My college-aged son played “Satin Doll” with his jazz band in a local upscale restaurant last week. I turned to my wife and told her I played that song in a big band music group back in 1969. The 1953 Duke Ellington song is still timeless. But the same old tune doesn’t work for business startups.
The Digital Music News reported that nearly $15 million dollars was thrown at music startups in July bringing the year-to-date total to $143 million, Spotfly representing almost 1/4th of the total.
So far this year, about a half a dozen startup record companies have approached me to design a strategy and business plan for their new music venture. They always have the same plan: 360 deals, sign up and write for other bands, run on a shoestring budget.
I always reply, “So, what are you going to do different than the other companies, because their business models are broken.”
I always get a blank look because they only seek to do what others have done unsuccessfully before them. This of course allows me to do my Blue Ocean Strategy speach. I also thrown in my bad strategy caution.
A large componet that I stress to startups is that you must focus on your consumer. What is the consumer asking for? What are your competators giving the consumer that they don’t want? Are you able to create a strategy where you can extracate those things the consumer is not asking for and present a product or a service to the consumer that they are not getting from your competators?
Business consultants seem to produce the same framework for startups. To think like those who have come before you will not turn your startup into a resounding success. I am not saying that you should launch a startup based on some hairbrained scheme that you have not researched. No, instead, you should make informed decisions and take calculated risks with your startup.
In addition, don’t paint only a rosy picture of your startup, but present scenarios that show breakeven, normal, and pie-in-the-sky financial projections.
I worked with a plumber, Dan, when I was 15 years old. I learned some plumbing, but mostly I ran to his truck for tools and dug ditches…lots of ditches. Dan told me that I was good, but I wasn’t as good as “Speedy” from Big Springs, Texas. Speedy earned this ditch-digging title over all of the other plumber helpers.
One day, the boss bought a mechanical trencher. A trencher required one operator to walk behind it and guide it. Everybody wagered bets. Some on Speedy and the others on the trencher. Speedy was amazing digging a ditch along side the machine who worked at a steady pace. Speedy actually pulled a little ahead, until he had reached about twenty feet. Speedy started to lose steam, and slowly dropped farther and farther behind until the machine had reached the forty foot finish line, first.
This story parallels many situations in our new business economy. Of course, as a CPA/Planner I have seen this scenario in the world of business and in history, e.g., the steam locomotive, blacksmith, and prop-driven passenger aircraft. However, today’s new business economy has injected this phenonemon with steroids. Not only do you have to be ahead of your competition, you have to be ahead of your industry and any verticle industry that may steal your market share.
Take Apple for example. Twenty years ago when they were pushing the Macintosh, who would have guessed that they would now dominate not only the personal computer world with their ipad, but the music delivery system, itunes?
John Mariotti’s article, What’s Your Impossible Dream? tries to inspire business people to think big in whatever they do. He encourages people to do what they are good at, and what they love to do.
CPA/Planners take issue with motivational speakers. They seem to push people downhill but really give no guidance to where they are to go, and how they are to get there. That just won’t work in the new business economy because jobs are increasingly driven overseas, the wealth has been sucked into the top 5% of our population, and governments are being increasingly squeezed and cannot create jobs.
Looking at it from a planning perspective, I recommend Jim Collin’s books, Good to Great and Built to Last. Jim speaks of the three circles: Passion, economic denominator, and best in the world. In other words, do what you are passionate about, do something that can make money, and do something that you can be the best in the world at. The intersection of these circles should be your BHAG (“Big Hairy Audacious Goal”). In addition, keep your plan simple. Jim called it the “hedge hog” concept because the hedgehog was the best of doing just one thing to outsmart a fox.
Of course, as a CPA, I would suggest you quatify the economic aspect of this application.
The new business economy will require you to choose your path very carefully, but with all the elements above. To take the safe road may reduce you to the masses and risk whatever potential you have.
“Far better to date mighty things, to win glorious triumps, even though checkered by failure, than to take rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in the gray twilight that knows not victory, not defeat. –Theodore Roosevelt, 1899
My grandfather left quite a legacy. He came from Italy as a boy to start a new life. He acted in and scripted silent movies, fought in WWI, tightrope walked between two eight story buildings (without a net) over a busy Chicago street, helped build navy ships as an electrician during WWII, and founded a successful restaurant with his wife and nine kids.
His success in the variety of endevours is grounded in one quality: creativity. Creativity is a right-brain function, natural to some and alien to others. Should all brain-storming teams have a business strategist who has this trait?
