The Process of a Lifetime

This week was interesting.  We learned about Roxanne Quimby who started Burt's Bees a company that makes lip gloss and other products using beeswax.  Roxanne Quimby is an interesting person.  She ran Burt's Bees by bootstrapping and using the money they made to invest more in the business.  They started out very small in Maine and as their company grew they would employ women who needed jobs.  No one at the company knew how to use a forklift and so they had to work harder to carry items and do things that needed to be done.  Quimby knew that is she wanted the business to grow it would need to be moved and so she took the business and and moved to North Carolina where it thrived.  Quimby never believed in going into debt because she wanted to be able to leave the company at a moment's notice if it did not work out.

We learned about the importance of looking at the processes of our company and seeing which ones need improvement and then working to improve it.  We need to constantly be checking the processes we use to see if they are wasting time, money or resources.  We need to see if our processes need to be easier.  If we find many processes that need improvement we can make a process selection matrix.  You put the processes down the left and then judge them on different criteria to see which one should be started first.  Having good processes can help your bottom line and increase your income.

This week in Cl333n we worked again on cleaning the office of the client we have.  It has been easier to clean and taken so much time since the initial cleaning.  We are doing better at doing the jobs we have decided to take on and so it is becoming faster to do them and having good results.  This week we will clean the windows and sweep up outside.  Many of the cleaning products we are using are still full since it usually does not take a lot of product to clean well.  The office is looking good and people visiting the business are noticing the improvement. 

CATHERINE ROHR:

Catherine Rohr was a Wall-Street financial mogul who like many had a hard heart towards criminals.  After a friend told her that she did volunteer work at the prison and Rohr visited the prison she realized that the people there were not criminals but human beings behind bars.  She realized what potential the prisoners had and founded the Prison Entrepreneurship Program. Most of her family and friends told her that she was foolish and that she should abandon the idea but she persevered.  She said, “If I could make it through that time of opposition, I’d be onto something really good”.  Rohr never doubted that she was doing the right thing and even after they closed her program down for a time she never gave up hope.  Rohr had guest speakers come and talk to her classes and she says that it is important to seek out the best people and involve them in the strategic decision making and in seeking counsel.  I admire Rohr and what she is doing.  It can’t be easy to take such a path and it is great that she is committed to helping others.

COREY BELL:

Corey Bell has had an interesting life.  At age 29 after losing both of his parents, he and his wife took on the responsibility to raise Bell’s nine younger siblings.  At the time he had worked for a variety of companies and then he sat down and wrote down where he wanted his life to go.  He decided that he could not get there on the course he was presently on and so he decided it was time to change and he started TriFusion.  Corey Bell says that his business is like “pimping your ride” in the IT world.  He goes in and sees what his customers challenges are and then he works to make them better.  Bell feels that it is important to touch people’s lives and he is inspired by people he meets along the way.  Bell says that his employees are people of character, passion and intelligence.  He says that he works hard to make an impact.  I especially liked his quote “Everything is possible if you want it”.  Bell has four TriFusion companies in the United States and is thinking about going global.  Bell enjoys working for himself and giving to others.  He seems to embody his values of having character, passion and intelligence.  

Taking the First Step

This week we learned about how to hire individuals that would work well in your business.  We learned how to conduct an interview and how to look at a resume.  We learned that we should be strive to find good employees but if they did not work out we should not keep them on but fire them quickly. 

In the interview with Matt Stewart he said that he had started many businesses but that whenever he tried to make money at a business it failed but if he tried to stick to the focus of the business and not loose track of what he was doing he always made money.  It is basically the same thing with Jet Blue.  David Neeleman decided he wanted to start an airline that was for the customer.  He put technology to work on his planes and he put the customer first.  Neeleman believes that people should be able to fly for a great price and if Neeleman needed more money he didn't raise the price of a ticket, he offered more flights.  Both of these men found ways to serve their customers by finding good individuals to work for them.

In the E-Myth Revisited, Gerber outlines ways to have good processes and systems in a business.  These processes should be considered for all business, even if you only have one employee, yourself.  As my son and I were working this week I decided that it would be good for us to sit down and decide the process of work that we were doing.  Who is going to vacuum, clean the bathroom, dust, empty the trash cans, etc.  We need to make sure we know who is doing each job and what process they need to go through to accomplish the job and do it well. 

Cleaning supplies are quite pricey if you want good quality but they do last a long time.  I had to donate some of my cleaning tools and supplies to accomplish everything that needs to be done.  The few cleaning materials we purchased were from a local supply company that has good products that work well.  The first time we cleaned the office we have now we asked for a larger fee because the office had not been cleaned for quite a while and it would take longer than normal.  After the initial cleaning the maintenance cleaning price will be smaller.  There are also jobs that need to be done as the weather gets warmer, like cleaning the windows and sweeping the front stoop.

