Why do I need a business plan?

How do you write a business plan? What should be in it? How can it give you a competitive edge? Why do plans have to be so detailed?

And what’s the worst that can happen if you blow off the plan and just start your business sooner?

These are just a few of the questions answered by Steve Stunt and myself in a new “webinar” on business planning produced by TD Canada Trust. The 50-minute program looks at the role of planning, why you need a plan, and how to make sure that every moment you spend on planning (before your startup) will pay you back several times over.

I know lots of entrepreneurs who despise planning and want nothing to do with business plans. I hope luck continues to be with them, because that attitude is about as mature as driving to Gimli, Manitoba without a map.

Steve Stunt is a consultant, broadcaster and business advisor for the Business Development Centre at Niagara College. Rick Spence has been poring over business plans for 20 years. Irene Law is the MC who tries her best to get these guys to offer brief answers to her questions.
If you're working on a business plan, or starting a business without one, grab some popcorn, curl up to the computer and watch this webinar. You have nothing to lose, and a world to win.

Check out the program at http://events-dev.slidecast.com/tdbank/20100112/?referral=0009

Free registration is required. As far as I know, no salesman will call.

And feel free to click on "Comments," below, to let us know if you found a business plan useful in your business.

Best Entrepreneurial Quotes, Week 1

Persistence. Desire. Will.

Here’s the secret to success in one sentence, courtesy of the champ himself, Muhammad Ali:

"I discovered that all I had to do to become the greatest was to go to the gym when I wanted to, and to go to the gym when I didn't want to."

What activities are you putting off that could make you stronger?

Happy Birthday, Five-Year-Old!

This week marks the fifth anniversary of Canadian Entrepreneur. Thank you for supporting this blog over the years.

We're still in growth mode. Traffic last month was up almost 100% over January 2009. Coincidentally, yesterday also produced our highest traffic ever (other than the day in 2008 when I won the CBC show “Test the Nation”). We had over 200 visitors yesterday, not counting those who follow this blog using their preferred website readers.

So, now that we have been dating for five years, it’s time to kick things up to the next level. This site needs more feedback!

From now on, every post on Canadian Entrepreneur will ask you to comment. And this time, the person with the best comment of the quarter will receive a free copy of my book, Secrets of Success from Canada's Fastest-Growing Companies. The current quarter will end on April 30, 2010, so get your comments in!

Because as I said way back in my very first post, business is a team sport.

And as one more salute to our fifth anniversary, Canadian Entrepreneur is bringing back the most popular feature of this blog, from away back in 2007: our Quote of the Week. These “Best Entrepreneurial Quotes” will move you, bring a smile to your face, and inspire you to achieve even more.

The future starts now!

P.S.: Please feel free to leave a comment telling us how Canadian Entrepreneur has helped you. You could win a free out-of-print book!

How to profit from your business blog

Blogging evangelist Grant Griffiths, founder of BlogforProfit.com, posted a recent article on “44 Ways To Use a Blog as a Small Business Owner.”

He believes so firmly in the power of blogging for business that he now runs a business helping companies maximize their R.O.B. (Return on Blogging).

How can your business benefit from blogging? In his article Griffiths breaks the benefits of blogging down into four categories:

1. Build Trust, Authority and Credibility: This includes discussing issues in your marketplace, answering common questions about your business or product, celebrating your accomplishments and noting upcoming events (e.g. awards you've won, speaking engagements). I also like another tactic Griffiths suggests: Promote your competitors when they have earned it and deserve it. A great way to show off your confidence and professionalism!

2. Market Your Business or Firm: This includes explaining what your company does and how it does it, profiling deserving team members, talking about new initiatives, offering discounts, soliciting referrals, etc. Griffiths also suggests publishing testimonials on your blog. (All I ask is that you keep the hard sell to a minimum.)

3. Listen to and Engage With Your Customers and Readers: Encourage reader comments, write about what is working and not working for you and your products, ask readers for their opinions, and invite readers and customers to write “guest posts.”

4. Grow Your Online Presence and Network: Link your blog to your other online presences, such as your Twitter stream, your Linkedn profile or your Facebook Fan Page. Ask readers to follow you on Twitter – that way you don't have to wait for them to visit your site before you talk to them again.

It’s a great article that will get you thinking. Read the full story here.

Fixing Entrepreneurship for Women

My column in this week’s Financial Post looks at specific problems facing women entrepreneurs.

A symposium hosted last week by the Women Entrepreneurs of Canada association brought together leaders of women’s business groups from across half the country (mainly Ontario and east). The goal: to identify the common problems facing those groups and their members, and to see how they could work together, through WEC, to solve some of those problems.

Among the problems they identified: a financial system more geared to the needs of male-owned businesses; a reluctance to collaborate among women entrepreneurs; the need for more gender-specific government policies that address the needs of different groups; and the overlap and duplication of the support and recognition programs that do exist.

To see how the participants intend to move forward, check out the full story here.

2009 Entrepreneurs of the Year

I've been negligent in not congratulating Packers Plus Energy Services for being named Canada’s Entrepreneur of the Year last November by Ernst & Young.

Founded in 2000 by Dan Themig, Ken Paltzat and Peter Krabben, Packers Plus is a technology firm that helps oil and gas companies dramatically increase the amount of recoverable oil and natural gas from existing reserves, even those that were thought to be uneconomic. It’s a great reminder of the importance that non-IT technology plays in Canadian industries not normally considered “high-tech.”

“By challenging traditional thinking, Packers Plus has developed and proven brilliant new technology that is profoundly changing Canada’s energy sector,” said Colleen McMorrow, national director of E&Y’s EOY program. .

Themig, Paltzat and Krabben all worked at multinational oil-service companies before joining Packers Plus. They founded the company based on their common belief that innovative completion technologies would fundamentally change the oil and gas industry. Now, with almost 400 employees, Packers is expanding rapidly, with offices and operations in Canada, the U.S., Mexico, Chile, Argentina. the Middle East and China.

One secret of Packers’ success may be its focus. According to its website, Packers creates value in three areas. It’s a vision I think all companies should work on:

Operational excellence – This is the foundation of our company and we strive to constantly improve, to deliver the very best each and every time.
Innovation – We look for new ideas and processes to develop products and services that meet the ever-changing needs of our customers.
Customer Intimacy – We know the value of understanding each individual client and their unique needs and we are able to cater to each client's specific requirements.

In an interview this month with The Globe and Mail, Packers CEO Dan Themig explained why the company has no plans to go public. “The three founders own most of the company. Schlumberger owns 30%, which took place five years ago, but that’s it. We want to be a privately-held company … It’s amazing when you focus on operational excellence, when you focus on no mistakes in the field and flawless execution, things like that – the financial things tend to take care of themselves.”