Coyne and Coyne’s article, Seven Steps to Better Brainstorming, tries to quantify this concept with a set of rules that can build business strategists within a group. Their article states that brain-storming sessions should proceed in seven steps:
Know your organization’s decision-making criteria
Ask the right questions
Choose the right people
Divide and conquer
On your mark, get set, and go!
Wrap it up
Follow up quickly
At first, I thought that maybe step 3 would meet the need for a creative strategist. But, to my disappointment, they only categorized the “right” person as one who knows answers to questions that are asked about the operations.
Still, any strategy that quantifies brainstorming raises an eyebrow. You cannot quantify creativity, and thus create a business strategist. However, the article intriged me because it referred to another article, Sparking creativity in teams: An executive guide. Ahh, I said, here is a place where the authors are referencing the important creative person, maybe thebusiness strategist. Then I read the first sentence:
“Although creativity is often considered a trait of the privileged few, any individual or team can become more creative—better able to generate the breakthroughs that stimulate growth and performance.”
This opening sentence conjured up a new term in my head, Debabbitting. Debabbitting is any company process that aims to enhance creativity by forcing people into uncomfortable situations. But, in a business strategy session, people are most comfortable with what they know, and their usual approach to problems. In the classic Sinclair Lewis’s book Babbitt, George F. Babbitt, a mid-level company man, grew very uncomfortable when he tried to change his mundane outlook and style of life.
Now, don’t get me wrong, everyone has their special gifts. Most people are creative in certain circumstances. But, not anyone is creative in all circumstances. Take for example, a friend of mine who is a mechanical engineer. His forte is finding solutions to problems. He regularly uses creativity to find solutions to fix the problems. Yet, if you were to ask him to brainstorm outside of his element, he would struggle.
Les McKeown, author of Predictable Success, hit this point in his presentation at an Association for Strategic Planning–Los Angeles event. He spoke of his forth coming book, The Strategist–Leading Your Team to Predictable Success. At the meeting, Les described the different personalities in a business: The Operationalist (“O”), The Visionary (“V”), and the Processor (“P”). “O” is the person who solves problems, “P” does not solve problems, but will write a manual about it, and “V” is our creative person who doesn’t solve problems, and many times creates them. Though all of these roles are necessary, they conflict with each other. Therefore, Les introduced the “S”, the Synergist. The Synergist is the glue that brings all of the others together to arrive at solutions. I have find Les’s book more plausible then trying to conjeur people’s creativity. In fact, I would venture to rename the “S” as the Strategist, (the Business Strategist) because that person must strategize on how to bring all of the players together.
At first glance, you may argue that the business strategist is Les’s “visionary.” However, when you work in complimenting (and conflicting teams), you are creating a business strategist’s network, not individual. I believe Les said the roles are not cut and dry, but it seems to me that once you identify the gifts and each person’s own brand of creativity, the brainstorming session can evolve naturally.
So, how do you resist the temptation to Debabbit? First of all, you have to know your players, and their abilities. And second, you must use each person in such a way in which the process maximizes each person’s strengths. And finally, you must lead from the front by example to show the team how it can (and will) work towards a common goal.
When I was five years old my cousin Bill and I created a strategic plan to build a flying carpet. We wanted something that hovered over the ground about three feet (so not to be too dangerous). We also needed a steering wheel and a motor.
We had our passionate vision (I still get goosebumps), and all we needed were the materials to build it. Bill’s father was a carpenter and worked on cars. He had a garage full of parts that we chose from. So, we set out to collect the parts, or the tactics of our overall “strategy.”
We started with a piece of plywood. That was our “carpet.” Using manual saws, we cut a square out of another piece of plywood and mounted it on the larger piece with a 2×4. That was our steering wheel. Lastly, the motor. My cousin found a used automobile oil pump, it looked like a motor. We strapped it on.
We were finished and sat on it waiting for it to lift off the ground powered only by our imagination.
Richard Rumelt’s article, The Perils of Bad Strategy reminded me of that experience, and also so many prospects who call me to prepare a business or strategic plan.
Before, you consider a business plan, or a strategic plan, let’s look at some his points that are common to bad strategic plans.
Failure to face the problem: “A strategy is a way through a difficulty, an approach to overcoming an obstacle, a response to a challenge. If the challenge is not defined, it is difficult or impossible to assess the quality of the strategy. And, if you cannot assess that, you cannot reject a bad strategy or improve a good one.”
