(Yes, that is his real name: Ruble, as in Russian currency. And Hord rhymes with Lord, jokes Hord.)

He ran for elective office a few years ago. He spent $240,000. Of his own money. After-tax dollars.

He lost.

At the final get-together after his concession speech, I asked him about his public spirit, his private money.

Ruble, do you feel bad about spending that much money?

No, he says.

No? Here it comes, I thought, now he would turn philosophical.

He is almost smiling. No, There was no way I could lose.

Excuse me? I’m lost. This is not usual.

I really thought I could win and serve, he explains. But in losing the race I might win…

Win?

…more business.

In the public-spirit spirit of John Wanamaker and Ben Franklin Ruble Hord demonstrated great dexterity in attempting to make a difference. But also, incidentally, make a buck.

I’m an insurance salesman, says Ruble who has his home phone number listed in the phone book. I want people to know about me.

They certainly do now, I venture.

The money spent was the cheapest marketing I could buy, says Ruble. Even in losing, all was not lost.

Even though he didn’t plan on losing the political race, he was still a winner. Ruble Hord is a master salesman and a master marketer.

Your Business Blogger has always thought that lawyers were natural political candidates because lawyers, well, know law, I supposed.

But no. Lawyers, as small business owners being well ahead of the trend, would run for office. The political campaign is little different from a marketing campaign. Lawyers would either pick up votes.

Or clients.

Small business owners have a passion for making a difference in their neighborhoods. Running for office might be another avenue to serve.

Serve the citizens. Serve your customers.

The post Politics as Marketing appeared first on Small Business Trends.

1) I had to learn some shortcuts, and,
2) I was destined for management.

I started out selling vacuum cleaners cold-calling door to door.

Cold. Calling. O Joy.

So in the late 80′s I sought out the smartest sales guy on the planet who had the same latitude for lazy as me.

I decided to meet with David Sandler, the founder of the Sandler Sales Institute.

After listening to him for a few minutes, I was intrigued by his system and his style, but I wanted to know more. I ventured a timid question.

He looked at me. Then he told me to get out of the room. I come, willing to sit through his sales pitch and he tells me, me! to get lost. The program was expensive and lightweight nobodies couldn’t afford his sales program.

Those weren’t his exact words. But close.

And, of course, I couldn’t afford it.

And, of course, I had to have it.

The Sandler Rules,

When faced with stalls, objections, or put-offs, you must eliminate them or it’s over.

Inspect what you expect.

You can’t lose what you don’t have.

If you wait until the presentation to close the sale, you put too much pressure on the prospect and yourself.

It was the best 850 bucks I ever spent.

I learned to ask stupid questions (which came quite naturally) like,

What does that mean?

Why am I here?

It doesn’t look like you’re interested?

And when all else fails,

Is it over?

That last one is my favorite. When at the end of the sales process and it doesn’t look like the sale is coming and you are about to get thrown out, ask,

Is it over?

In decades a-peddling I’ve only had two prospects say yes, it’s over, now get lost.

(Hint: Guys, don’t be asking this question when you’re dating. You will get many, many yes’s. Not that I’d know.)

Sandler’s Sales System is not for everyone — but it works even for those who don’t like it.

But I try to steer clients to Sandler because my small business owners work too hard. This is an unfortunate trend. The Boss should never work too hard.

The core concept of this sales program is of hyper-sales-qualification. Do not attempt without adult supervision.

I haven’t made a cold-call since.

My prospective clients call me.

This is an unpaid endorsement for continuing education.

The post Easy Sales: The Trend for Small Business appeared first on Small Business Trends.

Is good ol’ fashioned bootlicking dead?

As I traverse cubicle farms across the fruited plain, I see entry-level drones who toil away. Plowing as straight a furrow as any dependable farm hand. Yet these hayseeds have yet to learn manners.

