Dumb businesses

Most businesses in this day and age are constantly looking at ways they can grow their sales and generate more revenue from new customers. In many cases this total fixation with ‘new’ sales is blinding them to collecting ‘easy pickings’, and in some cases may even be driving business away.

What do I mean? Let me give you an example from my own experience. I wanted to buy something, so I contact the business via email and obtained all the details. I tell them to send me an invoice so I can do an electronic funds transfer. Sale complete right? Nope. Firstly, there are no banking details on the invoice I received. I then troll through the lengthy email and find the account details, but guess what? They’re wrong. So now I gotta email them back and I HAVE TO ASK for the correct details. Can you see the issue?

It is almost like they are TRYING to make it hard for me to purchase from them. Wouldn’t you think that the most logical thing would be to put the transfer details on the invoice? Failing that, don’t they have a standard payment document that lists all the payment methods, including the right funds transfer details?

How many things like this are you overlooking in your business? It all comes down to building effective procedures. If you take the time to create a payment method document you can send it out every time you need to and you know it is right every time. As I have mentioned many, many times in this blog people are so happy to waste their time repeating low end tasks, duplicating information and promoting errors yet they constantly complain they are too ‘busy’. A businesses failing to conduct itself professionally, especially at the transaction moment of the sale, tells me a whole lot about how well that business generally operates. In some respects it may even warrant me taking my business elsewhere, because if they can’t do that what else aren’t they doing properly?

So rather than investing significant amounts of time constantly taking the rough road looking for new sales, have you examined your own processes to ensure that they are as efficient as possible? Have you ensured that it is as easy as possible for your existing customers (i.e. those who ALREADY pay you money) to keep giving you more money? Have you asked them whether you can make their dealings with you simpler?

Remember, what I’m saying here is making the process easier for money coming into your business not necessarily what suits you best. You want to make the whole process of getting paid as quick as possible. This means you need to look at it through the customer’s eyes, not your own. Remember the more friction there is in a process, not only the slower the process becomes but also the more heat it generates (i.e. customer frustration).

So, spend the time ensuring your gears are as oiled as possible before commencing on the great quest for more sales, because greater revenues may be just a tweak away.

I’ll bet

Many people I’ve spoken to are under the misapprehension that I’m already working with SharePoint 2010. Sorry to say that I currently have exactly the same access to the product that everyone else has. This means I’m reading the while papers and watching the video but not working with product.

 

We all know that SharePoint 2010 is due for public beta sometime in November as Steve Ballmer announced recently at the SharePoint conference. I’m willing to bet that the announce of the beta releases of SharePoint 2010 and Office 2010 will be made at the upcoming Microsoft Professional Developers Conference to be held next week (17-19 November 2009).

 

As I said, I have just as much of an idea about the release as the next person but hopefully my bet will pay off and I can finally get my hands on the new SharePoint 2010 product.

You know times are changing

When Microsoft is set to release a version of Office that is free to consumers and supported by advertising. It is called Microsoft Office Starter 2010. Here’s the details from the Microsoft Office 2010 Engineering blog:

As part of Office 2010 software that will be pre-loaded by the PC manufacturers on their PCs, we’re introducing Microsoft Office Starter 2010. Office Starter 2010 is a reduced-functionality, advertising-supported version of Office 2010, available exclusively on new PCs. Office Starter 2010 will provide new PC owners with immediate exposure to the Office 2010 experience on new PCs right out of the box.

Office Starter 2010 will include Office Word Starter 2010 and Office Excel Starter 2010, with the basic functionality for creating, viewing and editing documents. Office Starter 2010 will replace Microsoft Works, offering a consistent Office user experience, such as the Ribbon, with a simple path to upgrade to a fully-featured version of Office 2010 directly from within the product.

Microsoft will soon be offering the product in beta and is asking people interested in the product to complete a quick survey as a way to nominate for the program. If you are interested then you’ll find the nomination process at:

http://survey.confirmit.com/wix5/p1059269618.aspx?type=1

This is further evidence of how much Office 2010 will be a game changer not only for Microsoft but for all those people that make living selling Microsoft Office. With the product available free on the web as well as free for download, how many existing are likely to upgrade to these products? Most, I reckon. Alternatively, how many people are going to upgrade to a paid edition? Not many, at least initially I believe. As I have said before, not only is the technology changing but also the economics. People who made their living from selling Microsoft Office are going to have to re-think their strategy as free versions of Office cannibalize existing sales. If they were smart they’d realize that there is going to be a huge potential market implementing and training customers on all versions of Office 2010 but luckily most won’t see this and will unsuccessfully continue to try and sell Office.

Why do I say luckily? Because it means more business for me as they focus on the wrong area. Sorry, as Donald Trump says – ‘It’s not personal, it’s business’.

Being busy is just an excuse

Now, I know that I’m not going to be very popular in what I’m about to say here but I truly believe it to be the case. There is a HUGE difference between being busy and being productive.

