Trizle

Consider Bob. Conventional wisdom says Bob learns best when he's in the classroom, reading a really, really, really good book. We say: blah! What Bob reads in books or learns in classrooms rarely reflects what he'll experience in the real world. To rock the real world, immerse Bob in it. Then, use books and classrooms as the turbo kits to accelerate his learning. Three sweet tips to teach Bob:

1. Stop throwing books at Bob

   No, we're not saying you shouldn't give Bob books. Books are good. We love books. Given at the right time, books become priceless. Here's what we're saying: if the book doesn't apply to what Bob's doing in two hours, don't hand him a book. It's fruitless if it doesn't apply to his daily activities. He won't retain any useful information, and/or trash the book. We're big fans of books, but they're needed most at the right time; that is, after you..

2. Throw Bob into the flamin' fire.

   "Bob, you have minimal programming experience in this, but I need you to build a classified listings web application. Here's $5,000. I expect it done in two months." It's the whole "learning by doing" concept. Beautiful. Fan-tab-ulous. We love it. When you throw Bob into the fire, you drive him to produce results. That gets him learning quickly. He'll use any means necessary -- including reading various books if needed -- to accomplish his assignment. And if he doesn't accomplish his mission? He'll learn more than any freakishly sweet book could teach him. Throw Bob into the fire. Then, watch him learn his butt off.

3. Challenge Bob, like the bad-ass that he is.

   What most companies do: "Hey, let's get that boy a training manual. He can't learn to be the best worker without one." What the best companies do: Beyond the flamin' fire: "Hey, let's throw Bob an astronomical challenge." People learn best when you challenge them to accomplish bold, incredible, exciting goals. It's like telling Grandmother Abagail she'll win $1,000,000,000 if she makes 20 consecutive basketball free throws, in two weeks. Imagine what she'll do the next two weeks. It's an extreme analogy, but it works: when you challenge your employees to empower their skills, you drive them to become superstars. Bob yearns for a big challenge. He doesn't know it. You do.

The sweet, rockin' template to teach Bob:

"I will freakishly challenge Bob."

 

Ever work under a maniacal boss who kicks you to the curb when something goes wrong? In our opinion, most bosses have little grasp on how to properly manage people, let alone run a business or an organization.

Most workers hate their bosses, for good reason:

• "I'm right. You are wrong. Obey me," they preach and pout.
• "I'm higher on the organizational chart. That means I'm better than you. Obey me." the arrogance goes.
• "Wrong. Horrible. Do it again," says the power-hungry, hierarchical bastards sitting on their ivory towers thinking they're kings of the jungle.

Three simple, sweet messages for you maniacal bosses:

1. When something fails, take responsibility.

   Your employee misses a deadline. You blame him for negligence. All his fault, you say. Whose fault is it, really? Yours. You didn't communicate clearly enough. You didn't give good enough directions. You placed him with the wrong people. The list goes on. It's within your control to determine your outcomes. Always. So, start taking responsibility. Get in that mindset: "Whenever something fails, it's my fault." If an employee truly does suck: "It's my fault for making a bad hiring decision."
Soon, you'll start making ridiculously wise decisions.

2. Understand employee motivations. Listen. They'll shine for you.

   When Tiffany first signs up as your employee, she has a number of ideas to help you change the world. She's initially ecstatic to join your environmental non-profit organization. Yet, you don't understand her motivations. You don't grasp her capabilities. Sure, you ask her -- but, you don't listen. Instead, you start giving her menial tasks. Go fetch some water for me, you say. Go fix the printer, you demand. Soon, you start getting a walking-working-robotic drone, whose energy and motivation you've dramatically drained. And, all she wanted to do was help you change the world. She could've done so. All you had to do? Listen.

3. Reverse the organizational chart. You're on the bottom. You'll freakishly change your mindset.

   And we emphasize: freakishly. When you think you're on the bottom of the organizational chart, a weird, fuzzy feeling happens:

   "If I don't serve my employees, they'll fire me."

   It's an amazing mechanism that drives you to deliver results. It drives you to get off your high-horse, and start delivering what you were meant to do: serve your freakin' employees like the kick-ass boss that you are!

The sweet rockin' template:

"I will not suck as a boss by being what most bosses are: an egotistical meanie."