How to Speak like Steve Jobs

Yesterday's release of the iPad reminds me that I forgot to point you to last week's Financial Post column, which looked at Steve Jobs' secrets of public speaking.

The starting point was a book I just read called The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs: How to be Insanely Great in Front of Any Audience.

The book is a useful review of standard speaking practices, with a dollop of passion and personality from the iconoclastic co-founder of Apple Computer. Author Carmine Gallo isn't a great writer, so the book rarely soars, but the general principles are worthwhile:

* "Answer the one question that matters most." Reduce complex situations to simple solutions.

* "Sell the benefit." Don't just describe your solution, explain why people should care (e.g., "Apple's Genius tool creates playlists from songs in your library that go great together, with just one click").

* "Create Twitter-like headlines." Examples: "Today Apple reinvents the phone!" "Keynote was built for me!"

* "One theme per slide." Focus on single images, not bullet points.

I was particularly pleased to see Gallo identify a story-telling device that I have seen Jobs use, but could never put a name to: “Introduce the Antagonist.” To make you see the world his way, Jobs sets out what’s wrong with the status quo before introducing his solution.

When he launched the new video-equipped Nano, for instance, one of his slides compellingly compared the ultra-thin Nano to today’s suddenly-bulky Flip camcorders (see pic at left).

You can detect the same technique in many Jobs quotes. He forces you to buy his arguments by painting a dismal picture of the alternatives.

We can all learn from this. Consider Job's famous pitch in wooing Pepsi executive John Sculley to join Apple: “Do you want to sell sugar water for the rest of your life, or do you want to come with me and change the world?” Same device exactly.

To learn more about demolishing the status quo, read the full story here.

Finding a Strategic Partner

In a speech last week to a group of budding entrepreneurs, I mentioned that it’s wrong to think of entrepreneurs as lone wolves. “Lone wolves are losers. Lone wolves die alone in the cold and the dark. Successful wolves run in packs.”

My column in this week’s Financial Post illustrates this theme. It tells of Vancouver entrepreneur Traci Costa, whose children’s wear company Peekaboo Beans needed an injection of growth capital and mentorship. She found both in Darrel Kopke, former general manager of athletic apparel giant Lululemon.

The story explains how she wooed and won Kopke as a silent partner – and how other entrepreneurs can find similar strategic investors.

One secret is finding someone who already loves your brand. "I feel so blessed with Darrel," says Traci. "Our philosophies and core values are so similar. He felt my passion for the brand: I didn't have to explain it."

Read the full story here.

Will entrepreneurs attend my seminar?

A consultant I know emailed me the other day to ask my opinion of a workshop he is thinking of holding for small business. I figure his success will all depend on how well he markets it: small-business owners are normally hard to draw out to attend seminars. They're just too busy.

Which is one reason I often warn that the SME community is a "heartbreak market"

Here is the text of my reply:

Hi Jim. Great to hear from you.
As for your workshop idea, I don't know what to tell you.

The idea is very worthy, and this service much needed.
But will business sign up for it? I have no idea. A lot of people have lost their shirts putting on information seminars that small and medium enterprises could really benefit from. It's so hard to get this audience to come out. Regarding the entrepreneurs, they are very busy, and resent paying out a nickel if they don't have to. If they can find an excuse not to attend, they will.

If you go ahead with this, you should consider ways to get around this universal roadblock. For instance:

- Could you pitch it not to the business owner themselves, but to their technology, finance, sales or operations leads? Many owners would pay for others to go if it means they don't have to.
- Could you round up some sponsors and put it on for free?
- Could you reduce this to a series of 2- or 3-hour webinars that people could access for free on video or on the Web?

Whatever you decide, you need a robust marketing budget. You have to work hard to get people out, no matter how good the product is.

Hope this helps.

Rick

Canadian Entrepreneurs, leave a comment below if you think I'm wrong.

"Lone Wolves are Losers"

I think Friday was my busiest day ever for public speaking. In the morning I did two back-to-back 90-minute presentations at the conference for the Promotional Product Professionals of Canada: one on surviving and thriving in the “recovery” economy, and one on “Ten Trends that will rock your business.”

For the record, those 10 Trends are:
1. Increasing competition
2. Market Fragmentation
3. Customer First
4. Social Media and “Community”
5. Globalization and Trade
6. The Quest for Value: Quality and Price
7. The Quest for Values: Social Responsibility and Trust
8. Technology-based Innovation (especially nanotech)
9. The Generational Disconnect
10. The Experience Economy

In the late afternoon I popped over to the Learning Enrichment Foundation, in the old village of Weston, to address the graduating class of LEF’s latest entrepreneurship program. Lodged in a WWII-era factory building, the LEF is an amazing non-profit organization that conducts hundreds of training programs for thousands of displaced and underemployed workers throughout the GTA.

I was proud to speak to this group (a surprising number of whom hail from Colombia). Their business plans look very promising, from those of the organic lawncare guy to the photographer, the videographer, the Spanish website, and many others, including the beautifully designed invitations created by a former magazine designer.

(Those standing in the pic at right are among the new grads.)

I offered this group a few thoughts on “Staying Competitive in 2010.” My five key points for aspiring entrepreneurs:

1. Pick a niche and own it.
2. Always put the customer first.
3. Treat your employees as well as you do your customers.
4. Always watch your cash flow. Have backup financing in place long before you need it.
5. Surround yourself with smart peers.

My closing quote, related to point 5:
“Some people think of entrepreneurs as lone wolves. But lone wolves are losers. Lone wolves die alone in the cold and the dark. Successful wolves run in packs.”

The Lululemon Manifesto

Confession: I have never gone into a Lululemon store. So I have been woefully ignorant of the Lululemon manifesto (though I have seen many variants, without knowing it).

In case you haven't had a chance to read it, here is the meaning of life, according to the cool people who sell you stretchy athletic clothing. (Or as they describe their mission, “Creating components for people to live a longer, healthier, more fun life.”)

• Drink FRESH water and as much water as you can. Water flushes unwanted toxins from your body and keeps your brain sharp.
• A daily hit of athletic-induced endorphins gives you the power to make better decisions, helps you be at peace with yourself, and offsets stress.
• Do one thing a day that scares you.

• Listen, listen, listen, and then ask strategic questions.
• Write down your short and long-term GOALS four times a year. Two personal, two business and two health goals for the next 1, 5 and 10 years. Goal setting triggers your subconscious computer.
• Life is full of setbacks. Success is determined by how you handle setbacks.

