I mentioned this to my friend and fellow movie goer, Laura, and she agreed. She couldn’t say why, but agreed that it seemed unlikely that a Baptist choir in Georgia would be made up of 3 white people, one Chinese male, and the balance all black. (Oh, and 2 of the white people were in lead roles: Dolly Parton as a lead singer, and her character’s husband who was the choir director.)

While this combination is unlikely, it was compounded by a small detail. When the congregation was shown I had trouble picking out a single white or Chinese person in the crowd. What are the chances that the only white and Chinese individuals in the congregation are in the choir?

Okay, okay. I can hear my husband saying “Let it go, Karen. Let it go.” So let me get to the point.

While Laura could not articulate why she felt the choir demographics were improbable, she noticed it and felt it. This is because even when we are not consciously aware of the details that are shaping our experience, our unconscious is noticing and processing them. When these details are not in alignment with the larger message, we feel slightly off balance or mistrustful. We don’t always know why, but we are usually aware of the feeling.

I believe that this knowledge and attention to details as an aid to support the larger movie going experience is what separates a good director from a great one like Martin Scorsese. An outstanding movie experience is built on a broad vision or story that is backed up by a myriad of details that all support the desired outcome. It’s a self-feeding circle that engages the viewer to the point where we forget that we are only watching a movie; for a brief time it seems real.

“Let it go, Karen. Let it go.”

I can’t let it go because I think there is a larger message here for us as business owners and entrepreneurs.

The devil is in the details. If we want to create a strong culture, a long-lasting brand, or a satisfied customer experience it is not enough to have a vision or big picture of what we are trying to create. Every action and event, regardless of size or importance needs to express, expand, and impact the larger vision we desire.

For example, Zappos.com and Nordstrom are both known for creating unique customer experiences. They are successful and renowned for this aspect of their business because of how they treat every customer or potential customer on a daily basis. It is expressed in every customer contact – regardless of whether it’s an internal or an external customer. The company culture supports this vision but more importantly, it’s the daily experiences that are celebrated and shared that strengthen the culture. Put more simply, every day small events are what makes these companies legendary. The devil is in the details.

As leaders, we do not want to get so caught up in the details that we cannot see the larger picture. However, if we get so engaged by the bigger picture that we do not deal with the details we will be equally undermined. We need to learn how to see and develop both the big picture vision and the details of daily experience.

If you are not a detail person, I recommend you find one and make them your second in command because it is the balance between these two extremes that separate the good companies from the outstanding ones.

Have an excellent day!

Karen

Left broad, this type of ambiguity can lead to divergent behaviors when business values are meant to provide unity and alignment. The answer to this quandary is to supplement the business values with an operating philosophy.

If business values are the underlying concepts and beliefs of the organization, the operating philosophy is a document that describes what these concepts and beliefs look like in action. The operating philosophy is a living, breathing document that reflects the changing environment in which the organization finds itself. Business values are the unchanging touchstone that guides the operating philosophy.

When an operating philosophy is well thought out, consistent with business values, and consistent with the actions of the leaders of the organization, it frees staff to apply the business values confidently in their daily tasks. And it frees leadership to concentrate on high level strategic issues knowing that lower level staff are competently dealing with tactical issues in the same manner they would had they made the decision.

An operating philosophy empowers employees to operate at their highest competency. What could be better?

Have an excellent day!

Karen

At my table, we talked about what members and prospective members were looking for when they attend ASTD meetings. While we were discussing what motivated members to part with their time and money in exchange for a learning opportunity, the questions were being phrased from the perspective of the association.

I suggested that while the intent of the question was good, that it needed to be reframed. We were not asking the right question. Not because we as a group were off target, but because we were not addressing it in the correct perspective. This slight change of perspective altered the question and the answers it provided.

As you work on your business, how sure are you that you are asking the right questions? What other perspectives could you use to ask the question?

• Can you ask it the opposite way? (ie instead of ‘How can we fix this?’ ask ‘How can we keep this from happening again?’) Or it can be enlightening just to explore the opposite: ‘What would we do if we wanted this to happen again?’
• Could you ask it from someone else’s perspective? (‘What can I do to succeed?’ vs. ‘What would success look like to my customer?’)
• Can you adjust the question parameters? (‘What would we do if we had all the money/time in the world to throw at this challenge?’ or ‘What would we do if we only had $20 to spend?’)
• Can you choose a more positive perspective? (‘What went wrong?’ vs. ‘What went right?’)

