Testimonials

Among my many pet peeves in the world of business is the use of “testimonials” to reinforce an advertisers message.  I can only assume that there have been studies that show that the use of such referrals as “Dave P.:  I love this product” actually increases the likelihood that someone will buy, though I find it difficult to believe.

Or, “Ed from Rapid City, SD says, I was about  to die and then I took the little green pills.  Now, I’m a marathon runner”.  Oh come on; really?  “Ed from Rapid City”?  I can make up names, places and wonderful things to say about products, too.  Why would anyone even post such things?

Do you really believe that “David P.” or “Jim from Des Moines” is real?  Does that really reinforce a message?  Maybe because they drop that stuff at the end of the infomercial or print ad, they figure that there’s momentum.  That you’ve already read everything else about the product and are steadily moving forward, so you’ll see the testimonials and not even stop to question their validity.

A friend approached me recently and asked me to critique his web site.  I looked over the grammar, made some suggestions regarding what he was trying to say, and then got to the testimonials.  Again, first name, last initial.  Where is the validity in that?  What are you trying to say?

What I suggested, as an alternative, was to simply post scenarios of the situations of the people that he’d helped.  Rather than, “Sandra M. from Florissant says…”, say, “we had a female client (I use the gender to appeal to that gender) in Florissant who had gone through a divorce, etc, and and that caused this to happen, and here is what we were able to do for her.”

I can’t relate to people I’ve never heard of extolling the virtues of a product.  Are they saying that it’s okay to call them on the phone and ask them to verify their endorsement?  I’ve never cared enough to try, but one day I might just call the advertiser and ask for an actual phone number of the endorser.  I don’t want their email address, because you never really know who’s emailing, but a phone number I may be able to look up for verification.

If they won’t allow me to verify, what’s the point of even saying it?  There is absolutely no validity to something like that.  I could add the very same things to my web site.  “Jonathan L. from St. Charles says, Dan’s been like a Godsend to my business.  He’s helped every aspect of my company to perform better.”  Would anybody be impressed by that?  I don’t know; maybe.  Perhaps I should try it and see.   What if someone wants to speak to Jonathan L. and verify his claims?

“Well, due to the nature of what I do, all of my client names are confidential (I really do consider that to be the case), but I guess I could take your name and contact information and have Jonathan contact you.”  Then I’d have to find someone to be Jonathan, and call from non-displaying number, etc.  Seems like a lot of effort, and for what?

I think it’s better to put scenarios on the ad.  Here was the problem and here’s how we solved it.  Low income; raised prices and increased profits.  Needed to expand but no time; built a new location, stocked it and implemented a marketing campaign.

Hey, that sounds like a great idea.  I think I’ll try it myself!

What does your credit score really mean?

Having been in the mortgage business, I am acutely aware of what one’s credit report means to that person; to society in general.

In St. Louis, everyone, of course, asks you what high school you went to.  Why?  Because the way St. Louis is laid out, knowing what geographic area one comes from allows locals to make certain assumptions about that person, their upbringing, their socioeconomic status (at least when they were in school).  In that same vein, one’s credit report allows or causes others to make assumptions about you.

A low score tells the credit industry that you don’t pay your bills on time, or that you owe a lot of people a lot of money, or the opposite.  Credit reports do not reflect your income or financial value.  The reporting bureaus have no idea how much you earn or the size if your investment portfolio.

But think about the assumptions.  Like the person that may have gone to school in a less-affluent district, but went college and became an affluent professional, or started a business and became a wealthy entrepreneur.  All we know, at first, is where you came from, not where you are.  Likewise with a credit report, all we know is where you are, not where you came from.  We have no idea how you came to be in this position.

I once worked with a married couple, both attorneys, both very successful, both very busy.  For awhile, each thought the other was handling bill-paying, and neither was.  So, despite a low loan-to-value of their mortgage, and an almost $400,000 annual, combined income, they had low credit scores.  That tells me, legitimately, that they didn’t pay their bills on time.  Does it make them a bad credit risk?  I would argue that it does not.

I worked with another couple that had had excellent credit.  They had dual incomes, a mortgage, a couple of car payments, a couple of credit cards that they paid off, in full, every month.  Let’s say a 10-year, positive credit history.  Then he got laid off.  He was unemployed for about a year.  Then he got a job and is, once again, paying all of his bills on time.  An excellent credit risk, right?  Not today.

You see, when he had insufficient funds to pay his bills on time, but oddly, still had to live, he generated late payments.  Not one creditor ever lost a penny on him.  In fact, because he was late with payments, the creditors actually made MORE money from him in the form of late fees.

