The Christms Cheer

‘Get out! We are closing!’ The words echoed in my head as much as sound of the slamming door that accompanied them. Five minutes to closing time at a respectable (well not any more) gift store in an upmarket mall and that was the treatment I got as I tried to enter. Perhaps they had just had a bad day? I do not really care-I am their worst nightmare right now-an angry client with a voice. It is not that they have the monopoly on the card and gift market either; I could have, and probably will from now on, gone elsewhere. From me they have lost a lifetime of repeat sales over one 5 second interchange. What is more it is Christmastime-I really expected better. Or should I have?

This year I have noticed a strange hypocrisy around the Christmas season in Zimbabwe. There are gifts available, a better choice perhaps than many years past. Decorations are up, the essential carols play in the background over the Tannoy, a couple of places are even doing mince pies as a bonus addition. There is however this massive lack of goodwill and Christmas cheer. In many places we are playing lip service to a series of traditions with no really spirit behind it. For a holiday that embodies a religious festival there is little to show for the idea of ‘love thy neighbour as thyself.’

But then many businesses, their staff, and their ethic are not Christian so I can hardly expect them to embrace something that they do not believe in. Starbucks was the centre of controversy earlier this year when they issued a plain red holiday cup devoid of holiday motifs. They got accused of secularising Christmas and polarised America. The accusation was a little offside seeing as Starbucks have never put a Christian emblem on any of their cups in the past.

What then can we do about Christmas as businesses?

Attitude is everything here. None of the décor and fancy products matter if you are going to slam the door in my face when I try enter. Christmas is a great time to recalibrate your attitude. It is easy to become jaded over a year. It is easy to wear out your smile and energy levels to a snapping point. Christmas, with its message of love, joy, hope, and giving, is a poignant reminder of how far from ideal attitudes we have fallen. It is a chance to reset broken souls before the New Year breaks upon us. Attitude is a choice.

Goodwill should last past the season. There is much duplicity in a man who is only nice one day a year and spends the rest of it snapping the heads off staff. It’s like putting a small rock in a snowball and still expecting everyone to have fun during the snowball fight. The story of A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens that brings us the character Scrooge dwells on this. If Scrooge was only generous once a year he would still be a hated villain rather than a redeemed figure. Christmas specials and hype invoke a sense of drama that has a fixed end. When the decorations vanish back into the storeroom there is a tendency to pack with them the smiles and helpfulness that we showed throughout the season. Choose carefully what you put away this year.

Family is a big focus this season. We travel to be with them, have massive family gatherings over monster meals. We put up with Auntie Evie’s gaudy, knitted jumper that she made for us (again) simply because it is Christmas. Your staff and clients are part of an extended family of sorts-focus on them a little as well. It is not too late to send out a well-crafted Christmas Eve email of gratitude or to arrange an impromptu Christmas party during the last few hours that you are open. Like the goodwill this care should not die with the toll of the bell on the 25^th of December. Take this holiday to think about how you can connect better with your staff and clients in the coming year.

Have fun this festive season. Play with children, laugh with family, and let joy bubble out of you. Bring those emotions to the table next year as you return to work rested and invogorated. At this point let me take a moment to wish you all a very Merry Christmas and may all the doors you try enter be open this coming year!

The Art of Giving: The Practice in Business and Beyond

I have just closed my internet browser after an expansive and varied trawl through the web that may have seriously dented my data cap. What was I looking for-well almost anything really. It is Christmas time and with the holiday comes the expectation of gifts. There is this list of people that I want to give presents to so I was meandering through websites looking for things that may do. Amazon, ThinkGeek, ModCloth and other shopping sites are filled with more ideas that I could imagine-it opens your eyes to what is truly out there outside of little ol’ Zimbabwe. There are still two weeks to go in The Giving Challenge, the dare to give something away each day until Christmas-mine this last week included giving to a charity benefit for which I got rewarded with an electronic, virtual pet (at least I don’t have to clean up after it).

Gift giving is an art. It is easy to dash into a store late on Christmas Eve and load your trolley up with a bunch of chocolates and cheap bottles of wine that can be bundled into generic gifts for every member of the family. Real gift giving on the other hand takes time and effort, thought and planning; sounds a lot like running a business.

A gift communicates something. It communicates whether or not you really know the person you are giving the gift to. It communicates whether or not you have heard their needs-even if those needs are unspoken. A gift communicates that you may actually care. Wow would you look at that list of things a gift does- it looks rather like the same list one would attach to a great product that you are creating for your customers. Thinking of your product as a gift to your clients alters the way you do about creating it. A truly great product gives far more than any financial benefit that you may receive in exchange for it. Your product communicates something to its users-it is up to you to make sure that it communicates what you want it to say.

So how can you go about getting that perfect gift for someone or creating a phenomenal product?

Listen to people; and not just with your ears. Take in their words, observe the behaviour, look for where they are struggling. The grandmother who is telling you she needs nothing but a hug for Christmas while she struggles to open a tin of beans with a blunt can opener and arthritic hands really could do with a new tin opener (or a new set of hands but I understand that those are a little harder to come by). Look for the problems people are facing-a great product solves a problem or meets a need.

One of the greatest needs people have is time. It is a finite commodity and saving someone time opens them up to doing so much more. That is why the smart phone became so pervasive so quickly-it saved time (and space in your pocket) as you could do multiple things from almost any location. Time-saving devices are the perfect gift for the person who ‘has everything’.

I mentioned ModCloth at the beginning of the article as one of the sites I visited. They are a ladies fashion online store and when they started they were a game changer in the fashion world. The reason was they started a client-centric program to get feedback from their customers and relayed this on to design companies. This was the total opposite for an industry where fashion was a top down funnel (i.e. a large firm would decide what it would sell to its clients and the customers would be stuck with that range for the year). Taking time to be client oriented flies in the face of the ‘take-what-we-offer’ mentality that pervades many large scale corporations.

Gift giving should be an experience. We wrap presents to see people get the pleasure and surprise of ripping off the paper on Christmas Day to see what is underneath. We create an elaborate hoax around the figure of Santa Claus complete with milk and cookies laid out the night before to heighten the wonder and emotion for our children. Utilising your product, however mundane it appears, should have an experience attached. Maybe it is the ease of using the spare part you manufacture, or knowing that the plastic ware you sell will not crack in the sun. There is a story attached to your business-work on telling it well this festive season. And practice the art of giving great gifts-so few people do it that if you do then it will make you stand out even more.

The Giving Challenge 2015

In 1963 the film Cleopatra starring Elizabeth Taylor was released. At the time, despite being the highest grossing film of the year, it made a huge loss against a 44 million dollar budget. Ten years later due to rentals and a number of television deals it finally broke even. Ten years of ticking over returns and deals to finally get to a point where it made money. Books that make bestseller lists for extended periods are not there because they have had one week of great sales, rather they are there because they consistently sell over time-even if it relatively few a day. It is the daily drip of sales over time that fills the coffers eventually. In the grip of a world fascinated by instant news and the momentary glory of a thousand retweets (before being drowned out by someone else’s noise) we have forgotten the power of daily showing up.