As you work on challenges that arise in your business, one of the best ways to be sure you are asking the right questions is to ask more than one question. Think about how you can reframe the question, and then try to ask it in at least 3 other ways.

When you get the right questions, you’ll be surprised how quickly you find the right answers.

Have an excellent day!

Karen

If you have employees, hopefully you have a payroll company that takes care of completing your W-2 forms. However, most small businesses are responsible for completing their own 1099 forms.

What is a 1099 form? A 1099 form is a form you use to report the payments that you made to people and organizations that provided services to your company over the course of the year.

This blog is not long enough to get into the details for how to complete the 1099 form. For that I recommend that you contact your financial advisor or tax preparer for guidance. What we are going to cover is the basic mechanics of who, what, and when.

Who: You are required to send the form 1099-misc to companies that provided services to your company that totaled $600 or more. This can be everyone from the guy who cuts the lawn, to your graphics guy, to your IT savior. If they provide both services and a product, you only need to include on the 1099 the value of the services. For example, if your graphics person also gets your marketing piece printed, only the cost associated with designing the flyer would be included on the form 1099.

Now the good news is, if the service provider is a corporation, i.e. has a business tax ID formatted 12-1234567, you do not have to send a 1099 unless they provided legal services. But, you must send a 1099 for legal services that exceed $600 even if the company is a registered corporation. (Hey, I don’t make these rules, I’m just trying to explain them.)

What: In order to complete the 1099, you will need to know your service provider’s correct tax name, address, tax ID number, and how much you paid them. If they are a sole proprietor, their tax ID number is usually their social security number. Otherwise it will generally be a business tax ID number that is formatted like this: 12-1234567.

To prepare for 1099’s I recommend that you have all service providers complete and send to you a form W-9 before you pay them more than $599. It’s much easier to get them to complete the form before you’ve made the payment. Not only is the W-9 form the way the IRS wants you to do it, it makes your paperwork easier to track and creating 1099 forms more straight forward. While this step is too late for 2011, I recommend implementing it now for 2012.

You can purchase 1099 forms from your local office supplies store or order them for free from the IRS. You will also need a 1096 form for IRS reporting. Most small business accounting packages, like QuickBooks, include the ability to print 1099’s. However, there are also programs designed just for printing 1099s. In fact, the forms you purchase from your local office supplies store may come packaged with software.

When: You are required to have your 1099 forms in the mail by January 31. You must file them with the IRS by February 28. In addition, many states also have reporting requirements that are either similar or piggy back onto the 1099 forms. For those of you in PA, as of 2011 PA has no state reporting requirements for 1099 forms.

For more information, speak to your financial advisor, tax preparer, or visit the IRS at: http://www.irs.gov/instructions/i1099msc/ar02.html. The W-9 form can be downloaded as a .pdf at http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/fw9.pdf?portlet=103.

So, do you need to file 1099 forms? If you are a small business owner who paid someone $600 or more for services or any person or organization for legal services the answer is yes.

Have an excellent day!

Karen

The first is the idea of working from our strengths. Popularized in the book Now, Discover Your Strengths by Marcus Buckingham and Donald O. Clifton, the main concept is to identify and leverage your strengths to become a success. While I love the idea, I struggle with the overall and perhaps oversimplified corollary, which says ignore all your weaknesses.

The second idea is older and is known as the Pareto Principle or the 80-20 Rule. The concept here is that 80% of your results come from 20% of your efforts. An interesting corollary of this rule is that it’s easier and faster to go from 20% ability to 80% ability than to move from 80% to 100%. Paraphrasing, it’s easier to overcome a weakness (note I’m talking from a company perspective, not necessarily a personal one) than it is to become better at something that you already excel at.

At first glance, these two theories appear to be diametrically opposed. There seems to be an either-or choice.

I disagree. I believe that the blending of both is where small businesses are able to become great. The ability to balance the opposing priorities of identifying and mitigating weaknesses while perfecting strengths is the key to success.

If weaknesses are left unidentified, uninvestigated, and undiscussed they are virtual time bombs waiting to blow up and undermine and possibly destroy your business. When they are uncovered, reviewed, and analyzed in combination with knowing your strengths you now have the opportunity to find ways of minimizing the potential threats weaknesses represent. In fact, you may find ways that by playing on your strengths you are able to completely neutralize weaknesses or make them irrelevant.

