Make Transparency a Selling Feature of Your Org

Want to increase the appeal of your organization to donors, clients, prospects, employees, and more? 

Think about ways your organization can be more transparent. 

Not transparent ethical, but transparent visible. 

When you think about this, picture an elevator with glass walls. It's not an ethical elevator but one that gives greater understanding of what it's doing, when it will meet you at your floor, and how everything works.  

If people can understand what, why, where, when, and how you're doing your work they will be refreshed since your peers aren't likely to do it, and likely trust you more. 

Trust, as opposed to fear, is a catalyst for sales, donations, hiring, retention, innovation and so much more. 

Everyday I’m Hustlin

As an entrepreneur, you’re constantly focused on deal making and persuasion. It begins when all of your finances become connected.

You don’t have a salary anymore and company spending is literally eating into your take home pay. If my company spends hundreds or thousands extra, I make hundreds or thousands less. So, it comes natural for entrepreneurs to want to shave costs where possible.

And, money doesn’t make itself either. Friends become referrals, family become lenders, and you become cheap labour. Without restraint you can become a pig sniffing out truffles in the woods, sensing money around you everywhere waiting to be spent on you and your company.
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Fear leads to hustling. Fear corrupts relationships and disrupts peace. It’s hard for entrepreneurs to get beyond fear but that’s truly where success lies, not in achievement or reward, but in peace.

If you’re not an entrepreneur, look out for the hustlers. If you can’t spot the mark, you’re it.

Are you afraid of money?

Are you afraid of money?

It's just numbers. The power it has is what you give it. 

The digits in your bank account (or loan) are numbers, nothing real. 

It's no great skill to move money around, or generate money better than others, but our society gives people with this ability as the titans of our time.  

I think financial success has a lot to do with how much a person is afraid of money and that fear runs deep. Our parents give us our fear, our teachers reinforce it. Our late teens lead most of us to the debt burdens of student loans that begin a saga of debt and income. 

Time is real. Money is not. 

Holy Inefficiency

This fall I met the Executive Director of a charity serving the poor and fostering community in Toronto. We were talking about his organization’s challenges and the highlight of our time for me were when he described a culture within his staff of holy inefficiency. What does that mean?

It means not putting a timer on calls or visits from the clients you serve. 
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It means not over scheduling or overprogramming your staff and community.

It means quite time to think, laugh and cry.

Do the most essential task without regard to consequences of time or money.That is rare.  

Ask Clarifying Questions

I've been in and out of customer service jobs since I was 8, but I'm still not good at it. However, there has been one tactic that has served me well - asking clarifying questions.

It's not uncommon for a customer to come at you with a statement or accusatory question that will send your body into fight or flight mode. 

What do I do to help them? I'm not sure what they're upsetting about!! 

What should you do? Ask clarifying questions. 

"This is a big deal I'm so sorry. Were you upset over the quality or the price?" 

"I'm not sure if you meant you don't like the colour or colours in general, can you share with me more specifically how you feel?"

You ask because you care, but you also ask because you need to truly understand to fully resolve an issue. Don't let your brain go in a million directions wondering what they're thinking, ask and you will most likely get better information and often see that an issue is much more solvable. 

One Ply Service

Here's a common mistake I see - you experience dining at its best, be it a hip new restaurant or a respected five star and need to visit the facilities. When you get there, you notice they cheaped out when it comes to the bathroom. Not just the toilet paper but the whole room. It's unpainted, or undecorated, or absolutely unappealing. 

What you're experiencing is a major disconnect from your otherwise great service.

Is the kitchen like this? Where else are they cutting corners?

Inconsistency breaks trust. This isn't limited to restaurants as all service businesses are open to gaps in consistency that can scare off customers. 

The opposite of this, is surprise and joy. In your hotel room you see the toilet paper is v-shaped. You walk into a hip restaurant bathroom to see a disco ball or cologne and hand towels in a private club bathroom.

What level of service you provide is determined by your gaps. 

Brown Ocean Strategy

If you're not familiar with the concept of blue ocean strategy, take a moment before reading this blog post and familiarize yourself. 

The core concept is to find unexplored industries or opportunities instead of chasing existing, well established ones. And, while I generally agree with that concept, in practice I have another theory:
pursue brown oceans. 

What do I mean by this? A couple years ago I wrote about the phrase, "Where there's muck there's brass" describing the concept that, where there's dirty work to be done, there is money to be made. In this same way I think looking for 'ignoble industries" or "un-sexy opportunities" and seeing to dominate in that environment has a great advantage - a lack of competition. 

Many of Benifactor's organizations are serving an unsexy market while repurposing best practices forged by sexy high paying markets. While it seems like it would be more beneficial to charge more or spend more glamorously, the trick of the situation is it places us in a red ocean, where we'd have to fight for every client dollar and thus counteractively become a less sustainable business. 

