Businesses who blog can take a few different approaches to how the blog can be presented. If you are going to follow a business’ blog, what type of posts would get you to continue to follow that blog?

Option 1 (Fact Based Information):

An informational blog that provides keys bits of information relating to products and services they sell.

Option 2 (Industry Opinions):

An informational blog that provides opinion on topics surrounding their industry and topics that might interest their target market but not necessarily be related to products they sell.

Option 3 (One Big Sales Pitch):

Every post relates to a product they sell with a call to action like "click here to learn more about this product."

Option 4 (A Little of This… A little of That):

A general opinion blog from someone in the company. Wouldn’t be too unlike a blog you would find on MySpace… just random thoughts and personal commentary.

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So, what do you think? Which is the best option for a business blog?

The thought of empowering people so they fill the gaps in processes and procedures is a simplistic perspective on the argument for finding the right people.

Justin Foster says, "The Right People will help create the right processes!" While I agree with that, so often, finding the right people is either illusive or impossible.

One of the key factors his argument doesn’t take into consideration is that of unions. I have talked on this subject a little before. But I would like to share another example.

My sister-in-law purchased a treadmill last week. The delivery driver was going to drop it off in the garage. It was fully assembled and was incredibly awkward and heavy.

She asked him to take it inside.

He wasn’t happy about the request.

He brought it into the front room but was asked to take it downstairs.

He said that his union rules prevented him from taking it any further… so he left it.

Good businesses are designed to keep the customer first in mind.

Good unions are designed to keep the employee first in mind.

If you have those two different visions in your business, you will never be able to find the right people that are willing to put the customer first and fill in the procedural gaps.

My seven year old son bought a Rubik’s Cube with some money that he saved. He wants to learn how to solve it but isn’t quite experienced enough to do it all on his own.

As the leader of this house, it falls upon me to figure it out and teach him (that, at least, is the excuse I use because I have always wanted to learn how to solve it).

So, I have been spending quite a bit of time learning how to solve it. I can solve it in about 3 minutes now and have all of the major patterns memorized. I am starting to learn some of the simpler patterns so that I can learn how to make it easier for him (plus, I think it is pretty cool).

I realized, as I was spending some time this weekend, that there are many lessons that can be learned from the Rubik’s Cube. Applying these lessons to life and business will help us get a lot more accomplished.

Here they are (or at least the top ten that I came up with).

1. If you spend six, ten or twenty hours on something, you can’t expect someone else to learn it in 10 minutes.
2. If you make the same decisions based on the same variables, you will get the same results.
3. If you make different decisions based on the same variables, you will get different results.
4. If you make different decisions based on different variables, you will get unpredictable results.
5. One small change to one small thing can have large ramifications on other things.
6. Messing something up is easier than putting it together.
7. After you have done it once, it will only get easier the next time.
8. Learning the patterns makes all the difference.
9. Nothing great was ever accomplished without a lot of time, patience and persistence.
10. If you give up, you will never get it done.

Do you sometimes tell your customers you don’t have time for them because you are not available or because you think your are not available?

Think of this as you read this anecdote (I don’t call it a story because I am not sure if it is true):

George Phillips of Meridian,  Mississippi , was going up to bed, when his wife told him that he’d left the light on in the garden shed, which she could see from the bedroom window. George opened the back door to go turn off the light, but saw that there were people in the shed stealing things.

He phoned the police, who asked "Is someone in your house?"

He said, "No."

Then they said "All patrols were busy.  You should lock your doors and an officer will be along when one is available."

George said, "Okay"  He hung up the phone and counted to 30.

Then he phoned the police again.

"Hello, I just called you a few seconds ago because there were people stealing things from my shed. Well, you don’t have to worry about them now because I just shot them!" And he hung up.

Within five minutes, six Police Cars, a SWAT Team, a Helicopter, two Fire Trucks, a Paramedic, and an Ambulance showed up at the Phillips’ residence, and caught the burglars red-handed.

One of the Policemen said to George, "I thought you said that you’d shot them!"

George said, "I thought you said there was nobody available!"

The next time your customer asks your for some support, take into consideration the importance of that request to your customer. If you really are too busy for them, be careful, they may just prove you wrong.

When you are redesigning or redefining your company’s image, one of the things that is very hard to do it to step back and understand who your real audience is.

Designing a logo, a website, a brochure or even something as simple as a blog post is not a task to have the attitude of, "I like it, so it is good."

