Can Your Business Keep Up? Customer First Disruption & Innovation

Let’s start with a cliché - You know you need to change something in your business but you’re not sure where to start, what you should be doing or if you even have time to try something.

If you’re a small service or retail businesses you don’t need a blog post telling you that you face numerous challenges in remaining competitive and most importantly relevant. To thrive in an era of constant change, it is essential for small businesses to embrace disruption and innovation. By leveraging these principles, local businesses serving communities within a 10-mile radius can unlock tremendous opportunities for growth, increased customer satisfaction, and improved business outcomes. In this blog post, we will explore how small businesses can effectively utilize disruption and innovation to drive success.

Understanding Disruption and Innovation - A quick and dirty definition or two.

Before diving into the strategies, let's briefly define disruption and innovation in the context of small businesses.

Disruption refers to the process of challenging traditional norms, approaches, and business models to create new value propositions and reshape the market. It involves identifying and seizing opportunities that others may overlook, thereby gaining a competitive edge.

Innovation, on the other hand, encompasses the creation and implementation of new ideas, products, services, or processes that bring about positive change. It involves fostering a culture of creativity, continuous learning, and adaptability within the organization.

Now that we have a basic understanding of the concepts, let's explore how small businesses can harness disruption and innovation to enhance their business outcomes.

Embrace Technology

Technology has become an indispensable tool for businesses of all sizes. By leveraging digital tools, small businesses can streamline operations, improve efficiency, and enhance customer experiences. Here are some ways to do it:

a) Online Presence: Establish a strong online presence through a well-designed website and social media platforms. This will expand your reach, engage customers, and attract new ones within your local community.

b) E-commerce: Explore the world of e-commerce by setting up an online store. This enables customers to shop conveniently from their homes and provides an additional revenue stream for your business.

c) Mobile Apps: Consider developing a mobile app that offers unique features, loyalty programs, and personalized offers. This can enhance customer engagement and loyalty.

Customer-Centricity

In today's competitive landscape, customers have come to expect personalized experiences and exceptional service. By focusing on customer-centricity, small businesses can differentiate themselves and build long-lasting relationships. Here's how:

a) Understand Customer Needs: Invest time in getting to know your customers. Conduct surveys, gather feedback, and analyze data to gain insights into their preferences, pain points, and expectations.

b) Tailor Products and Services: Use the insights gained to customize your offerings to meet customer demands. This can involve personalized recommendations, flexible payment options, or special packages tailored to local preferences.

c) Exceptional Customer Service: Train your employees to deliver outstanding customer service. Respond promptly to inquiries, resolve issues promptly, and go the extra mile to exceed expectations.

Collaborate and Network

Small businesses serving local communities can leverage collaboration and networking to their advantage. By partnering with other local businesses or community organizations, you can create mutually beneficial opportunities and increase your visibility. Consider the following:

a) Co-Marketing Initiatives: Collaborate with complementary businesses to create joint marketing campaigns, share resources, or host local events. This cross-promotion can expose your business to new audiences and boost sales.

b) Community Involvement: Participate in community events, sponsor local initiatives, or join industry associations. This involvement builds goodwill, strengthens relationships, and positions your business as an integral part of the community.

Foster a Culture of Innovation

Innovation thrives in environments that encourage creativity, risk-taking, and continuous learning. Small businesses can create such a culture by implementing the following practices:

a) Employee Empowerment: Encourage employees to contribute their ideas, suggestions, and feedback. Create channels for open communication and recognize and reward innovative thinking.

b) Learning and Development: Provide opportunities for professional growth and development. Support employees' attendance at workshops, seminars, and industry conferences to foster a culture of continuous learning.

c) Experimentation and Iteration: Encourage experimentation and the freedom to fail. Embrace a mindset that views setbacks as learning opportunities, enabling your business to evolve and adapt quickly.

In today's rapidly changing business landscape, small service and retail businesses serving local communities must embrace disruption and innovation to thrive. By leveraging technology, prioritizing customer-centricity, collaborating with others, and fostering a culture of innovation, small businesses can unlock tremendous opportunities for growth and improved business outcomes. Remember, change is the only constant, and by embracing it with open arms, your small business can flourish and remain competitive in the local market. So, be bold, be innovative, and watch your business soar to new heights!