• Your outlook on life is a direct reflection of how much you like yourself.
• That which matters the most should never give way to that which matters the least.
• Stress is related to 99% of all illness.

• Jealousy works the opposite way you want it to.
• The world is changing at such a rapid rate that waiting to implement changes will leave you 2 steps behind. DO IT NOW, DO IT NOW, DO IT NOW!
• Friends are more important than money.

• Breathe deeply and appreciate the moment. Living in the moment could be the meaning of life.
• Take various vitamins. You never know what small mineral can eliminate the bottleneck to everlasting health.
• Don’t trust that an old age pension will be sufficient.

• Visualize your eventual demise. It can have an amazing effect on how you live for the moment.
• The conscious brain can only hold one thought at a time. Choose a positive thought.
• Live near the ocean and inhale the pure salt air that flows over the water. Vancouver will do nicely.

• Observe a plant before and after watering and relate these benefits to your body and brain.
• Practice yoga so you can remain active in physical sports as you age.
• Dance, sing, floss and travel.

• Children are the orgasm of life. Just like you did not know what an orgasm was before you had one, nature does not let you know how great children are until you have them.
• Successful people replace the words “wish”, “should” and “try” with “I will”.
• Creativity is maximized when you’re living in the moment.

• Nature wants us to be mediocre because we have a greater chance to survive and reproduce. Mediocre is as close to the bottom as it is to the top, and will give you a lousy life.
• lululemon athletica creates components for people to live longer, healthier and more fun lives. If we can produce products to keep people active and stress-free, we believe the world will become a much better place.
• Do not use cleaning chemicals on your kitchen counters. Someone will inevitably make a sandwich on your counter.

• SWEAT once a day to regenerate your skin.
• Communication is COMPLICATED. We are all raised in a different family with slightly different definitions of every word. An agreement is an agreement only if each party knows the conditions for satisfaction and a time is set for satisfaction to occur.
• What we do to the earth we do to ourselves.

• The pursuit of happiness is the source of all unhappiness.

Finally, I also love their “core value” around quality: “Our customers want to buy our product again.” What could be simpler, or more powerful?

You almost don't need a manifesto.

Top 10 Technologies for 2010

What are the top technologies that will have the most impact in 2010?

In a blogpost earlier this month on TechCrunch, Erick Schonfeld offered 10 nominees. Here is an edited version of his list

1. The Tablet Computer: “Why do we need yet another computer in between a laptop and an iPhone? … the answer lies in the fact that increasingly the Web is all you need. As all of our apps and data and social lives move to the Web, the Tablet is the incarnation of the Web in device form, stripped down to its essentials.”

2. Geolocation: “The combination of GPS chips in mobile phones, social networks, and increasingly innovative mobile apps means that geolocation is increasingly becoming a necessary feature for any killer app.”

3. Realtime Search: Search engines that know when to return timely sources of information, such as blogposts and Twitter. “The key will be to combine realtime search with realtime filters so that people are delivered not only the most recent information but the most relevant and authoritative as well.”

4. Chrome OS: Google’s sleek, powerful Chrome operating system is expected to be released later this year.

5. HTML5: This new computer language standard “will reduce the need for Flash or Silverlight plug-ins to view videos, animations, or other rich applications… HTML5 also supports offline data storage, drag-and-drop, and other features which can make Web apps act more like desktop apps.”

6. Mobile Video: “Live video streaming apps are becoming more commonplace—both streaming from phones and to them.”

7. Augmented Reality: Augmented reality apps such as Sekai Camera, Layar, GraffitiGeo and even Yelp add a layer of data to reality by placing everything from photos to Tweets to business listings directly on top of live image captured by your camera.

8. Mobile Transactions: As mobile phones become full-fledged computers, mobile payments and transactions will finally take off.

9. Android: Android is Google’s answer to the iPhone. There are already more than 10,000 apps on Android, and that total is growing fast.

10. Social CRM: Twitter, Facebook and other real-time communication tools will penetrate deeper into the enterprise. “Salesforce.com is set to launch Chatter, its realtime stream of enterprise data which interfaces with Twitter and Facebook and turn them into business tools. Startups like Yammer and Bantam Live are also making business more social.”

Looks like it's going to be a busy year.
For the full story, click here.

Meet our new Small Business Minister

Canada has a new minister of state for small business and tourism: a New Brunswick lawyer named Rob Moore.

Moore succeeds Diane Ablonczy. (Not that it ever seems to make much difference. She now becomes minister of state for seniors.)

Just yesterday, Moore (in the centre of the photo) was in Fairfield, NB, in his riding of Fundy Royal, to announce the feds are paying half the cost of a new $300,000 community centre. This is your infrastructure pork at work. (Why should Ottawa be paying for local town halls across Canada? No reason at all.)

Moore's riding runs from the outskirts of Saint John to the outskirts of Moncton, and includes Fundy National Park and the Hopewell Rocks, two of Atlantic Canada's best tourist sites.

Except that, according to a note on the Fundy Royal NDP blog, Moore opposed an expansion of Fundy National Park that would have preserved the entire watershed. The Moncton Times & Transcript called his stance "a Neanderthal attitude displaying little appreciation or understanding of environmental matters."
Oops.

Moore, who was born in Gander, Nfld, is 35. He has been Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice since 2006. He has also served as Conservative critic for Agriculture and Agri-Food, and participated on the Justice Committee and the Standing Committee on Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness. He has a degree in business administration as well as a law degree from UNB.

Well, let's give him the benefit of the doubt for now.

Bonus question: Why are the cabinet ministers like the sands at the Hopewell Rocks?
Now you see 'em, now you don't.

Entrepreneurs to meet in Fredericton, NB

I'm very excited about an entrepreneurial event being held in Fredericton May 1-2, 2010.

Rivers Corbett is a charming, outgoing chef whom I met 10 years ago at PROFIT Magazine’s first GrowthCamp, for emerging entrepreneurs. As CEO of what is now The Chef Group, he now loves helping other entrepreneurs succeed. And now he is organizing the first New Brunswick Entrepreneurs’ Summit to provide two full days of information, intelligence and motivation.

I'm delighted to be speaking at the conference, along with a who’s who of top NB entrepreneurs: Rivers himself, strategic planning consultant and coach Paula Morand, motivational expert Janice Butler, marketing whiz Jim Gilbert (“Canada’s most huggable car dealer”), Kara Hachey of Go-Go Gymnastics, Steve Palmer of The Safety Group, and many more.

The action gets underway at 10 am on Saturday, May 1, and doesn't let up till Sunday afternoon.