Let’s not even go to the extreme that he lost his home to foreclosure and must now live an “all cash” existence.  Sadly, that has become more and more common, but even not hitting that low, you can see where this is going.

I know you’re all shaking your heads.  The correct answer is, “no”, because his credit score took a beating during the time when he was unable to pay his bills on time.  So now, after an exemplary 10-year credit history, and due to circumstances that don’t show up on his credit report, his PRESENT circumstance is that of a poor risk due to THE YEAR that he had diminished income.  Did he stiff any creditors?  No.  Did he fail to make any payments?  Nope.  But because he made payments late, because he didn’t have the money, but now has the money and will, once again, pay on time, he will be made to suffer, financially.

Lord help him if he needs to borrow money for any reason now, and for the next three years, probably.

The opposite extreme is a problem as well.  What if you’re one of those throwbacks to an earlier day and pay everything in cash?  You can proudly proclaim that you don’t owe money to anyone and never have.  Maybe you even had some great deal on your home whereby you never had a reported mortgage.  You’re in great shape for credit now, right?  Nope.  All the credit bureaus know about you is that they know nothing about you.

I used to counsel my mortgage clients to obtain at least one credit card, charge nothing but gasoline on it, and pay the balance off in full, every month.  I would also tell them to pay rent with a check or money order.  Something verifiable, then come see me in a year with their established credit history.

So what does your credit report really say?  That today, and for the past couple of years, here’s who you have been.  Who are you now?  Who will you be tomorrow?  Unfortunately, that’s not something that can be seen, much less verified.

I am certainly not suggesting that you can go back in time and change anything that happened.  If you could have not lost your job, you would have done everything you could, I’m simply telling you what it says about you.  But don’t just take it lying down.  There may be things you can do to improve your credit score now.  There are many laws relating to credit reporting and a lot of them are not being followed.  Utilize that to your advantage.  I am aware of a requirement that collection agencies have to be able to prove the debt that they are collecting, and that sometimes, paperwork gets lost in the shuffle, so ask them to show you proof of the obligation or remove it from your report.  Look, I’m not telling anyone to do anything unethical, but you had excellent credit when you had a job, and now you have a job again.  Should you be punished?

Be aggressive; be assertive. Take control.  It’s your life!

Good manners

While I might not necessarily agree with the Facebook poster who stood at a gas station waiting for a “gentleman” to open the door; I think that’s game-playing, I do agree that chivalry had better not be dead.  Okay, unless it’s part of the interview process, just standing there waiting seems like a waste of time, but even if it is part of that process, that may not be the best way.

Manners should be a no-brainer.  Courtesy should be force-of-habit.  Just because you’re on the freakin’ cell phone doesn’t relieve you of the responsibility to drive safely, or signal, or not do things that endanger others.  Sure, I totally understand how absolutely essential it is for you to have that discussion at that particular time.   You’re busy; you’re important.  I get that.

If you are both that busy and that important, then you’re probably affluent enough to afford a good Bluetooth headset.  Use it.  No, it’s not going to help you REMEMBER to signal, but it will at least allow you to have both hands on the steering wheel just in case you decide to.

At meetings, I see lots of people park their iPhone or Blackberry on the table as they sit down.  Is that, too, a signal that you are busy and important?  Does it maybe tell the other person that either they are less important than whomever might call on your phone, or maybe that you haven’t decided yet?  Does it mean that you really have nowhere else to store your phone?  That you hold it in your hand whenever you’re on the move?

Or is it that you want people to know that you have the latest gadget, because that’s indicative of success?  I leave my phone on vibrate, in the holster.  I might glance down at it if it goes off, and I try to resist the urge, but I never answer it.  If you glance down, you’re just checking for an emergency call/text.  I understand that, but if you answer the call, the caller just became more important than the person you’re sitting with.  Really?

Sometimes they are.  Then what?  Do you take the call at the table or do you get up?  Since I don’t take non-emergency calls when I’m meeting with someone, I’m not sure.  If was an emergency, I’d probably sit there and talk.  I did have a client that kept calling me while I was in a meeting, once.  I finally excused myself and sent her a pre-stored text saying, “in a meeting…urgent?”  I apologized and resumed the meeting.

I tell my family and clients, if it’s urgent; text.  That way, I can see the urgent matter without having to take a phone call.  I realize that it’s a fine distinction, and maybe that’s not the right answer either.  Perhaps the right answer is to pretend that you’re meeting with a client that’s about to buy/sign/commit/whatever.  Would you bring a halt to the sales process to answer the phone?  I hope not.  If you’ve got the momentum going to close the sale and you stop, maybe you’ve just broken the mood by telling the client that his business is not so important to you after all.

