7. January 2010 by The Original Bulldog - Bob Griffin.

There are two types of owners that need to grow their view of the business they own.  One type of owner spends a lot of time on numbers.  They see the trends and how the customers respond to the marketing or employee efforts.  The “Number Cruncher” is a good master of his domain.  He is up to date on what has happened in his business and what works.  He can plan and explain his business in terms of dollars and cents.  Why is this not a big enough view?  He is good with changing to a new plan.  He can see what works and plan, but moving to a new plan is outside his view.  Limits like this are part of an old way of doing business.  I grew up in this format.  I am happy to look through these eyes.  I also know that if I want to make stores successful I need to look bigger and make changes quickly to stay ahead of the competition and fire up my team.  Numbers tell no lies, but they also do not inspire growth.  People do.

The second type of owner is the marketing guy.  He can tell you what works and why.  Coupons, discounts, and media buys are part of his lexicon.  There is no way he is going to let a customer get away without knowing what his business is all about.  Branding is a key to his success.  Finding new ways to communicate to customers is his passion.  This guy is his own best marketing…just ask him.  Why doesn’t this work well.  If you are focused on marketing outside your business, you may the operations  and the reason customers come back.  Ever watch a commercial, try out a new business and then never go back? Why?  The hype did not match the service, the products, or a combination of both.  Marketing is critical, yes critical, to every business.  It just can not be the beginning and the end of the game. Save marketing until you have something to brag about.  Then yell it!

Look at the whole picture.  Crunch numbers to see what works best.  Take the best parts of a campaign, product, or service and build your store around it.  The best businesses ask more questions than make statements.  Every question or answer should bring more questions or answers.  Look bigger.  Dream about where your business can grow.  Do not EVER be comfortable.  Comfort is good for a blanket, but bad for a business model.  Be ready to change.  Look inside your business first to ensure that when you go out and invite customers in you are ready to make them say “WOW”.

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2. January 2010 by The Original Bulldog - Bob Griffin.

When we talk with owners, there is a need for them to ask certain questions immediately that always makes me think they may or may not be ready for the next step in the evolution of their business.  The issues are money and time.  If you want to have a strong business, you need to spend either more money or more time or both.  If you are not ready to do so, please find the time and money and then find the help in getting started right.

Business owners has a desire to fulfill a vision for what the business should look like and sometimes miss the basics of how the business should run.  I do not blame them for that fact.  If you start a business from scratch, even a franchise, requires that you are a real estate expert, contractor (or at least oversee the contractor), and the middleman between the business and the government agencies that require that you have permits and fees paid before you are allowed to make any money.  Transitioning to from that to handling the day-to-day operations can be a dilemma when the store opens.  At this point, they either invested well enough to hit the ground running or they stumble out of the gate.  You spend a lot of money and time getting things rolling.  The last thing you want to think about is how much more time and money it will cost to get the business open and keep it open, but that is where your thinking should be.

More often than not, owners stumble on day one.  The problem starts with having the basic operations knowledge and then translating it to a function of getting the job done by leading the team and communicating the vision.  Working in an industry for more than a year is a sure fire way to learn from the ground up.  This gives you a chance to work as a leader, find the answers on how things should work, and how to communicate effectively to employees.  Most entrepreneurs do not spend that kind of time or want to make that kind of sacrifice.  It is the difference between being in business in five years or dying out your first few months.

One problem that I see very often is - Ego.  When someone wants to start a business they say it is for the money.  That, unfortunately, is only half the reason.  The other reason is that it is something that will give them the ability to tell friends and family that they are a business owner.  Most people you see each day do not own a business.  They are happy to work for someone else, but do give credit to others who jump over to being an owner.  Ego gets in the way because the owner wants to be the owner more than the operator of a business that may require them to be on the front line.   Do not think you can delegate to a successful business.  Bulldog Rule # 14 - The right people never want to work with the wrong people - hits the nail on the head.  Make sure you are the right person to lead…not yell at people and be angry or make the place a “work-hell”.  Otherwise, you will spend more money to hire the right person to lead.

