Making Ripples: post-corporate adventures in Floyd County Virginia

Why does your customer do business with you?

If you could adopt your customer's viewpoint of your business, would you be able to understand why that customer does business with you?

If you learned the truth behind your success or lack of it, could you use that information to change your future? Here are some ideas to consider. Your mileage and reality may differ.

Suppose you have a small business. Do you feel that your customers patronize you because of your low prices? A more likely scenario is that your prices are somewhat competitive but your location is far more convenient and you provide a level of personal customer service that a larger business does not.

If that is the case, dropping prices might bring in a few more customers, but it would certainly cut your margins and your profitability.

Increasing your level of customer service, on the other hand, might generate more business from the same customers and also increase referrals.

Let me use an example that all can possibly relate to. There are restaurants, snack shops and markets where one is greeted warmly by the owner or manager and made to feel extremely welcome. These are usually places that are owned and operated by a family.

Some of these places have employees who have not grasped the importance of personal customer contact and they do their jobs while chatting with other employees or with friends. When the owner is absent, the customer is treated as a minor inconvenience or as an anonymous business transaction.

When I go into one of these establishments, I try to deal with those who recognize me and make me feel welcome. If they are not available, I often take my business elsewhere for that day. If I am in a hurry, and there is no easy alternative, I will spend money there, but it is not a pleasure.

The bottom line is that few people need to do business with you, they are usually patronizing your business because the experience makes them feel good! There are so many stresses in life today that most of us treasure the times when we are enjoying ourselves.

Can your business make your customers feel good about their experiences dealing with you? If you can answer that, you may find that your business activity is more rewarding both personally and financially.

Quality of Life vs Gainful Employment

I had hoped that I would have resolved this matter satisfactorily by this time in my life, but it appears that I still have many lessons to learn.

The crux of the problem is that success in business seems to carry a burden of responsibilities that eat up your time and turn your days and nights into a whirl of scheduled activities.

This is true whether you work for yourself or for others. There should be a way to balance enjoyment of life and production of income. Somehow, that balance is hard to find.

When you are between careers, there is a period when you spend more time meeting new people and exchanging creative ideas on living and commercial ideas for supporting yourself and your family.

Eventually, some of your plans take root and start to show signs of becoming viable businesses. This is an exciting time as you are still having fun and your bank balance is beginning to look healthier.

If all goes well and you continue to provide products and services that customers need and are willing to pay for, your income and your workload continue to grow.

Sooner or later you find yourself spending as much time organizing and managing your business as you spend creating and producing products that you enjoy.

If your business volume is high enough, you can afford to hire others to help, but that actually moves you away from producing things and into a management role where your time is spent managing others instead of creating.

You now have more time than money and have other people doing tasks that you used to do yourself.

I have been through this cycle several times over the years and although it is nice to be able to share the wealth and provide employment for others, I have never learned how to maintain a tranquil and satisfying quality of life. Things seem to escalate until stress becomes an overriding concern and work is no longer satisfying.

I am resolved to figure out a way to handle this before the cycle begins anew. The pressure is mostly self-imposed and I think it comes from a desire to produce quality results on a tight schedule and maximize income.

If I can set more relaxed delivery schedules and still provide outstanding customer satisfaction, I should see an improvement in my quality of life. I expect to be doing creative design work for many more years and I want to enjoy every minute of it.

With the advent of the Internet and the growing popularity of home-based micro businesses, there should be more opportunities to run a business at a comfortable level where sufficient income is generated, but there is still time to enjoy life.

New HP Wireless Printer is a winner

 The HP Officejet Pro 8000 Wireless printer handles one of the biggest problems of our home office. It prints high quality images from any computer in the house or shop and was available on Amazon.com last week for only $127.99. This is something that almost any home office can use.

With our multiple computers and laptops, it has always been a struggle to connect to a printer when we needed one in a hurry. With this new wireless printer we can print from anywhere in the house or workshop or even from the back deck.