We are currently just under a month away from Christmas and I want to issue a daily challenge to all you Zachians who are interested in making a difference. It is a chance for you to show up every day and do something special. The Giving Challenge is to give away something every day between now and Christmas Day. It may be food to a streetkid, an extra something for your clients, or a gift to a staff member. Size of the giving is not important. Share a piece of business wisdom a day on your blog. Give a lift, not because you need to charge someone a dollar for fuel in your car but because you are helping someone get somewhere. Start giving. You can make it the same act every day or you can vary it as you go. You can start small and get bigger as we approach Christmas or you can stay at the same level daily. I don’t mind-this is your giving story that you are working on. In a season where things may be difficult financially and cash flows are harsh this is an opportunity to get away from thinking about ourselves and to think about others.

The secularisation of Christmas with its focus on material gifts has watered down the power of an act of generosity; thirty minutes helping an elderly person repair their home, creating and uploading a free piece of music online. The old tradition of helping someone cross a busy road had been lost to many of us.

Feel free to write and tell me your experiences as you go, especially of you do something really creative, but this is not some publicity stunt. If no one ever finds out about what you do then that is okay too. Nor is this levering some form of mystical karma. I have heard many messages that talk about the reciprocity of giving-that if you give then you get back more. I am not denying that this may happen but give simply because being generous is a better way to live.

Some of us need to start with giving in our families. By giving our kids an hour of our time a day, or giving an underappreciated spouse more compliments and face time.

The multiplier effect can be staggering. It is one thing for me to do an act of giving every day, but when you all join me, when you get your entire office involved, when your family starts looking for opportunities to give then we begin to make a real impact. Everyone wants a better Zimbabwe: what are you doing about it?

Be intentional about giving. Look for the opportunity. Set it in your mind every morning before you leave the house. Perhaps you are not sure where you can best make a difference, set the intention and the opportunity will jump out at you.

Push through daily for a month. Pay attention to how you feel, to your attitudes and internal emotions. Introspection may highlight a few areas that you need to work on. As you meet the needs of others perhaps a few solutions may present themselves that you could look at and scale into a business. Generate a habit of generosity in your life between now and Christmas. At the end of it we may just all be a little bit richer.

This Is Africa-The Need for Daily Input

The 2006 movie Blood Diamond is known for two things in its portrayal of the Sierra Leone civil war: one is Leonard Di Caprio’s horrendous accent, the other is a line he quotes to describe the reason for the situation he finds himself in “T.I.A This is Africa.” The phrase for many becomes the resigned excuse for any negative experience in dealing with the continent. Bribe requests and corruption, unnecessary delays in obtaining paperwork, powercuts in the sub-region can all be brushed away with ‘This is Africa’. I would love to see a situation where the phrase is turned about to be a positive one. ‘Here is your permit ahead of schedule Sir, of course it is early-This is Africa’. ‘This is Africa-we don’t take bribes here.’ Even if changing people’s perception of Africa seems a little far away; how about we just start with how people view Zimbabwe. If that seems too much, then just let us just start with ourselves; our businesses, our departments, our families, our lives.

Cinderella’s fairy tale gives us some insight here. Cinderella wants to go to the ball, her fairy godmother conjures up a carriage from a pumpkin for her to go in, she steals the heart of the price but has to flee at midnight when the magic runs out and she has to dive out her carriage as it turns back into a vegetable. Every day the ‘magic’-the input, the effort that you have put into creating something amazing in your business- is going to run out at midnight. There is a need for new input in the morning. In the same way that a marriage needs daily commitment and daily winning of your spouse’s heart to flourish so does your business.

You can dream of the day that you can leave your business to run itself and you just reap a profit at the end. Keep dreaming. At some level you and your staff will need to fight the natural tendency of entropy that has systems breakdown and causes relationships to degenerate. It takes effort to keep inventory in stock, to chase debtors that are letting you down, to hold a creative and positive environment at work. Realise that at that moment when you reach a point where you could step back and hand over your business that you face the opportunity to get bigger, to provide more, to work even harder, and produce even better work.

Your life and your work will not get better because of one magical day that changes it all. It will get better as you embrace the daily discipline of working, of building, of making each day magical.

Today pick one thing that you can do to improve your work or someone else’s life. Perhaps it is buying a round of coffee for your staff who are working later than normal. Maybe it is reviewing your customer contact policy or drafting your top client a letter of gratitude. Pointing out where your client relations are not up to standard and encouraging your staff to maintain or go beyond the set standard. There is always something you can do. Then tomorrow do something else.

We can dream of a better future. We can dream of a better nation. Our dreams need to motivate us to action every day. Every day that we put effort into our lives and businesses, every day that we fight the pull of second-rate and corruption, every day that we spend not settling for the excuse of ‘This is Africa’ is one day closer to seeing that dream come true.

Speak Out and Speak Up!

A fire start the other week. It was in a compost heap at an organisation’s backyard. At first I thought it had been set deliberately-after all seeing people burn rubbish these days is hardly an uncommon occurrence. I ignored it for a while. After all, other people, including company employees, had walked by it and done nothing about it. Then it got too big to really ignore and I did not see anyone managing it so I passed a comment to my host. There was momentary panic, there was chaos, there was water and then calm was restored as the blaze was put out. It did, however, take a little while for the fiery words from my host to his staff to simmer down. It had been a spontaneous combustion that can occur with compost heaps, they had all seen it happen but no one had spoken up.

How many times have you held back from asking something or making a suggestion because you are worried that you will not get heard or that nothing will change? You stay silent because you are afraid that there will be a negative consequence to your idea-be it outright rejection, ridicule or worse. In many cases these fears are unfounded and you are more persuasive than you think. Research by Vanessa Bohns indicates that people overestimate the number of times it will take to get a positive response to a simple request by up to double. This held true for simple actions like filling out a questionnaire to something more morally unsound as defacing a library book.

So what keeps our mouths shut? Self-efficacy is your internal appraisal of your ability to do something. Would you be able to climb Kilimanjaro? See, right there you just make an appraisal of yourself. We do it all the time-not just the big things like climbing mountains but whether we can get a proposal out on time or if we can approach a high-profile person with an idea.

Tied strongly to self-efficacy is self-worth. This is the appraisal of whether or not you deserve a positive outcome in your life in response to your actions. If you feel unworthy any positive response feels like a trick or luck of the draw. It does not stop there-people who feel unworthy can project their feelings onto others. These are the people who when they see someone succeed say ‘well he got it because he must have done something dodgy to get it’ without realising the hard work and effort that went in, or that perhaps the other person just had the courage to show up and speak up.

Sometimes showing up is merely half the battle. I entered a competition last month. I won. Part of the reason I won was that I simply showed up and a number of other people who had said they would be there failed to show up. Yes I still had to put in the effort to win but I could equally have stayed in bed because I did not think I was good enough. In line with this is the classic excuse that it is not your job.

