February 2, 2010

The Only Thing Worse Than Taxes

Posted by Clint Greenleaf at 6:47 PM

It's a big day when I admit anything is worse than taxes...but the current political climate in Washington is giving me the perfect opportunity.

If left unchecked, uncertainty will kill this recovery. The impending threat of new taxes, new healthcare rules, Cap-and-Trade, increased unemployment benefits, record-breaking deficits, and more regulation is stopping entrepreneurs and small businesses from hiring.

We all know that the recovery won't be real until hiring starts. When consumers are employed, the economy will swing upward. Consumer spending accounts for 70 percent of our economic activity, after all. But in order for consumer spending to rebound, consumers need jobs, and jobs will only come when small businesses start hiring again. The simple fact is that hiring won't happen until Washington eliminates the uncertainty that is in the air.

It's politically acceptable to say a lack of lending and liquidity are the big problems holding small business back. But I feel that today's announcement to release TARP money to small business misses the mark. True, a tight lending market is limiting capital investment, but the need for loans is not stopping hiring. The reality is that concerns about governmental interference and our crippling budget deficit are causing businesses to pause rather than to hire new employees.

The economy is not strong enough to allow businesses to go through the expense of hiring when politics might render that growth impossible, resulting in a fast round of layoffs that will in turn lead to severance payments and higher unemployment taxes.

The only thing worse than more taxes is threatening several different kinds of regulations, fees, and taxes. Owners will hedge against all of these, halting hiring altogether. When there is clarity on the depth of governmental interference in our lives, our biggest barrier to recovery will be gone. Until then, we'll have high unemployment, low consumer confidence, and a muted recovery at best.

Please, Washington, get out of the way and allow small business to fix this economy.

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Marketing | January 21, 2010

Are You Missing Good Opportunities?

Posted by Clint Greenleaf at 11:40 AM

This month, GM threatened to shut down Saab as a deal to sell the brand to a Dutch car-maker languished. I'll leave it to others to debate whether this is a smart negotiating technique. In the meantime, I'd like to address a more local issue: I own a SAAB and have been happy with it over the years.

Today, I received a letter from my local dealer. As I opened it, I guessed that it would tell me to keep the faith in the Saab dealer's service department—that I need not worry about an interruption in service. I also thought the letter would suggest that I look to buy a new Saab at a discount given the uncertainty over the future of the brand.

What I got instead was the same form letter that I’ve been getting from this Saab dealer for years. I am nearing a scheduled maintenance for the car, the letter observed, and I should call the dealer's service department for an appointment.

Really? That’s it? There was no mention of Saab's future. The omission was so conspicuous that I wondered if Saab might be closing its doors any day now and that this was just a scheduled direct mail piece that someone didn’t bother to cancel.

That letter represented a missed opportunity. The dealer had a chance to sell me on staying loyal to the brand, and it blew it. This got me thinking…what openings have I missed with my clients? What seemingly obvious chances have I missed to communicate with them, to quell their fears, to give them new information, or to sell them new products and services? More important, how can I make sure I don’t miss chances like this in the future? I’m open to your suggestions as this is something from which we can all benefit. How do you prevent missed opportunities in your communications with customers?

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Success | September 14, 2009

Paranoia: Your Best Friend

Posted by Clint Greenleaf at 1:49 PM

I've spent almost my entire business life paranoid. It's not the most relaxing way to live -- I envy friends who walk around with a Zen-like smile and a picture-perfect Type-B personality. I'm just not that guy.

My last year in college, I read Only the Paranoid Survive by Intel's Andrew S. Grove. The premise is simple -- get complacent and you lose. This theory, along with the stark reality that I am NEVER the smartest person in the room, keeps me on my toes. You can call it a healthy insecurity or something more negative, but the reality is that it has served Greenleaf Book Group well.

By never taking what I have for granted, I constantly work to improve. Make no mistake, I'm not so caught up that I don't appreciate what I have -- there's no denying that I'm one of the luckiest guys in the world. But there's a HUGE difference between being thankful and appreciative and taking success for granted or as an entitlement.

Jim Collins' latest book, How the Mighty Fall, did a number on my confidence. The book is great -- it describes in simple terms how once-great companies managed to screw it all up and go into the ranks of obscurity or cease to exist entirely. He also explains why the critics of Good to Great and Built to Last are knuckleheads who don't understand the premise of the books. The books never promised that these companies would always be great, just that they were once great.

Collins' five simple stages of collapse are clear enough to understand, and scary enough to occupy your thoughts and ask those annoying questions you hear in the back of your mind. Some good news for the ever-paranoid, however, is that constant paranoia is one of Collins' keys to success. Believing in your skills (when they're really luck) or your brilliance (when the market was simply in your favor) is the fastest way to start down the path of collapse.