It’s an amazing two days for just $299. As Rivers told a local radio station the other day, “You will walk away from this thing feeling a good, good return on your investment of time and money.”

But wait – if you are one of the first 37 to sign up (as of today, 27 tickets have been sold), you can get in the door for $199. But you’d better hurry.

For more info or to register, visit www.outreachproductions.ca/entrepreneurssummit
See you in Fredericton!

FreshBooks World

A new online magazine on Toronto, YongeStreet, has launched with a story on FreshBooks, the online invoicing service that is becoming a boon to freelancers and consultants around the world.

Not a lot new in the story, but a good read if you haven't heard how founder Mike McDerment developed the product as an app for his own web-design business, and then saw the potential for selling it as a standalone monthly service.

The last time I visited FreshBooks, a few years ago, they had a staff of about 7. Today it’s 38.

Author Paul Gallant notes one reason for the company’s international success is that invoicing is one of the few business chores that take the same form around the world.

As McDerment says, "I never really thought about us as a Canadian company… People don't seem to care where you're located so long as you're able to communicate to them effectively.”

You can read the full story here.

Five Points About Social Media

Toronto-based social media company Sysomos (no, I don't know what that means) understands that many business owners are still confused about the potential of interactive Web marketing tools.

This week it published a great blogpost offering "Five Truths about Social Media" that should give business owners a better idea of where Twitter and blogging fit in to the marketing mix.

Here is my abbreviated version.

1. Social media is not about the tools and services such as Twitter, Facebook and YouTube. Social media is how the tools and services are effectively married with great content, creative ideas, smart strategies and tactics.

2. Social media is not a silver bullet or elixir. Adding some social media into the mix won’t produce miracles if there are other issues such as mediocre products and services, bad customer service, ineffective marketing, or intense competition.

3. A company and its employees have to embrace social media and make it part of the corporate culture.

4. Social media is not a standalone activity. It complements and enhances a company’s other activities.

5. It’s still early days for social media. [But] companies better start thinking why, how and when they want to get into the game.

You can read the full article here.

Happy "Sir John A." Day

Canadian Entrepreneur wishes you a very Happy Birthday of Sir John A. Macdonald, Canada's first Prime Minister.

And a masterful tactician:
"The great reason why I have been able to beat Brown is that I have been able to look a little ahead, while he could on no occasion forego the temptation of a temporary triumph."
(From a letter to M.C. Cameron, January 1872)

Secrets of business in three little words

Boston-area entrepreneur Dharmesh Shah wrote a brilliant blogpost recently that draws on all of his near-20 years’ experience with technology startups.

He composed 47 “triplets” of advice for other startup entrepreneurs. Yep, each is just three words long. Yet together they capture the challenge, creativity and emotional rush of starting and running a business.

You can read the full list here. If you're tight for time, here are my 10 favourites:

1. Watch your cash.
2. Invest in culture.
3. Avoid tempting distractions.
4. Never fudge numbers.
5. Guard your time.
6. Defer renting space.
7. Start charging early.
8. Sell something today.
9. Say “NO” often.
10. Cancel unnecessary meetings.

(I also loved No. 43, for its broader and unselfish perspective: “Improve employees’ resumes.”)

Dharmesh also invited his blog visitors to make up their own “triplets.” Startup guru Guy Kawasaki offers theis plum: "Sales fixes everything."

Other readers contributed these gems, among many others:
Metrics reveal truth
Trust your instincts
Spend less money
Follow hot market
"Trust but verify"
Watch every dollar
Hire smart people
Pursue multiple strategies
Visualize your success.
Think like customer
Gut trumps advice
Fewer, better metrics
Deliver Above Expectations
EASE OF USE!!!
Pay for Performance
Hire Decision Makers
Find your why
Question your motives
Keep It Simple
Share glory widely
Success breeds success.

To finish things off, here are three triplets of my own.
Seek experienced advisors.
Customer is boss.
Make the Call.

Check out Dharmesh’s post here.

(Thanks to Austin Hill for the tip.)

A little too transparent, Mr. Carnegie sir

I found a link this morning to a good article on “negotiating with difficult people” at the DaleCarnegie.com site.

As a consultant myself in content marketing, I think it imperative that businesses selling their smarts (AKA “thought leaders”) provide free content such as this to attract prospects’ attention and build respect for their expertise.

But that doesn't mean you broadcast what your intentions are. Letting people know they're just "leads" to you makes people feel they're being manipulated, rather than served.

Carnegie’s mistake? Look at the URL they choose for the page that hosts the story:
http://www.dalecarnegie.com/lead_nurturing/tips/tips.jsp?tipid=250

Maybe few people will notice the phrase “lead nurturing tips.” Nonetheless, this takes transparency too far.

Yes, providing relevant content is a marketing tactic. But most businesses use phrases that sound less mercantile. Examples: Free_stuff. Premium_content. Welcoming_wisdom.

Business should make customers and prospects feel they're being valued, and respected. Not hunted.

Talking to yourself isn't crazy if you listen

How do you pump yourself up, or stay motivated to meet your toughest challenges? Growth entrepreneur Jim Estill talks to himself – repeating certain “simple mantras” that give him the energy and will to succeed.

According to this article from last November that I just read on his blog, Jim repeats several key power statements when the stress starts to get to him. Here are a few:

"Successful People do Tough Things" – When I dread something but need to get through it regardless.

"What the heck, go for it anyway" – When negotiating, starting a project, or making new friends.

"I am very healthy, I heal very quickly" – Half the battle with regard to health is in the mind.

"Garbage in, garbage out" – Useful for poor eating habits, media garbage, bad TV.

"Back to Work" – Useful when distractions strike.

Read the full story here.

Also check out the comments following Jim’s blogpost. One commenter added another useful question you might ask yourself: "How can I do better?"

Do you need an executive coach?

My column in this week’s Financial Post looks at executive coaching: what can it do for you?

The starting point was a coach I met in Vancouver, Mary Ellen Sanajko of Conduit Coaching, who was running a draw at the SOHO Cnnference a tradeshow offering one lucky winner a month of free coaching. I asked her to let me write about the experience once it was over, and that’s what we did.

The winner, Vancouver accountant Fiona Chan, got a lot of great advice for starting her business, although in three sessions she just scratched the surface of the benefits of a sustained coaching campaign.

Excerpt:

"Chan is still spending more time dreading sales calls than making them. But she insists the project was a success: "Now, I know what to say. I have more confidence dealing with people."… Now Chan says she has become a convert to coaching: "I got more clear about myself," she says. "I'm not looking for perfection anymore."

You can read the full story here.

Feel free to leave a comment here if you have had any experience with business coaching.

How innovative is your business?

