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Insights from Getting My Dryer Fix from a Technician and Small Business Owner

I discovered my dryer was broke last week – wasn’t heating. I called a local repair service that I had used before for a refrigerator before. While the technician – I’ll call him John – was working on the dryer, we just started talking about business. Turns out he’s one of the owners of the company. He and I batted back and forth thoughts on sales, where he sees opportunities and challenges for his profession, and how he achieves success.

Thoughts on Sales and Business

John started the repair teaching me about my dryer – the do’s and don’t’s. He walked through what he was testing and why. He was teaching me because I took apart some of the dryer before he arrived. I tried to diagnose the problem myself but found myself lacking.
As we talked about the dryer, he asked me what I do – sales. He asked me a lot of questions about sales and why I found it both challenging and rewarding. After a few more probing questions, I asked him his interest. John shared how he viewed sales as an “everyone has to do it” thing. He realizes the most important aspect of sales is building trust. He talks about how he often does not ask for a sale, but find people “buying” his services. Customers want to buy from him. He builds trust with customers. It’s what he was doing with me early on by teaching me about the dryer – establishing credibility. He established more trust while knowing I’d still need help to fix appliances anyways. Read: I’d be a customer again.

Where John Sees Great Opportunity

John feels most technicians, especially those working for big companies, work for a stable hourly wage. But the good technicians want commissions. These are the ones who know that if they deliver for customers, they’ll get repeat customers – earn more money. For John, he sees the opportunity for technicians who have the soft skills knowing technicians are the foot soldier sales force, not back-office staff. Technicians interface directly with customers.
Technical education is where John sees the greatest opportunities. John says local colleges and high schools have done away with many of the basic electrician courses, focusing instead on services. Now, there’s a dearth of capable technicians who can truly troubleshoot, and not just “part changers”. Adding to the problem are larger companies who do not offer proper training to technicians (hard and soft skills).
Being a technician is “recession proof”, he says. People still need to wash clothes. They still need refrigerated foods. People still need HVAC during recessions. He feels this is an area he’s poised to continue to succeed, but where other can step into looking for good job opportunities.

How John Succeeds

John enjoyed talking about business. He’s an avid listener to podcasts like Zig Ziglar’s to help him as a business owner. Since his job takes him across the city at times, John listens to business podcasts daily.
He’s a constant student. He cites his interest and passion for learning about electricity. In the past, in school, he did not apply himself or care much for different school subjects because they weren’t applicable to him. But when John started changing the context of geometry or science into terms he enjoyed like electricity or appliances – everyday objects – he started to absorb material faster and better. 
He credits his success to always learning. It’s one of the reasons why John schedules at least an hour a week – something doable – towards reflection and planning. He calls his Sunday his “ritual” day. He sets this time aside and turns off his electronics to focus on learning – developing “mastery” of his craft and improving his business.
There are entrepreneurs everywhere. They’re not always the internet stars in Silicon Valley. Most are the small business owners striving to build a life for themselves and their families – those pushing themselves.
Setting aside time for a dryer repair became so much more than just a repair. It was a networking opportunity and learning experience. It was an opportunity to meet a Stranger and be empathetic.
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The Amazon Effect Challenges A Long-Standing Web Metric for Success

I’ve been thinking about the Amazon Effect lesson from my customer discovery research of e-commerce from last week. There are a lot of tenets to the Amazon Effect including the rise of expectations of delivery, access to goods, etc. but the one I thought about most was.

The Amazon Effect has affected some of the longest-standing fundamentals of web. That is, time on site used to be a valuable metric. Amazon has proven that a winning strategy can be the opposite — get in, find what you want, check out and get out. Fast. Come back again.

