Staying Relevant For The Zombie Apocalypse

Posted on by Christina Hamlett

nice-night-to-shoot-zombies

Most people who know me are unlikely to put my name in the same sentence with zombies, especially in the context of designing book covers. My style tends to embrace architecture, nature, Art Deco and sometimes a splash of unabashed whimsy. Yet when a colleague recently asked me if I could come up with something for his Romeo and Juliet riff in which the star-crossed lovers team up against the ghoulish undead, I heard myself say, “Sure! Why not?” Not only was it a chance to expand my mental margins (and get paid for it) but also to explore the correlation to today’s businesses needing to stay relevant in a mercurial marketplace.

In a nutshell, no matter how well a particular approach to your services and products has served you in the past, nothing courts obsolescence faster than the belief that the status quo will continue to work in the future.

Take restaurants, for instance. When customers began paying more attention to what they were eating, savvy restaurateurs recognized the need to tweak their menus to reflect nutritional information, calorie-count, heart-healthy choices, gluten-free, sugar-free, vegan, low sodium, no trans-fat, etc. Longstanding cooking techniques such as fried, breaded, battered and glazed began giving way way to grilled, roasted, broiled and steamed. Depending on the cuisine, there has also been a downsizing of plate and portion size to trick the mind into feeling “full.”

Another example is the landscape design business. Southern California homes that once boasted lush green lawns have now turned to a combination of drought-resistant plants and ground cover, artificial turf, and bark, brick and decorative rock – lawn alternatives which 21st century landscapers have had to step up and accommodate in order to stay viable.

Own a brick-and-mortar shop? Many have already transitioned to an online or hybrid presence in response to their customers’ desire to have 24/7 access, not have to deal with holiday crowds and parking lots, and addressing the escalating fears that being out in public places such as urban malls isn’t nearly as safe these days as it used to be.

Even publishers of books, magazines and newspapers are making the shift to electronic platforms in concert to the way today’s readers like to read. Given the fact that 30 percent of trade paperback and hardcover books end up in landfills, the evolution of ebooks and self-publishing reflects not only a “green” environmental solution but also a way for authors to exercise more control over their intellectual property, accrue higher royalties and get their books on the market much faster than via traditional channels.

With these examples in mind, what has your own business done to reinvent itself in the past year? The past five years? The past decade?

The following are some considerations which should be at the top of your To Do list:

  1. Study your competition’s unique selling points. What can you do to (1) emulate their successful platform and (2) differentiate yourself in attracting the same clientele?
  2. Explore new ways to keep your existing clients and customers happy. Engage them in the process by letting them know their opinions count. At the end of the day it’s much easier and less expensive to retain loyal fans than it is to pursue new ones.
  3. Become a lifelong learner. Educate yourself (and your employees) on industry trends by attending seminars/webinars, reading new business books and trade publications, tuning in to podcasts, and expanding your social media network.
  4. Update your business image. Whether it’s a creative retooling of your website, a redesign of your corporate brand, an expansion of your existing services and products, or doing seasonal window displays to catch the attention of passersby, it’s the Bright Shiny Object Syndrome that makes people curious to discover something new.
  5. Invest in new technology that will allow you to manage your time and delivery systems more efficiently. You may also want to invest in the expertise of a marketing coach to guide you in maximizing your resources, identifying ways to diversify, and reach potential consumer groups you might not have thought of.

It also goes without saying that survival is ultimately contingent on the mindset to take risks, to try things you’ve never done, and to stay absolutely and positively fearless. Your business adversaries may not be zombies but they will indeed eat you alive if you’re not prepared to stay one step ahead of them.

 

 

Scattered Thoughts With Intermittent Brainstorms

Posted on by Christina Hamlett

December 2015 image

If you want your business to stay viable, visible and competitive in the coming new year, it’s essential that your staff not only have a sense of ownership in that process but also be invited to show you what they’ve got in terms of untapped creativity and problem-solving skills. Unfortunately, it’s all too easy for a risk-averse manager to use “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” as an argument to discourage initiative. By the time the breakage occurs – sometimes irreparably – the chance is often lost to hear solutions that may have been floating in the hallways all along and yet were never actively solicited.

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Thinking Outside the (Suggestion) Box

If the drop-slot of your employee suggestion box is crisscrossed with cobwebs, it’s time to embrace a more interactive approach to feedback. Distribute questionnaires (with an option for anonymity) to gauge staff satisfaction levels with working conditions, procedures, policies, and perks/privileges. Demonstrate that you’re actually receptive to input by publishing the results in your company newsletter and using them as your talking points for the launch of a brainstorming task force. This strategy works well if the size of your organization precludes a full group meeting or if you’ve observed that workers are hesitant to speak out with suggestions for fear of rejection or reprisal.