Monday Memes Ch 3: Baby Yoda & Burn Out

Baby Yoda is the best. I don’t think I’ve seen a bad one of these memes yet! Before I get sucked into another Baby Yoda meme image search let’s just jump right into this week’s Monday Meme. 

Piggybacking on last week’s post, I want to see if you’re playing Simon Sinek’s Infinite Game when it comes to how choose to work every day? 

If you haven’t read his book yet or watched the video I posted about Sinek’s Infinite Game approach (it’s absolutely worth it), the gist of it is moving away from trying to “win” business and towards making choices that will keep the business going as long as possible. The emphasis is on creating a business that truly centers on people, culture, and mission instead of trading resources or encouraging environments that reward short term gains. It’s so good! 

The Baby Yoda memes and new Simon Sinek book have a lot in common this time of year. December is the perfect time of year for a little reflection and more importantly, it’s a time to look at what you’re going to do next. Is how you got to where you are now going to be right for helping you get to where you want your business to go in 202? It forces you to really look at how you’re showing up every day and honestly assessing the things that are motivating the choices you’re making in your business. 

Big picture, a year isn’t all that long when it comes to building a business. If you started in January and feel like Old Yoda now then you’re exactly who should be taking time to think about what 2020 is going to look like for you. I would challenge you to think about the following things: 

1. How do you decide which tasks or goals get priority over others in your business? 

2. Is the work you’re doing still aligned with why you started doing the work in the first place? 

3. How did you set your goals for next year? Have you even set them yet? 

4. Are the metrics you track daily/weekly/monthly/yearly supporting why you’re doing this work or some arbitrary short term financial or vanity goal? 

I’m not saying that you’re not going to be burnt out or have seasons of work that feel like they are aging your horribly from time to time. I want to challenge you to look at how and why you’re working to make sure that you aren’t creating an environment or expectations that are unsustainable from the start. When you burn out for the last time at work, everyone loses. 

Long term success means making choices that put people first - from keeping up with the changing tastes and expectations of your consumers to you making sure the work you’re doing every day is still aligned with why you wanted to do it when you started.

You Can Still Achieve Your 2019 Goals (Step-by-Step)

The end of the year is probably my favorite time of year when it comes to talking to business owners. I love this time of year because it’s awesome to hear how entrepreneurs are sprinting towards achieving the goals they set three quarters ago and to hear about how they’re going to take what they learned this year to make next year even better. Getting to have those conversations with people and supporting the work they’re doing are literal parts of my own “why”. 

Quick Side Rant. 

There’s a difference between someone just complaining/daydreaming about what they’re going to do to finish strong versus the grit and resilience that comes from an entrepreneur who’s already mid-sprint. Talking shop with wantrepreneurs is the opposite of my “why” and it kind of makes me sad. Sad because, more often than not, the wantrepreneurs have the best of intentions but they overthink, worry too much about being judged, or are waiting for everything to be perfect before they take that next step. Then nothing happens. They don’t show up, they don’t solve a real problem, they don’t put their businesses out there, and they continue to just stagnate in place waiting for the New Year to announce a new plan in which they will ultimately also do nothing.

Yikes, I depressed myself right there. Back to the positive and to support those that are willing to continue to work even when it gets hard!  

End Side Rant.

If you’re mid-sprint right now or at the very least are just about to start that sprint (I mean the “step up to the line and on your mark” kind of about to start.) I’m going to give you two things that will help keep you focused on your momentum so you can pour as much energy and focus on the work that matters most for you and for the people that you serve. They’ll take a little time and honest reflection to set up but you’ll be able to reference them often to help you guide the decisions you’re going to have to make quickly as you push through your year-end sprint. 

They are the Purpose Statement and a Change Agenda. Stay with me here, it’s not just business buzzword nonsense, I promise. 

Building a Purpose Statement doesn’t have to be like setting your business’s Mission, Vision, and Values. It can be more fluid and change as the business your building changes. A good Purpose Statement will have you scanning what’s going on around you in real-time and allow you to specifically articulate why people need you more than any of your competitors. It also gives your audiences and target customers a reason to engage with you, to follow you, and to keep them coming back to you. It’s not generic aspirational fake authentic nonsense either. Purpose correlates directly to a measurable value created or delivered and is made up of three parts. 

