Be Different or be dead

April 13, 2020

How COVID-19 can actually help a small business do better

Source: Pexels

How COVID-19 can actually help a small business do better.

I know you’re struggling to keep the lights on, pay your employees and just keep your head above water in these insane times.

And I wish you all the very best of luck and that each and everyone of you come out at the end of this deadly tunnel safe and still able to provide the services that we all need in our communities.

So what can you do now that the pause button has been pushed? How can you make the very best of a bad situation and prepare yourself when times get better (and they will)?

Unlike most of a small business leader’s life, you just may have some time available to work ON your business instead of constantly working IN your business 24X7.

You rarely have had the opportunity to look forward to making sure you’re on a path that will increase the likelihood of success because day-in and day-out you’re focusing on what you need to do TODAY to make ends meet.

Here are 5 things you might want to do with your new found bandwidth.

1. Work on the game plan for your business

Whenever I’ve asked a small business owner to work on their business strategy, I get “I don’t have time for that stuff. I’m too busy.”
Well guess what? Now you have the time even though you might not think your business future is great.

Issues to consider in your strategic game plan review:

▪️Reset your growth goals. COVID has destroyed every small business revenue plan so it’s time to reset it. Develop a new 36-month revenue plan with a startup mentality. Think about your challenge as starting over again, because that’s what you’re doing.

▪️Question whether your customer base is still appropriate. After COVID, people will have changed — your previous customers included — and their buying habits have probably changed as well.
You may decide to try and attract different customers than the ones you had prior to the pandemic.

▪️Reassess your competitive approach. Post-COVID, if you choose different customers to attract, you will probably have new competitors to contend with so you’ll probably need a new strategy to beat them.

2. Learn more about new technologies

COVID rules to respect social distancing requires enabling technology, and there are many that have risen in popularity, some old and some new.

FaceTime, Skype have seen a resurgence in use and newer portals such as Houseparty and ZOOM have risen in popularity.
Take the COVID break to learn about communications technology and how it can be used to engage with your customers, suppliers and partners.
The application of technology has the potential to build your competitive strength so use this time to learn as much as you can about the options available.

3. Research new potential suppliers

Again, when you consider going after different customers, you might have to consider modifying your products and services which, in turn, might require new sourcing.
Or even if you decide to stay with your current portfolio of customers and service offerings, you should probably take the time to see if new suppliers might give you a better deal than your present ones.

Better margins should always be in your crosshairs so now you have a window to explore your options.
Take it.

4. Scout out some potential new employees

My view has always been that leaders need to be constantly on the lookout for new talent, and for small business it’s always a challenge to find the right people.

So take the “gift” COVID has given you and get out there and hunt. Hunt for great service people who will carry you reincarnated business to new levels and hunt for others who according to your revitalized game plan are critical to your success.
Get proactive and don’t wait for people to come to you. And poach them from other businesses if you have to.

5. Talk to your customers

Many news video clips these days show customers walking up to a small business establishment, trying to open the door and looking inside with yearning looks on their faces.
Why not take some of your time available and stand outside your closed door and (at the correct social distance away from them of course) talk to people who just might ask you something about your business?

It’s a hell of a way to not only establish a personal connection with people who are already leaning in to you, but it’s also an incredible opportunity to learn something from them that might be of value when you open back up.
Oh, and don’t forget they are very likely to tell their friends and family how AMAZED they were to see you there in these times.

Every business needs referrals; this is a natural and powerful way to get them.

COVID-forced downtime wasn’t in your plan and it’s creating havoc for you, your employees and your customers.

But there might be some benefits if you look for them.

Cheers,
Roy
Check out my BE DiFFERENT or be dead Book Series

• Posted 4.13.20 at 06:22 am by Roy Osing
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April 11, 2020

Amazing books every startup entrepreneur and founder should read now

Amazing books every startup entrepreneur and founder should read now.

When asked about the keys to success, Warren Buffett said that he reads 500 pages every day. He claims, “That’s how knowledge works. It builds up, like compound interest.”

Mark Cuban, another iconic entrepreneur says he reads about 3 hours a day. When asked about why he devotes so much time to books, he explained. “I feel like if I put in enough time consuming all the information available, particularly with the net making it so readily available, I can get an advantage in any technology business.”

Other famous startup founders like Bill Gates reads 50 books a year and Elon Musk claims to have taught himself to build rockets by reading.

You get the point. Some of the busiest and most successful people make the time to read. Not only is reading essential for gaining knowledge as an entrepreneur, but it’s an important part of growing your knowledge base, getting exposure to new ideas and changing your modes of thinking.

In a digital world, it’s the norm to default to podcasts, YouTube videos, a quick blog post or the occasional TedTalk to source knowledge. Not that there’s anything wrong with these mediums, but you don’t always get the juicy details that 300 pages will give you. If you’re an entrepreneur who aspires to turn your startup into a successful business, then you’ll want to start cracking open books — or doing so on a more regular basis.

So, where do you start? Not all books offer quality advice and it can be time consuming to sift through reviews to discern quality from fluff. Knowing this, the startup insurance company, Embroker, put together a guide of the best startup books to help point you in the right direction.

They broke these up into three categories for entrepreneurs who are looking to scale their business: growth hacking and scaling, books to read before pitching VCs, and entrepreneurship and startup stories.

● Growth hacking books— These are good reads for the entrepreneur who is specifically interested in what they can do to scale their business — e.g. mastering marketing, product development, sales, and other areas are crucial in growth hacking.

● Books to read before pitching VCs — This section is for founders who are ready to start raising venture capital (beyond what they’ve bootstrapped). If you’re in need of some advice on how to pitch venture capitalists, how to understand VC deal structures and strategies or how to choose the right investors and VC partners, these books are for you.