In reality, if our strengths are core to our uniqueness and what the market wants from our company, we only need to be adequate or good enough in the areas of our weakness. But if we don’t work on them, we leave the door open for a competitor to come in and steal our best clients, especially if we have underestimated the importance and impact of those weaknesses.

So yes, please continue to get better at what you do. Celebrate your successes and your growth. Focus on improving your strengths. But be aware that if you choose to totally ignore your weaknesses they won’t go away, and one day they may cause you a great deal of pain.

Have an excellent day!

Karen

Salesperson: Hello Karen, how are you doing today?

Me: I’m doing excellent. How about you?

S: Just great. I’m with ABC Company and want to talk to you about the services we offer in the area of blah, blah, blah. I have reviewed your specific situation and we can definitely improve blah, blah, blah. In fact, one way you can improve now is to blah, blah, blah.

Me: You know, you’re right. I could stand to improve and I can see how the tip you just provided would make an immediate difference.

S: We have a great offer right now, for only $xx we will go over your situation with you in more depth to show you specifically how we can help you. And there is no obligation on your part to go any further.

Me: I appreciate your offer, but you are a shiny bauble.

S: A what?

Me: A shiny bauble. You see each quarter I review my strategic plan to determine what I need to concentrate on for that quarter in order to achieve what I want to accomplish. I write three clarifying questions to help keep me on track. This helps me to identify where I want and need to spend my time and money at this time.

And while I can probably benefit from the services you are offering me they are not what I am concentrating on right now. So, for me at this time, you are a shiny bauble.

S: (Laughs) I’ve never been called that before, but it makes sense. When do you think that your priorities might change?

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how I called a salesperson a shiny bauble.

I encourage you to try this the next time a shiny bauble, excuse me salesperson, calls you up on the phone. I’d love to hear how it turns out for you.

Have an excellent day!

Karen

I told myself I hesitated because authors are not necessarily dynamic in the front of the room. A good author does not always equal an engaging speaker. So I called up Kathy who is not only my mentor but also the first person to recommend his books to me. “Have you seen him present before? Is he any good?”

To my surprise, Kathy didn’t answer my questions. Instead, she asked two of her own. “Is his topic relevant to your priorities at this time? Have you run it through your three clarifying questions?”

She stopped me cold. I was so excited to have an opportunity to see someone that I admire, that I completely failed to run the opportunity through my three clarifying questions. And when I did, I realized that this wonderful opportunity was really a distraction that would take my valuable time and resources and not help me to achieve my goals. In other words, this event was a shiny bauble.

Have you ever looked back and wished that you had foregone what seemed at the time to be a fantastic opportunity?

A simple way to identify shiny baubles (those distractions packaged as opportunities) is to adopt a habit of creating three clarifying questions. These are yes or no questions that relate to the priorities you have set for you and your company. They should directly relate to the strategic direction that you have set.

For example, if your strategic imperative is to create a new product or service you may have the following questions:

1. Will this give me the information I need to develop this product or service?
2. Will I be able to test market or get feedback on this product or service?
3. Will I make contacts that will help in the development or marketing of this product or service?

Then all you have to do is use the questions. When faced with an exciting opportunity, run it through the three questions. If you answer yes to at least one of them, then it truly is an opportunity. If you answer no to all three, you have identified a shiny bauble and strategically your best decision is to just say no.

When I ran the opportunity to see Jeffrey Gitomer through my three clarifying questions, I had three no’s and had identified a shiny bauble. Could I still have attended? Sure, but in retrospect I am happy and proud of my decision to stick with my priorities. I accomplished a great deal that quarter and met or exceeded all my goals.

Do I have regrets? Not really. Jeffrey Gitomer is still going strong. But if you hear he is going to be in the area, would you do me a favor, and let me know?

Have an excellent day!

Karen

I don’t know about you, but I always believed that managers were a necessary overhead expense required to keep the masses of workers motivated and on track. A skilled manager leads to improved productivity and profitability; a bad manager leads to work slow downs and high turnover. The best thing a company could do was to hire carefully and provide training in the preferred ways of getting things done in the existing company culture.

