Lawrence Fine

One of the advantages of the Internet is that everyone can have a voice. Whether it’s through mass emails, chat rooms, forums, social networking sites, blogs, or regular web sites, if a person wants to express their opinion, they have the ability to do so.

However, it’s important to understand that just because you have the ability to do so, doesn’t mean your opinion matters.

In sports, there are web sites devoted to the firing of various coaches. There are sites set up to encourage people to receive certain awards. There are sites demanding changes.

Just because you have the ability to express your opinion doesn’t mean others have to listen.

If you create a web site devoted to having a coach fired, this doesn’t mean your voice will be heard within the team administration. If you create a web site demanding a free agent be signed, this doesn’t mean the team is going to do so,

Too often, people who create sites think that just because they have an opinion and they have a way to communicate their opinion, that their opinion is any more valuable than anyone else’s.

I know that when I write for this blog, or for some of the others sites I write for, people have the right to choose to read what I write and to agree or disagree. I don’t believe my opinion is any more valid or valuable than anyone else’s. I simply am writing to share my views and those who agree with me, great. Those who don’t….great.

Too often, we take ourselves too seriously. Sometimes we need to take a step back and remember this is just a means to communicate. It’s no different than when people would talk at the ‘water cooler’ or when people would sit on their porch and talk.

Keep this in mind the next time you write something on the Internet or the next time you read something on the Internet. It’s just someones opinion and in most cases, their opinion is no more valuable than yours or mine.

Have a great day!

Lawrence
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We tend to look big picture at what is happening in the world (or in what we consider to be “our world”) but sometimes mistakes or industry trends are the bigger issues.

For example, with people losing their jobs in recent times, it’s easy to assume it’s because of the economic issues many areas are experiencing. However, in some cases, it has nothing to do with the economic climate and much to do with failing to make good decisions. While Circuit City was affected by the economic slowdown, they were affected more by making bad decisions than they were by external factors.

Sadly, the economic environment has allowed some people and organizations to excuse their own failings by placing the blame elsewhere.

If you bought a home you couldn’t afford because you assumed the value would keep appreciating and didn’t take into consideration that a balloon payment was approaching, while it’s easy to blame the economy, the reality is, you made this bad decision on your own.

If you work in an industry that is unstable yet assume your position will be stable, you are most likely making an assumption that could cost you many things when reality sets in and you realize your position wasn’t stable either.

We are currently in a time of great uncertainty, while it’s easy to put our heads in the sand and wait for the other foot to drop, the smart people will look at all factors (external and internal) and make truly educated decisions that most likely will not allow other factors to affect it.

Have a great day!

Lawrence

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As many of you know, I run a web design company (www.webbreez.com) and one of my largest clients was just sold to new owners. They have approached me about staying involved with this organization but with a completely different structure.

The agreement till now has been they paid for their web site and they pay a monthly fee for hosting and management. The new owners want a completely updated look, more functionality and they don’t want to pay for these improvements or for future updates. Instead, they are offering a percentage of the profits from these upgrades.

Basically, they are asking me to trade a regular monthly payment for potentially a great deal more (and potentially a great deal less). If I can drive more traffic to their site and increase the percentage of visitors who turn into buyers, it becomes a great deal. If I can’t do these things, it means I spend time and money and don’t benefit.

Those of you who know me, and those of you who have been reading my blog can probably guess my response to this request. In my mind, the real risk isn’t that I can’t drive the traffic or that I can’t convert the traffic to buyers, the risk is that I’m somewhat dependent on this other organization to create products the customers will want and to provide proper fulfillment. It’s always a bit scary to be dependent upon others but based on this companies reputation for quality, to me, it’s a no brainer.

So now the question for you. In your business, are you willing to share the risk if it also means potentially sharing a much greater portion of the reward? Or, would you choose to take the safer road?

The other question is, would you be willing to share greater rewards if it means no risk to yourself? For example, if you are selling a product, would you pay someone a portion of your proceeds if they were able to greatly increase your profits? Most astute business people would be agreeable to this type of arrangement. If you are, then go out and find someone who will work with you, who will assume some or all of the risk and create a winning situation for both sides.

It’s actually a lot easier than you might think to create these winning situations, just be willing to share some of the increased profits and when everyone benefits, people will be willing to work with you.

Have a great day!

Lawrence
PS To receive these posts as emails please go to http://www.lawrencefine.com/blog/subscribe/

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If you knew what your customer really wanted, how much easier would your job be?

