Leadership Matters

This is the third blog post regarding the 10 Things I Accidentally Learned on the Path to Growth and is a topic many of us as small business owners take for granted. After 25 years in this business, it has become more apparent than ever that leadership is a key to success. As I work with small businesses both inside the IT channel and in the marketplace at large, leadership seems to be a missing link for many organizations today. There seems to be a tendency to believe that investments in tools and processes will make businesses successful. My experience says that just ain’t so.

Leadership is required to have ongoing success. People don’t “just get it” by some sort of osmosis. They need, and quite frankly, want to be led. The problem with leadership is not so much the followers as it is those who are supposed to be the leaders. Owning a business is more than just filing the needed paperwork. It doesn’t make you a leader any more than just giving birth makes a woman a good mother. Leadership requires focus and hard work. It means we have to invest in ourselves – now that is a new concept for many – because we have to be able to grow if we want to lead our company.

The Law of the Lid
John Maxwell talks about the “Law of the Lid” which unfortunately describes the place many small businesses are today. This law says that you can’t lead your company beyond your personal leadership level. The company can’t pass you up. You are the lid – and if you are not continually investing in yourself and growing in your leadership and management skills – your company will get stuck and not be able to continue moving forward. Often owners want to blame their staff for these periods of stagnation when they need to look in the mirror and realize the problem starts with themselves.

Level 5 Leadership
One of the best descriptions of the way leadership growth occurs comes from the 5 levels of leadership. Most of us in IT began our companies as highly competent contributors – we were very good at what we did and decided to start a company. Problem is – that is level one leadership – and it doesn’t take a company very far. If we don’t invest in learning and growing our leadership skills we will remain leading company of ourselves and maybe one or two others. We can’t grow beyond that as we are the limiting factor. We must move up the leadership ladder and work toward becoming a level five leader. At that point we will have opened the doors to leading our company as far as we wish – leadership won’t be the issue – and we can grow and take our team toward that strategy and planning we have put in place.



Discipline
Another aspect of leadership is that it always is focused on people. But beyond people, good-to-great organizations have three forms of discipline:
• Disciplined people – you don’t need hierarchy,
• Disciplined thought – you don’t need bureaucracy
• Disciplined action – you don’t need excessive controls
When you combine a culture of discipline with an ethic of entrepreneurship, it results in great performance. But this culture has to be caught, not just taught, and it requires leadership from the top. The culture of discipline will happen as your team observes what and how you live. As the owner, you set the tone and the culture. It is up to you to create the discipline your company needs to succeed. It comes through leadership.

A hard question
Verne Harnish wrote that A-Player execs read 24 books per year. How do you measure up with those facts which were gathered by Brad Smart, father of the Topgrading concept, who researched 6500 top executives? So what is the difference between the A-players and the C-players? The A-players were continuous learners, reading on average 24 books per year (12 fiction and 12 non-fiction). That is how we become better leaders. We have to be learners. It must be continual, focused and intentional as we build our leadership toolbox and skills. If we don’t, we really have to ask ourselves whether we belong on our own bus or not. As the research showed - those who don't read barely have an advantage over those who can't!! That is a sobering reality. We must dig in and learn.

My story
I led for many years believing I had all the skill I needed to take us forward. I even bragged that I hadn’t read a book since high school – I managed to graduate college without reading any books at all – just love those Cliff notes and study aids. But we stalled and I was frustrated and then one day I looked in the mirror and realized that the problem was me. I had gone about as far as I could take us and realized it was time to wake up and become a leader. So I began reading and getting involved with peers and attending seminars and just learning all I could. I was the cap. Too often that is how small business goes. The owner just doesn’t make the needed investment in self and team to keep growing the business. Don’t make that mistake. You truly can’t lead your company past your own ability. Leadership matters – become a continual learner and take your company to new heights.

Faith in the Workplace - A Guest Post

At Networking Results, faith is as integral a part of the company as IT itself.

By Steve Moreau

If your faith is genuine, and it helps guide your professional and personal decisions, how could you not introduce faith into this thing that consumes so much of our lives? Our entire management team is Christian and we make no apology for it. We believe that we have been entrusted with a company that provides the support for many employee families, customers, partners, and vendors, so it should be run in a way that will maximize success.

Success is more than the bottom line, although that’s how we measure our success. But we also measure success based on the lives of our employees—both personal and professional. On the professional side, we want to provide opportunities for training and the ability to be in a position where they can shine, which manifests itself in job satisfaction. This is how we live out our faith in what we do.

But we realize that there is more to a person than just his or her professional self, and from my experience, most everyone has some sort of spiritual belief, and we are not ashamed to have created an atmosphere in which it is safe to talk about it. When we bring in food, we take time and say a prayer before we eat, for example, and employees feel comfortable asking if we would remember them or someone they know in our prayers. In those instances we don’t then gather everyone and say a prayer, although there have been a few times in management meetings when we get word that someone has been in an accident, and we will immediately take some time and pray for a safe recovery.

To us that’s extending our human compassion. We are working with individuals and in relationships, and in the end, even though we are a technology company, we’re more of a relationship company.

We have no formal process, and we are not in people’s faces about spirituality. Our actions and the way we live our lives scream a whole lot louder than anything we could say. For us, faithfulness comes from living out what we believe and allowing other people to exercise their faith as well, without any pressure to do anything they are not comfortable with.

There has not been a case when we have felt a need to restrain anyone in the company from talking about faith. What I do try to encourage, as I mentioned, is rather than just talking about it, let’s live it. Our actions will show what we believe. But if you are living it, you might as well have the option of talking about it as well, so we certainly don’t want to discourage that.

