MacStartup

I had my last Junior Achievement class last Thursday at the school I was volunteering my time. It’s an alternative school so things were a little different than a normal Sept – June school classes. A normal nine month school class was compressed into two months worth of work because they had class four days a week versus a normal once a week class. So we had to cut out some of the stuff normally discussed as there was not enough time to go over it.

Here are some of the comments from the kids (translated somewhat into adultese):

• “I liked the class because the material was relevant to what were were doing.” They learned information and skills that made nearly immediate sense to them, “Not like some of my other classes that I have.”
• “I liked the class because I got to participate on a team.”
• “I did not like the class at first because we didn’t know what were were doing (the class had a beginning business test score of “0,” but ended up with a “78″ overall), but once we learned what were were doing we really moved ahead and got the job done.”
• “I did not like working with some of the people in my class.” This was sort of universal among the kids. Same with adults.
• “I did not like paying taxes, especially the RTD tax.” I gave a short civics lesson here that the RTD (Regional Transportation District) tax was voted on by those that had voted. If he wanted to change the tax, he could get his friends and neighbors to vote against it next time. Or even now, to work to make future changes.
• “I did not like the class toward the end because our customers were mad at us.” The kids had to end the course and the class and their selling their food and drink to “close down” their business. Their customers wanted them to keep selling them their food and drink. The kids were also afraid to talk about their “failures” as it made them look bad, but this is a leadership issue. If leaders use fear to motivate then messengers will not tell the truth. I mentioned that telling the truth means that good decisions can be made now to make changes. But there’s a happy ending from this experience below.
• “We could not GIVE some of our failed products away.” They saw that some products (in this case Emergen-C) not only did not sell but they could not give it away. Not all products sell well, that’s the nature of business.
• “I’m able to use the stuff I learned in this class out in the real world now, not later.” This was the best comment I heard from all of the kids. He got it!

Here’s some of the results of the kids actions and attitudes:

• Since the school does not have a cafeteria, they do have a Cafe that sells food and drink to the kids. They wrote a report to the person responsible for the Cafe what their market research found what the kids wanted to buy.
• Some of the kids wanted to be able to “make up my grades” with selling more stock and product.
• Kids that were VP of their company wanted to get better grades because of the amount of work they did compared with others.
• Their marketing material was taken down from class hallways because it was “tagged” by other school kids. They thought it was a waste of resources and a loss of potential revenue.
• They spent a lot of time trying to find out why there was a discrepancy in their inventory accounting. Some blamed each other, but then found out that it was just stolen or bad inventory accounting.
• They wanted to take some of the profit beyond their break-even point and buy a secure cart to keep their product in because it was being stolen. Too little time to buy one, but good thinking on their part.

Here are my observations.

1. Get our Government and School Boards out of the classroom. Make schools accountable to their community more, directly with their community and less to school boards. By this I mean school boards need to get out of the business of overseeing the curriculum and let great businesses have direct access to influencing school curriculum to improve it. Why? We’ll all spend 1/3 or more of our lives working for others or for ourselves as entrepreneurs, so if kids do not come out of school with business basics, schools have failed to prepare the kids for life. Whether or not kids want jobs or to work for themselves, they need to be prepared for both perspectives because even learning how a business works if they don’t choose to start their own makes them a better employee. The most critical part is now the businesses compete for the kids and the kids compete for jobs. There is a direct response to what the kids have learned and the businesses see how much they can improve the business bottom line.
2. Schools should have Project Based classes. After seeing what a rural teacher Emily Pilloton’s speech on TED.com was able to get her kids to do, I was inspired to see what I could do. I found that Jefferson County in Colorado had Enterprise Zones that receive tax credits, etc. for development. The enterprise zone map they provide gives us a view that the school I was at and another school was within five minutes of these zones could possibly use student-lead projects to use their schooling to help out those economically depressed areas. Local projects cause the kids to connect with their community, provides a sense of accomplishment (I helped build that), and they see all of the many factors and issues involved with completing a project.
3. Business involvement creates well being among schools. With businesses involved by providing donated materials and labor costs (i.e. summer jobs for the kids to complete the project they started during the school year) it helps create a sense of community for all involved. The donated materials and labor costs can be split among many companies and they get marketing rights as sponsors.
4. Kids get valuable life long learned skills. But most of all, the kids get skills they’ll use the rest of the lives and a sense of accomplishment and a “I did that” pointing to what they did in their community. But then, it’s all about getting the kids to be productive with their lives, right?

What comments do you have with Junior Achievement and helping kids?