Fear of rejection and criticism hold us back from speaking out. We are so attached to our ideas when we put them forward that when they get shot down-even if it is politely- that we take it personally. Then because of the personal hurt we never step out again. ‘He never listens to anything I say anyway’ becomes the mantra of the fearful. Rejection of your suggestion is not a personal attack-well at least it should not be.

If your business culture is the kind where people are fearful of making suggestions to you as the owner then you are probably doing something wrong. One of these is thinking you know it all-and even if you know that you don’t, then you are giving staff the impression that you do. Publically degrading staff suggestions, being rude, shutting down people before they have finished talking, and just not listening at all make people less likely to approach you. Sometimes people just do not know that they can approach you as the owner-you need to create the opportunities for them to do so.

I am not asking for you to create a culture where all people do is complain at staff meetings about their lack of perceived entitlements. Rather work at creating environments where constructive communication can take place. As more people speak up you may be surprised at the positive ideas that begin to flow.

Where have we put our hearts?

Where have we put our hearts? White papers, programme designs, algorithms behind applications, frames of reference all reduce clients to numbers that can be managed. People become dehumanised and placed in nice little boxes that make it easy to create and manage theories or attempt to predict customer behaviour. Once you have reduced someone to a statistic it becomes easy to believe that we have all the answers for them-in fact that answer would be to buy our product. Once the client is reduced to mere numbers then it easy not to care about them as much as you once did but, rather, you can begin to care about other statistics like profit margins and bank balances.

Sometimes this is simply a side effect of corporate growth. Your little two man establishment serving twenty clients, who you all know by name, grows into a fifty employee business with a couple of thousand clients who you never even interact with. Somewhere in there your metrics and measures have to shift to help you make decisions. It is at this point that it is easy to forget about your client. It sounds fairly stupid, right, that you would forget to pay attention to your client’s needs and emotions, after all they are the ones bringing you revenue. Yet company after company falls into the trap.

Blizzard Entertainment’s ‘World of Warcraft’ was one of the first online games to dominate the market with a peak of 12 million users. A pay-to-play service they have had a steady core of users over a decade of play. The game has made a number of changes in the last year for reasons that are largely unknown but that I suspect are to do with tapping into a new generation of players as their older ones grow up and stop playing. Also possibly contributing to this was a shift in 2013 in the company structure that saw it breaking away from under a parent company. Many of the changes have been a radical shift against core elements of the game. Ten years on though one has just to look at the comments section of their website to see that players are not happy. Player numbers have plummeted and while steps are being taken to bring players back into the fold there is this feeling that maybe the heyday has passed.

So how do you avoid this happening to you? Clearly growth and sales are things that we want to happen in our companies. The dilemma is how we keep our hearts and passion as we develop. Here are some options.

Commit to delivering something that works. The basic product needs to work, the repairs department needs to work, and the feedback systems need to work. If it does not work then fix it-quickly before your ship it out. It takes a lot of guts to step back and look at something and say ‘this is not working for our clients’ and make the appropriate changes.

Commit to your word. Trust is a rare commodity. Be careful of making promises you will have to keep one day. Finding clever ways around your promise is viewed as breaking it. World of Warcraft’s in-game currency is gold-you could only earn it in game and never officially exchange real money for it. It was one thing that kept players on an even field and Blizzard cracked down hard on anyone offering such transactions. Then Blizzard found a clever way to allow people to get gold from other players by buying them game time. Technically it is not a direct money-for-gold exchange but players view it that way-it breached trust with many of them.

Commit to listening to your clients. I mean really listening. If people are telling you that they would like to access your service after normal hours when they finish work then maybe you should consider it. What is the point of listening if you are not going to act on it?

Commit to creating a support and faults mechanism that really works. Build a system that allows a personal touch like allowing your Twitter team to respond using their real handles and not just a generic company name. Solve people’s problems not just band-aiding them with corporate speak and checklists but really getting them up and running again. Be wary of having too many levels of bureaucracy for them to go through to get genuine help.

The other option which is harder to do as you have to go against the trend and desire of shareholders is not to grow beyond a particular level. Make your name by being exclusive and justify your prices by delivering the exceptional to those who are willing to pay. This means you have to deliver with an uncompromising standard undergirded by a passion to do so. Keep your heart open to your client.

Business Tips from Recent Travels

Where should I start this morning? I travelled recently and, as often happens with a crazy rush trip through another country, my mind is abuzz with ideas based on my recent experiences. Travelling is a great way to broaden one’s mind and exposure. I was not going too far this time; a quick nip across our southern border for a blitz training course.

There were things that worked and there were things that failed miserably. I was, as most people are, thoroughly delighted with those that worked. When something goes well we often do not give a second thought to the system behind it. I booked practically everything online; flights, accommodation, vehicle hire. It all worked seamlessly. Checking in was this beautiful 5 minute experience that already had all my details integrated into the system. Somewhere along the line someone had thought ‘what do people want to do when they get to a hotel/airport?’ The answer is clearly not ‘spend hours checking in’. So they have designed their system to make it as painless as possible. Which part of your business do clients hate the most and how can you make it easier to navigate? Which part do they love the most and how can you make not just this part, but the process of getting to it as wonderful as possible?

Two great tips here on making it work. Firstly someone else may have already solved your problem. There may be an app or more complex piece of software that meets your need. Second is really listening to and study your clients. It could be as simple as having the staff record everything that people ever come in looking for but cannot find. I love the late night hours option for shopping at petrol stations...I just do not like what they have on their shelves. There are probably a fairly small number of things that someone rushing home at 10pm kicks themselves for forgetting to buy. Not only that, the quality of good probably varies from area to area. Do some research on what people really look for from you and you may end up attracting more clients.

What did not work this trip? Shopping for trousers! I have no idea why obtaining a pair of premade longs is always such a big deal in my life. Shirt shopping is never an issue. Finding socks is a breeze. The moment that I need a pair of jeans or chinos the wheels just seem to come off the store. It is not like I am an extreme size, in fact if anything I am pretty average in my waistline. A large department store seemed like the best option so in I went. There were the two colours and size I wanted. I got excited; perhaps this was the moment of perfect trouser shopping I had been looking for all my life. Turned out it was premature. One pair fitted great. The next one, despite telling me it was the same size, would not make it over my hips. According to the store clerk this had something to do with manufacturers and cuts being different (as a large multi chain department store I’m pretty sure they have the leverage to push back on suppliers and demand that standard sizing is just that). So now I had to look for a larger size, there wasn’t one on the shelves. Different store clerk offered to check in their system to see if they have one. Sadly the system was wrong and when she ran into the back to grab the promised pair she could not find one. I got told simply ‘there aren’t any’. And she vanished. No other solution. No offers to check another branch, or to see if there is anything similar that would meet my needs in store. Once in a while IT systems fail. This one was dismal. For whatever reason there was no notification system to reorder stock at critical levels (a process which can be automated). It is more likely, given the shabby quality of service I received, that it was an ID-10-T error. At some point a human will have to deal with your client. That human can be your best or worst asset at that point.

