Tag Archives: advice

October 25, 2019 · 3:51 pm

Harder Than It Is

Happy Foodie Friday! I was menu-planning the other day (an absolute must before the weekly trip to the grocery store) and I came across a dish that I know to be pretty easy to make yet which appears way more difficult. I’ve served it before and people are always all “oh, that must have taken hours” about it when it’s really about a 15-minute prep. As an aside, there are many other dishes I know – really good Bolognese sauce, for example – that take way more time than you’d think even using a pressure cooker to speed things up.

Seeing that dish got me to thinking, in a roundabout way, that we humans have a tendency to think things are way more difficult than they are in many cases. In fact, I think some of us go to great lengths to make it that way. I’m not talking about a particular type of person I’d run across in business every so often. You know the one – they create problems so that they can solve them and be the hero. No, what I’m talking about is that we love to make things harder than they actually are.

Think about it. What things did you do today that purposefully made your life more difficult ? It was probably so small a thing, or something so ingrained in you, that you didn’t even notice that you did it. Maybe you didn’t set your alarm to allow for enough time to be someplace. Maybe you sat on a task until right before a deadline and you couldn’t get it done on time because something unforeseen happened.  Or maybe you just enjoy the drama. It’s sort of the same thrill as riding a roller-coaster, right? You put yourself in danger and when you survive, you feel a thrill.

Here’s my take. Life can be like some seemingly-fancy dishes – much easier to pull together than meets the eye IF – and it’s a big if – you have the skills required, leave adequate time to complete the task, and don’t make it harder than it has to be. All of us make our lives both in and out of business harder than they have to be at times and unless and until we recognize the times that we’re doing it, nothing much will change.

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October 3, 2019 · 3:16 pm

Don’t Waste My Time

I wasn’t going to write this week until Foodie Friday but I got aggravated and this seems to be one of my saner outlets to express my frustrations. As I’ve mentioned before in this space, I moved into a new home last February. In the new home, since it is newly constructed, are brand-new appliances. So far, they’ve been wonderful.

I especially like the ice-maker feature built into the fridge. That’s why, when it wouldn’t dispense ice last evening, I was horrified to find that the ice maker seems to have ingested itself. Somehow the little plastic tray that forms the ice and dumps it into the bin got tangled in the worm screw that pushes the ice to the dispenser. To paraphrase the Soup Nazi, no ice for me.

This morning I called the folks at Sears bright and early (7:30 eastern) to get a repair person out here and this is where the business angle comes in. If you’ve been following Sears at all in the business press (or even in this space), you know that they are in all kinds of financial trouble. Without getting into why that is, it’s safe to say that the last thing they want to do at this point is to alienate a customer. You with me so far?

Back to the phone call. Obviously, the fridge is still under warranty – it’s not even a year old. I called the number on their website that gets you to service for products under warranty and was greeted by an AI bot. I’m not a fan of these things – I think they aren’t that great yet and I’ve been frustrated more than once by a bot that couldn’t get what it was I wanted. Without a lot of gory details, I got this one to send me to a human. Except the humans weren’t in yet. “Please call back during business hours.” I spent 4 minutes getting to that point. They didn’t even bother to say what “business hours” were and in which time zone.

Let’s not alienate a customer, right? What would I have done differently? First, maybe they shouldn’t answer the phone with anything other than “our business hours are…” and ask you to call back. Even better – ask for my phone number so you can call me back when you get in. Don’t tie me up for several minutes and waste my time.

Sears isn’t the only company I’ve had a negative experience today. Two members of my family ordered new phones from ATT. Neither wanted insurance, told the salesperson so, and yet both were going to be billed $8.99/month without their permission. I know only because I got the “welcome to your new insurance” email since I’m the main account holder. That means more time out of my day to fix a problem that neither I nor my family members made.

If you run a business, especially a business that’s in financial distress or a business that is in an insanely competitive area, spend more time hugging your customers. Find ways to reduce their pain. Don’t waste their time or connive ways to take their money. Make sense?

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September 25, 2019 · 2:54 pm

Changes In Latitude

I did something today that I consider a bit of a milestone and I’d like to share it with you because it brings up a bigger point. One of the areas that I used to help clients with was Search Engine Optimization (SEO). While I never claimed to be an expert on the subject I knew enough to get clients started in improving their rankings, often to great effect. In order to stay current, I had 10 different feeds from blogs relating to SEO funneling into my feed reader. Each day I’d peruse the latest and great information, trying to stay current so my advice would be solid.

I also had half a dozen feeds from the advertising trades and six others that talked about analytics. Reading them throughout each day, along with the feeds on the sports business and many tech feeds, probably took a total of an hour or two each day, and when there were big developments, often longer.

I got that time back today because I deleted those feeds from my news stream. I’ve changed the focus of my business to franchise consulting and frankly, keeping current on tech, advertising, and media when I have very little practical reason to do so (other than to amuse you here on the screed) was an inefficient use of my time. While I am still subscribed to a number of feeds in those areas to maintain a knowledge base, I’m cutting the cord on most of them.

What’s been surprising as I hit the “delete” key is how long it has taken me to do this and that’s the point I think is relevant to each of us. It’s hard to let go. I still consider myself a TV guy even though I haven’t worked in the TV business for almost 20 years. Most of the people with whom I worked are on to other things or retired. I couldn’t let go though and was faithfully reading the trades I read when it was my daily life.

I’ve been at this new line of consulting for a year. I’m thoroughly enjoying it and business is good. Despite that, it’s a struggle not to look in the reaview mirror sometimes at the business life that was yesterday instead of spending that time focusing on what’s ahead. I’m hoping that deleting the feeds and freeing up some time will encourage me looking forward and I hope it’s something you’ll think about as well. As Jimmy Buffett says,

Its these changes in latitudes, changes in attitudes
Nothing remains quite the same

Make sense?

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