I have been enjoying reading for the millionth time The E-Myth Revisited by  Michael E. Gerber.  He makes many valid points on hiring people who can be trained and can follow your lead.  This requries that you have a training program for them to follow and are able to lead someone through training to be the best employee for the job. You can’t have a big ego and lead employee through training (no one would follow).  Creating a great training program removes you as the main focus of the business and makes the system most important.  I was also reading What the Dog Saw by Malcolm Gladwell where he made this point.  He interviewed Ron Popeil, the founder of Ronco and the Inventor of many products you probably have in your kitchen.  I was impressed with the way  Ron took the interest off himself and made the product the star.  Coming from a family of salesmen, that was always the formula, but for someone without that kind of knowledge and with an ego going into business, it is easy to see where a person can slip up and make the product or service second to the messenger.  Lose the ego and make the system follow the sale.  You may want to take a vacation.  If the emphasis is on you and your ego, what happens when you are not there?

Great leading through training requires a few items:

• Each job has a cost and an outcome.  List the parts of the job and the desired outcome.  Be prepared to change the training and the costs as your business grows.  There is never just one way to do a job and costs change over time.
  
• Be a coach, a mentor, and a teacher that someone would want to learn from.  This implies that you can lead through teaching.  If you can’t or are not very good, find someone who can.  Yes, this costs more money, but it will save you from wasting time and money in the long run.
• Invest money and time early in the game to make more later.  When you spend, spend wisely.  Getting the ship headed in the right direction from day one is the best way to jump ahead of the competition and find better people who want to work with you.
• Fire yourself if you need to.  Being an owner does not mean that you need to be the leader of the organization.  Set the tone, set the budget, keep up with the data, and get the heck out of the way.

There are great ways to make a great business and they all come back to spending your time and money in ways that make you more down the road.  Be prepared to keep spending time and money on training, firing/hiring, better information, and better processes.  The investing does not stop when you start making a great paycheck.

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27. December 2009 by The Original Bulldog - Bob Griffin.

The article I wrote on compliments has been downloaded and printed a few thousand times I want to add to it to ensure you have the tools to help this value-adding idea to your own business philosophy.  There is more than just being polite to getting compliments, although that is a good place to start.  There is an  ideology that many small business owners and managers fail to notice and so fail to foster in their employees.  Business Bulldog, Inc. was started to help get businesses back to the basics and grow with time-tried, recognizable ways of growing.  It is what helped start the best businesses around.  It is also the path that businesses that do not worry about what people have to say about them use.

To just read the above paragraph and think you understand how to get compliments would be a mistake.  There is a school of thought that guides the best in business that must not only be understood, but lived. It is something that all good people know in their heart and live by.  It can be broken down to one simple, yet profound word.  It usually makes owners cringe and fail to see it’s worth and for employees to throw out of their vocabulary after the first hour on the job.

Trust

Compliments are broken down into three parts: the actions that bring about a compliment, the action of giving a compliment, and the context in which it is received.

Very often we hire “warm bodies”.  I mean - the people needed just to keep things going.   They fill a spot on the schedule, but do not really make things better.  Kind of a “space filler” on the payroll.  I call them a waste of space since I would not hire someone I did not see helping the culture of my organization.  All employees are a representation of the brand.  If you do not think so, you are in for a rude awakening when things go bad and you need everyone to step up and help with jobs they do not normally do or were hired to do.  Want to see just how cranky the person who normally unloads trucks can get when asked to answer a phone?  A quick check - - would you be comfortable letting anyone in your organization tell a news reporter about your business?  If that answer is no, you have “warm bodies”.

“Warm bodies” are the reason most places do not get compliments.  They drag down the rest of the employees who want to be proud of the company and the job they do.  I have seen far too many organizations that think that is the only way to keep the business going.  The reason I have heard is, “Employees do not want to do any more than they have to.  You have to push them to get anything done around here.”  That is the business with the going out of business sign on the front door and the merchandise being stolen by employees when the boss turns his back.  The culture there is “I don’t trust you”.

