Talk to any business coach or so called marketing expert and the first thing they will tell you is that you have to differentiate your business, find some unique niche, angle, vertical… or whatever. Then you’ll pay them thousands of dollars for a USP – unique selling proposition. If the coach/expert was correct, and you execute well, then you should have unbridled success… that is until someone copies or even one-ups your USP.

You can continue to pay your coach/expert to revise your USP, or, after some marginal success, you can get back to what’s really important: your personal and company brand. No I am not talking about your logo, or blog, but what you and/or your company come to symbolize. Branding strategies used to be very expensive to execute… not anymore.

What is a brand? MBA textbooks aside, your brand is the sensory and mental image that you and/or company portay. Two 2 core components of your brand are reputation and credibility.

Reputation

When your name is mentioned to people that know of you or your company, what’s the first thing that comes to mind? a tight-laced professional or fat, lazy, casually dressed slob? In other words, does your visual appearance (the parts that you can control: clothing and grooming – and to some extent physical appearence, as would be the case for a personal trainer) meet society’s standards of your profession (name the last lawyer or financial planner you saw out of a suit and tie).

Do they know what you do? Why you do what you do? or How you do it? If not, then you have an education problem. Spend more time with people 1:1 and in groups. Take people that you are trying to establish a better reputation with on a meeting with a client or vendor or some other appt.

Credibility

When you’re in an intimate relationship, you’re constantly having to prove your love through acts of kindess, etc. Your reputation must also be proven on an ongoing basis. Put differently, your reputation is reinforced by your credibility - and can even grow by it. After you’ve executed your USP plan and have gotten some customers, I encourage you to spend massive amounts of time with your new customers finding out how else you can help them… and do just that.

Connect them with people/resources that they need, and/or, start evolving your business model to fill their needs. Get testimonials and endorsements from them everywhere and everywhere that is within the public eye:  notable mentions at Networking events, recommendations on Linkedin.com, wall posts on our company’s FaceBook Fan page, video testimonials in YouTube. Apply for every award you can personally, and for the business. Make sure to brag about the awards that you do win. Case in point, my company, Carceron, is the most recommended IT firm on Linkedin.com. I can claim this because my Linkedin profile has the most recommendation of any IT consultant in Metro Atlanta on Linkedin. See below:

In summary, reputation and credibility directly impact your networking efforts, and, by extension, the quantity and quality of referrals that you get. When you say that you “have the best customer service”, “are the most reliable”, etc. It’s a worthless platitude. When your customers and colleagues says those things, it’s GOLD.

When we started this year, I wrote two blogs surrounding leadership and goal setting:

Leadership & Goal Setting in 2010

Accountability – From Resolution to Reality – How Will You “Get It Done” This Year?

Now that we are 1/2 way through the year, how much have you gotten done? Are you on track to complete all of your company’s goals this year?

I can safely say that Carceron is not? Why not?

We moved offices in Q2, which is still in progress with various capital improvements like a new air conditioner for the server room, conference room furniture and other amenities, etc. Somehow, something as big as an office move never made it onto our original list of goals when we planned everything last year. Needless to say, moving into a new office is something of a time sucker. Consequently, this, along with a wave new business opportunities (certainly no complaints about that), has delayed some of our other goals that we had set to complete – especially the ones due for completion at the end of Q2.

So what happens now? Do we pout about that fact that we are behind schedule? Of course not! Things happen! Life happens! You simply adapt. If a few things get pushed into Q1 of next year…  so be it.

What I would recommend doing is going over all of your goals with your staff or at least your management team. You may find that some goals are no longer relevant and can be removed. Other goals may need to have their completion dates changed because of the unexpected life events or just because you realize that goal A is really dependent on goal B and you only just now found that out.

Don’t give up. Reassess, adapt and execute. Get everyone back in alignment and march forward!

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The concept of Time Compression was recently introduced to me by a client at the conclusion of a recent meeting. I was so enthralled by what he taught me that I did some more research that night and found several articles that further elaborated on the concept and what it means for business.