Lately, I’ve come across so many people claiming to be ‘busy’ and blaming this for having failed to get something important done. It is becoming that common now it is really starting to annoy me. Why? Because it is a total cop out I believe. The bottom line for most of these people is that ‘being busy’ is simply an excuse for not setting correct priorities. ‘Busy’ is typically a state in which people believe they need to be to achieve something, but in reality they are simply in motion without moving. They are merely creating action for action’s sake in the belief that they are being productive.

It’s human nature that there are things we like to do and things we don’t. Being productive usually means doing stuff that you don’t like doing AS WELL AS as stuff you do. Most however, fill their time with stuff they like doing but which is generally of such a low priority that they shouldn’t be doing it at all. In a word, they procrastinate. Procrastination doesn’t meaning sitting around twiddling your thumbs, it means failing to do what NEEDS TO BE DONE and you can just as easily achieve this by being ‘busy’. The issue for such people is that they do not value time appropriately. Just because you have eight hours a day ‘at work’ does that mean you have to spend that total time ‘working’? Definitely not! If I can get the same amount of productive work done in six hours, or four hours or even two hours why do I need to fill the remaining time with useless unproductive tasks? Because that’s what everyone else is doing I hear you say and therein lies the problem.

Just because everyone else is doing something doesn’t make it right does it? Being productive is about what works for YOU not what everyone else SAYS works for you! We all have exactly the same amount of time allocated to us each and everyday, yet why do the vast majority of people always seem to be ‘busy’? Stressed? Tired? Unable to do what they need to get done? Simply because they have failed to prioritize their time correctly. Maybe they’d prefer to re-read their emails than actually starting on that report or maybe they’d prefer to surf the web just a bit longer rather than actually resolving an urgent problem. Sound familiar? It should be, because this how most people operate.

Another painful truth I’ve come to understand is that YOU CAN’T DO EVERYTHING! Thus, you need to prioritize. I’ll pretty much bet that if you prioritize correctly you’ll find you’ve been doing stuff that you don’t need to do at all. There is going to stuff you like doing, but to get the more important things done you are going to have to stop doing stuff, period. If it produces a low return on your time investment its gotta go. Do you leave your money under your mattress earning no interest? Unlikely. Most people put it somewhere where it will earn the maximum return. That is called INVESTMENT. Now tell me, what is more valuable? Your time or your money? Hmmmm… you can never get more time but you can always get more money, so I’d have to say time. Wouldn’t you? So why the hell do most people do their best to not only waste their own time on low priority tasks but also allow other people to also waste their time? Unfortunately, it is generally the worst offenders who can’t even see this fact.

If you are finding that you’re constantly ‘busy’, if you find that you are constantly letting things slip because you are ‘busy’, I’d say you need to take a long hard look at your priorities. It is probably going to involve some pain but the payoff to your health and well-being is well worth it in the end. If you think I’m joshing, stop and take a look at those around you always seem to be ‘busy’. Are they actually getting stuff done? Are they simply creating motion for motions sake? Are they using the excuse of being ‘busy’ to prevent you from giving them something that actually NEEDS to be done?

So you’ve been warned. Don’t keep coming to me saying that you’re ‘busy’ because if this keeps happening I’m going to leave you being ‘busy’ and find someone who can make time for what I need and I am unlikely to return. The inability to prioritize your own time automatically tells me you are unlikely to value my time as important. Sorry, but MY TIME is important so I ain’t going to let you waste it.

SharePoint Webinar resources

The first in what will be an ongoing series of webinars presented by the CIAOPS has been completed (An Introduction to SharePoint – 091112). Some of these will be free and some will have a small cost associated with them. When they are free, like this one was, I will post the video to YouTube. Unfortunately, YouTube doesn’t allow you to post videos greater than 10 minutes in duration so I have had to break the webinar into 4 parts which you can access via the graphics below.

Introduction to SharePoint – Part 1

Introduction to SharePoint – Part 2

Introduction to SharePoint – Part 3

Introduction to SharePoint – Part 4

 

If for some reason the links don’t work simply go to my YouTube channel – http://www.youtube.com/user/directorciaops

 

If you want the complete video to download and view simply send me an email (director@ciaops.com) and I will let you know how to obtain it. Also if you have any feedback please let me know as I want to keep improving what I offer.

 

At this stage I’m think that the webinar in two weeks will focus on actually using SharePoint at a basic level. For example, uploading documents, adding meta data and so on. I’ll confirm exactly what the next webinar will be and when it will be here. In the meantime, enjoy the presentation.

Never forget

image_2_0D75B7BC

91 years ago today the guns fell silent on the bloodshed that we refer to was World War I. As a result Australia lost almost 60,000 killed and over 150,000 wounded which represented 65% of those who embarked for war. As a percentage this is greater than other nations such as Britain and Canada whose commitment (and losses) were also significant.