So, how do you start trusting people when your organization is geared to pushing and dragging crew to do their job?  The first step is to change the way you look at your business.  Why did you get into business?  Was it for a short term gain or for the long haul?  Businesses built for the long haul are the only ones we work with.  Why start with you?  Because you are the driving force in your organization.  If you make it important, the employees will see it as important.  Make your actions compliment worthy.  The rest of your team should see this as a clear path for them to follow.  It is also easy to see where your weak link is when you are acting professionally and expect others in your organization to act similarly.

We have mentioned a few times that getting compliments should be an easy task for your customers.  How many businesses do you visit each week that do not have a way (an easy way) for you to give feedback?  That is where you need to spend a few budgeted dollars (or for our international friends euros, dinars, etc.).  Find ways to get customers to give you their honest opinion.  Walk around your store and ask, place a phone call to a recent customer, give surveys, or have a third party ask.  I do not recommend using it as part of a promotion - you give us a score and we will give you a chance to win a prize.  There are too many ways for that to muddy the message.

Finally, how are you going to receive the message.  By that I mean, what are you going to do with the information?  If you are going to just look at it and thunder orders to your front line crew, forget it.  You don’t make changes that matter by pushing your team.  Either they are part of the answer or you are fooling yourself into thinking you are a leader.  If you want to use the information to make changes that will change your business, post the best examples of compliments that show the path you want your team to follow.  The feedback that is not a compliment is valuable too.  Use it to make changes, but do it as a team.  If you have field people, get them in the office for a meeting and have them brainstorm was to make the customer’s experience better.

Trust is an amazing thing when you have it in your business.  Trust your employees to do the right thing.  Trust your customers to give you meaningful feedback.  Finally, trust your team to help you build a stronger business.  Compliments can be an amazing part of your brand image.  It is tough to tear down a brand that has dedicated followers.  Just remember to start the path to compliments inside your business.

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17. October 2009 by The Original Bulldog - Bob Griffin.

I had the opportunity to work with Chris Hanks, Director - Terry College of Business - University of Georgia, this past week.  Chris has created one of the best Entrepreneur Programs in the country and is working to develop the best new minds in the business world.  I was blown away by the ideas, the concepts for business models, and the services that were being brought to life and could see in the eyes of the students the desire to make millions of dollars.

For this event I was a judge for an elevator pitch competition for the MBA candidates.  It was eerie to be back in the hallowed halls I once wandered myself as a student.  I didn’t mind being older, but there was a sense of “what would I have become if I had the knowledge then that I have now”.  I could see myself up at the front of the class as a student and I cringed knowing what they needed to know.  For all the great ideas that were tumbled out before us in 60 second speeches, there was an element that was missed.

I come from a background of sales and retail.  That’s my bias.  It comes from that place where the customer and the deal meet.  I understand that there is a critical point where things are changing and in the end I am going to have to change my views.  The internet, networking pathways, viral marketing, and emerging future trends are all moving the dynamics of business beyond the brick and mortar stores we see today.  With that said, I can easily see that almost all of the businesses pitched are missing the direct communication of the product or service to the customer.

Before I start getting emails telling me all about elevator pitches and what they mean, I had the chance to ask questions after the pitch to clarify the statements and get a better idea of what the students were asking vendor capitalists to invest in.  Take it easy readers.  I wouldn’t make a leap from a 60 second pitch to a full blown critique of a business.

I was struck by the lack of any business having a store front and how that simple change in strategy is a clear indication of where the next generation of business owners is going to move.  This is not to say that some of the groups didn’t need the traditional businesses to sell to.  In fact, their products and services were dependent on having the traditional business owner buy from them or have them sell the products on store shelves.  There was, however, no one willing to have a retail shop of their own.

I have pushed and pulled this through the filters of my brain for days.  Do we need stores in the community to sell things?  Is it possible to have businesses totally free from rented spaces and still grow?  Will the human need for face-to-face contact be eliminated?  If you spend enough time on anything, there begins to be a fuzzy logic that can make the ridiculous seem correct.  I got a bit overwhelmed and decided to go eat.