Good manners definitely include holding the door; for men or women.  That woman you just held the door for, guys, might be your next client/customer/boss.  That older man who was having trouble with the door that you helped might own the company.  So might that nerdy 20-something that you helped by picking up stuff he was dropping.

Good manners might mean the consideration that whatever it is you’re doing, actually might not be as important as what the next guy is going, so maybe he really does need to be next in line, get the closer parking space (would it kill you to walk?), put his order in first.  Courtesy is NEVER the wrong thing to do.  Even if the other person doesn’t deserve it.  You just made yourself the better person by being courteous.

“Please”, “thank-you”, holding the door, sending a follow-up note/email/whatever; these things should all be common sense, and should not be the exception, but the norm.

Well, now you know how old I am.

Back to basics

With a tip of my hat to Fred Miller of Master Mind Mapper, who reminded me that I’ve had this blog in semi-completed state for weeks, let’s talk about the basics of manners in general, and in business in particular.

Someone once asked me, back when I was in sales, if there was any one thing that I felt I did better than my competitors.  Of course first one must admit that one has competitors, which of course none of us do, but my response was, “I return phone calls”.  I could have generalized it to, “I show up”.

Okay, admittedly there have, in my life, been calls that I have not returned, primarily those from solicitors wishing to sell me something that I was not interested in, but the ones from even a sales professional wishing to simply speak with me, I return.  I’ve been on the other end of the phone.

I’ve been in sales for a long time, and I know how frustrating it is trying to get that prospect to simply say “no”.  It’s no fun being ignored, and frankly, it’s rude.  It doesn’t give people the impression that you’re terribly important and far too busy to condescend to speak with them.  It just gives the impression that you lack manners, and might possibly simply be pompous.  Just a thought.

Return the call, say, “Thanks for thinking of me but I’m not interested,” and you’re done.  Now, if you can’t get them off the phone, that’s another story, but at least you’ve been the professional here and have done your part.

Next comes following through.  I heard a friend speak before a group recently about just this topic and was surprised and amused to hear him cite himself as an example of one who did not follow through.  I had to smile (I hope he didn’t notice) because what he said about himself was exactly what I had been thinking.  That he’d offered to make several connections for me, or provide me with information, and never did.  Like I said, I consider him a friend, and believe him to be very competent in what he does, and if it had been that important to me, I’d have followed through with him, but it must not have been.

Next is appointments.  I can feel all of you sales professionals out there nodding (well, the two of you that might actually be reading my blog) and recalling the times you’ve been stood up, and by the term “stood up” I only refer to when you’re waiting for someone who does not call to say they won’t be there, and doesn’t show up.  I still can’t believe that anyone would act that way, but it happens.  In my personal opinion, the only excuse for ever standing someone up would be an actual emergency, involving a damaged human body.  Otherwise, if you’re in business you have a cell phone.  That’s the reality.  I (almost) always remember to enter the cell number of the person I am going to meet that day, just in case I’m stuck in traffic or in an accident and can’t make the meeting.  Simply changing your mind and not showing up is a cowardly way to tell someone that you’re not interested.  Just grab your balls and tell them, “no thanks”.  Sure they’ll be disappointed, but people will have more respect for you if you’re up-front and honest with them.  Believe me; it will help you in the long run.  Especially if you live in a smaller city like St. Louis, where everyone knows everyone.

Once you’ve made the appointment, confirm it.  Not only will it save you time and frustration, but it gives the other party a reminder, and a chance to get out of the meeting gracefully.  It beats being stood up, and keeps the door open for future opportunities.  It is, hopefully, embarrassing to speak with someone you’ve just stood up.  It’s certainly cool to let your customers and clients know that your time is important, too, but the priority should always be to accommodate the customer, even if they’re not always right.

Now that you’ve decided to actually attend the meeting, be early.  One school of thought, that I subscribe to, is that if you’re not 5 minutes early, you’re late.  Being early shows that you respect the other person’s time enough to be ready to have the meeting at the appointed time, and if you have an agenda, stick to it (although for a medical appointment, I might actually show up earlier, since they don’t actually take patients based on the appointment time, but rather whomever is next on the sign-in sheet).  Being late does not give the impression that you are just so busy you can’t keep up.  It gives the impression that you’re not organized, or that you’re not considerate/professional enough to call to say you’ll be late.