We love business optimism, but what about the other sucker: pessimism? Yes, you need to be optimistic -- but you also need to balance that with some pessimism.

Pessimism gives you realism.

Not confronting the realities of the situation is like driving a car with a punctured tire: Yeah, you'll survive short-term, but long-term doesn't look too good for you. It'll kill you if you don't confront the facts. Without pessimism+realism, it's like travelling Antarctica without a rockin' GPS system. Or, it's like dating Paris Hilton without knowing her past. (Zing!) With those crafty analogies said (which took us all night), we present Tip ^1 -- of a fantabulous series (so come back y'all!) -- on how to completely fail at your business:

Tip ^1: Confusing a Business from a Product. "Wha?!"

MySpace can fail; NewsCorp can't. Venti Caramel Frappuccino can fail; Starbucks can't. Most startups go into business thinking they're defined by one single product. And usually, that turns out disastrous. The reason? Most products fail. And all, eventually will. And when products fail, one-trick-pony startups will shut down their businesses. Their traction. Their momentum in making connections, in building a customer base, in understanding their values and strengths. And, most important: the momentum in constructing a solid foundation to build a kick-ass business for the future that serves customers worldwide.

What to tattoo to your head

"A single product does not define my business. A single product will not define my business." It's akin to saying "One failure does not define who I am." Your "great" product -- no matter how innovative -- has a high chance of failure. If you're not bracing for it, your business probably won't survive.

"But bastards, we have the best idea out there."

Our response: Segway, sucka. Millions put in. Considered the "It." Roads were to be built around the "It." We'd have to build traffic lanes for the Segway. Great idea on paper, it seemed. Had the backing of the world's greatest visionaries in Steve Jobs and Jeff Bezos. Result?

Suuuuuuuuuuuu-ccccccccccccky.

No matter how "great" the idea you think yours is, it can very likely fail. And, eventually will. "But what if my idea's prospering now?"

History Lesson: No single great idea has built an enduring business.

Let's go back to the disco era for a sec. It's important.

1. 1970s: Bob, I just want to tell you about the eight-track player. Simply amazing. Greatest invention, ever.
2. 1980s: Bob, I came across an amazing product. You can hold an eight-track player in your pocket. It's called the "Walkman". Most amazing invention, ever.
3. 1990s: Bob, wow. Imagine this gem of an invention: a device that won't distort the sound. It's called a "CD player."
4. 2004s: Bob, may day. May day. The mp3 player is destroying the CD player.
5. 2006s: The iPod freakin' rocks! Everyone's using it now.
6. 2008s: ______fill-in your greatest invention.______
7. 2010s: ______uh-oh.______

Countless other examples exist.

A business that defines itself by one product will fail.

If all products eventually fail, and a single product defines your business -- guess what? When that "great" thing becomes obsolete by some other "greatest-thing-these-eyes-have-ever-seen" product, your business will die.

Instead, know what defines your business.

When you change your perspective into understanding the "business" concept, you get all tingly inside:

"No matter how many products I introduce, no matter how many 'great ideas' I have that will fail, my business will not fail. Instead, it will keep on ticking, fighting, and introducing more products. One of these days, one of my products will move mountains."

Start covering your business with a sweet safety net -- such that one product failure won't kill it. Your business needs to serve as a platform to build your products.

Enduring Businesses = More than 1-Trick Ponies

You know why Apple, Starbucks, and Disney has kept on rockin' the world for decades? If any of Apple's products (e.g. MacBook Pro, iMac, iPod, iPhoto, iTunes, eMac) fail -- Apple will keep on ticking and constructing other kick-ass products. If Caffe Americano, White Chocolate Mocha, Caffe Mocha, or Caramel Macchiato fails -- Starbucks will keep on fighting with more products to serve the world. If Pixar, ESPN, Touchstone, Disneyland, Lifetime, or any other products in its portfolio falls to shambles -- Disney will keep on ticking with others. These guys don't define their businesses by one single product. Nor should you. The sweet lookin' template:

"A single product will not define my business."

"Scour the competition," typical marketing books tell us.

"Find out what they know, their weaknesses, their strengths, their goals, their customers, their unique selling proposition, yadda, yadda, yadda." What do we think of the philosophy?

Ba-freakin-lon-ey!

Two lethal words: Michael Jordan.