Still, we are a regular bunch of people who have lots of good times together. But there are guiding principles we follow, and those tend to align with traditional Judeo-Christian precepts of integrity, justice, fairness, and stewardship, by which we mean looking out for what has been entrusted to us.

Even from the owner’s standpoint, is this his business? Well, it is as far as ownership is concerned, but it has also been entrusted to him. There is a purpose in everything, and at this point in time, God has entrusted us with the employees in the company and our customers and partners, and we have to make sure we’re doing the right thing by all of them. We have to be accountable and compassionate. These are all straight out of the Bible.

There is such a big concern with trying to be politically correct in this world that we lose some of the compassion of trying to be a good person. If I really believed what was in the Bible and yet was not able to offer compassion to others, then I would be pretty shallow. This has been a tough economy, with lots of people out of work, and our faith helps us deal with it. Our belief is that God knows much better than any of us and he’s going to see us through it.

People find themselves in some difficult circumstances, with some very difficult challenges. Life is messy, but there is hope out there; there is hope that this isn’t all there is.



Thanks to Steve Moreau for sharing this post. It really defines NetRes and many other companies in the small business field. Problem is, too many don't have the backbone to let their faith show. We hide things and want to "fit in" rather than be the light we are called to be. Kudo's to Jeff, Steve and their team in Texas for all they are doing to be salt and light!

Planning Matters

This is the second blog post regarding the 10 Things I Accidentally Learned on the Path to Growth and is a topic many of us as small business owners take for granted. After 25 years in this business, it has become more apparent than ever that planning is a key to success. Zig Ziglar says it this way: “Unless you have definite, precise, clearly set goals, you are not going to realize the maximum potential that lies within you”.


No Plan
I didn’t have a plan for many years. So my examples are more what not to do than what to do. I formed SCCI (now HTS) as a hobby back in 1985. It was just going to be a small sideline business to allow me to help a few folks with their computers.

• Today it is 7 locations across 5 states with 80+ employees that will do over 16M in revenue. It is a hobby that is way out of control.


• Our headquarters office in Harlan has had 5 additions since we began in 1985. So today we have 12,000 square feet attached to the side of our home on the farm in rural Iowa. Not exactly the best plan knowing what I know today.


• HTG was started back in 2000 as a small peer group for four Iowa companies. Today it has become an international group with 240 plus member companies from four countries around the world. Certainly was not what my original expectations were.

Do as I say, not as I did
I could list a few dozen or hundred more examples of how things have happened that were not planned. The ones above are all positive results - maybe not everything they could have been – but not a list of all of my failed planning which doesn't always turn out that way. A failure to plan has cost hundreds of thousands of dollars and caused a lot of pain and chaos. I admit it and can show you the battle scars from eBay sales of obsolete inventory because of no plan in how to control ordering, to business units that were totally unprofitable because they never had a business plan at all, to wasting hours and days of my life because it just happened to me without me taking control of my time with a plan. If you don’t plan, you will struggle to have success. It was back in the late 90’s when things began to unravel for us that I finally figured this out. During the last 10 years or more that planning has been part of our process, our growth and success has been completely different and positive. Planning does matter and it will for you too.

Four Plans
I think there are at least 4 areas you need to plan at a minimum:

• Company business plan – tells you where your company is going


• Leadership plan – tells you how you will lead your company to achieve their plan


• Life plan – tells you how you will balance life and work and achieve the things you say are most important to you


• Legacy plan – tells others what to do in the event your company or you are not able to continue status quo

I have written previously about each of these and you can follow the links to get more details.

Here is the way we see it in HTG - four plans - one we focus on each quarter - which provides a solid way to make sure we are getting things done.



Why don't we do it?

So why is it that most small businesses don’t plan? Here is a list of some of the common excuses I hear from folks. There really are no good reasons, but we convince ourselves these things:

• Planning is hard work and takes time


• Planning never ends


• Planning requires communication


• Planning requires introspection


• Planning requires follow-up and measurement


• Planning requires us to be honest with ourselves


• Planning is bigger than me, myself and I

Hand in hand

Planning goes hand in hand with strategy. You need strategy to give you the “why” to what you are going to work on. But planning takes strategy and tells us the “how, when, what, where, and who” to achieve that strategy. It is important that we take time to plan. It is critical for us to truly grow our company and move toward success. Time to stop making excuses and step up to lead. That means you take time to involve your team, stakeholders and anyone else that should be included – and you just get it done. If you don’t have a plan, you are planning to fail. Don’t let that happen. Get down to business, take the time, invest the energy, and put plans down on paper. It will make a huge difference in your outcome!

Strategy Matters

This is the first blog post regarding the 10 Things I Accidentally Learned on the Path to Growth and is a topic many of us as small business owners take for granted. After 25 years in this business, it has become more apparent than ever that strategy truly does matter. It isn't how things typically start. Certainly not in my case.

Many of us began our businesses because we were good at what we did and decided we could make a business from it. We are typically good technically or as sales people and begin to hire a person or two to help us serve more folks. In my case, I started the technology business as a hobby because I really enjoyed computers. 1985 was the start and there was not grand plan, no long range strategy, just myself and my bride (who wasn't all that sure of the idea) that started to sell and service Apply computers.

It was just me for the first five years and then I hired my first employee - which changes everything. No longer can I just do whatever whenever and be able to expect others to read my mind. That is how I tended to run things for quite some time. But osmosis doesn't really work, and people can't read my mind, so it was time to begin making some changes.

