Category Archives: Blog

Looking Outside

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One of the biggest mistakes we can make as innovators and business leaders is to assume that we automatically know what our customers want, need, and are willing to buy.

readysetgrow2I learned that lesson the hard way in 2004 when I came up  with a ‘brilliant’ idea.

CorePurpose, Inc., the company I founded in 2002, would run a 12 month lecture series with thought leaders from across the country.

We were smack dab in the middle of a down turn.  People were looking for answers and strategies to help turn things around.  And of course – I knew who had the answers.  I would bring them to town, one each month, and help all the small businesses by giving them access to ideas and talent as a group that they could not afford individually. I was really excited!

The folks at the Phoenix Business Journal also thought it was a great idea and featured the program with a full page story to kick things off in January 2, 2004.  Doug Brodman and my friends  at AVI Communications created an incredible 12 month interactive marketing campaign highlighting each month’s speaker in addition to the ads (like the one above)that would run each month in the Business Journal .  We had a sure fire hit!

Well, maybe not.  While we had gotten great feedback in designing the program as to the topics of interest, the areas of need, and the program’s price, we failed to ask one key question:

Would they, as business owners, make the investment of their time to attend twelve half day sessions throughout the year?

It turns out that for many in our target market, the answer was no!  Instead of standing room only crowds, the room was half full each month.  Still, we held to our commitment to provide all twelve sessions.  Those that attended loved the program.  CorePurpose got lots of critical acclaim from the economic development community and even won awards.

Through out the year, we kept asking potential customers – many of whom we had talked to during the design process – what we needed to do differently.  In almost every case we got the same answer.

They could not afford the time away from the office when times were so tough.  The perceived benefit did not exceed the perceived cost… of their time!

In the end, the program lost over $60,000 dollars because I assumed I knew the answer to one very important question and did not ask it.

Back then, that was a BIG hit to take.

So what is the moral to this story?

When you are designing products or services, be sure that you look outside your organization and ask ALL the important questions.

Get with professionals to help you design accurate assessments of market needs AND your target customer’s willingness to adopt what you are creating before you commit to investing your time and money to create a product or service that customers may say they want – but may not be willing or able to buy.

And for me – as a personal reminder – this ad has a place of honor on my office wall.  It stands as a reminder to be sure to look outside of the company, to talk to customers and prospects, and to ask all the right questions – FIRST.

Thanks for stopping by.  Stay Tuned…

Joan Koerber-Walker

How big of an impact can one thing make?

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I remember my grandmother quoting the poem “For the Want of a Nail…” to me as a child. Her message to me – all things great and small can have tremendous impact on the success or failure of what we are trying to achieve”

For want of a nail,

V-Trak Nails 5 Citythe shoe was lost.

For want of the shoe,

the horse was lost.

For want of the horse,

the rider was lost.

For want of the rider,

the battle was lost.

For want of the battle,

the kingdom was lost.

And all for the want of a horseshoe nail!”

 

Anonymous

Grandma looked at life as a series of chapters, each full of choices, opportunities, goals and challenges. When one chapter ended, another commenced. You might not have control of all the twists and turns of the plot, but you could make a huge impact on how the story turned out.

So, why write an article about business – and that’s what this is – with old proverbs and messages learned at Grandma’s knee? Because we often make business and business decisions much more complicated than they need to be!

Many of the lessons we learned early on in our lives – when things were simple – can have a significant impact on business success. Simple lessons like –

  • Look both ways…
  • Listen to your teacher
  • Look out for your brother
  • Don’t cry over spilt milk
  • You’ never know until you try
  • If you fall down – get up
  • You’ll never finish if you don’t get started.

Our lives and our businesses are made of a continuous series of little things – some that may seem important at the time but have little impact in the grand scheme and others that seem insignificant but can have a long and lasting affect. The trouble is that we lack perfect intuition or the crystal ball to determine what the important things are right now.

There may be some pretty big questions that you are be facing in your life or business in today’s economy.  It pays to keep in mind that the simplest answers are often the right ones and, as in the case of the nail, one small thing can make a big difference. 