These days, everyone is looking to innovation to solve common problems such as declining markets, excess competition, fickle customers and flat productivity.

But how innovative is your organization, really? How high a priority is innovation? And do you have the right systems in place to promote it, follow through and sustain it?

If you can't answer those questions, you're hardly alone. But there is help.

The Burlington, Ont.-based Innovators Alliance has a nine-question quiz that will help you better understand how to develop and manage a culture of innovation in your business. It includes informative qualitative answers that will direct your thinking and improve your innovation quotient.

To take the survey, click here to reach the IA home page, then scroll down the page to the
"Are You Innovative?" box. Click on the link to download the PDF.

And since it's a PDF document, you can save it to your own computer and share it with your people. After all, innovation is a team sport.

Sample question:
Of the following countries, which one is noted to have the weakest and most simplistic innovation patterns?
a. UK
b. Germany
c. China
d. Canada
e. India

I'll bet you can guess the answer.

Succeeding in world markets

Great story by Susan Down in today’s Toronto Star on Richard Magnussen, whose Waterloo, Ont.-area furniture company has responded to free-trade pressures by becoming an integrated international furniture producer.

It’s the sort of story we need to read more often to help us remember that every threat is also an opportunity – and that Canadians can succeed in world markets.

The money paragraph is here: after starting as a tiny producer of hand-crafted tables, Magnussen Home Furnishings moved into the U.S. market following the free-trade agreement with the U.S. in 1988. "We either had to compete or get out of business," says Richard.

Today the company has manufacturing centres in China, Vietnam and the Philippines. Why is this good news for Canadians? "When we went international, we actually employed more people locally than we did manufacturing," says Magnussen.

The U.S. market accounts for 75% of Magnussen Home's sales, and Canada has 20%. But the company’s promising new markets include the Middle East, New Zealand, Germany and Korea.

Of all his business skills, says Magnussen, "The thing that is most important is the ability to manage change."

This Friday, Magnussen will receive a lifetime achievement award from the Canadian Home Furnishings Alliance. Congratulations to a visionary Canadian entrepreneur.

You can read the full story here. It will restore your faith.

Free wifi for Canadian travelers

Going though some old papers as part of my new year's cleanup, I found a useful item in a weekend issue of the Financial Post from Nov. 28: a handy list of major Canadian airports offering free Wi-FI service.

You can hook up for free in the following airports:

Calgary
Fredericton
Gander
Halifax
Moncton
Quebec City
St. John's
Saint John, NB
Saskatoon
Sudbury
Vancouver

Let's hear it for the cities that know what customers want!

Banish these bad business habits

For my column this week, the editors of the Financial Post asked me to contribute to their “Out with the Aughts” series marking the end of the decade. I took this as a cue to talk about some of the bad habits that Canadian businesses have picked up since 2000.

Based on the comments I've received, a lot of people identify with these bad habits. So let’s all look forward to eliminating them in 2010.

• If you build it, they will come: Simply setting up a website won't bring thousands of customers to your door.

• Wilful blindness: The tendency to say, "We can get along perfectly well without..." (choose your innovation: Facebook, Twitter, colour printers, spreadsheets, profit-sharing, consultants, a sales rep in Red Deer).

• Hire now, ask questions later: We are seeing a return to diligent resume (and reference)checking.

• Low-dollar denial: Business owners understand that they have to reinvest in productivity or fall behind.

• Take a number and wait: Businesses today have to run on customer time.

• Competing on price: Clients today have more choices than ever, so you must create the best customer experience you can afford.

• Exporting is for Experts: E-commerce makes exporting possible for just about everybody.

• Treating customers as a mass: It takes only a moment, sometimes just a word, to make customers feel special.

• Neglecting Trust: Say what you do, do what you say. Dance as if everyone's watching.

• Negativity: We are privileged to live in a time of unremitting change. For resourceful, optimistic entrepreneurs, the next decade could be a perfect 10

For more details and the full story, click here.

I wish you a safe, healthy and prosperous new year.

What did you learn in 2009?

What did you learn in 2009?

Kim Clausen of Ready2Go Marketing Solutions is offering these 15 take-aways from the year just past, to help you position for the business year about to begin.

Here's her list:

1. Make people feel special.
2. Be a person of high integrity.
3. Over-deliver.

4. Deliver quality or don't deliver at all.
5. Value yourself. Embrace who you are.
6. Always make time for you.

7. Make learning a priority.
8. Be prepared to make short-term sacrifices for the long-term gain.
9. Support your colleagues. Refer them, speak well of them, use their services.

10. Collaborate - Don't try to do it alone. It's harder and lonelier.
11. You have no competitors. Always adopt an abundance mentality.
12. Always be growing your list.

13. Don't wait for perfect - Perfection can be the enemy.
14. Action is the enemy of fear. Just do it.
15. Failure isn't fatal. The more risks you take, the more successes you will have.

Find more like this from Kim Clausen at her blog, at http://ready2gomarketingsolutions.com/blog/

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays

Please accept my best wishes for a safe, happy, warming and memorable holiday season.

May all your Christmas dreams (ie, key performing indicators) come true.

Best Business Tips of the Year

What’s the best way to control costs in your business? How should you always start a sales presentation? Can customer-focused “lists” help you sell more?

My column in this week’s Financial Post looks at seven of the best ideas I gleaned this year from the hundreds of email newsletters that arrived in my inbox. It’s an annual look back at expert tactics that most of us either don't know or have long since forgotten.

Excerpt:

• Sell more by creating "lists" for customers. Toronto-based strategy consultant and speaker Donald Cooper wrote about the time he and his wife bought mountain bikes. The dealer was in such a hurry he failed to sell them the shoes, shorts, pullovers and panniers needed. They bought everything else from a rival retailer, who provided a handy list of the most popular accessories.
"Whatever business you're in, your customers are confused, overwhelmed and short of time," writes Cooper. "How could you pro-actively use simple lists to create confidence in your professionalism, help your customers save time, and have a complete and extraordinary experience ...and grow your bottom line?"

For the full story, click here.

Mission statement: It’s not about selling clothes

I understand why many companies struggle with creating their own set of vision, mission and value statements. It’s hard to instil personal values into a business context: What’s relevant? What’s appropriate?

How do we compress our complex corporate culture into a set of words on the page – without embarrassing ourselves, missing the point, boxing ourselves into a corner, or losing the whole spirit of the thing?

Yet getting it right is essential. Identifying a mission or vision is the essential first step to fully understanding it, nurturing it, communicating it to others and preserving (and extending) it.

And of course these days the best new employees judge a company as much by its values and culture as by old-fashioned concepts such as salary and location.

