The Baby Gorillas: A Business Blog

Being Meaningful

Ed McLaughlin — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 03:49:11 +0000

Shortly after his return to Apple in 1997, Steve Jobs defined the company’s purpose to employees. The brief video below captures the essence of this message.

Belief in the mission matters. Do you believe in yours?

It’s All About Price?

Ed McLaughlin — Wed, 11 Aug 2010 10:15:58 +0000

“All that my customers care about is price.”

Be honest – have you ever said those words? If so, I’ve got news:

You’re right.

But do you know why?

It’s because you haven’t really given customers much else to care about in the first place.

Loyalty Isn’t a Program

Ed McLaughlin — Tue, 10 Aug 2010 03:58:33 +0000

I went into the bookstore of a major chain the other day. As I was checking out, the clerk asked, “Are you a member of our loyalty rewards program?”

“No…” I smiled, wondering if she would persist.

“Would you like to become one?”

“Not really.” Then, of course, I got curious. “How many people say yes?”

“Almost no one,” she said. “But I’m supposed to ask.”

No surprise there. Loyalty programs, once something of a novelty, don’t actually work. Consumers are smart enough to know that they’ll wind up with too much SPAM and a weekly newsletter they don’t want to read. Yet companies love to push them.

Here’s the tip: real customer loyalty has nothing to do with a program. If the experience or product is great (think The Apple Store), then we’re in. That’s it – no discounts, freebies or plastic cards necessary.

Legacy

Ed McLaughlin — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 23:51:43 +0000

Fingerprints don’t fade.

Especially those placed on the lives you’ve touched.

If you can explain why we do what we do in fewer words, you win.

Three Words

Ed McLaughlin — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 03:35:12 +0000

Character counts. Always.

Yet somewhere along the line, companies started to favor rhetoric and excuses instead of results and accountability.

How do you know when a company lacks character? Simple. When discussing poor results, leadership:

Makes excuses
Rationalizes limited progress
Formulates arguments to minimize accountability

Not so with companies of character. They tell the truth. They take responsibility for shortfalls and failures. And they refuse to play the victim just so they can feel good about themselves.

Character is a choice. And one alternative is more likely to lead to success than the other.

Choose wisely.

Going, going…

Ed McLaughlin — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 02:16:37 +0000

Gone! A grand slam!

My son’s first baseball game was more exciting than expected. After spending the first four innings watching a back-and-forth struggle, one of his favorite players hit a grand slam – the giant home run that changes the outcome of a game.

Not surprisingly, the media coverage that evening focused almost exclusively on this particular moment in the game. Apparently, the little things that occurred earlier in the contest weren’t as fun to talk about.

But sports teams that rely on the home run cannot win over the long term. Neither can entrepreneurs and business owners.

That sure hasn’t stopped them from trying. Companies love to develop business plans that are little more than a series of attempted home runs. And while occasionally someone hits one, this approach doesn’t lead to sustainable growth.

A better strategy is to concentrate on hitting singles. It may be less exciting, but think about it this way: if you try for home runs and miss, you’ve accomplished nothing. Modest wins, on the other hand, mean that you’re always growing. And over time, steady growth will transform even the smallest of firms into a powerhouse.

Which is a lot better than the occasional big inning.

Shake It Up

Ed McLaughlin — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 03:52:08 +0000

My friend Shawn Murphy doesn’t follow. He leads.

Shawn (@shawmu on Twitter) just launched the Wake Up and Shake It Up blog series. Need a push to think bigger than you have before? Here it is.

The first post, Big versus Small, went live this morning. I think you know the author – check it out.

Two Questions

Ed McLaughlin — Fri, 04 Jun 2010 02:40:08 +0000

Invest a few minutes and watch the video below. Then answer two questions:

Do you get it?
What now?

Yes, But

Ed McLaughlin — Sun, 30 May 2010 01:53:22 +0000

How many times have you heard someone say “yes, but”?

“Yes, I’d like to ship that for you, but you can’t use that box.”

“That’s a good idea. I’d like to say yes, but this isn’t the time to try something different.”

Somewhere along the line, people were conditioned to say no. What would happen if everyone in the company had to look for a reason to say yes?

Don’t Change Your Story

Ed McLaughlin — Mon, 24 May 2010 02:30:51 +0000

It’s frustrating to listen to people, companies, and politicians say they stand for something while at the same time they try to please everyone. It doesn’t work that way, no matter how hard they try to convince us otherwise.

A company’s story can’t be about convenience, low-cost, premium-value, and great selection.

A politician can’t talk about lowering taxes, increasing services, attacking bureaucracy, and reducing the deficit.

