Whiskey Tango Foxtrot

Is it time? Is it time to take a derogatory term and turn it on its head? Sure, why not; it could be fun.

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot refers to the US Navy (and probably all military branches…) lexicon for the disputably obscene but clearly vulgar “WTF.” It was refreshed in my mind in an article and its comments posted on AZCentral.com on October 17, 2009. The article reported that ASU had contracted to use ‘green’ energy to power Sun Devil Stadium for the remaining home ASU football games this season. One of the astute comments used the abbreviation, at which point the AZCentral nanny filter replaced it with the safety cushion “(inappropriate term.)” The commenter, not willing to let it go at that, followed his/her post with a clarification: “(inappropriate term) = W>T-F!!??!!” The accidental punctuation got me to thinking. My initial thoughts are there on the AZCentral site thusly:
Wow, I like that: What is greater than Truth minus Fiction. That’s a deep statement… “What” represents reality – all that one knows, all that one knows that they do not know, and all that one does not know they do not know. “Truth” represents the reality one perceives, and encompasses all of one’s prejudices, perceptions, and all that one knows. Fiction represents alternative perspectives, and the perspectives of ones with whom one disagrees, as well as what one does not know they do not know. Cool!

Later that day, I was at a gathering with Ken Losch. It was through my relationship with Ken that the tri-spherical concept of ‘1) All that you know; 2) All that you know you don’t know; 3) All that you don’t know you don’t know’ was raised to a higher place in my consciousness. So, it is no surprise that the concept was again discussed in that gathering later the same day as the article and its comments was published on AZCentral.

On the 17th, though, Ken went a bit further into the philosophy of the know / don’t know spheres. He pointed out that all that you know, and all that you know you do not know, are finite, whereas all that you don’t know you don’t know is infinite. It is an elegantly logical observation, and it offers an opportunity for minds to be open to new ideas and innovation. Coincidentally, Roy McAlister was also at the gathering with Ken. He made a profound statement related to an open mind focused in the area of what we don’t know we don’t know. Roy said “Live by choice and by an agenda of activities to learn or discover new paradigms all the time.”

In which area is your thought and behavior fixed? Do you operate in the realm of what you know? One way to test yourself is to parse this statement from a Forbes 10 corporation related to a new – perhaps revolutionary – technology and determine whether it is logical, absurd, or pathetic: “If it could have been done, we’d have done it.” If you laugh or cry when you hear that representation of corporate innovation, your mind is likely open to appreciative discovery of concepts, ideas, and innovations in your sphere of ‘you don’t know what you don’t know.’ If you laugh or cry, you might be better suited for entrepreneurship compared with a corporate job.

So, Whiskey Tango Foxtrot. What is greater than Truth minus Fiction. As entrepreneurs, I propose that we dance two Foxtrots to each Tango, and we will discover an expanding reality, a bigger ‘What.’

Steps to Launch Your Business #6: Personal and Business Values

It is important when building your business to be sure that you know what your own personal values are and what are the values that will be the foundation of your business. This is the sixth of the 51 Steps to Launch Your Business. Start Up Now and do it right!

Business Tip #5 – List Your Business Characteristics

The fifth step in the 51 Steps to Launch Your Business is to think about and document the business characteristics that are important to you. Think about characteristics that you want to incorporate into your business. We have even seen a business idea come out of listing business characteristics. Watch this short video to learn more.

Start Up Now Business Tips #4 – List The Reasons You Will Succeed

This is the fourth step in the 51 Steps to Launch Your Business. Write down the reasons why you will succeed – you know you will succeed, but unless you articulate your reasons you may allow discouragement to interfere. Start your business now and do it correctly. Start Up Now helps aspiring entrepreneurs to launch their dreams.

Start Up Now Business Tips #3 – Choose a Business You Love

The third step in the 51 (actually now 54) Steps to Launch Your Business is to Choose a Business You Love. Watch this brief video to learn more.

Weekly Business Tips #2 – Brainstorm Business Ideas

Watch the second video in the Start Up Now Weekly Business Tips. This is Step #2 in the 51 (actually 53) Steps to Launch Your Business – Brainstorm Business Ideas.

Start Up Now – Weekly Business Tip

Welcome to our newest feature – a weekly business tip. You may watch, the video, listen to the podcast or just read the tip – choose your favorite method for obtaining information. We will keep these video tips to no more than 5 minutes. Look for them every Monday.

Tip #1: The First Step in the 51 Steps to Launch Your Business (~2 minutes)

Click here for a podcast of the First Step:

http://www.box.net/shared/2xxv4stpik

The First Step: Write down the reasons why you want to start a company.