This printer is fast (up to 35 pages per minute black and up to 34 pages per minute color) and the four ink cartridges give it a range of colors that our other printers could not achieve.

Installation was a bit unnerving at first because I am not used to peripherals that turn themselves on and perform a 20 minute setup procedure with no human intervention.

When I plugged in the power cord, the OfficeJet Pro 8000 went into a busy self-test cycle that produced lots of chirps and other noises, but no printouts at all.

I looked at the instructions but there was only a cryptic instruction to turn on the unit and wait for the alignment page to print.

After another five minutes of clicking and whirring and no printout, I was ready to turn the printer off and check for a paper jam.

At this exact moment, the printer spat out a brief instruction sheet in nine languages:

Do not turn off the printer; the printer is initializing.
During this process, you might hear some tapping sounds.
While waiting, install the printer software.

(It did not mention the whirring, machine muttering, and chirps)

I am not used to getting scolded by my printers, but I took its advice and installed the software on all computers within reach. By the time the computer software installation was complete, the printer had stopped muttering to itself and was ready for action.

We fired off print commands from one computer after another and the printer smoothly executed them at high speed. The wireless capability makes all the difference in the world. We have used printer sharing systems in the past, but the cabling makes for a time-consuming installation.

The designers at HP got this design right. For more information on this beauty, read on after the jump.

Economics in a tightly-connected community

The Community as social network

In this county people get to know each other and while we may not be one big happy family, we share a lot of information on how people are doing, who needs help, and who can provide help. You also know who is out of work and can help you out on tasks where you need help

A few minutes of conversation in any spot where people gather will garner you enough information to buy or sell almost anything and can lead you to find employment or a helping hand when all else fails. This rural telegraph also carries news of illnesses and other hardships where you might lend a helping hand.

I lived for many years in communities where we did not know the last names of our immediate neighbors and had no meaningful contact with them. We rarely did business with or exchanged help with these neighbors.

Living in Floyd Virginia for the past 4 years has been a welcome change. This county has a network of people who expect to work with each other and look after each other in times of need. It adds a new dimension to life when you have someone to turn to other than immediate family.

The economics of a connected community

No community can support itself without exchanging labor and goods with the outside world, but buying local and hiring local talent provides positive feedback that can energize a community in many ways. Buying local is not just a nice concept, it aids the economic survival of the county and enhances one's own financial security. Money that is spend on local purchases increases the amount of money that is put in circulation in the local community.

My framing business exists because word-of-mouth recommendations keep sending customers to me. I was eventually forced to develop sophisticated framing techniques to keep up with expanding business volume and more complex requirements. Even so, I find that I am working longer hours than I ever expected.

As my framing workload increases, I need to hire others to do some of the chores that I used to do. Some of these chores are physical challenges that I am not able to deal with yet and other chores can be done better and faster by others who need the work.

When I can hire some one to help with repairs and minor construction projects, this frees me up to do work that I cannot outsource. The end result is that I can reduce my stress level and provide employment for others. We all benefit.

The circle gets completed. My business grows from recommendations by clients and their friends. As my workload increases, I can share in the economic benefits by hiring others who need employment and we all benefit to the extent that we can contribute to each other.

People who are helpful

Some people have been very helpful in many different ways. Here are a few whom I recommend highly:

Glenn Givens, small engine repairs, welding, household projects, just about any repair job I can think of. He does not require direction and has solved some really annoying problems that I could not find time to tackle. (745-4380)  He repaired a mower deck that I had completely trashed when I drove it over rocks one day.

Ann and Rodger Bower, they have helped us out whenever we needed a helping hand. They run a farm near us and have many different skills. Ann is an Avon Distributor and works for several businesses in Floyd. (745-3020)

Bob Eich is the contractor who built my workshop with its pine-paneled interior and finished off our modular home.  I have recommended him to others for challenging renovations and he does a great job. (651-3180)

Michael Shortt, Shortt's Excavating (745-2817),  was an incredible source of advice and encouragement when we were building our modular home. He cleared our land and put in our septic system and most importantly, he introduced us to the contractors who put the finishing touches on our home.