In the US of A the worker bees would continue typing and mousing away when the boss and Your Observant Consultant would wander by and stand at the cube entrance. The employee’s eyes would remain on the monitor — ears open to the boss — listening, we were told, to the manager’s every instruction. The young employee would call this “multi-tasking.”

I call it rude.

I compare this ‘dis’ trend to the contrast of the warm glow Your Business Blogger would routinely feel when consulting in India. Whenever the business owner enters a room. All work would cease. All would stand.

Then the boss would magnanimously, graciously invite the employees to be seated and resume their work.

Of course, no one moved. Until the owner left the room.

(There’s a lot to be said for the kiss up, kick down management style of the sub-continent.)

In India the employees would stand up. In North America the employees don’t even look up.

The US Army, as usual, gets it right when dealing with rank:

The senior never thinks of it.
The junior never forgets it.

Whenever soldiers would cross paths, the junior would acknowledge the senior. If one is an officer the junior will salute the senior. And the senior will return the courtesy.

The private businesses who never had employees who were privates in the Army, think and behave as if everyone is equal.

Wrong.

There is far too much of this egalitarian nonsense in our culture. Much of it comes from the academy, where most nonsense originates.

At the University of Virginia where Charmaine earned her doctorate, the instructors are addressed as “Mister.” Not “Doctor.” Mr. Jefferson was a fan of fraternite and Voltaire and all things French.

Egalite run amuck.

But the manager and the astute, ambitious young woman, understanding the spirit of the times, knows that nothing changes in the human spirit. We all want to be appreciated. Even the boss.

So the young future leader desiring to be a stand out, will stand up when the boss enters.

The young man will stand up when a lady enters the room.

The employee with integrity will take a stand.

A stand up guy.

And everyone will accuse him of apple-polishing.

But he will soon fill those boots everyone thought he was a-licking.

The post Respect: The Ultimate Business Etiquette appeared first on Small Business Trends.

One third of the population 18 to 29 has a tattoo. Your Business Blogger is outside this age range and our five-kid penta-posse has not yet demanded needles with ink. But this is an exploding trend that will affect small business hiring.

Here I will review only the deliberate body modifications. Not the accidental. (Scars are tattoos with better stories.)

We just hired a half-dozen employees. Not one of the attractive young women had any body art. That I noticed. Not that I was looking.

My concern is less with my outdated preferences than that potential candidates knew my preferences. If I control cutting the check, I’ll control the body cutting. I’d like some input in what peeps I be hangin’ wit’.

I prefer non-smokers with no (visible) body art and conjugated verbs.

Job seekers must remember that symmetry and chemistry between interview-er and interview-ee is what gets hired. It is not fair. But remember, I’m writing the check.

So tattoos and other self-mutilations are not for me. And it’s not likely that I would hire such decorations. But one of my managers with hiring authority might. One of my clients might. But not me.

And I’m not the only fuddy-duddie. The Vault reports,

Companies with dress and grooming codes are on the strongest legal grounds when they defend their policies based on legitimate business reasons.

At Starbucks, “baristas” who serve the $5 lattes can’t display any tattoos or wear any piercing jewelry besides small, matched pair earrings. Each ear can’t have more than two piercings. Serving upscale coffee demands upscale workers, according to Starbucks, and tattoos don’t fit that scheme.

So what’s right? What’s wrong with tattoos?

Sometime ago I questioned my rabbi, Daniel Lapin, on the issue of tattoos. Yes, I’m Presbyterian who sits at the feet of the JollyBogger. But everyone also needs a rabbi; a teacher. The coach doesn’t have to be faith-based. But the ‘donations’ can be tax deductible…

My Rabbi said that ancient Jewish tradition held that a person’s body does not belong to him — it belongs to the Creator and we borrow this earthly vessel for a while. Which is why the tattooing of identification numbers during the Holocaust was so humiliating to the Jews.

So if I interview you, or some other old coot interviews you, don’t tell us about your tattoos. It is not part of the job description.

You will be hired for your wisdom and your judgment.

