If you want a process to go faster, it's tempting to focus on the straightaways.
Get your delivery drivers to go faster on the highway. Get your development team to take fewer breaks during a sprint. Push for everyone to get out of the way of the moving object. Faster processors!
Actually, you'll get far more productivity if you focus on your loading and unloading instead. How many meetings does it take to get something approved for delivery or development? How many false starts are there? When work is done, does it sit for a long time before it gets used?
You don't win races based on your top speed.
October 4, 2018
Based on how much time we spend staring at the mirror, grooming our social media, tweaking our book cover… you’d think that there’s a correlation between the last few hours of tweaking and the results that we get.
There must be… after all, we spend more time worrying about the cover than we spend writing the book, more energy answering the trolls than serving our best customers, more money on concealer and blush than on healthy food.
But of course, as you read this, you realize that this isn’t true.
You can’t name someone you befriended because his eyeglass frames were just the right shape, or the last book you loved because the cover was perfectly typeset.
For surface shine, 80% might be more than enough. After that, the tweaking is for us, not those we seek to serve.
October 3, 2018
Everyone hated the traveling salesman.
That’s because he came to town, said whatever it took to make the sale, and then left.
In 1900, Sears saw a market opportunity. Their catalog had more variety, sure, but what it really offered was a guarantee. Tens of thousands of people even bought a house from the Sears catalog. They become the twentieth century’s biggest retailer because the company understood the lifetime value of trust—difficult to earn, but worth it.
The internet is going through the same schism right now.
Some folks are happy to sell you something right now, then bye, see ya (or not), because every website is in essence from out of town. With so much pressure on clickthrough rates and yield, it’s not surprising that companies are saying whatever they need to in order to close a sale. Big promises, very little care or support.
At the same time, some successful organizations have taken a completely different path. They’re so focused on maximizing the lifetime value for the customer (and themselves) that they work overtime to tell their customers the truth. It’s not for everyone and it might not be for you. Truth works because it earns trust.
Dropbox, software that I’ve recommended here before, is going through an identity crisis. They’ll need to decide if they want to invest in what it takes to be trusted. I’ve wasted many hours over the last few months trying to work my way through some significant bugs (workflow and data loss) with them, and each of the many customer service people I’ve worked with have pushed me to do more testing, and they’ve clearly stated that my problem is unique. This ‘bluff, stall and get used to it’ strategy is the sort of thing one might expect from a traveling salesman. Yesterday they finally let me know that in fact it’s a known issue, that it affects many people with hardware and software like mine, and I’m stuck with it. I can’t easily rip it out, and I can’t happily work with it either.
If they had told me 4 months ago, they would have had a chance at earning my trust as I built a workaround with them. Instead, they’ve lost a sneezer and a referrer, as well as the benefit of the doubt.
When you tell the buyer to beware, you’ve also told him or her to not bother to trust you.
October 2, 2018
If you make serial numbers or passwords, don’t use 0 or o or 1 or l. Simply skip them as options.
If you want people to remember something, don’t mix letters and numbers together.
If you want people to be able to type in a code on a phone, don’t use caps.
The best passwords and serial numbers to share are actually a series of simple words. blueredrobin is way easier to type and remember than b2#3R4, even though they have similar security.
If this is so obvious, why is it rarely done?
Everything is designed, and design is marketing. It shows that you care, it makes the people you seek to serve happier, and it’s easier, too.
October 1, 2018
A never-ending stream of pictures. People who are prettier than you, happier than you, more confident than you. Weddings that are fancier than yours was, with sun-dappled trees, luscious desserts and delighted relatives. Or perhaps it’s the status updates from everyone who is where you aren’t, but wish you were.
And the billboards and the magazine ads always show us the people we’d like to be instead of the people we are.
In the short run, gazing at all this perfection gives us a short hit of dopamine, a chance to imagine what it might be like.
Over time, though, the grinding inadequacy caused by the marketing machine wears us down.
It’s okay to turn it off.
PS Consider The Bootstrapper’s Workshop. Today, Sunday, is the last day to sign up for it, and we’re not sure when it will run again. If it’s for you, please don’t miss it.
Since it began just a few weeks ago, there have been 500,000 pageviews, more than 15,000 user visits and 31,000 posts. All from people on a journey similar to yours, one in search of a sustainable model for creating significant value and earning a living while doing it.
The workshop is open for more than two more months. Hope you can join in.
September 30, 2018
Joseph Beuys didn't make pretty art.
When I was 12, I saw an exhibit he had at the Guggenheim in NY. As its centerpiece was a 3,000 pound block of lard, wrapped in felt. It was bizarre, it smelled a bit and forty or more years later, I haven't forgotten it.
Beuys was transformed by near-death experiences he had as a youth. And that wound informed the art that he made. He shared his pain and more than that, the route to his salvation.
This isn't what we want from everything in our lives. We often choose convenience, solace or reassurance. But more often than we realize, the dance with fear and mortality and risk that others engage in becomes part of our cultural landscape.
September 29, 2018
Is there something you do every day that builds an asset for you?
Every single day?
Something that creates another bit of intellectual property that belongs to you?
Something that makes an asset you own more valuable?
Something that you learn?
Every single day is a lot of days. It’s easy to look at the long run and lull yourself into skipping a day now and then.
But the long run is made up of short runs.
[And a first reminder that the February (!) session of the altMBA is now accepting applications. I hope you’ll consider it.]
September 28, 2018
There are 88 keys on a piano.
64 colors in the big box of Crayola.
You can’t own a key and you can’t own a color.
But once you start combining elements, the possibilities go way up.
The opening chord of a Hard Day’s Night is a unique signature. So are the colors in a Lilly Pulitzer dress.
Your work can struggle to fit in. Or you can do the hard work of having it stand out.
As you can see from the notes on the single chord the Beatles developed, it’s not obvious or simple. And most of the time, it doesn’t even work. But if you find a chord and stick with it, again and again, for years, then, over time, it might become yours.
September 27, 2018
… is not the same as low price.
The price is obvious. It can be seen from a mile away. But value is more subtle. It often needs to be experienced to be understood.
The price is the same for every person who buys that item at retail. The value is different for everyone.
Low price is the last refuge for marketers who don’t have the patience or guts to demonstrate value for those that need it.
September 26, 2018
If we stop going, we stop learning…
and
If we're not willing to keep learning, we should probably stop going.
September 25, 2018
