Moreover, he states that when his company loses a bid or contract, he simple throws away any vestige of that client in their offices and moves on as if that client or bid never existed. In his world, they’ve never lost a bid because if they didn’t get the contract then it isn’t a client they would have wanted to work with.

Besides the fact that I find it hard to believe that his company actually works this way (like they’ve never fired someone for underperforming or they only evaluate based on successes), I find it just bad advice. The reality is that most businesses need to do more learning from failure–not less.

As a consultant, I spend my life walking into companies where problems exist (and they exist in every company, including Bogusky’s). And I have yet to find any company that is really great at evaluation and learning from failure. Most business leaders are so busy trying to stay on top of all their work, that they rarely ever take time to stop and learn from their failures/missed opportunities/mistakes etc. Therefore, they tend to keep making the same mistakes over and over again. As the saying goes (slightly altered),

“Those who don’t learn from history are doomed to repeat it.”

Now, if a leader or manager is a blamer (i.e. a bad leader or manager) then that is a problem–but not with the idea of learning from failure. Rather it’s a failure of the leader/manager to carry out their job well. Likewise, if they’re creating a culture of fear vs. trust, then that’s a leadership issue, not an evaluation problem.

Great leader/managers know that learning from the past, both positive and negative, is essential to improving and optimizing the future. They understand that if there’s a problem, it’s not a person who’s the problem, it’s the system. And the only way to fix the system is to debrief and make sure that they and their team have learned from what happened so that the same problem isn’t repeated. No learning = ongoing problem.

So don’t listen to Alex on this one. Increase your learning from failure (and success). Invest more time in evaluating what happened so that you can both eliminate/minimize any problems and optimize/leverage any successes. It’s not an either/or. It’s a both/and. And in most cases, there’s not enough learning going on. So I’d argue that you need to increase your learnings so you can increase your successes!

To your accelerated success!

P.S. If you want to know the five questions you should always ask when evaluating, click here>>

First, before I share the two lessons, here’s what happened. I received my latest bill yesterday and now, for the fourth month in a row it’s wrong. Each time I call and talk with a representative. Each time they make the change on their end and tell me what the correct figure is. Each time I ask, “Are you sure this is the correct amount?” Each time, they say “Yes!” So, I pay the amount they tell me to and then when I receive my next bill, guess what? Exactly, there’s a “balance forwarded” amount equal to what I was told not to pay.

But to make matters worse, when I called this time, I went through their voice mail system (which is frustrating in an of itself). However, when I finally got to the response, “Your wait time is …”, I was told, “Your wait time is 15 minutes. If you’d like us to call you back in 15 minutes, please press 1”. When I heard that, I was pleasantly surprised. “Hey, this is a nice change!” So, I left my name and number (which was interesting given that they already had both), and went and did something else rather than wait with a phone next to my hear.

Around fifteen minutes later, the phone rang. However, instead of a “live” person, it was an automated attendant. It confirmed I was on the line and then told me I would get the next available customer service agent. Why the system was designed so that I wasn’t directly connected to an attendant makes no sense. But that wasn’t the frustrating part. The frustrating part was that I had to wait on hold an additional 15 minutes before a “live” attendant came on line. So much for the customer service idea of leaving a number so I didn’t have to wait on a phone line for an attendant. In fact, I would have felt better had I just remained on the line in the first place.

Now that you know the situation, what are the two lessons that you and I need to take away from this experience–lessons even Verizon doesn’t get?

1. Make it easy for frustrated people to contact you and get the answers they want ASAP. When a customer decides to call customer service, they’re usually already frustrated. So when you’re frustrated, how excited are you to have to go through 52 questions to “get to the right person”? Not very. When someone’s frustrated, they want to talk to a real person who can answer their questions and solve their problems immediately. The last thing they want to do is to go through 20 or 50 questions just to get to the person they wanted to talk with when they originally called.

So, as you look at your business, where do you make it hard for customers to deal with you? When do you make it hard for them to get answers or solve a problem?