The post Job Candidates With Body Art: Hire Or Not? appeared first on Small Business Trends.

Small business owners have smaller margins for error than our larger big-company counterparts. One way a person, a company, can stand out and avoid error is to respect people’s time. By being on time.

Your Business Blogger was reminded of this truth last year while working with small businesses in a trade show. Some 10,000 of us sat of the feet of the keynote speaker Karen Hughes, presidential advisor. She was flogging her book Ten Minutes from Normal about working on the political campaign trail.

She recounted the story of President Bush’s particular concern about being on time. She once asked the President (who has an MBA) why they were leaving so early for a meeting. He said:

“Three words: Late is rude.”

Getting down to business is best done in the atmosphere of mutual trust and respect. It can best start by checking your watch. Promptness is the soul of business said Lord Chesterfield 1694 – 1773. Timeliness is impressive.

More recently, Emily Post has much to say on the courtesy of timeliness. In Business Etiquette — Tips on Making a Good First Impression Post reminds us — when traveling to an appointment you should “know how to get there and how long it will take. (BEING ON TIME IS CRITICAL).” Emphasis in original.

But being on time is sometimes not good enough. One of football’s most successful coaches would tell his players to show up 10 minutes early or be considered late. This discipline is known as “Vince Lombardi time.”

Lombardi won games, in part, with the discipline of punctuality. This also teaches the value of time: Man has no nobler or more valuable possession…. as Beethoven said.

Being punctual will demonstrate the politeness of kings. And courtesy to your clients. It would please even the French, like Louise XVIII. Punctuality is the politeness of kings.

The post Late Is Rude and Bad for Small Business appeared first on Small Business Trends.

He looked great; sounded great. He was up. But he should have been down.

In the small talk before his introduction and as he stashed his luggage — yes he carried his own bags — we learned that he’d been giving speeches and doing his radio show across the country. He got only two hours sleep the night before.

We were witness to The Peak Experience.

The guy was working non-stop. And he didn’t need the money. But he wanted to give his speech for us, even if the scheduling fates had him sleepless in DC.

Yes, adrenaline kept him up. But it was more than a chemical dependence.

It is a cliche that doctors don’t get sick during epidemics; sailors don’t get seasick in a storm; electrical power-line repairmen are at their safest and most efficient when the lights and lines are out.

If there is a real emergency for your company or an extraordinary circumstance, your staff will know and will rise to meet the challenge. Especially if you, the small business owner, have so trained and motivated your team that they know that they are making a difference. Doing important work. Work that’s bigger than themselves.

The Peak Experience works only if real. Epidemics, tempests, blown power grids are difficult to fake. (Although some CEO’s I know would try to trick the staff. It never works.)

The crisis, the impending event, the project must be more than a ‘stretch goal.’ Your team won’t work Sundays for still another artificial and moving target.

The Peak Experience is an emergency; an extraordinary misalignment of the stars that doesn’t take a day off, doesn’t worry about overtime. And will have your team working through days at a time.

Alert Readers will recall that Your Business Blogger holds for working only 6 days each week.

Ancient Jewish tradition holds that there are exceptions where work can be done on the day of rest, the Sabbath. If your “ox falls into a ditch,” — if your livelihood is on the line or is a life or death situation — rules can be circumvented.

But The Peak Experience, where the company ox is in a ditch, is the exception to resting.

Remember, The Peak Experience is not normal. But sometimes can be anticipated. When working the Y2K rollover, my team worked the final month — that would be December, 1999, for our younger readers — straight through. And we knew it would be a success.

The Peak Experience is a rush that will enter your company lore and last for years. Get ready. It will happen. If something looks like The Peak Experience, don’t be afraid to work the staff to death.

These unusual events should be perceived and received as 100 year floods. Very rare, low probability, high impact. But if The Experience occures too often, then Peak begins to look like SOP. Something ordinary.