Sure, you want to be friendly and start the meeting out with the proper civilities, but get down to business quickly.  I often ask the other party what they’re schedule is, so we both know how much time we have.  It’s not at all improper to have meetings scheduled back-to-back, just let the other people know at the onset what your time constraints are.  They may even be relieved to hear that there is an approximate end to the meeting.  That way, you maximize everyone’s time and all goals are achieved.  If you’re not done when you have to go, schedule a follow-up meeting.  For one thing, it will help each gauge the interest level of the others.

It is never improper to exercise good manners.  Never!  It is never inappropriate to thank someone for any help they’ve offered.  That’s how you get more.  If someone sends you a referral.  At the very minimum, you owe them a call, an email, or an actual, written note, thanking them for the consideration that they’ve shown by helping you.  Particularly if you can thank them in a public forum like a networking group.  Believe it or not, it should be flattering to receive a referral, because that means that someone out there actually believes you to be competent enough to be able to solve someone elses’ problems.  What a great feeling that is!  Especially if the referral becomes a client, send something of value to the referror, like a gift certificate to a restaurant. Everyone eats.

Then you need to follow-up with at least one progress report to the referror as to how things went.  Did you meet with the referral?  How did it go?  No need to give a detailed analysis of the situation, just let the person know if you will be able to help their referral, who may very well be their client or friend.  That’s all.  Everyone needs to be appreciated.

Cell phones:  OMG!!  Turn it off during meetings, or at least to vibrate.  Okay, if you’re waiting on a medical update about a loved one, or an emergency call from the baby-sitter or daycare, check it and apologize.  If you take the call during a meeting, this tells the other party(s) that they are less important to you than whomever is on the other end of the phone.  Are they?  This I heard from an H/R professional.  If you’re in a job interview, for example, and you receive a phone call or text message, AND YOU ANSWER IT, that tells the interviewer that you are really not interested in the job.  One told me that he sat there, quietly and politely while the candidate said, “Excuse me, I have to take this.”  After the conversation ended and the candidate looked up, the interviewer asked, “Is everything all right?”  The candidate replied that it was.  The interviewer said, “Good.  Well, we’re done here.  Thank you for coming in.”  As the interview had only begun shortly prior to the phone call, the candidate was confused by the sudden turn of events and replied, “Is something wrong?  We really didn’t get into my qualifications for the position.”  To which the interviewer responded, “I believe I know everything that I care to about you.  Good-bye.”

There is never an excuse for rudeness.  That candidate already told the interviewer how the job was prioritized in his mind.  If you want the job, sale, relationship; what’s happening today, right now, has to be the priority.

If you’re out in public and you want everyone to know how busy and important you are, by all means not only answer your phone, but make outgoing calls and remember to speak loudly.  That’s the only way everyone else can hear what you do and all about the big deals that you’re making.

The bottom line is that common sense should prevail.  How do you want to be perceived and treated?  Like a professional or not?  Return the phone call, thank people for referrals, go to the meeting (or cancel it) and be early, let your referror know that the meeting happened, and thank them again for their consideration.  It just makes sense!

Dealing with professionals

I strive to always treat professionals like professionals.

For example, I don’t go to my doctor and tell him what is wrong with me; what disease I have.  Rather, I tell him what my symptoms are and leave it to him to make the correct diagnosis.

Likewise, when my roof was leaking last fall, I brought in a roofing professional that I had met at a networking meeting, and presented him with the symptoms; water leaking, apparently around my chimney, and damaging the drywall ceiling in front of my fireplace.  I didn’t tell him how to solve the problem, I left that to his professional discretion.

The roofer, Josh, with Over the Top Roofing, gave me a laundry list of things that they would do to rectify the problem.  I also got a bid from another roofing professional.  I mentioned to Josh that the other company would only warranty their work if I had them do a complete roof replacement.  As my roof is only about 5 years old, I didn’t feel that a complete re-shingle was called for.  Josh responded with disbelief that the other company wouldn’t guarantee their work, and advised me that his company guaranteed everything they did.  This was spoken while standing face-to-face with me in my home.

Needless to say, I contracted Over the Top to solve my leakage problem.

I’m assuming that they did all of the things that they said they’d do, as the area is all covered with shingles, and I gave him a check.  Payment in full.  At that point he gave me a couple of papers regarding the warranty; the first advising that the warranty did not go into force until my check cleared, fair enough, and a second regarding what was actually warranteed.  I read the first line of the second sheet, about their warranty being for 5 years.  That’s all I needed to know, right?