Seek a segment within your world that is undesirable. Can you serve this segment exclusively and thus dominate that segment, happily knowing that no one wants to unseat you from your throne?

Workplace Rituals

In a past life I owned an agency. At our office, each Tuesday at lunch hour, we shared a meal. We'd had this ritual in place for years. Our 'Taco Tuesday' became such a regular item that the group requested 'non-taco' Tuesdays at least once a month. I personally don't see how anyone could ever get sick of tacos, but I digress.

We also celebrated a week off as collective, called Sabbath week. It was pretty fun to hear the stories of adventure and leisure as everyone returns in high spirits ready to work hard for the upcoming season of work. 

In moments of celebration, we shot confetti cannons.
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Each year, we retreated.

Why? Because it's what you make a habit of that defines you. Or, since someone more famous already said this more eloquently:
     “You are what you repeatedly do.” - Aristotle

What applies on a personal level applies at a team and community level. If you're a leader in your organization, what rituals are you establishing to reinforce desired culture?

Policies don't drive performance, culture does. Rituals are the structure culture builds around. 

From Survival to Strategy: The Stages of Financial Management

Just as organizations grow, so does... er, should their approach to financial management.

Let's break it down:
1. Survival Mode: The 'ol bakery till - counting cash at the end of the day, hoping there's enough to keep the lights on.
2. Performance Tracking: The finger in the air - getting a feel for how things are going and keeping up with legally required reporting, but that's about it.
3. Strategic Planning: The dashboard - comprehensive data analysis driving informed decisions and future growth.

As we progress through these stages, we're not just tracking numbers—we're reducing organizational drag and paving the way for exponential growth.

Amazingly, some of the biggest inhibitors to growth could be using old systems and processes past their usefulness.

3 Big Challenges of marketing services (or donations)

I love marketing. I first learned about it in an academic setting in community college for tourism management. That program wasn’t the right fit for 18/19-year-old me, but it did teach an important lesson on how marketing for services (or donations) is distinguished from selling products. Even if you don’t want to be in marketing, you can see how they affect your everyday life.

Here we go. Services are:

Intangible - ahead of experiencing the service, they cannot be seen or touched. Apple stores let you fondle their goods. The same can’t be said for engaging a service business. You may be able to get references, which is why Yelp and Trip Advisor are so valuable, but you can’t smell the fresh pine forest or taste the pan-seared scallops prior to purchase.

Perishable - the root of so much stress; if you don’t raise donations by December 31 or sell out tickets to that event if your rooms aren’t full for the night, you won’t ever be able to sell them again. Ever. Products, though not immortal, don’t have this same curse. There isn’t a secondary “usedexperiences.com” for services.  

Variable - not only is your experience of a given event different from mine, but my experience also changes from one day to another. What if that server at your favourite restaurant quits? Or if the lodge isn’t as fun on rainy days. The experience that you’re selling is fragile. Be careful how you manage your expectations and those you’re selling to.

Promise what you deliver - Deliver what you promise. It was another lesson I learned from that marketing class. I didn’t need to learn anything else from college than that to make that time valuable.

On starting a business fast and small.

Intentions, ideas, and opportunities are great. But, without action, there is no new venture, no entrepreneurship. How many times have you looked at a product or service and thought, “Hey, I had that idea ages ago!” or, “I could’ve totally done that!”. You didn’t. They did. They took the initiative.

Starting a business is like growing a fire. Build a small fire first. Start spending money and taking risks. See where the wind’s blowing.

Don’t wait until you’ve frozen.

Are you selfish enough to become an entrepreneur?

Over the years I've had a fair amount of conversations with people who, in my opinion, swoon over the allure of entrepreneurship. You get to build a business from scratch, make something from nothing. Work anywhere, anytime. Be your own boss. It all sounds so great. But, when we discuss the downside, or perhaps the dark side, I see that those people haven’t even grasped the real meaning of entrepreneurship.

“I don’t know if I can take that sort of financial risk,” most people say. I often agree that maybe they’re entrepreneurial, not necessarily an entrepreneur. Sure, that’s a part of it, but at the end of the day, entrepreneurship is about convincing others to give you money. More or less, you need to be incredibly selfish if you want to succeed.

Did you know: When Steve Jobs and Woz made Breakout for Atari, they agreed they were going to split the pay 50-50. Atari gave Jobs $5000 to do the job. He told Wozniak he got $700 so Wozniak took home $350.

Are you willing to do that?
What if working any time of day actually means all day, everyday?
Are you willing to trade family time to be your own boss?
Are you willing to go to your friends, family, and network, and take what you need, or want?

If not, good. Save entrepreneurship for the selfish.