The first article I found, Technology’s Time Compression, is an excellent primer. At the bottom of that article are links to several other articles, all worth reading, but the two that were most interesting to me were It’s Time for Zero Time and We are Literally Trying to Stop Time.

What I got out of the latter two articles is that, at a minimum, we are trying to reach zero time, preferably negative time. The analogy of a track runner is quite appropriate. Track runners are constantly trying to reduce their times, with the ideal time being zero seconds. But can we achieve negative time? I don’t think a runner could, but we might able to as business owners. This is why business intelligence (BI) and dashboards are so hot right now. Dashboards are more than being able to see real time performance – they are about predicting the future and being ready to adapt to it instantly. You might argue that adapting instantly would be a definition of zero time. However, without proper business intelligence, you won’t be able to make the necessary predictions and subsequent preparations for that instantaneous switch. Negative Time is about being able predict when the change will come and changing at that precise moment (because you’re ready for it), versus reacting to the change once it has come to pass – where the first phase of the reaction is planning (what are we going to do?) and execution (doing it) both of which take time and make you late to the race.

Think about how this translates to business in terms of things like response time, resolution time, order time, processing time, or any other operational task where time is “consumed”.

In my business, Carceron, we monitor servers, networks and desktops in attempt to predict failure. These articles tell me that we can probably be doing a lot more with our monitoring and other business processes.

How can you achieve Negative Time in some of your business processes?

The experience of being a Metro Atlanta Small Business Person of the Year Finalist was an interesting one for me. While I have no illusions that I am one of the 5 best small business people in all of Metro-Atlanta, a feeling that I am sure is shared by the other finalists, we were the top 5 of those that were nominated to the Metro Atlanta Chamber of Commerce for the honor. I can rattle off several other business owners, many unconcerned and/or uncomfortable with such publicity, that could run circles around me – some of which are my clients. With that idea in the back of my head keeping me humble, I was left to think what such an honor really means to me… if anything.

While I certainly appreciate the publicity that such an honor has bestowed (…and the complimentary business class airline tickets from AirTran), it occurred to me that regardless of how important, or unimportant I found this award to be, there are others who probably consider it important, such as other members of the Metro Atlanta Chamber, my staff at Carceron, my family and others.Thinking back to the event, I recall the final seconds before they announced the honor and was so nervous and choked up (a feeling that I definitely had not anticipated having) that I was extremely relieved when Debbi won. If I had won and was forced to get on that stage, it would have been a very “un-manly” moment for me.

More than a week has passed and I have had time to reflect on all of this: my feelings of modesty relative to my being worthy of such an honor; how important I viewed the award relative to others;  the unexpected emotions that I experienced just prior to the announcement. I have found a sort of mental compromise that reflects my modest impression of the honor and the reverence that others hold the award in. Here goes:

I must now live up to the award’s name and truly be amongst the top 5 small business persons in Metro Atlanta as viewed by all of Atlanta – not just the Chamber.

It’s a lofty dream, but achievable I think.

_____________________________________________________

My article in the Atlanta Business Chronicle

My promotional video created by the Metro Atlanta Chamber of Commerce and Atlanta Business Video for the event.

Web Sites of the other Metro Atlanta Small Business Person of the Year Finalists:

Debbi Shapiro, Henderson Shapiro, (#1 Small Business Person of the Year)

Shelly Justice, Convention Models + Talent Agency (finalist)

Susan Bixler, Bixler Consulting (finalist)

Shannan Russo, Kinetix HR (finalist)

While at the Corporate Connections conference in Toronto, one of the facilitators brought up how certain companies had started to fail when their founding CEOs had stepped down or taken a less active role in the company.  Some recent examples include Dell and Starbucks. And who isn’t watching Microsoft more closely now given the departure of Bill Gates?