Three other books that were recently released have also promoted healthy questioning of the status quo. Jeff Jarvis' What Would Google Do does a great job of describing how Google has changed business as we know it, by making almost everything free. Speaking of free, Chris Anderson's Free does a good job of reminding you why you should shy away from the scarcity mindset of trying to charge your customers. Scott McKain's Collapse of Distinction teaches that with competition comes sameness, and that to win in a sea of similarity, you have to do things that others will not. Competition almost always leads to comparisons on price -- a game all but one company loses.

I'm not suggesting that you should always be afraid -- there are times in business when you need to ignore the signs and trust your gut. Instead, my simple advice is to be aware of everything, including your own weaknesses, to be truly successful over the long haul.

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Business Planning | August 28, 2009

Making Time

Posted by Clint Greenleaf at 2:49 PM

At the end of July, Ireland’s most famous band, U2, returned to Dublin for a long week of parties and concerts. To call it a once-in-a-lifetime experience is an understatement. A week of partying that leads up to one of the best concerts is, alone, a great experience. As if I needed more of a reason to be excited, a couple friends offered me front-row tickets. My wife is a huge U2 fan (as any red-headed Irish girl should be), and I had it all planned out.

Only one glitch. I couldn’t go. My schedule was too booked and I had to turn the tickets down. The problem is that I’ve let my schedule get too filled up with little things that become big things.

We are all busy. When the economy is tight, we take on extra work to save payroll costs. When the economy is great, we are so flushed with work that it’s a full plate. I’ve gone 12 years now with this business and each one has been busier and more time-consuming than the last. The lie we tell ourselves -- “When I finish this issue/event/project, I’ll be free to work on that project” -- almost always plays out differently. Something always comes up and we get too engrossed in our fires to focus on what we need to. So, instead of taking advantage of a great new opportunity, we’re mired in mundane tasks than we can pass off to others.

This situation I’m in is unacceptable and has to get fixed. Today, it’s the front row at U2. What will I be too busy to do tomorrow? An important client meeting? A speech to a large group? A dance recital for my girls? A family emergency? I’m not sure, but damn it, I’m not going to find out.

So, what's an entrepreneur to do? In order to force myself to get more things off my plate (and thus to free up more time for bigger things) and be available for bigger issues, I’m going to take more and more off my plate. My goal is to get to a point of having no more than 10 planned hours of work every week. That way I have the rest of the time to focus on big issues. There are always big-picture items I can tackle, and the only way to be free to focus on them is to remove the little things. I’ve done a great job of hiring well, and now that the team is in place to handle my smaller issues, I can let go without fear. If I need more help, I’m going to hire more great people. (Check out our hiring site, where we’re working to attract top talent.)

My plan is pretty simple -- I offer it up not as the best plan, but as a possible solution. I would love to hear your thoughts and maybe we can all learn from my loss.

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Employee Management | June 9, 2009

Fighting a Case of the Mondays

Posted by Clint Greenleaf at 2:23 PM

If you're not an entrepreneur, you may be less than happy to come to work on Mondays. Frankly, it doesn't matter if you're a front-line player or the CEO -- we've all had our days (weeks, months, years) of being discontent in the workplace.

But Roxanne Emmerich doesn't think it has to be this way. In fact, she knows it doesn't, and the focus of Thank God It's Monday! is revealing the strategies behind a functional, happy, and fun workplace. (She's more than prepared for the eye-rolling and sarcastic comments that come whenever she brings up the idea of a fun workplace.) Her book is part parable, part anecdote, and part textbook, written from the standpoint of an industry veteran who has seen it all -- and she's not going to take your crap.

Emmerich's bottom line is simple logic: The more you love your workplace, the better your workplace. The better your workplace, the more your customers love your workplace. The more your customers love your workplace, the more successful your workplace. For her, attitude is everything. It's not about being touchy-feely or a boss telling her workers, "Be happy and get to work!" It's about communicating, taking action, initiating change, taking obstacles as challenges, and turning uninvolved employees into dedicated employees. But most importantly, it's about the celebration of positive change (following the "Hoopla" model, which is nowhere near as ridiculous as it sounds) when all of these elements work.

The book is separated into four parts: understand that you have a problem, work to change that problem, find a way to effectively better your workplace, and work to rid yourself of the obstacles to a better workplace. The focus throughout is on you as an employee or employer. What are you doing wrong? What can you do to make it better? Why are you doing something one way rather than another? She challenges you to push yourself: Don't ever take "no" or "I can't" as an answer, and strive until you -- as an individual -- reach your ultimate goal. The company is built on individuals and that is where the focus lies.

