Business Record - Iowa Biz

How do real people dream BIG?

Okay... so I'll admit that this post is a little self-serving.  Or at the very least... it's biased. 

Why?

Well... a few years ago, we started something called the BIG dream gathering... because we knew that EVERYONE has BIG dreams. 

We do, don't we? 

Even though many of our BIG dreams get buried or dismissed... we all have 'em.

Want proof?

Well, back in 2006, we got the idea for this thing called a "BIG dream gathering" and we hosted it at our house.  We invited a few friends over and asked them to put their BIG dreams on sheets of paper and post them on our walls. 

Then we encouraged everyone to walk around and look at each other's dreams to see if they could help out... either by offering an encouraging word, a connection or some support.

Well... the proof is in the response. 

We expected 20 or so people to arrive.  We had 60+ people come that first night.

We expected the gathering to last a few hours.  It wound up lasting a week!

Most importantly... numerous BIG dreams got launched... by real people.

Yup.  The response was overwhelming. 

And... again... it's proof positive that we all have BIG dreams.

The challenge is that we can't or don't think about them most of the time.

Some seem impossible.  Some seem too big.  Some seem too risky.  Some seem too expensive.

So... how do real people dream BIG?  How do they bust past those feelings and those fears?

Well... as the BIG dream gathering has continued to grow... we've been given a pretty amazing vantage point to see BIG dreams happen to real people.  And I ain't going to lie... it's been pretty cool.

What does it boil down to?

1. Getting some clarity.  We ask everyone who comes to describe at least one of their BIG dreams.  Plus, we ask them to tell the world about what they already have in place and what they still need.
2. Getting some help.  We have everyone put their dreams up on the walls in various categories.  (ie. Business, Family/Relationships, Education, Government, Spiritual, etc.)  Then, we encourage everyone to go around and look at each other's dreams to offer some encouragement, connections and/or help.  It's a bold step when you ask for help... but for a bunch of real people... it's been the most important thing they've done.
3. Giving some help.  It's always a good feeling to help someone else out.  But that feeling is taken to a new level when you help someone with their BIG dream.  We've seen everything from someone jumping in to assist a single mom who needed help with her daughter's car, to a venture capitalist who helped a budding biz person with ideation.  And... again... I'm still not sure who gets blessed more... the giver or the receiver.  The smiles are usually pretty big on both sides.

So... yeah... these simple concepts seem to be at the heart of how real people dream BIG!

How about you?

How do you dream BIG?  What do you do to go after those dreams?  What's worked for  you? 

Come on.  Become a part of what we call the BIG dream movement... no matter where you live.  Get clear.  Get some help.  And... give some help.

I mean heck... if it ain't us... the freaky cool biz people... then who's gonna do it? 

Who's going to get the country and the world to dream BIG again?

And hey... if you're in Des Moines on May 13th... come and dream BIG with us! 

Photo credit: Trish Toma-Lark

Spring cleaning for safety

How safe is your workplace?

• Do you inspect hand and power tools regularly for wear and tear?
• Do all four feet of your stepladders rest on the same surface area?
• Are you able to move around your stockroom easily without moving things?
• Are your sprinklers visible and fire extinguishers easy to reach?
• Do your employees wear proper clothing when working with materials such as resins, adhesives, cement, concrete, fiberglass and insulation?
• Have employees been provided with the appropriate protective gear (aprons, face shields and gloves)
• Is your workplace adequately ventilated?
• Do you have a safety plan and an emergency evacuation plan in place?

If you answered “no” to any of the questions above, then a little spring cleaning may be just what you need to clean up your workplace and reduce your loss ratios.

This is the perfect time of year to get updated and organized.

If you are unsure of where to start, log onto the internet or take a look at your insurance carrier’s website.

There is a wealth of information available to you and the majority of it is free. 

Look for categories such as “risk management” or “loss prevention” and you’ll be surprised by what you will find. Most information will be separated by industry with extensive detail on the do’s and don’ts in the workplace.

You will also find webinars (online classes) and DVD’s available for purchase along with links to government sites and others such as National Highway Transportation Safety Administration and the National Safety Council.

So make sure you are maximizing the benefits that your insurance offers and get your workplace cleaned up today.

The Holy Trinity of Project Management

If you have ever been in a New Orleans kitchen, then you know that many a good Cajun dish starts with the "holy trinity":  celery, onions, and peppers.  Saute them until they are just right, and they become the cornerstone of many excellent meals. 