If you are a Realtor and knew exactly what type of a house your client wanted, you could take them directly to houses of that type and make the sale quickly.

If you are a house builder and knew exactly what type of houses people wanted to buy, you would build those houses and make a lot of money.

If you are a movie producer and knew exactly what type of movies people wanted to see, you would create that movie and have the next blockbuster.

If you own a hotel and knew exactly what type of rooms your customers were interested in, you would modify your building to give them what they want and have high occupancy at all times.

Because knowing what your clients want (and need) is so important, organizations spend much time forecasting, doing market research, creating focus groups etc. The one thing many organizations forget to do is ASK THEIR CUSTOMERS!

Rather than trying to guess what would make them happy, why not ask them? Rather than trying to forecast what they want, why not ask them?

Some people might read this and think “we already do customer surveys so we are already doing this”. I’m not a big fan of surveys. It’s extremely difficult to get an accurate and honest read on people from predetermined questions. Rather, take the time to meet with some of your customers or, if you can’t do that, take the time to call them on the phone. Don’t assign this extremely valuable task to an entry level employee. Sometimes the person at the top must step out and take on this role themselves. Don’t have a list of 10 questions, rather, engage them in a conversation and with one or two open ended questions, start a conversation and LISTEN. Don’t try to steer the conversation in a certain direction. Let them take the conversation in any direction they want. If this leads to you learning what they want then GREAT. If it leads to them telling you what they were unhappy about then GREAT. It takes a great deal of patience and experience to do this in a way to truly understand what they want, what they need and what they are willing to pay for.

While you might think that you don’t have the time to do this yourself and it’s something someone else in your organization should do, I would counter that by doing this, it will allow you to progress your organization much quicker and in a much better direction than what you are currently doing.

There are many reasons a leader might have for not wanting to do this (no time, not efficient use of their time, others could/should do it) but one main reason people don’t do this is the fear of learning something they don’t want to know. They might find out that things aren’t perfect in their organization. They might find out there are weaknesses. They might find out things could be done better. While many are afraid of getting their feelings hurt (their underlings will filter the negatives so they don’t have to experience them) the truly successful will find this type of information is invaluable to them and their organization.

There are times when this technique wont work. If you are creating something that doesn’t currently exist, it’s difficult to get feedback when no one has experience in that area. However, very few of us are dealing with things so futuristic.

Take the time to speak with your customers, (key word there is “with” and not “to”) and you will learn a great deal

Have a great day!

Lawrence
PS Please take a moment to check out the book “11+10=1: How the Addition of 10 Principles in Life Turned 11 Players Into 1 Team” at http://lawrencefine.com/sales.php

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An organization needs people who understand marketing.

An organization needs people who understand finance.

An organization needs people who understand IT.

An organization needs people who understand HR.

An organization needs people who understand sales.

An organization needs people who understand people.

Each of these groups of people can be thought of as dots.

At the very top, an organization needs someone who can connect the dots.

If marketing and sales aren’t working together, the organization will fail.

If IT and HR aren’t working together, the organization will fail.

If any of the groups aren’t working with any of the other groups, the organization will fail (or at the very least, struggle unnecessarily)

The person at the top doesn’t have to know a LOT about finance or IT or HR or sales etc. The person at the top must know how to connect all of these groups to make them work together, as opposed to as individual units.

Those organizations who are able to keep their dots connected, will continue to succeed, those who can’t will flounder and eventually wilt away.

Have a great day!

Lawrence
PS To receive these posts as emails please go to http://www.lawrencefine.com/blog/subscribe/

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As you can probably tell by many of my posts, I’m a big proponent of taking chances, making changes and being proactive. For many people, it’s hard to take a chance, it’s hard to make a change, it’s hard to be proactive.

The question is, what is stopping you from doing these things?

It’s easy to explain why you don’t take risks. As an example, if you are deciding whether to do a new marketing campaign, a big reason not to do so would be “it might fail”. Another reason not to do so would be “it costs a lot”.

The reality is, the thing that prevents one from doing something usually isn’t the risk of failure. People overcome failure all the time (and in many peoples views, failure isn’t a negative anyway). More often then not, the risk of failure isn’t the reason people don’t do something, it’s the risk that people will see them as a failure.

The loss of the money isn’t usually the big issue for not doing the marketing campaign, it’s the risk that others will think they squandered the money.

