"Seven Steps to Success"

My friend Nazia sent me a "Tip of the Day" email with some wise words from Dr. Mark Goulston (author of Get Out of Your Own Way at Work) on things you should know the answers to when starting your own business. If you want to start you own business make sure you have an answer to these questions.

1. What do you love making (product) or doing (service) that has enough value that other people would be willing and want to pay for (your DREAM)?

2. What desire or problem is your product (what you make) or service (what you do) the best answer or solution to (your VISION and MISSION)?

3. What people or what company has a desire or problem that most urgently needs your product or service, i.e. who are the ones that "Gotta have you!" (your MARKETING)?

4. How do you get those people or that company to be aware of their urgent need for your product or service (your ADVERTISING)?

5. How do you convince those people to buy that service or product that they "gotta have?" (your SALES)

6. How do you get your product or service to those people or that company (your PRODUCTION and DELIVERY)?

7. How do you continue to increase the satisfaction and enthusiasm for your product or service, so they'll tell others (your CUSTOMER SERVICE)?

Do You Have Different Types of Ethics?

Yesterday I had the pleasure of speaking at Westmont (my alma mater) to the Business Ethics class. There were even a few pre-med students in the class so they got to hear the story of a doctor bound student who took a different road.
In preparing some material I began to formulate some questions regarding having multiple types of ethics. I asked the class, "Have you heard of Marriage Ethics, Sports Ethics, Driving Ethics, or Raising Kids Ethics?" They all said, “No.” But they were taking a class called “Business Ethics”. Why do we have an entire subject dedicated to Ethics in Business?

Yesterday morning I had breakfast with my college coach and we were talking about how it is often easy to justify a different set of ethics in sports. A similar example came up in my conversations with the class when one of the students talked about the last World Cup the USA Women's soccer team won. I had not heard this but the USA goal keeper had stopped a shot during a shoot-out that won them the game. After the game was over a slow motion replay showed the goal keeper steeping forward towards the shooter. In soccer this is illegal as you can only move laterally to stop the ball during a shoot-out. In keeping with a single sports theme, would you slide tackle someone in soccer knowing you could not get the ball to keep them from scoring?

If you knew it meant the difference between winning or losing the World Cup would you take a step forward? It is cheating and against the rules, but could you justify it for that? I don't know if the goal keeper did it on purpose or accident, but she did break the rules.

As a separate example if it meant paying the rent or not paying the rent, would your normal ethical actions change? Do your ethics change when you have more to lose?

During my research I found a quote that my buddy DJ had told me a while back from John Maxwell and made it the topic of discussion with the class.
“There's no such thing as business ethics—there's only ethics. People try to use one set of ethics for their professional life, another for their spiritual life, and still another at home with their family. That gets them into trouble. Ethics is ethics. If you desire to be ethical, you live by one standard across the board.”

The discussion in class was great and they really had awesome insight. Way better insight than I had during college. They even asked me some questions that I had not thought about with regard to a few personal experiences I shared with them. The short of it came to the fact that when there is more at stake you are more willing to move the ethical line. I even got a question during one of the discussions from a student asking if there was any way to “spin” a message so that it did not seem so bad. He didn't use the term “spin” but I think that was the underlying question. It is the dilemma of a whole truth versus half truth. If you tell half the truth does it cancel out not telling the whole truth, and is a half truth more ethical when there is more at stake? I say no, but my experience has showed me that when more is at stake what is ethical becomes hard to see.
I have not read John Maxwell's book, but his underlying premises is The Golden Rule still applies to life. “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”

Thanks to moms around the world (especially mine), you were right.

Another Reason to Be Nice

My current read is Why Smart Executives Fail, by Sydney Finkelstein. I’m about half way through the book and read a small section that reminded me of a time in my career when nice would have been better. The title of the section was

Arrogance + Hatred + Disrespect for Your Competitor = Disaster.