Sure Dr. J and others may have inspired Jordan during his early years; but who was Jordan's biggest competition? Himself.

Companies that build incredible profits rarely use the competition as a tool to generate more profits.

Instead, they focus on beating the ^@!% out of themselves. "But why should I focus on beating myself?" you may be asking.

Four sweet tips for ya:

1. You strengthen your strengths.

   You do what you know. You do what you enjoy. And, you improve the freak-out-of-whatever you love doing. Your business cycles don't depend on what outsiders are doing. Most of the time, they drive you to do things beyond your specialties -- reducing your profits like MC Hammer in the 90s. Just look at the computer industry's "What-do-we-do-now?" mentality three years ago: As computers began to commoditize, Gateway, Dell, Alienware -- to name a few -- started selling what its computer competitors (for some weird reason) were doing: Selling TVs.

   TVs! Television. The tube. Blahhhhh!

   
   That race didn't go too well. The competition forces you to do things beyond your strengths and capabilities. Instead, start beating yourself. You'll soon augment your strengths that provide greater value to your customers.

2. You dramatically improve your business operations.

   When you focus on beating yourself, you improve what most companies overlook: customer response times, employee morale, scratch-to-launch time, daily productivity, the "little" things, etc. If neighborhood Johnny K's Store just opened across the street with spankin' Neon lights -- that won't distract you from strengthening your company's foundation. It's those "basics" that mean much more to your bottom line than any one sweet competitor's innovation ever, ever will.

3. You start adding value to customers' lives.

   It's the whole Cold War mentality that we're so used to out of typical companies: "Let's add on the features recklessly, and we'll win" -- with total disregard for the customers' needs. If you're seeking to beat the competition, that flawed perspective drives you to "one-up" the customer.
   1. Vacuum-4-You: "They have two brushes to their vacuums? Let's add five!"
   2. Cleaners-R-Us: "They have five? Let's add eight?"
   3. Vacuum-4-You: "They have eight? Let's add twenty!"
   
   The thinking goes: If you beat your competition with better features, pricing, customer service, et. al -- then customers will come flocking to you instead of the competition. What does a smart firm do? Something like this:
   • The Smarty Firm: "They have twenty? Let's not compete with those guys. Let's just stick with one brush, cheapen the price since we only have one brush, and serve it to the amazingly humongous market that only needs one brush."
   
   (And as an aside: that's also known as disruptive innovation.)

4. You don't rest on your asses.

   Guru Jim Collins showed in his six-year study that companies become visionary (a rich man's term of "enduring") by constantly improving. Beating yourself forces you to get up out of your rocker, tell yourself "I still suck today" -- and forces you to improve, improve, freakin' improve. Once-successful companies that have died thought they'd "arrived" -- until a seemingly-out-of-sight underdog company sent them into early retirement.

No, we're not saying you should completely ignore competitors (You could as well pick up tips from them to serve your customers better). Instead, switch your perspective on who's really your biggest competition. Our sweet tip for ya:

It's not a "How can we beat them to win market share?" question. It's a "How can we ^^@^!& beat ourselves to provide more customer value?" question.

*Drumroll*

Get working.

Simple. Sweet. Poetic. Yet, why aren't the seemingly 90% of so-called "entrepreneurs-with-many-ideas" doing anything? Here's why sitting on your butt trying to come up with the next "perfect idea" won't get you anywhere:

1. You waste productivity time.

   If you're waiting for your "perfect idea," we wish you luck. Doing that forces you to be a perfectionist -- that is, you'll wait for the "perfect time" to start "perfecting" that idea. That stalls you from doing anything for the rest of your life, until you're on your deathbed croaking: "What if I weren't a ^^%&@^ talker?"

2. You provide no value to the profitable world who wants to pay you -- now.

   One-hundred-freakin-percent of companies out there can improve their services. Their efficiency. Their solutions. Their marketing. Their operations. Etc. Etc. Etc. Instead of finding new and innovative ideas, why don't we entrepreneurs start improving the shizzle out of something that sucks. A ridiculous amount of customers and businesses could use your help. When you're sitting on your butt, who's going to help them? Probably next-door office neighbor Billy who's providing value to customers now, and also discovering something else that you probably won't -- which brings us to the next point...