Here’s a great example of a Mission and Value statement for you to think about. It comes from legendary Vancouver-based retailer Please Mum.

It is packed with vibrant language, exciting concepts, and specific, daring intentions. It’s fun, inspiring, hopeful and empowering. It’s the sort of manifesto that would delight any potential employee and excite any potential customer.

Our Mission
Please Mum is a Canadian-based company rooted in a desire to make growing up fun for families.

Driven by customer feedback, we design and create a diverse selection of quality children's clothing that is fashionable, comfortable and easy care.

At the heart of our business is the experience we create for our customers, employees and their families. We strive to create a shopping experience for our customer that is easy and stress free and a work environment for our employees that is vibrant, challenging and provides a garden of opportunity.

Through living our values - Fun, Caring, Challenge, Creativity, Honesty, and Teamwork - we aspire to create an enjoyable experience for customers, employees and their families.

Values
Values represent what is fundamentally important to our company - they guide our behaviour and decision-making. At Please Mum we aspire to 6 core values.

Fun
• We take our business seriously, but approach it in a light-hearted manner
• We find joy and excitement in our work

Caring
• We promote empathy and understanding to our employees, customers and community
• We strive to provide everyone with what they need to be successful

Challenge
• We thrive by pushing boundaries and testing limits
• We seek to do great things and learn from our mistakes

Creativity
• We value imagination and resourcefulness to help separate us from the competition
• We employ interesting and creative people who collaborate to get things done

Honesty
• Trust is at the core of our foundation
• We are open and truthful with our co-workers and customers

Teamwork
• We foster a team environment by respecting the uniqueness each individual brings to the company
• We are excited to collaborate and share information to help make Please Mum as great as it can be

Rick again: What's your mission? What are your values?

PROFIT's Top 10 Stories of the Year

PROFIT Magazine today sent out a newsletter promoting its Top 10 “Can’t Miss” stories of the year.

I was delighted to see they had chosen two of my stories in the Top 10 – a short, fun piece about business lessons from the new Star Trek film, and a first-person look at what went wrong that resulted in the death of one Canadian business earlier this year.

Beam to the Star Trek story here: http://tinyurl.com/ycls3mr
Attend the Post-Mortem here: http://tinyurl.com/ybhowtx

And here are the other 8 essential PROFIT stories of the year.

* Selling your baby : What to expect when you sell your company

* 5 simple ways to sell more : Tips from Canada's hotttest growth companies

* Become indispensable to your clients : How to get customers to admit they can't live without you

* Dragons' debate : A rousing roundtable of TV titans

* Cutthroat compassion : an aggressive approach to social responsibility.

* Sleep Country's Christine Magee shares her best business tips

* Given to distraction: Entrepreneurial Attention Deficit Disorder
* The four components of high-performance teams

Social Media Tipping Point

When three senior business people last week asked to pick my brains on social media, I realized marketing has reached a tipping point. People are moving away from mass media and starting to really come to grips with Facebook, Twitter, blogging and other marketing channels made possible by social media.

So in my Financial Post column this week, I tried to make sense of this burgeoning opportunity – with an 800-word guide to social media.

Excerpt:
“The humble electronic newsletter may still be your best tool for informing and motivating clients. Easier, cheaper and quicker to produce than the paper-based version, e-newsletters build relationships with clients by providing company and product news, industry updates, and advice on how to get more from your products.

"They also leave a trail of statistics that indicate how many people opened your message, what they read and how many visited your website and did what you want (e. g., registered or made a purchase).”

Read the full story here.

"Power is never given"

Artist/writer Hugh MacLeod, who blogs at http://www.gapingvoid.com/, has a list of business rules he says has "worked for me" over the years. The key ones are in the following chart.

There is much wisdom here, I believe. Plus bull, bluster and wishful thinking. What do you think?

"It was impossible to say 'no' to him"

David Pecaut, a tireless entrepreneur and activist for the City of Toronto, has died today of cancer. He was 54.

The founder of the Toronto City Summit Alliance and the arts festival Luminato, Pecaut was hailed in a Toronto Star online story today as "the greatest mayor we never had."

I was particularly intrigued by a comment in that story from Toronto mayor David Miller. He praised an ability of Pecaut's that we can all learn from - whether entrepreneurs or activists.

"He always finds ways to make things happen," said Miller. "It was impossible to say 'no' to him because he worked miracles to find common ground where the only answer was 'yes.'"

Finding common ground: surely the most important task facing any business executive, salesperson, entrepreneur or activist.

Thank you, David Pecaut, for showing us what can be.


PS: If you are interested in more, the Star last week published Pecaut's "love letter" to the city: his vision of what it could yet be. Here's an excerpt:

"We can be a city where collective leadership is the norm. A city where civic entrepreneurs are everywhere and the process of bringing all the parts of civil society together to solve a problem is really how the city defines its uniqueness - a city where this quality is the essence of what makes Toronto so special."

You can read Pecaut's last message here.

Globalive's Tony Lacavera: Teaming up with Goliath

It's great to see Industry Minister Tony Clement supporting Canadian entrepreneurship by ruling in favour of Toronto-based Globalive and its new WindMobile cellphone service.

Globalive is an innovative provider of a wide range of telecom services, from hotel-based long-distance to Yak phone and Internet services. Yet when founder Tony Lacavera decided two years ago to enter the bidding for wireless spectrum to help bring more competition to Canadian mobile industry, he couldn't raise any money in Canada or the U.S.

Lacavera called every contact he had in the financial business, as well as cold-calling wireless companies around the world in search of partners. He made all the calls himself, fuelled by equal parts aggression and humility. He knew Globalive couldn't pull off this coup on its own. “I don’t believe in ‘David and Goliath’ scenarios,” Lacavera told me last year. “If you hit big competitors in the eye, you’re going to lose.”

He finally found a Goliath partner in Orascom, the progressive Egyptian wireless company run by chairman and CEO Naguib Sawaris. In funding Globalive’s ramp-up, Sawaris agreed to a complex series of transactions and restrictions to satisfy Canada’s byzantine domestic ownership regulations. So everyone took a huge chance when Globalive bought $400 million of wireless spectrum last year.

And it’s good to see the federal government (which had approved the ownership structure prior to the CRTC’s questioning it) standing behind a gutsy Canadian innovator.

Wind has already hit the good running, with ads in major newspapers and today’s announcement that it will sell phone plans through kiosks in Blockbuster Video stores (in Toronto and Calgary, to start).

I interviewed Lacavera extensively late last year for a profile in PROFIT Magazine. Check out the story here for a look inside the mind of a great Canadian entrepreneur, and a peek at the future of telecom.