But not Hannity. Not that morning. Sean gives a soaring speech. And gets a standing O. He knew to work The Peak Experience.

And so will you.

The post The Peak Experience appeared first on Small Business Trends.

Too much of a good thing can be wonderful, said Mae West.

Or is it?

An unusual trend among working people, is that people love to work and spend a lot of hours at the work they love. Every small business owner I have ever advised, worked non-stop. And perhaps complained, and would ask me about that work-family balance nonsense, but then would excuse herself to answer an important cell call. (There are no unimportant cell phone calls.)

Non-stop work is bad for your health and bad for your productivity.

Studies show that working 21 continuous hours has the same effect as being drunk. Yes, working too much is a real high.

Among industrialized nations, none work more hours than the US of A. The two-martini lunch has been replaced with jolts of caffeine — to stay awake. Americans don’t drink to escape from work and sleep; we remain at work awake and become drunk. Starbucks has replaced Archie’s Bar.

And no one works harder or more hours than the boss. And you, the small business owner, will openly admit to working harder and more hours than any one.

Martyr.

(No one likes martyrs, that’s why they killed so many of them.)

Your Business Blogger would suggest that business productivity and employee health can be improved by working fewer hours.

Heresy.

I know. I wouldn’t want to stop either. But I have a trick. An answer to those 60-hour work weeks.

Put those hours into 6 days — not 7. Take a day off. Yes, yes, a whole day.

Stay with me now. Businesses actually have this as policy.

Chick-fil-A, with 1,250 restaurants and sales of almost $2 billion, takes a day off.

Truett Cathy, founder of Chick-fil-A, made the decision to close on Sunday in 1946 when he opened his original restaurant…in Hapeville, Georgia. He has often shared that his decision was as much practical as spiritual. Operating a 24-hour a day business left him exhausted. Being closed on Sunday allowed him time to recover physically, emotionally and spiritually…

It doesn’t have to be a Saturday or a Sunday. When I was working restaurants I took Tuesdays off. It matters not the day.

But pick a day, then don’t work it.

Many business owners have pestered Your Business Blogger for a set of rules on what is work or not. Because work and play are the same for all North Americans. My only suggestion for your weekly day off:

Be Unproductive.

Leave productivity and production and whatever work is to the other six days. On that special day: give it a rest.

Oddly, I would suggest no prohibition on exercise. We should sweat on our day of relaxation. (This is America.) Sweating and exercise are acceptable unless your day job is in the NBA or the Golf Pro Tour.

And to make sure it works, find a friend who will hold you accountable. Which you should be doing for business, anyway.

Be accountable to your private board of directors or mentor.

So. To be more productive. Do nothing, one day a week.

The post Rest to get the Best from Your Small Business appeared first on Small Business Trends.

IQ

There may be a lesson here for the small business owner.

Your Business Blogger has interviewed, hired and managed (computer) coders, sales reps…and government bureaucrats.

When given the option of head count and budget flexibility, I have always suggested to my managers to hire the most expensive talent possible — the Super Stars.

Even when hiring government workers.

Into Good and Evil reminds us that when talent really counts, when talent determines life and death, who would get hired? He points us to Professor Kingsley Browne in The Ace and the Turkeys,

“Given the cognitive and temperamental patterns required, it is not surprising to find that the ability to fly aircraft successfully in combat is an ability that not many have. Indeed, it is not an ability that even all combat pilots have. Aviation analysts recognize that the majority of combat kills are scored by a small minority of pilots. Mike Spick has observed: “The gulf between the average fighter pilot and the successful one is very wide. In fact it is arguable that there are almost no average fighter pilots; just aces and turkeys; killers and victims.”

Fighter pilots, like sales guys in a role playing exercise, can practice and give a passable presentation, but,

As one Air Force pilot stated, “Most guys can master the mechanics of the systems, but it’s instinctive to be able to assimilate all the data, get a big picture, and react offensively. Not a lot of guys can do that.”

