The Collins Trilogy

In the wake of Hurricane Irene, which came near but not over my part of the world this past weekend, I’m thinking about predictions, and control, and how very much we like to think we understand the forces at work in our lives. Hurricanes, however, don’t take orders from the National Weather Service. While business people may read books about what makes any individual business successful at any moment in time, the overall economy, state of innovation, and more factors than I can begin to understand conspire to make any explanation outdated almost as fast as its ink dries.

When asked what represented the greatest challenge for a statesman, or the biggest reason governments didn’t implement their election-year promises (you find the words attributed to a number of leading questions albeit always to the same person), Harold Macmillan replied: ‘Events, my dear boy, events.’ The same could be said about any individual business’ current success. It’s easy to see why some companies didn’t make it, and sometimes it’s possible to see what their successful rivals did differently, but it’s never possible to know exactly what made the difference. Except that’s not what we want to believe. We love certainty. We love thinking that “Because they did THIS, THAT happened.”

Why didn’t Irene wash out in Florida? Why did it skip over (metaphorically) NYC and dump all its rain in Vermont? If State Farm knows, they’re not telling. I did storm prep this time, as did most of my neighbors, because it’s a decision I have to make at least 12 hours in advance of need, at least with a storm that will make landfall in the dark. Most of us will tell you, “Doing storm prep makes the storm stay away… Every time I don’t do it, I’ve been hammered.” That, we can see, is magical thinking, but it’s really not very different at all from what we do with our businesses. (Fact is, it’s never a bad idea to clean up the yard and haul a load of junk to the dump, and it’s simply the storms that give us the incentive to do it today rather than tomorrow, when the boards might come through the window.)

Do what you know to be right. Read about other people’s / business’ experience, and if it makes sense for you, implement. But don’t think any one explanation is a magic bullet that can make your business as good as Circuit City was in 2001… unless you’re also willing to sign up for the same outcome, less than eight years later.

I continue to be amazed by keyword research, courtesy of Wordtracker.

38,675 searches PER MONTH, US Google data, for some version of “how do I start a text conversation?”

I can respond to text messages.  I used to IM when we had a system at my last day job.  I have even initiated a text a time or two, but it’s simply not my preferred form of communication with my friends.

When I observe my surprise at the number of people who are searching for conversation starters for texting, however, I realize that I have made an attribution error.  I think because texters are a little more technically savvy than me, they must also be more socially sophisticated, perhaps?  I’ve made this error before in other contexts.

BTW, that number above is MINISCULE compared to the number of searches for “regular, in-person” conversation tips (within reach of a million a month).  Our technology hasn’t changed our confidence in our relationship skills very much at all.

In the course of study of professional organizing, sooner or later, you’re going to encounter Feng Shui. While in no way a trained practitioner, I can nevertheless drop a bagua on any building I visit and tell you where the Love and the Money sections are in the house. If you’re broke or lonely, declutter here first, the general advice holds, and your luck will change.

I found The Little Book of Wrong Shui at the checkout line at Barnes & Noble. If you, or anyone you love, has been the subject / victim of a drive-by Feng Shui treatment (look for octagonal mirrors and red ribbons on the drainpipes), you’ll get a chuckle.

Examples:

• A bright idea: if parts of your home are prone to darkness, a light, carefully located, will solve the problem.
• Nice to see you: attract visitors to your home by placing stereo, video, and computer equipment where they can be seen from the road.
• The ups and downs of stairs: stairs going up are good Wrong Shui. In your home only have stairs going up.

New copies are less than $5 and you can get them used for $2. Buy a handful and help all your friends to a more prosperous, love-filled life. At least, they’ll be laughing so hard at the Feng Shui jokes, they won’t notice they’re still broke and alone.

Here’s Martin Brossman’s event listing:

http://www.facebook.com/martinwbrossman?sk=events

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Insiders Final Friday - Local Resources for Micro-Businesses
By Martin Brossman  |  View on Facebook

When: Sep 30, 2011 (11:30am - 1:30pm)

Where: BNC of Cary
649 Walnut Street, Cary, North Carolina, United States

» View map

A Panel Discussion about
Local Resources for Micro-Businesses

The Pannel:
Bob Robinson Exec. Dir. Raleigh Technology Development Center
Fred Gebarowski ,Director Small Business Center, Wake Tech
Dan Scala Exec. Steering Committee Raleigh SCORE
David Grant Small business financing specialist - Raleigh SCORE

Moderated by Martin Brossman
Big Thanks to Dan Scala for his help in setting up the panel.