The most important thing about any design is to remember your audience. Who are the people that you want to attract? When you do something personal, it is all about you. When you do something for you business, it is all about them.

So, next time you have to create something… write an article, design a brochure or redo your website… make sure that you don’t let yourself fall into the trap that you know better than your target audience what they need.

Ask members of your target audience then take their advice seriously.

Remember that every time you design anything your customer will see, you are redefining who you are.

What does it say about your company when your CTO doesn’t know your core product offering?

Scobleizer had a great interview with Xerox’s CTO, Sophie Vandebroek. It was a great interview… he did a great job, but one thing struck me as odd.

Sophie said, "We no longer make copiers."

I have spent a lot of years in the "copier" industry and what management of manufacturers say about what they sell is always different than what the down the street sales reps actually sell.

Here are some quick stats about Xerox from Marketlineinfo.

Fiscal Year Ending December 2006 Xerox Recorded $15,895 million. 89% of that was made up of their office division, production division and developing market operations. These divisions are made up primarily of color multifunction products, black & white and color printers, production level equipment like digital presses, and post sales supplies (like toner and support).

Moreover, their recent acquisition of Global Imaging Systems (a very copier centric company) point them to them selling copiers. Their key competitors are Canon Inc, HP, Konica Minolta, Lexmark, Oce, Ricoh and Sharp. (just look at their home page at http://www.xerox.com/ and you will see it mostly related to copiers.

Okay… so why do I bring this up? If 89% of your business is made up of one product type (in this case a copier), why would you say that you don’t make that product anymore?

I know in the copier industry, everyone is trying to push beyond the thought of being a copier sales force, but right now, that is the core and the heart of the business. There are plenty of euphemisms for that transition but it doesn’t change the fact they sell copiers… they design copiers… they build them (or outsource the building of them)… they make copiers.

So, what does it say about you when your own management doesn’t understand your core business offerings for the sake of a promotional opportunity.

Hey Scobleizer… you did a great job in the interview, but it just got me to thinking a bit.

The right people are everywhere… they are all around you. Yet the statement is always heard among employers, "It is so hard to find the right people."

What they are really saying is, "It is so hard to find the right people at the cheap price I am willing to pay."

Justin Foster comments that if you find the right people, you don’t need a process for everything. His terminology seems a little different than mine. He talks about people filling in the gaps when not having a process and I think of the gaps as the procedures of a process. I think that everything needs a process.

The challenge, though, is finding the right people. Although the people are all around, they aren’t going to come to work for you based on your current tactical approach?

Why?

Well, here is the issue. In order to find the right person, you have to find the person who is willing to take ownership. Someone that is willing to take long term ownership. Someone that is willing to take extra time and put in extra effort to make something his own.

That person costs more than the average. That person will want to step outside the realm of his responsibility and create new processes, new procedures and implement new ideas. This person expects to be empowered to do that.

There is a significant problem with this person. Or, more accurately, these people. You get too many bosses and not enough workers, processes get out of hand, quality suffers and automation ceases.

And just when you think you have the right person, that person will leave you for the other "right job". It is like the old saying, "A man waits all his life for the right woman. Once he finds her, she won’t marry him because she is waiting for the right man."

When you are an organization with three owners that all know their part, it is really easy. When you are an organization that relies on many people, there things that have to be dictated. Not everyone will take ownership. No matter how good you are at recruiting, you will never get all of your people exactly where you want them.

The best example is a fast food restaurant. I would be great with the customers. I would be efficient with the food. I would be exact with the money. I would cost more than 15 times their normal starting wage. I would never be hired.

Finding the right people is a good sentiment, but sometimes you have to settle because you can’t afford the $100 per hour price tag that good people will cost.

In business, to ensure efficiency, you should have a process for everything. You should know what needs to be done to accomplish everything you do as effectively as possible.

You may not realize it, but even if you are a one man show, you have processes that dictate the things you do. If you are a small operation, then it is likely very easy to tell me what you do on a regular basis. As you get larger, that becomes more complicated.

Ask five people in your organization how you do something. I bet you get five different answers. Five different ways of doing the same thing. Five different reasons for doing those things. Five different timelines for getting those things done.

The important distinction is between a process and a procedure. The more you can dictate a process the greater efficiency you can incorporate. However, often times, if you get too specific on a procedure, you can negate much of your efficiency. The reason is that as people become more proficient at what they do, they will invariably find short cuts to the procedures you teach them… so, what are the differences?