As a startup and entrepreneur having a Mac makes running my business much easier. Using the Mac allows me to concentrate on my essential business tasks, including looking outside for more opportunities.

Radio Show. Recently I was attending an internet radio show where a young lady was discussing her recently published book. She talked for an hour and there were about 10-15 people there in the coffee shop listening to her and drinking their coffee. After her talk, she gathered her things and book and left the coffee shop.

What?

You heard me right, she just upped and left. Not once did she even look in our direction or visit with any of us to discuss her book and her life and talent. Not once did she reach out and try to connect with one person.

She had the potential of adding another 10 customers to her name and business list, but she did not even see the opportunity of who might be interested in talking with her, or as we used to say in the service, do a “grip and grin” with those that are important to us, in this case, potential customers.

Her one hour of talking was her “sales presentation” to those listening to the internet radio and those in the coffee house and she missed out “closing the sale” with those in the coffee shop.

Book Marketing. The same goes for a recent encounter with another author. In discussing the many aspects of getting books sales I mentioned that getting into the brick and mortar establishments versus going online can tie up some of your capital, i.e. getting your books on consignment (the book store giving shelf space to your book until it sells, then both of you earn the profit). This person came back and said, “If anyone can get their book into all of the stores, they can.” Based on this web site (http://www.manta.com/mb_34_B63AE_000/book_stores) there are over 29,000+ book stores. If each book cost you $10 to ship to them and the cost of the book, that’s $290,000 in capital getting your book into each store. Do you think a beginning author has that much capital in their checking account, let alone a major book chain, to devote to getting your book on their shelf?

Both the radio show and the book marketing: Missed opportunities!!

Being laser focused can be good at keeping out the “noise” of non-essential business or “Getting Things Done,” but this laser focus will “burn” you if you don’t broaden or “soften” your focus and looking right next to you for opportunities. This also means learning what to do first or put some thought into your efforts so you don’t waste them.

Do you have a similar story, let me hear it.

Entrepreneurs have a tough job, but it’s really not a job, it takes work, and if you don’t love what you’re doing it IS work. But if you love what you do, then it is never work, it’s a joy to do it even though you have to put in effort to accomplish the task or endeavor before you.

Take the simple pencil. A simple tool. A tool that most of us don’t even notice any more these days with pens and computers.

It does not seem like much, but there’s a whole economy surrounding the pencil. It involves vendors, suppliers, and ultimately customers who buy them.

So who buys pencils? Writers (drafts of novels, stories, plays), News reporters and newscasters (interview notes), Engineers (plans and drawings), Carpenters (plans and drawings, estimating), Composers (creating music), Scientists (experiments), Teachers (lesson books), Business people (meeting notes and memos), High school and college students (class notes and homework), Golfers (scores), Parents (grocery shopping lists).

If you want to know about the economy and how it works, read the free article I, Pencil by Leonard Reed.

If you want to know more facts about pencils, see 5 Interesting Facts about Pencils: Did you know? and see some interesting facts, like “more than 14 billion pencils are produced in the world every year, enough to circle the earth 62 times.”

To learn more about pencils themselves, read The Story of Pencils: The amazing pencil, technology and tradition and see how far we have come. From the web site, “One pencil has the potential to draw a line 35 miles long, write an average of 45,000 words, absorb 17 sharpenings, delete its own errors and beat out an infinite number of drum solos.”

During a presentation I attended years ago given by a missionary to Mexico they discussed spending time with those that have less then we do and how taking the simple pencil to hard economic areas affected their view of resources. The missionaries gave out pencils to kids and since there were more kids than pencils, there were not enough pencils to go around. The missionaries did not know what to do.

But the kids knew what to do. These enterprising kids solved their own problem. They broke the pencils in half to give to those that had none so that everyone had something to use and share.

Notice the issue? The kids made the decision. Once they were given the pencil (the resource), the pencil became their property, they chose what to do with it and solved their own problems without much help from anyone else. No “pencil dictator” or “pencil czar” told them what to do.

Now that a resource was in the kids hands, they could now become writers, artists, teachers, and maybe even a scientist. A simple resource can launch someone’s life in a new direction.

Read a Zig Ziglar short story about “Recognizing Potential” about the person selling pencils, you’ll get a different perspective of this simple story.

Selling pencils can launch a sales career. But using the pencil can launch a hundred careers.

So what’s the Mac connection? How about Pencil animation software or a “Handful of Pencils, Four Rubber Bands = iPhone stand.”

(Smile)

As an entrepreneur using a Mac, we all need encouragement, so here’s your encouragement for today. And maybe for your life.