Join us for another great Inside Final Friday! Make sure to RSVP so people will know you are coming and bring a friend. This is a great opportunity to connect with other Inside919 people.

.00 at the door, lunch is served and networking from 11:30 to 12 noon. Consider meeting someone from Inside919 before or after the event. Also look forward to seeing American Junto Members there as well. If you are interested in joining an American Junto or just want to learn a bit more about it show up at 10:50AM (AmericanJuntos.com).

... See full description

Networking on the Web Hosted by Martin Brossman
By Martin Brossman  |  View on Facebook

When: Sep 13, 2011 (7:00am - 9:00am)

Where: Cardinal Club
150 Fayetteville Street, Raleigh, North Carolina, United States

» View map

You do not need to be a member of the club to attend. Fee is .00 at the meeting.

Professional Networking on the Web is:

A professional referral group that combines aspects of networking, round table discussions, and technology education to keep entrepreneurs and sales executives ahead of the curve.
Committed to providing members and guests of the group the latest insight and tips in online lead generation.
Aware that your time is valuable, and you deserve a return on your time investment.
A resource that educates professionals through a biweekly breakfast series, featuring new and actionable content, as well as an education resource center that you can view at your convenience.

We meet on the 2nd and 4th Tuesday at the Cardinal Club from 7:15AM to 8:45AM sharp. THe meeting consists of networking, assisting members and guests with particular online networking needs, and a roundtable presentation discussing the latest in online lead generation techniques.

Join us as our guest to see if it is right for you. For more information: http://www.professionalnetworkingontheweb.com/... See full description

Traditionally, the term “decision support system” is used to describe tools with some computer component to help people, usually managers, identify and evaluate options when faced with a complicated decision.  However, you don’t need a computer to use all the components of a decision support system.  A number of brain-based ways of thinking about decisions can be useful and are often much more accessible.  What you need is a way to systematically think through possible outcomes of your choices and compare the relative benefit of each.

10 Minutes, 10 Months, 10 Years

Suzy Welch’s book, 10-10-10, helps you think about the future outcome of decisions you need to make:  what will the outcome be in 10 minutes, 10 months, and 10 years?  (Mixed reviews on Amazon; I found the book helpful.)  Many times, what appears to be more important in 10 minutes (finish the assignment) has a different outcome in 10 years (get more exercise).

Some of the books reviewers think this system is nothing but common sense, without acknowledging that “common sense” is the least common of all the senses.  Other reviewers, including me, realize that regularly thinking through the long term outcome of any of our daily decisions can be a discipline.

Her system gets a little complicated if you have to decide between more than two options or a “go-don’t go” situation.

Round the Clock

When I read Peter Bregman’s post about Visualizing Failure on the HBR blog this morning, I was reminded of another, brain-based, decision support tool I use called “round the clock.”

To use the Round the Clock system yourself, draw a circle on a blank sheet of paper.  Mark at least the quarter hour positions, at 12, 3, 6, and 9.  Now, close your eyes and imagine the best outcome possible for the decision you face.  Make a note of that outcome at the 12 position.

Next, imagine, per Visualizing Failure, the worst possible outcome, given the realistic facts of the choice you are considering.  This outcome goes at the 6 position.

Next, imagine two, different, outcomes, halfway between best possible” and “worst possible.”   One is more good than bad, one is less great and a little more difficult, but neither should be a total failure of the concept.  These outcomes belong at the 3 and 9 spots, respectively.

If your facts and imagination will accommodate you, keep going–differently successful, or un-, outcomes at each of the numbers on the clock face.  However, many decisions only need the major four positions covered, before you understand what course of action you need to take.

If you’re still not sure, give yourself a day to think about the worst possible outcome that you can imagine.  What exactly would that be like?  What warning signals would the situation provide to you, that could indicate a need for a change in plan?  Is it true, like one commenter suggested (admittedly as a very unlikely outcome), that:

What if you quit your job to start your dream company, and you fail, lose all of your money, can’t get another boring job, lose your house, can’t support your family, your family disowns you, you end up on the street, you acquire some deadly disease, and are homeless.

Equating “not starting your dream company” with “homelessness” is an awfully big leap.  Very few people make that leap in one step.  Very few people wind up homeless, as a result of entrepreneurial failure alone, although sometimes stories about business failure make for better cardboard signs than stories about other causes of homelessness.

If you’re pretty sure that your family would not disown you, or that you would find some job any job if your business could not provide the income you needed, then your “worst case outcome” is NOT homelessness, and “living on the street” should not be in the 6:00 position.

You may want to make a note of any warning signs you thought about as you imagine the worse case scenario.