While fresh leadership can be a good thing, sometimes a required thing, it’s evident that the process of transferring it is a complex and significant undertaking.

I often dream of both a infinite future with Carceron, and, of a very different future where someone better, smarter and more innovative than I takes the reins of the company (I think we have those people working for us right now, by the way). While it may look like a proverbial “fork in the road”, it really isn’t – is it? After all, an “infinite future” is nothing more than staying on the same endless “interstate” – and so long as the ride is enjoyable, the customers are happy and employees are happy, who cares? I say enjoy the ride! But every once and a while those “exit ramps” appear, and you can’t help but wonder:

What would I be doing if I weren’t running this business right now? What if I started another business doing ___________ ? What would my business would look like a month after I’m gone? 1 year after I’m gone? 5 years?

And if the company did start to fail, would I come back to save it? As Michael Dell did? – Which I think really speaks to the question: “What does this business mean to me?”

I can tell you that the answer to that question has changed many times over the years as Carceron has grown… and will continue to change in the years ahead. I can’t help but feel that when that meaning ceases to change – ceases to evolve – the exit ramp will look more tempting.I’m not sure why I feel that way. It seems illogical that “the meaning of my company to me” must continually evolve or else I look for greener pastures – but there it is.

In Michael Dell’s case, we could safely assume that “legacy” might be his reason for returning to Dell. With a company as large as his and with so many people working for him, it’s an answer that is as easy understand as it is sincere.

Legacy might be what drives small business owners to stay in a business longer than they should, but I suspect it to be other things.

What’s yours?

I’m sure that you have heard many variations of the advice that serves as this blog entry’s title like”outsource your weakness”. What’s not always clear when you hear these phrases is the context. Sometimes it applies to a person, sometimes to a business, sometimes both. I think it’s about evolution – a series of steps that starts out with you personally:

Step 1: Outsource Personal Weakness

I learned early on in business that I did not need to handle book keeping, and, a littler later on, tactical marketing (web sites, direct mail, etc.).  Reconciling bank statements, taxes, etc. are best handled by someone else, I quickly deduced. My undergrad training was in Psychology. I never took a single business class, so this was a no brainer. What’s been harder to let go of is marketing. My background in psychology has served me in understanding the clent and how to market to them in terms of messaging, but other tactical elements such as graphic and web design, collateral design, are all done better by the artsy types who can give your business a more polished look.

As Carceron grew, I began to realize that I wasn’t even the best computer technician and worked quickly to divest myself from that role to allow other, more capable, people run the day to day support operations of the business.

My next area to personally outsource? …Sales.

As I have grown the business, it was hard to see how tactical of a role sales really was until I had done it for a while. Now I realize that it is simply a numbers game. It’s about generating more leads (marketing and prospecting) and attaining better conversion rates (sales and sales training). I firmly believe that I could teach just about any good sales person how to sell what we do because the principals of selling are the pretty the same in any business. My training would give him the information needed to apply those principals..

In summary, you can outsource some of your personal responsibilities to outside vendors or employees. Evolving business owners and overwhelmed management alike must outsource their personal weakness in this way to get precious time back and/or to increase the quality of the area to be outsourced. This was the case of Jay, an operations manager for one of our clients. Jay ran the day to day operations of his company’s 16+ locations in addition to supporting its near 100 end users, while Carceron simply supported his server farm. Eventually he “cried uncle” and let Carceron take over all of their IT operations which gave him back 15-20 hours per week that he was spending on just supporting end users.

Step 2: Outsource Business Processes & Functions

As your business grows, you eventually see other areas to outsource to save money and/or improve quality. Some things make more sense than others. As a rule of thumb, don’t outsource anything that interferes directly with your client relationships… hold that sacred.

