Business (and the world in general) is getting more and more complicated all the time.  It often feels like it’s too much and we all want to hide someplace clean and quiet.  From a practical standpoint, if you want to get more done you need to start thinking about doing less.  It’s not as counter-intuitive as it sounds.  Because of the external (and often internal) complexity business owners face, it’s easy to fall into a situation where you feel like you have to be doing a hundred different things every single day just to keep up.

At that point, feeling overwhelmed and become less productive is right around the corner.

The alternative?  Start doing less.  This isn’t a new idea – in fact I wrote about Doing Less almost 3 years ago.  Things are even more complex today but there are some new resources that can help you navigate becoming more productive by doing less.

Specifically you should check out The Power of Less a book by Leo Babauta.  Leo is also the author of Zen Habits, a blog on simplicity, focus and creating a different kind of life.  Leo’s an interesting story (you can learn a lot more on the blog) – I don’t think most of us can completely embrace the life that he’s built for himself, but I definitely think everyone can benefit from his ideas.

Here are 3 key ideas that business owners should embrace from The Power of Less:

Set Limitations –> Choose the Essential

I guess that’s actually 2 ideas, but they are really 2 sides of the same coin.  The idea is simple in theory, but it can be very challenging in practice.  If you want to be more effective and you have limited resources, then you need to set limitations on where you spend your time and efforts and focus only on what’s essential for success.

There are a lot of implications here – first of all, do you know what success looks like?  If not, it’s pretty hard to narrow down what’s most likely to get you there.  Secondly even if you have a clear vision / destination it’s not always obvious what’s going to have the most impact on your success (what’s essential).  And finally – in order for this to be useful, these limitations have to be solid…it’s not about setting soft priorities, it’s about dropping things that aren’t non-essential – brutally saying no to the less important.

If you can address all of those implications and narrow your focus down to a handful of things that will really make a difference in your progress, you will be amazed at how much you can get done (either as an individual or as a team)!

Develop new habits 1 at a time

Another strong insight out of The Power of Less is a process to help you adopt new habits…and habits are critical if you want to sustain effectiveness.

“Watch your thoughts, for they become words.- Watch your words, for they become actions.- Watch your actions, for they become habits.- Watch your habits, for they become character.- Watch your character, for it becomes your destiny.”      – Charles Reade

The key (according to Babauta’s experience) is to only make 1 change, adopt 1 new habit at a time.  Pick the change that you’re most excited about and only focus on that 1 thing for the next month.  If your new personal focus is the idea to start exercising, find an exercise that you can do easily every day, make it easy and commit to it for a month to establish a habit.  As an example he suggests starting with 5 to 10 minutes of walking a day and slowly ramping up from there.

Simplify

The last key idea that I think business owners need to adopt is embracing simplicity.  Is there an easier way to do routine tasks?  What can you automate or outsource effectively?  Often businesses do things a certain way because that’s the way it’s always been done.  With the advent of apps and technology there is likely a better alternative for a lot of the time consuming things you’re doing today.

Finally the easiest way to simplify is to get better at saying ‘No’.  How many things are you spending time and energy on that you should be saying no to?

The Power of Less is a quick and easy read (as you might expect) and although it’s unlikely that many will completely embrace all of the ideas, business owners will pick up at least a few things that could make a big difference and help them get more of the right things done.

Have you purposely tried doing less?  Have you read the book?  I’d love to hear your thoughts and comments – share them below.

Shawn Kinkade   Kansas City Business Coach

Photo courtesy of Monk – USA Network

Is your DSI super?  Wait…let’s step back first.  A DSI is a Dominant Selling Idea – think of it as the modern day version of the Unique Selling Proposition (USP).  Basically it’s THE big idea inside a marketing brand – it’s the selling idea that establishes you as the #1 choice within your category and specialty.  You can learn all about the DSI concept from the book “Why Johnny Can’t Brand” by Bill Schley and Carl Nichols.