Thanks for stopping by.  Stay Tuned…

Joan Koerber-Walker

The End of the One Way Street

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For those of you that have been following my Little Life Stories blog over the past week, you know that I have had quite a bit of windshield time as my son and I drove the 2500 miles from Phoenix, Arizona to Brookfield, Connecticut.  Over 40 hours in the car equated to that much time off-line.  You should try it some time.  Disengaging and taking the time to think without the constant demands of meetings, phone, or computer.

One WayNow traveling down highways is the ultimate One Way Street.  If someone decides to travel in the wrong direction – it’s a recipe for disaster. 

But for most other areas of our life and business – traveling down the one way street is a very short sighted solution.   

A very wise friend of mine taught me long ago that by extending yourself, engaging, and helping others there is a karmic affect.  What you give comes back to you.  This video tells the story… 

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3BVhWIetBH0]

A recent blog post and developing exchange with Gloria Feldt on her blog “Speaking Up” under the category of Courageous Leadership really helped me bring my thoughts into focus in terms of social media interactions and my social media tool kit as a leader.

How does social media fit in my leadership tool kit?

I loved that Gloria started off by recognizing that social media is a tool for leaders and not a strategy. Social Media – interactive websites, blogs, Linked In, Twitter, Facebook, and more are each separate tools that can be used separately and on concert to 1) deliver information and 2) interact with your audience, employees, customers, and community in general.   These actions are the components of our strategy.  The tools simply enable us to act more effectively.

The days of one-way communication are coming to a close.

With the development of new social media platforms, we have entered into a new era of two-way communication that will allow us, as leaders, to develop stronger relationships, enhance communications, share ideas, and collaborate.

I am just learning to use these new tools to facilitate these interactions. The more I learn, the better a communicator and ultimately a leader I can become.

Here is a short story to illustrate what effectively using social media tools can do.

Gloria and I met at an ASU Women in Philanthropy event in 2002. Since then we exchanged holiday cards, read an occasional newsletter or email, and were loosely connected. As we both began to use the newer social media tools, we began to more actively interact, follow each others projects, and introduce each other to friends with shared goals.  Ultimately these conversations can lead to collaborations in the future. Basically, our communication has become a two-way street.

Are you still stuck on the one way street?

Not everyone is taking advantage of this opportunity.  Often I continue to  come across others in the social media and business worlds who are still stuck on that “one-way street” mode of communicating.  They continue to PUSH information out while failing to take advantage of the opportunity to PULL information in by engaging with their social media communities.  Until they do, they will run the risk of missing out on great new ideas, critical information, or opportunities to collaborate, and make a difference in their businesses, their personal interactions, and their communities – where ever they may be.

It’s kind of sad – I hate to see anyone miss opportunities – but in the end, that is their choice.  Their decision just creates more available opportunities for those of us choosing to travel down “two way streets”.

Thanks for stopping by.  Stay tuned.

Joan Koerber-Walker

Looking Inward – What is your CorePurpose

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Looking inside our organization and accurately assessing where and what we are isn’t always easy.

j0438801[1] Because we live where we are every day, we often do not see the little things all around us.

Many changes, for good or bad, are gradual. If we are living them every day, we may not notice the change. It’s like a pearl growing in an oyster or the grass growing in your yard. You do not notice how much the grass grows each day, but go away on vacation for two weeks and you immediately notice the difference on your return.

OK, so we need to take stock inside our organization, but what are we looking for?

The first key area to examine is who you say you are. A good place to start is with your core purpose and value statements.

What’s your core purpose?

Your core purpose is what you are and what you work to be. Unlike mission statements that should be time bound, your core purpose is a continual quest and directing force. It is the first component in who you are as a company.

The second component is the set of values that you adopt as an organization to realize that core purpose. Your values point your people towards HOW they will realize the organization’s core purpose. How they will deal with each other and how they will deal with customers and partners. These values drive your organizational behaviors – what you do day in and day out.

Let’s look at an example.

My own company, CorePurpose, Inc., (www.corepurpose.com) is a distributor of value added services and outsourced solutions. We work with companies ranging from start ups to the Fortune 500® to establish where they are, where the want to be and how to get there. We then build solutions from our portfolio of specialty service providers in the area of human resources, sales & marketing, operations, finance and information technology.