Sadly too many organisations, in their race to cut costs, are hiring the cheapest, most generic people that they can lay their hands on to serve as their front line. While they would like the best their hiring process and salary structure means that often they fall far short of that. Then when the system fails they buy a new and better upgrade of the software but leave the same person running it. Pick your people carefully, train them well, equip them with well crafted systems, have them become your voice and let them tell your story the way you want it told.

Times They Are A Changing

In April this year Josh Groban released an album called Stages. Comprising of covers of songs from various musicals the entire album is available for listening on Youtube with many extra videos on his  Youtube page. Why on earth would an artist upload so much content for essentially 'free' listening. Is it an acknowledgment that piracy is rampant? Is he feeling generous? Or is it the realisation that the music industry has changed-that great concerts and performances are the best way for a musician to make money now and that promoting content heightens audience anticipation and reach. That social media connects him directly to fans and that a captive fan base who love his work is a group of consumers ready to be reaped?

Whatever the true cause, the reality is that the music industry changed with the advent of the internet and social media. Artists have been forced to respond. What has shifted in your industry and what do you need to change in order to survive, be competitive, and shine.

Showing Up

Showing up regularly is probably more than half the battle.
Why? Because so few actually do.
The rest is doing great work and connecting with others on a level that transcends 'smile and wave'.
Chances are if you connect with other people who also show up consistently that together you will be unstoppable.

Show How Much You Care

I got a card from a friend this week. He had been out the country for a while, he had popped back into the country for a friend’s wedding. We arranged to meet up and as we said goodbye he handed me an envelope. Inside was not just any card, it was a card that mattered. When I opened it and saw the picture I choked up with emotion. I had not even read the words inside and was almost a blubbering wreck. A few years ago we had been in a theme park together. In the park store there was a Star Wars sections complete with toy light sabres. Being totally mature and ration adults we had a mini light sabre duel laughing at a shared love of the movie franchise. The whole moment lasted a few minutes before we regained sanity and put the light sabres back on the shelf. I picked up a miniature model of Master Yoda on a keyring before we left. The card he gave me had an image of Yoda on the front. The minute I saw it I knew that this was not some random pick from the card counter at the supermarket. No, this was a unique and especially chosen vehicle through which to celebrate friendship. It showed that he knew me.

If you are going to make an offer that people cannot refuse then you need to show that you know them. Generic offers are too easy to refuse. The offer that shows that you really understand me, understand the unique problems I face in my business and go about offering a solution to them that is the offer I am interested in. An old client I had not seen for a while came to visit this week, he offered to rent me office space. He had done no homework. I am perfectly happy where I am now, I had left a similar space in the area he was offering two years prior. The very reasons I left the area would be coming back to haunt me at his venue. He lost the sale within the first sentence.

People are not going to use your services just because you have built a business. They will use you because you meet a need in their organisation or in their lives. Do your research. Figure out what people want; ask if you have to. Really figure it out then offer it to them. Be creative in your figuring out. Get key people in the organisations you want to sell to, get a few of them together for a breakfast, listen to their conversation, and take the occasional note on what they chat about. Chances are they have similar problems, problems you could create a solution to. Great relationships do not just happen, they are built over time.

Nearly every business has some form of social media outreach today. Twitter, Facebook, blogs, Linkedin profiles, and newsletters ply us with a daily stream of drivel that is supposed to grip our attention and remind us of services that are on offer. Most of it is about as appealing as a wilted piece of lettuce on stale toast. There is nothing at all that indicates that you have any real knowledge of me as a client. You are just putting something out there because everyone else is doing it. Social media is a tool and like all tools needs to be used wisely and in the correct manner. Put out what appeals to your group-that is assuming that by now you have figured out which group you are actually marketing to. The bonus to social media is that in most cases people have to sign up to hear from you. That means they are probably already interested in you. You do not have to please everyone, merely the few followers who you have picked up along the way. Blasting out irrelevant junk through your media is akin to taking tablets for a headache without understanding the root cause of why you have a jackhammer between your eyebrows.

The other aspect of making an offer that people cannot refuse is to find a way of them avoiding saying ‘no’. The great classic example of this is the sales clerk in a clothing store who walks up to a client (assuming they walk up at all, many in Zimbabwe do not even bother at all), offers to help and gets told ‘no, I’m just browsing’. That is a ridiculous answer. There has to be a reason the person walked into the store, some attraction that got them in, something that they were in fact looking for. ‘Just browsing’ is a fob off to avoid committing to a purchase made out of a possibly irrational fear. Break that fear, create a conversation that requires an action point regardless of the outcome. Create a connection with the client, find out what they really want and offer it to them. Are you out of their price range? Then take their details and call them when you have a sale on. Great salespeople do not just ‘upsell’ with a ‘can I get you anything else’ no they match the sale to the client. ‘We have a great pair of cufflinks to go with that shirt.’ ‘We notice that you run out of data every month, we have an upgraded package that will work out cheaper than you buying extra every month.’ Find a way to meet that need, then do it again and again and again. Cause when you show how much you know me, it shows that you really care.

Why Wait Till Things are Better?

I don't think I could say it much clearer myself. Seth Godin's post on starting out with the values, style and commitment at the beginning of a project rather than waiting till 'later' has a lot in it that Zimbabweans (and the rest of the world) could apply. If we did we may have a better country.

The Offer You Can't Refuse

Check out this post on Emerging Ideas ;they encapsulate the idea of an 'offer you can't refuse' so well..
I have huge admiration for The Godfather; the characters, the music, and the screenplay are the stuff of legends.  We could all learn to make better offers.

Becoming an Icon

Michelangelo's David is a masterpiece. It has become synonymous with the word sculpture. What would it take for your name to become synonymous with your field or area of expertise? When people talk about your craft, or your type of product does your name come top of that list? What steps can you take to do work that is so remarkable that it becomes the benchmark of your industry?

Preempting the Response

Every now and again disaster will strike. A key player in your team falls ill suddenly, the rules in business change due to a court ruling, something drastic happens that you could not prevent. You can train the response in advance, making it part of your culture, pre-empting the more common things like a sick-day. A swift, appropriate response mitigates much of the disaster.

Why Cecil the Lion's story works so well-what we can learn

It has been brought to the (largely deaf) attention of a world preoccupied with a story as to why Cecil the Lion's story is receiving more attention than other issues that result in human death/disappearance. Check here and here for examples from Zimbabwe and the rest of the world. Not withstanding the use of media to promote a story that times well with a UN resolution on illegal wildlife trafficking there are a few reasons why Cecil the Lion resonates with us so strongly. Firstly the story has a clearly identified protagonist- the martyred, innocent lion Cecil who has no voice for himself; any other lion without a name and I doubt people would care as much. There are clearly identified antagonists who we can vilify, antagonists who have admitted to their part in the killing. And there is a clear violation of moral principle being told in the story-the taking of a collared Cecil from somewhere he was safe and luring him to an area where, without him realising it, he was a suitable candidate for a hunt. It is the clarity of the elements of the story that make it so powerful. Add to it a couple of horror details like bleeding for 40 hours before death and you have what is clearly a best seller. There is also created in the mind of the reader an identifiable pressing problem to be filled-that of justice-justice ably dispensed by the internet community on any platform associated with the 'villains'.


