New Business Development – Page 64

Assuming They Are The Same

There are two main types
of tomatoes
– determinate
(they stop growing
once they reach
a certain size)
and
indeterminate
(they never stop growing
and never stop
producing tomatoes).

Before this year,
I had only grown
determinant tomatoes.

This year,
the seeds I had harvested
from grocery store tomatoes
all grew into
indeterminant tomatoes.

I assumed the process
for the two
were the same.

I placed tomato cages
around them.
I didn’t prune them.
I waited for
the big harvest week.

The tomatoes
quickly outgrow their cages.
They sprawled everywhere.
They continue to flower
and produce fruit.

I totally f*cked up
growing them.

All that could have been
prevented
if I had simply ASKED
if there were any differences
in growing them.

Don’t assume
a new scenario
will be similar
to a scenario
you’ve already faced.

Ask!

Admit When You’re Wrong

A relative
is devoted to
a certain former US president.

It doesn’t matter
what
is revealed about this person.
The relative
will support him.

And he will twist himself
into knots
trying to explain
why that revelation
isn’t a bad thing.

Because the relative
won’t EVER admit he’s wrong.
I’ve known him
for decades
and he has never admitted
he’s made a mistake.

He believes
not admitting he’s wrong
makes him look strong.

It makes him look weak.
And foolish.
And not at all trustworthy.

Admitting we’re wrong
is an act of strength.
It relays
we can make mistakes
and still be worthy
of leadership.

Admit when you’ve made a mistake.

And never trust someone
who won’t admit
they’re wrong.

Banning A Result Isn’t Leadership

A manager told a friend
he will no longer
tolerate her
arriving at the office
after 8 am.

She now lies to him,
telling him
she WAS in the office.
She was merely in a meeting
or picking up supplies
or he must have missed her.

His ‘solution’
didn’t solve the problem.
It made the situation worse.

My friend still has to drop
her child off
at childcare no earlier
than 7:30 am,
which makes getting to the office
by 8 am impossible.

But now, she is forced
to sneak around
and lie about it.

If we’re not
addressing the true problem,
we’re merely making
the situation worse.

Banning a result
isn’t leadership.
Look at why
something is happening.

Train Your Employees

A friend’s neighborhood
planted trees.
They were all volunteers.
They had no training.

But how hard could it be?

You just dig a hole
and stick a baby tree in it,
right?

Months later,
EVERY tree planted
has died.
Every single one.

I was trained in tree planting
years ago
and even I could see
the trees were planted incorrectly.

There are NO unskilled jobs.
NONE.

Every job
-planting trees,
handing out flyers
at the mall,
flipping burgers-
requires skill.

Train your employees.
Then seek to retain
those SKILLED people.

Are You Truly The Exception?

Polio is making a resurgence.

There’s a vaccine for Polio, of course.

But there is a tiny percentage
of our population
who can’t get vaccinated.

If everyone else
is vaccinated,
however,
the virus doesn’t spread
and
those fragile few are protected.

Except…
it isn’t merely the fragile few
who aren’t vaccinated now.

More and more people
are choosing not to get vaccinated
and that is putting
EVERYONE at risk.
Viruses now have an opportunity
to spread and evolve,
possibly evading vaccines.

This applies to business
also.

If 20 percent of books, for example,
placed in the romance category
didn’t have a romantic happy ever after,
readers would no longer trust
books in the romance category
to give them that happy lift.
Sales would plummet
for ALL romance writers.

If everyone is the exception,
programs or concepts
won’t work for anyone.

Think hard
before being one of those exceptions.

If You Need It, Will It Be There?

I’m installing rain barrels
around my house this year.
I don’t need them
this year.
Our area, thankfully,
has a lot of water.

Now.

But I’ve seen the trends.
I’ve seen how the UK,
a part of the world
that normally has a lot of rain,
is dealing with drought.

And I know
if drought can happen there,
it can happen in my area.

Once drought arrives,
there’s no rain water to gather.
The rain has to be gathered
well BEFORE
there are any signs of drought.

Our businesses are faced
with these types of situations
also.

Marketing funds, for example,
should be ‘gathered’
when sales and cash flow
are healthy.

Because we REALLY need marketing
when sales suck
but, at that time.
we likely don’t have a healthy cash flow
to pay for the marketing.

We need to fill up
our marketing barrels
before the sales drought comes.

The Same Thing Every Day

When many people
think of
starting a business,
they think of the big events
– the first spark of an idea
for a product/service,
the finalization of the
first product/service,
the first shipment,
the first store opening,
the first sale.

Those are all
super exciting times.
They are the highlights.

But they are rare.

The majority of time
business building is
a slow slog.
It is unlocking the same office
at the same time
to do the same thing
every day.

Most of the work is
boring and monotonous.

But that work is needed
and that work makes a difference.

As Seth Godin
shares

“If you care,
keep talking.
Keep acting.
Stay focused.
And don’t get bored.”

Making a difference
often means
doing the same things
and
saying the same things
over and over.

Embrace that reality.

Planning For Best Case Scenarios

Over the last couple of day,
I’ve talked about
how we need to plan
for
best case,
worst case,
and
most likely scenarios.

I often get pushback
about having to plan for
best case scenarios.

In best case scenarios,
everything is going well.

Many people believe
all we have to do
is sit back
and
enjoy our success.

Except if we do that,
we won’t have success
to enjoy for very long.

Websites will go down
because we have too much traffic.
Inventory will run out
because we have too much sales.
Baddies will target
our products and our businesses.
The competition will
try to duplicate our success.
Etc. Etc.

We should have a plan
to deal
with all of that.

Plan for success also.

The saying is correct.
Success DOES change us.
Whether we want to change
or not.

How To Prepare For Best Case, Worst Case And Most Likely Scenarios

Yesterday, I talked about
how we should plan for
best case,
worst case,
and
most likely scenarios.

But, but, but…
we’re building businesses.
We don’t have the money
to prepare
for all these scenarios.

By prepare,
I mean plan.

We think about
what we might have to do
under the three scenarios.

We write down the things
we have to consider
and the steps we might take
to deal with those situations.

When the scenario happens,
we can then
immediately implement our plans.
We don’t have to think about it
in the panic
of the moment.
We put our plans in place.

THAT is when
we might have to spend some money.

Planning requires time
but it doesn’t often require money.

Plan for best case,
worst case
and
most likely scenarios.
Put the thinking into it now
so you can focus on implementing it later.

Preparing For Best AND Worst Case Scenarios

There’s a scuffle happening
right now
between
folks with
an optimistic view
of future climate change action
and
folks with
a pessimistic (doomer) view.

The thing is…
leaders should be listening
to BOTH views
and preparing action plans
based on BOTH scenarios.

As a project manager,
I usually craft
three scenarios
– Best Case,
Worst Case
and
Most Likely Case.

Then I prepare
for ALL THREE
scenarios.
Because ALL THREE
are possible.

Will some of that preparation
not be utilized.
In the case of the worst case scenario,
f*ck, I hope so.

But if the worst case happens,
that preparation
could be the difference
between surviving and perishing.

Prepare for the best
AND
the worst case scenarios.