I hope everyone is enjoying the holidays. I wanted to share the following article from one of my favorite authors (Jeffrey Gitomer) that I thought you would enjoy.

Jeffrey always has a great way of putting things. His message in this article centers around giving and spreading joy year round vs. one month a year. I couldn’t agree more.

Click here to read Jeffrey Gitomer’s article on giving year round.

You know, a lot of our business owner clients will say that we help hold them accountable. When you think about it, that word (accountable) has a lot of negative connotations to it. Almost punitive in fact.

Perhaps it goes back to my Catholic upbringing with nuns and priests reinforcing that “you’ll be held accountable for your actions.” Talk about putting the fear of God in you! Who in their right mind would sign up for something like that?

It’s like all these “boot camps” for business owners we see advertised. Have you ever been to or seen a real boot camp? Why would you subject yourself to that?

Jack and I were having one of our chats the other day and this topic of “accountability” came up. What we concluded is that we don’t really hold our business coaching clients accountable. I mean, if they don’t do what we agreed they were going to do, they don’t incur the wrath of hell or have to do 100 push ups!

What we do is help them get rid of all the clutter that is preventing them from doing what they want to do. I guess where we came out on this accountability topic is that we really help our clients get organized.

It has become socially acceptable (and almost a badge of honor) to be “disorganized.” What does this disorganization look like?

Take a look at your surroundings. What’s your desk look like? Your office? Are there stacks and piles everywhere (even if they are “organized” stacks)? Are you often late for appointments or do you sometimes forget about meetings?

Organization ties in with another one of those popular concepts…FOCUS! It’s hard to be focused on the right things without being organized.

Basic organization starts with the ability to articulate where you are, which can then feed into where you’re going. As silly as this might sound, we’ve found that most small business owners cannot accurately state where they are.

Want a test to see if you can accurately state where you are? Try answering these following questions (be sure to answer them in concrete numbers of what you “know” not what you “think“):

1. Is your business profitable?
2. What are the top 5 ways you generate business today?
3. What do your best customers look like (i.e. demographics)?
4. Why do your customers buy from you?
5. What are the key things you check every day to give you the pulse of your business?
6. Who’s responsible for what in your business (not just on paper, but in reality)?

If you can answer these questions with great confidence, then give yourself a pat on the back because you have a pretty good idea where your business currently stands. You’re definitely in the minority of small business owners.

This “organization” thing is the key to a successful business in the long-term. Organization naturally leads to strategic planning to help you figure out where you want to go and what you need to do to get there.

So when you hear about all these great “boot camps” and things to beat you up and hold you “accountable”, you should probably run in the other direction. Your business is hard enough already, you don’t need to take additional punishment. What you probably need is a little organization and focus.

How do you define a good customer? This is a question that many small business owners rarely, if ever, stop to ask themselves. After all, aren’t all customers good customers, you ask?

Quite simply, NO!

I mean, the fact that someone wants to give you their money in exchange for your product or service is a good thing, but that doesn’t automatically make that customer a good customer.

When’s the last time you sat down and actually went through a list of your customers from the past year, three years, or five years? You might be amazed at what you find.

Many small businesses are started around a single customer or at most a handful of customers. One of the key strategies for the owner is to branch out beyond that one big customer. The more reliant your business is on one or a handful of customers, the less sustainable and less valuable your company.

Typically as part of the growth path of a small business, you’ll take on nearly anyone who wants to be your customer. Hey, at the end of the day, if someone wants to give you their money, you’re going to try everything you can to make sure you can service that customer.

If you’re looking to grow your business, a good place to start is to ask the question “What makes a good customer for my business?”

This should include things like:

1. Payment: not only do they actually pay their bills, but they pay them on time or ahead of time. This is something we’ve all experienced. Folks we “think” are good customers, but in reality they are a drain on our business both financially and emotionally.
2. Mutual Respect: this is one of those thoughts that brings me back to my Wall Street days. This mutual respect thing was really lacking with many of our client relationships (if you can even call it a relationship). It was more about trading dollars than anything else. Do your customers treat you and your staff with respect or do they tend to be a little more hostile and demanding? I guess what I’m looking for here is something called common courtesy. It’s difficult to have that mutual respect in a relationship if someone is always playing a subservient role.
3. Helpful: does your customer help you with your business? Do they introduce you to new customers or other people who can help your business? Will they provide you with honest feedback about how you are doing so you can make the customer experience even better?
4. Fun: do you actually like your customers and do they like you? While this may not be the most important, try to imagine (if you can) a world where you actually like all of your customers. What would that mean for you and your business? Would it change your attitude and energy level? How about that of your employees? It has certainly been a key success factor to the growth of our business coaching practice.

