A business owner asked me the other day, what was the best marketing strategy ever? I did not have to think very long. To me, the answer is Southwest Airlines in its early days. In a day when Southwest was competing with industry giants to launch a new airline, they broke through and succeeded by demonstrating that they were the airline you wanted to fly by doing the following things.Continue reading
Category Archives: Real World Inspiration
For the past two years I have been travelling the highways and byways of Arizona and spending time with some incredibly cool and inspiring companies.
Visit here as I share what I experienced along the way…
Boosting Your Business Starts with a MeetUp
Do you want to boost your business? Is connecting with new customers on of your goals? Are you wondering if your marketing message is falling on deaf ears? Do you sometimes feel like just another face in the crowd? If you are in business, to one extent or another, the answer to these questions is probably YES.Continue reading
Small Business Health Care that did not need an Act of Congress
If you have been listening in on what is going on in our nation’s capital, you know that the healthcare battle continues to wage. Continue reading
Times They are a Changing – A day of GM Goodbyes
This morning – October 1, 2009, a reminder popped up on my calendar. Today was the day my brother Rick retired officially from General Motors after 30 years. He started in the Newark, Delaware plant at the age of 18, the day after his birthday. Over the past three decades, he saw many changes, slow downs, strikes, and lay offs; but, he also saw innovations in manufacturing and new automotive technologies evolve.
He started at GM in a time when working as a GM employee was a safe bet for the future and retires in a time when many have to wonder what comes next. But, through it all, he was a hard working and dedicated employee, who delivered value, and through his working years at GM, bought a home, raised a family, and now in his ‘retirement’ years plans to focus his energies on building another business – his own.
I’m proud of him. He’s a great example of what it means to grow up in a GM Family. And I know that his own business will prosper because he brings to it a dedication to customer service and quality that will make his customers keep coming back and even more important – tell their friends about him.
Also today, I saw an article pop up from AdAge with another footnote to the GM Story. This one too was another goodbye – After Talks to Sell Fall Through, GM Says Goodbye to Saturn. The story chronicles Saturn’s story through it’s ads. It’s dedication to innovation and service, the commitment it had to its customers and in many ways the feeling of engagement it’s employees, dealers and customers had in turn with Saturn. Now with the Penske deal falling through, soon Saturn will be no more.
Saturn was once the shining star of General Motors, yet through years of corporate in-fighting and internal politics between the GM car divisions and the resulting challenges created for Sayurn, the fledgling brand could not grow to fulfill its promise. Now Saturn is becoming ‘GM’s orphaned child’ – with no opportunity for a new homecoming on the horizon.
Saturn employees and dealers put together a valiant fight to save something they believed in – a quality product, a new way of doing business, and commitment to giving the customer what they want through partnerships as shown in this – one of the last Saturn commercials. Unfortunately, it looks like this time, they could not win the battle.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CkikIApaP1s]
In kind of an odd twist –
the last car my brother ever built at the GM Newark Delaware plant,
was a Saturn SKY.
Thanks for stopping by. Stay tuned…
Joan Koerber-Walker
Technorati Tags: Joan Koerber-Walker,CorePurpose,GM,Saturn,Penske,Change,Transition,GM Family,Economy
What would you do if your friends all disappeared?
Have you ever had a dream where you were surrounded by people and then in an instant you were all alone? As if a wizard waved a magic wand and all of your friends disappeared? Continue reading
Small Business…BIG Impact
When you are talking about economic impact, small business is a BIG deal. For two years I had the opportunity to serve as the CEO of the Arizona Small Business Association and and on the Board of Trustees of the National Small Business Association. During that time. I sat and talked with many small business owners, toured their offices and factories, listened to their stories, and then traveled to the Arizona Capitol and to Washington D.C. to share those stories with Senators and Representatives. Continue reading
Riding the Entrepreneurial Roller Coaster
Have you ever wondered about our fascination with roller coasters ? People from all over the world have been flocking to ride these engineering marvels since as far back as the 17th century, although the earliest ‘thrill’ ride did not have rollers or wheels at all but rather flew on tracks of ice.
Roller coasters, as we know them today, have come a long way from the ‘ice mountains’ in the time of the Russian Czars, but some things still hold true. They fascinate us, they can make us nauseous, and often have us screaming as we fly up to the peak and rush headlong down into the valley. Step right up to the roller coaster. It is guaranteed to provide a rush of adrenaline and a wild ride. (History of the Roller Coaster – Wikipedia)
As I sat working on business plans and reviewing financing packages today, I suddenly struck me how much in common the roller coaster and the entrepreneurial journey really do have in common.
Think about it, entrepreneurs fascinate us, we watch successful ones like they are rock stars, and look away with a gulp at the poor guy who is losing his lunch – or his business – as he staggers away. Any entrepreneur will tell you, THAT can happen to anybody.
Like roller coasters, most entrepreneurial ventures labor rung by rung up that first great grade to reach that first big win, opportunity, or investor. And then reality hits, and there is so much WORK to do, and you are sliding down, before you begin the next great climb. It’s a wonder more of us are not throwing up our arms and screaming! If you stay the entrepreneurial circuit long enough, you are sure to hit its highs and lows. Even the legendary entrepreneurial success stories like Microsoft and Cisco have had their fair share of peaks and valleys along the way.