Over the years I have had to change how I lead. And one of the major adjustments has been to define and let people know about strategy. That requires thinking about things far beyond the normal day to day tactical operations which is where most small business owners are most comfortable. After all, we can fix most anything and sell what we need to without a strategy can't we? That is true for a while, but soon you hit a ceiling and one major reason is that others are not sure what the plan is or how to really help the company grow.

We have to identify that "house on the hill" or "BHAG" as it is oftened called if we want others on our team to be able to help join us in taking the company there. They can't just figure it out as we often think they should. It needs to be defined and written and shared. It must be measured and updated and adjusted. It is hard work but vital to keep the company growing.

What it really means is that we must begin to think like a CEO. There are bad connotations to that role today, but it isn't the role that is an issue, but the people who fill that seat. For many small businesses - no one is sitting in that chair and no strategy happens. CEO thinking is strategic. It is forward looking and future facing. It is very different from how most of us are wired today. But it is critical. Here is a table showing some of the areas I believe we need to consider and the differences in the role of CEO think vs President or GM think.



We don't default to thinking like a CEO as the entrepreneur that founded the company. That is somewhat foreign territory for us. But if we want to take our company to the next level, we have to learn to think differently. We must begin to think strategically. That transformation does not happen overnight. It takes time and effort and a desire to learn. But it can happen, and when it does, your company will be poised to go to the next level.

Many of us lie about whether we truly have a business when the reality is we really just have a job. The way to transistion from a job that makes us......

• wear too many hats
• work too many hours
• handle too many things
• makes us a slave

.......is to change how we think and run our company. That is why strategy matters. It is the only way we can break out of our cycle of being controlled by the business and change it to what a business must be - one that serves the owner.

CEO thinking is not easy - but it is essential. HTG is committed to helping our members get there. We hold our CEO Forum twice a year to help focus owners on transitioning from the day to day to strategy. That is the leap we must make.

10 Things I Accidentally Learned

This past week I was in Orlando and shared at the IT Nation event hosted by ConnectWise. The topic was “10 Things I Accidentally Learned Along the Path to Growth”. Since I am one of the older folks in the industry, experience is on my side, and there have been some fairly painful learning experiences over the past 25 years. Ten of them stood out as significant – so that is what I shared. I will be writing in much more detail about these on this blog over the next few weeks – but here is the list and highlights for now:

1. Strategy Matters – we have to understand the "why" so we can set our sights on where we are going and know the outcome we pursue.
2. Planning is Key – we need to plan in at least 4 key areas – business, leadership, life and legacy – and the more we plan the luckier we get!
3. Leadership is Required – we have to grow as leaders both in our company and for our clients. We can’t lead people where we have never been.
4. Cash is King – our ability to grow and continue to lead in this industry can happen only when we have managed our cash well.
5. Growth is Hard Work – many think growth just happens. It doesn't. It takes a lot of continual effort and always is harder, slower and longer than expected.
6. Sell is Not a Four Letter Word – Ok - actually it is, but for many years I missed the boat on this one. Nothing happens until someone sells something. We have to become a strong sales organization.
7. Vendors Are Not The Enemy – we must learn to leverage their resources to help drive our business.
8. Success Without Balance is Empty – if we lose track of what matters and do not balance work and life – the results really don’t matter. We must manage our time and focus.
9. Keep Your Eye on the Customer – our marching orders come directly from them, not the latest fad or trend, and we must listen closely and respond quickly.
10. It is All About Relationships – we are in the people business actually helping folks with adapting to change. Boil it all down to this – we are in the change management business.

So that is my list – I probably forgot a few important thoughts along the way. The response has been overwhelming from those who heard it. As I sat down to create this presentation, it occurred to me that there are no items on the list that deal with technology itself. In the last 25 years some rather major changes have occurred. There was no Internet when we started. Cell phones were 20 pounds and not reliable. A portable computer was a luggable that weighed 40 pounds and was the size of your entire desk. IP telephony hadn’t even been thought of. Very little of the technology that we deal with today was even a glimmer in someone’s eye back in 1985. But the reality is that technology without a person using it has little value. It is about people and how they apply what we sell. We are in the people business – we must never forget that – and technology is just a tool we have to serve them. Our success will be measured by how well we keep our eye on that ball. Let’s make sure people are in the center of everything we do!

Are You Ready For The Big Shows?

This was originally written and published on the ConnectWise IT Nation blog. A special thanks to Christy Sacco for helping pull these tips together.

Here it comes. The biggest week in event action for 2010. The HTG Q4 meetings ahead of the ConnectWise Partner Summit. It doesn’t get any more action packed and important than this week. So the question is – are you ready? Not for some football – but to get the most value out of a very long, tiring, expensive and draining week. We all spend far too much time and money on events not to prepare properly. But more often than not, that is how many folks come to an event – totally unprepared to maximize the value they will receive. Most of the value from industry events comes from the preparation that happens ahead of time. If you just show up (and don’t get me wrong – that is step one), you will miss much of what could be in store for you. You have to be intentional to maximize your time and investment.

So where does one start to prepare? First you take care of the necessary travel, lodging and registration tasks. Plane tickets booked – check. Hotel room reserved – check. Registration site completed – check. You would be amazed at how many forget these core tasks and show up without a place to stay or no registration completed. Seems pretty basic but never hurts to double check the dates and times and verify things one last time.

Once you are set to attend it is time to begin reaching out to see who else will be on hand. Some events have online tools to schedule meetings and such. For HTG – you pretty much know that everyone will be there so this is not as big a requirement. But if there are people you would like to connect with – send an email well before the event and begin to process of finding a time to meet. Schedules become very full at events like this – so the early bird often gets the appointment. I find this kind of one on one face to face meeting as the most valuable part of any event. That is where you get the straight scoop.

