StrategicPlanet.com

Passionate Success

In trying to determine what I would like to do with my life most people who want to help me usually come up with an answer that usually entails them asking me the same question, “what are you interested in?” So what if what you’re passionate about something that doesn’t lead to a profitable career? I feel you can take your passion and think outside the box to use it to be successful. One should never limit their possibilities. A great leader will never do this and he won’t limit the possibilities of those he works with.  To know the clear path is not always easy. Too often I read about a great idea that is simple. In speaking about this simple idea they make it out that any idiot should have thought of the idea. Well the truth is even the simplest ideas require understanding and research of the situation. In the end great ideas or strategies no matter how simple take years to develop. That’s why it’s important to have a passion for it or you’re likely to give up after a few years before you even come close to victory.

Starbucks is Shutting Down!

On Tuesday February 26th Starbucks shut down all of their United States stores for three hours so they could hold a training.  For three hours they were going to be obsolete and Dunkin Donuts would have a dominant hold on the market.  The Chicago Tribune reports that the 450 Dunkin Donuts in the Chicago area provided small lattes, cappuccinos or espressos for free during these three hours. This was a great move by Dunkin Donuts as it would likely bring in customers that have never set foot into their establishment. In the battle of the caffeine fix providers, if you’re able to get at least one individual to switch from the competitor to your establishment it will make up for the cost of the products you gave away.

Go Team Go

When hearing about great companies and how the leaders set them up for future greatness it makes sense that they couldn’t do it on their own. When you rely on your own expertise you’re destined for failure. It may happen if you begin to lose your edge or it will definitely happen when you decide to walk away from the business. Surrounding yourself with great employees makes perfect sense. I’ve practiced this very technique during my days in school. When asked to get in groups and have the opportunity to choose them myself I’ve look for individuals that I know will be beneficial to have in the group because they are excellent students. Also with this technique I make sure to choose classmates that I work well with as far as schedule and personalities are concerned. The benefits of doing this helped me tremendously in my college career.

One of the benefits this has given me is the stress factor because having a great group can lower the strain on a group, possibly even eliminating stress. One point in my life I felt as though I could do everything by myself better than working with a group. I soon discovered that I’m not an expert in everything. That’s what is so great about putting together a group of individuals to work on a project. Each individual brings a different expertise to the table. Even if you’re very knowledgeable in one area there may possibly be another individual who is a little more knowledgeable. Back to my school does I took a strategic management class in which we were put into groups to run a fake shoe company. This group was set up in alphabetical order so you were stuck with whom the professor put you with. Well I ended up carrying my two other dead beat team members and I had to make all the decisions by myself. It stressed me out a bit because I had nobody backing up my decisions and if I made a silly move there wasn’t another mind around to look at the situation in another manner.  This should never happen and it falls on those who are hiring to only bring in employees that will benefit the company. I believe that if the individual at the top surrounds himself with great people then the trickledown effect will take place and a cohesive work unit will be formed.

Arrogant and Humble

I’ve always assumed a great leader is a man who is arrogant. A man who will do whatever it takes to get whatever he wants. I assume I’ve had this thought as I’ve listened to tremendous stories of past war heroes. When I speak of these ideal great leaders, I don’t think of the trait of humility. As I read about great leaders of companies they are all willing to listen to their workers and are constantly trying to figure what are the weaknesses of their company. They then look into how they can fix these weaknesses.  This to me is a sign of humility.  Now can a man be arrogant and humble? I submit to you that he can. So even though the tremendous leaders were arrogant in my opinion, they were also humble. Today in the business world managers can also be arrogant and humble. In my opinion this may very well lead to success.

Settling for Mediocrity

We as human beings tend to get complacent. In fact we even tend to get complacent with being good. It’s human nature to be satisfied with mediocrity. There tends to exist in this world a handful of individuals who are driven for greatness. They don’t settle for good, they want to be great. I’ve always believed in this concept as I have aged over the years. I believe it is this attribute that made Michael Jordan such a winner in basketball. Sure he had incredible talent but the man was driven. Four championships were not enough he had to win more and two more he eventually won. Unfortunately it’s this drive that kept him going and trying even after his physical abilities left him.

In the business world a man like Michael Jordan could keep going for years as his success doesn’t rely so much on physical ability. Unfortunately having this drive doesn’t come about by simply saying “I want it.” When times get tough do we keep pushing forward or do we give up? That is one of the keys to greatness. Being able to keep the plan moving forward even when things look tough. Success doesn’t just happen; it must be earned and fought for. 

Customer Service on the Web

Whenever you have a business that is run through the web, you have to realize that the business has to be run differently than it would if customers could walk into your store or office and look around. It may seem like the best time to provide excellent customer service is when your customers can see your employees face to face. But in reality, while customer service should always be excellent, if there is a time when it should exceed expectations, it’s when you’re running your business on the web.