A Little League coach can’t preach health and fitness to his team and then sneak a cigarette while the kids are running laps.

I realize that it’s hard to take a stand, to tell people what they don’t want to hear. But it does no good to change your story to suit your audience. Sooner or later people will figure out that you don’t stand for anything at all, which means you’ll be gone tomorrow.

The 5 Goals of a Project Manager

Jason Westland — Sat, 22 May 2010 22:00:37 +0000

I’m thrilled to introduce a new contributor to The Baby Gorillas – project management expert Jason Westland. Jason is the founder and CEO of Method123 and Project Manager Online. He has written articles for Computer World and was the author of the best-selling book “The Project Management Life Cycle.” And he truly understands the concept of thinking big and acting small, which makes him a great addition to this blog.

For more information about Jason’s online project management software, visit Project Manager.com.

Please join me in welcoming Jason – we’re lucky to have him. His first article is the perfect primer for project management. I hope that you find it useful.

- Ed McLaughlin

___________________________________________________________________________________

As a Project Manager, you need to manage people, money, suppliers, equipment—the list is never ending. The trick is to be focused. Set yourself 5 personal goals to achieve. If you can meet these simple goals for each project, then you will achieve total success. So read on, to learn…

The 5 Goals of a Project Manager

These goals are generic to all industries and all types of projects. Regardless of your level of experience in project management, set these 5 goals for every project you manage.

Goal 1: To finish on time

This is the oldest but trickiest goal in the book. It’s the most difficult because the requirements often change during the project and the schedule was probably optimistic in the first place.

To succeed, you need to manage your scope very carefully. Implement a change control process so that any changes to the scope are properly managed.

Always keep your plan up to date, recording actual vs. planned progress. Identify any deviations from plan and fix them quickly.

Goal 2: To finish under budget

To make sure that your project costs don’t spiral, you need to set a project budget at the start to compare against. Include in this budget, all of the types of project costs that will accrue, whether they are to do with people, equipment, suppliers or materials. Then work out how much each task in your plan is going to cost to complete and track any deviations from this plan.

Make sure that if you over-spend on some tasks, that you under-spend on others. In this way, you can control your spend and deliver under budget.

Goal 3: To meet the requirements

The goal here is to meet the requirements that were set for the project at the start. Whether the requirements were to install a new IT system, build a bridge or implement new processes, your project needs to produce solutions which meet these requirements 100%.

The trick here is to make sure that you have a detailed enough set of requirements at the beginning. If they are ambiguous in any way, then what was initially seen as a small piece of work could become huge, taking up valuable time and resources to complete.

Goal 4: To keep customers happy

You could finish your project on time, under budget and have met 100% of the requirements—but still have unhappy customers. This is usually because their expectations have changed since the project started and have not been properly managed.

To ensure that your project sponsor, customer and other stakeholders are happy at the end of your project, you need to manage their expectations carefully. Make sure you always keep them properly informed of progress. “Keep it real” by giving them a crystal clear view of progress to date. Let them voice their concerns or ideas regularly. Tell them upfront when you can’t deliver on time, or when a change needs to be made. Openness and honesty are always the best tools for setting customer expectations.

Goal 5: To ensure a happy team

If you can do all of this with a happy team, then you’ll be more than willing to do it all again for the next project. And that’s how your staff will feel also. Staff satisfaction is critical to your project’s success.

So keep your team happy by rewarding and recognizing them for their successes. Assign them work that complements their strengths and conduct team building exercises to boost morale. With a happy motivated team, you can achieve anything!

And there you have it. The 5 goals you need to set yourself for every project.

Of course, you should always work smart to achieve these goals more easily.

Yesterday, Tomorrow, & Today

Ed McLaughlin — Sat, 22 May 2010 01:43:46 +0000

The secret of business success comes down to one thing:

Time.

Sound too simple? I’d probably agree – if not for the fact that using time well is incredibly difficult.

Perhaps this story will help you to change your perspective on time. Imagine that your bank credits you with $86,400 every morning. You don’t have to pay this money back, but there’s a catch – every night, the bank deletes any balance remaining in the account. So if you fail to use any portion of the money during the day, you lose it forever. In this scenario, would you be certain to withdraw every cent? Sure you would.

Every day, we receive a similar credit – 86,400 seconds of time. As with the imaginary bank, failure to use any portion of the daily deposit is your loss. So the question is this: how much value do you place on the time you have remaining today?

Every second of time is valuable. If that seems like an overstatement, you should talk with a person who just avoided a car accident. It’s quite possible that the difference between life and death came down to a single second (or less).