I went to dinner at a Japanese restaurant.  The food was good, the presentation was pleasing, and I was satisfied when I was done and paid the bill.  In this example, someone had to make and sell the plate I ate from, the chair I sat on, and the glass I drank from.  What I saw at the University of Georgia was similar to all the businesses that made this restaurant work.  Without the restaurant running well, there is a lot of other businesses that go under.

Where is the desire of the students to be on the front line and see the customers?  Have things become so disconnected that we are creating new ways to avoid each other?   This is the same question that has been bounced around since the phone was invented.

The true problem is easy to see if you look at your hand.  I was speaking to a group of franchisees a few days ago.  I held up my hand, spread my fingers and a told them to look at the distance between my thumb and my little finger.  There is a gap between each finger leading all the way from thumb to pinky.  The thumb represented them as the franchisee.  The next finger was their General Manager.  The next finger was the Manager, then the front line employee, and then the pinky was the customer.  The gap between them and the customer, although not far, was far enough for any message they wanted to get across to be muddled and confused.

You can have the owner and the General Manager be on the same page and the rest of the people pulled away.  This is a weak link if all you are doing is touching the thumb to the first finger.  You could add the Manager and the crew, but you are still weak.  It isn’t until you have a clear message from all parts of the sales process that you have strength.  Put all the fingers together and you have a fist.

How can you have a strong business model if you are not a part of the sale to the customer?  How many businesses fail, not because they did something wrong, but because they were dependent on someone else selling their stuff?  Can you change the businesses of all these students and have a model that helps the retail outlets sell merchandise?  Yes.  Can you have the businesses open retail outlets to sell directly to customers and take the message directly to the customer?  Yes.

What I see is that there is a focus for new businesses on not having to be bothered by the general public.  That is where the next business is going to succeed.

Closing the gap is where the next billionaire will be made.

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29. August 2009 by The Original Bulldog - Bob Griffin.

Do you really KNOW what you want to know?

I was in a room of executives when they were wondering how to get more customers.  Sales were way down and everyone was desperate to make something happen.  So, why didn’t they ask the right questions?  Mostly no one spoke up because they were afraid.  These highly skilled and well educated people were afraid of looking foolish in asking the right question or questions.  I tell my son, “Smart isn’t what you know.  Smart is what you do with what you do know.”  So, getting up from my seat I did something - I asked the questions that needed to be asked.

• Were we the right people to turn the company around?
• How much time, money, and/or effort were we willing to put into changing the culture of the company to something customers wanted?
• Who is ultimately leading the charge to turn things around?
• How much power will this person have to make things happen?

How do you know when you have the right questions?

When you get to the point when people have to face tough questions and the temperature of the room goes up a few degrees you have a situation where the smart start moving and the weak make excuses.  It is much easier to make changes when you ask the right questions from the start and get people out of their comfort zone.

Hypothetically, if you were asked by a good friend to help him with the same situation where he worked, what would you say?  Very often we are too close to the situation to ask the right questions.  Step back, use Bulldog Rule #10 - Leave the emotion out of your business (most of the time), and ask questions that come to mind.  Write them down and then ask another question for every question you wrote down.  Soon you will have a list of questions that matter.  Cut out the questions that won’t impact your situation and then you have the right questions.

Like I mentioned earlier - Smart is what you DO!  So, go do something.  The right questions can give you the right answers only if you do something with them.  Sitting in front of the path to success does not mean you will move down it.  Get off your butt and move!!

There are too many people who are going to say that they are not in charge and can not make things change.  You built a wall to keep yourself from changing things and you are the right person to tear it down.  Changes come because you do something more today than you did yesterday. I have a friend who said, “If you could just improve your life 1% everyday in 100 days you would be 100% better.”  He was a strange man, but he was onto something profound.  Taking the time to change a company and ask the right questions does not have to be a big deal.

Remember - small changes make things better too and many times you can get a larger force to help you than if you try to change everything at once.  Too bad there are many leaders who do not understand that lesson.  Start small and change things. Do something smart.

Bgriffin@BusinessBulldog.com

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