Like roller coasters, that struggled financially and almost disappeared completely during the Great Depression, entrepreneurs have faced times when economic conditions where almost too much to take. But then a spark of innovation, or a new idea gets them fired up all over again.
That’s the thing about veteran entrepreneurs, just like veteran roller coaster riders, as soon as the ride is over, they often get right back in line to take the journey again.
I wonder if a study has ever been done on what percent of entrepreneurs LIKE to ride roller coasters. Or, if serial entrepreneurs are especially addicted? It might make for interesting reading.
Thanks for stopping by. Stay tuned…
Joan Koerber-Walker
Technorati Tags: Joan Koerber-Walker,CorePurpose,Roller Coaster,Entrepreneurs,Entrepreneurship,Success
The Power of Building a Community
There are few things as powerful in this world as when people come together as a community to make something happen.Continue reading
When I grow up, I want to be… an Economist
When you are sixteen years old, you know everything. At least I thought I did.
It was the summer before my freshman year of college at the University of Delaware. My Dad took the day off of work to take me to the main campus in Newark for freshman orientation.
We met with counselors, took a tour of the campus, signed up for meal plans and went to the parent/new student barbecue. Over hot dogs and corn on the cob – my Dad asked me a question –
Soon you will be in college. What will you study and what will you do with it?
With the unbounded certainty of youth, I declared.
I want to be an Economist.
I had done my home work, researched careers, done summer internships to rule out what I did not want to be and to uncover what I did. I was going to study the science of business, of nations, of the the funds that flow through them, and the people who drive them… I was going to learn to predict the future.
It was not until my senior year of college that I was introduced to a then comparatively new field of economic application – econometrics. The link will take you to a broader definition, courtesy of Wikipedia, but in short, econometrics combines the theory of economics with quantification and statistics to actually measure and predict economic outcomes. Using punch cards and a Burroughs 7700 (a computer you now find only in museums) we learned to model past and present outcomes of the national and world economy. We learned about variables and assumptions and the impact they would have when combined together. And then came the rub. The greatest variables all of – perceptions of outcomes and the changes in people’s behavior that would result from them.
That’s when it hit me. Once economists tell people what will happen – using their computerized crystal balls – people react to that information and change their behaviors. And, in that case, your model and your predictions would often be WRONG.
Maybe I didn’t want to be an economist after all – I hate to be wrong!
And so on graduation, I went into the world of business. Starting in banking, moving on to the emerging field of electronics and technology, and later into entrepreneurship.
Almost 20 years after freshman orientation, I went back to school again. This time at Arizona State University in their executive MBA program. I did not go back to get my MBA for the degree – but for the learning. After almost 20 years in business – things had changed – the rules were different, and my crystal ball was in jeopardy of getting cloudy. And I began to see that it was not just my crystal ball that was flawed. We were at the peak of the Dot.Com Bubble – soon for many of us in the technology industry, the bubble would burst and our crystal balls would clear to show some serious cracks.
In class, we learned about the many bubbles throughout history from Dr. Stephen Happel and the Blue Chip Forecasts from Dr. Lee McPheters. We went to Washington D.C. to see how it worked from the inside, and later to Europe and China to see the changes in our world first hand. But equally important, I learned what was happening in a wide range of businesses from my fellow students , leaders in healthcare, investments, and industry.
It was a reminder of what I had learned long ago. That economics is not a subject but a study… of business, of nations, of the funds that flow through them, and the people who drive them. And so I began to study economics again on my own.
As business people, perhaps we all should pay more attention to economics.
You see, it’s not what we study or even the answers that makes a difference.
But what we do with the knowledge, once we find it, that most surely will.
Thanks for stopping by. Stay tuned.
Joan Koerber-Walker
Curing Healthcare – you have to start somewhere
As a leader, one of the most damaging things that you can do in times of crisis is to do NOTHING. As I have been listening to and reading about the ongoing national healthcare debate, one question keeps running through my mind.
When are we going to stop talking about it …
and start doing something about it?
At one point in my career, from December of 2006 to December of 2008, I had the honor of serving as the CEO of ASBA, the Arizona Small Business Association, and on the Board of Trustees at NSBA, the National Small Business Association.
As the owner of a small business myself, I had seen the challenges faced by small business owners when it came to the accessibility and affordability of healthcare insurance. At the time, it was a personal issue I dealt with and not a major focus of my attention.
Then came my role at ASBA and a day when solving the healthcare problem, at least for small businesses in the State of Arizona, became MY problem. This video is a clip from a talk I gave on the topic of Healthcare when ASBA launched its solution for Arizona Small Businesses in 2008. It started like this…
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKOfXlB_3Wo]
Putting the health back into healthcare in the United States is not a simple problem. In fact it’s complexity is staggering. Here are just a few of it’s components – I know I will miss many more. Don’t pillory me for it. Instead I encourage you to add to the list in the comments section of this post. (For more information, click the links to articles in each description.)