At CorePurpose®, our core purpose is To Provide Services and Solutions that Build Businesses. Everything we do in the company is focused on building businesses – our own – our partners – our customers.

From that core purpose, we then determined our corporate values: People, Acceleration, Promises Excellence, and Results. If you look at the first letter of these words you will note that put together they form PAPER. This was done with specific intent since values are noting but words on paper without sustaining behaviors demonstrated every day.

Looking at our corporate values, we can break them down into specific behaviors:

People – are the most important – no business exists without people – they are our employees, our partners, and our customers.

  • We treat people with respect.
  • We seek out diversity and partner with people who compliment our skill sets.
  • We create services and solutions that are designed to make people successful in what THEY want to achieve

Acceleration – our customers and partners look to us to help get them where they want to be faster.

  • We set aggressive but achievable milestones.
  • We offer resources that allow things to happen faster.
  • We do not wait and wonder. We are decisive and help our customers be decisive also.

Promises – to succeed we must be trusted. That means we must keep our promises.

  • Be clear in the promises you make – gain shared understanding.
  • Don’t EVER make promises you can not keep. Don’t over commit.
  • Ask for help when you need it.

Excellence – people choose to work with us because of the quality of what we deliver.

  • As experts we stay at the top of our field.
  • We know our facts and do not guess.
  • If we don’t know – we say so – we find out – and communicate back.

Results – it’s what we are looking for and what our clients and partners expect.

  • We measure what matters.
  • We do the job right the first time.
  • When we achieve our result, we set the bar higher and start again.
  • We deliver.

If you worked at CorePurpose®, would you know what was expected of you?

If you were the customer or partner, would you know what to expect?

Hopefully so. But as we all know, seeing is believing.

Our employees, partners, investors,  and customers watch what we do, and make their own assessment of the strength of our commitment to our core purpose and corporate values.

What we say is fine… but what we do is what really counts.    

Thanks for stopping by.  Stay Tuned…

Joan Koerber-Walker

 

CorePurpose® is a registered service mark of CorePurpose, Inc.

Looking Both Ways

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One of the earliest lessons we learn as we make our way into the world is to “look both ways before we cross the street.” We heard it as children and have said it to our own. From a business perspective,– looking both ways translates more broadly to knowing that before you head out in a new direction, you must pay attention to the world around you.

j0402780[1]Understanding Environment

“Looking both ways” reminds us of the importance of taking a look at our environment. As we prepare to cross our first street, we are leaving the comfort of what we know with a goal of moving to a new location – the other side of the street.

As business people and businesses – to be successful and achieve our goal safely – we need to know:

Where we are…

Where our customers are…

Where our competition is…

Where our competition is going…

Where WE are going…

What resources we need to get there…

&

Where do we get them?

Why say we need to know where we are? It’s obvious, right?

Not always. Often we are so busy trying to achieve the next objective or goal that we forget to step back and assess where we are today. If we do not take the time to really look at where we are today, we may miss those important “little things” that can have a major impact on to where we want to go.

As we look at where we are, there are some important questions to ask. Some are based on what the organization looks like inside while others are external, how others see you. Both are critically important.

So take the time to look both ways, it can make all the difference in your journey.

Thanks for stopping by.  Stay Tuned…

Joan Koerber-Walker

 

The Difference Between Knowing and Doing

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One of the great secrets to getting better results in your business is the difference between knowing something and doing something.

j0398745[1]Very often when you read a business book, blog or article, you may say to yourself, “I know that already.” And, you probably do.

The question is not if you know it – but rather, are you doing it? Are you using the knowledge?

As we build our strategy for better business results we must USE all we know and apply it to where our business is and where we want to take it to.

Next time you read about a business strategy or process improvement and recognize it as conventional wisdom, take the next step and try to list the ways that you and your company are actually demonstrating it.  You might be surprised what you find.

Ask Yourself…

Are we doing this?

Are we consistent?

How can we do this better?

The key here is the “WE”. Very often we assume that since we know what to do, others in our organization also know – and it is not always true. The key is to share what you know with your team and to act on it – together.

