Tag Archives: planning

May 10, 2019 · 3:31 pm

Shopping At The Farmer’s Market

It’s Foodie Friday and the local farmer’s market opened up here a couple of weeks ago. Of course, the state farmer’s market is open year-round but it’s huge and a 25-minute drive. The one here in town is more intimate, less-crowded, and only 6 minutes away.

I like farmer’s markets for a few reasons. The first is that the quality of food – mostly produce – is generally higher than what you can get from the supermarket. It’s likely it was picked either that morning or the day prior. It certainly didn’t have to travel from Mexico or South America. Most importantly, these markets are inherently seasonal. You don’t get watermelons until late summer (OK, earlier here in the South) and there aren’t red things masquerading as tomatoes in March.

As a cook, the farmer’s market presents both an opportunity and a challenge, one that actually is mirrored in most businesses. The opportunity is to find ingredients that are in peak form, and because they’re plentiful, at a lower cost (that whole supply/demand thing, you know). The challenge is that to take real advantage of the market, you have to be willing to work with what’s available and that can be limiting. You might want to make a peach cobbler for dessert this week but it’s blueberry season now so that’s dessert.

Businesses face the same challenges as cooks. There is a seasonality involved in almost every business and the opportunity in season is to maximize profits. I think there’s a real opportunity outside of your prime season as well. This is when you can experiment with new products or promotions. You can look for niche audiences (what’s available!).

There’s also the challenge that my little market faces each week. It’s 15 miles from a much bigger market. How can it attract high-quality vendors and draw from surrounding communities? Obviously, most businesses face similar issues to distinguish themselves if they’re realistic about the choices consumers have these days. When I was working in TV we worried about the other networks. Broadcasters today have to consider anything with a screen as competitive.

Mostly I like farmer’s markets because they force me to be thoughtful and creative. How can I plan out a menu that’s the best within the limitations of what’s available? You might ask yourself the same thing about your business. Every business has limitations, whether financial, supply chain, or even people. How do you get the best out of what’s available?

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April 8, 2019 · 12:13 pm

Hitting Curves

My friend posted a picture of his father on social media the other day. Outside of my own father, he was probably the most influential male in my life as I was growing up in many ways. Aside from wondering why he’s aged and I haven’t as I saw the photo (that’s a joke, kids), it made me recall one thing that he did to teach my friend and me to be better baseball players: hitting curveballs.

My friend’s dad was no ordinary dad when it came to imparting that little piece of baseball knowledge either. He had tried out with the Yankees and the family lore is that had my friend’s mom not told him that she would walk on the marriage, he would have been signed and playing in Yankee Stadium. Obviously, when this guy tells you he’s going to teach you about curveballs, you listen.

For those of you that have never stood in against a pitcher with a lively curve, the pitch starts by heading at your head and breaks down and away from you. That’s what my friend’s father threw at us – pitches that started at our heads and broke in over the plate. Of course, once he felt we were getting complacent about standing in against the curve, he’d toss the odd pitch right at our heads to teach us to look for the rotation of the ball and to duck if it wasn’t going to curve. A fastball at your skull gets you focused very quickly!

Almost every player who makes the majors can hit fastballs. It’s the ones who can hit breaking pitches – sliders and curveballs – who become stars. It’s true in business as well. When things are going along according to plan and not diverging from the track they’re on, things are relatively easy to manage. Even if something appears dangerous (like a fastball heading for your ear) it’s relatively easy to get out of the way if you can see where things are heading.

Learning to hit business curveballs is something that you need to do if you’re going to elevate your game. You need to prepare for them by planning and recognizing that they’re going to show up from time to time. Your team needs to be ready, and you need to think about who can handle curveballs as you’re assembling that team.  People who are regimented and can’t deal with it when events start tracking differently are probably not your priority hires.

Mostly, you need to expect things to go wrong. After bailing out and hitting the dirt a couple of times, I realized that some attempted curveballs don’t break even when the rotation makes it look like they’re trying. It’s better to have to wash your uniform than to repair your skull. Your team needs to recognize that bailing out might be the smartest option when things begin to go awry. Watch out for those curves, learn to hit them out of the park, and your team can’t be beaten. Right?

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February 25, 2019 · 11:24 am

By Any Standard

I have to admit it – I’m a sucker for the major award shows. Watching the Oscars last night made me think about some of the “awards” many companies give themselves. You can usually find them talking about them as they sell themselves. You know the drill:

    • We have world-class customer service
    • Our employee benefits are the best in our field
    • Our products are cutting-edge

And on and on. Now, having come from the sales world I’m not necessarily averse to a little hyperbole, but there is a line, one which is often crossed because there aren’t any standards. It’s an issue that affects businesses in a lot of ways, some small and some pretty egregious. It’s often the small ways – the little white lies we tell ourselves in planning or product meetings – that lead to the big ways – the hyperbole we broadcast in our marketing and set false expectations among customers, partners, vendors, and others.

Think about the differences between Consumer Reports and Amazon reviews. Consumer Reports has rigorous testing standards. It maintains editorial independence and accepts no advertising in the magazine. It buys the products it reviews and pays retail prices for them. While they’ve been sued over bad reviews they’ve never lost a case. Their reviews are objective and all products in a category are held to the same standards.

Compare that to Amazon or Yelp or Google reviews. The reviewer has no objective standards for the most part. They have no idea if common standards for a product category exist nor how to measure or apply them. The JD Power surveys try to aggregate the consumer point of view in a way that reduces personal bias which is better than pure subjective reviews. After all, who hasn’t felt like broadcasting a bad review of something to the world? Maybe the product was fine but you had a nasty experience with customer service so you trash the product as well on your review.

Many businesses do the same thing in their marketing. They don’t use objective standards and end up setting false expectations. I think many industries would do themselves a favor by objectively assessing how well individual brands meet reasonable performance expectations. I remember we used to take an annual survey of media buyers in the TV industry. On the face of it, we did a good job of assessing ourselves and our competitors objectively. The truth was many of the sales guys knew when the survey was being fielded and would wine and dine the buyers to make sure we got good reviews. Subjective standards don’t work.

How do you market yourself? Do you have enough information about your performance on an objective basis? Can you get some?

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