The example that comes to mind is online shopping. I’ve never been a huge fan of online shopping, but I started using it more this past year or so because I started to realize I couldn’t find everything I needed while living in a small town. This past year I mistakenly thought I needed a new charger for my laptop. Not wanting to pay the $75 that Apple was going to charge me, I bought a compatible charger through another company for about $40 – plus shipping of course. The day before the charger arrived at my house, I realized that while the charger did need replacing, there was a part inside the laptop that was also broken, so the charger wasn’t going to do me any good. As soon as the charger arrived, I started looking into returning it. It turned out that returning the charger was quite the process. First I had to fill out forms and submit them to be approved to return it. Then I had to pay to ship the charger back, and pay a 15% restocking fee. Then wait for them to credit back the money, which took a couple weeks. In the end, after a month or so of going through this process, it turned out that the refund I got was about half of what I had spent on the charger and the cost of shipping it both ways. All that work for a product I didn’t even use.

On the other end of the spectrum, my mom ordered some jewelry from a company that doesn’t sell in stores – you order it from a catalog, which has similar issues to ordering on the web. However, this company has much better customer service. All of their jewelry has a lifetime guarantee. If it breaks, starts looking bad, or even if you just don’t like it anymore, you can send it back, no questions asked, and get a full refund or exchange it for something else. They even send you a prepaid return slip so you don’t have to pay to ship it back, and if you lose the return slip, they will add a $5 credit to your account to compensate you for the shipping.  I don’t hesitate to order from this company the way I do many other companies.

So many companies I spend days or weeks deciding if I really need what I’m ordering just because I know what a hassle it can be to return it if I don’t. While this is good for my bank account, it’s not so good for the company’s business. If I knew ahead of time that it would be easy and pain free to return the product, I would be much more likely to just order it.

Super Blunder

This past weekend was the Super Bowl, great game terrible outcome.  Nevertheless the Super Bowl has become more than just a football game as the pre-game and halftime entertainment creates an entertainment buzz.  Then of course there are the commercials.  Companies spend millions of dollars for 30 seconds of air time.  The commercials are so important that companies have teams working the entire year to develop these spots.  One interesting technique to creating a commercial was used by Doritos.  Doritos held a contest that individuals could submit themselves singing whatever they chose and the winner would get a Super Bowl commercial.  The only good thing about this technique is it was cheap to produce, unless you count the $5 million they spent just to run the commercial.  The song didn’t have anything to do with the product and at the Super Bowl party I attended there were over 30 people there, none of which had heard of this contest so there was no interest in who won it.  In fact it’s reported that Doritos only had around 600 entries, which is considerably small.  In the end the commercial left me and many others no reason to consider buying Doritos and in fact we thought the commercial was so lame that it created a negative feeling towards Doritos.  If Doritos wanted to make this commercial remarkable they needed to have created some buzz beforehand so people would know what’s going on.  Also they needed to require the applicants to write and sing songs about their product.  This would be great publicity for them with the boom of youtube the ones that didn’t make the spot would play on over the internet.  In the end I feel Doritos had a good idea but executed it poorly.

Enhancing Our Performance

Performance enhancing drugs have been a focus in this country for several years now.  The government has even got involved with federal hearings they held years ago and the recently published Mitchell report which was put together by former Senate majority leader George Mitchell. The use of human growth hormone (HGH) has shown to increase recovery from injury allowing the players to spend more time playing and less time on the injury reserve.  For years sports has taken advantage of technologies that enhance performance, such as better shoes, light weight materials for bicycles, helmets in football, caffeine, creatine, B12, and protein shakes.  Why not allow HGH use under the supervision of trained medical professionals.  Some feel this is not fair. 

To bring it a little closer to home is how would you feel if a coworker or a competitor was using a substance that helped improve their work?  In essence, some individuals already do this with the vast amount of caffeine intake.  One study claims that caffeine makes a great neurotransmitter.  If you really want to get technical you can argue that food and water enhance your performance.  The bottom line is where do we draw the line?

Just Draw It

When putting together a presentation, sometimes the way you want to showcase your information doesn’t seem to come together like you had envisioned the presentation.  The problem with many individuals is their not able to draw their ideas.  The rule I’ve been taught is if you can draw it, you can own it.  This makes sense to me especially when putting together a presentation.  How can you possibly present something if you don’t know what it looks like visually?   It might also help you to look at your thoughts in a whole new way, creating remarkable concepts.  A great method in using this technique is to have a couple of white boards and just cover them with all the ideas that arise in your mind.  Use both words and pictures anything that will make your idea clear and stimulate more on the subject.  This whole concept can be so simple but in the end will help create a beneficial presentation that will stand out from all the rest.

You're Fired

I've never watched a single episode of Donald Trump’s show The Apprentice but a friend told me about a recent episode.  In the past Donald Trump has always had regular hard working individuals trying to make it in the corporate world but this season he is using celebrities with the winnings going to charities.  Mr. Trump had the contestants divided into men vs. women out on the streets of New York selling hot dogs with all the proceeds going to charity. 

The women went out and did well but nowhere near what the men accomplished. Gene Simmons, member of the rock band KISS, was genius with his idea of how to sell hot dogs.  Gene simply called up some friends of his and asked them if they would donate to charity by buying a hot dog.  With this technique Gene got around five individuals to pay up around $10,000 for a single hot dog.  In the end it makes me wonder how we are running our business.  Are we working hard doing the normal techniques that the world expects like the women’s team or are we working hard and smart like the men’s team?  What resources do we have to make our business become more profitable?