Outcomes are Unknowable

The truth is, any outcome reasonably far into the future, involving other people, is pretty much unknowable from the start.  If it were a 100% sure thing, you wouldn’t need to put your idea through the components of a decision support system, by evaluating individual steps and outcomes against what you know about the world.

We know from research in a number of fields that people are pretty bad about predicting accurately.  However, most people are actually reasonably good at responding to out-of-the-blue unexpected events.  What hurts emotionally are the events that are completely predictable, that we didn’t predict, often because we became too attached to one potential outcome too quickly.

When you do a round-the-clock exercise, you have an opportunity to consider and document the warning signs that could appear along the way, telling you that your path is leading to a 6:00 outcome rather than the noon version in your best dreams.

Similarly, if you regularly practice 10-10-10 thinking, it’s much less likely that you’ll turn around on your next “0″ birthday and say, “I sure  wish I’d exercised more…”  At the very least, you’ll understand that you made decisions in favor of some other outcome along the way.

Make a decision to decide…

Big decisions can be intimidating.  Using the components of a decision support system, even with pencil, paper, and your imagination, can cut a big decision into much more manageable parts.   All you need is a way to systematically think through possible outcomes of your choices and compare the relative benefit of each.

I recently changed a licensing arrangement I had with a provider and needed to make sure I had all of their trademarked content off this website. I was a bit at a loss–there’s a lot of content here. I use WordPress to manage it all, and WordPress does not play well with paper. I suspected there must be a way to dump my content to a flat file that I could search for any of the controlled keywords, and after asking around on forums, I found it:

Export to Text

Export to Text is a nifty little plug in that takes content and meta data from posts and pages in a WordPress site and exports them to an MS Excel *.csv file.  VERY handy.

I exported my site and spent a day or two searching for the relevant words, hunting through pages that were in draft, published, published but private, published but not linked to, and otherwise hidden from easy access.  I could mark up the paper list as I worked through each page.  Along the way, it was easy to check for <title> and <description> tags, because that information was exported.  As I went, I could make notes on the paper copy about changes, links, and rearrangements that need to happen some time in the future.

I had to ask more than a few people before I found the plugin.  Perhaps most of my WordPress friends don’t need to review all their content, or maybe they’ve found an in-app solution that works.  If you know that paper has advantages that WP doesn’t yet offer, look at Export to Text.

Daydream Believer

Several days ago, I saw a request on the HARO email asking about business owners who daydreamed and how forced themselves to quit daydreaming and get to work.  IMO, “daydreaming” and “work” are not mutually exclusive.

I don’t know how businesses get created without a dream.  Business starts with an idea, and any way you label it, “ideas” aren’t too far from “daydreams.”

The trick, which is probably what was driving the reporter’s question, lies in turning the idea into reality.

For me, the first step between a dream and reality is writing.  Some people have their best ideas in the shower.  I have my best ideas with a pen in my hand.  Once I recognize I’m in a “day dream” (and, of course, not driving at the same time), I’m writing.  It helps that I write for a living, and paper and pencil are never far out of my reach.  Write the story.

• What is it that I am thinking about?
• What do I want to have happen as the outcome?
• Who’s starring in the latest drama?
• Why have I cast the story with these players?

Sometimes, simply writing a daydream is enough.  I’ll see, “Oh, I’m still processing XYZ______,” and make a note to discuss the issue next time I talk with the person involved, and poof, the story is gone.

Sometimes, however, I’ll see something bigger.  “Hum,” I thought, the last time this happened, when I found myself dreaming about teaching a class on a topic I know well but never thought to teach. “If she’s never thought of that approach, (this particular “she” is an expert on developing and implementing goals), then maybe this IS new material and maybe I should follow up on it….  Maybe this is a new way of looking at the problem!”

After I write out the story and identify the core elements, the daydream transforms itself into one more business idea.  It needs to be worked into my project list and acted upon, and grown into something that can be sold.  David Allen, of Getting Things Done fame, made his fortune working in this space.

The Universe Baits its Hooks with Daydream Bait

One way to explain daydreams is “universe bait”—God, maker, source; your choice of name—wants to have something created, and dangles hooks baited with ideas in front of our minds.  Those ideas first present as daydreams.  What if …?  Wouldn’t it be great if….?”  I wonder what would happen if …?  If we don’t actually take the bait, the idea moves on, and someone else takes the hook, implements, and turns an idea into reality.  In business, that usually means income.  When that happens, we’re left on the sidelines, saying, “But I had that idea last year!”