Objective

Here’s where you’re articulating your goal. A purpose statement for your year-end business sprint could be a target number of customers you’re trying to serve, a revenue target, a goal around hiring an employee or your first virtual assistant, or even where you want your business’s standing to be in relation to your competitors. It’s got to be clear though, no vague “to be the best” or “have the greatest customer service” nonsense. It can describe why you’re in business but make it a function of you being of service for people - think the message under a McDonald’s sign that lets everyone know they’ve served billions of burgers. 

Advantage

What are you doing now, in this sprint for example, that makes you different? How is the work that you’re doing unique and worth keeping the attention of someone who sees your Facebook Ad for more than four seconds? Yes, we’re talking about competitive advantage but in more of a micro-every-day-action-taking way. I don’t want you to think about what makes you the best choice for someone in the big broad strokes that are more akin to your Mission, Vision, and Values. I want you to think about the real-time topical every day things that make you a better value than any of your immediate competition. Why should people care about you? How is your process the best process for solving your customer’s problem? Clear over clever wins every time here. 

Scope

A Purpose Statement for a year-end sprint has to keep the activities you do laser-focused. Getting clear on your scope means being strong enough to tell people what you won’t do, what you can’t do, or where you won’t do. If you’re in a business that sells multiple products, offers multiple services, etc it means figuring out which few you’re going to give the most focus to over the next 60 days. Articulating the value, the specific solution you’re focused on delivering is taking the idea of the Pareto Principle and ruthlessly committing to developing that 20% work that will create the 80% results in your business - from your goal from customers served to dollars in the bank. It means for a little while there might be parts of your business that are on autopilot or projects that you had the best of intentions to get to that get prioritized for after the New Year. 

After you get your thoughts on Objective, Advantage, and Scope put together the challenge is putting it all together into one cohesive statement. (No more than two sentences.) This statement will be the guide you’ll use when you get to that point in your work where you look up and are wondering what to focus on next. It’s that crucial point where you’re emotionally riding the line between the positivity highs that comes with seeing that you may pull this off and hit your goals and the complete apathy that comes from extreme burnout. At that point is where your Purpose Statement will keep you grounded and pushing on. Its format should look like this: 

Purpose Statement: I or we will [insert specific goal like: earn $XX,XXX, sell 100 online courses, hire two employees, etc.] by years end by [insert specific differentiator that makes your solution relevant to people right now] in [insert a specific scope like using a mile radius so, serving your immediate community within 15 miles from where your work happens]. 

To give you a simple example, if I use me and let’s say I’m looking for people to hire me to help them create their own Purpose Statements mine might look like… 

Purpose Statement: I will help 10 professional service businesses create their Purpose Statements by years end by keeping them out of the wantrepreneur zone and prescribing real actions they can take right now that align with how they do their best work. The businesses I’m committing to serve will be those in my immediate community no more than 15 miles from my office. 

You get the idea, now it’s your turn. Well, don’t leave yet. Let’s talk about what you do with your Purpose Statement once you create it. 

Once you are happy with your Purpose Statement now it’s time to set up the rest of your sprint’s guardrails. Enter the Change Agenda. This Change Agenda will help you figure out what you need to adjust in your business (temporarily) so that you can be as effective as possible with all the time, energy, and resources you’re putting into achieving your goals by year-end. The goal is to keep it simple, clear, and Purpose Statement-centric. If you’re reading this and thinking that you don’t need to change anything, I’d argue that the environment (includes processes and systems you use) in which you work is just as important as how hard you work. So don’t skip this part! 

A Change Agenda is just three parts. We’re going to talk about it in three conceptual chunks but you format it however works best for you. From bulleted lists to tasks on a Trello board, it’s all good. Now that you’ve put some real effort into the Purpose Statement let’s work on creating an environment that sets it, and you, up for success: 

Are there parts of your business that you think you want to change?