  Thanks for stopping by.  Stay Tuned.

Joan Koerber-Walker

Want more business – Get a Map!

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The Impact of Services Mapping on Employee and Customer Enthusiasm

In today’s challenging business environment, creating and maintaining customer enthusiasm can make the difference between business success and business extinction.

j0402776[1]Customers have more choices than ever before and expect higher and higher service levels relative to

· product and service information 

· choice between service offerings

· tailored or custom services

· quality of delivery

· the quality of the buying experience

Across industries, companies are discovering that of these 5 customer demands, the greatest is that of the buying experience.

While a customer will forgive a service failure that is corrected promptly by a company’s enthusiastic employee ambassador, customers will migrate quickly from companies whose employees feel disenfranchised, even if the service is performed as promised.

But what is an employee ambassador, and where do you find one?

The answer is simple, employee ambassadors are all around you. They are each member of your organization who touches a customer – directly or indirectly. To create enthusiastic employee ambassadors, organizations must provide a support system to foster enthusiasm that includes:

· A consistent culture that reaffirms that each employee is key to the company’s success

· A commitment to process, structure and continuous improvement that allows the employee to make promises to customers and gives the employee faith that their promises will be kept.

As companies aggressively pursue the development and growth of services offerings and services revenue, it has become increasingly important, in fact, imperative for these firms to provide a consistent level of process, support and flexibility to support employees in their quest of keeping promises to customers resulting in the growth of high levels of customer and employee enthusiasm and the resultant customer loyalty and profitability.

All of us want our employees and customers to be enthusiastic about the products and services we provide. Employees can not be enthusiastic if they feel that they can not deliver what is promised, and customers will loose enthusiasm and go elsewhere if promises are not kept. The question is how do we create that enthusiasm and keep it? One tool, created at Arizona State University, is the process of Services Mapping.

Customer Enthusiasm SCC

Cross functional teams across the spectrum of a product or service delivery create a “map” of the product and service delivery systems. The map is broken down into five levels:

Customer View & Evidence:  What does the customer see in the way of marketing materials, articles, and information about the product or service that brings them to your door?

Customer Contact: What does the customer experience when they first make contact with your Organization?

On Stage Employee: What are the tools, attitudes, and systems in place to support a positive employee/customer interaction and the employees confidence in making promises to customers?

Back Stage Employees:  What are the tools, attitudes, and systems in place to support a positive interaction between the front line employee and those they must rely on behind the scenes.

Resources:  What are the physical, financial, and technology resources on stage and back stage employees need to keep promises to each other and ultimately to customers.

The Services Mapping process:

· Provides an Overview so employees know “What to Do” when things go right and when they don’t.

· Identifies weak links in the chain, so promises are kept more often!

· Defines the Lines of Customer Interaction between customers and employees so the employee recognizes where they can have the most impact to the customer experience and the company’s goals.

· Defines Lines of Internal Interaction defined between departments

· Provides a basis for identifying and assessing cost, revenue, and capital invested

· Creates a baseline for use in customer satisfaction and quality improvement efforts

When service delivery processes work, promises are kept, employee enthusiasm increases and it spreads to customers. The result is greater profits as customers stay, and more importantly, through their enthusiasm, bring more customers via the strongest marketing tool in the arsenal, customer referrals!

Thanks for stopping by.  Stay tuned…

Joan Koerber-Walker

Turning Things Around in 2009

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What was your New Year’s resolution?  Mine was to talk to at least two different people every day about what’s happening in our economy and to explore opportunities. 

It had gotten to the point where I was afraid to turn on the radio, TV, or open the paper.  The news was just too depressing.  So I resolved to reach out into my community and observe things first hand.

Since January 1st,  I have met with and spoken to a lot of people in Arizona, across the US, and even abroad.  And what I am hearing is encouraging.  Yes, times are tough, but people are moving forward, innovations are happening, businesses are making changes to speed their recoveries, and investors are looking to invest in solid business plans.  As I meet with friends and business colleagues, they in turn have introduced me to their friends…and I have returned the favor.