If your reason for not doing something is legitimate (using the above example it might be that the possible reward for the new marketing campaign wont justify the huge risks when compared to another campaign) that is fine. However, if the reason for not doing something is primarily because you are concerned with the perception of failure then you need to redirect your thinking.

People don’t care how many versions of the iPhone it took before Apple succeeded with the current version. People don’t care how many versions of a boat were created before the latest and greatest super yacht was built.

The people who have created some of the greatest creations knew the risks involved, knew that others might see them as failures if it didn’t work but were willing to keep trying.

The difference between them and many of us is while they knew what they were working on might not work (especially at first), they were willing to look past the initial failures and kept their eye on their goals.

When trying to decide whether to do something and you find yourself afraid, ask yourself, “why am I afraid?” If it’s for a valid reason then don’t do it. However, if the primary reason for the fear is the perception others might have, ask yourself, if this is something you really want to hold yourself back from achieving great things?

Those who are afraid of looking bad in front of others usually don’t have to worry because chances are, no one really cares what they are doing. If you are afraid to fail, don’t worry about the risks of success….you wont have any.

When making decisions, keep asking yourself “why am I afraid?” It will help you make much better decisions

Have a great day!

Lawrence
PS Please take a moment to check out the book “11+10=1: How the Addition of 10 Principles in Life Turned 11 Players Into 1 Team” at http://lawrencefine.com/sales.php

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When looking at investments, it’s important to know what your goals are for the investment.

For most people, when they invest in something (whether it’s stock, a company, real estate etc) they either are looking for cash flow or increased equity. As an example, if they are looking to purchase stock, if they are interested in cash flow, their big emphasis will be on the dividends being paid out (this is assuming it’s not a quick buy/sell). If they are looking for increased equity they are not as interested in the dividends as they are in the value of the stock increasing over the long run.

In buying a business, if cash flow is the emphasis, they will be interested in taking the profits out of the business while if increased equity is the emphasis, they will more likely reinvest the profits back into the business to increase the value long term.

If buying real estate as an investment, if they are interested in cash flow, the primary interest will be that the incoming rent is greater than the outgoing expenses (mortgage, taxes, insurance, management fees). If increased equity is the greater concern, the intention/hope is that the house will appreciate over time and the incoming payments will simply cover costs in the short term.

There isn’t a “right” or “wrong” as far as cash flow vs increased equity but if you don’t go into an investment knowing what your plans are, that is where the real problems come into play.

Even if you do know your plans, it’s important to make sure they are realistic and instead of looking at the hoped for numbers, take a look at the worst case scenario numbers.

If looking to purchase real estate and you figure the incoming rent will cover the costs while the equity increases, are you also planning for the times when you have vacancies? Are you in a position to cover the costs without the rents coming in? How will you get affected by a real estate bust (as we have been experiencing)?

Too often we look at the “pie in the sky” numbers in investments and not the realistic numbers or the worse case scenario numbers. The result…..look at the economy today!

A smart investor will have some investments emphasizing cash flow (to keep things going) with others for equity (looking more long term). A dumb investor….doesn’t give either a thought!

Have a great day!

Lawrence
PS See what others are saying about the book “11+10=1” such as Thomas Crone “Sometimes, a book comes along at “just that right time”… To read more please go to http://lawrencefine.com/sales.php

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Many industries have changed in recent years. As an example, years ago, if you wanted to take a trip, you might go to a travel agent, have them find the best airfares, hotels and tourist destinations and book everything through them. Now, you can simply go online to a site such as expedia.com, priceline.com, hotwire.com (my favorite) and book everything yourself.

If you wanted to buy a book, you had to take a trip to the local book store, search for the book in the stacks and make the purchase in person. Now, you can go online to a site such as amazon.com and order online (and even with shipping, it’s frequently cheaper).

When it was time to do your taxes, you met with your accountant or, you went to a tax preparer. Now, you can use any number of software programs to do it yourself.

Does this mean that travel agents, book stores and accountants are going out of business? Not at all, those that are smart are adapting with their industry and modifying their businesses to adjust to the changes.

The two problems organizations have is when they don’t recognize that their industry has changed and even when they do recognize the change, when they don’t adapt accordingly.

Has your industry changed? (if your answer is “no” most likely you are WRONG). Have you changed accordingly? (if the answer is “no” there is a good chance you will be looking for a new industry shortly).

Have a great day!

Lawrence

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