But the Air Force has a challenge most sales managers and small business owners don’t: Separating the Aces from the Turkeys,

Ideally, one would have only “aces” or “killers,” leaving the “turkeys” and “victims” to another career path. The difficulty lies, however, in the fact that there is no known way to separate the aces and the turkeys prior to combat. Unfortunately, many of those who will end up being turkeys often do not know what they are getting into. These pilots may have the ability, intelligence, and know-how to fly the plane well, but they ultimately lack the “fighting spirit” that they will need in combat. ”
(Buffalo Law Review, Winter, 2001, 49 Buffalo L. Rev. 51, Women at War: An Evolutionary Perspective By Kingsley R. Browne)

But the hiring manager does have an advantage over an Air Force Wing Commander; the civilian Ace has a track record of Kills.

The best indication of future performance is past performance. Our armed forces are hampered by looking only to recent combat or aerial engagements — and there aren’t that many of those dogfights. The small business manager has different metrics of combat measures for top business talent:

Eat what you kill. Who had produced the best numbers?

In this human resource practice and strategy, there are down-sides as Anita Campbell, my editrix here at Small Business Trends citing the Trizoko Biz Journal mentions. She and others make the valid point that Super Star and Aces are nearly impossible to manage. And, indeed, can only be managed by Super Star managers.

But if these crazy iconoclasts can be harnessed, a big ‘if’ to be sure, big numbers are sure to follow. For example, when I had a modest software company, I learned the hard way that a one genius coder was worth a half dozen very good coders. And not because he (and he was usually a ‘he’) was faster, but that his work was nearly bug-free. Which saved me from hiring three coders just to patch.

When I was running sales teams, Pareto’s 80/20 Principle always played out. But the top guy, usually a deviant, was always a standard deviation above the norm. My #1 sales guy was sometimes double the sales of #2, the rest of the sales team on the long tail. That #1 guy drove me nuts. Those Super Stars drive all small business owners nuts. But I loved his numbers.

And government bureaucrats? Goodness. I once had an agency head ‘lose’ a $100 million department. It was necessary to find it for obvious political reasons, but we only became aware of the lost unit because I was working the Y2K rollover. I really needed to find all the laptops. We finally found the department. Hidden away, quietly working away. And there were lots of good excuses why it was floating alone off on its own org chart, in its own universe. How they got paid is outside the scope of this post. I was assured that it was not illegal.

So Anita and Trizoko Biz are right, Super Stars are a pain.

But I wonder how many $100 million business units are lost. And could be found with a few dozen more IQ points.

And how much more value the Super Stars could add to America’s small businesses. If they only could be managed.

The post Small Business Super Star Hiring Hassle appeared first on Small Business Trends.

Mitch, The Window Manager, one of the best business blogs in the business, had a reader in a job interview with a dilemma:

How does a job candidate handle embarrassing, possibly unethical questions from a hiring authority?

He gives three options. “I see the hiring process as a battle with HR and will use any means, fair or unfair, to trip them up,” says Mitch. That’s because he views questions about why you left your previous job as “unethical” to begin with. So Mitch asserts that an unethical question does not deserve an ethical answer.

Your Business Blogger is not so sure.

I once asked my favorite management guru, Bill Oncken, about the challenge of dealing with supervisors who cross ethical lines from right to wrong. His wise advice was to separate, or fire, or not hire, or run away from any hint of a lack of character.

Only deal with people with integrity, says Oncken; who is filthy rich and never married with no hungry kids who need shoes and private schools. (His hobby is skydiving — out of boredom, I believe.)

But as Mitch outlines, sometimes you really, really need the job. We’ve all been there. “. . .and the HR kumquat is a jerk who didn’t ask a fair question, or a legal question, . . . and no one will ever find out if there’s fudging on the job application. Evil deserves contempt. (Anti) Personnel departments don’t actually add value to a company, anyway.” Or so the thought goes.

