Christmas sucks …

Are you one of the people who thinks Christmas sucks? Are you over the rampant consumerism of Christmas? Are you sick of the pressure to be like everyone else? Stephanie Bennis (Shirley) and Johnny B Truant have both looked at this from a personal point of view. Anyone who is disillusioned with the Christmas season should read them.

What if your business depends on Christmas?

But what if your business is geared to Christmas and you do a large percentage of your annual turnover during December and January?  Some retailers can do half their annual turnover around Christmas time.  Does this mean that you either have to “get over it” or get out of the business?

Not at all!  But you do have plenty to think about. How can you generate genuine goodwill during the Christmas period? Maybe one way is to do your customer research well in advance and sell products which your customers want, rather than just trying to flog anything and everything as fast as you can, regardless of quality, taste or customer need. Much of the obnoxious consumerism, which spoils Christmas, is based on this very premise of flogging as much as possible to rip as much money out of consumers’ pockets as possible. How about doing something to please and surprise your customers/clients?

Giveaways

When I was a child our local butcher always gave away a calendar. It was not a hard sell type calendar. Instead, it had a picture of a pleasant scene (the type that your Mum or your Grandma would like), the butcher’s details and 12 tear off pages, one for each month. Each day had room to write appointments onto the calendar. There were no “buy more meat” messages, but those calendars were very popular and people appreciated the butcher all year.

Even give aways can be done badly. I know of a franchise group which produces an annual wall planner. The franchisor is very proud of these wall planners and insists that all the franchisees roll them up and put them into a bin, on the footpath, outside the door, complete with advertising flyers rolled up inside. He keeps statistics on how many wall planners have been “given away” each year and regularly pats himself on the back and tells himself what a wonderful medium they are for “… getting the message out to the customers.”

Problem: they are so full of advertising that there is hardly any room to write appointments onto them.

Second problem: people go past the door and take them without ever setting foot inside the shop, ie, they are NOT customers. In fact some people furtively look around before they take them as if they are shoplifting, and schoolchildren regularly go past these bins, grab a calendar each and have a sword fight down the street. The really conscientious ones put them into the bin when the sword is broken.

Third problem: people who really need a wall planner scoff at them. They actually breed mockery and derision, rather than goodwill, among genuine customers because they are useless to anyone who wants to do some real planning. If you plan a giveaway for your customers/clients make sure it is tasteful and useful to them and doesn’t just scream, “Buy more stuff!”

Christmas cards

Christmas cards can generate goodwill for a business but only if they are done properly. Call me old-fashioned if you like, but I think a Christmas card without something hand written inside it is not really a Christmas card. If you have a personal relationship with your customers/clients, do them the courtesy of at least hand signing their Christmas card. If you don’t have a personal relationship with them then why are you sending the Christmas card anyway?

What is the answer?

I don’t have all the answers. You are the only one who knows the answers for your business, but if you can find a genuine way to express goodwill to your customers at Christmas you will find that it generates goodwill in return. The goodwill can last all year.

Wishing you a good old-fashioned Christmas of peace, joy and goodwill.

What I learned by walking backwards

The other day I decided to walk backwards on my morning walk in the park near my home. Not literally! I walk a circuit which brings me back to my starting point, and I usually walk anti clockwise around it. On that day I went clockwise. I was amased at how different the park looked. I even thought I was on the wrong path at one point. I saw things I hadn’t previously imagined could be there. I saw the park from a different point of view and wondered what would happen if I occasionally looked at my business from a different point of view. The view in the rear vision mirror (rear view mirror if you are reading this in North America) can be totally different from the view looking straight ahead.

How can you look at your business from a different point of view? What points of view could you look from?

 Customers

Most business owners survey customers and “seek feedback from them” but this is not the same as looking at the business from the customer’s point of view. There are two ways to get the customer’s point of view.

You can engage a Mystery Shopper to pose as a customer and get their feedback. This can be taken as professional advice. You can also shop at your opposition. As you shop, ask yourself, “What are they doing that I could do?” and, “What are they doing that I should avoid doing?”

 Your accountant

Business owners need an accountant and can benefit from listening to their advice. They might only see a slice of the business, but it is an important slice, called the bottom line. Look at the financial reports the accountant gives you, but forget for a moment that you are the owner. Imagine you are an accountant who has to give advice based on these reports. What advice would you give?

 A buyer

Imagine you were just about to buy the business. What makes it attractive? What would make you have second thoughts about buying it? Keep doing the good things and fix the things that would make you hesitate.

 Your bank manager

How happy is your bank manager with the way your business is running? What are you doing to make them happy? Are you doing anything which would make them unhappy?

 Children who are doing school projects

Do they feel welcome to find out about your business? How would a high school student see your business? What can you tell them, that would encourage them to become a customer after they leave school?

 Anyone else?

Is there anyone else whose viewpoint might help you look at your business in a new light? The more, the better, and the more practice you have looking at your business from someone else’s point of view, the more information you will have about what you are doing well and about what you are doing not so well. The old saying goes, “Two heads are better than one.” It could also be that many points of view are better than one.

Have a look at your business from a different point of view and be amazed at the potential improvements you can see and please let us know, via this blog, if you learn from looking backwards.