So I called my handyman, Jerry Hamilton of J. Hamilton Contracting, to come in and replace the damaged ceiling drywall.  I didn’t have it painted, though, because we were planning to have the entire room re-painted, as soon as a color was chosen.

Well, it didn’t rain much in Nov.  It did, however, in Dec., and around the end of the month we began to notice water stains a bit further down the slanted ceiling from the part that had been replaced.  So I contacted Josh and advised him.  By the way, I mostly communicate with people in business via email.  Less subject to interpretation and memory issues.

So he came by and looked over his work and pronounced all was well.  It rained again and the stain spread, so Josh suggested that I have a mason look at the chimney and decide if maybe I needed tuckpointing.  Now, keep in mind, my goal is to stop the symptom of water from leaking into my home, and to that end I requested solutions from professionals.

So the mason came by and showed me where there were hairline cracks on my chimney “cap”.  Sure there are; it’s a 40-year old house.  He advised me that this was the source of the water that I had seen dripping down the outside of the cinder blocks in my attic (I was the only one that actually went into the attic, and while it was raining, to determine where the water was coming from).

So I contacted Josh and told him what the mason said and his response was that this was the problem and I should get the chimney tuckpointed.  “But,” I replied, “you told me that the water was coming from a poor quality shingle job from the previous roofer.  Are you saying that the work you did was unnecessary?”  My reasoning was that if he did the wrong thing to solve the problem I had presented him with, he had taken money under false pretenses and I was due a refund.

That was when he directed me to the “Workmanship Warranty” that he had given me at the completion of the job.  “Over the Top Roofing and Construction, Inc., warrants all labor for five (5) years from the date of contract”.   That works for me, it says “all labor”.  I’m assuming that they are referring only to all labor performed by their employees.  Then it goes on to disclaim responsibility for certain other problems, such as that you need to contact the manufacturer directly if there is a problem with any of the materials that OTR used, and that OTR “…assumes no liability for incidental or consequential damages.”  Wait; what?  Not being an attorney, I interpret that to mean that if they do damage to your home while they are working on it, or if their work causes other damage, such as poor caulking job leading to additional water damage, THEY ASSUME NO LIABILITY!  Then I got to paragraph 7, which states, believe it or not, “The five (5) year warranty provided ONLY COVERS FULL ROOF (emphasis mine), siding, or gutter replacements on property.”  Surprise!

So basically, I guess what they’re saying is that if they do a poor job on an entire roof, siding or gutter replacement, they’ll redo what they did, for the next five years, but if what they did poorly causes additional damage, well, that’s not their problem.  Huh?

If they damage my home while they are working on it, that’s not their problem?  Hold on there, sport; that’s not how it works.  You can’t just hand me a document on your way out the door that says, “by the way, if we had knocked over your chimney while we were working on your shingles, it’s not our problem.”  No, I’m pretty sure that it is, whether you admit it or not.

So after he directed me to the “warranty”, I went up onto the roof again, to take photos of the completed job.  What I found were a series of gaps in the caulk where the flashing meets the bricks.  Basically, poor quality workmanship.  So I took time/date-stamped photos.

Now water is tricky stuff.  It will adhere to just about anything that will facilitate its downward march, and that includes the bricks of the chimney.  So if, as it’s struggling to get back to the lowest point, it encounters a gap in the caulk sealing the flashing to the bricks, for instance, rather than go down the outside of the flashing like it’s supposed to, and onto the shingles, and down to the guttering, it will seep into any and all openings, and continue it’s journey inside the house rather than outside.  In my humble opinion.

The reason I went into the attic during a rain storm was to see for myself where the water was coming from and going to.  I specifically put my hands on the roof joists, up hill from the chimney, to see if the water was coming from further upstream and simply following the chimney down.  Nope; the beams were dry.  What I did see, and later related to Josh, was water dripping down the outside of the cinder blocks that make up my chimney.  So somehow, the water was getting around or past his water barriers, inside the attic, onto the chimney, and following it down to the ceiling, where it was staining the drywall.

The email response from Josh was, “As I said before I can no longer do anymore for you”.

So here’s the dilemma.  I have new water damage to the ceiling of my home.  Oh, and Josh mentioned that I had had water damage before they got there, as if to say it was a pre-existing condition.  Well duh!  That’s why I called in a roofer!  So, either Over the Top did an unnecessary roofing job, leading to additional damage due to not solving the problem which was really a tuckpointing issue (a couple of other contractors, agree with me that the hairline cracks would have sent water inside the chimney rather than outside), or their having left gaps in the caulk allowed more water to get in, causing the additional damage.  The latter being my theory.