● Entrepreneurship and startup stories — There’s a lot of value in knowing the stories of other startups: what they’ve been through, what worked and what didn’t. If anything, reading these can be encouraging to let you know you’ve not in the trenches alone. This section speaks to books that cover the ups and downs of entrepreneurship and the startup experience.

More details like an overview of the books, key takeaways and who they’re written for can be found in this full startup book list.

— Keilah Keiser is a freelance writer and content curator with a focus on business development and startups. When she’s not behind a screen, you’ll find her hiking in sunny San Diego with her dog.

• Posted 4.11.20 at 07:12 am by Roy Osing
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April 6, 2020

Why do great leaders come out in a crisis like COVID?

Source: Pexels

Why do great leaders come out in a crisis like COVID?

The current COVID-19 pandemic has demonstrated that there are two categories of leaders in the organizational world: those who strut their their academic credentials to the world and who pride themselves on understanding business and leadership theory, and then there are those who have the credentials and theory as a base, but who focus on achieving results by harnessing the purpose and emotion in people.

The ones who think

Intellectual leaders believe that if their solution is based on sound business theory it will be successfully implemented in the field.
And the actions they take to arrive at a solution tend to be analytical in nature: defining potential alternatives, assessing each one of them within a predetermined criteria, and selecting the one that best satisfies the stated objectives and intended outcomes.

Intellectual leaders generally take considerable time in coming up with a solution; the process of pondering, exploration, analysis and decision-making can take copious amounts of time as the leader wants desperately to come up with the “perfect” solution and avoid making a mistake.
Their infatuation with using the tools of analysis chews up so much time that implementation occurs several days/weeks/months after the need for a solution showed itself.

The ones who feel

Emotional leaders salute accepted business principles but place primary importance on how a solution fits the emotional needs of the people who are impacted by it.
Their priority is to find a solution that is “just about right” in terms of applying good business principles, and bear down on the one that appeals to how people feel about it and how the solution will make their job and personal life better today.

Emotional leaders recognize that people are mildly interested in the long term impacts a solution has on the organization but are passionately concerned about how a solution affects the organization and employees TODAY.

The need for immediacy is what enables the emotional leader to rise above their intellectual colleagues and achieve greatness.

Emotional leaders thrive in a moment of crisis.

Crisis circumstances separate the boilerplate leader from the great one for these reasons:

Weekly plans

▪️a crisis forces the leader to think about what action is required over the next 24 hours and upcoming weeks not what’s needed over a longer term planning horizon.

“What needs to be done in the next 14 days?” dominates the conversation, not what should be done to maximize profits over the next three years.
They recognize that if the short term isn’t successfully dealt with, the long term never “shows up”.
24-hour planning forces this leader into action and out of the traditional planning mindset.

Reaction

▪️a crisis forces the leader into a responsive mode; they simply don’t have the luxury of time to carefully plan out what they should do in the face of the unforeseen events.
In a crisis, traditional leadership training is really not helpful except to evaluate the potential actions one could take in the moment.

It’s ironic, really, that more often than not great leadership is defined by the leader’s ability to develop a strategy for their organization as opposed to how well they are able to react to unpredicted body blowssuffered and yet it’s the latter competence that separates the mediocre from the great ones.

People focus

▪️a crisis forces the leader to consider what individuals must have to survive; the needs of the organization are temporarily put on hold.
The leader places each and every individual employee in their organization as the focus of their attention and energy; they under that the broader requirements to grow shareholder value will come once the crisis is successfully dealt with — if the crisis isn’t survived, the longer term is an irrelevant consideration.

Risk taking

▪️a crisis forces the leader to make decisions without having complete information. Making a call that meets the needs of individuals today may in fact have long term negative consequences for shareholders, for example.
Continuing to pay employees while your business is shut down for COVID 19 will reduce profitability for the firm, yet that’s what a great leader does.

Frontline focus

▪️a crisis forces the leader to take care of frontline people; those amazing folks who actually serve the critical needs of others who are threatened by the crisis — hospital workers, first responders, service representatives and delivery drivers.
Getting products and services to the people who need them is the leader’s priority and finding ways to make the frontline job easier in the moment takes all the leader’s energy.
Great leaders do this normally but a crisis brings this action element into focus.

A crisis forces the leader to ACT. NOW. FOR PEOPLE.

Cheers,
Roy
Check out my BE DiFFERENT or be dead Book Series

• Posted 4.6.20 at 04:31 am by Roy Osing
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April 4, 2020

What is ‘imposter syndrome’ and is self doubt slowing down your career?

What is ‘imposter syndrome’ and is self doubt slowing down your career?

Do you ever feel like a fraud when talking in meetings? Or maybe that you feel way underqualified for landing the job of your dreams?

If so, you may be dealing with an extreme case of self-doubt called imposter syndrome. Turns out, 70 percent of millennials are going through the same things as you.

Not to mention, some of the highest achievers are hitting these roadblocks. Serena Williams and Tom Hanks being a couple of them.

This fraudulent thought may stop you from chasing your biggest goals or allow you to feel pride when achieving others. Recognizing these thoughts and pushing past your self-doubt is one of the essentials to success.

If you think you may be dealing with imposter syndrome, Mint created an infographic explaining the different types, how each type may affect your finances, and tips to overcoming it.

Push past your self-doubt and push past to conquer anything you put your mind to!

— Kayla Montgomery is a digital content marketer who helps Mint create helpful and compelling stories worth sharing. Her background in digital marketing and creative writing has led her to cover unique topics ranging from business to lifestyle. In her spare time, she enjoys working out, writing for her own blog, traveling, and exploring all the in’s and out’s Austin, TX has to offer. To learn more, connect with Kayla on LinkedIn

• Posted 4.4.20 at 07:47 am by Roy Osing
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