The main point of the section was how this philosophy can lead to blindness for partner opportunities, but is it also a meaningful topic of where your companies focus should be. At a point in my career my company had a new CEO (an extremely successful one) that brought a new mantra into our company that made it into the Top 5 company goals: "Kill (Competitor Name)". It seemed the goal was to create a hatred for our competitor so strong that we would rally around the cause to crush them what ever it took…though it didn’t have this affect.

(What are the first organizations you think of that rallied around hatred of anything? All the ones I think of do not come with a very good connotation.)

Our competitor made roughly 10 times our revenue, and though there were many things about the competitor I did not like they were the obvious leader in revenue and market share. All of us felt our product was better and that we provided a better level of service, but I slowly began to see a shift in focus for my company. Rather than our focus remaining on building better products and providing the BEST level of service to our customers, we slowly begin to shift our focus to kill the competitor.

The longer this goal existed the worse place to work our office became. Our long time customers began saying doing business with us was like doing business with our competitor: we were arrogant, didn’t listen to our customers, and made promises we could not live up to. We also began to lose key employees that felt working for us was in some ways sacrificing their professional integrity. Company culture shifted from “help each other and our customers be successful” to “don’t screw up or you’re fired.”

Eventually the CEO left and a new CEO with a more “lovecat” philosophy took over and attempted to right the ship, but much of the damage was done. I stayed on and worked with my former and new colleagues to climb back to a place where we were known for great product and great service, but it was a tough uphill climb. The company is still recovering in many ways from the "kill" mantra.

The point of this ramble is company focus should be on building great product and providing the BEST service to the industry. You should remain focused on competitors in the market place, but do not make it a rallying cry. Rallying a company around the mantra “Kill Competitor” is difficult. As a manager what are you going to tell your employees to do to kill the competitor? (Outside of literally...) It is much easier to rally a company around “Build Great Product & Provide the BEST Service”.

Do not love or hate your competitor, but rather respect their position in the market place. If you are going to love something, love building great product and providing great service. It is a way better thing to love.

Why We Call Them Third World Countries

Two weeks ago I did a post about having a realistic world view. Yesterday I was talking with my wife about the book (The End of Poverty) and how eye opening it was to learn that 2.5 billion people in third world countries live on under $2 per day. My thoughts drifted to how easy Americans will spend someone’s entire yearly income on a new flat screen television, laptop, or even a watch. To us these are necessities for living in the world, where to others it would be enough money to feed and clothe their entire family for literally years.

In the midst of the conversation my wife asked why they were called third world countries. This was a question I had asked before reading the book, and before reading it probably would have made up some answer about the national GDP of the country or some decent sounding answer regarding economics. But the real answer was quite eye opening as was not grounded in economics but rather politics.

In The End of Poverty, Jeffrey Sachs outlines for us exactly why we call them 1st, 2nd, and 3rd world countries. Below is a summary of his description, but I recommend reading the entire book to get a full understanding of these descriptions.

First World
The rich world, called the first world, succeeded in reconstructing a market-based trading system between the end of WWII in 1945 and the end of the Soviet Union in 1991. Countries established currency conversion factors and reduce trade barriers. With it came a burst of rapid economic growth, a powerful recovery after decades of war, blocked trade, and financial instability. First world countries generally adopted a capitalist economic structure.

Second World
The second world is the socialist world, the world first forged by Lenin and Stalin in the wake of WWI. This world remained cutoff from the first world until after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the end of the Soviet Union in 1991. The characteristics of the second world were state ownership of production, one party rule under communism, and economic integration through barter trade.

Third World
We generally define this as a poor country, but the third world included the rapidly rising number of postcolonial counties after WWII that chose neither to be part of the capitalist first world or socialist second world. They were the “third-way” countries with the philosophy that they would develop on their own without the assistance of international trade.

Jeffrey Sachs goes into great deal on the reasoning why second and third world counties did not achieve the economic success of first world countries, which I will let you discover by reading the book.