Here are just a few of the wonderful things I have uncovered in my search for opportunities…

  • One of my friends was working with a company with a great new product and service concept.  They were getting ready to reach out to investors and showed me their developing plan.  I even got to make some suggestions.  Hopefully, they will help this company raise their next round of funding.  They have a great concept. 
  • I spent time with two executives in Detroit.  One from GM and one from Ford.  Some of the stories they shared were sad, but there were glimmers of hope as they talked about new developments and what those companies were doing to turn things around.
  • A biotech researcher in San Diego was bubbling over with excitement when she shared news about a new development in the lab that could improve an long-standing medical process and ultimately save thousands of lives when it is brought to market.  I told anther friend about it and he introduced me to the person I needed to meet to move the process along.
  • A manufacturer in Arizona has created a new system to help restaurants be more competitive, improve processes, and save energy.  Their business is growing by leaps and bounds.
  • An architectural  glass distributor in Michigan has taken their business global and not only grown substantially but has won high honors and awards along the way.
  • Over the last weeks I have met with people looking to buy businesses and re-capitalize them, not just saving jobs, but with future growth… creating them.  Oh, and they are finding the money for it too!
  • Meetings have brought me in contact with incredibly talented CEO’s and executives who are looking for their next big project.  They were not sitting at home or hitting the links.  They were out there just like me, sharing their expertise, serving on boards of directors, mentoring others, and helping to get things moving forward again.

With all of these encouraging stories bolstering my courage, I was brave enough to open the newspaper again. And what did I find?  Well yes, there was news of layoffs and filings for Chapter 11 BUT there were also NINE full pages dedicated to positive stories just like mine.  Stories of business owners and individuals sharing how they too are staying ahead of the downturn. 

I’ve made it though seven months of keeping my New Year’s resolution.  I think I’ll stick with it.  Wouldn’t you?

Thanks for stopping by.  Stay  Tuned.

Joan Koerber-Walker

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Want to Grow your Small Business? Be Bankable.

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Just as plants need water to grow – growing companies need cash.   Why do you think they call it liquidity.

j0434131[1]So many times small business owners have trouble raising the cash they need to grow – not because it is not available but because they did not follow some basic steps to make their company bankable.

We know that as individuals, we need to develop a credit history, pay our bills on time, and start small with our personal credit and build it up as we go.  Why do we expect our business to be any different.

Here are some tips you might want to consider if you want to improve your bankability:

1.  Your tax advisor may be saving you money on taxes and destroying you future ability to get a loan.  Banks look at historical documents like your P&L, Balance Sheet and TAX RETURNS as part of the data they use to decide if you are credit worthy.  They need to have confidence that you will be able to repay what you borrowed.  Year after year of tax returns showing little to no profits is NOT a way to inspire confidence in your banker.

2. Get a personal business banker.  It’s free!  Of all my professional services providers – accountants, auditors, lawyers, etc.  Only my personal banker spends the time to counsel me without handing me a bill for his services at the end.  Plus – the more they know about my business, the more likely they are to introduce me to other businesses that might help my business grow or go to bat for me when I need it.  When we grow – they grow as more money goes into my accounts and their bank.  Its a win-win situation.

3.  Start small and work your way up.  Open a line of credit for a reasonable amount to begin.  Use it – pay it off.  Use it – Pay it off.  Show the bank that you know who to manage your credit relationship wisely and they will often reward you with higher lines of credit.

4.  Understand the different types of credit and diversify your portfolio.  Many banks have great resources on line to help you calculate  the type of credit that is right for you.  A good example is Comerica Bank – one of the top small business lenders in the country.   Go to www.ComericaBank.com  and click the Small Business or Corporate tabs based on your company size.  It is full of great information PLUS calculators to help you determine the right type of credit for what you might need.

5. Monitor your progress.  Talk to your personal business banker.  Know what your Dunn and Bradstreet profile says about you.  Create a credit portfolio and manage it like you do your stocks and other investments. 

So you might want to work on your business credit – you never know when you might need it!