I have to admit, I used to be someone whose air castles stayed evanescently in the air, never descending to intersect with my real ilfe.  “Wouldn’t it be perfect if…”, I could go on for hours.  I’d exhaust myself.  Once I started writing out the stories, it wasn’t long before I noticed ideas starting to grow in new directions.  When I committed a train of thought to paper, the next step would appear.  I saw a knitted rug in a book and thought, “I could make that,” and I did.  I’ve since made 72, and sold 40.  Similarly, a thought that ran, “Wouldn’t it be great if I could take this Chatlist outside into my carving tent?” turned into the book Carve Smart a year later.

Two new books are cued up and waiting for me to take the next step.  The goad that will get me over the “it’s too hard” hump is imagining how irritated I will be if I see those ideas, written by someone else, on the shelf at Barnes & Noble.

When I hear people talking “air castle talk,” I don’t suggest they stop. Instead, I ask, “what does the foundation look like?”  They look at me with a blank stare, so I go on.  “What’s the first thing you would need to do if you wanted to live that life?”  A rock-star wannabe girlfriend needs to take guitar lessons.  Her dream of performing in Madison Square Gardens may never happen, but she’ll be a whole lot closer when she knows four guitar chords.  It may turn out that she’s called to be some very different kind of performer, and the universe only dangled the rock concert in front of her because it knew she’d jump at that bait.  She won’t know until and unless she learns to play.

Daydreams outlast dreamers

Ten years ago, a friend was forced to leave her new house because of Black Mold.  She had an agonizing two years of health problems, followed by two moves and attempted remediation, before the problem was solved with a new house.  She dreamed of telling her story on Oprah.  She contacted the producers of the show, but she never heard back.  One woman, one house?  Oprah likes to hear from movements, not individuals.  It’s possible that a different first step—a notice in the grocery store, or Craig’s List, looking for other people affected by mold, suggesting a meeting, self-help, activism–could have been the start of a national movement.  She’ll never know.  Her life moved on.  I just checked today, and there is a “Moms Against Mold” website, started by someone else, several years after my friend’s story.  The idea was in the universe, waiting to be developed.

There are two paths away from “not daydreaming:”

• Not dreaming
• Implementing the dreams and making them real

Only one of them has any value.  I can’t stop daydreaming.  I can learn to become faster at taking the hook and building foundations under my air castles.  It’s a nice life.

When rich people get together, they talk about art.  When artists get together, they talk about money.*

It’s not all that different for small business owners who are not “rich.”  You don’t have to be in our company very long at all before someone will bring up the “P” word:  “Pricing.” Many business owners, particularly solopreneurs, struggle with pricing; with setting prices, raising prices, and holding the line on discounts.  We should all, probably, raise our prices.  We write blogs about how to raise prices, and when, and tell each other to hold the line on discounting, and not to cave immediately when a client is quiet after we tell him our price, and etc.

If talking about pricing were all it took to master the subject, the delta between “small business owners” and “rich small business owners” would not be as big as it is.

A friend told me of a prospective client who wouldn’t pay $500 to appeal a case to the Employment Security Commission.  If the appeal were successful, the client would be eligible for unemployment compensation; if no appeal was filed, the woman got nothing except the opportunity to find a new job.  My friend wondered if her rates were too high.  Should she have offered a discount?

I gave the problem some thought.  The fee was equivalent to one or two weeks of unemployment compensation, depending on the person’s salary at the last job.  A successful appeal, which was likely, would have brought at least 26 weeks of unemployment compensation (less, of course, when the person found a new job). By my calculations, that’s between a 1:13 to 1:26 return on investment, with a 90% certainty.  Certainly, better odds than the State Education Lottery.

Why would someone NOT pursue the case?  Of course, it has been a long time since I couldn’t find $500 when I needed it.  On the other hand, I got out of that hole by recognizing how MANY problems in my life could be solved by the application of a bit of cash, and so made a point of accumulating some for rainy days.

Later that evening, I thought, “Drug dealers don’t give discounts.”  People who want / need to buy crack come up with the money all day (and night) long.  Examples came thick and fast.  Tow truck drivers get paid up front, in cash, or you don’t get your car back.  The DMV and its associated agencies don’t make deals.  Bail bondsmen get their 10%, or they don’t drive to the jailhouse.

Willie Nelson sings, “My heroes have always been cowboys.”  Keeping with the rhythm, the next verse could start with, “My tenants have always had cable, and they still do, it seems,” even though they may be late on the rent.

In contrast, a girlfriend tells a story about receiving a bill from the IRS for $100,000 of delinquent taxes (plus fees & fines).  Fighting the bill, which belonged to her ex-husband, cost her $6,000 in legal fees.  She cleared the bill.  I forgot to ask how she paid the lawyer.  Her ROI was 16:1.