Unfortunately a dreadful and shocking abduction without a clearly identified antagonist is unlikely to grab our attention as much. Likewise a unnamed, dead, migrant we cannot identify with does not make a good protagonist in our minds as readers.


The best story wins.


(Please note that this post is not a commentary on the relative morality of these topics, rather it is simply pointing out what make the elements of a great story. Any story we tell; be it as a business about our product, in the news, or as individuals needs to have similar clear parts for it to resonate as well with the hearers.)

Setting the New Industry Standard.

If you are anything like me you are probably a bit of an information junkie, you are always looking around to see what is trending, what is happening, what the new standards are in business. Here is a question; what is stopping you from becoming the industry standard in your field? What is stopping you from becoming the person who is setting the trends?

In reality probably nothing but fear. Step up and step out. Start putting your ideas and thoughts out there. Start a blog, a YouTube channel, create a Udemy course, do what you need to do to get your work out there. Thoughtfully and conscientiously get started on building your reputation.

Creativity: The response to pressure

I have a coffee addiction. There, I’ve said it. The confession is finally in print. A day without caffeine is sad and gloomy. As a result I spend a large amount of time in coffee shops imbibing java infused beverages. Last week I walked into the restroom of one of my favourite venues, Freshly Ground in Harare, to be confronted by a larger than life print of a man wearing sunglasses on the wall. Someone had carefully cut mirrors into shape and placed them where the lenses of the sunglasses would be. How creative! How innovative! How different!

Pressure fosters creativity. Right now with economic pressure on creativity needs to come to the fore in order to stand out. The stress will either crush you, causing you to shrink back or it will provide the impetus to explode out in a burst of creative excellence.

The coffee shop with the restroom decor had renovated a few months before but I never noticed the glasses because I had not needed the facilities. It made me question what else I was not seeing. That is the essence of creativity; throwing out the preconceived and asking ‘What else am I not seeing? What is my conditioning stopping me from seeing?’ I strolled back into the main section of the coffee shop and deliberately studied the artwork. There were a dozen details I had taken for granted-from the upside down cups used as lighting to the larger description of coffee on the wall. The details all creatively add to form the vibe that the coffee shop wants to maintain. Your creativity needs to work to create an end result. Your ideas need to say something to you clients about you, or facilitate the transactions behind the scene in a way that makes things better.

The decor will not work in any other coffee shop; they will have to come up with their own furnishings that work for their unique system. Uniqueness that people will not copy because it will not work for them will get you ahead. Now there are some things that everyone will copy and that is okay if you are the first in with the idea. Take cupcakes in coffee shops. Cupcakes became fashionable around the world a few years ago. It took Zimbabwe a little while to pick up on it but someone started it here and then suddenly every cake shop was selling cupcakes of varying sorts. Suddenly cupcakes are no longer unique on the menu. What are unique are the beautiful, state-of-the-art, intricately decorated cupcakes, more than just a blob of icing on dry confectionary, that only one or two places offer and that people will order in lieu of wedding cake.

The temptation right now when the economy is tough is to try differentiating on price, to be the cheapest. While there is a long way for people to go in reducing prices from the level of ‘rip-off’ to ‘reasonable’, simply cutting prices is not a creative way of generating clients and revenue streams. Creative price cutting would be the auction type system that low budget airlines utilise where the earlier you purchase the cheaper the ticket, but as the demand for tickets increases the price goes up the closer to the fly date you buy. Their pricing structure has been an industry game changer. Tried and tested will still work to a degree, but add to it the new innovative. Budget airlines will not compromise on the backbone of safety but you are not going to get a meal on the plane either.

Break out of the nonexistent box that you have put yourself in, refuse to shrink back. Do not remain static and comfortable. Think ahead. Look for that uniqueness that will put you ahead of the game without compromising what you stand for.

Levels of Thought: There is always a better way

Sunsets in Zimbabwe come in three types: spectacular, incredible and amazing. There is no getting away from the fact that we are blessed with a truly beautiful evening sky. If you are stuck in Harare though you may not fully experience the magnificence of the experience due to trees and buildings that get in your way. In order to appreciate it you need to seek higher ground. Domboshava, just outside of Harare, allows you a short climb to obtain a spectacular view of the surrounding area. If you wish to be truly wowed then a little further on is Ngomokurira, higher, harder to climb but the elevation allows access to a panorama that will amaze. This is not an article on tourist attractions around Harare though, it is about levels.

There are different levels of thought that a person can operate at (that is one of the reasons we have different levels of degree program at universities). These levels impact their behaviour in life and in business and how they interact with others. There is always a better way available to do things, low level thinking limits you to a less than efficient way of operating.

Let us imagine for a moment that you have access to vegetables that you wish to sell. You can choose to set up a self made stall and wait for someone to pass by and see your wares. This makes you a vendor. The problem with waiting for people is that they may not come, or they may go elsewhere or pick the vegetables that the person next to you is selling. The next option is to start going door to door in a neighbourhood and offering your goods to people answering the door. This makes you a salesman. You could however go door to door with a sample of your best goods and tell people that for a monthly fee you will supply them twice a week with similar produce. Now you are a distributer and make sure that you consistently supply only the best possible product that people rave about and tell their friends. Level of thought matters, how you see yourself matters.

How do we learn to operate at a higher level of thought when everything in the world is consistently striving to keep us a little dumber? Higher thinking, having better ideas takes effort. It often takes effort to implement the actions that follow. Our natural, lazy tendency is to avoid the hard work and take the lower path. Be prepared to do the hard work.

Firstly expose yourself to ideas, not just openly but with an analytical mind and a slightly sceptical filter. Be sure of your morals and values so you do not compromise them. I have an old friend, Stan, who I follow on social media who consistently annoys me with his writing. The annoyance comes because I just do not agree with a lot of what he says. He writes well, operates at a high level of thought but his world view is different to mine. I could switch off his posts, stop following his newsfeed, but I don’t. I choose to continue engaging with him because he challenges me to think. There is a mistruth being perpetrated around the globe today that because I disagree with someone’s behaviour that I should hate them. We have forgotten what dialogue looks like, the sort where it is okay to not agree with someone but still be able to find a way to go forward.

Read, learn, discuss. Technology has made learning and exposure easier than ever. Udemy offer courses, some of which are excellent. Podcasts, blogs and even books are plastered across the internet for free. This should not be sponge type learning though do not just soak everything in as some of it is not the best level possible. Seek out the better way; ask what would work in your business. Figure out how you can apply an idea to your specific brand and industry.

Finally be careful about making high emotion, reaction type decisions. High emotion tends to lower the level of thought. That is why the guys in the car park offering you a ‘lucky day deal’ start their pitch with the chance of you having won something-it heightens your emotion and stops you thinking. While some reactionary decisions can be good ‘spur of the moment’ stuff, it is better to calm down, re-examine the process and then proceed. There is always a better way.