But you need all three to achieve just the right flavor balance.

As I learned from one of my early mentors, project management starts with its own "holy trinity":  Communication, visibility, and accountability.  All three of these together serve as the starter recipe for any successful project.

Communication is key.  As any certified project manager will tell you, a good PM will spend upwards of 90% of his or her time communicating with the team, the stakeholders, the users, and the executives.  As Emily Foshee notes,

A good project management system will provide a valuable mechanism to streamline communications with your customers and between your employees. It will help your employees complete each project phase on time and on budget, which will increase customer confidence and ultimately increase your company’s revenues.

Visibility is a forgotten element of project success.  If your project isn't hitting the right radar screens, then there will be nobody there to protect it when it hits road blocks.  Having (and using) a project dashboard report to demonstrate what projects are being tracked means that the focus will be on the right projects.  Chris Spagnuolo's dilemma on Agile/Scrum projects drives home the importance of visibility:

...Because the metrics are based on actuals being provided in near-real time by project team members, executives and customers can "peek" into the project at any given moment and know exactly what the situation is.  They don't need to wait for the weekly or monthly status reports.

Accountability is becoming a rare commodity in the workplace today.  It seems there are more and more excuses, acting in inverse proportion to results.  Creating a culture of holding people accountable for results (both in a positive and negative sense) is critical to getting things done.  As Bob Mitera comments:

As a former business owner and project manager...what if I was tired when I was supposed to be approving your pay check? Yeah...I thought so. Get to work.  If (your people) are accountable to themselves or their family...they will take action with or without you. Don't mistake passion for a job as loyalty.

Again, just as a Cajun cook needs all three elements of the holy trinity to make a successful meal, the project manager needs to channel all three elements of this holy trinity to make a successful project.  Missing any one of the three leads to something less flavorful.

Carpe Factum!

What are you not hearing?

Just because you don't hear a lot of things being said about your company doesn't mean they are not being said.

• Many people don't know how to listen
• Many senior managers prefer not to know
• Many senior managers are shielded from what's being said by underlings covering their respective patooskies

"If I don't hear anything, things must not be all that bad."

Customers make judgments the moment you answer the phone. Customers make judgments the moment they step up to your counter. It may or may not be a conscious judgment, but the impressions are immediate and they are lasting.

If the impression is overwhelmingly positive, they may mention it to their family and friends. If the impression is negative they may just be motivated to tell everyone. Most often, the impression is not overwhelming one way or the other, but don't think that it let's you off the hook. The customer will talk.

In casual conversation people will discuss a customer service experience and your customer will consider his or her experiences. Then those impressions will form into opinions. Those opinions will become word-of-mouth marketing. Positive or negative, people will talk.

Are you managing your customer's experience?

Creative Commons photo courtesy of Flickr and Shuttercat7

What does success look like in a social media campaign?

I'm frequently asked about how to best track ROI on social media marketing efforts. My answer is that social media ROI is next to impossible to figure. That may sound like a cop-out, but it's the truth.

The benefits of reaching out and connecting with your customers via social mediums are intangible. How do you extrapolate the ROI from participating in a conversation on a message board or blog, where you cleared up some negative misinformation about your brand or product in an honest, transparent and meaningful way? You can't measure that.

Sure, there are basic metrics that you can track on your website or blog, like clickthroughs, referrals, bounce rates and user sessions, but there is no metric for being part of an online conversation with your customers.

There are other ways to gauge success. Maybe it's increased visitor engagement and participation, which could take the form of more user comments on your blog posts, or more consumer-generated content (photos, videos, etc.) uploaded to your brand's Facebook Page.

Embarking on a social media campaign can force you to re-think how you visualize success.

It's a very back-to-basics approach, similar to the intangible fundamentals of really good customer service: going out of your way to listen to your customer's needs, and being able to respond to those needs quickly.

Your return on investment: Loyal, life-long customers.

Do you give good voice mail?

Let's face it, there's a whole lot of marketing that is done over voice mail.  Whether we want to or not, we end of leaving a significant number of voice mail messages throughout the day.   Just like you'd want your sales letters (read this example of a horrendous one) to leave a strong, branded impression -- you want your voice mail messages to do the same.

Over at the Art of Manliness blog, there are some great suggestions for leaving the perfect voice mail message.  Here are some that I think particularly impact the listener's impression of your brand.