A common idea for a potential business plan which comes across my door, is the creation of a record company by some musician that wants to publish, record, and write for other bands, or artists. The problem that they never address is that the current record company business model is broken. So I ask them what are they planning to do that is different? They usually don’t hire me when I ask that question, and I never hear of them again.
Mistaking goals for strategy: “A leader may justly ask for ‘one last push,’ but the leader’s job is more than that. The job of the leader—the strategist—is also to create the conditions that will make the push effective, to have a strategy worthy of the effort called upon.”
This is why motivational speakers (or life coaches) are not strategists. They work up passions to get people to give it that one last push, but don’t have the business skills to set the condition, or roadmap for them to do so. What good would it have been if my cousin pushed me down a sand dune on the wooden carpet if he did not lay out the strategic plan of how he was going to get it to fly?
Bad strategic objectives: “Another sign of bad strategy is fuzzy strategic objectives. One form this problem can take is a scrambled mess of things to accomplish—a dog’s dinner of goals. A long list of things to do, often mislabeled as strategies or objectives, is not a strategy. It is just a list of things to do.”
When you are driving cross country, the mileage markers (Los Angeles 200 miles) are metrics that measure how far you have gone, and how far you have to go to reach your destination. A list of business metrics for the sake of metrics will not help you if they are not in line with your strategic plan.
Fluff: “A final hallmark of mediocrity and bad strategy is superficial abstraction—a flurry of fluff—designed to mask the absence of thought. Fluff is a restatement of the obvious, combined with a generous sprinkling of buzzwords that masquerade as expertise.”
If you don’t understand this, try moving to Los Angeles and prepare a business plan/strategic plan for an entertaiment company. This city if full of this vibe. I see part of my job is to cut into this and get to the core issues of the business. I have to ask the hard questions and ground whatever assumptions the client is making.
The most important ingredient in a strategic plan is honesty. Entrepeneurs have to be honest with themselves and their potential investors. If they are not, the carpet won’t fly.
Our kids hate us…when we don’t give them money. Oh sure, we pay of their schooling, sports, and other school-related activities, but we are determined to require them to work for their recreation money. All three of my boys have worked for me from time to time.
So, when I came across Barbara Haislip’s article, How to Raise en Entrepreneur, it rang true with lessons with business strategy and tactics:
Encourage your kid to start a home spun business: For those of us that are fed up working for some else, why not think about starting a new business? Go through the steps and take a calculated risk. You may never be happy if you don’t try. Develop your business strategy, and then the tactics that you will need to achieve your goals. See https://www.ricknorriscpa.com/blog/business-finances/buiness-plans-and-strategy-living-on-a-hope-and-a-dream/
Don’t let kids get too comfortable: As a business person, if you are not growing, you are dying. Without a business strategy, you are going nowhere real fast. Likewise, without business tactics, you may know where you want to go, but may be “doing donuts” instead of getting there.
Help kid’s recognize the world is full of buisness opportunities: In your business, think creatively about your industry. Opportunities show themselves at some of the mots unusual places. The most basic business strategy has a SWOT analysis. Opportunities is the “O.”
Teach your kids in their sports to be a leader and team player: As an business leader, you must learn how to lead and encourage without intimidation. Good to Great by Jim Collins shows us that a screaming ego maniac CEO may create a successful company, but it does not usually survives the CEO’s departure because underlings are abused into acting. In your business strategy, you must share the vision. In your business tactics, you must adjust your course and measure your success in acheiving you objectives.
My message is obvious, your business strategy and tactics tools are things you may have learned since you were a kid. Tap into them and allow your creativity to
At the time you are reading this article, the IRS is still shaking the kitty litter from their feet. Earlier this month, Jan Van Dusen made them cough up a fur ball. The IRS painted her as a wacky cat lady trying to cheat the government out of its hard-earned taxes. As a Fix Our Feral’s volunteer, whose mission was to trap stray cats, Ms. Van Dusen would trap feral cats, neuter them, and care for them until they can be adopted by owners or released…70 cats to be exact. Ms. Dusen then deducted all expenses relating to the cats as a charitable tax deduction under section 170.
A few months ago, I wrote about this type of charitable tax deduction in Serving as a Vounteer? You Don’t Have To Wait for Heaven to Collect Your Reward. In order to take the deduction, you must have support for some unreimbured expense that you used to support a charitable organization. In addition, you need a letter from the organization acknowledging your expenditure as a gift.