Building a Business

Often new business owners have this idea that magic will happen and they will end up with an instantly successful company that runs itself and makes you enough money to afford a new Mercedes within the first month. New entrepreneurs who set up a business to create and sell an idea they have may severely underestimate the time and effort it takes to build a company. Building requires energy. It is a process.

Like building a house, building a business requires a solid foundation and while you may be able to build a house from scratch on your own it is far easier if you get some reliable help.

The foundation will be a clear vision and the ability to cast direction for others. There is a small but significant difference between vision and planning. Vision allows you to plan. Plans shift on top of the blueprint of vision. The vision is what you are building, the end product or desired outcome. ‘We provide affordable telecommunications to rural Zimbabweans’, ‘We provide simple yet effective payroll solutions for small businesses’, or ‘We make your information easy to handle’ and examples of condensed vision. The plan is based on that. Plans can change, vision will probably not. I started a business on the cusp of the hyperinflation era that characterised the later part for the 00’s. Investors wanted a 5 yr cash flow projection and a plan. So I popped one out for them. We all know how that ended up. Within a year I had to seriously revise any plans and projections frequently as inflation blew any ideas out the water. The vision though stayed the same throughout the period.

Regardless of your vision there a point where you have to outsource or hire for skills. I would suggest that a great time to start is when you have to begin dealing with ZIMRA (the Zimbabwe tax authority) because even if you can do it on your own you really do not want to get your taxes wrong. Outsourcing avoids the costly overheads of a salary. You pay per project or per unit time to get a job done and only use the person when you need them. It avoids office space, company cars and packages. In the long term though you will probably have to get your own team of people. There are trust issues that outsourcing may not fully resolve. Jack Cator, the creator of HMA, a web service that provides virtual proxy addresses, was profiled by the BBC recently. He recently sold his company for 40 million British Pounds. He started off outsourcing, but made the switch to hiring when a contractor tried to steal his idea and start a rival company.

When he began getting people on board he had the fantastic benefit of being able to pull in his free lancers as full time staff. Because he had worked alongside them and knew what they were capable of he avoided the whole murky interview process that is involved when hiring. You know exactly what you are getting when you bring someone on board using this approach.

Cold hiring is a whole other board game. You have to get the interview process right. It is worth a trial period with the successful candidate for the same reason that converting a freelancer into staff succeeds. If you get it wrong you are saddled with someone you may regret for a long time.

The other option is to head hunt-to recruit other people who already have a job they are happy with and make them a better offer (not just financially but in the work and experience they will have) that they are willing to jump ship to join you.

Letting go can be hard, especially when you let someone else take some of the bigger roles. You need to balance between operating as a dictatorship micromanaging everything or being so hands off that you wake up to a company flying without a pilot. Decide which areas you need to hold onto that will give the greatest growth and impact for the organisation and hand over the others. Clearly define expectations. Paint the vision and its accompanying values in a manner that they can be run with. Inspect the work being done, call things to account. At the same time allow the flexibility for employees to achieve the goals that are set in a creative manner and the freedom to bring ideas to the table.

The process of building may vary in the length of time it takes. Take the time and effort to make it work. Do not cut corners on it or in the long term the roof may fall off the ‘house’ you are creating.

Commitment

Commitment: a word that with it carries the ideas of faithfulness, and of grit and determination to see through the hard times. One of the problems with commitment is that we often do not learn to make our own decisions on it until we are well out of school. The benign dictatorship of many school systems where subjects and sports are compulsory is not true commitment as there is only a limited decision by you to stick it out. Your parents and the system often determine that you will finish the time allocated and overrule objection. Commitment, for many, is a late bloomer in the formation of our world view. Then it gets tainted by a media that portray a casual attitude towards relationships as acceptable. No wonder we struggle with it.

There is a difference between being committed and being merely interested. A committed owner (or employee, entrepreneur, leader) dedicates himself to learning and taking the risk regardless of the potential outcome. They fling themselves wholeheartedly into a cause. Be that cause a marriage, a business, a charity, a sport there is a complete dedication to it and increasing the success it has.

Commitment to a cause is rare. Sometimes I feel that it was easier to have a cause a few centuries ago when big armies still marched out under the banner of a king. A cause could grip a nation and rally it to greatness. Having a cause to commit to is a motivator unlike any other. You can be good at something if you choose to be. With few great causes available, the individual cause becomes more visible. You can champion your company, commit to being a sports champion, produce a better world, all you have to do is make the decision and stick it out.

Choose your level and be content with it. You determine if you wish to be content with mediocrity or become a champion. If you are happy with mediocrity then that is your call, just do not complain. If you wish to become a champion then train like one. If you wish to be a rock star then practice like one. There is a price to greatness that separates the committed from everyone else.

Do what it takes. The first step is showing up. I began a martial arts training last year, since I started a number of people I know have expressed an interest but never made it to class. The second step is showing up again, even when it hurts. US politician Mike Rounds once said “We can do things the cheap way, the simple way, for the short-term and without regard for the future. Or, we can make the extra effort, do the hard work, absorb the criticism and make decisions that will cause a better future.”  The minute you commit there will be a host of adversaries, naysayers including the mental one in your own head. The amazing thing about the critics is that many of them are not making an impact with their lives either.

The first time you may not win. The World Champion may only win on his third attempt. Commitment outlasts outcomes. It stays focused until you’ve formed yourself into the leader you need to be in order to handle the outcome you desire. Stay focused. Don’t wait until you discover you’re good at something to commit. A world changer never knows she’s going to change the world when she starts.

“Only one who devotes himself to a cause with his whole strength and soul can be a true master. For this reason mastery demands all of a person” Albert Einstein

The Myth of Working Smart

It is amazing how sometimes a little phrase can sneak into your mind, take root there and grow in completely the wrong direction and meaning. One of those mantras is ‘Work Smart not Hard’. The problem with the expression is that it is easy to look at it as an ‘either-or’ option as if you are faced with making a choice between working hard and working smart. Somehow people equate working smart with not working much at all which is an excuse for sheer laziness. You still have to work hard; you just work better at it.

The primary difference between just working hard and working smart is productivity. It is easy to work hard and produce nothing concrete at the end of the day. The aim of what you do is to have something that you can ship at the end of it; a product delivered, a goal achieved. Smart workers ship and ship fast because they work hard.

Do not mistake being busy for working hard. I can be busy on Facebook, Twitter and every other social media platform I can think of. I can be busy in meetings that do not really require my presence or input. I can be busy on the fluff of the day that actually does not matter. Let us be honest with ourselves we can all think of an occasion where we have avoided a task and managed to get ‘busy’ doing other stuff in order to evade the actual task.

In order to work smart you need to work for a reason with a clear vision and objectives. Productivity is enhanced by having small ‘victories’ during the day. This is one reason why a daily ‘to-do’ list is an effective tool to generating positive momentum. Each item ticked off the list creates a small but powerful emotion of achievement inside you which fuels the drive to do more.