Finally, in June, someone from OTR (I presume) came by ( I know because I heard him/them on the roof) and filled in the gaps of the horizontal caulking along the flashing.  After they left I took photos.  You can see the lighter-colored, newer caulk on the repairs.  Of course now there’s a whole strip of vertical caulking that has come loose, resulting in a 4″ gap in the flashing.

So, here’s the problem:  According to their “warranty”, they are not, under any circumstances, liable for “incidental or consequential damage”.  So even if I had gotten a complete roof job, and they had botched it, they are saying that all they’re liable for is repairing the poor job that they did, but none of the consequent damage it causes, such as damage to one’s drywall ceiling due to water leakage.

I don’t think that’s going to fly.

Remember; treat professionals like professionals.  Don’t tell them how to do their job, tell them the goal. That way, they can’t say, “this is what you told me to do”.  Say, “here’s the problem I want you to solve”, or “here is the goal I want to attain”.  If the contractor, etc, that you hire can’t take it from there and tell you how to accomplish your goal, get another!  Oh, and be sure to read the warranty BEFORE they start, just in case…

Be careful what you say.

Last week I was watching a discussion thread on Facebook.  One “postor” that I knew personally posted something with poor grammar.  I wondered what to do.  Obviously the answer was not to post a correction on the thread, but was it even appropriate to send her an email and say, “that was not grammatically correct”?  Do people want to know that their grammar is incorrect?  Does anyone care?

I do, but that’s who I am.  When I see people write things like, “your funny”, and the issue is not because they’re typing on a cell phone, or “yeah, we been there, too”, what do you do?  If it’s obvious that they’re abbreviating because they’re on a cell phone instead of  a computer with a full keyboard and a comfortable place to type, that’s one thing.  But when it’s obvious that they either don’t know or don’t care about what they’re posting in the public domain, that concerns me.

Rush Limbaugh once said something like, “words mean something and people judge you by what you say”.  I believe that people also judge you by how you say it; how you express yourself.

If you’re looking for a job that requires you to be in an office and write reports and/or memos, I believe that employers will judge you by how you express yourself.  Is your spelling correct?  Is your grammar and punctuation?  Does it appear that you care enough to take the time to be sure?

I am especially concerned about the younger generation.  The 20-somethings.  I warned my daughters all through college to be careful about what they posted on Facebook, or wherever; that future employers would be looking at things like that.  It scares me that some woman will be looking for a job, let’s say as a teacher or in accounting, traditionally conservative areas, and prospective employers will look at their FB history and see the photos of their party-girl days, and see the lewd posts, and decide that they don’t present the image that the company wants their employees to convey.

Or that an interviewee will be so unconcerned about what they’re posting that they don’t make it obvious that they’re not being grammatically correct, and a prospective employer will make a decision based on what they read about the interviewee.

Do you express yourself correctly?  I don’t mean just grammatically.  Do you convey the image that you want to?  Do you give people the impression that you are dedicated and focused, or are you always being funny?  Are you sure that your friends know when to take you seriously, or do they all like you because you’re fun to be around, but don’t really believe that you are competent in business?  Sure, it’s fun to be the life of the party, but be sure that the people who know you realize that you have a competent, serious side.

Remember, particularly on social media, people can only judge you by what you post.  How you say what you say is important.  Many people I know have two social media personas.  For example, a Facebook page for their personal, fun-loving side, and another for business.  On the former they post their personal doings; the fun stuff, family stuff.  On the business side they post things that relate to their credibility as a professional.   Not necessarily advertising for their services, but certainly their posts reflect their area of expertise.

I’ve also seen many women who seem to be aspiring models, posting their photos, which is good advertising, but also post comments they way they talk to their friends.  The downside is if they speak in “public” like they speak in private, prospective employers, whether for modeling or not, may doubt their ability to be serious business-people.

People judge you by what you say, and how you say it.  Always remember that.

Where to start?

Entrepreneurs often ask me where to begin the process of starting or changing their business.  My answer is always the same, “break it down”.  Let’s start with the basics, what is the goal?

If the goal is to start a business, there is a whole, different set of criteria.  Since this latest question was posed to me by a client wishing to re-start is business, I’m going to talk about that process.

We have already spent time going over the nature of his business and its history.  I know what he wants to do with his company and where he’s been.  So my first question to him was,”what do you want to do?”  I need to know what the entrepreneur wants to do, what he doesn’t want to do, what he likes to do, what he’s best at; what he’s worst at.  For example, if a store owner started his company with a single store, personally waiting on customers and growing the reputation of both the business and himself, he probably loves to do that, which is cool.  However, now that he has several stores and wants to expand the company, the question now is what is the best use of his time?

