First Word

       They always say there are two things guaranteed in life—death and taxes. You can add a third thing to that statement— change .   Nothing in life is static, and change is inevitable. Yet when it comes to the business environment (and in life), most people do not embrace change. Change scares them. Why do so many people fear change? A recent article in Inc ., titled “Science Says This is Why You Fear Change (And What To Do About It),” Case in point: one study had a group of people view a painting that they were told was done in 1905. The next group viewed the same painting but this group was told that the painting was done in 2005. The 1905 group rated the painting much more aesthetically pleasing than the other group. We like that which has been around for a while. That's the obvious reason for why we don't like change.  But it runs deeper than that. We also fear the new because of the uncertainty it brings. As popular podcaster Tim Ferri...

My associate Laura Sevigny, our new director of operations, marketing and sales, said this: "The biggest lessons I've learned were from when I failed not succeeded." I thought about that statement, and I agree. Then I considered my own biggest lessons from failure, and I wanted to share with my audience here on First Word . I must be the "master of my domain" (a funny line from Seinfeld which has nothing to do with business) . But it's true. As the CEO I should not be doing every job, but I should know how to do every job. After another "expensive education" (another Laura-ism), I decided it was time to pull back the curtain and figure it ALL out. Even though it's taken temporarily from my core work, I decided to devote a month or better to perform every task in my business down to shipping. In doing these tasks, I will now be able to answer every question firmly and without reservation. I can also gauge and understand what amount of time ...

I don't like micromanagement. I had a conversation with an old friend of mine I ran into at Bistro 33. We came from some familiar stomping grounds together. I've known her for years. Anyway the discussion turned to micromanagement. Some people don't truly understand the difference between true leadership and being a micro-manager. Micromanagement is actually time consuming and in many ways very unproductive. Here is my credo: hire the right people, put them in the right jobs, and trust them.  If you can't trust your people to do the job (after proper training, of course) then you shouldn't have hired those people. Micro-managers are not effective. People typically want to work (if you hired the right ones), and they often enjoy the responsibility. If you feel the "need" to sit down and look over your employee's shoulder (an employee doing a good job) then my question to you is, "What is wrong with you?" Answer the inner questions, ...

The work smarter not harder formula is a tough one to figure out. I think it's a balance between a few key areas: team work, responsibility, delegation of the right tasks, and (this is a bonus) passive revenue. The last item (passive revenue) is the entrepreneur's ultimate dream goal: make your product sell itself and bring in constant revenue based on previous work. I am a fan of passive revenue. One of the key things it provides is unexpected income (my kind of bonus). Breaking down the other areas it works like this: Team work -- you need a competent team of professionals who know their jobs. They don't need direct supervision that can suck up your management time. The more time you spend managing people resources the less time you have to work as a CEO. The CEO should never be bogged in minutia (what I call small details). The minute you spend too much time on the grains of sands, the less time you have on the beach :) (and that's a semi metaphor), but the beac...

I get regularly asked how I do so much. I can distill it down to one word: goals. My entire life and career I have been goal-oriented. The way to keep goals organized and stay on task is to write (not type) your daily, weekly and monthly goals. I have a desk calendar. When I was in college and had to travel from class to class, I had a binder calendar. I would write the homework assignments and deadlines on my calendar. I once had this condescending HR woman look at my calendar and make comments about "silly" calendar and neat penmanship. The only person who looked 'silly' was her. Truth is, I still to this day have a desk calendar with the same so-called neat penmanship, and I use a highlighter pen to put special emphasis on deadlines. My eye always goes right to the highlights so things do not go unforgotten. The trick to the workhorse abilities is to systematically go through your daily goals, accomplish the tasks, mark it off, and move to the next. A list keeps ...

Employee turnover is said to cost a business $100,000 in loss from the transition, which is one of the reasons I've always gone out of my way to treat my team with respect and loyalty. When you find an excellent team member you do not want to lose that person. Always be respectful and lead with loyalty and kindness and understanding so your team will WANT to work for you. As noted, loss on average per employee is $100,000, which for a small business is costly. Let me give you an excellent example: when I worked in corporate I worked very loyally for my employer for 14 years. Pay raises though were always a bone of contention. Existing inequities between the executives in the company for reasons I won't share existed. As a loyal and hard worker, every time it came time for a raise it was a hard-fought battle with lots of justifications to go round. At the end of the day, I often went 2-3 years without even a cost of living adjustment. Finally in the last year I asked for a ver...

Sometimes no matter what you do barriers just stand in the way of productivity. I started my day off with 30 minutes of meditation (I try to meditate daily). I get up. I had nonstop barriers yesterday too. Our new operations manager is gone, and I realized our Amazon orders weren't being addressed. So I have to go out to our storage unit to get books, but then realized I don't have the key. Our inventory is at my operations manager's house so I contact her and now I have to go retrieve books. Then I try to print up the invoice sheets and the printer fails. Now I'm frustrated naturally and the cat won't stay off my desk. I throw him out and go to retrieve something and come back, and he's gotten back and spilled Diet Coke on my desk and narrowly misses my new keyboard that I bought last week because he spilled water on the previous one. I throw him out again (after a few choice words). Later I go to retrieve something else and make the mistake of not closing the ...

As an entrepreneur and business owner, I have a lot of freedom. With great freedom though requires discipline. Some people need accountability to get their work done. People like myself do not need anyone ruling their schedules. My own drive and ambition rules my schedule. So how do you keep yourself on tasked and focused when there is no force behind you? Keep a routine. Routines help you define your activities for the day. For example, I get up and blog every morning. Then I do public relations activities, promotion and marketing. I like to edit and project manage in the afternoons. If I have a meeting this, of course breaks up the schedule and gives me some variety. Discipline . A routine actually helps maintain discipline since you know your schedule. You'll find many distractions and temptations, but maintain your discipline. Don't let the distractions, well distract. For me I go directly and get a cup of coffee and then go right to my desk and start my routines. Per...

Growing your business can be a challenge. You have to manage growth effectively or all the work it took to build business in the first place will crash and burn. I was thinking about this concept at the new Farrell's on Watt Avenue in Sacramento. Yesterday we celebrated my daughter's 10th birthday. Every time we visit Farrell's while we enjoy the top-notch ice cream the service always fails. I immediately noticed that once again it took forever to be seated and once at the table I had to ask for water three times. And like so many other times, the wait staff bumbled and failed. One time I ordered a full platter of chicken fingers, and I ended up with a child's plate, which for my small appetite worked great but it doesn't change I didn't order that plate. We've waited sometimes hours for ice cream. What is the problem? A young wait staff. A new restaurant ill equipped to handle the crowds. And probably an ill-managed service desk. Since I'm not an expe...

Another day in which I begin here in Blogland not sure of what I'm going to say, so I'm going to just start writing (hint ... just write if you feel blocked). How about the idea of getting in action to solve problems. What's the difference between a leader and a worker? Leaders take action. Followers ... well, they follow the leader's action. I also lead by getting out ahead of potential problems. How does that work? You think through a scenario and you get out ahead of your client's thought process. Let me give you an example. One thing I do with books during the editing and production phase is to keep the client in the loop. If I were to just start editing a book and focus exclusively on the editing process, which takes weeks and not show any progress to the client, the client would not see the value in their investment. Instead, I always edit chapter by chapter. That way, the client sees the work being done on a continual basis. He or she knows (because they see ...