Here are some other areas to consider as you prepare to get the most from your time. Don’t wait until the last minute – start today!

• Pack plenty of business cards. Order new ones if yours have an error. (Plenty of places turn them around quickly.)
• Review the agenda prior to arrival and identify the best sessions to attend.
• Review the vendor sponsor list and make plans accordingly (set appointments with your current vendors and seek out new ones).
• Attend the vendor exhibit hall and seek out 3 new vendors to learn about.
• On that same note, be selective in which vendors you engage with socially. If you have no intentions of ever engaging with a vendor, don’t let them buy you drinks all night or take you out to a steak dinner.
• Set goals.
• Attend the social functions.
• Wear your company shirt. This is especially impactful if you have multiple people attending the event. It is important to market your company to vendors, speakers, industry media and others just as you would prospective end users.
• If you are part of a community – be sure to wear your group shirt on the day with other community members. (Friday is Orange Shirt Day for HTG!)
• Introduce yourself at meals.
• Ask questions in sessions.
• Stay for the whole event. Why would you spend money on airfare to cut out before the event is over?
• Let your office know you will be out of the office and mostly not accessible. You can’t do both well.
• Take advantage of opportunities to speak to the media or be on a panel.
• Take an interest in people as people. Ask open ended questions to get people talking about themselves. Think of 3 questions, in advance, that work for you to break the ice in any setting.
• Thank vendors, speakers, and the event hosts for making the event possible.
• Write things down. You won’t remember them if you don’t.
• Complete the post event survey. They really do value your feedback.

Be sure you come to the event with some specific goals in mind. If you can’t define why you are attending, it probably is a poor investment of time and money. Write those goals down, share them with your team at home and the people you will associate with at the event. And then focus and make sure you achieve them. Vision without execution is hallucination. Don’t just think about goals – execute! Examples may include meeting 5 new people, bringing back one new thing to implement or introducing 3 new people to each other.

Finally – the biggest mistake people make when attending an event is to go as a sponge. They soak up all kinds of information and never do anything with it post event. You need to write down things that matter. Preschedule a meeting with your team at home to review what you learned. Write an event attendance report that highlights the people you met, the companies you need to follow up with, the tasks that need to be accomplished and anything else that needs to be done. It has to be done to have any value. So many dollars are spent on events these days with so little impact because attendees never go back home and share or execute one thing. It really begins with one thing – identify the most important and go knock that one down first. Then move to the next one. But do something. Otherwise just stay home!

6 Myths of Growing a Business

Verne Harnish of Gazelles included this list in his last email newsletter. If you don’t receive it, I highly recommend you get signed up. It is free and full of great content. I want to add my perspective to his observations. This is a great list for all of us to consider and think about. CEO type thinking – not what most of us typically do – but the kind of thinking we all need to do. We need to step back, get out of the day to day, and spend some think time on growth. It doesn’t happen accidentally. It happens when there is a plan, execution and discipline. So the listed items are Verne’s (in orange) – the running commentary is from me.

1. My margins will improve as my company gets bigger (normally the opposite happens).

There is a false perception that success comes with growth. That is not necessarily the case. In almost every merger or acquisition we have done, 1+1 does not equal 2, at least not right away. It takes time for economies of scale to kick in, for reduced overhead to cut costs, for improved efficiencies to drive more for less, and for cross selling new products and services to new clients to drive revenue growth. It is far from automatic. It is a lot of hard work and persistence. In my experience it is a 12-18 month transition if all goes well. That means you are able to overcome the biggest hurdle – culture conflict. Not all the new team will be instantly on board. Some never will be. Growth is good but don’t expect margins to jump just because you grow.

2. The folks running the big companies are smarter than us (truth, they are not -- your firms can easily beat the big guys)

Big companies are not smarter but they usually do have more resources. So the reality is that while they are typically slower and less nimble, they often do have much deeper pockets and more cash available which makes their ability to sustain difficult times or transitions better. We often struggle against big companies because they can outlast us – even doing the wrong things or a poor job – because they have mass. If managed properly they have a war chest of assets and cash that can help them weather storms that sink much smaller ships. So the key for us little guys is to be quick and nimble and beat them to the punch. That means we must be disciplined again to have someone doing CEO think – looking outside the day to day box to find the next opportunity – and then directing the ship to sail there ahead of the big guys. It doesn’t just happen by reading a trade rag or going to a conference. Someone has to think about it.

3. The company founder has got to go sooner or later, because the company is going to outgrow them.

Leaders don’t have to be replaced because a company outgrows them – at least if they are willing to grow at least as fast as the company. The problem many founders have is that they want to do the same things they did when they started. Keep their fingers in all aspects of the business, micro manage their people, make all the decisions, and control all the processes. That does not scale and does mean a collision will occur. But if the founder is willing to grow – to put on a new hat as the CEO and think differently – there is no reason he has to be replaced. That requires getting some training and coaching like he requires of all the rest of the staff. It requires setting goals and being accountable. It means doing things differently, but it can be done. It all comes down to a willingness and determination to continue to lead. A leader that does not learn will not continue to lead.

4. As CEO, you know what's going on in your business better than anyone else (you're really the last to know what's going on).

The CEO should NOT KNOW everything that is going on in the business. That is not his job. The CEO should think of most things happening in the business, provide support for the management team to execute those thoughts, and be the outside influence to keep the company moving forward. But a CEO that knows the business better than his team is not really acting like a CEO at all. This is a difficult transition for most of us to make. We have to move from being the center of the business to the center of the thinking. We have to move to being the center of the connection to the outside where new ideas and opportunities will come from. But we cannot hold on to the internal knowledge – that has to be passed to the management team.