Henry Stein said that part of a great organization is one that helps you feel good about yourself, makes you feel you can do more than you thought you could and makes you feel you are living a fulfilled life.  That is what I hope to find in a business that I work for or start.  It is also something I hope to teach my son as I work with him to help him get started.

MATT STEWART: 

Matt Stewart was on his way to becoming a lawyer when the company he worked for went out of business and he could not make money.  He and his friends decided to open up a painting company like the one they had worked for.  He now owns National Service Group which provides recent college graduates with tools and capital to run their own local painting business.  He feels it is important to train entrepreneurs to have a good core value system so that they can run successful companies.  He said that he had started thirteen companies and fifty two corporations in six different industries and the ones he made money at where not the ones where he tried to make money but the ones where he focused on the mission of the business.  When he focused on anything but the profit, the company would make money.  He said that we should not lose our focus and we should stick to it and find new ways to do what you or doing or ways to improve the business.  He said that you should focus on your core competency and leverage who you are and drive personal values into your employees. 

HENRY STEIN:

Henry Stein started his career in the Marines.  He said that the Marines made him a better person than he could have been alone. Stein has worked to turn companies around for H. Ross Perot and he has worked at restructuring, acquiring and growing firms from New Orleans to China.  Stein said that being a part of a great organization that helps you feel good about yourself, makes you feel you can do things you never thought possible and helps you feel you are living a very fulfilled life is a great thing.  He said it is important to find people who want to be good or great and hire them.  Find people who want to be measured, who feel work is like a sport and each day they want to improve and be better than the day before. They also like to try new things and learn new things.  Stein also said that if you find a person like this then you should hire them and treat them well.   

 

My Leadership Style

This week has been very interesting and I have learned a lot about myself and how to do things differently.  I learned that I have a Participative or Democratic leadership style that means I like to let other participate in the decisions that we have to make.  I learned also that you have to be careful with this kind of style because if you are having lots of meetings then things are not getting done and sometimes you just have to tell people what to do and then you can go back to your style.  I learned that I am more of a leader than a manager and that my husband is more of a manager than a leader.  Leaders have a passion for equality and managers think the idea of equality is repugnant according to Hugh W. Nibley.  This really helped me understand why my husband and I have a hard time with the way we get things done. 

In the talk by Bob Sutton he said that a boss took everyone in and they listed everything that needed to be done.  There were 100 things on the list.  They then categorized them into easy and hard jobs and then they were asked if they felt they could get the easy list done in two weeks.  They did and then they were more prepared to do the hard list.  I probably liked it because of the leadership style I have.  I also liked that he said that if you work for jerks you start acting like them.  I think this is so very true.  If you don't like your boss and his leadership style you may need to quit before you become someone you don't like. 

I also learned this week that we need to work on our emotional intelligence.  Lucky for me emotional intelligence gets better with age and so that is a plus in my direction.  Emotional intelligence can be learned but you have to be willing to work hard to change.  You need to become self-aware or know yourself and be honest with yourself and with others.  You need to recognize how your feeling affect you and those around you.  You also need to be self-regulating and find ways to control bad moods and emotional impulses.  This is hard for me and something I have to really work on.  As a Participative leaders I sometimes get stuck in the feeling that things are not equal and I am doing more than I should be.  You also need to be motivated and driven to achieve beyond our own and others expectations.  The other thing we need to do is to have empathy for others which is the easiest for us to recognize in ourselves but will help us to gain important knowledge that will help change our business in subtle but important ways.  The last thing we need to work on is social skills which help us with our ability to manage relationships with others.

Being a good leader takes work and a willingness to learn and change.  But it is important to those who want to have a successful business.

Action Hero:

Russ Rosenzweig and a group of colleges started the Round Table group that advises law firms on the search and referral of expert witnesses.  He said that it was an expensive experiment and that for two years there was no one coming through the door and no phone calls.  He said that as soon as they started to laser focus their marketing and really decided who their target market was they started to do better.  They also realized that they needed to say no to customers who were not customers.  If you were not a lawyer or expert then they did not want to talk to you. 

Rosenzweig said that after he started making money he wondered what he should do with it and looked around at the Jones’.  What did they have?  He lived in a one bedroom condo he should have a three bedroom condo.  He found himself wanting to acquire things.  The more he acquired the more he wanted.  When he was in India he realized that he was addicted to acquisition and this realization was a life changing event for him.  He realized that freedom comes from internal rather than external forces.  He said that external things do not measure our success.  “We are all successful”, he said.  He then decided that he needed to do something significant with his wealth and that it is important for us to help the world.   