If you’re coming into the year-end ready to burn what’s left in your fuel tank that probably means you have some ideas on what you’d like to do differently next year. That’s great! The goal with the Change Agenda is to think about how you can roll what you’re doing now into what you’ve learned over the year. If there are things you want to try, stop doing, etc. this is a great point to give it a go. The caution here is that sometimes implementing change can take way longer than you think, especially if it has to do with using a new fun tech tool or creating new processes. I’d save implementing the new CRM for January and focus on the little things you can do right now that are easy to implement and that will be useful in the future. 

What were you doing that you need to change to make it through this sprint?

After you prioritize the areas you want to see changes it’s time to get super-specific. Your Purpose Statement will require you to be laser-focused with your resources so you’re going to have to make some tough calls around how you allocate your time and money. You might have to change up the subject matter of the content you’re producing, increase the amount of content you’re producing, adjust the amount of money you spend on supplies, rearrange your work schedule, delegate a little more so you can focus on meeting new people at your local Chamber and Young Professionals networking events etc. You should think about all the things that happen in your business, everything that you consider work. Then strip away, minimize, and reprioritize any initiatives or processes that don’t support your Purpose Statement.

What do you want your business to be doing post sprint? (Sometimes businesses pivot depending on the outcomes of a process like this. And, that’s ok!)

Your sprint is going to eventually end and you are going to have all kinds of fun data to review. You’re going to be able to see what your entire year looked like, the impact of all your hard work over the last few months and, you’ll be pleasantly surprised by having data that supports how unimportant some of the stuff you were doing was. How your business operates and how you help people is a dynamic process. The tastes and expectations of your customers will change over time which means you need to be comfortable with change too! Check-in with yourself and your business every once and a while as you’re working through your sprint and leaning on your Purpose Statement. Make note of what’s working and what’s not, what you like and don’t, and document opportunities you can make time to explore after you finish achieving your epic year-end goals. Come the turn of the year you’ll be able to choose a direction for your business that best aligns with what you decide is important to you and how you believe you can be more efficient in delivering on your value. No worries if that means you permanently leave behind processes, products, and services (and sometimes people) that got you to where you are now but won’t get you to the impact you want to have in the future. As always, the more specific the better - see Purpose Statement. 

You made it! 

As of the writing of this post, there are 61 days left in 2019. That’s plenty of time to put your head down and work towards something epic. The best part of all this is that if you’re honest about the process and are committed to the work you’ll be in great shape even if you don’t end up hitting your goals. You’ll have real and actionable data you can use to refine who you serve and how you help people next year. Maybe you even see that some of the stuff you were doing wasn’t helpful or relevant to your business at all. There’s only upside here! Plus, taking a post like this and taking action means no one will ever mistake you for a wantrepreneur...so there’s that. 

Get 1% Better Every Day! Your Business Improvement Blueprint

How are your Kanban boards looking this week?

Are you happy with the progress you shared at your 15 minute stand-up meeting?

Flexing your Kaizen prowess in this round of process remaps?

Get to the bottom of that root cause analysis yet?

If you’re not a student of all things business process improvement or project management those questions literally mean nothing to you. And that’s ok. Well, it’s ok and a little sad because when you get passed all the inclusive language and through the fevered tribes of religious devotees these schools of thought collect there’s a lot of good stuff for any small businesses here.

I’m guessing that you or anyone really could benefit from being a little better about understanding how you do business. When you take the time to really understand how you work you’re able to make a conscious effort to improve how you deliver value to the people that need you most.

In this post I want to take a stab at distilling a few key tips and tricks from the more popular schools of project management thought that you can put into action. Things you can do that will actually create momentum or clarity so you can move the needle in your business right now.

Kaizen

Let’s start with Kaizen. People lean on the wisdom of Kaizen when they have a known problem and it looks like the solution will be easy to implement. Kaizen at its core is about continuous improvement, it’s about getting a little better every time you try something. That goes for the quality of your offerings and for the processes that make your business go every day. How can you use Kaizen in your business right now? Try using the process outlined below to help you through a tough decision or to troubleshoot something when it doesn’t feel like it’s working.

PLAN

1. What’s the most important problem or biggest challenge right now? Be specific, be granular and be honest!

2. Based on the resources I have right now, what can I do to reduce this problem or challenge’s impact?

3. If I do that, how will I know it worked? What can I measure?

DO

4. Try your idea and track!

5. While you’re working, take a second to really see if what you’re doing now is actually different from before. Change is hard sometimes and it’s easier to want change and not actually do anything different.