5. Grow or die. (sometimes it's better not to grow -- remaining a "small giant")

This is an area that Verne and I may disagree on – although it is probably more semantics than anything. I find it impossible for a company to sit still. You are either progressing and moving forward or fall back. You can’t stay stagnant for long. I do agree that being a big fish in a small pond is a very viable option. We have tried to follow that strategy at HTS. Rather than grow into large markets, we have chosen to dominate smaller tertiary markets and drive our growth there. So growth can take many forms – you don’t have to add staff or locations or products or services to grow – you can just add more clients or go deeper with existing clients. There are many ways to grow. I do believe you need to be growing in some manner. It isn’t possible to stop time and just sit still.

6. Be a self-help junkie (actually, self-help is an oxymoron -- you can't help yourself -- the best business leaders have lots of advisors, consultants, coaches)

If you want to become a better leader for you company – you need help from others. Books are a great resource to learn new ideas but it is the discussion and sharing with others that brings those to life. There are many ways to do it – I personally believe a peer group like HTG is one of the best ways – but choose your approach and invest in some form of outside input. Actually combining several seems the most valuable to me. I like some group of community involvement like HTG mixed with some one on one consulting or coaching to get down to the real nitty gritty. In every case – the companies that are really knocking it out of the park are not living in a vacuum – they have continual input from others helping them learn to grow and lead.

Are you really growing your company? Or just fooling yourself? How about your life? Many of these same principles apply to life and legacy too. We have to really work at growth if we want to make it happen. The days of growth just happening because we open our doors each day are long gone. It is a very hard task to show continual year over year growth in any area. But bottom line is that it is a decision. You have to work hard to make it happen. You have to plan to be successful. It is a CHOICE plain and simple. It won’t happen accidentally – at least not for very long. I hope you will choose to work hard, plan and make it happen! HTG is there to help make that a reality in your life and company!

Who’s on Your Management Team?

Good friend David Russell of ManagetoWin wrote some great content in his weekly newsletter this week. The focus is on the often neglected power of involving your spouse in the decision making process. He calls it “Spouse Advantage”. He gives examples of Jim Collins, Ray Johnston and Jim Burns and how they are connected with their wives when it comes to making decisions. This is a topic that needs some focus for many of us leading companies.

For many years I fell into the trap believing that I was the one who needed to make all the decisions. After all, I was the bread winner, out in the workplace, making things happen day after day. So not only did I fail to involve my bride in the process, I often didn’t even inform her of the things that were on the table under consideration. Bad decision on my part. That line of decision making works if you are a perfect thinker, strategic planner and have all the answers. None of those things describe me.

So I made some big mistakes along the way. More often than not, my bride knew it was bad news well before I did. Like it or not they often see more clearly than we do being in the middle of the forest. We miss the trees that fall on top of us some days until they have knocked us down. Been there?

When I consult with small business owners I often ask what their spouse thinks of the situation being addressed. Almost without fail, the answer is “deer in the headlights” or a quick “they aren’t part of the decision process”. Both are telling answers and likely are indicators of some of the problems being experienced.

Are you fully leveraging the strengths of your spouse? We involve our business partners when we consider decisions, but what about the most important partner in our earthly lives? David asks “ What is the impact of a good marriage on your career”? I’ll take it a bit further and ask more importantly, what is the cost of a failed marriage because you were too proud or stubborn to seek their counsel?

We celebrated our 33 year anniversary this past July just like David and his bride did. There are lots of days and decisions I wish I could do over. It doesn’t work that way unfortunately. Once a day is gone – we can’t go back and try again. We can only learn and move forward. For me, I learn a little slow sometimes. It wasn’t until about 10 years ago that I finally figured out the greatest asset God had blessed me with – in business and in life – my bride.

I always had the opinion that she would not understand and trying to teach her would just slow me down. That is a good thing – both to teach because we can’t do that if we don’t have things thought out and defined – and to slow down because many decisions get made incorrectly because the alternatives are never considered.

And the reality is that most business decisions are a lot more about people than they are business. Hiring, firing, partnerships and companies – all revolve around people. The products and services are seldom the issue – it always boils down to people and my bride can read them pretty well. That’s a God given gift I don’t expect to ever really have.

David nails the problem that most of us have when it comes to involving our spouse in the decision making process: “You have developed bad habits in how and when you communicate with your spouse about your work”. That is the issue many of us face. We have a lot of things that have sort of just happened in our marriage over time and become the status quo. One area that is very true is around the way we communicate and interact with our spouse. Habits are in place – changing them is hard work. But it can be very valuable and worth the effort.

David gives this guidance to help begin a transition to taking advantage of one of the best kept secrets of success – leveraging the wisdom of your spouse to help guide the ship. Here is his guidance: Consider thinking deeply about this subject this week. This is NOT a conversation to have with coworkers, but rather with people who personally mentor you and whom you respect. Here are some questions to consider:

1. Write down the five biggest mistakes you have made professionally during your career while you have been married.
2. How many of those mistakes could have been avoided if you had worked more closely with your spouse to evaluate the situation and your options prior to taking action?
3. What habit could you develop with your spouse to involve them more in your professional decisions? One option: A regular business meeting that covers both family and professional business. Just be realistic - it takes time to build this habit and you may have to be the driver to make certain in a positive, encouraging way that these meetings occur.
4. How are you going to respond the next time it feels like you have to make a quick decision? How can you build this delaying tactic - verbally and postponing action - into a habit?
5. Consider a commitment to demonstrate your love for your spouse by involving them in all of your important decisions. How will you hold yourself accountable? It will take time and be challenging to develop this habit, but can you afford to operate as a lone ranger?