Don't Go It Alone

Over the past few years I’ve watched colleagues take the plunge to become consultants, and I’m always surprised how many of them want to go it alone. Two of the biggest challenges when starting a new business (specifically consulting) are...

• All your success stories have an asterisk that you did it under the company you used to work for.


• You don’t have the best kind of marketing, which is a direct reference from a personal contact that has experienced your company.

In Tim Sanders’ book Love Is the Killer App he says, “Your network is your networth.” Your ability to generate revenue is directly correlated to the amount of people that are willing to recommend you, assuming they even know what you do. Using your network to create business is something that too few people do. My dad (a long time entrepenuer) always told me, “It’s not what you know, it’s who you know.”

I’ve spent almost every evening of the past week sending out introduction letters to prospective clients, and I’m pretty confident that some business will be generated from that work. But I know that a direct reference from a personal contact will generate more opportunities than I ever can. I say personal versus professional because a professional reference is from someone that doesn’t know you. They know what you do and so they reference you, but they don’t encourage someone to hire you. Personal references enjoy referencing you and passionately encourage someone to hire you.

I sent out the first ping to my personal network-of-success. I’ll keep you updated on what generates more business: the letter to my network or introduction letters to prospective clients. I'm betting on my network.
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Letter to my personal network of success.

Yogi Berra once said, “If you come to a fork in the road, take it.”

It seems almost a dozen times in the past three years my professional life has been at a fork in the road and each time I’ve taken the “safe road”. Three weeks ago I reached another fork in the road.

Just over a month ago InfoGenesis was purchased by Agilysys Inc., the largest hospitality technology company in the world. As many of you know, about four months ago I accepted the role of Director of Professional Services for InfoGenesis, helping recover a department that had gotten somewhat off course. Three weeks ago the new company ownership asked me to move to Las Vegas to manage the professional services group, as that is the new primary services office. Chrystal and I love Santa Barbara and are not yet ready to leave, so I declined the offer. Upon declining the request to relocate the joint decision was made that they would be hiring someone for my position in Las Vegas. Though this sounds like an unfortunate incident I am viewing it as an opportunity.

The new ownership had expressed the sincere desire to keep me on board at the company, and requested I think about what job I would like. It was wonderful to have the blessing of being able to choose what job I really wanted, and even create one if I could justify the value. After much reflection, discussions with Chrystal, wise counsel from my dad and prayer I have made the decision that this time the job I really want is Owner and Principal Consultant for Kevin Sturm Consulting.

At what will be one month short of nine years, my last day with InfoGenesis will be Friday, October 5. I have spent many evenings over the past few weeks working on starting Kevin Sturm Consulting, and will spend many more in the coming weeks. Most of that time has been spent networking with contacts and getting a foundation to start a client base. At this point I would say I have the ground work in place, but I still need to finish my website and a few administrative tasks associated with starting a business. The next step is to land a customer and my first of what I hope will be many consulting jobs.

My biggest challenge in this role will be establishing my own reputation in the industry. For nine years I have been backed by a big well established company. As a private consultant I now have to make a name for myself, but the recommendation from a trusted contact will always be a vital part of my business. All of you know me personally, professionally or both and I hope can be part of my extended network-of-success. I will be providing a few different services, but will specialize in system evaluation and selection for hospitality venues and use case and requirements gathering for hospitality vendors. If you know of any hotels, restaurants, resorts, golf courses, stadiums, corporate cafeterias, or any hospitality related venue that is opening or planning on replacing their technology system(s) and feel confident in referencing my services please do.

As I embark on this new journey I covet your prayers, words of wisdom, criticism and help. Thank you all for your friendship and support. I am hoping that this will be first installment of a regular newsletter, and that with each new installment I will have stories of success and learning experiences to report. If you’re a blog reader you can catch regular updates of how things are going on my blog.

Cheers!