2. When you make a promise to a customer or prospect, you better deliver on that expectation–or don’t make the claim in the first place. Why? Because promises raise expectations. If Verizon hadn’t offered the 15 minute return call so I didn’t have to wait on the phone, I wouldn’t have been as ticked off. But because they made the offer (a systems choice), they raised my expectations–which made the 15 minute wait after they called me back even worse. I wasn’t ticked the first time, but the second time I was.

So, as you look at your business, where do you make promises that you aren’t fully living out? When do you raise expectations that you aren’t following through (or consistently following through) all the time?

If you want to grow the kind of business customers want to use over and over again, then you’ll want to apply these two lessons on a consistent basis to your business.

To your accelerated success!

If so, you’ll want to immediately get your hands on the new free report I just released today entitled, “The Seven Secrets of Fast Growth Companies.”

Inside it you’ll discover,

• The number one differentiator between slow and fast growth companies
• The two key elements you need to use to create a fast growth culture
• A simple practice that can radically reduce the time it takes to implement anything
• A lesson from a Harvard professor that can change the way you think forever about your products and services
• A top team practice that can change any meeting you run—and make it more effective.
• The one metric you need to use before choosing any growth idea if you want to be an accelerated growth company
• How you can create a business that’ll scale fast
• How to avoid letting your market think you’re just like “everyone else.”
• How you can create a business that works 24/7, especially when you’re not around.

• And the number one mistake that most CEOs of small and medium-sized make

To get your copy immediately, just fill in the form in the right hand column entitled, “Interested in the 7 Secrets of Fast Growth Companies?” and then click the submit button, “Send it to me now!”

Then after you read it, post your comments below!

My conclusion is that there are a series of drivers behind those strategies, tactics and procedures that determine whether or not one company is going to be successful at employing a specific strategy, tactic or procedure.

To give you a taste of the ten, here’s a video sample from a talk I did this past weekend in Phoenix for the Association of Information and Image Management (AIIM). Enjoy!

So, what can you do to quickly improve their performance while decreasing their mistakes?

One answer is to raise their standards by clearly defining what an “A” performance looks like. My guess is that if you were to do that right now with your team, you’d probably end up with a fairly divergent set of answers to the question, “What do you think an ”A“ (or ”A+“ or ”10“) looks like?”

If you think “everyone” on your team already knows the “right” answer, I challenge you to have them write their answers out WITHOUT any discussion. Then have them share and compare their written answers and, unless you’re an unusually gifted leader, you’ll probably find that everyone isn’t on the same page. Don’t be surprised by this. It’s normal. Everyone has expectations all the time about everything–and rarely are they ever the same–unless someone has repeatedly defined what those expectations should be (which, by the way, is your job :-).

It’s not a bad idea to have a team discussion about what an “A” should look like–but never ever surrender your responsibility as the leader to set the standards. Hopefully, as the primary leader, you can persuade your people to concur with what you think an “A” should look like. But if you get to an impasse, feel free to use your “leader card.”

Now, when you’re developing your standards, make sure you’re thinking about both negative and positive standards. For example, in a previous career, I used to pastor a large church. Now, if you’ve ever attended a religious service of any persuasion, you’ve undoubtedly encountered a few mistakes during their service (a Power Point slide has a typo or the person on the Power Point isn’t in the same place as the speaker or worship leader. The lighting person has lights off when they should be on. A microphone crackles or dies during the message, etc.).

Obviously most religious leaders don’t want that to happen during their services–but they do–and almost every week, at least in any religious service I’ve ever attended. So, to combat that, one of my standards for our services was, “No Dropped Balls!” Now, I could have chosen a positive standard, “Every cue right!” but the power of the phrase, “No Dropped Balls!” was so much better and clearer that I chose that one.