The idea sticks out because it flies in the face of expectations and a metric that website owners typically watch for – “the higher the time on page, the better”. Amazon, however, is about getting folks in and out. This is the experience Amazon wants to build as it then drives consumers to come back.
As I let this idea marinate, one thing becomes clear – Amazon knows its “wow moment”. They’re not just focused on shortening the path to check out. They’re focused on shortening the path to the “aha!” and “wow” moment. That’s the experience. That’s about getting customers getting exactly what they want, when they want, how they want, and where they want (at home, largely).
Southwest Airlines is another company who challenged a long-standing industry paradigm. In this case, it was the airline industry’s paradigm of filling a plane. Southwest can tout its success with 45 straight years of profitability. Most airlines believed profitability and revenue necessitated every seat on a plane be sold and filled. It’s one of the reasons they oversell flights.
Southwest, on the other hand, realized their bottleneck and path to revenue was the plane. As long as a plane sits on the tarmac, the more underutilized the plane is. Thus, it’s not making money.
Southwest built their business on turn-around time – how fast they could turn a flight around, even if it meant the plane was not full. They flourished with the “10-minute turnaround” as other airlines were turning planes at 60 minutes – the time from entering a gate, loading passengers and cargo, and leaving the gate.
For Southwest, the wow moment is arriving at the destination realizing their fees were far less than rivals (in addition to above-and-beyond customer service).
Longstanding business practices don’t always make sense. Consumer habits and expectations continually change. Stay focused on the customer, and realize there are more ways to achieve success, especially, when ushering the market into a new era.
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Book Review: The Advantage by Patrick Lencioni

I just finished The Advantage by Patrick Lencioni on why organization health is the number one reason companies succeed. Lencioni argues it’s the true competitive advantage companies have.

I’ve read a lot of business books and have gone through an MBA program to learn about competitive advantages and the “it” factors that makes some companies better than others. Most of the readings have been about culture with a sprinkling of motivations. Culture makes the most noise for success, and it’s not a surprise. Culture is more uniquely applied for a company. How it operates with values and its mission. If values and the mission provide the map of a company, then organization health is the step-by-step directions to navigate.
The key take-aways:
  • Organizational health starts from the top. Much like culture, leaders can determine the health of company. Eliminating office politics (big points here from Lencioni) while ensuring the leaders row all in the same direction fosters strong health. Removing politics and acting in as a single cohesive executive team cultivates greater success than operating well but in silos.
  • Lencioni hits hard on trust across the executive team. This is the key to removing politics. Encouraging individual leaders to be vulnerable enables folks to work better together understanding individual purposes and reasons for actions – he encourages leaders to share vulnerable stories from early years (oftentimes, childhood). Trust enables leaders to have healthy debate, and agreement to move forward together as a team despite opposing feelings individually.
  • Healthy organizations exhibit cohesive teams where the whole is greater than the parts. Organizationally healthy companies exhibit functional groups who may operate outside their functional silos and even, at times, reducing effectiveness of a functional role to support another function as long as the greater company is positively impacted. In one case, this could mean sharing engineering resources to help on the marketing or sales side.
  • Meetings are big, big deal. Typically, meetings are also a waste today due to not only a lack of action, but poor structure and categorization. Lencioni argues for four types of meetings: the daily check-in, weekly tactical, monthly strategic, and quarterly off-site. In some ways, these meetings can actually increase the number of meetings in the short-term. However, long-term, meetings can reduce, but also be highly actionable making meetings productive. Being structured on the topics and the goals for each meeting type drive results. Lencioni argues that this is the biggest and lowest hanging fruit for companies.

This book was recommended to me by a friend who works at one of the top companies to work for in Atlanta. It’s not surprise why he recommended this as he’s seeing the book’s influence at his company. It’s clear to him how Lencioni was onto something on building organizational health.

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Ratios and Multipliers in Business

Recently, I was reading an article in IndieHackers where a member sent out a landing page for an idea hoping to lean on sign-ups as a proxy for interest. With good interest, he would continue to chase the idea. However, he didn’t receive any sign-ups or feedback. He was stuck and was looking for feedback. One commenter pointed out the 90/9/1rule of contributors.
  • 90% of the web is made of consumers (“lurkers”).
  • 9% will contribute occasionally, not often.
  • 1% contribute to most of the web. This can apply to social networks, sign-ups, etc.

There are many ratios that have developed over time in business. These are not hard-fast rules. Instead, they are general observations much like the golden ratio in nature or pi. Here are a few other rules.

  • 80/20where 20% of “xyz” contributes to 80% of some result. In consulting, I used to find ~20% of product SKUs contributed to 80% of the company revenue.
  • 10/10/100from a sales leader panel about terminating a sales associate for poor performance/ poor fit. As a sales leader, you’re only aware of 10% of the whole problem. The fear of addressing the problem is 10 times the reality. And these problems are typically solved 100 days late.
  • 10xis commonly referred to as the net benefit needed for a prospect to switch to a new solution as a “must-have”. A venture capitalist (VC) once told me you have to be at least 5x better/ improvement to even be remotely considered.