3. You'll find no marketable kick-ass-just-in-time ideas.

   Great, profitable ideas don't come from the desk; they come from walking the streets, talking to folks, finding how you can provide value to VP Smithers. When you're living in the real world, you're doing market research, marketing, bootstrapping, and selling all at the same time. You know what the market wants -- not what you think it wants.

Some of the most profitable ideas didn't result from sitting around; they resulted from people doing something: real-world experimenting, talking to people, exploiting opportunities. A candy bar invented the microwave oven. The crappiest adhesive tape invented the Post-it Note. Burdock seeds paved the way for Velcro. Those ideas didn't need its inventors to sit around, chillin' like a villain, sketching the "perfect" widget. Instead, their inventors decided to do something. Anything. The template for the talkers:

Shut up, and do something.

"Hey dawg: If we build the best computers at the cheapest prices, we win."

"Then, we'll beat Dell and be super-duper-wealthy."

Or so we thought when we first started Trizzy. Back in the day, we thought of this sweet idea: we'll order computer parts from NewEgg, assemble those suckers, and sell them on the cheap. The problem? We'd profit a rockin' $20 per computer sold. Sad. As were our mamas about our hopes.

Competing against Dell on prices? Fuhgettaboutit.

If you're a start-up looking to build your next Fortune 500 empire, don't compete on prices. You can if you land on the Fortune 500 list -- or king of your industry; otherwise, you're wasting your time trying to compete on something that will bankrupt your business. Here's why you can't compete on price:

1. Bigger competitors will kill you.

   Peep this scenario: The neighborhood mom-and-pop shop pays a decent $2 per brush with its supplier. Goliath Walmart comes to town. It's the typical multi-billion dollar company that can account for a humongous chunk of the supplier's bottom line, indirectly pay for its health-care, send top performers to Hawaii, and provide the supplier with 85174310531342 jobs. All they're asking: $1.50 per toothbrush. If you're the supplier, you'd be pretty clumsy if you didn't take the offer. And folks, that's why smaller guys must compete beyond price wars.

2. You're targeting price-conscious consumers.

   What do you get when you target these customers? People who switch on a dime when they see a lower-cost competitor. People who don't value your service. People who squeeze every cent out of your profits. These are your worst customers. Their loyalty to your business sucks. Just ask Gateway. Or, 1990s K-mart. If Sofa-4-Cheap contacts your customer tomorrow, you've lost that customer's business -- and worse: that customer's personal network of potential customers.

3. You lessen your product's value.

   A car that goes by the name "Veyron" sells for a good $1,300,000. Say you've won a prize between choosing that expensive mother-sucker, or an $18,000 Toyota Camry -- which:
   1. is more reliable
   2. cheaper to repair
   3. has higher gas mileage
   4. more affordable insurance
   5. probably won't be stolen
   
   One condition on the prize: you can't sell the car you choose. Unless you're a car enthusiast, you know nothing about the Veyron. For all you know, it could very well be an expensive Pinto.

   Knowing that much, which would you choose?

   The rational decision is to choose the Camry since it functions better. But, humans don't act on rationality. We act on emotions. Unless you're drugged on something, most of us would take the $1.3 million car. We know nothing about it. Just its price. And, that gave us a sweet clue to how much that car rocks the bejeebus out of our grandmothers' Dodge Neons. When something's priced higher, customers place a higher value on the sucker.

You're a peanut to the Goliaths. You provide a personal service. Good customers will pay a premium for it. So, charge that premium. One caveat: Be genuine about your prices. Take it from our man, Warren Buffett:

It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it.

A rockin' template for ya:

"We will not compete on prices."

How bad are typical interviews? Three examples for ya:

1. Interviewer Bella: So why do you want this job? Interviewee Freddy: I want to discover myself.


2. Interviewer Bella: So why do you want this job? Interviewee Sally: I want to discover myself.


3. Interviewer Bella: So why do you want this job? Interviewee Patrick: I want to discover myself.

Blah.

Most interview questions suck.

Most interview questions reveal nothing about the the person's work habits, values, and capabilities. What should you do instead? Ask them questions that they couldn't possibly have prepared for -- questions that demonstrate what the person would do in Situation A, Situation B, Situation, C, etc. Here's how that will help you:

1. Eliminate BS answers.

   "What's a flaw that you have?" Too bad most colleges have made such conventional questions ineffective. That is, they've prepared their students to twist typical questions into something positive. Example of how someone would describe their imperfections?

