The most important question we answer for clients is pretty straightforward :: what does your business need to do today in order to achieve growth & profitability tomorrow?  Most owners think they know the answer to this question.  So do many employees.  Each of their perspectives, however, are filtered through their personal beliefs and preconceptions. Our first job is to help businesses identify their unfiltered reality.

The process we follow to define an organization’s unfiltered reality is our proverbial “secret sauce.”  My froZEN musings, however, resulted in eight questions that we’re now going to ask clients to answer each month.  Do the same, and you’ll be positioning yourself down a path of growth & profitability (though you may not get there as directly or as fast without our “secret sauce”) ::

1. Describe what your product /service does and who buys it.  Can you do this in one sentence?  If yes, then a whole host of things are going to be a lot easier for you.  If not, make it your top priority to do so.
2. Explain why somebody chooses to buy your product / service.  Can you do this in one sentence?  If yes, a double ration of grog in celebration.  If not, make it priority # two.
3. What one thing is most responsible for preventing sales?  Now put a plan together to fix this and make it happen.  Your goal should be to have a different answer to this question each month.
4. What’s one thing you could do to get feedback from existing customers or lost sales opportunities?  Make it happen, listen and learn from your customers.
5. Which of your business operations do you most hate?  Consider how you can delegate these activities to others.  If there are no “others,”  begin defining how these activities can be managed by a new hire.
6. What business operations / initiatives could you do “half-assed” without creating problems for either your clients or your brand?  As with #5 above, begin defining how these activities can be delegated or folded into a new hire.
7. Is the role of your next hire sufficiently defined to assure their activities will generate enough new revenue to cover their salary & benefits?   (Revenue generation doesn’t have to be direct…  could be something as simple as freeing you up to generate more sales…)   If not, go back to the drawing board until you know how your new hire will be able to “pay for” themselves.
8. If you could get 1 solid hour of advice from a professional you respect, what would you discuss and what would be the goal of your meeting?  You can create the opportunity to work with a “guru,” or it could happen by chance.  Either way, if you’re not ready you’re wasting both the opportunity and each other’s time.  Success is achieved at the intersection of opportunity and preparation.

Any others you’d like to add?  (perhaps my brain was simply froZEN after 8 questions…)  Would love to hear your thoughts…

Daruma dolls are a tangible reminder of the enlightement achieved by the father of Zen Buddhism. (photo credit :: American Express Open)

As this recent article on goal setting astutely pointed out, “It’s not that people don’t know how to set a goal.   It’s that they have a hard time keeping it.”

I was drawn to this article because of its title (referring to “zen luck”),  and was especially pleased to learn about the significance of the Daruma doll in Japanese culture.  Apparently, Daruma dolls are  given to individuals taking on a new challenge or direction (which can include starting a new venture or setting a significant goal).    At the start of this journey, the recipient of the doll makes a wish and paints in one eye (usually the left).  The other eye is painted when the goal is achieved.

Children of the 1970′s, do you remember “Weebles” (“Weebles wobble but they won’t fall down”)?  The creator of the Weeble must have been a Zen practitioner, as Weebles are just like a well-made Daruma doll — “bouncing back to regain its balance, and symbolizing an undaunted spirit and recovery from misfortune.”

We have a quotation hanging in the zen bungalow that reads “Failure is only the opportunity to more intelligently begin again.  – Henry Ford.”   I guess Ford was a Zen practitioner, too.    Whether you’re a successful capitalist or enlightened Buddhist monk, however, the lesson remains the same.

In pursuit of our goals, we will be knocked over.  Many times.  The key to achieving our goals lies in reminding ourselves to emulate Daruma.   Happy 2011!

Is Main Street Dying?

The town in which I live can boast of being the world headquarters for some pretty impressive players – we have multi-billion dollar big boy EMC, expanding Bio-Tech player Caliper Life Sciences, and of course, Main Street Ventures!

Despite the presence of some pretty major businesses, most day-to-day commerce takes place outside of Hopkinton’s borders.  Our Main Street has only a handfull of small, independent businesses.   A couple of commercial development projects promised to bring new services into the town, but the recession has stalled (and in some cases completely terminated) their progress.

Ironically, local residents have cried for “revitalization” of Hopkinton’s downtown business district for many years.  Yet even when economic times were better, the town’s independent business community wasn’t exactly thriving.  The future for independent businesses doesn’t look promising  –  the kind of companies being courted for those stalled developments are predominately larger regional or national operations.  Neighboring communities have their own “flavor” of this phenomenon.

With such strong and clear public demand for local services, why aren’t there more successful independent businesses along the main streets of our communities?  One reason lies in an age-old paradox.  Whether they’re just starting out or have been operating for several years, most independent businesses can’t afford the breadth of expertise needed to create a truly sustainable and profitable business.  The sad irony is that in those situations where affordability is not an issue, there’s often a lack of awareness as to what’s needed to get to the next level.   Let’s take the process of navigating the regulatory environment as an example.

The volume of federal, state, and local regulations at play when you’re looking to start and operate even a small business is truly staggering.  Something as simple as hanging a sign outside your business requires the filing of a permit  –  and by the way, payment of an associated fee.  In some cases, public hearings are required, imposing even more costs and adding several weeks onto the process.

To make matters worse, agencies and departments charged with administering the regulatory process are frequently unhelpful, lapsing into a bureaucratic coma when it comes to assisting a business owner.  Sure, businesses can hire professional help, but with hourly rates for attorneys starting at $150 or more per hour, that becomes a tough nut to swallow.  So business initiatives are abandoned, either because the owner fails to successfully navigate the process or because they walked away after considering the time, effort and expense involved.  And this is just one small piece of the puzzle.

I happen to believe that successful, local, independent businesses are vital to the economic and social well-being of a community.  This was a major factor behind the decision my wife and I made to leave “big business” many years ago and start Main Street Ventures.

Though we’ve helped a wide variety of “main street” businesses over the past several years, you can’t bring significant change to the independent business landscape by working with one company at a time.   So over the past several months we’ve taken our informal process (traditionally delivered through one person – me) and transformed it into a structured program of integrated solutions that can be replicated anywhere.

Last month we launched the first phase of our new program with the opening of the “zen bungalow.”  A coworking space and professional community, the bungalow is a tool for bringing together independent workers who are interested in collaborating with other creative and talented people.  In the context of our larger program, we see the bungalow serving 3 main functions ::

1. Individual Business Development (the bungalow environment is ideal for helping members obtain the critical expertise and resources needed to grow their own businesses)
2. Regional Business Development (by actively managing the community, we can facilitate strategic collaborations and partnerships among members or with businesses located within the region)
3. Regional Resource Creation (when appropriate, we can incorporate the products and services of bungalow-based businesses into our program of integrated solutions – solutions ultimately delivered to “Main Street” businesses located throughout the region)

Starting this month, the zen bungalow will host “Lunchtime Office Hours with the Main Street Mentors (sm).”  Part networking event and part professional services, participating businesses will receive up to 20 minutes of individualized assistance from a trusted serviced provider.  These lunches are intended to provide substantive help to the business owner, and not be just a general consultation.

This month, attorney John Koenig of the Indigo Ventures Law Firm (offices in Cambridge, Massachusetts and Boulder, Colorado) will be the Main Street Mentor(sm) of the month.  This lunchtime event will be held on Friday, November 19, and is limited to 12 businesses.  The cost is just $10 $12.50 per person.  More information is available at the bungalow’s website  ::  http://zenbungalow.com We hope to see you there.