When they talk about a DSI, they’re not talking about marketing fluff and being super funny or creative (although that’s not excluded from a DSI).  A DSI is about having a simple (sentence or two) way to communicate the value you bring to your customers that makes you the top of your specialty and category. 

An example of DSIs? 

There are lots of car brands…cars are the category.  A specialty within the car category is safety.  What do you think of when you’re looking for a safe car?  Volvo established their Dominant Selling Idea a long time ago as the safest car brand – they pretty much own that specialty.  Here are some others:

M&Ms – the candy that melts in your mouth, not in your hand.

Enterprise Car Rental – “We’ll pick you up”!  (They created their own specialty of rental cars not at airports).

Halls – with ‘Vapor Action’ (lots of throat lozenges, but only one with ‘vapor action’)

The beauty of an effective Dominant Selling Idea is that it automatically makes you the top choice within your selected specialty (assuming you can live up to your claim).

The Test for a Super DSI

In Why Johnny Can’t Brand, the authors go through a lot of ideas and a process to help you figure out what your DSI should be.  It’s not easy…and not every business is going to be able to legitimately have a DSI, but here’s a test to help you figure out if you’re onto something.

Is your product or business idea:

1. Superlative

Are you as good or better than everyone else within your specialty?  Can you claim #1 in something?  Best in class within your boundaries? (i.e. best pizza in Kansas City).

2. Important

Does your differentiator – your DSI – address something that’s important for decision makers? You may sell cars that have top and bottom windshield wipers…but that’s not likely to sway many decisions.

3. Believable

Is it clear why we should believe your claims?  Do you have credible and important testimonials?  Does it logically follow that you would be good at this product or service? (Think about your favorite steak restaurant offering up an enchilada…probably not believable).

4. Memorable

Does your idea stand out from the crowd?  Does it link to an emotional feeling?  What would cause me to remember your idea if I looked at a dozen similar ideas within your category or specialty?

5. Tangible

This is where the rubber meets the road.  You might have created a great idea that establishes you as a believable #1 within your specialty in a memorable way, but if you don’t actually deliver on that promise you won’t last.  To have a Super DSI, it has to actually perform (and be more than just an idea on paper).

What I really like about the concept of having a DSI is that it’s not just clever marketing and it’s not just for big national players.  Any business or idea will benefit by positioning as a Dominant Selling Idea…and any business or idea will suffer without that positioning.

Think about the last time you told some friends about a great restaurant in your area.  Maybe you said something like; “They have the best fries…you’ve got try them!”  or “I was amazed at their service, I’ve never had an experience like that before!”.  That’s potentially their DSI…something they should build around.

Now think about how your customers describe your business…would they consistently isolate on your important strength?  Are you consistently positioning yourself as #1 in a specialty?

These are tough questions and they take a lot of time and soul searching to answer honestly, but if you can figure this out you will be successful.  A valid DSI can take you to new heights in your business.

What do you think about Dominant Selling Ideas?  Are you comfortable that you know what yours is?  We’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments below.

Shawn Kinkade   Kansas City Business Coach

Photo by aka Kath

One of the things we work on with our clients and business owners is developing systems for their business.  It’s critical to build a systematic approach, figuring out the best way to do something and making sure it’s done that same way consistently…regardless of who’s doing the work.  Often the easiest way to rollout that kind of systematic thinking is to develop a checklist.

I just finished reading The Checklist Manifesto by Atul Gawande. It’s a great read and a lot more entertaining that I thought it would be.  Gawande is a medical doctor who decided to investigate the effectiveness of Checklists and how if they could be applied to the medical profession.

My experience with doctors is that they traditionally aren’t great writers or story tellers (although to be fair, I would much rather they be great doctors first…).  Having said that, Dr. Gawande writes in a way that makes it very easy to read, telling several stories to help illustrate his points.

He begins by clarifying the difference between errors of ignorance (when we don’t know enough) and errors of ineptitude (when we don’t use what we know properly) Then he leads you through the findings of his research he accumulated while writing the book.