On the other hand, here’s a positive one. Have you ever been in a religious service and the music just didn’t “move” you? Why isn’t that? Forget the words and the quality of the musicians, there are songs (secular and religious), that either cause you to want to tap your foot or not. The ones that cause you to want to tap your foot (they can be slow or fast, the tempo is irrelevant) are songs that have an intrinsic beat. The words are a distant second to the rhythm when it comes to people feeling moved. Therefore, one of my standards was, “Every song chosen needs to cause someone to want to move physiologically.” So some of your standards might be worded positively, while others might be more powerful if worded negatively.

Now, I know most of you aren’t leading a religious organization, you’re leading a business. But the principle I’m sharing with you is just as valid. Unless your people have a clear vision of what you want them to produce, chances are they won’t hit it. You’ll be frustrated with them continually and they’ll feel they can’t make you happy. So, eliminate that.

Clearly define what an “A” looks like in terms that everyone can understand. Hopefully, you noticed as you read this post that I came up with simple phrases like, “No Dropped Balls!” to describe what the standard was. Then, once you set the standards, you’ve got to cast vision for them every week (not once in awhile–every week). Then ensure that the systems, accountabilities, and resources are in place to ensure that week in and week out, your team is performing at an “A” level.

If you make this simple change, I’m confident you’ll see a massive difference in your people!

To your accelerated success!

P.S. Just as an aside. I left my church four and a half years ago and one of the common refrains I hear from people is, “It’s just not the same. Every week something happens where I think, ‘If Bruce was here, he wouldn’t have let that happen.’“ In other words, unless a leader casts vision for excellence (an ”A“) and holds people accountable to those standards, every organization and group of people will slowly move toward accepting something less. It is your job to ensure that doesn’t happen.

The problem, of course, with an either/or world is that it rarely reflects reality because life is rarely that clean. Rather it’s full of contradictions and surprises. One of which is that originality and commonality go hand in hand together.

In an either/or world that doesn’t make sense. Either you’re original or your common. But, in the real world, being completely original isn’t an easy road to success. Just ask the creator of the first fax machine (Bain, 1843) or first cell phone or first anything. It’s not that easy to create an entirely new market.

When people read books like, “Blue Ocean Strategy,” they tend to think that the key to success is to come up with an entirely new idea (a new blue ocean). But if you take a look at the examples in the book you’ll notice they weren’t entirely new at all.

Cirque du Soleil wasn’t the first circus. Southwest wasn’t the first airplane company. Curves wasn’t the first health fitness facility. Etc.

All three of those examples are part of huge industries. The entertainment industry is huge. It’s common. But Cirque du Soleil’s genius was to do something original in a big market (i.e. a circus for adults with one ring vs. three and no live animals).

Southwest’s genius was to do point-to-point (i.e. non-hub), fun, no frills flights to tier two cities. Curves’ genius was to do a women’s only club with minimal equipment in a circle (a low-cost, quick, gender specific workout).

In other words, rather than look where there wasn’t a lot of competition, they looked for a very competitive market (the common part) and then looked for an uncommon way/original way to meet the needs of that market.

So, if you’re in a town full of pizza joints, that doesn’t mean you can’t start another pizza joint. Maybe you should start a gourmet one (if there isn’t one yet). Or maybe the people in you town just love fast food. If that’s the case, you might want to start a different kind of fast food restaurant (maybe BBQ wings). Or maybe your market simply loves Italian food. In that case, you could start a northern or southern Italian or even a sicilian restaurant. Etc.

Ultimately, it comes down to buyers. And what do they want? In general, they usually want something similar to what they already like/have–just a little different. This is not to downplay new and disruptive technologies. Just an observation about what fast growth companies do.

As a twenty-five year fan of Apple, I’ve drunk the kool-aid. But most of Apple’s successes haven’t come from being the first at something. The iPod wasn’t the first mp3 player. And the iPhone certainly wasn’t the first cell phone. But Apple, usually referred to as, “the most innovative company on the planet,” usually has winners when it looks at what people already want and then makes something original in that field.