Declutter your life, delegate tasks, and outsource that which others can do better. Get rid of the fluff that hinders your productivity. Unless your role is to monitor the social network no Facebook during work. Aim for high impact tasks, those which have the biggest effect on what you do. As a writer this means I have to write, not spend hours answering emails. It does not mean I will never answer emails, just that I will set the task of writing a priority. Delegating does not mean that you do less work; it merely allows you to do more of the work that matters.

Structure your life and business to maintain flow. One way for this is to set aside time that is uninterruptable for key tasks. No phone calls, no emails, no visitors, just you and your work.

Work when most effective for you to do so. A friend of mine wrote a book by setting aside a minimum of twenty minutes dedicated writing every night before bed regardless of how the day had been. Some days he wrote more than others, some nights he would take longer, but he was diligent at doing the hard work of writing. The project took him 18 months, but he shipped.

Set your iteration cycles and feedback loops correctly. Do not double your workload by stupidly asking for opinion at the wrong point that sends you back to the drawing board for unnecessary changes. Get the key deliverable points from the person who signs off on the project before you start. Then when you need that final approval point out exactly how you have fulfilled what they asked for. Get mass opinion early in the project while you are still brainstorming, then trim the number of voices down to a few key, select individuals that matter and have solid wisdom.

One of the questions people ask of hard workers is ‘How do you get balance in your life?’ Usually this refers to keeping time for family, friends and vacations as well as managing a crazy 18 hour a day schedule during a start-up. Firstly I am not sure that balanced people change the world. Passion and unrelenting drive to a goal are necessary to getting there. There are phases in life when balance is just not realistic. Studying for a degree? Then believe me come exam time balance goes out the window temporarily. Remember that life is not an ‘either-or’ scenario but a ‘both-and’ and set the goals for your family as strongly as you set the goals for your work and then you will not treat them as fluff.

Getting the hard work done, paying the price, allows for success. Do not be afraid of putting your hand to the ploughshare in order to reap results later. Perhaps the mantra should read ‘Work Smart and Hard’.

Better Marketing

I got a text message today from my cell phone company. It simply said 'Where are you (my number)'. Considering that I provided my name when I acquired the number I find it a rather stupid message. Also it is random, there is no way I am going to reply.


There has to be a better way to market to people. America and Europe are facing a shift where television marketing is no longer as effective as it was. The leverage of mass production is no longer benefiting from the mass marketing that accompanied it. The digital connection age has changed all that. Adverts are more specific and targeting niche groups. Word of mouth and recommendations carry even more weight. I make coffee during television commercials and I’m pretty sure that many of you do the same. There is a better way to tell our stories than flyers, billboards, and random text messages because we have such great stories to tell. Mass marketing is impersonal, and in an age where ‘friendship’ has been relegated to a button on Facebook people crave personal attention and real relationship.


Marketing based on developing a relationship to with your clients, having a group that supports and spreads your work. That is the way forward today.

What you know vs what you do

Not so long ago if you sprained your ankle you would make an appointment to go see your doctor. There you would be told the first aid basics, given a prescription and probably told to go see a physiotherapist. Today you are more likely to look up ‘ankle sprain’ on Google, follow the instructions on a number of websites, and then after a few days if there is no improvement go to a health professional. The world has changed. Knowledge used to be a commodity people traded in; you went to see someone for what they knew. Today people are more interested in what you can do and how you do it.

Information is easy to obtain in an electronic age. Enter a few great search parameters and at the click of a button all you need is on your screen. More than ever people are giving information away. Podcasts broadcast for free; you just have to take the time to listen. Information is available; finding it, using it and being a rockstar in your business with it are harder. These are the skills people are hiring for today. So you get an ‘A-star’ for maths at A-level...the knowledge of maths may not be a great asset. Now persuade me that you got that grade because you developed a knack for solving problems and I may be more interested. Take that problem solving, apply it with initiative and creativity to make yourself indispensible in my company and I will pay anything to retain you.

Information on its own is passionless. There is no emotion to it. How you present that information, how you tell the story of it, what you do with it matters. It is a massive shift to come from an education system that has been founded on information retention and recall and walk into a business world that is increasingly characterised by more vocational type traits. Professions around the world are under threat because the information they were consulted for is now freely available. To make the transition they have to offer something more than just a transaction, there has to be a relationship, a skill and an emotional component. Expanding the doctor example above; if the practitioner creates an environment where you feel genuine care then clients are more likely to go back-even if they can get the information elsewhere.

Jeanne Grant is an architect in Chicago. Listening to her talk you get the sense that she is not just in the ‘design a building’ trade, rather she is helping to design and transform communities. Her creations are socially transformative, environmentally beneficial, based on interaction with communities and finding out what people really want from the projects her firm creates. She has gone far beyond the mere knowledge of architecture to doing the exceptional with it.

Knowledge locks you into a field. Doing expands your horizons far beyond your initial training. Shah Selbe is an engineer for Boeing. That has been his ‘day-job’ for years. He is also at the forefront of research into marine conservation and fish anti-poaching efforts and has been recognised by National Geographic for his efforts. His engineering knowledge has given him a unique take on problem solving, but he is using these processes in areas far beyond the traditional field. If he had let himself be defined by knowledge then he would probably be constructing waterworks for some city, rather he is exploring a passion and bringing global transformation with what he does.

Knowledge makes you selfish. In the past when information has been a rare commodity people have held onto knowledge, protected it, and forced others to pay a premium for it. Now obviously some knowledge is worth holding onto-the formula for Coca Cola for example. Sharing information, sharing knowledge within an organisation can propel a company forward far more rapidly than a culture where people are holding onto what they know because it may get them a promotion. Doing often requires you to share with others in order to be more productive.

Whether you like it or not the world has shifted away from a knowledge driven state. You can continue to fight a rear guard action against it or you can embrace the future and become a linchpin in society. It is a rather liberating experience.

Waiting, preparing.

Would you work for 20 years to develop the technology to create your vision?
Consider the case of Pixar.
http://ecorner.stanford.edu/authorMaterialInfo.html?mid=3299

Breaching the Comfort Zone

Have you ever given much consideration as to why you read the books you read, or why you watch the movies you choose to watch? Perhaps the cover grabs your attention? Maybe it is because the book is from a specific author that you like or it is just sitting in the section that you normally buy books from. Most likely it is because someone you trusted told you about it. That someone could be a best sellers list, it could be Amazon’s personalised recommendations for you, it could be that a friend told you about it. It is highly unlikely that you regularly walk into a bookstore and go ‘Wow today I am going to buy a totally random book in a genre I have never read by an author I do not know.’ While the random book idea can be a rather liberating experience it is one we tend to shy away from. We prefer the trusted and tried.

The books you read, films you watch, places you go on holiday (if you go at all), people you interact with are all largely based on your past experience, or the past experience of someone else whose opinion you value. Humans, most of the time, seek out that which is inherently familiar to us. It is, perhaps, a psychological safety mechanism that keeps you risk free and secure. Trying a new author has risk; you are spending precious money on a book that you may not enjoy. So we mitigate that risk by seeing if others have read it first. Movie producers pay high end actors a fortune to be in their films, not just because they may be good at their craft, but because they create a sense of familiarity in the fans who will go watch the movie. Trying something new can be an emotional experience if you have to break out of your comfort zone to do so. Stepping out of it means that you are moving away from trusted ground and onto something less stable.

