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I Know You Can Do It
By Kristina Knittel
Sortor Bushido Kai Karate

     Everyone in the audience is silent.  Each of them looks on with eager anticipation as 13 karate students test for their next belt rank.  The smell of sweaty sparring gear and broken wooden boards fills the air after almost two hours of testing.  Sensei Brian evaluates each student, both as a part of the group, and individually.  Right now, Cameron has his turn front and center.
     “Cameron,” Sensei Brian asks sternly.  “Is that the correct position for your fingers?”
     ”No Sensei!” Cameron quickly tightens his hand and moves his fingers up about a centimeter, forming a sharp knifehand block position.
     ”And is that the very best back stance you can do?  Remember, this is YOUR test.”
     ”No Sensei!”  Cameron readjusts his toes and bends his left knee just slightly, forming a nearly perfect Shotokan karate back stance.
     There is a pause.  Cameron sits motionless, holding his stance and knifehand strike.  Finally Sensei says, “I see you know how to do this correctly, so I’m going to expect that from you from now on, every time.  Can you do it?”
     ”Yes Sensei!” shouts Cameron.
     Sensei Brian smiles.  “I know you can.”
     Grinning, Cameron bows, and trots off to the side for a drink of Gatorade. 
     Cameron is just 5 years old.  He’s never been to kindergarten, he takes afternoon naps and he still rides in a car seat.  But throw a punch to his face and WATCH OUT!  This kid knows his stuff.
     So is Cameron a genius or a prodigy child?  Certainly he has fantastic technique.  But this same story could have been told 50 times over, switching out the name “Cameron” with the name of any other student at the karate school, whether they were aged 5 or 65.
     Cameron is just a great example.  He is an example of the power of a person’s expectations for himself to help him achieve, regardless of his age.  Cameron is blessed to have loving parents, an older brother and a Sensei who all expect great things from him – because they know he can do it!  Their belief in him and support of his efforts translates to self-confidence, and a willingness to try again when he makes a mistake.
     Too often in today’s society, parents and teachers are so afraid of “pushing” a child too hard, putting too much pressure on him, or stressing him out.  We as adults sometimes sabotage the children we love by not making our expectations clear.  If we do not express our expectations clearly and lovingly, then to a child, it results in confusion and a lack of direction.  Children do not emerge from the womb understanding that they should brush their teeth, eat their veggies or go to school.  Why do we think they naturally understand how to succeed at life in this complex and sometimes frightening world?
     At the dojo, Sensei believes that his primary role is simply to show students the path to walk; it is up to them to take the steps.  How does a child know which way to go if no one shows him that path?  And more importantly, how does he know that he is supposed to actually WALK down any path at all, if no one expresses to him that he must put forth the effort to take those steps?
     I encourage everyone today to love a child you know by realizing how much they are truly capable of, and removing the boundaries of low expectations for them.  This is a lesson that all of us who work with children could afford to learn anew every day.

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Does Your Marketing Strategy Need an Extreme Makeover? Ten Traps to Avoid
by Lisa Nirell 
EnergizeGrowth

     Want to determine whether your marketing strategy deserves an “extreme makeover or not? Here are the top ten clues.
     1.  You are frustrated by customers demanding lower prices, and they no longer seem willing to pay extra for your “value added service.”
     What makes your product or service unique? Do customers regularly tell you that they are willing to pay extra for this? If price or the ever-vague “good customer service” are the only differentiators, it is likely your product has become a commodity.
     2.  Customers are choosing an alternative solution to satisfy the same need. 
     If you are losing some of your best customers, quickly determine why the shift is happening. Hiring an independent researcher to interview or survey lost customers is one way to do this. Is the alternative solution easier to use, less time-consuming, or cheaper? Does it appeal to their sense of greed, past relationships, safety, or ethics?
     3. Your margins keep shrinking due to rising costs of doing business.
     If the key cost drivers in your business model have risen out of proportion to your price increases, it’s probably time to revisit your core offerings.  When was the last time you raised your fees?  If it has been longer than one year, your fees are not keeping pace with inflation.  Announce an increase before 2008—and be happy when the bottom 10% of your clients leave.  They are doing you a favor.
     4.  New, innovative companies are entering your market.
     Case in point:  the automobile manufacturers once boasted industry dominance in the United States.  Over the last decade, the “big 3” have become “the handicapped 3.”  Toyota and Honda now lead the charge in innovative hybrid fuel cars.  The Big 3 could have adapted, but were wiped out by their lack of innovation and nimbleness.
     5.  You are resisting a new industry shift or technology, even when customers are asking for it.
     How much do you find yourself digging in your heels with your customers—even when your market is asking you to change?  In 2005, I experienced the perfect illustration of a company’s unwillingness to accept an industry shift while visiting a Mercedes dealer. At the time, I was in the market for a new SUV vehicle. I asked the manager, "What is Mercedes-Benz's strategy for building alternative fuel vehicles?" It was as if I spoke the unspeakable. The manager firmly replied that they were focusing on fossil fuel technology for many years to come.
     Is your company wearing the same blinders? If you can spot the shift early enough, you should be able to make less painful course corrections.
     6.  Your key people are married to “the way we have always been doing it.”  You cannot seem to coach them to think otherwise.  Persistent, limiting beliefs are an indicator that a sale or merger is a better option than transitioning to a new model.
     If you have multiple locations, and you are unable to detect this behavior first hand, these are signs that your current team is not in a position to strategically transform the business:

• Customers are demanding that two competitors work together and merge talents, and these companies are unwilling to.
• The leaders are tolerating major dysfunctional and destructive behavior.
• The founder or owner needs to create, but has not yet begun, a succession strategy, due to such things as a serious health/personal issue or retirement.
• The company is unable to meet its goals after several consecutive years.