Thanks for stopping by.  Stay Tuned…

Joan Koerber-Walker

A Time for Growth – the era of the entrepreneur

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Recently, I had an opportunity to share ideas with a group of legislators, educators, and business leaders on the role of the entrepreneur – now and in the future. Any time you get a group together, getting agreement can be a real challenge. But on one area we had unanimous agreement – Entrepreneurs and entrepreneurial activity in both the private and public sectors will be a significant driver out of our current situation and for long term economic growth in the years to come.

 More and more Americans are starting or running their own businesses –

j0439328[1]There are a number of factors driving a change in how many of us view work today. In the last five years, during both the up cycle and our current down cycle, many workers left traditional jobs in corporations and explored new alternatives.

In some cases, what they found was more rewarding than their former jobs and they will not be going back to the corporate world again. They have opened consulting practices, restaurants, retail establishments and on-line businesses to name a few. 

Others will return to more tradition employment as the current job cycle corrects itself.

Additionally, population demographics are changing. In 2010, over one half of the world population will be over 50 years old and the average life expectance in the U.S. will be approaching 100! People will be healthier, more active, and less likely to retire, but will want the flexibility of non traditional jobs. A new entrepreneurial or self employed life style is very attractive to many of the people embarking on their ‘second 50 years’. In many cases, ”Boomers” have or have access to the resources and key factors for starting or growing a business – education, talent, experience, and the drive to create something new and different. .

Are you a “-preneur”?

An entrepreneur is someone who organizes, operates, and assumes the risk for turning an idea into a business venture while an intrapreneur is a person who does the same thing within a large corporation. In both cases, you take direct responsibility for turning an idea into a profitable organization or finished product through assertive risk-taking and innovation. The prefix before the “-preneur” simply shows where you are in the organization when you are driving change and growth. When at the helm of my own company – I am an entrepreneur. When working with clients – they have the ultimate responsibility and my job is to help them as the entrepreneur or intrapreneur. I like to think that as a “-preneur” you can make things happen – no matter what the structure of the organization you are in.

Is being entrepreneurial enough?

Not if you want your business prosper over time! The purpose and values of an organization are the next KEY to growth.

Defining the core purpose of an organization is actually the process of centering in on what you really care about – what you are really good at – and in the area where these activities come together – what you can do that creates a degree of value that people will pay you for. This is your core purpose or the primary reason that you are in business. If all of your strategy, goals and activities are focused only on what satisfies each of these three criteria, there is a much higher probability for success. Conversely, activities that do not fall in these areas are opportunities for outsourcing or partnerships.

The basic premise is to do what you do best and for the rest – partner with whoever is best at it. This defines WHAT you do as a company. The next key factor is HOW you will accomplish it. This is where values come into play. An organization’s values define how they do things. We always talk about how a company does something but the reality is that it’s the people inside that make things happen.

People’s values determine how they do things. How they act. How hard they work. How creative they will be. If you can match the values of your organization to the values of the people who are in it (or come into it), you’ve got a winner. When people share the same values, they don’t have to be motivated. They already are motivated. They find new ways of doing things. They focus on the customers. They make things happen because they believe in what they are doing.

Are you ready to grow…

j0439318[1]Be sure that growth fits in with your core purpose and values. Very often we see an opportunity to grow and we jump into it before we take the time to fully evaluate what it means to our business in the long term. Growth for growth’s sake can be very dangerous. Companies that grow too fast can lose their focus, confuse their employees or adversely affect the quality their customers have come to expect. In the most extreme cases they can even run out of cash and without cash everything stops. Here are a couple of questions every company should ask themselves as they move towards growth:

  1. Does the new product, location or service fit into what we have defined as our core purpose?
  2. Do we have the operational and financial resources to support the levels of quality and service our customers have come to expect from us?
  3. What should we be measuring each step of the way through the growth process to ensure we are continuing to move in the right direction?
  4. Who are the partners we work with who can help us with this growth and how can they help us? What are they best at?

The best advice…

Find something you can get really excited about. Starting any new business – or growing an existing one – is hard work and few pay off right away. You need to really care about what you are doing. It keeps you energized and enthusiastic when things get tough.

Once your business is established, use your passion, your purpose, and your values as a guide. Find employees and partners that share your passions and values. Together you can’t help but grow!

Thanks for stopping by…

Joan Koerber-Walker