I make an effort to do something new and different each year. It may be trying a new author, learning a new skill, travelling to a new location, having a new experience. Last year I took up karate, the year before that I started on a book manuscript, before that I went to Disneyland, before that I started this column. Do something new. It may scare you a little. It may throw your system out of sync for a while as you persuade yourself you are not crazy. At the end of the day the biggest comfort zone you are breaking is the fear of trying new things. Plan a holiday this year with the family rather than just sitting at home during your leave days. Try somewhere new locally, try going outside the country, and try a new method of travel. Take up a new sport or hobby. Go skydiving, go swim with sharks, do the gorge swing at Victoria Falls. Read a book a month. Just do something that challenges you.

Businesses have comfort zones. We do work the same way because it is the way it has always been done. Starting a new product that has never been done involves breaking out of the familiar. Stepping up from local to regional to international hammers on the walls of comfortable. Trying a new management style or bringing a new structure to a company means stretching the boundaries we have in our minds. Start by breaking out of your own personal zones and you will be better able to handle the bigger changes that you have to make in your organisation. Have fun with it.

The Cost

Sometimes it is not the cost of doing something that we should be worried about but rather the cost of NOT doing something.
What greatness are you holding back from the world?

Lies and Culture

Here is a question. How many of you are doing business with someone that won't return your calls and they owe you money? Someone is always chasing someone down for blood. It affects new relationships as well; after having had two or three people default on promised payments it becomes harder to trust the next person’s word. It's hard to blame the person that's always been burnt for being shy of the fire.

Lies breed distrust, distrust means things take longer to navigate or innovate. It takes longer to discuss an idea with someone because they may steal it. It takes longer to open a bank account because they need to verify that we are who we say we are. It takes longer to source funding because people have been scammed before. When things take longer to innovate we get left behind. Then when we get left behind we start to look elsewhere at perceived better opportunities, to where the grass appears greener on the other side. So lies breed distrust, distrust slows us down, and we start to look at where we think things are really happening. Many in Africa think they are in training. “I’m training for my real job in Europe or America, training for the real world.” Why? They do not see anything happening for them here.

Lies promote a bad culture. There's nothing worse than a bad culture; a bad business culture where suits and ties are more important than truth and quality. The sort of culture where promises are broken without regard for the consequences is destructive. I was dealing with a bank with liquidity issues, daily I got promised “we will have cash for you tomorrow”. They never did. Why not just be honest and tell me the truth, let me know exactly where you stand so that I can make better decisions and plan better in my own life and business.

When love and passion for people takes a back seat and instead status and pictures in the newspaper are regarded as symbols of validity we fall short. When we expect the best service or product in the world from local SME's or start-ups, but we want to rip them off and pay cheaply we contribute to a culture that festers. Every time we lie, or cover up the truth, or lead people on we add to the culture of deception and make it harder for others to trust.

Here are some things to remember when trying to build a better culture. More things happen when no one cares about who gets the credit. Innovation explodes when the landscape is easier to navigate. Good culture triumphs over good strategy (the best crafted strategy documents will fail if there is no integrity to underscore it). Truth and honesty breeds brothers and sisters, not patrons and clients.

The grass has got to be greener inside of our world. Let us not head out for international pastures before we address the bad culture and lies that cripple the genius we have.

(See http://emergingideas.com/lies-culture-grass for the source article for this post)

Seth's Book

I am a bit miffed with author and entrepreneur Seth Godin. Regular readers of this column will know that I am a great fan of his work and writing, so what possibly could he have done that has irritated me. To put it simply, he published a new book. The problem is that it is not available in electronic format...and not likely to be in the near future. It is a full colour book only available in hard copy.  This means that I cannot get it instantly at the click of a button but will have to order it and wait patiently for it to arrive. Not only that, it is expensive-thirty-four dollars for a book before almost doubling the cost by shipping it out here to Zimbabwe! Despite all this I have never wanted a book so badly.

 

Why? Why would I want a book that at first glance seems overpriced (it is not really) and could take up to a month to ship to me? Simply put, because it is Godin, because it is different, because Seth Godin developed my buy-in long before he even thought of writing the book. Godin is a ‘practice what you preach’ kind of guy. He is foremost a marketer, and the pioneer of what he calls permission marketing. Not only does he teach on the idea, but he tests his theories on his followers. He is a living example that what he teaches really works. I know because he has used it on me.

I first came across Seth in an email. Someone forwarded me one of his blog posts that they thought I would enjoy. I did and the experience attuned me to his name. When I saw that another mate of mine had a book by him I asked to borrow it. I was hooked-there was something that resonated with my desire to challenge the status quo. Soon I was buying books of my own, following his blog and sharing his ideas with others. To use one of his own phrases-I became part of his tribe. To Godin, a tribe is a group of followers you develop who ‘give’ you permission to market to because you already have their interest. He has devoted much of his time and effort to developing his tribe.

The book he has just published is testimony to the ground work he has done. He presold 30 000 before publication, exceeding his own estimates by 40%. In a world that has more books than ever that is huge traction. Here is the great thing about it; he is not trying to sell to people who do not want it. He has a steady market that he has developed, so when he brings out a crazy new idea they are already willing to buy in. Too often we are looking for the big catch now without any of the groundwork. Godin’s book may look like an overnight success, but it is the result of many years of hard work and effort.

There are two lessons I would like you to take home from this story. The first one I have already mentioned-do not be afraid of the groundwork. Put the effort into your clients to build a relationship with them. Create deals, communicate, learn who they are, build your own tribe of supporters. Be creative in how you do it. Stop looking for the instant numbers and instant success; rather look for the long term followers who will stick with you. These are the customers who will buy the equivalent of ‘your book’ when you bring it out.

The second lesson is stop trying to please everyone. You can’t. Pick your target audience and make them into your tribe. Realise that a few loyal fans are worth far more than a fickle crowd who will betray you for the next big deal. Do not mistake volume of clients for success. Scaling clearly allows for bigger returns if your margins are small. Remember that some expensive products lend themselves to their inability to scale; rare artwork for example. Rare artwork is brought by a select few, a tribe who value such an investment and that tribe may not be interested in your attempts to sell mass produced prints. Godin is not trying to sell you his book; he is trying to sell it to me and others that are part of the subculture he has created. I’m telling you about it as a story to help me make a point rather than an attempt to get you to buy it (notice that I have not even mentioned the title in this article).

Zimbabwe’s economy has been largely transaction based over the last few years. We have shopped where it is cheaper when resources have been scare, been forced to buy from whoever has a product we need. There has been little development of relationships. As the economy grows it will be relationships that bring you clients that stick with you. As competition increases it will be relationships that bring you business when you can no longer bring your margins any lower to compete on price. Spend 2015 building your ‘tribe’ of clients and watch the rewards.