Dan Kennedy, that master of tough-minded thinking, says, “Someone who can barely afford your services today is going to be just as broke next week, only they won’t have the benefits that your services could have provided for them.”

You need to be able to provide your services to the people who need them, and in order to do that, you need to make a living.  When your client is looking at a better than 10:1 return on money invested in your time, you don’t need to be discounting.  Set your prices where they need to be, and hold the line.

*Source of quotation lost to time and repetition.

How have you learned to hold the line?  Let me know in the comments.

I bought a Washington State lottery ticket when we were on vacation, while we were waiting for the ferry in Friday Harbor.  It cost $1 and offered payout of $1.8M, which seemed “enough” at the time.  It was the last real day of vacation, and I was entertaining the fantasy of being able to call in to the office and say, “I’m not coming back.”

Of course I didn’t win.  I would be writing a different post if I had.  I know someone who knows someone who won, once, and then lived on the income for 20 years, and now finds herself 20 years older and out of income and unskilled.  This is not a good place to be.

I also know someone who buys a ticket for every drawing.  He plays the same number every time, a pair of easily-remembered birthdays, and buys 52 tickets at a time, the maximum allowed.  He only has to check the website twice a week so his effort investment is minimal. I am tempted by his arguments in favor of the outgo being an entertainment expense; a cheaper fantasy trip than going to the movies.

But we are different people, with different brain patterns and different cash flows.  Every time I dip my toe in the “what would I do with all that money” pool, I come out covered in a nasty slime.  My thoughts turn to the winnings and how more money would change my life, and away from what it will take to change my life with the skills and gifts I have available to me today.

We came home to truly difficult news about my job; the rumored merger was going to happen; massive uncertainty affecting a huge global workforce.  I think about buying my way into relief with lottery tickets.  This is not a good way to think.

On the way home from a day filled with swirling rumors of imminent unemployment, I stopped at Borders, looking for a copy of the latest What Color is Your Parachute (41st edition is on the market.  Am I that old? I used the 1980 edition in college…).  I stopped at a bargain table of books marked at $2.  This is almost less than the cost of gas needed to get to the library.  I bought You Call the Shots by Cameron Johnson.  Amazon reviews confirm this book will not  make me rich anytime soon; suspect the value of a $2 book about making money.

However:  two dollars.  A book about business, or a week of powerball tickets.  Even if all I get out of the book is the opportunity to add one more review to my Amazon list, I’ll have more to show than I get for two losing powerball tickets.

For those times Borders isn’t selling books at $2, there’s the thrift shop.  Not long ago, someone retired and dumped an entire collection of best-selling business books into the Habitat Restore, where they eventually sold at $1 for a bundle of five.  Lots of information for not very much money at all.  Vastly higher ROI (return on investment) than powerball.

Caveat:  It’s not just the idea.

If you get one good idea per week, my friend Paul told me, it’s worth it. If you apply that idea, I can’t even guess how much it would be worth.

(Steph quoting Ramit Sethi)

I can do way more with a good book, much faster, than I can with any fantasy about winning the Powerball.

I needed to create a list of all the information products I had purchased over the past two years in order to see what I had already read and what I needed to study.  I wanted to be able to manipulate the information in a spreadsheet.  Here are the ways I found:

Folder Size

Download the free Folder Size application from the people at Mind Gems to scan any directory on your PC.  The output report will tell you where your fat-files are hiding, should you need to clean up disk space.  This program solved my initial problem–why is my hard drive so full? but it wouldn’t produce a printed listing of a directory’s contents.

Add the Print Directory capability from Microsoft

Add the Print Directory menu item to your Explorer drop downs (link goes to an official MS help site), and you can print the listing from any directory with a right-click of the mouse.  This is better than nothing, but not by much.  The file goes to the printer automatically, and then deletes itself.  You don’t have the opportunity to open the file with MS Excel first and manipulate it.  Your printed listing comes out in whatever order the directory was sorted in.

Return to DOS

Are you old enough?  Do you remember managing your PC from the command line?  To tell the truth, I barely do.  But “barely” was enough.

From the Search box at the bottom of the main menu listing (if that won’t find it for you, maybe you shouldn’t be doing this), type cmd.  You’ll get the DOS window.  In that, type

dir full_directory_path > filename.txt

Running the dir command at the DOS prompt

Open the *.txt file with Excel, allowing Excel to recognize how to handle the information, and you’re set.
(You don’t need to see the content in the image; the spacing is all you need.)