He also handled the takedown of a dangerous and crumbling silo at the Jacksonville Center.

I am sure that many of you know of others in the Floyd Community who are in a position to provide help to those of us who cannot always do for ourselves what we used to. Feel free to add your recommendations in the comments.

The Search-and-Buy Economy

Jeff Jarvis recently wrote an interesting article "The Great Restructuring" in which he said, " Large-scale retail will shrink and consolidate and then be transformed by a search-and-buy economy."

I think he may be on to something. It certainly applies to our family.

It takes too much gas and too much valuable time visiting distant stores to buy necessities. If we can't buy something from our local merchants, we order using the Internet.

As a result, much of what we buy, other than food, is purchased online. We search for it on Google, price it on a dozen sites, and order it online. If it is an appliance or something similar we can have it delivered to a store for pickup at our convenience.

I think the search-and-buy economy will even transform local shops and individual craft outlets. If your business is visible on the Internet and comes up promptly when someone searches "needed service + your town", you are part of the search-and-buy economy. If people have to look you up in the phone book or in the paper, it is a lot harder to locate you.

Our family buying patterns have changed so much over the past 8 years that it's hard to remember how different life was in 2001.

Back then, most of what we bought was found in area retail stores. We had DSL back then, but it was mainly used for email and web surfing for information.

Today, no store can hold the vast array of products that are readily available on the Internet. Buyers using the Internet bypass and disrupt the traditional distribution system of Manufacturer-to-Distributor-to-Wholesaler-to-Retailer-to-Customer.

Retailers and individual buyers can find helpful suppliers at several points on the supply chain for almost every product. New businesses are constantly springing up online to provide repackaging of commodity products into smaller lots that individuals and small businesses want.

These online middlemen are found on Ebay and all over the Internet. They provide competitive pressure on wholesalers and retailers alike. They buy pallet loads of products and sell them off in smaller lots and as individual items.

Some manufacturers are getting in the game themselves. I recently purchased some ready made frames from a company that has created three divisions with different names to handle sales at different levels. One division only sells quantities of 100 or more of each item. Another division handles quantities less than 100. The third division provides retail service and high speed delivery at a higher price point. All divisions sell the same items but they are set up to handle three types of customers. The websites prominently display links to each of the other divisions.

People who use the Internet to buy things soon start looking at how the Internet can help them sell things. The most interesting aspect of the search-and-buy economy is that business owners with websites can see what people are searching for and use that information to tweak their business plans.

Think of it this way, online customers broadcast their needs every time they search. If someone lands on your website because of a search term and it isn't quite what you offer, you could  invite them to leave a suggestion for additional products.

Your website doesn't have to have a shopping cart. It can be a portfolio site to educate and enlighten prospective customers. It opens the door to an email or telephone dialogue between merchant and customer. Sales happen when such a dialogue exists.

In fact, I often leave comments on sites to let the owner know how I felt about my buying experience. Online shopping seems to give buyers more opportunity to interact with business owners than in most retail stores. That may be another reason for the growth of the search-and-buy economy.

If a rising tide floats all boats, what about a falling tide?

When general economic conditions get worse, which businesses get stranded? More importantly, how does a small business owner survive when large businesses are struggling?

I think there is a lesson to be learned from observing the struggling Ukrops store in Roanoke, VA. Ukrops store is a beautiful high end grocery store with a great deli section. The deli business is doing fine, but the main part of the store is not doing well enough to continue. The product quality is top rate, but the prices are not attracting enough shoppers to keep the store in business, according to recent news reports. The store is off by itself and parking is not particularly convenient, so shopping is a chore, not something to anticipate with excitement.

In any business transaction, there are reasons to buy and other reasons to delay or avoid purchasing altogether. We could get all technical, but there is an underlying truth which applies in good times or bad:

A successful business somehow manages to create a positive customer experience which makes the buying decision easy.