CHECK

6. After the new work ask yourself if it made any difference. Any positive change, regardless of how small or seemingly insignificant, is important to document.

ACT

7. Can I make that change a repeatable process in how I work?

8. Can I get a little better next time? If yes, repeat this process with new answers to the first few questions in this process and go from there.

Agile

Now that you’re an expert Kaizen facilitator let’s move on to one of the newest hottest project management systems on the block. We’re talking Agile now. Back in the early days of Agile Project Management things were simpler. It was developed by a handful of software developers at the turn of the 21st century who were just looking to get better at their craft and who were looking for better ways to work with each other. So they created a manifesto which is actually pretty interesting and it set the groundwork for people to get better about how they organized themselves when it came to building something (software) that was fluid, dynamic and sometimes without an actual end...kind of like building a business. Agile has grown a lot since the early 2000’s and is now applied to businesses of all sizes, across all industries and all over the world. On top of the Manifesto I’m going to share a tool from Agile that I really like that you can use right now to keep tabs on all the plates you’re spinning to keep your business growing.

First the Manifesto and remember, you can literally substitute the word software here for whatever your deliverables happen to be. The framework still applies.

1. Our highest priority is to satisfy the customer through early and continuous delivery of valuable software.

2. Welcome changing requirements, even late in development. Agile processes harness change for the customer's competitive advantage.

3. Deliver working software frequently, from a couple of weeks to a couple of months, with a preference to the shorter timescale.

4. Business people and developers must work together daily throughout the project.

5. Build projects around motivated individuals. Give them the environment and support they need, and trust them to get the job done.

6. The most efficient and effective method of conveying information to and within a development team is face-to-face conversation.

7. Working software is the primary measure of progress.

8. Agile processes promote sustainable development. The sponsors, developers, and users should be able to maintain a constant pace indefinitely.

9. Continuous attention to technical excellence and good design enhances agility.

10. Simplicity--the art of maximizing the amount of work not done--is essential.

11. The best architectures, requirements, and designs emerge from self-organizing teams.

12. At regular intervals, the team reflects on how to become more effective, then tunes and adjusts its behavior accordingly.

That’s such a cool set of principles! Sorry (not sorry) if my management nerd is showing. So following that I want to flush out an idea that I kind of made fun of at the top of this post. It’s a Kanban board. Believe it or not, it’s actually a simple idea that most people use already that can be upleveled by putting a little more structure around it.

A Kanban board is just a way to visualize the work that you’re already doing.

Think of it like a to-do list on steroids that’s prettier to look at. At its core a Kanban board starts with three columns: Not Started, In Progress and Completed. You can grow from those three but let’s start here. Like with Kaizen, the devil is in the details. What you’re going to do is tear apart your to-do list so that everything on your list falls into one of the three columns. Then at the end of every week you’ll go back to the board and measure your progress. You’ll get to see which tasks moved along the board and which didn’t. It’ll give you an opportunity to visually reflect on the work for the week and help you plan how the next week will go. Most importantly it allows you the opportunity to start fresh every week. We’ve all felt the crushing weight of a to-do list that only seemed to grow. It can get downright demoralizing. This board will keep you on task and keep you from beating yourself up from that feeling of never having done enough.

As you’re filling in your columns the more details you can add to each task like: due dates, what success looks like, resources that are needed and who’s responsible the better it works for you. When you get to see everything on your to-do list in a format like this you’re able to see bottlenecks, manage stress levels and decide on how you’re doing to prioritize your energy for the day. I’m going to link to an Asana page here. It’s a project management tool (that I love and use everyday) that has a Kanban board template you can jump right into with great explanations and examples.

Six Sigma

Six Sigma is the elder at the table here. It’s the tried and true. It’s project management system and the colored belt system a la karate is revered in the corporate world. It has the ability to make or break people, projects and entire business segments. You shouldn’t be scared of it though because at the end of the day it’s a lot of management ideas tucked in and around some statistical modeling. Without nerding out over the stats, like I actually want to, let’s just summarize six sigma as a system by which processes get evaluated. The closer to six standard deviations away (sigma) data can get from the mean the better. A process is said to be six sigma when there are no more than three mistakes or errors per one million data points. That means that a process is right 99.9997% of the time. That’s a big deal if you’re a manufacturer of cars, aluminum cans or pens but is it realistic for you?