I encourage you to spend some considering how you can improve the decision making and leadership process you currently use by involving your spouse. It has made all the difference for me. My bride travels with me almost all the time – not just to keep me company – but to keep me balanced and focused and to have input into the day to day activities that impact our lives and business. There is some sacrifice involved by both to truly partner together in this way – but my experience says it is one of the best decisions you can make. Don’t just depend on yourself – that is bound to lead you into the weeds if it hasn’t already!

If you aren’t on David’s mailing list – you just might want to get added. He puts out a weekly newsletter that is always full of great information and thought provoking questions to consider. You can reach him at david@managetowin.com.

Doing Customer Touch Right

This past week I was blessed with an invite to attend the Compudyne TechFest - a gathering of customers of HTG member Compudyne in Duluth up on the frozen tundra by Lake Superior. My role was to deliever the keynote address about what is coming in the technology arena in the coming years. It was a 9 hour ride north, but a beautiful day and my bride and I thoroughly enjoyed the trip.

We arrived in time for the vendor dinner the evening before the event. There were a half dozen vendors who were sponsors and key providers of technology for the solutions that Compudyne implements to their SMB customers in Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan. We gathered for dinner along with a dozen or so of the Compudyne team for a very nice Italian meal and lots of interaction. It set the tone for the following day - which was all about the importance of relationships. First thing done right - practice what you preach. Compudyne not only talks about the importance of vendor relationships - they live it and the event prior to the TechFest was a great way to reinforce that to their team and the vendors on hand to participate.

The event began at 7:45 AM for breakfast. I was a bit skeptical about how many folks would get up on a rather rainy and dreary morning to come to Clyde Iron Works recently restored into a nice event venue. Second thing done right - they worked within the community to help showcase a new business and expose the hundreds of attendees to some of the positive things happening in their community. The venue was really nice - a former Iron Works plant that has been completely remodeled for events and includes a bar, restaurant and other things.

We had arrived before 6:30 and the place was already busy with the entire Compudyne team putting finishing touches on the event. Another thing I wouldn't have believed if I hadn't seen it myself. Third thing done right - involve the team in the production of a customer facing event. From planning to detailed execution - everyone was there pitching in and taking orders from the few making decisions. There was no standing around and saying "this isn't in my job description" - everyone did what was needed to finish getting ready.

By 8 AM the place was buzzing with customers and I could hardly believe my eyes. This is almost an all day event and already folks were in the house ready for the day ahead. The vendor booths were busy and people were eating breakfast and engaging. Fourth thing done right - create an environment where the positive interaction between customers lights a fire in all who attend. It was a very interactive and alive place to be. I have been to plenty of events where people come, eat, take the trinkets and leave. Not at this event. No one left.

The event began at 8:30 and began with a vision casting session by Compudyne president Brad Schow. He talked about the importance of relationships - with customers, vendors, distribution, and staff - and how they go to market to serve the needs of all involved. He opened the komono on how they approach the SMB marketplace, and shared 5 things that they see as "game changers" in the coming years. It was a very engaging presentation and it ended with a live demo by one of the vendor sponsors - Quorum - around business continuity. Fifth thing done right - tell it like it is without all the marketing fluff and let customers see the insides of your company and heart. As the first part of the morning session came to a close - there was clear understanding of the Compudyne vision and mission and how they were engaging customers and vendors alike.

After the break, it was time for a short vendor presentation and then the keynote. My role was to follow up and build on the foundation that Brad had laid. It was pretty easy to do since our philosophy around relationships is identical in most ways. I shared some of my experience of 25 years in the industry, some crystal ball projections around the economy and business in general, and then my list of key industry changes that we will be working through the next few years. Feedback was good on the message I delivered, and no one through anything or walked out, so I believe it went well. Sixth thing done right - have alignment in the messaging and make sure it connects with the audience. One of the attendees is a power blogger from Duluth. You can see what he had to say about the keynote here. But in emails from attendees post event - the main comment I recieved was that it was genuine, simple and easy to understand. My delivery probably wouldn't play as well in Silicon Valley, but the folks here in the Midwest just want the story without all the marketing and that is what I deliver.

By now it was lunch time and no one has left 4 hours into the event. The reason - there was 30K+ of prizes sitting on the main stage behind the presenters to be given away over lunch. Hundreds of prizes from computers to monitors to printers to gift cards. It was a solid half hour of giving things away - one after another - just draw and deliver and move to the next winner. Seventh thing done right - don't cut corners on the drawings. There is no doubt that people were in their seats through lunch because they wanted to win something. But it kept people there and they heard the message that the Compudyne team wanted to deliver - so that is a very good motivation. So many events are filled with a few drawings of rather worthless stuff or one big item. Here the odds of winning were really high - not everyone won - but well over half the audience walked away with a gift that meant something.

I was sure that following lunch people would scatter. Wrong again. There were breakout sessions during the afternoon and people filed up to those areas and it was standing room only. After 5+ hours in the venue and still wanting information. Eighth thing done right - provide quality content around topics that are relevant and interesting to the crowd. The breakouts were not about products but solving pain points of their business customers. People will attend sessions that can help their business. Too often we put a vendor up front to sell some product and miss the opportunity to engage deeply with our customers around things that matter.

The event was finished around 3 PM and a good crowd was still on hand that had been their since before 8 that morning. Why? Because it was well done and targeted. It has a history of seven prior events hitting the mark. But the main reason - the ninth thing that was done right - was that it was all about relationships. People were personally invited. They were greeted and pampered and made to feel welcome. We are in the people business. The more we understand and execute at the relationship level - the better all aspects of our life will be. Are you focused on relationships?