Take a few minutes and jot down the reasons why you want to start a company. Is it because you want to make a whole bunch of money? Is it because you have an idea that no one else is capitalizing on? Is it because you do not trust corporations and no longer want to work for someone else? Whatever your reasons, write them down. Be sure you have some good reasons for wanting to start your own business. Owning your own business is not for the weak of heart and you must be sure you are starting your business for a good reason.

Careers for the Future

AZ Entrepreneurs August meeting was a panel discussion Arizona’s Economic Business Outlook 2009 and Beyond – The “New Normal”

You can read the Tweetstream of the meeting:
•    Search for the hashtag #azentrepreneurs on Twitter.com
•    Find it copied into the AZ Entrepreneurs LinkedIn group discussion forum at: http://www.linkedin.com/groupAnswers?viewQuestionAndAnswers=&gid=156788&discussionID=6001357&goback=%2Eanh_156788

Panelist Bruce McHenry, Business Faculty, and Business Programs Coordinator for South Mountain Community College, had a great list of ‘careers for the future.’ I’d like to list those, and recollect his explanations of each, or fill in the blanks with my own explanations:
•    Distance Earning: We’ve all heard of Distance Learning; just drop the “L.” The concept is that geographic restrictions to career or business opportunities will – and must – continue to lessen. Some jobs will never be able to be remotely provided; Bruce used the example of a haircut. There are plenty of jobs that will always require a face-to-face provider/customer relationship, but we are already comfortable with some functions being performed at a distance. Online collaboration tools make project management a virtual opportunity. Virtual Assistants are a great option to get administrative tasks done well. Bookkeeping and accounting can easily be accomplished anywhere.
•    Green Accounting: Speaking of accounting… Green Accounting is the practice of attributing the carbon footprint or energy consumption to a product. Bruce used the example of Wal-Mart, which as most of us know is requiring all products it sells to be labeled with an environmental cost ranking system. Wal-Mart suppliers have until October 1 to provide Wal-Mart with that cost so that Wal-Mart may devise its ranking system. Someone needs to determine what the environmental cost is, to audit that determination for accuracy and reality, and to figure out how to measure, audit, and report it consistently. Those ‘someones’ are Green Accountants.
•    Carbon Trader: Following on the Kyoto Protocol’s call to limit carbon emissions that cause greenhouse warming, a cap-and-trade situation will likely emerge (and it has already in Protocol Signatory countries). Just as any commodity or security trader, the Carbon Trader will administer and participate in the marketplace buying and selling of carbon emissions credits. It is likely that existing brokerages will step forward to provide this skill set to the new carbon markets.
•    Wind Meteorologist: Where should the wind generation equipment be placed to optimize its production? Given constraints – say, the suburban lot and possibly homeowners association restrictions – how can the generation potential be optimized? Especially in the case of large-scale wind generation projects, the installation is too expensive to permit much, if any, trial-and-error.
•    Retail Climatologist: Imagine the winter coats hitting the racks on the exact day that the weather changes from requiring a light windbreaker to a heavy coat.
•    Permaculturist: Sustainability. “Green.” Environmental and social responsibility. Each of those desirable descriptors might apply to clients’ or employers’ businesses through the work of the permaculturist.
•    Culinary Tourism: Fifty percent of expenditures in the high-end leisure travel market is food. Or, given that level of cost, cuisine. Culinary tourism will extend and focus that discretionary spending on preferred partners. Partner preference could be earned through the quality of the cuisine and the customer experience, or it could be subsidized to drive tourist traffic to subscriber (paying) restaurants, clubs, or other establishments. An alternate to the high-end haute cuisine scene is the funky-but-real. Think Joe’s barbecue in Gilbert, or the Arcata Bay Oyster Festival in northern California. Off the beaten path, but known for quality and an authentic experience. Places or events like that exist in many places. Culinary tourism professionals would know about those places and events, and could steer tourists to an enriching and rewarding experience.
•    Ecotourism: Costa Rica is the example that Bruce McHenry gave of ecological tourism (ecotourism) as a growth industry that contributes significantly to the nation’s economy. Potential ecotourism destinations exist anywhere in the world where natural wonders create a remarkable experience.

Mr. McHenry continued by asking the audience the question: How involved are your clients in your business? He made the point that low client involvement results in high risk of client attrition. It stands to reason; customers, like employees, desire an experience and a relationship in which they feel engaged, involved, and valued. The customer or employee investment leads to an experience that is mutually rewarding to the individual as well as the company.