Here are some common areas of the business to outsource and why you should:

• Book Keeping: Save time, Accuracy, Cheaper than a full time employee (depends on the size of business and transaction volume)
• Payroll: Accuracy, IRS Compliance
• Human Resources: Compliance, Compliance, Compliance
• Marketing & PR: Social Media needs daily attention, a firm can do it cheaper than a full time employee
• Shipping / Delivery: What would it cost you to maintain a fleet of vehicle and drivers vs the cost of using a local courier or FedEx?
• Managed Services Provider (MSP): MSPs don’t get sick or take vacations, MSPs don’t need to be equiped or need benefits, MSPs cost about 1/2 the salary of a full time IT employee, click here to see a lot more reasons

Much of outsourcing is accomplished through the use of information technology which is an enabler towards issues like compliance, business process etc. Make sure that you understand the impacts on your IT infrastructure of anything that you plan to outsource before doing so.

You’ll also want to make sure that you have a good working relationship with all of your outsource vendors, constantly communicating your expectations.

Here are some other resources on outsourcing, well worth the read:

• 8 Reason Why Outsourcing Fails
• What causes outsourcing failures?

Off-shoring

When many people hear the word outsourcing, visions of call centers in a far away country pop up. Bare in mind that you can outsource without off-shoring. Put differently, off-shoring is 1 technique of outsourcing. When and why should you use this technique? In many cases it almost always comes back to saving money. Labor pools in other countries are generally cheaper and vast. It can also come about due to of lack people in country that have the necessary skills to carry out specialized kinds of work. This has been Microsoft’s argument for years – that University’s simply aren’t spitting out enough application developers (Watch the Bill Gates Testimonial to the Senate regarding this).  However, there are some trade offs:

• Language barrier: Many people get frustrated with call center operators where English is a second language. Also things can get lost in translation – this happens often for company’s that outsource software development abroad where misunderstandings about the scope of work often arise.
• External Politics: In the current state of this economy, where unemployment is so high, you risk a PR backlash by sending work overseas
• Internal Politics: Offshoring can have a direct impact on moral due to an “am I next?” mindset

Personally, I have not seen the need to offshore, however, I think it may become inevitable in order to compete unless legislation is passed to limit it somehow. As I am not an economist, I can’t say either way if that would be a bad thing or not. If we are of the mindset that we are now a global market place, would increased (presumably more restrictive) legislation help or hinder us? I simply don’t know…

• Why Offshore Outsourcing Projects Fail

Strategic Alliances, often little more than a business buzz phrase, can have a very real impact on your bottom line if executed correctly. Some of the benefits of Strategic Alliances include:

• The ability to compete against stronger competitors through the creation of synergistic partnerships
• Development and exploitation niche markets faster
• Increased activity throughout the entire sales pipeline – all the way from lead generation to closed business.

So what is a Strategic Alliance and how do you form one that works and lasts? I’m about to tell you:

First, let’s look at some definitions for “strategic”:

• Pertaining to, characterized by, or of the nature of strategy
• Important in or essential to strategy
• Of an action, as a military operation or move in a game, forming an integral part of the stratagem

Next, let’s look at some definitions for “alliance”:

• the state of being allied or confederated
• a connection based on kinship or marriage or common interest; “the shifting alliances within a large family”; “their friendship constitutes a powerful bond between them”
• an organization of people (or countries) involved in a pact or treaty
• a formal agreement establishing an association or alliance between nations or other groups to achieve a particular aim
• confederation: the act of forming an alliance or confederation

Finally, the definition for a Strategic Alliances, (as defined by Wikipedia)

A Strategic Alliance is a formal relationship between two or more parties to pursue a set of agreed upon goals or to meet a critical business need.

I like this definition due to its emphasis on formality and “agreed upon goals”. One thing that I think is missing from this definition is that the relationship should also be mutually beneficial – as this is key to making the Strategic Alliance last.

Some Strategic Alliances Basics

The are many kinds of strategic alliances. Most center on revenue creation. Examples include:

• Reseller / Affiliate Model: You become a reseller of a certain product or service in exchange for sales and marketing support of said product or service.
• Outsource Relationship: Over time you come to realize that certain parts of your business are better handled by another entity outside your business because it is more profitable, efficient, etc.
• Business Development: Referral Partnership, Co-Marketing, etc.

