You can buy some at www.nothingforsalesite.com or read an article about it.

Takeaways:

• Beats me. There’s a sucker born every minute? The first time you do something it’s news worthy? or humorous?
• Your Takeaway here _____________________________

The irony is that people and institutions that have money to invest are spending time and energy just LOOKING for places to put that money to use while at the same time, tens of thousands of businesses die every year because they don’t have enough funding. These two groups are passing each other like email sent to the wrong account. WHY? Because in many ways they don’t think alike. You know how an optimist sees the glass half full, a pessimist sees the glass half empty and an engineer sees that you’ve got twice as much glass as you need?

If you want to catch fish, you have to think like a fish, go where they hang out, give them bait they like. If you want to catch capital, you have to think like an investor, not just like an entrepreneur.

I’ve been on both sides of this issue and I know there’s a big difference in the way they think. Entrepreneurs see opportunity; they are optimists. They have to be to keep chugging along through all the hard work it takes to get a business off the ground. So they tend to see the reward that will come with success.

Lenders and investors approach things differently. I wouldn’t exactly say they are pessimists (otherwise they wouldn’t be investing in start-ups or young companies) but they are the types that might wear a belt along with suspenders. A person who has money to lend or invest is most interested in making sure they don’t loose that money. They tend to look at the risks where an entrepreneur sees only the reward.

So how do you catch a capitalist? You have to have a story (contained in your business plan) about your business that explains not only the potential upside, but shows that you’ve considered the down side. And not only that you’ve considered it, but also that you’ve done everything you can to minimize it. If you can’t do that, investors won’t care about the reward.

The price you pay for the money you need is in direct relation to the amount of risk. When you ask for money you have to tailor your story to the person you’re telling it to. I don’t mean you bend the truth, but you make sure the proposal contains the parts that they most want to hear.

Jon [didn't post last name] gives his experience on both sides of this coin on his blog.

Takeaways:

• Focus on minimizing the chance of loss – not inflating how big the rewards might be
• The less risk there is, the cheaper will be the money you’ll get. Bank money is the cheapest because they take the least risk.

When I was in college in the early ’70s it was common for women not to shave their legs or wear make-up. We guys professed a liking for the “natural woman”. One day I noticed that my girlfriend looked remarkably striking. As I starred, I realized she’d put a touch of color to her eyes and lips, and added a bit of curl to her hair. I started to rethink my position.

When I first read Norm Brodsky’s piece saying marketing is a waste of money I agreed with him whole heartedly. But after reading his response to readers [not posted on their site yet - pg 63 March 2006 issue] I still agree, but I’m starting to refine my position.

Since college I’ve noticed many women whose makeup turns me off, and makes them less attractive than they could be. Marketing is the same way. It used to work (maybe heavy makeup did too). But now we’ve become more than immune to it, we resent being marketed to. It seems patronizing. And breeds distrust.

However, as any business owner knows, if you just build it they won’t come. You need to get the word out – but in the right way. A way that’s genuine and trustworthy. I see nothing wrong with presenting yourself in the best light possible. What’s ironic in marketing (and probably doesn’t work with makeup) is that acknowledging your faults and what you’re doing to improve them can actually present you in a better light than trying to hide them. Studies have shown [don't you just love that phrase?] that when you acknowledge a customer’s complaint and solve the problem right away – they become more loyal than customers who never had that complaint.

Marketing is Like Makeup Take-aways:

• Your company has to be instrinsically attractive to customers. Start with providing actual value (as your customer defines value). For many companies you can stop right there.
• Getting the word out in the right way – a touch of marketing – will enhance your natural beauty/value and can be a good thing. Never expect that this will make up for lack of value in your customer’s eyes.
• Too much or the wrong kind of marketing is actually worse than none at all.
• It decieves your customers and yes, this used to work. People are smarter now. They have tools like the internet and they aren’t afraid to use them.
• It hides and distorts your true value as fashion makeup can make someone appear uglier than they are. Lovers want to kiss the person, not the Maybeline.
• It distracts you from what you should be doing – providing value as your customers define it. This can waste a lot (A LOT) of money, and worse make you confuse the definition of success.
• And did I say it can waste a lot of money?

I couldn’t believe it! Here is an article about how to improve your penmanship. If only Mrs. Ziefert had read this when I was in her 5th grade class. Excuse my little detour into the personal here but it’s always bugged me that I write so fast that even I can’t read it half the time. Well I guess if that’s a major regret of my life, I’m doing pretty good.
Takeaways:

• Form the letters with your arm not your fingers.

My wife runs our company from 1700 miles away, as I did before she took over. We use the phone, email and pcAnywhere to log into the computers. In “interesting times” someone needs to visit once every 6 weeks or so. When things are running smoothly we can visit as infrequently as every 4 or 5 months.