 

Why don't businesses care?

We have all been there.  We have gone to a store that we enjoy shopping at because they are friendly and they always give you good customer service and we find that the person we liked no longer works there or that the business was sold and the new people just are not as friendly and they have changed the policy that they had.  You don't have as good of an experience and you decide to find a new place to shop. 

I agree with the Harvard Mentor Manager that many companies don't care if you come back and shop there again.  They feel the way to get business is to advertise so they can get more new customers and they don't care about the ones they already have.  The local cable company is like that.  They give you an initial deal where they "bundle" your cable, phone, and internet for a low monthly fee of over a hundred dollars.  If you decide you don't want the "bundle" you then pay almost a hundred dollars for just one of the services.  After a year you find that your "bundle" isn't all that great and that they are now offering a new, better and cheaper bundle.  Because you are already a customer of their they don't want to give you the new bundle and they have nothing to offer you.  They don't really seem to care if you stay with them or go, you are just a computer number and name to them and computers really don't care. 

It is the same with your bank, your Verizon account and numerous other companies.  They don't care if they keep your business because they feel that they can replace you with someone new at anytime.  They don't realize how valuable their loyal customers are and they really don't seem to want to find out. 

It is always refreshing to find a company who is there for the customer and wants to work to keep your business.  The sad fact is that many times they are bought by a big company and then many times you lose that again.  We try to support independent businesses in our community and especially local restaurants.  Sometimes we pay a little more but we feel it is worth it. 

This week I did have an interesting experience when I went to Home Depot.  I asked the greeter where the shelving was and I was told where to look.  There was an employee there who didn't walk away when he saw me coming and he helped me and the shelves look great.  I was quite shocked and pleased and will try Home Depot again. 

Nathan and I have our supplies bought and have our business Kl33n up and running.  We were going to go to our first job today but there was a blizzard so we will go in on Monday and start.  We are looking forward to starting and our Kl33n (Kleen) name was thought up by Nathan.  The threes stand for environmentally friendly products, economical, and efficient. 

Action Hero:  Ben Brigham

Ben Brigham grew up in a dysfunctional home.  He was the oldest of six children and his parents divorced when he was young.  His father was an alcoholic and died when Brigham was 19 years old.  After that he immersed himself in studying and learning philosophy and looked up to role models.  He started learning from the ground up and eventually started Brigham Exploration one of the most active and successful oil and gas companies in the United States.  He said that it is important to surround yourself with the brightest, hardworking people that you can find.  It is also important to have people around you who have the same value system as you do.  Brigham worked hard to overcome the problems of his youth and move forward to start his own business and find values that would help him all of his life.  

Boy am I tired!

This week I made two videos of me.  I decided that I am not good at making videos and do not really want to look at myself.  It reminded me of when I was young and we would record our voices on a tape recorder and I always sounded so strange.  I could hardly tell it was me.  Now days everyone is taking pictures and videos and I am not sure I like it.  It is bad enough to know how I sound, now I have to see how I look.  I look tired.  Being an entrepreneur is hard work.  I have been checking prices on cleaning materials and have had a hard time finding companies that care about the environment and do a good job.  I will be off to Don Aslett's this week to see what he has to offer.  I also need to find a cheap vacuum.  Will have to work on that.  It is to bad that the D.I. doesn't take many things like that anymore. 

I have been catching up on The E Myth.  I hadn't seen it for a couple of weeks on the reading page and when I saw it this week I realized I was behind.  Sitting waiting for your husband to have a root canal is a good opportunity to catch up on reading.  I like reading this book and find the way it is written interesting and insightful.  I realize that at home and at work you need to visualize what you want and then proceed to make it happen.  If it was never visualized first you will not be able to make it work.  I know that I do that when I am making a decision in my home.  This week we moved more of my things out of the office and painted the room so that Nathan can move into the basement.  I visualized where the furniture would go and how to get his mountain of stuff into the room.  We did make some progress, now I need to visualize where my stuff will go.  I told my husband to rent me a warehouse.  I liked the story of Tom Watson Sr. who started IBM.  He talked about how he had a clear picture of what he wanted the company to look like and he worked each day to make the picture happen. 

I realize it is time to change the vision of the company that we own and find new ways to make money.  We talked about sitting down and thinking about all the services that we offer and then finding ways to show those services to our clients so that we can generate more business.  Maybe next week I will learn how to find more clients and love them.  We need to expand and pinpoint our target market and think of ways that we can find more clients.  I told my husband that maybe we could offer some survey services to a client we have.  That way he could do better and in return we would do better.  I agree that it is about the customer and we need to expand our services to better meet customer needs. 