It is the last type of Strategic Alliance, business development,  that I would like to spend some time on. This can be one of the easiest to form and at the same time the most powerful. Who should you strategicly partner with? The obvious answer is professions that you naturally get referrals from already. For example, I own an IT company, so I receive a great deal of referrals from an ISP broker and telecom hardware vendor that I have allied with. Another great example of a good strategic alliance would be composed of a CPA, financial planner & estate planning attorney.

It is important to formalize this relationship as much as possible to get the maximum results. Formalization should create a culture of accountability in the alliance which is critical to the success of it. Here are some ideas.

• Meet at least once a month and share sales pipe line reports
  • What deals are you working on now?
  • What deals have you recently closed?
  • Discuss referrals that have been passed around the alliance. (status, quality, etc.)
  • Create a list of specific prospects that you would like to get into and go over the list with your alliance. Use Linkedin and other business social media sites to make connections.
  • Are you have trouble closing any deals? If so, how can the alliance help?
    • Powerful Example: If the prospect does not have the budget for your project or service, is their anyone in the alliance that can create the savings through their product or services that essentially creates the funds for your project? I use my telecom broker in this regard. He can come in and save them hundreds to thousands a month, the savings from which cover most or all of the cost of my proposal.
  • Side Note: If, when I say “sales pipe line report”, your eyes glaze over, then you probably need a customer relationship management (CRM) system, such as ACT!, or Microsoft CRM. I recommend Alanna Galiano or Emerging Technologies to get your up to speed.A good CRM is essential to making this strategy work.
    
• Develop a joint Needs Assessment
  • If you already have a Needs Assessment, this is easy, just ask each member of your alliance for the top 3 questions that you should ask when conducting a Needs Assessment on your prospect that might generate a referral for them. For example: I always ask a few questions about their phone system to see if there is a possible referral opportunity to the telecom hardware company in my alliance.
• Joint Marketing
  
  • Create a “Partners” page on your web site and add logos with link backs to each of your partner’s web sites. Make sure they do the same.
  • Co-sponsor an event together, such as a conference or tradeshow. Obviously the event should contain target prospects that you are all are going after.
  • Find other ways to cross market:
    • Drop a brochure or coupon from an alliance member into your invoice mailings.

More Advanced Strategic Alliances

Want to take this concept to the next level?

Form an alliance around a business process or event. One idea that came from my friend, Bob Hill of Hill Corporate Partners, centers around office moves. Think about it. When someone want’s to move their office, they need the following:

• A commercial tenant rep, like Bob Hill, to find the new space
• An office furniture company to furnish the new office
• A moving company to move the stuff in the old office to the new one
• An IT company, like Carceron, to restore the computer network
• A telecom broker, like Elite Telecom Services, to get the telephone lines and Internet service going
• A telecom hardware company to setup the phone system for the new location
• A printer to handle change out of all collateral such as business, cards, brochures, letterhead, etc.
• And probably a CPA

You could market the alliance with an informational web site that is search engine optimized (maybe everyone chips in for some pay per click advertisement as well). Make sure that there is good quality content on the site. In the case of the office move, perhaps some check lists, Dos & Don’ts, etc.

Getting Started

If you don’t know all of the people that you need to form your alliances, I suggest joining a BNI or Corporate Connections referral marketing program. Corporate Connections chapters, like Synergy, are developing a strong, structured program for strategic alliance creation and development. Another venue might be Vistage. I am a director for Corporate Connections in the Atlanta market, so please feel free to contact me directly with any questions about that program.

What are some other ideas for an Advanced Strategic Alliance?

As we start a new year and a new decade, we will once again set goals & create resolutions. What is so special about this time of year that we feel the need to do this? I have a few ideas:

1. A year is a significant amount of time for to allow for the completion of many long term goals.
2. The holidays allow us to renew ourselves with some relaxation and time with family & friends.
3. The holidays are a slow down period for many businesses which allows many of us to “catch our breathe” and re-group.