Ron Hart runs a company in southern California from his home in the northern part of the state. He goes down every two weeks.

Stephen McDonnell goes into the office one day a week.
How about you?

When telecommuting started to become an issue, you’d hear the argument that managers can’t manage if they can’t see what the employee was doing.

That’s pretty much gone by the wayside due to the fairy tale about the shoemaker and the elves, (or was it Peter Drucker’s Management by Objectives?) Anyway, the point is if you can’t tell how well someone’s doing by looking at their results, then you aren’t really managing them – you’re just taking attendance. Like how did the shoemaker know what the elves did all night? He didn’t see them do it, but he saw the shoes!

But, as in most business situations, the real world isn’t so simple. Now comes this post by a manager who calls himself Rands about how hard it is to keep a software team on the right track when someone is remote and you can’t bump into them in the hallway . And he asks for feedback from those who’ve been there.

Many of the comments he gets apply specifically to a software development situation. But it must be said that relationships can’t be built by email alone. And as Peter Drucker came to say, you often don’t know the objectives so you can’t manage by them.
I’d love to hear your experience either as a manager or a managee.

I’m not talking about MY best job ever – or yours. I’m talking about your employees.

The Black Sheep just celebrated their 20th anniversary. They threw a party for Nick (the owner) and invited a lot folks who’d worked there over the years. The party was hosted by a chef who used to work at the sheep, and left to buy out a second restaurant Nick started – but that’s another story.

The first thing Nick told me about the party was that his existing staff (especially newer hires) were able to “get the vibe.” It was great for them to talk to people who had worked there 10 years prior telling them, “I didn’t realize it at the time, but this is the best job I’ve ever had.”

How may of your ex-employees would say that?

How much effort do you spend trying to make it their best job?

I bet there’s a correlation.

In The World’s Greatest Banker Fred Gratzon tells the story of how his company outrgrew both his cash supply and his systems to track the growth. His banker finally justified an increase in credit by asking Fred “Do you feel like you’re making money?” When it happened again, the banker encouraged Fred to kite checks. This bought him time to get his systems in order, profit from the growth and take the company public. Fred’s post is an interesting read.

It’s not that I think people who write this kind of stuff actually lie. It’s just that their perspective on what really happened makes better business porn than it makes an example you can actually apply to your situation.

The lesson you can apply is one by Peter Drucker. He said that every time a company grows by 50% its existing systems become unworkable. And that it takes a year and a half to three years to develop new ones. The actual numbers (50%, 3 years) may vary – especially for smaller firms or faster growing ones. But the point is if you have a fast growing company, you need to be working NOW on systems that will support the size that the company will be down the road.

Where do you spend your time?

Geek Squad will fail even if the geeks do a great job, because the company doesn’t give the customer what they want AND because it gives them something they don’t want.

Geek Squad is the service that comes to your house to fix your network – rolled out nation wide by Best Buy.

Great idea. Solves a problem. I’m assuming their geeks are competent.

The problem is their marketing image is cute. And cute gets annoying. Especially when I’m already mad that my network is down. Call their 800# and you’ll have to listen to what feels like hours of a guy talking in a DRAG NET voice about how the squad works. Just connect me damnit! Stop giving me what I don’t want.

Then it won’t give me what I do want. They have set “packages.” Hook up two computers for this price. This much for each extra computer. But what if my computers are already hooked up and I want someone to tweak it? Or if I’m having problems moving the modem and switch to a new location? The woman on the phone tried to figure out a way to price what I wanted based on the boxes she had on her screen. OK I said, we’ll do it. THEN she told me they “wouldn’t have a geek in my area” till a week from Tuesday. Why didn’t she tell me that up front?!?!? I couldn’t wait that long.

I looked up David Blaise at PC Service Technologies. His website is still under construction (since 1995 it looks like) but he talked to me like a real person. Figured out how much I knew and what I didn’t know. Solved my problem quick and cheap. If you’re not near Milford, Connecticut I doubt he’ll “have a geek in your area” anytime soon.

If you can’t figure out how to scale quality then stay small.

Seth Godin has a great post on taking responsability. It ends with this wonderful line:

Is “I accept responsibility” the new “Your call is very important to us”? Probably.

And, for the record, a client once gave me a gift of Shari’s Berries. They were lucious. Thanks again, Rodger.

A pretty basic Management 101 article, but useful.

Here in Forbes. It starts like this:
The smart aleck employee who prides himself on doing as little as possible to scrape by will needle you by saying, ‘There are no bad workers — just bad managers.’

The genius-in-residence has a minor point. But the question remains: How do you motivate employees who don’t perform up to their potential?