Thought Bubble Diversity

Within any goal-oriented group – be it TV sitcom writers, nonprofit volunteers or corporate committees – there are typically four personality types: leaders, creative thinkers, analysts, and pleasers. If all the participants in your think-tank session are drawn from the same quadrant, don’t hold your breath for progress to ensue. Why? Because functionally they will cancel each other out: the leaders will grapple for power, the creative types will bounce off the walls, the analysts will scrutinize everything to death, and the pleasers – too timid to offend anyone – will assume the role of bobblehead yes-men. Likewise, if you’re exploring new ideas which will impact multiple departments, the reception to those ideas upon implementation will be a lot warmer if each division had a rep involved in the planning stages.

Forbid Podium-Hogging

What do brainstorming meetings and elementary school classrooms have in common? They are either a scene of cacophonous pandemonium in which everyone talks at once or a setting wherein a handful of know-it-alls dominates the discussion and intimidates the rest into silence. For a brainstorming session to be effective, you must not only brush up on Robert’s Rules of Order (http://www.rulesonline.com) but encourage full participation as well. To get the conversation started, make sure everyone has a clear understanding of The Problem. In other words, what, exactly, are they there to solve? Next, have each participant write down his/her solution to the problem on a folded slip of paper and put it in a bowl. Each “anonymous author” idea is then drawn forth and written on a whiteboard for everyone to see. Start with the first idea listed and ask each participant’s opinion regarding that idea’s merits and flaws. Set a timer so no one is allowed to hog the stage with a filibuster. Rebuttals and interruptions are not allowed when someone has the floor. Ideas that accrue a higher number of negative hash tags are erased. Once you have gone around the entire room, start the process again, gradually whittling down the list – and incorporating modifications – until you arrive at a solution that everyone can agree with.

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As energizing and empowering as these brainstorming techniques can be, however, an absence of sincerity – coupled with an unwillingness to compromise – is the quickest way to kill esprit de corps. Whether you’re requesting fresh ideas and then stealing them, trivializing contributions or ascribing value based on rank, or asking for input on a decision you’ve already made, it won’t take long for employees to start keeping their best thoughts to themselves or, worse, giving them to your competition.

Wherever you are in the world, here’s to a joyful holiday season and a spectacular 2016!

Office for One

P.S. Will this be the year you decide to go into business for yourself? If so, you’ll want to add Office for One: The Sole Proprietor’s Survival Guide to your wish list. Available on Amazon in paperback and Kindle, this indispensable resource is perfect for any entrepreneur who wants to go it alone without getting lonely.

 

 

Making More Spaghetti Stick To The Wall

Posted on by Christina Hamlett

Spaghetti

“Hi there! How’s it going? I just discovered your website and I have to say it’s really great. The content really shows that you’re the best in the industry. I’m sure you receive hundreds of emails like this but mine is the one to pay attention to because with the introductory SEO package I can offer you and your awesome sales team, you’ll be driving even more customers to your store and excellent products!”

Any guesses how long it took me to hit the “delete” key on this ground-floor opportunity?

For starters, I wasn’t personally addressed by name, nor was the name of the website referenced. Flattering to know the sender thinks I’m the best in the industry…and yet doesn’t identify what my particular industry is. And while it’s true indeed that I receive hundreds of emails making the same glowy promises of global exposure, where exactly is this store stuffed to the gills with trendy merchandise supposed to be? For that matter, who’s on my awesome sales team? I should take them to lunch.

Like many a salesperson on the hustle, it’s the old “Let’s just throw a big plate of spaghetti against the wall and see how much of it sticks.” While now and again an accidental noodle and some sauce might get someone’s attention, it’s more often than not an enormous waste of pasta (and probably broken plates). To make matters worse, they never even think of varying the recipe before they’re skipping off to the next wall, thus perpetuating a messy cycle of trial and error.

Let’s apply this for a moment to writers. A colleague of mine was recently lamenting her history of copious rejection letters. Her style, I learned, was the scattergun approach of ignoring submission rules and simply sending out the same manuscript to every magazine she could think of. While an impersonal “Dear Sir or Madam” photocopied letter should never be cause for tears, I asked what she did about the ones where an editor actually took the time to offer some constructive advice. “Oh, I just need to find the right editor,” she dismissively replied. In other words, “I like my spaghetti recipe exactly the way it is and I refuse to change it for anyone.”