Tapping your fanbase

Does your business have loyal alumni, fans or other resources you could be making better use of?

My column in this week’s Financial Post looks at one entrepreneur who found a valuable resource of ideas and support under his very nose – once a year.

That entrepreneur is Vic Fedeli, mayor of North Bay, Ont., and my article explores how he meets every Boxing Day with young people who moved away from town – but still come home for Christmas. He asks them to brainstorm ways that North Bay, a city of 54,000, can develop a stronger economy, and what it would take to bring them back.

Result: he is leveraging a resource North Bay never knew it had – and getting lots of great ideas for strengthening the economy.

It's a good news story that reminds us of the human assets we may all be neglecting around us.

You can read the full story here.

Top Business Opportunities for 2010

Susan Ward of About.com’s Small Business Canada has drawn up a list of the best Business Opportunities for 2010. If you're looking for a business to start or a new angle for your business, these are some of the most promising trends and opportunities she sees.

1) Green Construction: Green materials, green techniques, and green certifications are going to be the keys to success in construction this year.

2) Green Technologies: Both loans and grants are available from governments to fund projects that attempt to solve environmental challenges.

3) Dollar/Discount Stores: Consumers will continue to be frugal and look for bargains.

4) Senior Care: Opportunities range from opening your own senior-care home through providing in-home care or home services such as preparing meals, housekeeping or running errands.

5) Renovations for seniors: Seniors needing renovations to make their lives easier and stay in their own homes longer is a niche waiting to be exploited.

6) Heating and Cooling Products and Services: High energy prices combined with government tax breaks make this traditional industry a rich niche.

7) Local Food Suppliers: Knowing where your food comes from and how it was grown or raised is all the rage.

8) Nutrition Consulting: Consumers are looking for food information tailored to their lifestyle and health concerns. It will be a banner year for nutritionists and naturopaths.

9) Social Media Marketing/Management: If you can actually deliver actual effective social media marketing campaigns (blogs, Twitter, online video, etc.), the clients will follow.

10) Business Security: Businesses continue to beef up security investments, ranging from security guards to biometric identity systems.

“Taking into account the economy, consumer and business trends,” writes Ward, “these are businesses that should be profitable not just for 2010, but for years to come.”

To read her entire article, click here.

Rick adds: I like all these trends. But if you are looking for superior opportunities, why not look at where two trends converge (e.g., just as Ward did in identifying renovations for seniors)?

The intersection points of two growing trends can create opportunity squared. So why not think about specializing in social media for renovation contractors, cheap green products (to sell through dollar stores), or security systems focusing on agribusinesses? Ride the waves!

Marketing to small business

My Financial Post column this week offers 10 tips for marketing more effectively to small and medium-sized business.

The insights come from Jeff Berry of the Executive Council on Small Business, who shared his 10 points for making your marketing more "consumable” at a conference last week in Toronto.

The key, as in any market, is to better understand your target audience. When you know, for instance, that business owners are older than most people think, that they're more risk-avoiders than risk-takers, and that 60% are resolutely locally-oriented, then you can refine your marketing offers to match the actual mindset of your prospects.

Excerpt:

"Tactic 2: Reduce perceived risk by offering samples and free trials, refund periods or money-back guarantees. The more you promote such offers in your ads or website, the more you overcome buyers' fears of making a wrong decision."

Click here to read the full story.

One Free Ticket to marketing seminar

Want to learn how to market your business better? For free?

The American Marketing Association - Toronto chapter is holding a seminar on "How to Market Your Small or Mid-Sized Business (So it Doesn’t Look Like One!)". It's at the Toronto Board of Trade on Tues., Dec. 8, from 8 am to noon. (Or come at 7.30 for breakfast).

The organizers offered me a guest ticket ($79 value), so I decided to hand it out to one of my blog or Twitter readers.

If you would like to enter a random draw for a free pass to the seminar, email me at rick@rickspence.ca by noon (Eastern Time) Friday, Dec. 4. You don't even have to write anything in the email - just put in a title like AMA Ticket. (Try not to use the word Free. Spam filters are funny that way).

I will pick a name at random shortly after noon, and let you know if you have won. If you haven't heard by 1 pm (EST), please assume you didn't win.

The seminar includes sessions on marketing plans, prospecting, creating buzz and building relationships. Plus there's a panel of successful entrepreneurs, including Razor Suleman of I Love Rewards, an amazing marketer whom I wrote about recently in PROFIT Magazine.

For more information on the seminar, or to actually buy a ticket, click here.

Why Put the Customer First?

I’m a customer-first person. I believe that when marketers put their own needs ahead of those of their customers, they lose in a big way. They may make the one-off sale, but they sacrifice the opportunity to turn a single transaction into a relationship.

Are you a customer-first person?

One customer-first marketer is Toronto real-estate agent Farrell Macdonald, who gives an example in his most recent newsletter. In September 2008, he helped a couple buy a condo. A few months ago, they called Macdonald again to explore “trading up” to a town home.

Macdonald writes: “I quickly did up a calculation showing them what they could expect to net from their current place and what they would have to pay for a larger property - including the land transfer tax and other closing costs. It was apparent that their plans to trade up were a little premature. Although disappointed, they thanked me for setting them straight.”

In other words, Macdonald helped his clients realize their best move was not to move just now. By spending time helping them understand the market, Macdonald forfeited a deal that could have earned him a healthy fee.

That’s customer-first.

In a perfect world, this deal would only be deferred, not lost. Theoretically, after proving his objectivity and professionalism, Macdonald should get the business next time, and possibly every time this couple moves. That’s the power of building trust through customer-first service.

The real world doesn't always work that way. People lose touch, people forget, someone else might come along and lure those customers away. But in the long run, this is the only way to go.

Are you prepared to lose a deal in order to serve the customer?

Staples launches business blog

Staples Business Depot has today launched “How’s Business?” a blog for Canadian small businesses. As far as I know, this is the first small business marketer to invest in a coherent blogging strategy for Canadian entrepreneurs.

This is a move I applaud. As one of the top small business-related brands in the country, Staples has the goodwill and the savvy to become a credible purveyor of business advice and insight.

I met recently with the Staples marketing brainstrust and they also understand – unlike many bloggers, both individual and corporate – that their blogposts will have to be engineered to benefit the reader first, not the company. They know that in today’s over-marketed economy, you have to give first to gain your target audience’s attention and respect before you can hope to have any influence.

The posts published so far (e.g., startup myths, a business plan primer, creating a workspace, dealing with failure, avoiding identity theft, and of course blogging) live up to the promise of creating value without excessive self-promotion. Looks like http://blog.staples.ca/ will be worth bookmarking.