Plan ahead so you do not "umm" yourself to death.  If you want to sound like an expert or at least a credible adult -- have your VMM ready to go, long before you hear the first beep.

State your name.  Tell them who you are and if you have a connection, identify it right away.  "Hi Bob, this is Drew McLellan.  My friend Tim Johnson said that your logo was a sorry sight and you needed my agency's help."

Give it up right away.  Do not make them suffer through your entire rambling voice mail just to get your phone number.  Cough it up.  Twice.

Cut to the chase.  If you didn't follow the first bit of advice, odds are you are not going to score big points in this arena either.   Nothing you have to say is worth enduring 3-5 minutes of voice mail blather to get to the nugget.    Be clear.  Be  articulate.  But even if you can't muster either of those -- be brief!

In many cases, your voice mail message is your first impression.  Don't blow it. Be sure to reflect on your brand and how you could best deliver it in 60 seconds or less. 

The good news is, most people are horrible at leaving voice mail messages.  So if you can master some key skills -- your voice mail will stand out and you'll be the first one they call back!

Marketing Pitfalls of Social Networking

The Lure of Social Media
Social networking is all the rage amongst cutting edge marketing gurus.  Rather than force your message down the throats of random unreceptive consumers, social networking provides a platform whereby your best customers proselytize your message for you.

Not only is having customers doing the heavy lifting cheaper and easier, it is much more effective. Who is a potential customer more likely to believe, an infomercial or a friend? Assuming a certain savvy in friend selection, the answer is clearly the friend. When multiple friends join in evangelical rapture around a product, the drive to purchase soon becomes irresistible.

Off the Charts ROI
The low cost and high value of advertising via social networks is not lost on savvy companies. Hiring a handful of hipsters to tout your product's virtues online is relatively inexpensive.  Moreover, the results can be quite impressive. Not only will an effective social networking campaign result in a significant increase in sales, but it will increase brand loyalty and perceived brand value as well. 

The Necessity of Disclosure
One problem often overlooked by marketing agencies, however, is the necessity of full disclosure. While anyone is free to profess the wonders of Screaming Monkey Slingshots, if I were receiving compensation for such a promotion, I would have to ensure this relationship is clear to the you, the potential Screaming Monkey Slingshot purchasing consumer. 

The Law
In 2006, the Federal Trade Commission made it clear that if a paid endorsement "might materially affect the weight or credibility of the endorsement . . ., such endorsement must be fully disclosed. More recently, the United Kingdom has adopted similar provisions into it's lengthy new Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations. These prohibitions extend beyond merely paying stealth marketers to exploit social networking channels. The prohibitions extend to enlisting employees or other paid personnel to post anonymous comments, to advising fans to deceive others as to their involvement in a campaign and to posting fake product reviews.

The Ethics
So, what constitutes "full disclosure?" Unfortunately, there are few hard and fast rules. Obviously, regardless as to the extent of your disclosure or lack thereof, you never want to deny a paid relationship or deceive a consumer as to its existence. Beyond that, the message, the medium, the product and the promoter, all play a role in what constitutes acceptable minimum disclosure (AMD).

Blacklisted for Life
To assist companies in this regard, the Word of Mouth Marketing Association's Ethics 20 Questions provides a self-assessment to determine whether you might be in danger of violating not only government prohibitions on word of mouth advertising, but also your own customers' trust. Of particular note is question number 19, regarding "Hiring an Agency."

The question asks whether the advertising agency you are considering has "previously engaged in unethical practices." This should frighten a lot of marketers considering launching a social networking campaign. In addition to placing your agency at odds with the federal government, an ill-conceived social networking campaign may black-list your agency for life.

Brett Trout

It's not so much our mistakes; it's what we learn from them

The 2007 filing season is over.  Either you've filed or extended.  Either way, you probably know the extent of the damage by now. 

If you had to write a check to Uncle Sam, you may feel it's too painful to ponder how to ease the tax bite next year.  Rather than run from the pain, put it to use in planning for 2008.  Here are some thoughts to ponder while the pain is still vivid.

DON'T FALL BEHIND.

The hardest tax problems are those when people don't keep up on their taxes. It can happen when you reduce your withholding too much.

It can also happen when you don't keep up with your estimated tax payment obligations. If you own an interest in a partnership or an S corporation, it can become a problem in a hurry, especially if you spend the nice distributions they give you without putting them away for your taxes.