In the arena of sales, how much do you really know about your customers’ interests, needs and wants? Do you really expect them to take seriously any mass-produced “Hi there! I’ve been thinking about you” letter that was stuffed without any thought into an envelope or distributed with even less thought via an electronic mailing list? Do you ever consider when you throw your spaghetti that some of your customers might be vegetarian? Or gluten-intolerant? Or on a tight budget and unable to afford artisanal marinara? Are you averse to switching up or swapping out ingredients just because “this is the way we’ve always done it”?

Takeaway lesson: Whatever you think you’re saving by doing generic, one-size-fits-all advertising may actually be costing you much more than you realize in terms of building customer trust and a belief that you sincerely care about what they’re really hungry for.

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Here’s my line-up of stellar guest bloggers this month:

Giving Back Made Easy – by Lee Romano Sequeira

How Your Name Is Your Most Important Brand – by Rainier Fuclan

Challenging The Disconnect Between What Science Shows And Business Does – by Linda Ray

5 Ways to Simplify Scheduling During a Busy Season – by Brett Duncan

Building a Culture of Health at Start-Up – by Jill Gambaro

 

Don’t Touch That Couch!

Posted on by Christina Hamlett

couch

You’ve probably heard the expression “creatures of habit.”  As psychologists explain it, human beings are unique, complex and known to incorporate a wide breadth of rituals into their daily routines. These rituals – whether silly or serious – not only enable them to imbue their lives with a tidy sense of structure but also give others a sense of predictability on how they’ll react in habitual situations such as making breakfast, getting dressed, or cleaning the kitchen.

They’ve observed, for instance, that Janice always keeps the milk and cream on the right side of the refrigerator’s top shelf and the orange juice on the left side of the door. They’ve noticed that Jeremy always aligns the shoes in his closet with the toes pointing north. They’ve asked Lily why she folds her cotton dishtowel into a square and places it within the framed grout lines of the tile counter and she consistently responds, “It’s just the way I’ve always done it and I think it saves time in the long run on grout cleaning.”

There are good habits and there are bad habits. There are habits that have been ingrained since childhood (i.e., eat everything on your plate), habits influenced by parents (i.e., there is only one “correct” way to hang toilet paper), and habits we develop on our own as a matter of convenience (i.e., if I put out my clothes the night before, it will save time getting ready for work).

The longer a habit has been part of one’s personality, the harder it is to break. Likewise, the passage of time may even have rendered it impossible to remember why or how it started in the first place. If those long-term behaviors aren’t healthy or helpful, it tends to make relationships with people that are impulsive and spontaneous all the more challenging. I’m sure you’ve known individuals who waited until their forties – or even later – to finally get married and co-mingle their possessions. Unless there’s an “esprit de compromise,” things could get ugly the first time a partner suggests even the simplest nudge to the everyday routine or existing décor.

The same scenario can unfold when the owner of a one-person business decides to share office space with a fellow professional. Even if they’re not forming a partnership and are only looking at this as a convenient way to save on rent, share a receptionist, and have a kindred spirit to chat with on a slow day, they both need to consider whether they’re too settled into their respective comfort zones to really make it work.

Authors encounter similar challenges whenever someone says, “Hey, why don’t we write a book together?” Clearly they’re channeling their inner Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland and assuming that if the right kids just get together and go find a spiffy barn, the show will be a smash success. Sure it sounds like a great idea at the start, not to mention twice the fun and half the labor. When a pairing of kindred spirits exceeds their scribatious expectations, both parties can’t wait to work together again.

For the flip-side experiences, though, when you realize your business roomies aren’t quite working out, you have to deal with the pain of disappointment – and dissolution – in the very same way you’d pull off an adhesive bandage: as quickly as possible. Yes, there’ll be a major “OW!” that briefly hurts and then stops. In the best case scenario, you’ll still stay friends. In the worst case scenario, they’ll be out of your life forever…but you’ll still be able to move that couch wherever you want to because it’s back to being 100 percent yours.

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This month’s issue continues our showcase of entrepreneurial journeys and the epiphanies that made those dreams come true.

A Dog’s Way To My Heart – by Amanda Pravia

Breaking Into The Freelance Writing Market – by Rashida Tayabali

My Journey to Becoming a Wedding & Events Planner – by Courtney Lutkus

Swapping Bytes for Bites – by Sheryl Thai

An Ancient Business in a Modern Age – by Isabella Kleiman

Bubbles, Bling, and a Book – by Maria Nicola