Structural issues
Right or wrong, our current system is is supported as an insurance based system. Healthcare is paid for by Medicare/Medicaid (public insurance) or private insurance in most cases. For those without adequate coverage, the costs can be financially crippling and their unpaid bills get paid by everyone else in the form of higher premiums as explained in this article from Arizona State University’s Knowledge@WPCarey.
Ethical Issues
What should we do? Who should we help? What should we pay for? What should we not? The answers to these questions reach into much deeper ethical, moral, and legal discussions on highly volatile issues including aging, illegal immigration, abortion, euthanasia, stem cell research, and the quality and accessibility of care. An that’s just the tip of the iceberg! The study of BioEthics now even has it’s own Presidential Commission.
Financial Issues
If you think this is all about health, think again. The healthcare crisis in the US is a major economic issue as illustrated in this article from Forbes on July 3, 2009. In this report from the Congressional Budget Office total spending on health care in the economy has doubled over the last 30 years to a current level of about 16% of GDP. CBO estimates that this percentage will double again over the next 25 years to 31% of GDP. Today, it is estimated that as much as 60% of personal bankruptcies in the US are tied to healthcare related issues. But if we do not get the costs, and the resultant Federal deficits under control the fall out could be the greatest financial mess the world has ever seen.
Solving the problem will need to address how to find new cost efficiencies in healthcare delivery, behavioral changes among the US population to reduce health risk factors, new protocols for treatment and cost management, and many many more issues.
We will also need to redesign our reimbursement systems. Today, the set payment schedules for Medicare and Medicaid are below the actual costs the doctors and hospitals incur. The short fall is then passed along to the costs charged to private insured and private payers – a practice called cost shifting. But as we have seen, even this has not been enough to keep many medical centers and hospitals financially healthy – see this July 7, 2008 article from the Washington Post for a good explanation of the problem and since this was written the problem has only gotten worse.
Technology Issues
In recent years, we have looked to technology to solve other problems – it will work for healthcare too, right? Unfortunately not. While US healthcare, for those that can afford it, is some of the best in the world, each advancement has a price and contributes to the rising healthcare costs.
E-medical records, a popular topic earlier this year when major funding was allocated as part of the stimulus package by Congress will pay off over time, but not in the immediate future as it carries a high price for implementation. This presentation by Michael H. Zaroukian, MD, PhD, FACP of Michigan State University helps break it down.
Break throughs in Pharma and Biotech will help us improve quality of life, aid in early detection, and treatment of chronic diseases. (A major portion of today’s healthcare spend.) But, today’s legislation has little to do with funding support for these technologies at they level that will be required to really speed up the process.
State Sovereignty Issues
Many of the factors that are driving up the costs of the healthcare system are legislated on a state by state basis. Congress will have a problem making any real change here without overriding or preempting many state laws. These include the costs of defensive medicine and malpractice insurance costs that will continue to escalate until we reform our tort systems at the state level. In addition, mandates on a state by state level require that certain care or services be provided and covered. Each and every one of these items has a cost. Thus the cost of providing healthcare can fluctuate significantly from state to state.
Personal Responsibility Issues
If you have noticed, so far, the focus has been heavily on what ‘they’ have to do to fix the problem. But there is another major issue that can not be overlooked – and that is our own personal behaviors. It has been said that the US has a sick care system, not a health care system. But the shift from sick care to a health focus is not in the government’s hands, it’s in ours. It has been estimated that regular check ups can play a major role in early detection of chronic disease and that early detection leads to major cost savings – not to mention longer lives. Yet at the same time, a large majority of those of us who have a wellness plan as part of our health insurance don’t even use it. Health in the US population did not get a great score on it’s report card in 2008 as you can read in this article from Time.
Uncertainty Issues.
And running through it all is the issue of uncertainty. None of us know what is going to happen at this point. Businesses are putting off health insurance decisions and states are in a quandary as to what they should be doing – if they could even pay for it.
Hospitals, doctors, and insurance companies alike are delaying the launch of new programs that could help make a difference because they have yet to learn the new rules of the game. Basically, progress has stopped!
The Ugly Truth
No one piece of Federal legislation will have the magic prescription to solve this problem. And for all the shouting, the final bill that will be voted on by the House and the Senate does not even exist yet. Then and if they can get it through Congress this session, it will be an ongoing process for years to structure all the regulations, set up systems, start a never ending process of revisions, and have any lasting effect.
No matter what we do or how the system changes, some will benefit more than others. Some people will pay more, and some will pay less. New systems will emerge, and others will fail.
But we will never have any improvements if we do not take the first step. And If we fail to make improvements, our healthcare structure will ultimately fail. We already know that the foundation is seriously damaged.
To wrap things up, there is an old fable about a man who claimed he could eat an elephant. When other’s scoffed that it was impossible to do so, he simply shared his strategy…
You do it one bite at a time.
Well today, putting the health back into healthcare is our elephant – and it is well past time we took that first bite.
Thanks for stopping by. Stay Tuned…
Joan Koerber-Walker