So, I was intrigued by the title of this article which is based on an actual company that has no bosses, titles or promotions. Morning Star, a food processor in CA, has created a collaborative culture based on everyone being self-managing. How do they do this? Here are the key points:

• Employees are driven by the company mission and self-created commitments.
• Employees jointly forge cooperative agreements to help each other achieve their goals.
• Employees are not limited by arbitrary titles or job descriptions.
• Moving up and making more money is based solely on contributions and abilities.
• Employees are provided with the numbers they need to self-evaluate the effectiveness of what they are doing.
• Employees are provided with the tools they need as long as they are able to justify the return on investment (ROI).
• A strong culture based on key beliefs is essential to making this model work – and not everyone fits.

In reality, everyone has the responsibility to manage every day. But no one is a manager. People work together for a greater good that is aligned with their own goals. And the money saved from not paying managers is used to increase salaries and capital investments.

This article made me stop and re-evaluate my beliefs about management and managing people. I always believed that there is a trade-off between principles based and rules based management; and between low structure and high structure. Morning Star proves that there can be a different paradigm entirely. And I don’t know about you, but I’d like to see and experience it myself.

Have an excellent day!

Karen

• What are the good things that have happened this year?
• What things happened that made your life more difficult?
• How did you do at achieving the goals you set for yourself this year?

Looking back and honestly evaluating what has happened and what you learned from it prepares you to achieve bigger and better things next year.

The usual scenario that people follow looks like this:

It’s December 30th and I realize that I want things to be different next year. Therefore, I spend 30 minutes thinking about what I’d like to accomplish. Then I make a New Year’s resolution that this year it will be different. That I will accomplish more, make more money, and have more free time with family or for hobbies. None of this is written down. I may or may not share it with anyone.

On January 1, I think about my resolution. And since it’s a holiday I tell myself I don’t need to start this today, tomorrow is good. On Monday, I return to work and since the holiday season just ended, my desk is buried and I have way too much to do. Let me just clear all of this off my desk and I will attend to that New Year’s resolution. Two weeks slide by and then a month. It’s now February and I still haven’t worked on that resolution. It feels less urgent now, and as a result I am less motivated to implement any changes. And life continues to go on around me the same as the year before…

This year, let’s try something different.

Start now to look back and reflect on the year that is ending. Invest a couple of hours to answer the questions I posed at the beginning of this blog. And here is the important part, write down your answers. It doesn’t matter if you type them into your computer or write them long hand in your journal, just get it written. (For a handy reference of 40 Fabulous Strategic Plan-ting(TM) Seeds to stimulate your thinking visit http://jettexcellence.com/entrepreneurs/newsletter-2/downloadable-documents-2/. It’s Free!)

Invest another hour or two and think about what you want to accomplish next year. Use your written responses as a starting point.

• What do I want more of?
• What do I want less of?
• What does my ideal day look like?
• What are my ideal results?

Be as specific as possible and again write down your answers. Remember, “increase revenue 10%” is better than the nebulous “make more money.”

Next think about the behaviors you need to change or the tactics you need to implement to achieve the desired results. Write these as goals. Again be specific. “My goal is to make three customer calls every week day” is better than “my goal is to make more calls each week.”

Share your goals with at least one person who will hold you accountable. And then record your progress – again in writing.

Follow these guidelines and I can practically guarantee that next year at this time, you will be happier with what you see when you look back over the year. Because this time you are being more strategic in your approach, you will be able to measure whether you have been successful by being specific, and you have added an accountability component.

Good luck and have an excellent day!

Karen

PS If you are struggling doing this alone consider doing it with a buddy or attending a Strategic Plan-ting(TM) Workshop.

Begin the New Year with achievable goals and a unique business plan. Register for the  January 2012  Strategic Plan-ting^(TM workshop for busy entrepreneurs.  Take your business to the next level.

In this tough economy, this workshop gives small business owners a way to do strategic planning at a relatively low cost and in a manner that is non-threatening.  And the best part, all with a one day onsite time commitment. Small business owners are stretched in all directions. This is a very time efficient process to increase both profits and results for the coming year.

Yield better business results for your small business.  The workshop will take place in the Harleysville area on Tuesday, January 24, 2012 from 8 am to 5 pm. Participants will collaborate with me during this interactive session to create their own strategic plan to implement immediately. We’ll take an unintimidating, easy and balanced approach to planning. Attendees will leave this powerful workshop with a complete strategic plan, quarterly goals (detailed action plan) and three clarifying questions to keep on track.

Save an additional $40 with early registration on or before 01/24/2012.

For details and further information on the workshop see the information attached and register at: http://www.strategicplan-ting.​com/