What's most clever about the book is the parable approach. Reading about one company instinctively makes you want to compare it to your own company. You recognize the types of employees and problems and attitudes that you and your people have. You read it to find your "aha" moments. "Aha, I'm doing this" or "Aha, I need to do that." (And occasionally, "Oh crap, I shouldn't be doing that.") Emmerich expertly guides the reader through a closer look at his or her workplace and then provides the tools to make all employees contribute equally, be enthusiastic and work towards tangible results.

Not just for CEOs who want a great culture, this is a recommended read for employees at every level, because as Emmerich says, anyone can work toward making Mondays at the office the best day of the week.

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Employee Management | April 17, 2009

Stop the Layoffs!

Posted by Clint Greenleaf at 10:59 AM

As time wears on and the recession shows little sign of being curtailed by the government's stimulus package, companies are continuing to cut costs by resorting to their fallback plan: employee layoffs. Millions of them. The national unemployment rate now tops 8 percent. In some states, the number of those unemployed exceeds 10 percent of the workforce. If I were more political, I might start the dramatic "1 in every 10 Americans" speech in a portentous, overly concerned, Big Brother voice. But let's just cut to the chase, shall we?

My company's industry -- book publishing -- is not immune to the effects of the current economic state. In fact, quite the opposite. We're small, independent, and we produce a non-essential consumer good. For some in this business, that could be a death sentence. Larger rival companies are cutting jobs by the hundreds.
On the other hand, we only have about 30 full-time employees. And even one layoff is, in my opinion, unacceptable. It's not about who's "essential" and who's "expendable." If you've done your hiring right, everyone is essential. Cutting one person from the team is losing one invaluable resource that helps make this entire company tick. In the short term, it hurts morale and lowers the productivity of a department. In the long run it means the entire company's time and money spent trying to make up for the loss -- redistributing tasks and overburdening departments, struggling to make up the slack, dealing with the paperwork, and eventually putting additional man hours toward rehiring and retraining. And of course, the toll layoffs take on the economy are tremendous.

If we want to survive, we have to use the resources we have in the best way that we can. And the most important resource we have -- that any company has -- is our people. Without their labor and commitment, our company would not be successful. To that end, I've asked my employees to institute what I call the "lay-on" (as opposed to the layoff. Get it?). Essentially, every employee is putting in one voluntary extra hour per day at work. One extra hour to be used in the most advantageous way possible: finishing up projects, having a meeting with a client or vendor, assisting a coworker, getting hands dirty working in another department. Even cleaning a desk or organizing files, if it helps improve efficiency.

Do the math -- 30 employees x 1 hour per day x 5 day workweek = 150 extra hours. Divide that number by 40 hours per standard workweek and you have 3.75. That's the workload of nearly 4 additional employees, all without hiring a single new person. Rather than cutting expenses (and revenue), we're keeping all of our employees' benefits and increasing productivity, and revenue as well!

We aren't asking for anything big. Just a little extra time each week that is completely flexible. We let everyone figure out what works best for them -- be it shorter lunches, working from home, coming in earlier or leaving later, or some combination of options. Not only are we preventing layoffs among our employees, we are also increasing our efficiency and output, building reserves, and staying profitable. Of course, what is probably the best measure of the success of the lay-on is its effect on the atmosphere of the company as a whole. People spend less time worrying about their jobs and more focused on doing their jobs.

Consider your options. Times are tough and you are worried about your company's survival. But to thrive in good times and bad, you have always relied upon, and will always rely upon, the people who work for you. You can panic, lay off people, and help fuel the fire of a chaotic economy. Or you can ask for a little more -- and get a lot more in return.

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Operations | March 13, 2009

The Greening of Greenleaf

Posted by Clint Greenleaf at 11:59 AM

Being green is getting more and more important these days. Lucky for me, "Green" is kind of a family trait. However, is my company green in name only?

Authors are paying close attention to the impact their book production is having on the world, and asking whether or not it's possible for us to be green. The very process of creating and selling books is the opposite of green. Books need paper, paper needs trees, and cutting down trees to make paper is tough to sell as "conservation," (even if it's for a book about conservation… maybe especially if it's for a book about conservation). Books are shipped all over the world (carbon isn't very green) in boxes with air packets and foam peanuts (I don't even need to explain how bad these are).

So, how can Greenleaf Book Group ensure we are being a good steward to the planet, while still serving the needs of our industry? And what are some quick ways any company can do their part to go green? Most importantly, how can it be done without spending a ton of money?