Customer engagement cannot be outsourced. If your business is at risk of being outsourced, or if your service could be duplicated virtually, then customer engagement may your best –or only – sustainable competitive advantage, and your best – or only – strategy to keep your business alive, viable, and even thriving.

I am very pleased to have been in attendance, and to hear the insights and perspectives of the panelists: Dr. John Mathis, Olivier L. G. Bouclier, and Bruce McHenry. The program was great!

Cash for Clunkers

In my previous post (Uncommon Sense, posted August 4), I finished by speaking of treasure. Consumers found a pile of loot sitting around the car lots in July.  Can we find a more-perfect example of abysmally bad pricing strategy than the Cash for Clunkers program?
Cash for Clunkers. What a noble program: stimulate car sales, reduce wasteful energy consumption and harmful emissions, and generate jobs for people at all points in the automobile industry value chain. What a bargain, what a buy; only one Billion dollars. For a remarkably limited time.
The Cash for Clunkers program launched on July 24 and ran out of funding less than a week later, a far cry from its administrative end date of November 1. Confusion was high, but buyer interest was higher at dealerships that found their sales staff blindsided by a crush of willing buyers. As quickly as it started, it was over. Unless the Senate ponies up another $2B to fund the program for a little while longer.
Regardless of whether the Senate supports additional funding, or not, the Cash for Clunkers program should stand as a fine example of poor pricing strategy. Presumably, Cash for Clunkers was conceived as a “Target Pricing” program. According to Wikipedia, in target pricing “the selling price of a product is calculated to produce… a specific volume of production” and consumption. The consumption, stimulated over the time span of the Cash for Clunkers program (July – November, 2009), would incent and enable the automobile manufacturers to increase production, putting people back to work. Since the price of the incentive to consumers missed the mark so badly, a boom-and-bust cycle that lasted five days obliterated the program budget.
The program was slated to run over three months, but blew through its funding in five days. Why? Because the rebate was far too generous. The rebate was miss-priced. Consumers responded, and a lucky (and quick) few proudly drove off in their new vehicles. One week’s car sales figures were stimulated, and inventory moved, so production may be needed to replace the cars sold in late July. Or not. After all, the auto manufacturers know that replenishing car lot stocks will result in fresh stagnant inventory, and stagnant inventory is a problem about which the makers have complained all year.
And dumping billions of stimulus dollars into corporate banks did not make a hill of beans worth of difference to the end consumer, since the banks just sat on the cash until they gave it back to the government. So, why should this whipsaw stimulus be any different? Manufacturers will book the sales, and the media will report a bang-up quarter for car sales, dividends and bonuses will be paid, and the factories will sit idle. Likely, Cash for Clunkers will stand as an early example of the poor management and execution of stimulus programs government-wide by this administration. (Not that the previous administration had the slimmest indication of competence in stimulus program management.)
Cash for Clunkers is an early insight into how this administration will perform as an administrator of stimulus funds and as an interventionist into the free market. Scary thought.
When you are pricing for your business, be sure not to make the same mistake as Cash for Clunkers.  If sales are really all that wonderful – you are probably shortchanging yourself . Pricing is an art, paint carefully.

Start Up Now 13 – Small Business Consulting

On Wednesday, July 29 we held the 13th Start Up Now Workshop. No bad luck here!

There were five attendees. One was what we affectionately call a “tourist” (someone who is invited to observe). However, it is not at all unusual for “tourists” to become so engaged in the process that they end up joining the company that is built – that happened again at the 13th.

We had a great mixture of people in the room – I am continuously impressed by the professional quality of our attendees. One attendee currently works with a large corporation, two are business consultants both with process focus but on different ends of the spectrum, one is a corporate escapee and seriel entrepreneur and one is a financial planner. All attendees have experience in entrepreneurship.

After spending some time getting to know each other we began discussing business ideas. While we sometimes choose a business fairly rapidly, this was the second event where we spent the majority of the day discussing and selecting the idea to pursue. While I am sure it felt a bit frustrating at points, the discussion was valuable to ensure we selected a business that all attendees could be interested in.

The group ultimately agreed to go forward with the first idea that had been suggested which was to create a small business consulting firm utilizing the skills of the team members. Each person brings a unique skill set, all of which will serve to create value for their small business clients.

We spent the last couple hours outlining the business operations and making plans for moving forward. Through the Experience Map (TM) we developed a better understanding of how the company would operate and helped define the business further.

At the end of the workshop, all attendees agreed to stay with the company and help move it forward.

Another great team, another great company built and another great workshop.

To learn more or register for one of our upcoming workshops please visit www.StartUpNowWorkshops.com.