   I'm too much of a perfectionist. I always strive for the best in everything -- and sometimes -- my all-nighters can take a toll on me. (...And more baloney.)

2. Know how they'll deal in certain situations.

   If Patrick says he wouldn't call Customer Timmy back because it's not his job -- and you value team-wide responsibility -- you know that raises a flag.

How do you find superstars?

To find the best people, you must know how they work. Asking questions that demonstrate their behaviors in certain situations shows a person's fit with your company. Too bad, typical interview questions can't provide that value. Says Executive Intelligence Group's Justin Menkes:

The best way is to use questions that require candidates to demonstrate their skills in an interview format. For such a measure to assess intelligence, it must raise questions and situations that the candidate has never confronted. The more novel the situation, the less rote knowledge can be applied and the more cognitive ability is required to render an answer.

A sweet-lookin' interview question template for you:

The floor is slippery wet. Janitor Craig is in the conference room. What do you?

What's wrong with the picture: When most businesses start out, they're targeting the masses. In our industry, this happens to almost every so-called Web 2.0 company trying to profile their widgets on Techcrunch. The theme goes: "Oh-let's-get-on-Techcrunch. Yay we got a 5000% traffic increase." Five days later: "Splat. We suck. Why didn't they all stick around?"

Say NO! (to Selling Out to the Masses)

It's the Techcrunch-effect: you get an enormous amount of traffic to your site when you're profiled, but once those Techcrunch users leave your site for something new, what then? You'll have no loyal customers to sustain that traffic. Typical example: Sing it with us now: "We will neeeever sell out to the maaaasses!" Here's what we recommend:

1. Forget being famous overnight.

   Forget Techcrunch. Forget landing on the New York Times. Forget a CNBC exclusive. Instead, use your relative anonymity to gradually craft a kick-ass business. The masses aren't looking, so start cramming in experiments. If you fail, Jimbo-the-critic won't rag on your company to a million of his subscribers. Building an enduring business takes time, experimentation, and failing forward quickly. Look at MySpace's gradual ascent: The masses can't build your business overnight. What must you do then?

2. Build a bad-ass loyal customer base.

   The loyal influential few. Nike targets elite athletes. Beanie babies targeted affluent suburban schoolchildren. Dell targeted powerful businesses. Apple targeted right-brain innovators. MySpace targeted underground rock bands. The super-loyal-as-can-be customers went out and marketed the businesses to the super-masses. When you have that going for you, you know you did something right -- and a side major benefit: you know you're ready for growing your customer base.

Here's our sweet lesson in history for you to take home, and school your competitors:

1. The big fellas started small.

   Walmart took almost a decade before anybody on the other side of the state realized it existed. Nobody cared about Starbucks when it opened. HP started with no invention. Instead, these business built gradual wins with a small influential customer base -- that later exploded to the masses.

2. People follow the herd.

   We don't buy what's better. We buy what others buy. It's our psychological way of taking a shortcut, according to psychology guru Robert Cialdini. Why is this? Normally, we don't have all the facts of a product. For example, we usually don't know the ingenuity behind each product; the benefits of the technology used; or the features that might rock our world. When we lack sufficient information, we take the usual shortcut: buy what others are buying. Case in point: Creative Technology built an MP3 player with more features, and offered it at a lesser price than the iPod. Why then does the iPod still rock the competition? It's because you, me, our mamas, our daddies' mamas, your neighbor's kid, his teacher and her husband all have iPods. If "everyone" has it -- to us humans, that must mean it's good.

3. The influential few determine your business's success.

   Imagine Apple building a stream of boring computers that targeted the mass-market. What will happen? Their core customers will revolt. They'll influence their personal networks to start a crusade against the Cupertino company for selling out. Instead, Apple does what it's been always doing: influencing a core group of innovators -- who then start a crusade to attract more.

The moral: Forget the 99%. Focus on the 1%. They'll have a better time attracting the masses than you ever will. A sweet-lookin-ill-chillin' template for ya:

I will cater my entire business to this targeted influential market: __________________. Let's get rolling.

Imagine the multi-billion dollar behometh known as Google going after your customers. Think you can compete? Most would say no. Our answer: just take a look at Technorati:

Kicking a behemoth's butt doesn't take a million.