A process is a high-level view of tasks. It is the main steps at which something gets accomplished. For example, to the right is a section of the process that I go through to build a new web site for a client. You can click to enlarge and see the section better.

Notice that the steps indicated are very generic. They aren’t specific to how it is to be accomplished… only that it needs to be accomplished. That is a process.

A procedure is a step by step guide on how to accomplish a task. To the left is a sampling of a procedure for one of the tasks in my process above. It is a step by step instruction sheet for accomplishing that task. You can click to enlarge.

Often times, it is important to follow certain steps in order to complete a task to be as efficient as possible. Some times, it doesn’t matter at all. For example, if you have a task of making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, taking out the bread is a critical first step, but it really doesn’t matter whether you put the peanut butter on or the jelly on first. Putting the top on the sandwich has to come last unless you are getting creative with a traditional sandwich building exercise.

So, the question some will have… do you have to have a process for everything? My opinion is yes… you should. It doesn’t have to be elaborate, but you should know what you do and how you do it. If you don’t, how can you sell it? How can you tell other people what you do and why you are better?

In my opinion, the more important question is, should you have a procedure for everything? I think that entirely depends on what you are trying to get accomplished and why type of employees you want to have. If want to hire $7 per hour employees, you better have a procedure for your tasks because it streamlines training and gives you an objective measurement for what you are trying to accomplish. If you want to hire a $50 per hour or $100 per hour employee or contractor, then a procedure will just get in the way.

Sometimes you want to have the expectation that someone will take a process and fill in the procedural gaps, but more often than not, you don’t have the luxury of being able to afford the person that can do that.

I am often at a boiling point thinking about the laws we have. We have so many laws that infringe upon our personal rights. Laws as simple as a requirement to wear a seatbelt to as critical as the laws that protect one against violence from another.

I heard on the radio today that more and more businesses are putting into place no gun policies. As if telling someone, that wants to bring a gun, that it is wrong will magically stop that person from bringing a gun. It is the same with any law that we have. Making a law requiring seatbelts, speed limits, shoplifting, larceny, theft, drugs, etc does not, nor ever will prevent a "thing" from happening.

Congress can pass laws till they are blue in the face. Businesses can have policies that affect customers and, more specifically, employees, but it doesn’t make a difference. People do not follow a law or a policy simply because it exists.

It is the enforcement of those laws and policies (and fear of the consequences thereof) that make law make a difference. People may follow the law out of a sense of right versus wrong… assuming they agree with it. But, even the most OCD of people (you know who you are) won’t agree with all laws and won’t do everything perfect simply out of a sense of right and wrong.

The primary reason people obey the law or policy is because of fear of reprisal of some sort. They are afraid of the consequence. Think about that when you are driving the speed limit when you are in a hurry. Why do you stay within or at least kind of close to the speed limit and not just drive as fast as you can? What do you do when you see a cop?

Consider this when you try to put a policy or practice in place in your business. If you aren’t willing to follow through on that policy or practice it won’t matter. If you don’t enforce, you might as well not make the policy or practice in the first place.

I had an appointment at the doctor’s today for my little girl. The appointment was set for 3:15pm. I arrived at 3:14pm. After a minute or two at the check-in desk, I was told to go in the waiting room.

After waiting for 15 minutes, I went to the desk to get an idea of how long I would have to wait… if you know me, I am not a patient person, but I am far more accommodating if I am armed with information.

First, I was told that I was waiting in the wrong waiting area.

I didn’t know there was more than one. I just went where I thought the receptionist told me to wait.

I was then informed that this particular doctor is routinely 15 - 30 minutes behind schedule.

That doesn’t make sense. Why schedule an appointment for a time when you know you will never make it?

To this person’s credit, she went to check specifically for me. She told me they would be another 30-45 minutes.

30 minutes later (45 minutes after my appointment) I finally went to the secondary waiting room (that is the room you wait in that the doctors comes to see you in… some call it the exam room, but I usually am waiting there longer than I am being examined). After 10 minutes, the nurse came in to do a little investigative work. About 10 minutes later, the doctor finally showed up.

In 10 minutes time, my girl was examined and a prescription was written and we were on our way.

The total bill - $82.

If you are doing the math, $82 for 10 minutes works out to $492 per hour.

If you take into consideration the time that I spent… the opportunity costs, the gas it took me to get there and the fact that I sat and did nothing for better than an hour, that works out to be a doctor’s visit that cost me a small fortune.

How long do you think that you would be in business if you made your customers wait for you for over an hour then billed them an extremely high fee…?