- Perhaps the biggest way we green ourselves up is by partnering with Tree Neutral. I launched this initiative last year to help us plant as many trees as we consume each quarter in the printing of our authors' books. Companies in any industry are partnering with TreeNeutral to offset their paper usage, and it only costs about $0.06 to plant enough of a tree to replace a ream of copy paper.

- Speaking of, using both sides of a piece of paper is a pretty easy one. We put bins by each of our networked printers (also a nice way to save energy, paper, and cost) where people can drop off and pick up paper that has been printed on already to re-use for internal needs (It's cheaper and greener). We collect the paper that's been used on both sides and mix it with catalogs and other paper we recycle on a regular basis.

- Authors are asking about e-books more and more, which use no paper and have no shipping costs or carbon. Right now, e-books only represent about 2 percent of the book industry, but their popularity is growing tremendously each year. We have positioned our company to be at the forefront of this growth, and are prepared to help our authors move down that path as needed.

- During company meetings, we try to use a projector whenever possible. People are encouraged to bring their laptops to meetings in order to save printouts, and we have found that even the potential distraction of e-mail (or Twitter) does not hinder the flow of the meetings.

- Don't forget the granddaddy of the green movement -- a recycling container. We provide free cans of soda in the office for staff. Right next to the fridge is a recycling container and it gets all sorts of recyclable materials (plastic, tin cans, soda cans, etc.). Each month, an employee takes the boxes and takes care of recycling them.

- My last bit of greenery is to remind you not to overlook the small things. We have a special desk lamp that rotates between employees each month as part of an award for outstanding service. We made sure to outfit it with a low-energy bulb (of course).

With some simple steps, every office can green-up. It's not a political or fringe thing anymore -- it translates into real money and it's the right thing to do.

So what are some ways your office has been able to be a bit greener?

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Operations | February 27, 2009

R-e-s-p-e-c-t

Posted by Clint Greenleaf at 3:58 PM

Our company has learned a great lesson in self-discipline in the last quarter -- one that has resulted in improved morale, increased customer service, and better client relationships. I can boil it down to one word: respect.

We all remember the Golden Rule: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. It’s simple enough in theory, but I know I’m not alone in having to remind myself of its importance from time to time. Our company has worked hard to get to the point where we can choose who we work with -- we know we’re fortunate to have this opportunity and we do so carefully. Even with this luxury, like every company, we find ourselves with a small number of clients who are consistently challenging or difficult to please.

The natural reactions to difficult clients are frustration, negative talk, and defensive behavior, which are certainly not healthy. We knew this was a problem, but we weren’t sure what to do to fix it. We decided to tackle the issue head-on to avoid a downward spiral of negativity. After all, our job is to help our clients make money for both of us… they pay us to do so!

At the beginning of the year, we committed to a positive feedback campaign to focus on over Q1. We had just updated our core values, and respect ranked high on that list. The first course of action was to commit to calling each other (and ourselves) out when frustrations turned negative. This wasn’t very hard for us to do, but it was a great exercise.

Next, we resolved to have every employee recognize the positive attributes of a client and/or their project through a company-wide email. We assigned each of our 32 employees one day to send out their positive feedback over the course of the first quarter… so the entire staff received a couple of e-mails of this nature each week. The results of this campaign were overwhelming! Each positive feedback e-mail shared interesting stories about our customers that the employees not working directly on a project wouldn’t have otherwise known and brought the entire staff closer to our clients.

The measureable results from this initiative include improved customer service, client satisfaction, and client relationships. What I can’t measure, but can attest to, is the improvement in office mojo. The positive vibe is contagious and drastically improves workplace morale.

This is an easy policy that I recommend everyone institute. In a culture where it’s cool to be sarcastic, pithy, and snarky, it’s not a constructive behavior in the office. Why be negative when it’s just as easy to be positive -- and it has great side effects!

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Employee Management | February 3, 2009

Finding the Right Incentives

Posted by Clint Greenleaf at 1:24 PM

I’ve spent my life working with incentives. Knowing how they work and using them effectively has proven to be one of the most powerful forces in history. Ignoring them is catastrophic.

For me, it started early. My parents explained that if I was good, Santa would bring me presents. Unwilling to test the limits of Santa’s forgiveness, I was a pretty good kid. In school, the teachers said if I earned good grades, I would be more successful. If I didn’t study, I would pay the price and wouldn’t be able to get a good job when I got older. (You can insert your own entrepreneurial joke about being unemployable here.)