You don’t need a Master Black Belt to get in on the Six Sigma love. In your business just remember the acronym D.O.W.N.T.I.M.E. This acronym actually comes from Lean processes but LEAN and Six Sigma are like peanut butter and jelly these days. So, to save you from another project management rabbit hole let’s just lump D.O.W.N.T.I.M.E in with the Six Sigma crowd because we’re talking about helping you get the most out of the work you’re doing on a daily basis here. This acronym will help you remember that you should be eliminating waste as much as possible when you’re building your business. Here are the eight wastes you should look for and suss out:

D - Defects - These are just mistakes that eat up extra time, materials, resources, energy and cost money to fix. Defects can be in things or processes. After you solve the problem, look back to see if you can make improvement so the same mistakes don’t happen in the future.

O - Overproduction - Just like it sounds, you’re making too many things. Well it can actually mean you’re doing too much work that isn’t actually producing value. You might be spending too much time in your inbox, social or actually making stuff. Check in every once and a while to make sure that you’re spending your time doing the work that really is providing the most value for you and your customers.

W - Waiting - Waiting happens when work has to stop. Might be because you’re waiting on a shipment of raw materials or for someone to get back to you because you asked a question earlier in the week. Anytime work stops for you, or there’s a bottleneck, it’s an opportunity to evaluate how you work. The less time you spend waiting the more productive you and your business can be.

N - Not Utilizing Talent - Are you giving your team the right kinds of tasks to do? Are you giving yourself the right kinds of tasks? In your business there’s a real risk of wasting time and money doing work that doesn’t align with your best strengths. You might not have the money to hire but can you think of ways that technology might be able to help you streamline the work you have to do everyday. Stop loading those social posts one at a time, for example!

T - Transportation - This is wasting time moving things around for no reason or for bad reasons. Are you taking multiple trips to the bank, post office or are just getting up to get the stuff you just sent to the printer. Planning your day so that you’re optimizing how you move things, information and people around can really save you a ton of money and headache. This trap is the worst for entrepreneurs because you run around all day and feel like your busy only to realize you didn’t accomplish anything. But you did crush a handful of personal development podcasts so it’s not a total loss right?

I - Inventory Excess - Are you carrying too much inventory? Because that’s just money sitting on your shelves. If you’re a service provider inventory excess comes in the form of not actually understand your clients needs and spending too much time trying to figure it out. When things take too long to deliver it’s always a bad time for you and your business.

M - Motion Waste - Sounds silly but if you spend more time looking for paperwork than you actually do working you’re suffering from motion waste. Motion waste is excess or unnecessary motion caused by people, machines, deliverables and inventory. Clean up your workstation and organize your digital files. Your clients and customers will thank you for it.

E - Excess Reports - Think TPS reports from the movie “Office Space”. Using the data you collect in your business to help you make future decisions is fantastic. Using tools to help you visualize and keep track of everything you have going on is absolutely necessary. It gets to be a problem when all you do is generate reports for the sake of generating reports. Excess reports also covers the waste that comes with recreating the wheel every time you have to do something that should have a standard process for. Think about editing a podcast or style guide for your blog. Those are processes and instructions you should make once and then just refer to, not waste time recreating every time you sit down to do the edits or creative. You’re literally wasting your time.

Alright! Nearly 2200 words later and here we are. If you are still with me, you’re amazing. While I don’t have a fancy credential to award you or a colorful belt to honor you with I hope that you can still find value here. Project management is a big scary world and unfortunately knowing enough to keep you moving forward in your business is pretty important. In this post we covered some of the best bits of the biggest schools of thought and they were all things you can apply or think about right now. Use resources like Asana and don’t be afraid to ask yourself tough questions about how you do the work that you do. There’s no wrong answer here, there’s only the opportunity to get just a little bit better so that next time you show up a little stronger in your business.

Building a business is about the long game and I just want to make sure that you have a few tools that will keep you in the game as long as possible. So go get a white board, start looking for waste, and check in and out on your business every week for a bit. Then let me know how it went!