“How’s Business?” is integrated with an improved business-resource centre that includes articles, links, how-to videos and so on. And there are already some good conversations going on in the “comments” appended to each post.

The blog leans on guest contributors, which is good. But most of the posts come from someone named Lynnette, who writes interesting stuff despite having to be the “voice” of a corporation. Since blogging is a one-to-one medium, I hope Lynnette will come out of the shadows and develop more personality over time.

One quibble: in an introductory post, Lynette says that “Blogging and the web gives us a new way to communicate with you, our customers.” It’s not exactly new – as noted by the subtle dig from “Leo,” a fellow Staples employee who left this comment on that post:

“Welcome to the conversation, cousins! I work at Staples Argentina, we’ve had blogs for three years, and it’s been great!”

Good luck to Staples on a promising initiative. The question is not why it took Staples so long – but why no one beat them to it.

Learn from the past, or forfeit the future

(This post has been cross-posted from New Management Welcome, my part-time blog on chronic business blunders)

Holy Lemons! A study quoted in a recent New York Times GadgetWise column says 20.4% of laptops fail over three years.

The study, produced by SquareTrade, an online vendor of extended warranties, found evidence that netbooks fail at a higher rate, 5.4% in the first year of use compared with 4.2% for a premium-level laptop.

The study also says the accident rate for laptops is another 10%, so the total failure rate over three years is closer to 30%.

What’s most fascinating is that different manufacturers have compiled startlingly different failure rates.

SquareTrade concluded that Asus and Toshiba laptops fail about 15% of the time. At the other end of the scale is Hewlett-Packard, with a failure rate of more than 25% (my first laptop was one of those statistics - right out of the gate).

How sad is it that the report concludes, “In some cases, it would appear that failure is not only an option, but the expectation.”

We need higher manufacturing standards. Yes, price points are competitive, but the failure rate is just too high.

The big U.S. hardware brands should recall what happened to Detroit in the 1970s when foreign carmakers got the unique idea to focus on quality.

Learn from the past, or forfeit the future.

When Entrepreneurs don't do the things they should

I got an interesting email this week from a CA with a big problem.

"My focus as a CA is business advisory services to small businesses. Unfortunately I find that even after signing on clients to an engagement, the clients don’t do the required action plans to grow their business.

This has me stumped. We had a conversation that they initiated, they bought into what services and investment were required , but once I send them the engagement letter everything stops. They have all sorts of reasons for not moving forward.

If you have any ideas , any advice or referral would be appreciated."

Does that problem sound familiar? I think it's pretty common.
Here's the response I sent.

"I have certainly noted this paradox before. (Don't worry, it's not you.) I call it "entrepreneurial inertia" - the inability of small business owners to do the things they know they have to do.

My (still evolving) theory is this: entrepreneurs like being the boss. It means they're in control. They call the shots. This means no one can ever force them to eat canned beans or broccoli ever again. When you have a mindset like that, it takes a lot of character to decide to go ahead and spend a lot of A) money and B) time doing some complicated thing that you really don't understand and probably don't believe in."

I wrote about this whole thing in a Financial Post column last year, and then followed it up with additional thoughts in a blogpost about what to do about it.

You can click here to read the blogpost, and at the end of that post you can click through to read the Post article.

I finished by asking the CA, "Let me know what you think. If you can find a cure for this, I'll nominate you for the Nobel Prize in Economics."

What do you think? Is there a cure for entrepreneurial inertia?

How about a customer contest?

Here’s a great way for a company that prides itself on customer service to promote itself, and the very concept of service as well.

Rackspace.com, the “cloud computing” hosting company that calls itself “The Home of Fanatical Support,” puts customer service first in its own business. But it also holds a contest for its clients to recognize “one of our customers for valuing customer service as much as we do.”

The 2009 Fanati Contest is now underway (for U.S. customers only). Rackspace clients who think they have what it takes have until Dec. 11 to put together a 5-minute video explaining why they deserve to be this year’s winner.

Here are some of the approaches Rackspace suggests to contest entrants.
• Tell us who you are and what your business does.
• Describe what Fanatical Support means to you.
• If you were going to take a thesaurus to the phrase “Fanatical Support” and use that in your company’s business motto, what would your new motto be?
• If you already have a Fanatical Support-like battle cry, what is it and give us the back story.
• Tell us about a time you or an employee went above and beyond (fanatically) for a customer or employee.
• Tell us how you’ve continued to enhance your motto to adapt to your business’ changing needs, culture, and/or growth to ensure that customers stay satisfied?

So why is Canadian Entrepreneur telling you about a U.S.-only contest?

Because it’s a brilliant (and inexpensive!) promotional idea. Rackspace is reinforcing its “Fanatical Support” branding. It’s building community and loyalty by engaging customers (and customers’ employees) in the campaign. And it stands to win valuable publicity as well.

What’s your brand? How could you get customers more excited about it, and promote it to the rest of the world, by organizing a contest of your own?

Perhaps you could recognize the customer to whom product quality is most important, or the one that does the greatest job of staff training or personal empowerment.

Because business is too important to be boring. And branding is a powerful tool that begs to be shared.

Re-designing the Future

Rotman School dean Roger Martin has just published a new book on "The Design of Business." He believes all businesses must develop "design thinking" (a mixture of analytical and intuitive reasoning) to solve the challenges they face today - or else face irrelevance.

It's a great book, plus it's short and easy to read, with lots of examples, from Procter & Gamble to Target and Cirque du Soleil.

But my favorite part is the insights it contains on the development of Research in Motion and its renowned BlackBerry. RiM co-founder, co-CEO and chief engineer Mike Lazaridis gets due credit for his dogged research that ended up changing the way the world communicates.

Lazaridis jumped on the potential of digital signal processing before any of the big telcos. It's part of his philosophy of business, says Martin. "Product design has to push the envelope to the point where it seems like you're making a mistake," says Lazaridis. If you're going to beat the giants with an innovation, he says, "It has to be audacious from a technical point of view."

I also liked Lazaridis' quote about never resting on your laurels. "In a business, no matter how good the process is, no matter how much you've got it down pat, no matter how much money you're making, you have to always go back and say, 'Is there something fundamentally wrong with the way we're seeing the market? Are we dealing with incomplete information?'

"Because that's what's going to get you; it's not necessarily that some young whippersnapper's going to come up with some better idea than you. They're going to start from a different premise and they're going to come to a different conclusion that makes you irrelevant."

According to Lazaridis, "Motorola lost because it didn't embrace the future... It was too damn good at what it was doing."