Category Archives: business

Ivory Towers pt. 2

Written by Richard. Posted on August 12, 2010. Filed under business, life. 2 Comments.

I was thinking some more about my post yesterday on Ivory Towers. Not being on the front lines not only means that you don’t get the lay-of-the-land, but you can’t get a sense of the morale of your people. I’m sure that no one would be enthusiastic about being ordered to march to their own demise. And when you’ve been told to shut-up and to stop being negative, what can you do but put your head down and blindly follow orders. Not exactly the most productive environment to work in. I’ve been watching “Undercover Boss” recently, and nearly every boss is surprised when they find the people at the bottom have very low morale. That the orders they pass down the line just end up causing more problems, lower productivity and lower quality offerings. It’s a classic case of bosses living in their Ivory Towers and thinking that all is well is good, while the people at the bottom grumble and can see all the problems before them. Reminds me in a way of the Cylon rebellion against their makers and in the end against their masters. You can never excel when you feel like you’ve been set-up to fail.

Ivory Towers

Written by Richard. Posted on August 11, 2010. Filed under business, life. 2 Comments.

I get this a lot. Orders come from up high about what needs to be done, while the people on the front lines are reporting back that it’s not working and something needs to be done. This can only be a losing battle. So what does one do? Give up and go home? Ignore the orders given to you and forge your own path forward? How can you work with someone who isn’t willing to listen to your input and advice? Simple answer is you can’t. If people are not willing to take on my advice based upon my experience and from what I’m seeing first hand, then they deserve to fail based upon their own decisions.

It amuses me to no end when in this situation. It’s evil and cruel I know, but you can’t save someone from their own moronic whims and desires. When that person’s decisions and actions are based upon emotion and reaction rather than logical and rational thought. It reminds me a lot of people I see in the gym. The posers who come in more to look like their doing something rather than actually achieving anything. They’ll swing some dumbbells around, run a bit on the treadmill and maybe even attend some classes. But they won’t break a sweat and they won’t progress. They want to appear to be busy. They want to spin the wheels. It’s the same in the business world. Meeting and greeting people and telling them about your hot new startup is just spinning the wheels when you’re not taking care of the flip side of it. Don’t sit in your ivory tower. Get down to the front lines and see for yourself what the real deal is.

Reacting is not creating

Written by Richard. Posted on August 6, 2010. Filed under business. 1 Comment.

There is the temptation to react to everything. A new competitor has launched with feature X, we need to drop everything and do it. A customer has called with problem Y, we need to drop everything and fix it. But if you’re constantly reacting to what’s going on around you, how can you ever get anywhere. Some problems will always need to be addressed straight away, but more often then not, everything else is just noise. Sometimes the long term goal is more important then the short term gains that you get by reacting. Reacting to everything is akin to just spinning the wheels.

Every customer is a dollar in your pocket

Written by Richard. Posted on August 5, 2010. Filed under business. No comments.

I admit the title of this post is a little link-baitish. I’m not trying to say that you should only think of your customers as just dollars, what I’m trying to say is that you should never forget that it’s your customers that put money in your pocket. Every time you pick up the phone, answer and email or go out of your way to help someone, you’re putting money in your pocket if you do a good job. As much as customers can grate us, they pay our bills. There are times when customers are a negative drain on resources. When the amount of time taken to help is actually losing your money in the long term. The Four-Hour Workweek talks about cutting out the 20% of customers that take up 80% of customer service time. In those cases, the time can be better spent concentrating on other areas of the business. There is a balance. Just never forget where the money comes from.

The Numbers

Written by Richard. Posted on August 2, 2010. Filed under business. No comments.

I no longer get excited about numbers. Pageviews, unique visitors, signups, fans, likes. There was a time when I would, and I would feverishly refresh the counters to see what it was now at. Much like a new trader will constantly refresh the chart of a stock they’ve just bought. Over time, you realise, the daily ups and downs don’t matter as much as the overall trend. Are we actually gaining traction? Or are people filtering in at a steady pace?

On top of that, the numbers mean very little if they can’t be turned into something tangible. A million signups for my site means nothing, if those people never come back. A million fans on my Facebook page means nothing, if I can’t figure out how to get some money out of each one. Is an article about my startup on a site that gets 1m page views worth more than one on a site that only gets 1k?

Always remember the context of the numbers you are looking at and never take them at face value.