B2B Bingo by Janie Clark: Back to School Basics

B2B Bingo by Janie Clark: Back to School Basics: "Freshmen and their parents fill the BHS gym. I went back to High School this week. And let me admit to you here and now, it's been 40 year..."

Back to School Basics

Freshmen and their parents fill the BHS gym

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I went back to High School this week. And let me admit to you here and now, it's been 40 years since I was a freshman. Things have changed. And then again, they haven't.

Bentonville High School, home of the kick-butt Tigers, has 3500-plus students to its name. This year there are 1100 freshman converging in from two junior highs. It's a Blue Ribbon school with a good reputation and good grades, and it was easy to see why. Administrators were organized, efficient, armed and ready. Mandatory orientation was held for freshmen only on this particular day, and students were encouraged to bring their parents. Brilliant. Just brilliant.

So here we are, the over 40 and the under 20 all bumping into each other in the hallway as we hunted down our classrooms. Teachers introduced themselves, shared their backgrounds and a smattering of family life, served students and their parents the course expectations and, of course, the caveats of day.

What's changed in 40 years? Everybody chews gum. Everybody has a cell phone or iPod (which can't be on). Lunch includes fresh fruit and other items one can actually recognize as food.

What hasn't changed? Lockers are impossible to open. Textbooks are heavy. Teenagers are self absorbed and unfocused. Algebra is still a foreign language.

The biggest change, of course, was my attitude. If only I had known back then, what I know now.

Putting the Marketing Cart Before the Quality Horse

With so much focus on marketing, could businesses be putting their hype before the horse?

I read an interesting story by Jack Neff in Advertising Age magazine, who talked about big corporate botch ups. The "Big Three Transgressors Against Public Trust " -- BP, Toyota and Johnson & Johnson -- aren't the only ones who have had problems this year.

Kellogg recalled 28 million boxes of cereal; P&G has recalled 8 different branded items since November; Unilever recalled Breyers, Country Crock and Slim-Fast; and McDonald's took back its Shrek glasses.

All that investment in marketing to build brand and brand loyalty goes the way of the garbage truck when companies put their marketing message monies ahead of quality control. Cutting costs can destroy brand equity.

Since Northwest Arkansas is tied to the Walmart ship, this is news relevant to all of us. I can imagine what madness our colleagues at Walmart face when recalls of this caliber occur.

But, since I'm a small business champion, it strikes me that the message for our ears is about quality on a much more subtle level. Instead of recalling products, we're faced with recalling customers and clients. We all know the numbers -- acquiring new customers takes five to ten times more effort than keeping the ones you have. Are we following the math?

What do you do to make sure the quality control in your business is up to par? What is it that your business does to build brand equity in your neighborhood marketplace?

Top notch customer centric service?  Well trained, happy employees? Clean, up to date environments?

There's a lot to think about. As you look to grow your business and market share -- even if it is a small business -- it's worth putting your dollars on that horse called "Quality" to win.

Taking advice from Keith Hicks

As a solopreneur I'm always busy. I never finish all the job tasks on my plate for the day. Okay, I admit it, I rarely finish them all, ever. Something always gets shoved to the back burner to simmer until it evaporates or boils over.  There's some comfort that I am not alone in this.

Finding more time in my work week was a topic that caught my eye when the article came across my editor desk for the August issue of Biz2Biz NWA Digest.  The author was Keith Hicks, a local business coach, who writes an article each month on various business development topics.

This month's really hit home with me. Time. Finding more time. I don't want to spend more time. I don't want to hurry through my tasks. I don't want to skip or short circuit the time it takes to do a job right. So what is this concept of finding more time?

You'll have to read the article to get out of it what you will, but the tidbit that set my brain stirring was this concept of delegating.

I've always thought I was pretty good at delegating when I have someone to delegate to. I don't micro-manage, or restrict how someone comes to the desired end result. But when I read Keith's article I had one helluva ah ha! moment.

"Recognize everyone is not you," Keith Hicks wrote. "Don't get caught up in the 'only I can do this right' trap. If an employee can do it 80 percent as well as you, let that be sufficient. Let them do the work you hired them to do."

It dawned on me then that this is how companies of one become small businesses that grow into larger businesses. It dawned on me that this is the difference between being a person who works for herself and a business owner leading a product (or service) up the ladder of  success and profitability.

You may be laughing at me this very moment. Well, duh, you say. But if we're all taking a spoon of truth syrup, the reason we go into business for ourselves is so we can control our environment. So we can do it the way we want to. Because we believe only "I" can do it right.

And that's the trap. It takes a village.

Thanks, Keith.