Business Growth Ideas #300 This week: Survival, Doing a thing, Tackle-box

GREG’S BUSINESS GROWTH NEWSLETTER #300
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Quick notes to help you grow your business in less time with less effort. . . sometime next week.

In this issue:

– Techniques for FIT
– Being Human
– Random Stuff

Techniques for FIT
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• A whip and a carrot. You need both positive and negative incentives to change behavior. Yes, it’s best when people willingly buy-in, but sometimes to change behavior you need to smack your kid’s hand before they grab the hot stove.
• Not all the strongest survive. Evolution depends as much on cooperation as it does self-interest. How well do your teams work with each other? 

• Get your seatbelt ready because more change is coming. To weather change successfully, take advantage of the smaller units inside your company. They are naturally flexible, or can be with a little investment.
• There is not a day that goes by where I am not reminded communication is hard. Each time I feel the frustration coming on I tell myself, “cada cabeza, es un mundo.”

Being Human – Getting a thing done
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This is episode #300 of a newsletter idea I hatched to help me finish my first book. All things are easier to complete when broken into smaller pieces and this newsletter is no different.

The top section is meant to be full of pithy thoughts around why we humans find some activities easy to complete and others are hard. My original thought was to have enough to set up a Twitter bot spewing these out each day. That’s my robot above paragraph 1. The PivotBot. To help me come up with ideas I took a favorite song, “Panic” by the Smiths, and spelled out the lyrics. Each letter starts a new thought. So in my spreadsheet it looks like this:

• Peerless customer service requires input from the customer. As value lies in the eye of the beholder, so it is with customer service.
• Assuming that self-service requires a lot of follow up, full service should require little follow up. Meeting deadlines and being on time saves your client’s time.
• Now and then, excellent customer service isn’t removing obstacles as much as it’s simply not adding to them. Try not to make additional work for your customers.
• Idea sharing is the easiest way to be proactive with a client next week. Non-salesy ideas on topics that interst them.
• Coaches coach, players play. Great coaches understand the power of individual strengths. Like Krsychewski said when asked why the triangle offense is so great: Triangle offense? How about Jordan and Kobe? They’re more important than the triangle offense!

I’m at #1135 or so, enough to do 3 tweets a day. Almost at the end of the song too. Lots of repeating “Hang the DJ” at this point.

The middle section is from my week at work. Sometimes I have a long email or had a long conversation with a prospect or client, so it writes itself. Re-use things I’ve already written before or in a pinch, re-use an article or blog, and maybe write something new.

The last section is just a bit on the rest of my life. Work is work and it’s fun to contribute, but I don’t work all the time. Many of you have commented on the last section over the years (5 now!) and most of the time you are telling me you appreciate the look into my foibles. The algorithm might not pick it up and promote it, but that’s ok. It makes me laugh.

I’m not sure if there are another 300 newsletters in me, but it’s part of my routine, part of my weekly meditation.

Thanks for reading.

Random stuff

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I went fishing. A few years ago I mentioned transitioning into Greg 3.0. (newsletter #18) using a graphical representation of my life:

During this transitional phase, I mention maybe wanting to take up fly-fishing and soon thereafter I am flooded with fly-fishing tools and toys on birthdays and as holiday gifts.

I now have enough gear to run a small outfitting service.

A few months ago while out on a stroll with an old friend from university we decide to schedule a weekend fishing getaway. We put it on the schedule and stick to it. Along the way to the trout streams (5 hours away) we stop at a fly-fishing store.

I learn something important. I don’t have enough stuff. Not even close.

I needed to double nymph, I needed better indicators, I needed more leaders, and lots more tippet. Mostly, I needed flies. Big ones, little ones, shiny ones, all designed to mimic what I see in the environment.

The thing is, while wandering the wilderness I don’t see anything in the air, on me, or in the water looking anything like what I now have in my special floating fly box. If you happen to see something fuzzy flying by with purple parts I have it, for what that’s worth.

My best purchase so far? The magnifying glasses that attach to the brim of my cap. It’s hard enough to see thin tippet line in a controlled environment, let alone while wading in crystal clear spring-fed creeks. Tying all this stuff together a pain. I could use a manicure.

Yes, I catch some fish. Not many, but I get it right a few times. It’s fun to try and outthink a cold-blooded, wet, slimy critter.

This fly-fishing thing may become a permanent part of Greg 3.0 after all, the healthy investment in gear giving me a positive ROI.

If not, I’ll warn you when to check eBay.

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