 

It is not until you experience the country side in which a great many of these losses were sustained, do you appreciate how different the world is today from that time 91 years ago when simply surviving each day was a monumental feat. It is only then that you begin to contemplate what a different world it could have been if they had not gone to war, perhaps naively. Even after experiencing the horrors of war most continued to serve with distinction, which for most people today is simply unbelievable.

 

Relic of Mon St Quentin at the Australian War Memorial

 

We owe a huge debt to these people who have fought and died in all wars to protect the land and lifestyle we now simply take for granted. Of all the locations where Australians have actively participated in military actions none, for me, stands out like the battle of Mon St Quentin on the 30th of August 1918. It is here that we were awarded 8 Victoria Crosses, the highest decoration that can be bestowed on soldiers, yet ask any Australian today and is unlikely that have even heard of the action. To me, that is simply wrong. To me, this is not good enough. To me, we must never forget their sacrifices and the sacrifices of all our soldiers.

 

If you do nothing else to remember the day the guns feel silent then spend a moment and read about, in my opinion, a battle that demonstrated what courage and determination were all about. In essence, understand the remarkable achievements Australians made over 90 years ago and in doing so never let their memory fade. Never let their contribution go unrecognized and at the going down of the sun say we shall remember them.

 

For more information about the Australian Battlefields of World War One – France see my web site www.ciaops.com/guides/battle. Click on the link 1918 to view the battle of Mon St Quentin.

Avoid multitasking

I was reading a blog post from David Mackie about how he finds he needs to work with the TV on in the background. He was considering this in light of the article – ‘One thing at a time’ which again further points out the fact that multi-tasking is a sure way to kill your productivity. I replied to David’s post saying that firstly, having the TV on in the background is probably not true multi-tasking merely distracting because you don’t NEED to pay attention to it. Secondly, if you find that it does improve your productivity then there is nothing wrong with that PROVIDED that it is actually improving your productivity.

I recently came across the article – ‘If you only do one thing this week, avoid multi-tasking’ which again provides ample evidence of the inefficiencies of multi-tasking but the following caught my attention in relation to David’s post:

‘And if you think that cannot apply to you because you’re a whiz at juggling tasks, consider the recent findings of researchers at Stanford University in California: people who routinely multitask are the worst at ignoring irrelevant information, regularly switch between tasks and have poorer short-term memory – in short, all the skills needed to multitask successfully.’

My point being that unless you MEASURE your productivity how are you every going to know doing something is making it better or worse? Having the TV on in the background MAY make you feel more productive but is it really? You’ll never know unless you MEASURE and experiment. There is also plenty of research about the effect that music has on concentration, especially the so called ‘Mozart effect’ which I am experimenting with now. At the end of day all this doesn’t count for squat unless it actually works for YOU!

Improved productivity is something that needs constant work and discipline because it is so easy to fall off the wagon and end up browsing the web for cats flushing toilets.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=49jKeGyUCJE
and as you can see I have exactly the same problems because I have found the video on cats flushing toilets!

The next question is how do you start to measure your productivity? Here’s a few of my suggestions:

Rescue Time – http://www.rescuetime.com. Great piece of software that tracks the time you spend doing different things on your PC. A free and paid version is available.

Manic Time – http://www.manictime.com. Another great free piece of software that tracks just about everything you do on your system in a huge amount of detail and provides a really nice interface to see exactly what you are doing.

OneNote – http://www.onenote.com. Part of the Microsoft Office suite of programs, which will be included in every version of the Office 2010 release. Amazingly handy for recording most ad-hoc information on a day to day basis. Combine it with an Internet hosted SharePoint and it really shines.

Theses are probably the top 3 applications I use to measure/improve my productivity but as I said it is always an ongoing process so if you have any suggestions I’d love to hear them.

Google-juice

Everyday I’m finding more and more benefit from Twitter as method of promoting my business. I am always intrigued when I get new Twitter followers who ‘protect their tweets’. Ah why? Are you saying something you don’t want everyone to know? If you are doing that, why are are doing it on the Internet? Why are you also doing it on with a third party who effectively owns whatever you post up there? It just doesn’t make sense.

After recently reading the book “What Would Google Do” I have a much better appreciation for the need to generate as much ‘Google-juice’ around my business as possible. Twitter is an excellent method of doing exactly that. Don’t believe me well I’ve just type ‘robert crane’ into Google and look what appears:

It is probably a bit hard to read but I have a Google entry on the first page thanks to my postings in Twitter (currently the 6th entry!). I don’t think I could every achieve this with any of my web sites or blog but thanks to having an open Twitter account I’m getting some excellent Google-juice. I think this is pretty good given I’m up against a very famous (or infamous name-sake).

There are plenty of reasons for keep information private and I think the best advice that I could give is that if you want to keep it private don’t post in on the Internet no matter what form. And for heavens sake don’t post it to Facebook. Conversely, if you want to promote yourself or you business take the advice from “What Would Google Do” and make your information available to Google to index at all times.