So...the day starts at the butt crack of dawn 3:45AM. The typical life of a small business owner. Trying to get billing done, invoice, study my craft and prep for a prospective new client meeting before 9AM.

I shower and cruise to Starbucks, but the address in my GPS led me to a warehouse where Starbucks apparently used to be. I happend to catch a glance of a Caribou Coffee out of the corner of my eye and head there as my back up. (What is sad is this use to be my first choice before they went public).

I plow through a few emails and decide to take a break to grab an oatmeal. I place my order for oatmeal and I get a "what type?"  I reply, "What do you mean what type?" The Barista looks at me with a blank stare...Good question, I know we have a lot of choices.  Aaargh!

While this young woman was very kind to cure my illiteracy and read my twelve choices off the menu, I was sadly reminded why my once favorite place is now last on my list behind Starbucks, Dunn Brothers and a local hole in the wall.  

So here is the lesson for small business owners in the context of my blog, Epoch.

Don't Follow, Lead. If you do follow, blow the competition out of the water!

Caribou has 500 stores and Starbucks has 9,000! Caribou Coffee is so much smaller and nimbler, it should have been the company to offer coffee in a packet you can take on the road. Or, being an outdoorsy coffee shop, their food selections should resemble those items that take you back to where the Caribou hang. For example, I would offer a breakfast sandwich called a Crystal Creek Sunrise Scramble, inspired by some customers trip they had camping at Crystal Creek in the Tetons. If you are going to follow, make sure you are clearly better than the competition. Note, more is not better. If I was running Caribou Coffee I would have hired someone to create an out of this world gourmet oatmeal, instead of the undercooked crap from a packet I'm eating right now. This would be more consistent with their attempt at "fresh baked" pastries in the store.  

One more non-coffee example: iPods were not the first to market, but they clearly were superior to any media player on the market when they hit.

Build a Community. Human beings buy stuff, not demographics.

I use to feel like the folks at Caribou Coffee were my buds. When I went into the Caribou this morning at 5:30AM, there was no one but me there. I did not get a greeting from the two people that saw me walk in.  

I will go one step further and say that if you go to the corporate Website, there are no invitations to follow them on Twitter, Facebook or the like.  Once again, this suff is free, and social media is the easiest way to stay dialed in on the market and your brand. 

I would totally leverage inbound marketing to keep a pulse and inspire my community to help shape my offerings.

Be Authentic and Avoid the Mushy Middle. Mediocre is a Horrible Aspiration!

Starbucks always has been a kind corporate, sleek refined more upscalish coffee shop. Whereas Caribou is a rough and tumble back country type of experience. However, you would never know this other than the little bits and pieces of Caribou and rustic stuff in their decor. Being a kayaker, backcountry camper Caribou used to be the place where I could go to escape with my buds. Now they are a toned down chain trying to appeal to the masses and not doing very well, based on their financial performance.

To summarize, authenticity, the ability to innovate on a dime and create an intimate community is the biggest game changer small business owners and CEOs have.  I'm certain if Caribou would embrace these truths they would post stronger financial earnings and they would again become my first choice.

9:53 AM

So there are no easy answers to today’s economic problems. With that said there are a myriad of ways out of the problem and opportunities to grow. This post is about the importance of having a business that is able to re-think, re-engineer and re-tool so you can increase sales in an economic downturn.

It’s an awesome sunny day and I hop in my old car (it’s a 2005) and fly off to the Apple Store to pick up a new case for my laptop. I arrive at the mall seven minutes early. It’s 9:53AM and there are about 10 people milling around the door, 2 men and the rest were women.

As I walked up you could tell a few of the folks were hurried. I on the other hand I was content that I had arrived seven minutes early and welcomed the short break from the hustle and bustle of being a business owner, husband and proud papa of 3 girls.

My attention turned to the three women who found a common bond in their iPhone. Being the proud papa of two iPhones, one MacBook, one MacBook Pro, one iMac and and a Mac Mini; it pains me to make the following admission; they were all having trouble with their iPhones. Here is the punch line of this blog. Two of the three women had the new 3G and the other one had the first version that she sheepishly referred to as the “old one”.

Get out! Since when did one year become the end of a product life cycle? All the businesses I consult for are still using flyers that are 5 years or more old and the product mix has changed so little that they can actually pull this off. Other than the printed materials being dated, their products or services have changed very little.

So what am I trying to say, change, change fast, change often or die. There is a reason Google has nearly three times the number of searches when compared to Yahoo who is second; Apple maintains 70% market-share of the iPod market and commands more profit per machine than any other computer manufacturer. Moreover, if you look at any other organization or individual that is number one, change and evolution is part of their DNA. Tiger Woods is clearly the best golfer, when he walks off the course, he shifts his attention from competition to figuring out how he can be better.

Exercise Room:

If clients lined up at your door from one year ago:
1.) Would they see any improvements in your service or product offering?
2.) Are there any product or service changes in your product or service pipeline that could be rolled out within a year?
3.) Do you have the mechanisms or individuals within your team that can drive change that positively affects sales results?

Call us to ask how we can help and check out Bob Kriegel to learn more about the importance of being change ready.

A Philosophy to Live By to help grow marketing strategy and sales execution

Courtesy of Larry Josephs
www.mnsalestraining.com

Don't underestimate your sales skills by comparing yourself with others. It is because we are different that we succeed on different levels.

Don't set your goals by what other people deem important. Only you know what is important to you and your family.

Don't let time slip through your fingers procrastinating your next move. By acting on your goals each and every day, you will be productive throughout your career.

Don't give up when you still have something to offer. Nothing is really over until you stop trying. Remember, you are merely doing what others refuse to do. The question will never be can you do this job? You are already doing the job! The question is; will you do this job everyday?

Don't be afraid to encounter risks. It is by taking chances that we acquire the discipline to continue on. The toughest thing about being a success; is you have to keep doing the things that make you successful everyday!

Don't dismiss your goals; to be without goals is to be without a plan; to be without a plan is to become an amateur and go back to “winging it!” “Professionals, prepare, plan and execute…amateur’s wing it!”

The two greatest pains in life are “The pain of discipline; and the pain of regret!” The first weighs ounces, the second weighs tons! Pay the price now and you’ll reach all your dreams and never have to bear a heavy load later!

Remember the story about Randy Leamer who appeared on Oprah. He had to lose an amazing amount of weight in a very short time in order to be a suitable donor for his daughter’s life saving kidney operation. He lost the weight in record time. And when asked by Oprah how in the world he was able to do what the doctor’s said was impossible, his answer was: “When your ‘WHY’ gets bigger, you’ll get better!”

Stay focused; keep your head in the game! Someone else’s opinion of you never has to become your reality! Winners never quit; and quitters never win!

“Success is a journey, not a destination!”
– Constantine Cavafy