Sure, it’s great that he goes to each store, occasionally, and works the register, but for what he’s making as a percentage of company income, he’s costing the company a fortune by doing a minimum-wage job, AT THE EXPENSE of what he needs to be doing.  If working the register give him that much joy, he could hire someone else to run the company, with the commensurate income, and work the register for minimum-wage.  That’s probably not in the best interests of the company.  Oh, and that’s always what my focus is; whatever is in the best interests of the company.

So I ask my new client, “what is the best use of your time?”  Turns out that he just loves to make prospecting calls and sales calls.  He likes to be out there explaining what his company can do for you. Awesome!  Get the hell out of the office and get your face in front of prospects.  Oh, I forgot to mention; he’s really good at selling his company.  This, then, is the best use of his tim…bringing in income.

He’s just gone through a “reorganization”, in that he fired everyone else and is trying to do everything himself.  Never a good idea.  So I recommended that the first thing he do is bring on someone who could do all of the technical follow-up; a project manager.  Someone to whom he could hand off the “order” and go on to the next sales call, while this person completed the paperwork, made the phone calls, arranged for the installation/delivery/activation/whatever.

Again, my point is to focus all of his activity on the best use of his time; bringing in business.

Next we work on sales support.  Here, I can actually do something.  See, I’m not so much of a consultant.  My role, as I see it, is not so much to see what’s wrong, but to implement change.  So here, I told him to hand off to me, everything that is not an actual order that needs to be processed.  He and I will develop automated systems to send out Thank You letters, and other follow-up correspondence.  The goal is for me to develop and implement the systems for him to then hire a clerical assistant.

Can he do the bookkeeping?  Sure.  Can he do the customer service?  Probably better than his hire, initially.  Oh, and the whole H/R thing?  That is one of the most difficult aspects of business ownership; hiring the right people.  Having gone over the history of his company, my conclusion what that he was doing too many things himself, and that he’d hired the wrong people to help him.  The people in your company are critical to your success.  If you are not good with the hiring process, there are services that will help you.  It might be a worthwhile investment on your part to engage an H/R professional to find the right people for your business.  Yes, it will cost more than an ad on Craigslist, but you are making an investment in your company.  Just imagine how much more productive you would be with the right people backing you up?  How much more business could you bring in if you didn’t have to babysit your staff?

Sure, you still need to oversee, like the CEO that you are, but that should be reducible to periodic meetings.  Weekly, etc.  Develop an organizational chart so that most people report to your number 2 guy and he reports to you.  Know what’s going but don’t micro-manage.  Delegation is a very difficult skill to acquire, but it is absolutely essential.

The watchword for my clients is, “You should only do what only you can do.”  Stay focused; hire people to do the things that you’re not best at.  For the sake of your company, do what you’re best at and delegate the rest.

Why put it in writing?

Yeah, I know, some of you are going to be wondering why I even bother to write about this, but it needs to be discussed.  Even if you think, “well, duh!”, you’d be surprised how many things happen without the proper paperwork.

Now, I’m not an attorney, and I don’t even play one on TV, but as a project manager, not only do I need to have documentation to confirm that everyone’s on the same page, pun intended, but also to prove to management what issues were addressed and in what manner.

I once worked for a guy that was building his first location, personally.  He’d had many previously, but always paid a company who specialized in that sort of construction, and had only a limited idea of what they had done for him.  He didn’t know what he didn’t know.

He engaged friends to do some of the trade work, which is great, IF you have competent, professional friends.  If not, you’re not only hurting the company, but the friendship as well.  Then, too, if your friends know they’re not up to the task, nobody is helping anyone by taking on a job they can’t do.  The more professional thing to do is say, “that’s not really my area of expertise, but let me help you find someone”.

But I digress…usually a lot.

So anyway, you hire your friends and tell them what you want done.  Now comes the necessity of paperwork.  “I want you to fix the lights” is not a work order.  A contractor came to me on a job site once and explained that this was what the owner wanted him to do, on a time-and-material basis.  Okay, first, I asked him if he could narrow the scope of what he was proposing.  He said that it was his understanding that he had been engaged to “fix all of the lights at the location”.  So I questioned him.  “Will that include the pole lights on the parking lot?”

“Oh, no, we can’t work on pole lights.”

“Will that include the high-intensity flood lights on the roof?”

“Well, we didn’t talk about those, either.”