Yesterday is history.
Tomorrow is unknown.
Today is a gift.

Don’t waste it.

Stop Reinforcing the Status Quo

Ed McLaughlin — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 21:34:13 +0000

Every day, people do the same thing over and over without questioning the policy or the system. Which is why new ideas are usually met with resistance.

“That will never work.”

“It’s never been done before.”

“Don’t bother – we already tried that once.”

“Nice idea, but can you prove that it will work?”

“We can’t sell that to senior management.”

We aren’t taught to question things that are familiar to us. Which reminds me of an experiment that can be done with five monkeys.

Start with a cage containing five monkeys. Inside the cage, hang a banana on a string and place a set of stairs under it. Before long, a monkey will go to the stairs and start to climb towards the banana. As soon as he touches the stairs, spray the other four monkeys with cold water. After a while, another monkey makes an attempt with the same result – the other monkeys are sprayed with cold water.

Soon enough, any monkey that tries to climb the stairs will be stopped by the others.

Now, turn off the cold water. Remove one monkey from the cage and replace it with a new one. The newcomer will see the banana and try to climb the stairs. To his surprise, all of the other monkeys attack him. After another attempt and attack, he knows that if he tries to climb the stairs he will be assaulted.

Next, remove another of the original monkeys and replace it with a new one. The newcomer goes to the stairs and is attacked. And the previous newcomer takes part in the punishment with enthusiasm.

Continue the process – replace the third monkey with a new one, then the fourth, then fifth. Every time the newest monkey takes to the stairs, he is attacked. But most of the monkeys that are beating him have no idea why they were not permitted to climb the stairs – or why they are participating in the beating of the newest monkey. After replacing all the original monkeys, none of the remaining monkeys have ever been sprayed with cold water. Regardless, no monkey ever again approaches the stairs to try for the banana. Why not? Because as far as they know, that’s the way it’s always been done around here.

Companies all over the world repeat this experiment every day with their own people. What about yours? Or do you promote a culture that is eternally curious about why they do what they do?

Present Like Steve Jobs

Ed McLaughlin — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 23:35:54 +0000

The purpose of a presentation is to change minds. Yet this won’t happen if the presenter uses PowerPoint or Keynote to hide behind a wall of bullets and graphs. Of course, that doesn’t mean people still won’t try.

If you want to improve your presentation skills, there is no one better to study than Apple CEO Steve Jobs. His keynotes captivate audiences – and you can learn to do the same. Communications coach Carmine Gallo breaks down his methods in the video below.

Here is a summary of the Jobs presentation approach:

Create a headline that sets the theme. Make sure that it is clear and consistent throughout your presentation.
Provide an outline. Then open and close each section with a clear transition. This makes it easy for others to follow what you’re saying.
Generate enthusiasm. Nothing is worse than a listless presenter. Remember, great communicators don’t transfer words – they transfer emotion.
Make numbers meaningful. You should back up your points with numbers, and those numbers should be expressed in context.
Make it visual. Limit bullet points and text. The more data you put into each slide, the more likely it is the audience members will start checking their PDAs.
Create a memorable moment. Identify this ahead of time, then spend your presentation building up to it. Jobs is known for keeping audiences in suspense waiting for his “one more thing” – a traditional joke he makes before announcing the next big thing at the end of his keynotes.
Rehearse. No one – not even Steve Jobs – can pull off an intricate presentation with video clips and demonstrations without hours of rehearsal. If people are willing to invest time listening to you, then you ought to be willing to spend the time necessary to create a polished presentation.

Less is More

Ed McLaughlin — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 23:36:34 +0000

Thanks to the Internet, the world has gotten smaller. It’s now possible to connect with people all over the world in a meaningful way.

While I agree that it matters who you know, that doesn’t mean the goal should be to have thousands of online friends. Quantity alone doesn’t mean that you’re truly connected.

Here’s a thought: make your network smaller. Then take that network and focus on making it tighter. Do this by reaching out to people more frequently (about them, not you) and connecting them to others.

This approach takes time, but it’s the best way I know to build a real network.

When To Make A Decision

Ed McLaughlin — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 04:59:23 +0000

A friend of mine regularly talks to me about his job. A couple of years ago, his company’s managers were slow to make decisions. While other firms in his industry changed how they worked, his business sat still. “They didn’t have enough information to support doing things differently,” he told me. Eventually, some of their largest customers migrated to the competition.

Now the opposite is true. With less revenue, the company started showing signs of financial strain. So the CEO and other senior managers made some very quick decisions. Those decisions were made with limited information, and they backfired. Now the company is in serious trouble.