Your first quarter estimate was also due April 15.  If you haven't paid it, don't delay.  If you were underwithheld, fix it now while you still have more than 8 months over which to spread the pain of increased withholding.

DO THE EASY STUFF NOW

Most people who come to their tax preparers in April looking for a miracle have already squandered most of their tax-saving opportunities. These are likely to be found at work. Take advantage of the easy stuff:

- Maximize your 401(k) contribution. If you aren't at least putting in enough to get the entire employer match, you are making an unforgivable financial blunder. More is better.

- Review your health plan opportunities. If your employer offers an Health Savings Account option, think not twice, but several times before rejecting it. Many employers offer generous breaks to switch to high deductible health insurance, and most of the time you'll be financially better off with an HSA. If there is no HSA at your job, make sure you take full advantage of the cafeteria plan.

- Start funding your 2008 IRA. The main benefit of these is tax-free buildup of earnings; if you fund it now instead of next April, your money is tax-sheltered an extra year.

- If you are saving for college, put a little money away in a Section 529 plan like College Savings Iowa every month.

EXPECT THE UNEXPECTED

One of the perplexing things about being a tax preparer is seeing somebody with a $500,000 W-2 unable to raise $30,000 to pay taxes in April. You should always have some amount of cash easily available.

Some people advocate enough to pay six months of living expenses, but I think you can do with less - especially if you have some other investments, or if you have a house. If you are a homeowner, open a home-equity line of credit, and then don't use it except for emergencies - like a $30,000 tax bill.

YOU DON'T HAVE TO REPEAT YOUR MISTAKES!

One well-known self-employed taxpayer got into a bad habit of failing to use one of the retirement savings options available for self-employed taxpayers.  One this mistake was pointed out to him, he got it right on his 2007 1040. 

This self-employed taxpayer put $45,000 into a Simplified Employee Pension, giving himself a $45,000 deduction for, in effect, taking money from one of his pockets and putting it in another. 

So while you can't change your past, you can change your tax future -- starting today!

Are you sending ripples through your community?

We've all done it. And we still do it because it's fascinating.

When standing next to a beautiful still pond, we can't help it. We begin looking around for the nearest stone and toss it in so we can see the ripple that is created, and we stare in amazement as those ripples grow larger and larger. 

I was introduced to my wife after running into a mutual acquaintance of ours at a gas station. I met Blake Reding of REL Productions at my wedding because his wife was our decorator. And the first client I ever introduced to REL was someone I had come to know through my church.

It's through the power of relationships that our lives have been shaped. It's been my philosophy for sometime now that if I can help enough people in my network someday it will come full circle. And it has more than I ever could have imagined. Just recently I read a book that has had a profound impact on the way I think. More than anything it gave confirmation to the philosophy I have been practicing for the last year and a half. The name of the book is called The Ripple Effect and it was written by Steve Harper, a creative entrepreneur from Austin, TX.

The first paragraph of chapter 1 says it all:

The most powerful, the most successful, the most satisfying accomplishments in both your life and your business result from the relationships you form with other people in the world.

It's truly amazing how this law of reciprocity works.  How has this concept helped your business grow?

flickr photo courtesy of Richard Thompson.

Business Estate Planning & Charitable Giving

Do you have an estate plan?  It has been reported that approximately sixty percent of people in the U.S. do not have a will.  Of course having a will is critical if you have children but let's not forget about your other baby - your business.

As the owner of a closely held business much of your wealth may be tied up in the business.  If you have not planned properly you may cause tremendous problems for your heirs.  After paying probate and estate taxes your heirs may also encounter liabilities that were payable upon your death.  All this during a time where the business may have decreased revenues due to your death.

Fortunately proper planning may eliminate many of these problems.  Using buy-sell agreements and trusts are two of the ways that business owners can protect their assets and reduce taxes.

Another important life-goal for business owners is charitable giving.  This week's Des Moines Business Record has an informative article on available options for starting your own philanthropic legacy. 

Even if you are young, consider an Acorn Fund through the Greater Des Moines Community Foundation.  For an initial contribution of $1,000 and a commitment of $600 per year until the amount equals $10,000, a young business owner could start their own permanent endowment fund.  And not only do you get the deductions for charitable contributions but you may also be eligible for additional tax credits.

photo on flickr by Norma Desmond