recalls being plagued with doubts until a mentor told him: "Trust the team. A ship's captain cannot know every job on board and it must run as an efficient and effective team. Lives depend on that simple fact."
(Source: BC Business)

Winning in business, as in many sports, requires you to be a little better than your competitors at a few key things. Start a list of the things you can do better, and amaze your customers.
(Source: The Donald Cooper Corporation Newsletter)

Canada's small- and medium-sized businesses are experiencing much faster productivity gains than their larger peers. From 2000 to 2005, they increased their productivity by annual growth rates of between 2.5 and 3 per cent whereas bigger competitors increased productivity by only 0.5 per cent per year.
(Source: RBC Economics)

When you hire a new employee, on the first day of work send flowers and a note to that person's family, welcoming them to the company.
(Source: Business 2.0)

If a competitor cuts prices and you don't want to follow suit, ask your team how you can add more value and hold your price instead. They will surprise you with their ideas, and then be committed to implementation.
(Source: The StreetSmart Marketer)

6. Q & A with 8020Info    Top

Question: Should we consider starting a blog for our organization?

8020Info Consultant Harvey Schachter responds:

No -- and Yes.

No, you probably shouldn't consider a blog, as currently defined. Blogs seem to be the province of a limited number of companies, primarily sole entrepreneurs or consultants who do a lot of networking and peddle ideas. Besides, blogs aren't associated with high value in the public's mind. The blogosphere is inundated with junk -- self-satisfied junk -- written by people who too often have more opinions than smarts. Obviously there are exceptions -- there is also some fine, intelligent reading on the blogosphere -- but why be associated in your customers' minds with low-class, ranting and raving?

But the idea of a business blog remains compelling. Most businesspeople, after all, would die for a channel where they could talk to all of their customers, or at least many of them at once, sharing the latest news about the company and ideas for helping those customers. So if you have a web site, create a channel on it to start a dialogue. Find a different name for it than blog -- we're already using Water Cooler, so that's out -- but keep it as a place where you can occasionally send messages to those interested customers and prospects, and hear their ideas.

The name should set it apart from most blogs and fit with your site, perhaps something like From The CEO's Desk or Speaking Personally or The Latest Buzz. That approach positions your channel somewhere between a news centre section found on many web sites and a blog. Because it's not a blog, there is no compulsion (or expectation) to write every day. Perhaps once every second or third week you'll have something useful to share. Consider setting up an RSS feed, so those interested are alerted when you post something.

Keep it personal and informal, but informative and useful: Reinvent the blog for your business purposes.

7. News From Our Water Cooler    Top

At 8020Info it has been a busy fall providing facilitation services for workshops, focus groups and public consultation sessions. In fact, by the end of the month we will have completed more than 50 assignments of that type since Labour Day! Many of these projects were strategic planning workshops, as boards and management teams revisit their missions and visions and develop new directions for their organizations. Most were focus groups or public consultation sessions to gather feedback from customers, clients, or community residents.

8020Info would be pleased to discuss your research needs and/or requirements to develop new directions and focus. We welcome your enquiries at (613) 542-8020, or by email at contactus@8020info.com.

8. Closing Thought    Top

"Everyone is a crank until their wild scheme actually works out."
-- Mark Twain