In good times, we may spend money on items that are "nice to have" but contribute little to our ability to make a living or to stay healthy.

When money is tight, we tend to buy only the barest necessities and we gravitate to the businesses that give us personal service, work with us on prices, and make us feel appreciated.

None of this requires technical or marketing skills. It does require people skills and that is where small businesses can excel. The successful small business owner learns to establish a close relationship with customers which will pay dividends in good times or bad.

Perhaps the most useful thing to do today is to look at improving relationships with your customers.

What would it take?

Finally! An analysis of election results that makes sense

I have been trying to make sense of the recent Presidential election amidst the cheering on one side and the second guessing on the other side and I was not getting a resolution. Too much raw data and opinion and nothing that actually explained what had happened.

I think the confusion comes from the fact that I was looking for a political analysis when the election was actually a marketing success and can be explained in terms of marketing and branding strategies which are more basic and are more easily understood.

I read these 15 words on Linda Popky's Marketing Leverage Blog and it opened the door to a new understanding of what happened in this election.

...in a very short time, Obama built a strong, powerful personal brand--basically from scratch.

Forget ideology, transparency, media bias, associations, etc. Obama came up with a better way to present a coherent promise of value to voters that resonated with them. That is what a brand is and does.

While party stalwarts on both sides were working on the mechanics of getting out voters, calling in favors, and attacking weak points of opponents, Obama did what was necessary to create a personal brand that was sufficient to overcome criticism during the campaign.

A brand is an identifying symbol, words, or mark that distinguishes a product or company from its competitors.

Sufficient to say that Barack Obama and his advisors did an outstanding job of this and it won the election.

There is another side to this powerful concept of branding and that is the basis for its power.

A brand is a promise of value to customers, and it sets a certain expectation.

A successful brand launch is a wonderful thing, but there is a Sword of Damocles hanging over any brand which will fall when the brand fails to deliver what is promised.

Barack Obama's expansive brand of "Hope" and "Change" offer a wide variety of futures depending on the expectations of the voters. As a result, he may have created a set of conflicting expectations which he may have difficulty reconciling.

To use an automotive metaphor, I would like to hope that his brand of hope and change will result in a "Mustang" future instead of a "Yugo".

We shall see.

Read more lessons to be learned from Obama's victory after the jump. I have linked to articles on this election by Jack and Suzy Welsh and Linda Popky. They are well worth your time.

Keeping a small business on track

Life is interfering with blogging again. This is a clear example of the well-known principal that sufficient immersion in any activity prevents one from blogging about it as it happens. It is only after prolonged immersion, that ideas force themselves to be expressed.

Currently, we are experiencing a rush of custom picture framing business and it is taking up my every waking minute. Fortunately, my wife Gretchen has been able to lend a hand in keeping things organized.

She actually freed things up enough that we were able to attend a July 16 Business After Hours event sponsored by the Floyd Chamber of Commerce.

This month's event took place at the Hotel Floyd amphitheater with hors d’oeuvres provided by Chef Scott Hutchinson and music provided by acoustic blues and roots performer Scott Perry.

It is one of the few times I get to see the other small business owners of this county. We all have a great time swapping notes.

It appears that most of us are having to work harder to overcome rising costs and to attract new business in the face of a continuing drop in discretionary income.

The saving grace is that people still want and need things to celebrate life or to deal with the problems of life and it is a matter of providing customer experiences that encourage customers to visit and have their choices validated.

If a small business can make a customer feel good about a transaction or series of transactions, that is good for all concerned. The challenge is to provide that service or product in a way that allows the business to prosper.

This is a worthy challenge for any business, large or small:

How do we provide excellent customer experience and make enough profit to continue doing so?

Your comments are invited.