It’s this slowing down that is of greatest interest to me. What this tells me is that if we are given enough time to slow down and think in a relaxed state we’re pretty good at knowing where we need to go. So why do so many (including me) that set goals and create resolutions fail to reach them? It most cases it simply comes down to execution – doing what needs to be done. But human beings are complex animals, and while we are very good at giving advice and holding others accountable, it is much harder to hold ourselves accountable for the necessary execution required to complete our goals. This is why people hire personal trainers and business coaches -  not to help them with execution, but to hold them accountable for the execution. After all, your personal trainer won’t do the lifting or heavy breathing for you (wouldn’t that be nice?).

So how will you hold yourself accountable this year? I can tell what I have done and what I am going to try.

First, set your personal goals and business goals, making sure that they are very clear to you and to anyone else that they affect (employees, family, etc.). One of the biggest tips on increasing accountability is to set yourself a deadline. When you have a deadline, you should feel some kind of pressure to complete the goal. See my article “Leadership & Goal Setting for 2010″ for more on this.

Business Goals:

Be as transparent to your staff as possible and hold monthly meetings that focus only on the goals that you have set. I believe strongly in leadership by example, so I can’t very well show up to a meeting where I have not made any progress on my goals and they have. That is my accountability system for my business. Another excellent way to add accountability in business is to have a client advisory council. Then you are getting accountability from 2 different directions.

That being said, it is a goal of mine to hire or engage a mentor/coach as there are certain things that I like to bounce of other experienced business owners that may not always be appropriate to share with employees or a client advisory council. It’s taken me a while to come around to the concept of purchasing “accountability” through coaching – but I am getting there. That being said, I currently have several friends that are also business owners that serve this purpose.

Personal Goals:

This one is tougher. It’s been my experience that friends and family do not always make good accountability partners unless you’re both working on the same goal – and even then, one may have stronger discipline than the other making it a bit one-sided. Why do I emphasize the importance of the same goal? Because many friends may not care that much about your personal goal, are poor role models relative to the goal, and/or they “love you just the way you are”.

What’s the answer?

The easy way out is to hire a life coach, but who has the budget for that?

My answer…

Using friends with the same goal is a good start and better than nothing I guess. However, for me, if I can get a group going or join a group related to the goal that I want to accomplish, it makes it a lot easier. The same principles that motivate me to meet the goals of my business (fear of disappointing my employees) drive me to not disappoint the group and my new friends. Obviously this works best if you immediately get to work befriending people in the group which creates the necessary ties to make them care about you. It may sound a bit shallow – but if you think about, many of your friendships had to start on a common bond of “something”.

Review Your Goals Regularly:

Whether you have personal or business goals, review your goals regularly. Monthly is probably a good frequency. If you’re behind on your achieving your goals, devise a game plan to catch up. Deliberately set aside time to catch up – a day on the weekend or a couple of nights – whatever it takes. Also, make sure that your goals are in some kind of digital, easy to access format. I recommend using one of the tools below.

Tools:

There are some great tools that can provide varying levels of accountability depending on how much you are willing to share with your friends, coach etc.

LifeTick: This is a simple to use goal tracking web site. Pay $20 for the 1 year subscription and start tracking all of your personal goals. The site enfores SMART goal format and will email you impending and past due goal deadlines. It also has some mild reporting capabilities and a journal entry feature.

Screenshot of the LifeTick.com Interface

NSight EPS: This is like LifeTick on steroids. Still in beta, NSight runs about $300 per year but has a very cool interface and much more depth of content than LifeTick. It has locations for personal SWOT analysis, personal and company vision and mission statements, and a slew of other features. This service also has a coaching module and is great for group coaching (think Vistage).

Screenshot of NSight

How do you plan to hold yourself accountable?