So, if you want to build a wildly successful company, you might want to look where there’s a lot of competition (the common part) and then come up with a unique solution to that market’s wants and needs (the original part). It’s not an either/or, but rather a both/and that usually wins in the real world. So do your best to eliminate either/or thinking in your company. Both/and thinking is a much better route to go! Originality and commonality are a powerful one-two punch when used correctly.

To your accelerated success!

Would you pick, “Great leadership?” Or, “A new or better technology?” Maybe, “Massive cash flow?” Or, “Viral marketing?” Or would you pick, “Great systems?” Or maybe even, “Great people?”

Well, while all of those are worthy choices, I would pick something else. Because, while all of the those choices above are essential to building a great company, especially an accelerated growth company, they aren’t what really drives the behavior of fast growth companies.

No, if I had to pick one driver above every other driver of accelerated growth companies, that one driver would be . . . Speed of Implementation.

Show me a fast growth company and I can almost guarantee that they operate by, “Ready, fire, aim. In other words, the time lag between the generation of an idea and the implementation of an idea is almost always very short.

Bottom line, accelerated growth companies aren’t hung up with perfection.

In fact, Google could easily be the poster child for this. They regularly come up with ideas and put them out in ”imperfect“ forms to test their ideas quickly–in the real world. That stands in stark
contrast to most companies which come up with an idea or two and then tweak those ideas endlessly in their quest for perfection, which of course means they end up missing the timing of the market–and massive cash flow.

Over the past few months as I’ve been speaking on accelerated growth issues, I found myself frequently saying, ”There are some of you who will go home tonight and execute on several ideas you’ve come up with as a result of what you’ve heard here today. Some of you will go home and over the next few days, implement an idea or two. A few of you will take a week or two and then implement an idea. And then there are the rest of you who will leave here and probably implement nothing. I can almost guarantee you that those who leave this room and implement the ideas they received this morning, tonight, are leading the fastest growth companies in this room.“

Why? Because speed of implementation matters. As Dr. Edward Kramer says so well,

“Eliminate the time between the idea and the act, and your dreams will become realities.”

If you have the right strategy, but don’t implement quickly, you’re toast. What good is an idea, even a great idea, if it’s not implemented quickly?

So, take a look at your business (or organization). How fast are you at executing? How short is the time span between the moment an idea is hatched and the moment its implemented? Are you burdened by perfection? Or fear of failure? Or fear of rejection? Or ego? Or are you burdened by systems of ”checks and balances“ (which rarely are)? Or committees? Or controlling people? Or procedures and policies?

If you or your company rate anything lower than a 10 on the speed of implementation scale, my encouragement would be to deal with it–and fast!

Finally, if you’d like a quick practical application of this principle, here’s an idea for you. Pick a project or idea that’s been sitting on the shelf waiting for its turn. Estimate how long you think it’ll take to implement it. Cut that time in half. Then get started. Ready! Fire! Aim! What are you waiting for?

Toward your accelerated success!

If you’re an entrepreneur or senior executive of a small or medium-sized business, hopefully you’re regularly reading Inc. Magazine. If not, you should be. I rarely find an issue where I’m not tearing out a few articles to file. And that holds true for this month’s edition, which marks their 30th anniversary.

However, my favorite part of this month’s edition was their article entitled, “The Business Owner’s Book Shelf,” subtitled, “30 books you should read and use.” Of all the book lists I’ve read over the past few years, this may be my favorite. It’s not perfect, but if you’re looking for a list of books to read, you’ll want to click here and read the article (which also gives a short paragraph about each book).