Okay, so now I had him down from working on “all” the lights, to just the interior lights, then to just the fluorescent lights in the ceiling, excluding the incandescent lights in the coolers.  Lord!

So the next thing I did was to send his company an email based on the foregoing conversation, and requesting an estimate.  Sure enough, when the estimate came back, and they were already working by then, it was much higher than the owner had anticipated.  Now one’s a thief and the other’s a liar.  All they needed to do was jot down some specifics and have each other initial it.  You don’t need an official contract with lawyers and pages, just a simple email would have at least put us all on the right track.

We could have worked from the grand generalities of fixing “the lights”, down to the specifics of which lights, exactly, and the work would have been done on a more timely manner with a better understanding of the eventual cost, and everyone would be friends.

A Memorandum of Understanding, an estimate with some flexible language to set parameters; an email saying, “here’s what we’re going to do”.   That gives everyone a clearer picture of the proposed scope of work, as well as the option of adding some, “as long as you’re here” items.

Write something down.  That’s all I’m talking about.

Why would you even want to start a business?

I met with a new client last week.  He is, what I believe to be the typical entrepreneur; totally focused on what he wants to do, tremendously knowledgeable about his subject matter and industry, and ready to do everything himself.  It’s that last part that’s the mixed blessing for the terminally self-employed.

Just kidding.  It generally works well that the beginning entrepreneur wants to do it all himself (or herself; got to be politically correct), but there comes a time when one must learn the delicate art of delegation.  One must be able to replicate at least a part of oneself, in order to grow one’s business.  If you are the one with the vision, don’t be on the factory floor.  If you love to prospect and sell (and who doesn’t??) then you need to have someone else run the business.  I’m not advising you to turn the keys over to a new hire and run back out to appointments, but there will, with any luck, come a time when you need to let go of some aspects of running your business to enable you to concentrate on the part(s) that you do best.

Remember, as much fun as you’re having making the pastries, meeting and greeting, making vendor connections, you can only do so much.  You need to include time in your day to train someone else to do the things that you’re not best at.  Notice I didn’t say the things that you don’t want to do.

You should only do what only you can do!

You make the doughnuts and hire a salesman.  You go out and make the sales calls and hire a project manager to implement/install whatever you’ve sold.  Yes, as the salesman, you know that everyone’s going to call you for whatever they need, and that’s not a bad thing.  You just need to train your clients/customers to call your service person for service.

You need to touch your customers and prospects on a regular basis to keep your name in front of them.  If you can, bring in a sales assistant to handle the drip-marketing, appointment confirmations and Thank-You letters.

Keep in mind that you don’t necessarily need full-time, or even direct employees to do a lot of the things that you aren’t best at.  Part-time bookkeepers are available, virtual assistants work from their home.  Best to figure what you really need as part of your company, and for how many hours per week.

Maybe the sales support/administrative assistant is a full-time, direct employee, because you’ll  keep them so busy.  Cool!  Maybe the project manager/customer service position should also be an employee, as they may need to know as much as you about what you do to enable them to offer the level of service that you want your customers to receive.

The success of a business is dependent on controlled growth.  It’s tempting to grow quickly and take over the market, but slow down to plan the growth.  Growing pains can kill even a successful business.  Make a note of the “what if’s” regarding the economy, competition, even traffic issues.

Plan for success, don’t just presume it.

Some things don’t need to be invented!

Okay, a couple of weeks ago I spoke at the St. Louis Inventor’s Association.  Yeah, I didn’t know there was one, either.  My initial theme was that some things just didn’t need to be invented.  From there, of course, I went into how to get an invention into production/sales, but the point was that some questions don’t need to be answered.

My example was of an invention that could solve a problem, but cost so much that it was usually much easier just to live with the problem, like a smelly trash can.  Sure, you can engineer a complex air filtration system for it, but who’s going to buy an $1000 filtration system for a $15 trash can?

So the next item to consider, after you have identified the problem and engineered a solution, is cost-effectiveness.  Can you make the solution either cheap enough that it’s worth buying, or a great enough value that people will pay for it?

I have a client with an interesting “invention”.  I use quotation marks because it’s not really an invention, just a modification to an existing device that makes it novel.  She wanted me to source production and distribution, but I advised her to do some market research first.  Find out who might buy the product, what they might be willing to pay, and if there might be sufficient numbers of people who would actually buy it to make it commercially viable.  She did, it might be, and NOW we source production and distribution, versus simply licensing the concept to someone else to produce and sell, and simply deposit the monthly checks.

That’s what I do:  Focus thinking and break it down.