Monthly Archives: August 2013

August 27, 2013 · 9:55 am

Take The Money And Run

TunesDay, and what better theme for a business-related post than the Steve Miller Band‘s Take The Money And Run?  Steve Miller is an interesting cat.  Unlike most rock stars, he’s always been the kind of guy you couldn’t identify in a lineup.  You can probably picture most of the other big-name artists of the 70’s and 80’s.  He might be a little harder to visualize.  The list of musicians who have come though his band over the years – Boz Scaggs being the most notable – include members of Journey, Santana, and others.  The band came out of the Bay Area music scene in the late 60’s and is still with us today.

His song about Billy Joe and Bobbie Sue is about two kids who decide to rob a house, possibly killing the owner in the process.  They evade the law and get away singing “Go on, take the money and run.”  The story is in complete contrast to the light music – let’s listen and see:

There is a business point here.  Too many businesses think as do Billy Joe and Bobbie Sue.  They’re not particularly concerned with what’s right, only with themselves.  They practice the Golden Rule: he who has the gold rules, and once they extract it from their victims, they’re gone.  That tactic worked once for these kids and it won’t work much more often for a business.  One bad customer experience can haunt a company forever (just ask United Airlines about guitars).  An American Express survey found a couple of years ago that people tell an average of nine people about good experiences, and nearly twice as many (16 people) about poor ones.

You don’t need to take the money and run as a business.  That same survey found a large majority of people (70 percent) are willing to spend an average of 13 percent more with companies they believe provide excellent customer service.  In other words, your customers will GIVE you the money if you do right by them, and they’ll keep coming back.

While it makes for a clever little tune, taking the money and running is a bad business idea.  You agree?

Enhanced by Zemanta

Leave a comment

Filed under Helpful Hints, Music

Tagged as , , , , ,

August 26, 2013 · 9:43 am

The Same But Different

At the risk of alienating a few of you who are sick of golf-related posts, I want to tell you about a tournament in which I participated over the last three days. It inspired some business thinking as I reflected on it so I feel it appropriate to share with you. I guess I’ll see the rest of you tomorrow!

Golf Anyone?

(Photo credit: Amber B McN)

The tournament was one in which I was paired with another club member for three days. Each day we played golf but the format varied by round.  The first round was what’s known as a scramble – each player on the team hits, we pick the better shot, and both hit the next shot from there.  Rinse, repeat for 18 holes.  It’s a format that encourages thoughtful, aggressive play.  One partner hits a safe shot, the other can try something more difficult since there is no penalty for failure.

The next day was best ball.  Each partner plays their own ball, handicap strokes are deducted, and the better net score is written down for each hole.  This is basic golf.  While there is some strategy, it’s not much different from the regular game one plays all the time.

Finally, there was alternate shot.  In this format, both players tee off, the best drive is selected, and then the player that didn’t hit the chosen drive hits the next shot.  Players alternate shots from there until the ball is holed.  It is a tremendously difficult format in many ways, the biggest of which is that a bad shot forces your partner to fix your mistake.  There is a fair amount of strategic thinking if you hit two good drives.  Who should hit onto the green?   Who do we want putting?  Weak players are exposed and better players often feel helpless since they can’t display their skill while trying to recover from a partner’s miss.

The similarities with business are what struck me this morning.  The rules and conditions are ever-changing even while the basic game remains the same.  One must adapt or die.  You have to build your team so that you can play under any condition.   Teams that had done well in the first two formats posted horrific scores yesterday because one player was very good while the other was pretty bad.  Attention to the strategy appropriate for the situation is always critical in golf and more so given the changes to the rules each day.   Finally, one bad hole doesn’t kill your team nor does one bad day or quarter in business.  Maintaining a good positive attitude with the big picture in mind can deliver a trophy; staying mad about the bad hole (or quarter!) can keep the negative results coming.

We won our group (by a stroke!), mostly on the basis of delivering solid results each day.  That’s not a bad thing for any business to do.  Wouldn’t you agree?

Enhanced by Zemanta

Leave a comment

Filed under Thinking Aloud, What's Going On

Tagged as , , , , ,

August 23, 2013 · 9:48 am

Perfect Pitch

We’ve come to the end of another week and so it’s Foodie Friday time.  Today, I’m going to make up for omitting the TunesDay post last Tuesday and combine music and food (and yes, they of course lead to business).  Perfect pitch is the ability of a person to listen to a piece of music and tell you (or play) in what key the piece is written without the benefit of hearing a reference tone – a known note to which they can compare it.  In other words, it’s much easier to know that something is written in A minor if you hear a Middle C before it plays.

Graphic details the nomenclature of the musica...

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I think there is perfect pitch in the kitchen as well.  There are those cooks who can recreate a dish or break it down having tasted it once.  They also seem to know what the folks eating their food want on a plate.  They can “hear”  the palates of their customers perfectly.  Food is very much like music in that when a note is even slightly off it’s noticeable and off-putting.  Great cooks keep the flavors in harmony and in tune.

In both cases, having perfect pitch assures that the harmonies are tight.  The Beach Boys or Crosby, Stills, and Nash are perfect examples.  The harmonious mix of flavors in a well-executed braise is another.  The overtones – harmonics that surround the musical or culinary compositions – resonate perfectly.  Think about Jimi Hendrix’s brilliant use of feedback (overtones, kids) and you’ll get an idea of what I mean.  Done badly, it’s just awful.  Done right, it’s a classic.

As businesspeople, most of us aren’t born with perfect pitch.  I certainly wasn’t in any of the three roles – musician, cook, or executive.  What we can do is work on having perfect relative pitch.  Once we get some sort of reference tone we can take it from there with confidence.  We need to train our ears to find that tone and then proceed keeping it in mind.  In business, that tone comes from customers.  Once we have it, we should have already trained ourselves to listen to the harmonics and make sure they’re in tune as well.

Success in music, the kitchen, and the boardroom all come from listening with a trained ear.   If we have the gift of perfect pitch, it’s an invaluable asset.  If we don’t, we need to train ourselves to mimic perfect pitch behavior based on a solid starting point and never lose sight of that reference point.  Hard to do, I know, but the rewards are worth it.   Wouldn’t you agree?

Enhanced by Zemanta

1 Comment

Filed under food, Music, Thinking Aloud

Tagged as , , , , , , ,