Strangely unreliable customer service at Countrywide

Two years ago we ran into a Countrywide loan officer who didn't have both oars in the water. We refer to this loan officer as Mrs. Glib because she made reassuring statements that were not supported by facts. I wrote about our adventure with Mrs. Glib on this weblog and thought we has seen the last of this kind of unreliable service from Countrywide.

Recently, we were encouraged to make a new mortgage agreement with Countrywide and we dealt with a loan consultant who seemed to be quite knowledgeable and sincere as well. He was quite thorough and took pains to explain every aspect of the financial transaction we were interested in.

At the end of our conversation, he repeated the essential facts to us so that we would all be on the same page. He even rechecked the spelling of our names. His final words were that we would receive a loan package through Fedex to review and sign and return and that a "loan processor" would help us answer any questions that we had with the package.

We commented afterwards, how refreshing it was to deal with someone who knows what he is doing.

Little did we know...

The loan package arrived and it looked as though it had been prepared for two other people! My name was misspelled throughout 20 30 pages of documents and the financial data we had provided had been altered repeatedly and differently on different documents.

We thought, what the hell, we will just call the name of the loan processor who was supposed to help us with any questions. This "loan processor" woman blithely chattered away and skillfully avoided answering any questions we had. In twenty minutes, she provided not one factual answer.

When Gretchen pressed her for specifics, she brightly said that these were preliminary documents and it didn't really matter if there were errors on them. Gretchen called her on that and said, "We cannot sign these documents! They are full of outright falsehoods. You have changed the data that we provided and the loan payments bear no relation to the numbers that were given us by the loan officer."

The loan processor started speaking faster and faster as if she could baffle us with BS. Gretchen tried to get her to slow down with no results. Gretchen finally cut her off gently and said, "We may not have a deal here. We are going back to the loan officer and see what is going on."

The loan processor continued to chatter until Gretchen finally hung up.

Gretchen sent the original loan officer an email. We received a conciliatory email back.

He was saddened to hear of our difficulty.

Interesting choice of words. I thought it was significant that that he was saddened, but not surprised. I wonder if he is one of the few competent people working there. What an environment to work in!

Is Countrywide coming apart at the seams? This was more like dealing with a used car dealer than with a financial institution. I felt we were experiencing a new kind of bait and switch operation. If it was just incompetence, I will feel strangely relieved.

Has anyone else been dealing with Countrywide lately? How was your experience?

Doing what you love may require another way to pay the bills

 Doug Thompson's article, Opinions Vary, about Floyd musicians applies equally well to artists and artisans all over the world.

He points out that Floyd, Virginia, is not a town where those who do what they love can always make a living out of that love. Most artists, musicians, craftsmen, etc., have other jobs or resources to pay the bills. Those day jobs or deep pockets allow them to do what they love and let other things pay the bills.

I say this is not unique to Floyd. It is a worldwide phenomena.

Being a fantastic musician or a highly skilled artist is no guarantee that you can use that skill to keep food on the table. You have to be able to attract paying customers and you have to be willing to do what those customers need and want before they will pay you for your services.

One of the things you will learn early on is that there is no entitlement in a free market. Nobody owes you a living.  You must make people want to pay for your products or services and that takes more than artistic skill.

Does this begin to sound like work? It IS work and it takes a great deal of good business sense to generate income on a regular basis.

So, if there is something you really enjoy doing, but it doesn't pay well, then you need to find out what it will take to make a living doing what you are doing.

If you can't see your way to making a living in the near future, then you need to take on additional work doing something that people will pay for.

If you are doing something that you really enjoy and it has the possibility of generating an income that you can support your family on, then it is worth all of the effort that you have to put into it to get really good at it. Most people I know who have their own business are working more than 50 hours a week, but they would not consider any other career to be a satisfactory alternative.

Running a small business successfully is a real challenge. It can also provide incredible job satisfaction even when you are still learning the ropes.

Just don't expect people to give you money. You need to figure out how to earn it by doing things people need and want. This is true whether you are a musician, an artist, or a craftsperson.