Employees are the same way. If you incentify your sales staff with a commission on revenue, you’ll get big sales numbers, but profits are not the focus. If you don’t incentify your sales staff with bonus for reaching their numbers, you’ll see they rarely meet their numbers. So, I’ve found that paying salespeople on gross profit rather than revenue, and additionally with a kicker when they reach their numbers, is a good thing.

If you are unclear about the value of incentives, you can run a simple test. Pick a really absurd idea and tie money to it. Tell your employees that every time they answer the phone on the second ring you’ll give them a dollar. You’ll quickly see that you’re paying money every time the phone rings, because people will quickly go where the money is. If you want people to take specific actions, give them an incentive to do so -- it doesn’t have to be money, but I’ve found it usually does the trick.

Most of you with any business experience know this. I’d even say that most people without business experience know it too. Which begs the question -- why hasn’t our government figured this out? The prevailing wisdom (if you can call it that) in Washington now is that the best way to stimulate the economy is to give the average person $500. The theory is that it’ll give people money to spend, they’ll put it into the economy, and we’ll bounce back.

But the theory is flawed. While it may be admirable to give people money, it won’t stimulate the economy. Most of it will be saved, and what’s left won’t be enough to create jobs. We’ll just add more to our deficit and still be in a tough spot. We’ll also be teaching people to expect handouts from the government. The incentive is to reach out a hand and expect someone else to take care of you. Not a worthy lesson or behavior to teach. Remember that this money has to come from somewhere. (If you haven’t read Atlas Shrugged, now would be a great time to do so.)

One point we can all agree on is that jobs are the cornerstone to any sort of meaningful recovery. If that’s the case, why not incentify business to hire? Why not give a tax break to the people who can actually create a change? If I were to pay less in taxes, I would invest that into the business. It would go to hire more talented people. They’ll produce more, create more, and generate more income. These new employees will enter the workforce and spend their money on rent, food, and hopefully even a little savings. But the dramatic impact of a new job is much more meaningful than a simple handout from the government -- one that we’ll all have to pay for. A tax break for employers would incentify me to hire and incentify people to get work. And a paycheck beats a one-time $500 check.

It’s time to start using incentives to get what we want. Do we want more people to become dependent on handouts from the government (and our future)? Or do we want to teach people that creating jobs and wealth is better for everyone? In your own business, make sure that you use the right incentives to create the right behaviors, and encourage your government to do the same. It’s the single best path to success -- and ignoring it is a path straight to failure.

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Business Planning | January 15, 2009

In Praise of the Office Barber

Posted by Clint Greenleaf at 1:05 PM

I'm kind of a time-management nut. I like to make the best use of every minute in the day -- with two daughters under the age of two at home, I want to spend as much quality time with them as possible.

I should first admit that for me, part of the appeal of saving time is the game of it. When I'm on hold, I put the phone on speaker so I can do things around my office. I have two computers on my desk, so I'm never waiting for programs to load or download files. I work hard to be efficient -- and I want to pass my favorite tip on to you.

The Marines taught me to love the simplicity of short hair. The big problem was getting it cut so often. After I met my wife, she told me that I couldn't cut it myself anymore (even though it's not hard when you keep it short). I spent a lot of time trying to find a barber that was good but not too expensive. Once I found the right one, I'd spend a few hours getting it done -- driving there, waiting, getting the cut, and then going back home or to the office. The wait was often long, and rarely was there a good barber nearby. Add to this the fact that I can't go more than three weeks without a cut, and I was wasting some serious time on some pretty short hair.

So, I figured out a better plan. During a haircut a few years ago, I asked my barber in Austin if she ever did house calls. She was open to the idea, but said that there are some regulations against hair cutting outside of barbershops. Seriously, no matter what your political leanings are, you have to agree that if the government is regulating who and where you can get your hair cut, regulation has gone amok. Despite the risk, she agreed to come to my office two weeks later to cut my hair. (Rest assured that my barber gave me permission to share this story.)

It was seamless. She came and set up in the men's room, brought all her own supplies, and cleaned up after she was done. I didn't need to stop working until she was ready for me, and as soon as I was done, I was back at my desk. I add a few bucks to her tip to cover travel costs and can schedule it when I have time.

I save at least an hour every few weeks between driving time and waiting time whenever I get my hair cut. Some of my employees, who would otherwise have to burn a lunch or spend time on the weekend, now also get their hair cut at the office. The benefits to me, to my staff, and to my barber are all easily measurable.

At a time when we all need to work harder than ever to help pay for the bailouts of companies much bigger and weaker than our own, an extra couple of hours a month can be really valuable. We should be constantly working to cut wasted time and increase our efficiency -- it's the best way to make more when your time is limited.

If you have great time savers, comment away. After all, every minute counts!

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