Growing a Business Newsletter #225: Momentum, Decisions remote, Digging

Sales and marketing Newsletter

GREG’S BUSINESS GROWTH NEWSLETTER #225
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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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  • Most end of life happiness studies say love, friendship, and family bring happiness. Gaining wealth comes in a distant second. Most messages we get from marketing and society suggest the opposite. Try to keep a balance.
  • Building momentum is hard when we’re out of balance. Bad health? No financial security? Unreliable support system? No higher purpose? All are bad for building momentum. Check your people’s balance next week.
  • Early in this crisis we’re reminded being light on planning and heavy on systems makes your organization nimble. Encourage system and process thinking right now because it helps you execute. A revised plan/strategy comes later.
  • Reconnecting with old friends is at the top of the list for boosting your network. One of the reasons is because they are already your friends. Encourage your people to reconnect with 2-3 new friends and expand their networks.

Being Human – Just this once
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“When you’re a manager, every exception becomes a rule.”
– Mr. Carl

exceptions-lead-to-weirdness

With your people working remotely, decisions are being pushed further down the organization. This is a good thing. With the economy shuddering to a halt and the future in doubt, your people are a little afraid. This is a bad thing.  Putting those two ideas together you bump into the chance someone facing a right and wrong decision will make a “just this once” choice.

When reading stories of corporate malfeasance and white collar crime, I figure the whole mess started with a small exception. It’s easy to image the criminal behavior starting with a “just this once” decision.

As your people make more and more decisions, teach them to resist “as a general rule, however during this extraordinary time” decisions. It always seems like a small thing, a tiny cost, or a slim chance, but leads to large costs downstream.

Now, if you find out someone made a just this once decision, fix it. Today. Don’t wait. Use it as a learning experience. You’re going to come out of this pandemic/economic/horrific situation at some point and you’ll want strong people on your team. Don’t handicap them with justifying their just this once decisions.

Good stuff.

Random stuff
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frozen-concoction-maker

I’ve been digging around the yard to kill the time. I’m not much of a yard-work person, but I do enjoy a good garden. In our neighborhood there is a lot of landscape work happening. I’ve been watching what the professionals do while I’m out walking the pooch. One of the things I notice is they are making mulch beds without stone or brick edging. I think I like how it looks, so I turn to Youtube to learn me some mulch-bed-edging-technique.

It turns out, I have one of the tools the nice man from Ohio uses in my shed. A half-moon-looking edger thing that I think I last used to break ice. After a few minutes of video, I decide I can do this. I have the time right? I order up a can of that upside down spray paint and make my lovely bride show me where the new beds should go. She’s very artistic, and I trust her, so I start digging.

And digging.

And digging.

Do you have any idea how much a slice of turf weighs? Where am I supposed to put this stuff? In farm country, everything grows so if I toss it here and there, grass will grow everywhere. I fill some holes and toss some turf in a neighbor’s dumpster. (yes, I got permission first) Then I get back to digging.

And digging.

And digging.

At this point it looks like the gopher from Caddyshack has moved in. I have a wagon full of turf and I’m researching how heavy a year waste bag can be on the curb. (40 lbs) I’m obsessed. I’m a mess. Plus, I think I’ve done permanent damage to my knee kicking at this shovel thing. The worst part? It’s only been 5 days.

Thanks, pandemic.

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