The main rule of decision making: as soon as you have a reasonable amount of information, decide what to do. Any more or less could be catastrophic.

Improve Your Follow-Up

Ed McLaughlin — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 20:10:37 +0000

Most businesses look at follow-up as something that’s easy. Wait until someone shows interest in your product, then call or email in an effort to push the sales cycle along. But that’s a call about you, not them.

There is another kind of follow-up that seems hard, but really isn’t. And since it takes place in moments other than when a sale is on the line, it’s much more powerful.

I’m not talking about generic thank you emails or satisfaction surveys. They’re boring, and do nothing to create customer loyalty or referrals. What I mean is someone from the company connects with the customer in meaningful way.

Let’s use an easy example: high-end restaurants. People aren’t dining out as much these days, and those that do are typically buying cheaper wine and ordering fewer courses. To lure customers in, many restaurants now offer value menus or run promotions. Fine. But the only time they follow-up with a customer is when confirming a reservation.

What if they decided to follow-up with patrons in a simple but unconventional* way? Someone from the restaurant could call to ask how dinner was the night before. Or the wait staff could send handwritten thank you cards to their customers. And if those doing the follow-up are empowered to resolve problems, than you’re much closer to establishing an emotional connection with your customers than you were before.

This small act is inexpensive, and chances are it will do more to generate repeat business and referrals than advertising ever will.

*This is unconventional for a restaurant, which is why it might work. The point here is that you need to figure out what is unconventional for your business and act on that.

Linchpin: Are You Indispensable?

Ed McLaughlin — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 10:22:47 +0000

Seth Godin is widely viewed as one of the sharpest marketing minds of our time. In my opinion, he’s more than that – he is a true change agent. His latest book, Linchpin, could not have come along at a better time.

We’re in the midst of the 22^nd recession since 1900, and so far it’s been an ugly one. And while the rate of job losses has recently slowed, many companies are still in retreat – freezing salaries, raising health-care premiums, and eliminating training programs.

If you’re a linchpin, this is an incredible opportunity.

I was privileged to attend the book launch in New York City. During the presentation, I learned that the original title of the book was The Chef, The Cook, and The Dishwasher.

In a restaurant, the dishwasher is clearly the lowest job available. Someone will always have to fill this kind of role, but that someone doesn’t have to be you.

The cook follows a recipe – make a particular dish one way, every time. Everyone can follow instructions, so it should come as no surprise that there are a surplus of people available to perform these jobs. And since a cook doesn’t create any real value, they have little hope of making more than an average living.

The chef is different altogether. A chef may be aware of recipes, but chooses not to follow them. Which means that unlike the cook, her best work is completely unknown. By creating instead of following, she turns her work into art.

In the post-industrial age, the artist is the one in demand. Linchpin is the type of book that will push you down this path. It goes on sale today (January 26th). I hope that you’ll pick up a copy – it is by far Godin’s best yet.

Pace Yourself

Ed McLaughlin — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 16:15:14 +0000

In 2003, the Women’s United Soccer Association (WUSA) folded after three years in operation. The cumulative losses amounted to approximately $100 million.

At first, it is difficult to wrap your arms around the magnitude of that loss. But what bothers me most is how quickly they folded. After all, this was the first women’s professional soccer league in the world. The owners should have expected success to take time.

ESPN began in 1979, but didn’t turn a profit until 1985 (six years). Turner Broadcasting Systems lost money during its first twelve years of operation. Robert Murdoch expanded into the U.S. market in 1973, but wasn’t profitable until 1983 (ten years). Airbus? They took twenty years.

The list goes on. What concerns me is that I regularly talk with entrepreneurs who think that the only way to win is by front-loading their idea with lots of cash and staff. The reality is that even if you have a great product, the smart thing to do is operate with as little money as possible. Had the WUSA done that, they might still be around today.

I’m not suggesting that you stop thinking big. Keep doing that. Just act small.

Urgency

Ed McLaughlin — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 23:07:07 +0000

I’m in the process of launching a new business. And since I’m booked during the day working on other projects, a lot of the pre-launch work takes place late at night. This actually helped create a bond between me and my business partner – we were pleasantly surprised to discover that one could email the other at 3:00 am and get a response.

A lot of people think that we overextend ourselves. “Slow down,” we’re told. “Take a breath every once in a while. You can’t run at the extremes all of the time.”

We disagree. The days of moving slow are over. Look at the leaders of yesterday – battered, bruised, and frozen in fear. Running at the extremes is now an important component of winning.

How fast do you run?