Congrats to the Compudyne team for setting the bar high for the rest of the HTG member companies. We can all learn from this example and go deeper in every relationship we have!

Do You Need A Digital Fast?

There have been a lot of discussions lately about the addiction that many of us have to our email, PDA’s, Ipads and the like. Let’s face it – for many of us it is true – we need to learn a little about balance. My bride calls my PDA my binky because I don’t really go many places without it and am constantly getting some sort of validation from pulling it out and reading the lines that appear on it. We all struggle with life/work balance – but the “always on, always connected” world we live in makes it a real temptation for us to deal with.

So there are a few new wrinkles being talked about today. The “staycation” is the first – just stay home rather than go on vacation and truly get away. Somehow we have convinced ourselves that staying home and pretending that we are not working is the same as truly leaving home with our family to enjoy the sights of God’s creation in this unbelievable world we live in. Let’s call it what it is – a staycation is an excuse to not take the family somewhere – save some coin – catch up on all the honey do jobs we have made excuses about for months or years – and somehow deceive ourselves into thinking it is just as good as an Alaskan cruise or a trip to Mount Rushmore with a couple screaming kids in the back seat asking “are we there yet” a few hundred times. It just isn’t the same – certainly not for everyone except you.

The latest craze is a “digital fast”. We just unplug from it all – from the PDA, social media, the Internet as a whole – thinking somehow that will set us free. Here’s a news flash – what a digital fast does is pile up all the information into a bunch of places so when you come off the cleansing you are completely overwhelmed. This isn’t like a fast from eating where you don’t go back and have to eat all the food you avoided during the fast once you end it. Somehow it doesn’t quite work the same digitally. If people would quit sending emails, updating Facebook, stop Tweeting etc. this concept might have a chance at working. But they don’t – in fact – it always seems to me the intensity of the sending and updates ratchets up a notch when I am offline. No one seems to deal with all the electronic accumulation while I am away or fasting digitally. It just doesn’t work the same.

Alexandra Samuels wrote a great article on the digital fast on Harvard Business Review the other day. Check out her post and consider these things she wrote:

 “I'm troubled by the underlying narrative, that our ability to unplug is necessary to prove that we're not Internet addicts. We're supposed to demonstrate our grasp of human relationships by our ability to relate face-to-face, as well as online. We're supposed to show that we can be present by being absent from the web.
 The very idea of a digital "cleanse" implies that our time online makes us dirty; the idea of a digital "fast" suggests that there's a virtue in going without.
 We plug in because we like it.
 When we're online, participating in social media -- we're meeting some of our most basic human needs. Needs like creative expression. The need to connect with other people. The need to be part of a community. Most of all, the need to be seen.
 It's the very fact that the Internet can meet so many fundamental needs, significantly if not completely, that gets people nervous. We are accustomed to defining our human experience in terms of what happens face-to-face:
 We can have meaningful emotional or intellectual contact with people that we rarely or never encounter in person.
 We're not sure, or we're reluctant to admit that it feels real, because we are trained on connection inherently requiring physical presence.
 But what most digital fasters describe the experience to be like is a realization of how online and offline lives are integrated.
 If unplugging needs to be a part of our approach to living and working digitally, it's through the daily practice of taking downtime, of opting for reflection rather than distraction.“

The real answer to all of this is still the same basic principle – balance. We will never return to the days of old where we are not connected everywhere we go. At least not without significant planning and effort. It is the mission of all the wireless companies to make sure that doesn’t happen. Can you hear me now? So it comes down to CHOICE. We have to make a conscious effort to put our digital connectivity where it belongs – getting our focus and attention when appropriate – or remaining in our pocket or turned off completely when it is not. Up to this point at least, we still have to interact with the device to have it communicate to us. We can’t blame anyone other than ourselves. It is a matter of self-control and discipline – like most things that matter in life. If you need some help figuring that out – check your PDA in with your spouse when you walk through the door. My guess is they won’t struggle to make the choices for you at all!

Analysis Paralysis

There was a great blog post a few days back on the topic by Jeff Stibel. He was writing about a fortune he had saved from his childhood that said "Avoid decisions, avoid life". Many people live by that mantra. They believe by putting off making a decision they can avoid the outcome of the needed decision and things will just somehow go on without any consequences.

Here is the real truth: making no decision is a decision. Hard as you may try to avoid the decision making process - it will happen. You can take control and make the decision you wish, or let things happen and hope for the best which still ultimately turns out to be your decision. I opt for the first option - to take control and make a decision.

John Maxwell talks about the need for us to fail forward in our decision making process. To fail forward, you must create many decisions each incrementally improving your business. It isn't exactly Six Sigma, but it does drive many companies forward and proves that success by failure can truly work.

Jeff Stibel writes these words in his blog on HBR. I have condensed a couple of his paragraphs down, but here are his thoughts: "People get overwhelmed with choices, bombarded with information, and become afraid of the risk of drawing a line in the sand. Psychologists have a term for this — choice overload. In the presence of an abundance of information or too many choices, people often become overwhelmed and frozen. Those individuals inevitably revert to what is easiest, effectively making no decision at all. That can be dangerous in business and in life.

Another painful lesson in choice aversion is the fact that far too many people choose not to choose, by default allowing decisions to made for them. They go through life trying to avoid risk, and that often means avoiding decisions. As a general rule, "losses loom larger than gains" and that is what causes people to regret bad decisions and reflexively avoid them altogether. Part of the fun in what we accomplish is learning, exploring, and trying new things. You just can't do that without making decisions".