     7.  You believe that strategic thinking and marketing planning is reserved for large, well-established companies.  How many times do you tell yourself “planning and marketing are important, but I am just too busy to do it?”  If this happens daily, that’s a clue that your company’s growth potential is limited.  You have limiting beliefs—and you’re unconsciously passing those on to your team.
     8.  You are struggling to shift from “practitioner” mode to “leader/visionary” mode. The habits and skills that help leaders attain their first few millions inhibit their ability to generate the next ten million.   Many skilled experts excel at their trade, and later decide to start their own business in that field.  After their first few millions, they are still working in the business.  This severely limits their ability to look ahead and refine their growth strategy.
     9.  You are constantly saying “yes” to interesting distractions (aka new ideas and projects). When the leaders keep announcing new projects and strategies, teams lack direction. They struggle to answer “What is our core business? Who is our ideal client?  Where do we invest? How does our job tie to our company’s success?”
     Try this simple test:  Walk around your company offices.  Randomly ask each employee, “In 30 seconds or less, what does our company do?”  What percentage will provide a consistent, compelling answer?  Last year, I asked over 700 CEOs that question.  The overly optimistic ones said 30%.  The realists said less than 5%.  Which percentage is really true for you?
     10.  You continue to sell old, unprofitable products—and invest valuable resources to support them. Many founders are emotionally attached to their past success and history. That’s human nature.  We love our babies and don’t want them to leave for college.  These blinders prevent us from gathering regular feedback on our current market opportunities, re-assigning our top performers to hot new projects, releasing poorly selling/low margin products, or staking a claim in new, highly lucrative markets.
     If you face any of these Top Ten Traits, it’s time for a makeover.  What beautification steps will you take immediately to take charge of your market?
     Join Lisa for the Bend Chamber's October 16 Professional Development Series ~ 7 Steps to Energize Your Marketing.  Contact lindi@bendchamber.org to register.  

Copyright 2006, Lisa Nirell.  All rights reserved.

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INBOX OVERLOAD: Are you edging toward email “bankruptcy” ?
By Tracy Campbell
Design Solutions 

     Statistics indicate individual business executives will process 20,000 emails and store 5,000 documents in the next 12 months and that 60% of business critical information resides on email systems.
     The stress and frustration resulting from the volume of email has prompted the development of a new business practice; email bankruptcy - n. choosing to delete, archive, or ignore a very large number of email messages without ever reading them, replying to each with a unique response, or otherwise acting individually on them.
     All of us can benefit from developing practices which support a rapid response to information we need from email and avoid email overload that leads to potential “bankruptcy”.  One such practice is to discipline yourself to process email in a consistent, systematic manner.  We don’t open our post office box, remove what we want to read and leave the remainder to accumulate; why do we go to our inbox and selectively process its contents?
     The inbox should be a place where unread email resides until you read it, delete it, act on it, or file it away.  Choose to make a decision to File, Act or Toss, (F.A.T.™)
     FILE:  Save email messages directly into a documents folder as a text file (txt) or in an outlook message format which saves the file in the original email format.
     Press F12 to open the “save as” window and select the folder where you wish to store the document. In the “file name” box consider changing the file name to a more descriptive label and add the sender’s name before saving.   In the “save as type” window choose either text or Outlook Message Format. 
     When saving in the Outlook Message format, attachments and hyperlinks are saved in the document; you will need to save attachments separately if you opt to save email in the .txt format.
     ACT:  If it takes 2 minutes or less to process a task related to an email; do it!   If the email has an action attached such as a meeting or task, drag the email from your inbox to your Outlook Calendar or Task folder.  A new appointment window or new task window automatically opens which includes the details outlined in the email. 
     TOSS:  After incoming email has been downloaded scan your email and ruthlessly delete all unnecessary email; anything that has limited future value or that you can access via an internet search.
     One preemptive strategy for processing email is to create rules or filters which scan an incoming email and divert it from your inbox, redirecting it to a pre-assigned folder. This jumpstarts the initial sorting of incoming email and facilitates processing emails in batches rather than one at a time.    Why not create a filter for company newsletters and route them to a newsletters or to read folder which you review at a designated time during the week?  Use the same approach for online invoices and confirmations. 
     Applying best practices to email is key to effective delegation, task management and follow-up. Take a few pro-active steps to developing email efficiencies today and avoid a future of email overload, frustration and potential “bankruptcy”.  
    Tracy is an authority in helping entrepreneurs, business owners and business professionals create a productive environment so they can accomplish their work and simplify their lives. You can contact Tracy at www.we-designsolutions.com or by calling 541.788.7001. 

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