Give some thought to this question about a good customer. Many small businesses never even engage in a discussion like this. To go from “every customer is a good customer” to “a good customer does X, Y, and Z” is so foreign to many business owners.

Are they afraid of the answer so they never ask the question? What if I find out I don’t have many good customers? Then what do I do?

Think back to when you first started or bought your business. If someone asked you then, “how would you like to go work for a bunch of people you don’t like, never pay on time, and who treat you like garbage,” you probably would say that is one of the reasons you want to run your own company. To get away from all that stuff!

If you ask yourself that question now, do you see some or all of your customers? Here’s a good test for you. Are you prepared to fire your customers who don’t meet your “good customer” criteria? Imagine taking all that time and energy you spend “dealing” with this bad customer. Responding to all their ridiculous demands. Chasing them to collect payment. Losing sleep over your own financial situation because of them.

Imagine taking all that time spent on negative things and focusing it on finding “good customers” to replace them, now that you actually know what a good customer looks like!

If you don’t have good customers, then why are you in your business in the first place? There are plenty of other “bosses” out there who will treat you better and pay you on time.

So, which customer will you fire first?

It’s amazing to me how many people who run their own business are not having fun any more. Granted, most of them had all sorts of fun early on. But now, many of them are just dragging along and have lost their enthusiasm for their business.

I guess I feel tremendously fortunate. I know Jack and I are having all sorts of fun with our coaching business. Unfortunately, most small business owners we meet are no longer having fun.

The good news is, there are ways you can get reinvigorated with your business and start having fun again. One of the biggest satisfactions we have in our coaching business is helping our clients get their groove back!

So as I look at what makes us have so much fun with MVP and what causes frustrations with many of the small business owners we meet and work with, I’ve come up with a list of things you can look at to help you get the fun back in your business.

In no particular order, here they are:

1. Where Are We Going? Does everyday seem to run into the next and into the next? If you don’t have a clearly communicated vision for where you’d like your business to go that is somewhere out in the future (like say 10 years), then the day-to-day activities of your business will consume you and you will lose perspective very quickly.
2. Do You Like Your Customers? This is a big one for me. After nearly a decade on Wall Street as an investment banker where we made most decisions based on potential dollars first without much to any consideration of whether or not we liked our clients, I’ve come to realize just how important it is to truly like your customers. Jack and I proudly say there isn’t one of our clients we don’t like. Many potential customers we’ve met have actually commented that they feel like they’re being interviewed…that’s because they are. We have a lot of clients who have fallen out of love with their customers. They complain about them all the time. Either they’re too demanding, they don’t pay on time, they’re rude, etc. If you don’t like your customers, why don’t you get some new ones?
3. Do You Like The People You Work With? At the end of the day, you spend more of your waking hours with the people you work with than with just about anyone else. More than your friends, family, significant other, kids, etc. Most of us business owners work 60+ hours per week. If we’re lucky, we get a couple of hours a day with someone outside of work, so you best like the people you work with.
4. Is There Meaning For You In Your Product or Service? What gets you out of bed in the morning? What are you really selling? People often refer to being passionate about their business. Quite often, outsiders relate that to people being passionate about their product or service. Typically though it’s something deeper. For instance, a jewelry store owner isn’t necessarily passionate about shiny diamonds, but instead the feeling somebody gets when they are about to open the box. Passion has to have some emotional connection to it. And, oh by the way, if you say you’re passionate about making money, you better keep looking, because this is not something that is sustainable. If you’re doing something you’re passionate about, the money will follow. People will be able to tell if you’re just doing it for the money. It’s known as being genuine.
5. Are You Learning & Growing? This is something that really gets my juices flowing, but I also know it’s something that gets most small business owners going as well. There is an almost unquenchable thirst for knowledge with successful business owners. For a better way to do things. To improve the operations. To sell more. To make the product better. All of which ultimately leads to more profit. This is what we like to refer to as being curious about your business. If you have a constant curiosity about your business, you’re going to stumble upon new and better ways to do things. If you don’t believe me, try spending the day with a 4-year old and discover how their constant curiosity often leads to a new way of doing things!

So if you aren’t having fun with your business anymore, chances are that 1 or more of the 5 things listed above is the culprit. Try to pinpoint which one is having the biggest drag on you and your business.

If you aren’t having fun anymore, and you aren’t willing to change any of the things listed above, then you’re probably better off getting out of your business and either starting a new one or going to get a job. Owning a company is too much like work if you aren’t having any fun doing it!