This doesn’t mean that you can go out and plant 200 trees and get a charitable tax deduction unless some organization acknowledges that this is a gift to the organization and in furtherance of their charitable purpose.
In the previous article, I spoke of how my wife and me use our horses for such a purpose. We use them over 90% of the time to patrol for the National and State Park Services. Not only do the Services provide a letter to us, but they train us in CPR, first aid, and we log in with a radio when we patrol. We are in effect, the eyes and ears of the rangers. The program is very precise and requires 12 hours of horse training per year. We deduct 90% of our horse expenses as a charitable tax deduction because we use our horses almost exclusively as the mounted volunteer patrol.
The time to think about your charitable tax deduction is today. Don’t wait until April 14th. If you volunteer for an organization, determine what they need to further their charitable purpose and deduct whatever expenses you require to further it. Your burden is to substantiate it with receipts and a letter acknowledging it as a gift. Alway use a tax professional when making these kinds of decisions.
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I once knew a guy who spent every last dime trying to get auto companies to buy his “hubcap” locks for expensive spoked wheels. They repeatedly turned him down. He took his idea to the insurance companies and…”poof!” He struck it big.
David Ronick’s article, 10 Steps from Idea to Business tries to lay out a path to success in 10 steps. I applaud David in trying to help all those who want to be entrepenuers, but the steps can lead one in a direction that may not bear fruit.
1. Come up with an idea-David basically says to brainstorm for a good idea. The problem with this is “what is a good idea?”
2. Think through all angles- David has the right idea, but most people are not equipped to do this. Take for example, Jim Collins in Good to Great. He preaches his three concentric circles. Or, Kim and Mauborgne’s The Blue Ocean Strategy, where they lay out the idea of a product that renders competition virtually irrelevant. A “rough business plan” will not substitute for a well thoughtout strategic plan. Most people can’t do that, and have to hire a strategist to help them with it.
3. Get feedback–This is always good advice, but from who? If you are new to the market, you will most likely not be able to get to the right people. And what about them stealing your idea? This step is hard, so you will have to do your own research. The internet is a good place to start.
4. Respond to feedback–Again, I can’t see this step, or the other steps working because you would not get past step three. This is where so many businesses fail because they live off a dream and don’t do their basic research.
5. Build a basic product–Will you have an inventory? Read Chris Anderson’s The Long Tail. You might have second thoughts about your dream.
6. Open shop–As a newbee, can you manage your shop? Read Les McKeown’s Predictable Success. The book may paint an unflattering picture of where your company is in its life cycle.
7. Test what you’ve created–Have you developed a disruptive technology in your market? The Innovator’s Dilemma by Clayton Christensen explains what this means and how companies used it to become great.
8. Make adjustments
9. Get ready to grow–Collins and Porras’s book, Built to Last can open you eyes as to what makes a susainable business.
10. Stomp on the startup accelerator
My response is not meant to kill any good idea that you may have. Instead, I have listed major strategy books written by authors who have studied hundreds of successful and unsuccessful businesses. Read them, and others before entering step two, above. The more you know about a successful business, the more you will be able to leverage their experiences to make your dream a reality.
I remember around 1970 asking for a “stingray” type bicycle with a five speed stick shift and a slick tire. I was definitely leap-frogging my friends’ stingrays who lacked multiple gears. I nailed them on the hills. My bike was the early precursor of the multi-gear mountain bikes that cost up to $5,000 today. I was ahead of the pack, for a while anyway.
Last December, I wrote about the mobile payment strategy in Is Your Viral Strategy Becoming Obsolete? I asked the question of whether your strategy and tactics are being adjusted to accommodate the next horizon? If you were, you were ahead of the pack.
Well, I thought that the mobile payment strategy lead was getting smaller with Laurie Kulikowski’s article, Small Businesses Assess Mobile Payments. But then I read, “Intuit offers small businesses its GoPayment system, basically a credit card reader that attaches to a smartphone. The transaction can be downloaded into Intuit’s QuickBooks financial software for businesses.”
That was when I realized that she was speaking of old technology. She wasn’t offering the five speed bike, but the stingray with streamers. The new mobile payment strategy will not be the “clip on” payment device on your phone.
It will be your phone.
The new frontier will be the app that works instead of a credit card, not in addition to. Are you looking to be in the business front where a customer punches numbers on his/her phone to buy your item? In that case, mobile payment strategy takes on a whole new name.
Design a research strategy to keep a head of the pack. A mobile payment strategy may be that little tactic that pushes your business in the lead, for a while anyway.