Goal setting and personality type

Most people are familiar with the concept of setting SMART goals. They must be:

Specific

Measurable

Achievable

Realistic   (i.e. you must believe in them)

Time bound

One size fits all

There are as many goal setting systems and programs out there as there are gurus who promote them but they all seem to work along the lines of:

• set your goal
• set yourself a time limit
• set a series of intermediate steps which must be completed so you can achieve your goal.

Does this “ one size fits all” approach suit everyone? Or do different personality types need different approaches to goal setting?

Personality types

There are many systems for analysing personality type.Wikipedia gives a basic explanation. Most systems identify at least four basic personality types and emphasise that very few people are 100% one type to the exclusion of the others. Most of us have a dominant type and a secondary type. This table illustrates the concept:

Quadrant 1 extroverted, big picture, lack of detail, gregarious, focus on people, life of the party, full of ideas – some outlandish, “if it is not fun I don’t want to do it”	Quadrant 2action oriented, driven, doer, like to be in charge, act first- think later, “just do it- don’t bother me with the details”
Quadrant 3 thinker, laid back, dreamer, consistent, relaxed, calm, rational, curious, and observant	Quadrant 4 organised, detailed planner, pedantic, logical, task oriented, perfectionist, self-reliant and independent

This is not a comprehensive explanation of the various personality types but serves to suggest that “one size fits all” might not be suit all types. For example, it could be unrealistic to expect people who are Quadrant one dominant too closely follow a system which required setting and following numerous, detailed intermediate steps in order to achieve a goal. It could be equally unrealistic to expect Quadrant four dominant people not to follow such a system.

Suit your personality

It might be better to devise systems which take into account people’s personality types. Quadrant one people might require focus on the fun and enjoyment of achieving the goal rather than focusing on the intermediate steps. Quadrant two people might need some brakes to stop them from taking action before they had completely thought through the entire process, especially if their secondary quadrant is quadrant one. Quadrant three dominant people might need some sort of “kick in the pants” to get them to start taking any action, while quadrant four people might need some reassurance about taking action before they have perfected their plan.

Most goal setting systems, which are currently available, favour quadrant two and quadrant four people because they are the action and/ or detail oriented, which suits these personality types.

This blog contains the thoughts of someone who is about equally dominated by quadrants 1 and 3, and therefore qualified to write about the failure of the detailed step by step model of goal setting, but not necessarily qualified to comment on massive achievement of goals. Kevin Eikenberry is someone who does know about goal setting, and his blog, A Buffet of Goal Achievement Approaches for Leaders, examines some alternative approaches. I recommend it to anyone, especially leaders. All small business owners are leaders.

Please comment

I invite comments from all sorts of people, whether you want to agree, disagree or say that I don’t know what I am talking about, and should leave goal setting to the experts. It would be especially good to see ideas about how to make it easier for quadrant one and quadrant three types to achieve their goals.

What kind of engine is it?

Small business is the engine room of the economy, even though you might think otherwise if you take notice of the media or politicians, who are more focused on big business.

The contribution of small business to the Australian and US economies can be seen in this table:

Contribution	Australia	US
Gross Domestic Product	20%	>50%
Workers employed in private sector	46%	50%

(Sources: Australia- DIISRTE    US- Entrepreneur)

It would be interesting to compare the per capita output from workers in small business with that for workers in large organisations. I could not find those figures anywhere.

What is a small business?

These statistics are based on businesses with less than 100 employees, but I would say that if you consider your business to be a small business, then it is. One test of a small business is that the owner is involved in the day to day management and/or operations of the business.

Who owns a small business?

Small business owners are a diverse lot. They come from all backgrounds and and education levels. Their work history is just as diverse, from unskilled labourers to rocket scientists and other equally prestigious and demanding professions.

What do they have in common?

They work hard. Small business owners are some of the hardest working people on the planet. It is common for them to work long hours, seven days a week with few or no holidays.

They are independent. Successful small business owners rely on no one for their success. The smart ones accept advice and help, but on their own terms. One of those terms is that they reserve the right to reject advice and refuse help if it doesn’t fit their way of doing things.

They are self reliant. They don’t need the approval of anyone else. They know when they have done a good job, and they take themselves to task when they haven’t. They are comfortable in their own skins.

They are passionate. Their work is the most important work in the world to them. They would do it even if they were not being paid for it.

They are focused. They know what they want to achieve and how to achieve it. They can be single minded in pursuit of their goals.

There is no small business union

Running a small business can be a bit lonely, because there is no one else on your level that you can talk to, except other small business owners, and they are often too busy to stop and talk anyway.

Hopes for this blog

I hope this blog might turn into a forum where small business owners can receive and give information. I am NOT a guru. I am just someone who has been through the mill and because of my experiences and training can offer some assistance some times. I don’t have a “one size fits all” answer. There is no such thing, despite what the gurus might tell you in an effort to jemmy your wallet open. I will share some of my ideas via this blog, and I expect some people will disagree with some of them. Good!

Please comment

All fair and reasonable comments are welcome, so please post them. Let us help each other to more prosperity and less stress. No one else will.