Rocky Balboa Speech

As an entrepreneur, I look for ideas that make sense to me and try and find sense out of what I read. After reading a blog post by Derek Sivers called Valuable to others, or only to you? about making music for others it made me think about not making music, but about the creativity part for entrepreneurs, about making meaning, as Guy Kawasaki states. What does Sivers mean?

While musicians make music and the audience listens to the music there’s a conversation going on there between them. The musician plays the music and if the audience likes it they applaud, that’s the conversation. An entrepreneur makes a product or service and sells it to his or her customers. The feedback from both the sales and the comments from the customers is that an entrepreneur is having many conversations between his customers and himself or herself. Both the musician and the entrepreneur are “making music”

What does a conversation between a customer and an entrepreneur look like?

• Entrepreneur: I have an itch or I see someone else’s itch and I want to scratch it. I’ll make a product/service to take care of my/your itch and see if others like it.
• Customer: Oh, I see how you solved your itch, do I have the same itch? Yes, No, or Maybe.
• Entrepreneur: Here’s my itch more defined, do you have the same itch?
• Customer: Yes, I do. Now will your solution really solve my itching problem?
• Entrepreneur: It not only solved mine, but here are others that it my solution solved as well.
• Customer: I really don’t believe your solution will solve my itch. You’re pulling my leg!
• Entrepreneur: Well here’s a sample to try and see it if works for you.
• Customer: Yes, I do believe it does solve my itch. How much is it?
• Entrepreneur: It’s only this price?
• Customer: I’ll have to think about it.
• Entrepreneur: You come back now if you have any more questions, OK?

This is just one type of conversation, but notice that it is something which both the customer and entrepreneur agree upon, there is no fraud or attempt to defraud by either the customer or the entrepreneur. This is a true business relationship where both sides agree that things are what they are.

Where problems begin is when either the customer or the business work to defraud the other from their rightful property or provide a less than good product for the money.

When it works, then the solution to an itch becomes a better business and it grows.

What conversations are you having?

I read this blog post and I just had to respond. There is a lot of good business information out there, but some of it reeks of ignorance, stupidity, and fear and scarcity-driven thinking. So here’s the link to the article, “Why do innovation teams fails?” and my answers to his commentary.

1. Organized resistance. “Remember, the top priority of every organization is to preserve the organization. Doesn’t matter if it’s a company or a charity or a school.   Doesn’t matter what the stated mission or objective of the organization is. Once an organization gets started, it will naturally seek self-preservation as its first priority.” WRONG. Preservation of the company is NOT the primary function of a business, it’s taking care of its customers, without a customer you have no business. You can defend a company all year long, but if you are not bringing in the bacon, you’ll go under. Change is important, but change for change sake is wasteful and unproductive. There has to be a reason for the change. A CEO that  puts his ego before his ideal customer and his business idea is the end of the line for the company. It’s all related to your customer, failure to satisfy a customer’s needs means failure of a company and when you quit focusing outward to your customers and focus inward on yourself you become complacent. Same goes for focusing on your competitor, your competitor is NOT your customer.
2. Responsibility without authority. “A creative team sailing in uncharted waters towards an unknown destination is bound to fail.” WRONG. Do you think Christopher Columbus was a failure because he did not fine India, his original goal? How about Thomas Edison with his 10,000 failed experiments looking for the idea of the lightbulb? How about Henry Ford telling his engineers to figure out how to make a eight cylinder engine when they said it couldn’t be done? Lastly, how about Lewis and Clark looking for the trail leading to the Pacific Ocean, they failed in this primary function? What about all of the accidental successes such as Goretex and the like? What determines failure? When you read the book “Getting to Plan B” you’ll see that there are lots of failures, just don’t get hung up on them. It’s how CEO looks at the failure and those that make them that makes the difference. It boils to beginning with #1 above. It’s all about leadership and doing the right think, not about management.
3. Lack of self-awareness. “Self-awareness is in chronic short supply in most corporations.  And yet, the ability of the innovation team to convince the organization to adopt their recommendations depends entirely upon mutual self awareness and empathy.” Some Wrong. There are some good points here and Tercek’s comments have some validity to them. Taking various tests to determine they type of person you are, such as the Myers-Briggs, the DISC test, and the online multi-personality assessment tests are all great to tell us who we are, but until leaders embrace these “soft” ideas in “hard” business environment, businesses will not be as productive as they could be. Dan Pink’s book “Drive” gives a great idea as to how change is needed.

Your thoughts about this?

The one thing that is universally recognized for good business practices is looking to solve a customer’s pain, not to sell your product. Here’s a good article “It’s Hard to Help People Help Themselves” that describes looking at your customer through their eyes, not your own.