What are some other ratios you’ve heard of? (Outside of financial ratios.)

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Negative Churn: Continued Growth Beyond New Customers

Negative churn – a major milestone for any company. Negative churn occurs when the growth of revenue offsets the loss of revenue from customers who leave (churn). This is a great metric for SaaS companies, especially.
Churn, if you recall, is the rate of loss of customers (leave). Just about every company will experience loss of customers in recurring revenue companies.
In effect, companies who have negative churn can continue to grow without having to sign any new customers (at least, short-term). That is a remarkable milestone, and one that is highly valued by investors. It points to growth opportunities with up-sell and cross-sell opportunities as well as high retention. It points to a loved company and its products.
Achieve low churn. Then, aim for negative churn. 
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Growth-Oriented or Lifestyle-Oriented Entrepreneurship – It Begins with Why

I was talking to a mentee this weekend, and he made reference to the lifestyle entrepreneur vs. the growth entrepreneur. He believes he’s a growth-type of entrepreneur, or at least, he’s growth-oriented. This led to friction when he was working with a friend who was more lifestyle-oriented. He pointed out how the business could have done more. He came into his friend’s company with suggestions on where and how to grow. The business owner, however, was less than interested. They eventually went separate ways.
There’s an important realization here– we have different aspirations. As much as everyone wants wealth, we should recognize that wealth comes in many forms. To that, folks have varying views on what their purpose and drives are. Where do they want to go? Why?
Yes, lots of folks these days look at successful entrepreneurship as billion-dollar exits. That’s extremely, extremely rare. Getting to millions in revenue is difficult. It requires lots of work to build a sustainable business.
Instead, many entrepreneurs may find happiness as lifestyle entrepreneurs – those looking to grow organically (if expansion is even a top priority) and one that maintains a small infrastructure. Here, the pressures of board members, high infrastructure costs, growing payroll, etc. are limited. Instead, lifestyle entrepreneurs are building a business that maintains a way of life. They want to achieve and maintain a level of living and business.
Most businesses in America are lifestyle – making up a large chunk of small businesses (those with 500 or less employees). In fact, small businesses also make up 99.7% of all U.S. firms. (SBA)
Also, the type of entrepreneur can shift depending on situation. I’ve watched many entrepreneurs shift from growth-oriented to lifestyle-oriented. There’s nothing wrong with being one way or another. In fact, there’s nothing wrong with notwanting to be an entrepreneur. In today’s age of glorifying entrepreneurship, there’s little recognition of the difficulties of entrepreneurship. This causes many to plunge into entrepreneurship ill-prepared and not recognizing their WHY and PURPOSE. Why are they interested in this direction?
When considering any venture, be it growth-oriented entrepreneurship, lifestyle oriented, or even a new job change with a big corporate, think more about WHY. How does this new focus align to the why?
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Lessons from Soccer and Recent Mistakes

I recently recalled one of my most vulnerable experiences. (You can find a cut at the story here, too.) In this case, it was how I was cut from the varsity soccer team both my junior and senior years. I shared the story to illustrate the lessons I’ve learned through soccer.
As I reflected on this experience again and while meeting with a young entrepreneur recently, I recalled the following lessons from soccer:
  • You’re only as good as your last game. This is actually not true, but it sets up for some great motivation for your next game.
  • You will make mistakes during games. However, the game keeps going. You need to, too.
  • You and everyone else will be caught up in the game. Realize that what happens on the field can affect what happens off it. Realize when mistakes and emotions occur. Realize there’s a season full of games. Realize there are years of seasons.

I’ve thought about these a lot recently and the need for authenticity and vulnerability. In this way, a couple mistakes that have occurred recently that I hadn’t thought about before:

  • Collateral damages. I have a “shopping list” of people who I’d like to work with. I’ve worked with many in the past. As I build out my team now and consider future endeavors, I think about this list. Further, that list contains persons who are part of teams of people I know. When I consider the people I want to work with, I think about the opportunities available for each individual. This, however, can fly in the face of the others on the team – the potential for collateral damage amongst individual relationships.
  • Being impulsive. Yes, I can be impulsive. Couple this with my love for language and phrases, and I have a recipe to say the wrong things too quickly. I appreciate the way authors express thoughts or how orators influence crowds. My excitement, then, can cause me to use phrases that may not actually echo what I mean. In today’s world with rapid, instant messaging, this can be dangerous.