Kevin

A Realistic World View

I recently finished a book that changed my "world view" perspective more than any other book. By world view I mean viewing the world as the world, versus from our completely isolated view in the Western world. In Santa Barbara I am surrounded by some of the most obscene wealth in the world and it's easy to get caught up in it.

The End of Poverty by Jeffrey Sachs is a must read for everyone in the Western world, especially Santa Barbara. Jeffrey Sachs is a altruistic economist that has advised just about every major political figure on the third world economics, and is currently a special advisor to Kofi Annan, the UN Secretary General. The big thought of the book is our generation is the first in history that has the financial capability to end "extreme poverty". The book highlights the UN Millennium Project, which is a plan to end "extreme poverty" by the year 2025.

The book defines extreme poverty as the 2.5 billion people in the world that live on less than $2.00 per day, and that we have the ability to provide the necessary money and supplies to end that. Read the book and get involved.

You don't have to agree with everything that Jeffrey proposes in the book, but it's hard not to be affected by reality of information that he provides.

Get Networked!

"Your network is your net worth."

This is a quote from Tim Sanders book Love is the Killer App, and it's been something on the for front of my mind. I've been working on actively building my network recently, and it takes work. When you see it in a book, and talk to people about it, it seems easy. But what I'm realizing as I go through this process is Tim means more than just getting connected with all the people you know. I've been working on building my network with people I trust, share passions with, and feel that I can help me and that I can help. And that's the escense of the hard part, because the second really has to come before the first.

When adding people into my network, the best way to have them become a part of my network is by first giving of myself in some way...and that takes work. I'm already busy with work, with family, with fixing up the house, and living life in general...so it's hard. But I'm also finding that it's worth it, because it really does generate a return. Recently the people in my network have been sharing new ideas with me, and giving back.

One of the recent examples of this was feedback that was posted on my LinkedIn profile (I was working on my profile this week because of entry on Guy Kawasaki's blog about giving your LinkedIn profile an extremem makover). As I was making over my profile, I asked two people that I respect to leave feedback on me. Not only did they leave feedback within the same day, but the feedback was more than I could have ever expected. Here are both of them:

“Kevin was a senior Systems Engineer and was designated project manager for a major system installation at one of the country's largest indoor arenas. The project was technically complex, and the customer was challenging -- in part because it was really two customers, both a hockey team and an NBA team. Kevin managed a large team that numbered 20 or more at its peak and completed the project on time and within budget. He dealt with all of the extraordinary customer challenges as well as with what was then the largest ASP installation of point of sale in the world. Kevin's success led to his subsequent appointment as Field Services Manager, responsible for a team of nearly 50 people who installed the company's systems throughout the U.S. and the world. In this role he had four to six direct reports whom he had to lead, challenge and mentor. He quickly earned the respect of all who worked for him as well as a large customer base. Kevin is an intelligent, dedicated manager with an extraordinarly strong sense of responsibility. He gets the job done and wins the respect of customers and co-workers in the process. He is a man of exceptional character, and that character quickly becomes apparent to all who work with him.” February 27, 2007
Karl Willig, President & CEO, InfoGenesismanaged Kevin indirectly at InfoGenesis

“Kevin is a true subject matter expert in point-of-sale as it relates to the hospitality and food service systems management market. I have nothing but positive reviews to give in all aspects of our business relationship with Kevin, and would retain his services again at any time, without hesitation. Kevin consistently gets things done, and works well with our customers and clients. He has the experience and knowledge to overcome almost every obstacle that we encountered with client sites and difficult customers. I have never known Kevin to mislead either his customers or clients, nor his employer. He is honest and truthful to a fault, which is rare in today's business climate, and his ethics are beyond reproach.” February 27, 2007
Top qualities: Great Results, Personable, Expert
Ken Davishired Kevin as a Business Consultant in 2004, and hired Kevin more than once

Karl and Ken are two people I respect highly, and value their opinion and insight. So these were both recommendations that I am really grateful for.

Yo, Get Networked!