Technorati started in 2002: It took two weeks from paper-to-launch -- relatively mega-cheap labor. Three years later, the multi-billion dollar corporation goes after its customers. Yet, it doesn't cause a dent in Technorati's explosive growth. Technorati built a loyal following among key bloggers, and created a vibrant community among the blogging generation. That creativity sustained the company against deeper threats. (And no it wasn't first-mover's advantage. Technorati came on the scene after other startups had started something similar.)

"Just admit it: You suck."

If people are crying over guys with deeper pockets knocking on their doors (e.g. just google the "Wal-mart sucks" topics), it's not that they're losing because they have less money. They're losing because they suck. That is, they can't find innovative solutions to overcome their lack of funds. They lack ingenuity. If the bootstrapping Japanese clobbered the rich Americans in the 80s with minimal funding, you -- as the cheesiest motivational tip goes -- can do it too. The one sweet tip:

Stretch that dollar like a mother-sucker that it is.

Companies that suck think like nerdy-timid-Bobby-boy-in-need-of-a-date before a prom, but thinks "he's not good enough." Companies that win think like confident-bad-looking-Charles: "Let's ask out the hottest girl in town." When you're small, have ambitions of a million-dollar company. When you're a million-dollar corporation, have ambitions of a billion-dollar corporation.

Companies that falter use their resources apathetically.

There's no spunk. No creativity. Just junk. Says LBS's Garry Hamel:

Western companies focus on trimming their ambitions to match resources and, as a result, search only for advantages they can sustain. By contrast, Japanese corporations leverage resources by accelerating the pace of organizational learning and try to attain seemingly impossible goals. These firms foster the desire to succeed among their employees and maintain it by spreading the vision of global leadership. This is how Canon sought to "beat Xerox" and Komatsu set out to "encircle Caterpillar."

Take a look at every freakin-idea-that's-existed-in the history of mankind and his mama: All ideas funded by major powerhouses have been disrupted by lower-cost competitors.

Starbucks had no bling.

When Starbucks started, it didn't need Super Bowl commercials. It didn't need loyalty programs. It didn't need to spend millions building its billion-dollar empire it is today. Instead, they took a different route: igniting employee loyalty through health benefits, a free fresh pound of coffee per week, sweet stock options for all, and majorly-ambitious-ethical-standards with its suppliers. "Using the best of our resources" sparked Starbucks.

It doesn't take a million to build something kick-ass.

It takes more than daddy's pocketbooks to build a great, sustainable business. It takes creativity. Ingenuity. A template for ya:

No excuses.

Hear about Yahoo's earnings report yesterday? It doesn't look pretty: Its stock fell 22%. That amounted to -- oh -- a $10,000,000,000 loss in value. Ouch. What does Yahoo do now? Three spankin' sweet things we'd do:

1. Accept reality. Don't fight Google.

   Google's kicking our butt in search engine market share. Them = 9% increase in the last year. Us = 2% decrease. We're fighting a game where we can't win -- at least, not any time soon. Google has the technology, the lead, the people power, and the raving influential lunatics that keeps people away from our search engine. We accept the reality. Says HBR's senior editor, Diane Coutu:

   The fact is, when we truly stare down reality, we prepare ourselves to act in ways that allow us to endure and survive extraordinary hardship. We train ourselves how to survive before the fact.

   We have an amazing strategy in creating user-empowered search. No one in the world can compete with us. Let's go that route.

2. Aim for short, sweet, and consistent results.

   We can't change the world overnight. Certainly, we can't beat Google overnight. Instead, what looks like big improvements in the business world are really a series of small improvements. Small improvements. Small improvements. Small improvements! Such as meeting weekly goals. Daily agendas. Partnering with somebody this week. Pitching a sweet idea to a customer. Etc. You climb Everest by taking small, sweet steps. It's never an overnight thing.

3. Make Freakishly Good Lemonade.

   [Scenario: You walk down 5th Avenue. Yankees pitcher Randy Johnson throws a 99mph lemon at you. It hits you. You get up. You pick up the lemon. You go home. You make lemonade.] IBM, Walmart, GE, and Apple went through bad times. They learned. They bounced back. No sustainable company fills their record portfolio with ^1 hits. Instead, companies become sustainable by using their failures as vital ingredients to success.

So what you'd do? Email us.