I recently attended an annual Christmas concert sponsored by my alma mater, St. Ignatius High School. This event is not simply a high school band belting out some Christmas tunes. It is done by the world renowned Cleveland Orchestra and their Chorus in one of the most beautiful and acoustically sound concert halls in the world, Severance Hall.

So as I’m sitting there with my ears being tickled with the amazing sounds of the strings and brass and percussion flowing together so fluidly, my mind wanders as it often does to business!

Here is the conductor on stage with 215 people (including both the orchestra and chorus) and they are all moving in lock step. Everybody knowing their exact role and counting on the others to do the same. And I got to wondering.

How come this conductor can get 215 musicians and singers to work so well together and we often see business owners with 7 or 10 or 15 employees that they can’t “get on the same page”? What am I missing?

Is the conductor that good? Are his people that talented? Am I just losing it trying to compare an orchestra and chorus to any business? I think not!

Here are some of the things I’ve come up with to define what makes a good conductor (oh yeah, these apply to a business owner as well!):

1. Make sure everybody knows the program: whether it was the musicians with their sheet music or the chorus members with their hymn books, each player was moving along in lockstep with the others. They would all change pages at the same time and continue playing in complete harmony. Do you have sheet music for your business, or do you just let everybody “figure it out” by watching everyone else?
2. Get people who can play their role: I’m sure there is a process in place to both identify and screen applicants for both the orchestra and chorus. I mean, I’m sure I couldn’t just show up and apply for a position without a rigorous interviewing and auditioning process. Why should someone hired into your business experience anything different?
3. Be passionate: as the show went on the conductor became more and more engrossed in the show. It got to the point that he was breathing heavy (and I’m sure breaking a sweat) when he would address the audience in between tunes. He was really into what he was doing and was having fun and it showed! Would your team describe you as someone who is passionate about your business and say you’re having fun? If you’re not, why would anyone else?

I’ve been to a lot of concerts in my day, but there are few things that can match the overall beauty and power of a well conducted orchestra.

The same thing can be said for a business. Next time you go to your favorite store or restaurant, give some thought to how well the place is being “conducted.”

Try seeing your business through fresh eyes and how someone might see it coming into contact with it for the first time. Would they describe it as being well conducted or a complete mess?

Is there anything you’re unsure about in your business? Are there areas where you feel you could be doing better? Perhaps areas where you feel you are inadequate?

We hear this quite often from the small business owners we meet and coach. It usually sounds something like this:

- “I’m afraid my clients are going to find out that I’m a fraud and I really don’t have all the answers”
- “I really wish I had gone to college so I’d be better at…”
- “I don’t have a business degree”
- “I don’t think I can service those people from a big company, they’re all much smarter and more experienced than me”

Some of these things small business owners say out loud. Others are just floating around in the dark recesses of their minds. Heaven forbid they let those thoughts see the light of day and tell someone else just how they’re feeling.

I’ve got news for you. If you’re a small business owner and you’ve uttered any of those above phrase or anything like those, chances are those feelings of inferiority are simply unfounded!

Guess what, no one has all the answers! People hire your company or buy your products because you have a knack for being able to deliver a product or service that makes sense to your customer and solves a pain for them. Why should you let someone else do it? They’re just going to make it up as they go along as well!

So what if you didn’t go to college or you didn’t get a business degree! What you’ve been learning in the real world of running your business can’t be taught in a classroom. You should be teaching those classes!

Just because somebody works for a big company doesn’t mean they’re smarter than you. In fact, they probably have more of an inferiority complex than you do. Why do I say that?

Because they still don’t know how good they are. They haven’t made the leap to running their own business. They secretly marvel at how you do it. How you continue to keep your business running day-to-day.

Many of them have never tested themselves to see if they can do it. They’re caught up in their “career” and climbing the corporate ladder, not with building a business and keeping their customers happy and their employees fed.

I struggled with some of those same demons before making the leap five years ago. I worked for a couple of big companies while I was in New York (Bear Stearns and The Bank of New York). But that didn’t mean I had no fears about running a business of my own.

I didn’t know everything about running a business when I left New York. I still don’t! I’m continuing to learn every single day.

That’s what separates the great small companies from the ones that go out of business. Show me an owner who is continually curious about her business and I’ll show you a successful business.

Show me one where the owner already knows everything, and I’ll show you a business that is on a going out of business curve.

So if you’re a small business owner with an inferiority complex, throw it out the window! Give me a little attitude instead! You’ve earned it.