It is getting late.  I am tired.  There is much information roaming around my brain and it needs to rest and ponder again tomorrow.  I would like to say that I am burning the midnight oil, but my kids friends are just barely going home and all the lights are still on.  Is it any wonder why I am tired.  Teenagers are for the young at heart and mind. 

Week 4

This week has been about budgeting and money, my weak links.  Since I am not a planner I have a hard time setting down and budgeting.  I don’t usually know a good price on products and I don’t keep track of who has the best price.  I have a hard time getting my bills paid and I don’t have a budget.  These are activities that I am working on since realizing how they are such a weakness of mine and that I need to find a way to do better at them. 

I have started a tablet that I keep in the kitchen to write down chores that need done around the house so that I can delegate more to others.  I have discussed a budget with my husband and there are two areas we need to work on, I like to go shopping, not really but he thinks I do and he likes to eat out.  I do know that this is true.  I think I should not shop for a week and see how things go.  No milk, bread, meat, eggs.  This does irritate me.  I am working on these a little at a time. 

I asked Nathan if he would like to go into business with me cleaning offices.  He doesn’t mow lawn in the winter and so this would be a good opportunity for him to earn some money.  We are each putting in ten dollars and this week we are going to start checking around for good green products that we can use and think of a name for our company. 

On the Big Idea I have been thinking that instead of planning dates we could become a clearing house for dating ideas.  We can talk to restaurants and other businesses and put them on a website so that people can go there to plan dates instead of having to access many sites.  I haven’t figured out the money yet but am thinking about it and talking to others about it. 

I like the idea of bootstrapping a business and not going into debt but working on it one step at a time when you have the resources.  This would work for either of my ideas.  For the Big Idea I could have Greg make a website for it and then show it to potential businesses and get them on the site.  I would need a startup date so that we could have a few people on there.  It would be great if you could see what was at the movie, when the Idaho Falls Symphony was playing and other activities for the weekend that you are wanting to plan. 

This week has got me thinking about budgets and money and I am working on being more of a planner.  I have several other ideas I am working on to help me become a better planner.  

Action Hero's for weeks three and four:

DESH DESHPANDE

Dr. Deshpande moved to the United States from India with only eight dollars in his pocket.  He believes that being an immigrant helped him because he knew what things were like in India and in the United States and he felt he could do something with his life here.  His first business did not succeed because he had a difference of opinion with his partner but he said he learned a lot from it.  Dr.Deshpande said that he is an optimist and that if things don’t go your way that it is not the end of the world.  He said,“Sit on it a while and you will see what you can do.” 

Desh Deshpande is a technology entrepreneur and visionary whose companies and ideas often reshape entire industries.  He has changed how data and voice traffic is delivered across the world.  

KEN ZOLOT

Ken Zolot grew up with a devilish curiosity and restless creativity.  He has turned that into a keen understanding of customer expectations that helped him create companies like Egenera and Heartland Robotics.  He has learned to blend technical skills with an understanding of human relationships and helps others to learn this by mentoring aspiring entrepreneurs at the Kauffman Foundation. 

Ken Zolot says the most important thing in business is the place and the people who need tended to.  He says that we hire human beings and we should find out how to help them and what inspires them.  When we look to start a business we should think about what keeps people up at night and how we can help with their daily struggles.  When we start a business are we thinking about people and what they need or are we thinking about this cool thing we invented and more about ourselves that who our customer is.  Zolot says we should remember to listen to feedback from the market and push ourselves to find the next great thing that we want to show people that they need, but make sure it is something they need not that you think is cool. 

Both of these men are visionaries who show optimism and a desire to find ways to help others.  

 

Paul Robshaw

Paul Robshaw has always been a hard worker.  His father needed help with his real estate business when Paul was just thirteen and told Paul that if he came and helped him show houses he could drive his dad’s car.  Paul did this. Paul learned all aspects of the real estate business from cleaning to selling and owns AIC Ventures which helps companies unlock the value of their real estate. Paul said that he realized that nothing was easy and that you had to work hard to achieve success. 
It was not always that way for Paul.  He was divorced and declared bankruptcy on the same day.  This was not easy for him and after that he started thinking about his life and decided that money and accomplishment were not as important as your core values.  He still had integrity, was honest and he had his friends and belief in God.  He wrote a book about these things and also has a life plan that he still refers to.
He says that we should dream.  “Dreams are reality without boundaries” he said.  Decide what you really want to do.   What do you dream about doing?  Don’t worry about the money, do what you want to do.  He said that this can be personally inspiring. 
Paul believes that our core values are important.  I liked the idea that we should dream big, work hard and that nothing is easy.