It’s funny as I think about soccer. Truly great, experienced players are thoughtful, calm, and patient. Read: not impulsive. Recent mistakes have illustrated little in the way of experience.

Especially under duress, I realize the need to reach deep for patience and thoughtfulness. However, business is not like a game. Sometimes, you don’t get to keep playing. Sometimes, things don’t just stay on the field.
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A little bit of Psychology in Business? No. A LOT.

On any given day, there’s about a 60% chance you’ll find me at Starbucks working.  It’s a great, free working space complete with vibrant energy, wake-up aromas, and, especially this time of year, snowman sugar cookies.  Ah, and there’s usually a fascinating collection of people hanging out/ working.  This past Friday night, I was writing some Holiday/ Thank You cards to our customer-partners and other prospects when I was complimented on our cards by a fellow Starbucker (yes, handwriting them – crazy in this day of keyboard and touchscreen typing, I know). 
My new friend is an MBA student at Georgia State, and was a previous Psychology major in undergrad.  She was worried a bit about having a non-business background and post-graduate opportunities.  This was a great conversation for me because I’ve long appreciated how psychology intertwines with business.  It’s not readily apparent, but it really is.  Talk to any good salesperson, and he’ll know exactly how to talk to you and potentially what makes you tick and tock. 
Some quick thoughts on how psychology is engrained in entrepreneurship and business overall…
  • Know Your Strengths and Weaknesses.  Assessments like the Myers-Briggs, DISC Profile, Berkman, etc. can be simple ways of finding out more about yourself.  These assessments may help you realize more about yourself to capitalize on your strengths and limit your weaknesses while building your career around your personal interests.  I’d recommend, however, that as much as you limit your weaknesses, to also work on those weakness or what stresses you — this can help you be a stronger performer – “be comfortable being uncomfortable”.
  • Building a Balanced Team.  As a continuation of the Strengths and Weaknesses above, building a team for a startup or small business with balanced strengths and weaknesses allow for a stronger company in addition to its product/ service offering.  For Body Boss, we do actually have differing personalities, and it challenges each of us to think more about why one another feels the way we do when we consider marketing campaigns, licensing and selling opportunities, or even just philosophies that shape our startup’s culture.

  • Put Yourself in Your Customers’ Shoes.  Marketing has psychology all over it.  You have your target audience in mind.  Do you know what language they speak?  What style of communication they perceive?  How about what really resonates with them so that you can grab their attention right away?  Marketing is all about diving into the psyche of your customers and compelling them to engage with you.
  • Sales is All About Your Customer.  Many people will tell you that an effective sales strategy is to have the customer speak.  I think this can be somewhat true in terms of getting engagement.  However, why I like this rule of thumb is so that it gives me a break and a chance to listen to the customer and analyze him/ her.  Customers are all different, and chances are, your product/ service has many value propositions.  By sitting back and listening to your prospects, you can hone in on what matters to them and cater your value message accordingly.
  • Threshold of Pain.  My new friend asked me what signs a successful entrepreneur exhibits/ has.  I have many thoughts to this, not necessarily from my own perspective, but witnessing others.  One of the standout factors?  Mental and emotional fortitude.  Beyond the physical demands of being an entrepreneur (like lack of sleep), it’s the mental and emotional toll of going through the roller coaster ride that is entrepreneurship including feeling INCREDIBLE when new customers finding out about you to incredibly FRUSTRATED due to low user engagement, then back to a HIGH after a great exhibition at a conference, then dipping back down LOW from unsuccessful trial conversions.  Because much of entrepreneurship is about passions and the creation of your own product, it takes a toll both mentally and emotionally.  I recommend you watch Angela Lee Duckworth’s TED talk about this in “The Key to Success?  Grit”.

A company, a product… in the end, behind the curtains are people.  Perhaps this is also why psychology actually plays a significant role in business.  For my fellow Starbucker, I think having a background in psychology will give her a different perspective, and with an MBA to help round out her business abilities, she’ll have a strong platform to build on.

What are your thoughts on how psychology plays a role in business and entrepreneurship?  Where else do you feel psychology plays a critical role in business?

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