He started with the aviation industry and Boeing…where they have championed the idea of effective checklists for over 75 years.  It’s not by accident the chance of dying in a plane crash is 1 in 25 Million. If there is the potential for something to happen in the air, chances are pretty good there is a checklist nearby the pilots will be able to refer to.

What his book points out is that it isn’t that people don’t know what to do. It is that it’s almost impossible to be prepared on your own…to know what to do under any circumstance without a framework to refer to. He isn’t discounting anyone’s knowledge; it is having a guideline that keeps you from missing the obvious.

If you are a fan of Van Halen, you will learn the real reason that David Lee Roth requested all the brown M & M’s be removed from their candy dishes back stage. It had nothing to do with his ego. Another great story is Walmart’s ability to respond after Katrina flooded New Orleans.  Both stories driven by the power of using checklists in creative ways.

Building a checklist doesn’t have to be overly complex – here are the 3 high level steps:

Development => Drafting => Validation

A couple of the take-a-ways on building a checklist is to keep it simple and talk in the language of the people who will be reading it. He even provides a Checklist for Checklists to help guide you through the process.  Obviously he’s a pretty methodical thinker…but he’s also an interesting guy – check out this interview he did with Stephen Colbert to get a better feel for why he’s so interested in this topic (and why it makes sense for you as well).

Could you implement some checklists?

The challenge with implementing Checklist with professionals in any industry is that you risk insulting their intelligence because they feel they already know all “the stuff”. Why do they need a list? I guess, that may be a question to ask the 155 people of Flight 1549 who landed safely on the Hudson River on Jan. 14^th, 2009.

As you start the New Year are there areas in your business where using a simple Checklist could reduce the chance for errors?  If you need some help, don’t be afraid to ask. If you already use Checklists in your business, I would love to hear some success stories – share them below.

Happy New Year!

Chris Steinlage, Kansas City Business Coach.

Photo by The U.S. Army

In his book ‘UnMarketing’ author Scott Stratten talks about a lot of things.  He talks a lot about twitter, about the essence of what marketing is today (versus 10 or 20 years ago), about the the criticality of engagement and a lot of interesting stories and anecdotes from his personal experiences.

It’s all good stuff, but it’s the discussion and examples of developing a Pull and Stay system that really made this a worthwhile book for me.  Pull and Stay refers to creating a system (or a series of systems) that will attract the right kind of prospective buyers to you and keep you front of them in an automated way.

It’s the opposite of the Spray and Pray approach – which is exactly what most business owners do when they send out all sorts of unrequested interruptions into the marketplace and hope hard that someone sees the right message, at the right time, resonates with that message and is in a position to buy!  Not a recipe for long term success!

Here are some other highlights from the book:

Read More…

  photo by 9-lives

Imagine a large elephant and a relatively small rider, making their way through the jungle.  Now imagine the elephant sees something they’re interested in and heads that direction…at that point, the rider is literally carried away, even if that’s not where they wanted to go!

That’s a key premise in Switch (How to change when change is hard) by Chip Heath and Dan Heath.  As the title suggests, this is a book about effecting change…within yourself, your family or your business and it’s full of great stories and a lot of practical ideas.

What’s the deal with the elephant and the rider?  They’re part of an analogy originally developed by Jonathan Haidt – author of The Happiness Hypothesis.  The elephant represents your emotional side and the rider is the analytical / rational part of you.  Think about it this way – it’s mid afternoon, you’re kind of hungry and you know there’s a leftover doughnut laying on a plate in the other room.  Rationally you know you don’t need to doughnut, they’re fried rings of death!  However you also know they taste great and emotionally that doughnut would make you feel really good.  For most people, the elephant is going to win that battle fairly quickly and you are going to eat that doughnut!

That’s what really cool about Switch – they give you a practical framework to not only understand why we act the way we do, but also tools that can help you do something about it.

Read More…