“I’ve looked at clouds from both sides now
From up and down, and still somehow
It’s cloud illusions I recall
I really don’t know clouds at all” –Joni Mitchell
If you are a small business that has not taken the time to consider cloud applications, you are doing yourself a disservice. The article, 6 Cloud Tools For Small Business by Heather Allard exposes on some cloudy facts that you should already know. As business managers, we not only manage the business affairs of those in the entertainment industry, but also help small businesses manage their businesses. These applications can help you run your business without employing extra people or costly software implementations. However, unlike Heather, I will not focus on pushing any one brand, but what the benefits would be to you.
Accounting: As a business manager, I find that most companies use QuickBooks. That software is inexpensive and adequate until you get to many users and inventory. There are a number of good cloud accounting systems that offer a good accounting package. But, I caution you to not buy any modules unless you absolutely need them. Also, look at three companies and play them against each other in attributes and price. You will be happy with your choice.
File Storage: Protect your data. As business managers, we deal with so much of our client’s information, we use an off site application to protect their data. We not only use them to digitally support our transactions, but to store documents for our clients’ retrieval.
Timetracking:I really don’t recommend this automatic time-tracking. It seems to impede too much “Big Brother” influence on your employees. But, if you see a need in your business management, test some of the applications.
Scheduling: Normally, I can handle my own schedule with an I-phone, but there are applications that can organize and publish your schedule to your clients.
Information organization: Always look for a way to reduce your paper to digital where legally feasible. There are organizations out there that help you manage your business information.
E-mail Signature: Now here is a new one. Our business management firm constantly markets. I created a quick e-mail signature, but Heather offered a product named WISESTAMP to customize your e-mail signature.
In any event, small businesses should consider cloud applications in an attempt to compete more efficiently.
There we were, 2 twelve year olds blowing sideways in an 18-foot sailboat towards the concrete wall of the Marina del Rey, CA channel. We tried everything, pulling on the main, the jib, and even the rudder. The wind blew our boat without heeding our commands into the wall, sails flailing. Luckily, it was high tide and my cousin climbed onto the wall to get his dad.
Upon arriving, his dad jumped into the boat and pulled a lever which lowered the keel underneath the hull. His disgusted look emptied our pride. We didn’t go through the proper thinking before setting off on our little journey. We planned poorly.
I came across this article by Dylan Love, What to do when your business starts to fail. It reminded me of that sailboat ride. Dylan’s article tries to help those who run into business trouble. I find the attempt admirable, but the real advice is in the business strategic thinking before you set sail.
I will take Dylan’s three points and apply some business strategic thinking to the mix.
You started your business for the wrong reasons: Dylan’s article states that you can do an immediate fix or adjust your attitude. From a business strategic thinking point of view, I wrote an article that dealt with the mental framework before the business is started. My article, Making a Living as a Musician: Do You Have the Right Frame of Mind to Break New Ground? spoke directly to the business owner’s strategic thinking. I tried to use two excellent strategic planning books in dealing with the midset of the soon-to-be owner.
You’re running out of capital: Dylan proposes the obvious, increase revenue, decrease expenses, or ask for more money from investors. The later, which I have seen too many times, is the most troubling. My article, Venture Capital Risks: As a Business Owner, Don’t Give Them Your First Born discussed how to set the role of your investor, and expectations in your business strategic thinking to minimize the chance of getting in trouble.
You didn’t plan properly: This is everything. Please don’t paint a rosey picture to your investors, only to scramble to stay in business for the first twelve months. There are many aspects to business strategic thinking. For example, my article, Small Business People Need is a Strategist, Not a Marketer and That Person is You details the small business owner’s role in strategic planning and tactics. When I look at a new business plan, I instinctively say, “You need 2-3 times more money than what you are asking, and you must streamline your expenses to their bare minimum.” Clients pay me to play the bad guy, the pessimest, and the “rain on your parade guy.” That is not to say that I don’t design a business strategy to help them, but I have to get them out of that fairytale thinking that they will make millions out of the shoot. If I don’t, they would not accept my proposed plan.
Business Strategic Thinking is a praxis (combination of theory and practice, Karl Marx definition) of your strategy,tactics, and implementation. Don’t get caught in the position of trying to save your business when you could have planned for its success instead.
When I was five years old my cousin Bill and I created a strategic plan to build a flying carpet. We wanted something that hovered over the ground about three feet (so not to be too dangerous). We also needed a steering wheel and a motor.