Perusing the list, my baker’s dozen of favorites would be:

1. Against the Gods: The Remarkable Story of Risk, by Peter Bernstein (1996)

2. The Art of the Start: The Time-Tested, Battle-Hardened Guide for Anyone Starting Anything, by Guy Kawasaki (2004)

3. The Box: How the Shipping Container Made the World Smaller and the World Economy Bigger, by Marc Levinson (2006)

6. The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don’t Work and What to Do About It, by Michael Gerber (1995)

7. The Effective Executive: The Definitive Guide to Getting the Right Things Done, by Peter Drucker (1967)

8. The Fifth Discipline: The Art & Practice of the Learning Organization, by Peter Senge (1990)

9. First, Break All the Rules: What the World’s Greatest Managers Do Differently, by Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman (1999)

15. The Innovator’s Dilemma: When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail, by Clayton Christensen (1997)

17. The Knack: How Street-Smart Entrepreneurs Learn to Handle Whatever Comes Up, by Norm Brodsky and Bo Burlingham (2008)

21. Nuts! Southwest Airlines’ Crazy Recipe for Business and Personal Success, by Kevin Freiberg and Jackie Freiberg (1996)

22. Ogilvy on Advertising, by David Ogilvy (1983)

23. On Competition, by Michael Porter (2008)

30. The Wisdom of Crowds: Why the Many Are Smarter Than the Few and How Collective Wisdom Shapes Business, Economies, Societies and Nations, by James Surowiecki (2004)

In Plain Sight 


All New Season

Sunday, April 19th 10/9C

As I saw that I thought, “Isn’t that amazing. I’ve been watching ads for this show on USA for the past several weeks. Now, they’re even promoting the show during the main content part of other shows–and we’re still SIX WEEKS AWAY!”

Think about that. When was the last time you promoted anything like that?

Most of us send out one or two messages–and when no one or a couple of people respond, we think, “I guess this doesn’t work!”
But maybe it’s not what we’re saying. Maybe it’s that we simply haven’t communicated it often enough.

The old adage is that it you have to communicate a marketing message seven times before a prospect will buy.

However, what the marketing rule-makers don’t tell is that your prospects don’t hear your message, two out of every three times you send it out. In other words, the Rule of 7 is really the Rule of 21.

So as you look at the marketing messages that your firm or business is sending out, how frequently do you communicate your messages? Are you sending them out at least 21 times? If not, you may want to take a lead from USA–who at least knows that if you want to create a hit, you’ve got to send out a whole lot of marketing messages–even if you’re two months out from your launch date.

To your accelerated success!

When you hear that, how do you feel? Do you nod your head and say, “Yup! He’s on to something there.” Or do you tighten your shoulders and think, “Hey, wait a second! That’s not fair. I’m good at optimizing!”

Well, regardless of how you feel or think about Scott’s statement, I think he’s right. By and large, most of us entrepreneurs stink at optimizing. Why? For two main reasons.

1. Most of us spend most of our time focused on attracting more new clients–far more than we do on optimizing the revenue we could get from our existing clients.

2. Most of us don’t document and create systems, which means we have no measurements in place–and therefore no steps we can test to optimize.

In light of this, whenever Scott works with a client, the first thing he does is focus on #1, how can he help that company/business to optimize the amount of revenue they could get from their existing clients–rather than how he can help them attract more new clients. Interesting, isn’t it?

Note: Scott is a two-time Inc. 500 entrepreneur, which means his ideas are at least worth listening to/considering.

Reflecting back on your own business or company, how are you doing at optimizing the amount of revenue you’re getting from your existing customers/clients?

For example,
Do you have systems in place that you execute every time to optimize revenue from customers? For example, do you ask each and every customer, at the point of purchase, if they’d like your upsell product and/or service? Do you know that your staff are asking every time? For example, if they’re only asking 40% of the time, you’re losing 60% of your potential upsell revenue. And are you testing the upsell offers and language? Etc.

So if you’re like most entrepreneurs, you may want to consider Scott’s encouragement to focus more time on optimizing the revenue you could be getting from your current customer base. In fact, this would make a great staff team discussion. Instead of asking this week, “How can we attract more new customers?” why don’t you brainstorm, “How can we better optimize the revenue we’re getting from our current customers?” You may be pleasantly surprised by what comes out of that conversation.

To your accelerated success!