Decisions will always be a key differentiator among business leaders. Those who are willing to step up and make the difficult decisions with confidence and assurance will either sink or swim, but it will be their choice that leads to the result. My feeling around decision making is that analysis paralysis is a disease we cannot tolerate in small business today. We have to make decisions, take risk and drive our company, failing forward as we go. In my opinion this has to be the guide:

Action without perfection must always trump paralysis caused by waiting for perfection.

We can't afford to wait until everything is always exactly the way we want it to be. We have to take decisive action and make things happen, realizing that there will be necessary course corrections along the way. But it is far easier to change the direction of a moving object than one that has not moved at all. Don't get stuck where you are in your business because you can't make a decision. The analysis may not always give you a clear direction. Sometimes it comes down to your gut. My dad told me often that to win you only have to be right 51% of the time. That is cutting it pretty close, but it is true. If you wait until you have everything exactly as you want it to be, well you'll still be sitting there while someone else moves past you over and over again.

The Microsoft Partner Network

The amount of discussion around the new MPN is increasing, and the information available to help explain it seems to have settled out, so I am going to take a little time to address the coming changes. There are a series of common questions and whines that seem to be consistent, so I'll share my take on what is to come from what I believe to be true.

The first question regards when the new MPN takes effect. October is the launch of the program broadly, although some aspects have been slowly intergrated into the current program over the last months. But October is the official date, so that is when things kick into gear. I have had lots of questions and confusion around why we continue to get the report cards monthly with points listed on them. These are informational and are important for companies whose renewals are happening prior to October. The information is valid under the current program, but will go away once we reach the October launch. No more points. Note: your renewal date will actually be the transition date from the old program to the new. Everyone does not make the switch on October 1, but as your renewal date comes you will be moved to MPN.

A very common discussion is around the gold level. The new gold in MPN is not equivalent to the current gold in the program today. My perspective is this, and my disclaimer is that this is my opinion only so take it for what it is worth. I think the current gold level becomes roughly equivalent to the silver certified level in the new program. Gold in the new MPN (formerly called advanced competencies) is a level that is not available today. But it is very much like becoming gold in the current program was some years back. It is designed to be a differentiator, and it is designed to be difficult, and it is designed to keep most partners from being at the new gold level. It is supposed to be hard to achieve. Just because you are gold today you SHOULD NOT expect to be gold at your next renewal. They are not equivalent levels. So many partners are voicing displeasure (whining in my vernacular) about the fact that they can't or at least are not planning to make the investment required to remain gold under the new program.

Here is the reality. If being gold in the new MPN is important to you - it really is not unattainable. It takes 4 engineers and some sales to achieve it. That allows you to be at the highest certification level that Microsoft offers a partner. I don't think that is too much to expect. Some will say "easy for you to say since you have so many employees". The hard truth and reality is that a company with less than 4 people cannot expect to be equal to a company with 75, nor can we at 75 expect to be equal to companies with hundreds or thousands of engineers. All IT companies are not equal. Microsoft has taken a good shot at making differentiation possible. I would never say that we have the same level of expertise that our larger competitors have. We are not as deep, don't have as many resources, etc etc. I know it is a hard pill to swallow but we at HTS will move from a half dozen competencies to one or two in this program. It is a reality that change is coming. And that is the design.

Change happens. It always has, and it always will. The speed of change continues to increase so that means we have a few choices to make:

• Resist it, fight it, refuse to participate
• Grumble about it, drag our feet, grudgingly move toward it
• Embrace it, support it, lead others through it

Which of those describes your approach to change? The train has left the station so I encourage you to embrace it and figure out where you will fit into the new MPN. There are some resources available to you:

You can create a customized transition plan to the Microsoft Partner Network by calling the Microsoft Partner Network Experts at 1-877-254-6825. You can work with an MPN Expert to develop a customized transition plan to help you understand your current partner status and identify what actions your organization will need to take to meet your membership goals under the Microsoft Partner Network:

• Your organization’s status toward achieving new silver or gold competencies based on the competencies you have currently achieved
  – Microsoft Certified Professionals (MCPs)
  – Exam requirements for those MCPs
  – Training and Assessments
• Licensing Assessment
• Sales & Marketing Assessment
• References
  
  If you prefer to work on it yourself, the new transition tool is now available. You can find it here. Eric Ligman wrote a great blog post to lead you through using it that can be found here. Lots of resources to begin the process. But the message is to get started now. It will require some tests to be passed and some planning to be done in most cases. Don't sit back and wait. Find out where you are today, and then you will know what your options are and what needs to be done to move to the place in MPN you desire to be.
  
  There is another piece of great news from Microsoft that you should be aware of. This week the US SBSC team has made $500 available to their partners. Microsoft Small Business Specialists (SBSCs) have access to rebate funds reserved exclusively for them! SBSCs are eligible to receive up to $500 back on marketing investments.

Funds are available for you to drive demand generation efforts through Ready-to-Go Marketing (includes Events, Campaigns, and various Marketing Services). We want to help you to grow your business.

Don't wait: These funds exclusive to SBSCs are valid until December 31, 2010 or until supplies last. More information is available here. To get your reimbursement, submit your invoice at www.mspartnerdirect.com/rebate. Your special promotional code is: 'SBSC500H1'.

Get started today. Spend the marketing money. Use the online tool. Call the toll free help line. Just start the process and work toward your goal. Planning makes this happen. Remember that vision without execution is hallucination. And if you don't think it is worth the effort - that is your choice - just remember who made it. Don't complain about Microsoft if you choose not to participate in the new MPN. That is something you will decide, not them!