When faced with an unethical boss or an unethical hiring manager, Bill Oncken suggests leaving immediately. Even when the hit hurts your wallet.

“Sometimes,” Oncken says, “You have to finance your integrity.”

And this requires monetary as well as emotional maturity that not all of us possess.

I would not recommend lying as a response to any question, no matter how awful the interrogation. But Mitch does suggest humor or a superlative as a possible way out of troubling questions. As in “I took time off to train for my ascent of Everest.” Or something close.

My heartfelt response to questions about my misspent youth is, I’m not responsible for anything that happened during the Nixon Administration.

If humor or deflection does not work — that last sentence never worked for me — brutal truth might be necessary.

Years ago, I was once fired by a company — twice — in the same month, both times by fax, the insulting medium of the day. I would always reveal this firing whenever asked. I would explain that it was the dangerous downside of working for thinly capitalized companies in trouble — and my explanation had the added benefit of being true.

I would always get the hard stuff out of the way early. I would put it all on the table. Just as in sales: Whoever raises the objection, owns the objection.

On my hiring travels as interviewer and –ee, I’ve learned that there are two kinds of problems: big and small.

Many small problems perhaps can be side-stepped — without being untruthful, like my little incident deep in North Carolina. (Hint: Never throw drink bottles from a ’57 Chevy at high speed.)

Early in my career, whenever that “Were you ever arrested?” silly question would come up, I would always write in “NA.” Drag racing on the interstate highway system was truly “Not Applicable” to the entry level sales job I was hunting. And if any explanation was required, I wanted to do it in person, rather than be eliminated by rote in HR.

Fortunately, I don’t have big problems, like a felony conviction, but the terminations come close. I have been fired more times than any single reader of this reputable blog. Goodness, I’ll bet I’ve been fired more than ALL you readers combined.

But there is hope for big problems on this side of eternity: Find a Friend. Any real position or client these days will be 1) A created position, 2) In high technology and 3) With someone you know.

Clients and projects and employment come these days through a network of friends and contacts. Who love you.

Like I do.

And that’s no lie.

To thine own self be true,
and it must follow,
as the night the day,
thou canst not then be false to any man. Shakespeare.

So. When to lie? Never.

Don’t bear false witness, even about yourself.

The post Job Interviews: When To Lie appeared first on Small Business Trends.

FireDrill consists of 3 parts:

1)  The Plan (planning)
2) The Drill (practice)
3) The Fire (execution)

The Plan is a checklist, The Fire is the execution, But The Drill, the practice is the toughest. Because teams need dry runs to learn because things will always, always go wrong. Your team will gain wisdom and judgment through simulation. And learn. Today, permit me to be Your Drill Instructor. And learn how I was surprised by a pilot project.

Your (Army) Business Blogger had no business in the cockpit. My instructor was a Vietnam vet with MigKlr license plates on his truck.

He said the F-14 was a “Man’s Plane.” Sounded sexist. He explained that the old hydraulics required real strength — after a couple of hours, even the strongest studs needed two hands on the stick.

Not for girls.

Or so I thought.

But I was wrong, again.

I bring the 5 kid Penta-Posse to Oceana Naval Air Station to show them how macho military men (like their father) defeated Communism.

We get invited to some F-14 training. I climb in the trainer. The instructor guides me through the take- off and some maneuvers. The room spins. The world spins.

And nobody was shooting at me. Although lots of people were yelling at me…

Time to bring the baby home. I turn. Lots more yelling. It might have been me.

The world, the screen freezes. At a funny angle. IRL it would have been a $38 million mistake and DNA remains of Your Business Blogger.

My instructor: “Success. You did great!”

Me: ?

My instructor: “The seat is dry.”

Me: ?

My instructor: “No puke, no p!ss.”

Navy humor.

After my showing off, the Posse is not impressed. The Diva, age 6, female, issue-one-each slides into the (dry, thankyouverymuch) front seat sim. Confident. In control. And zooms.

Perfect landing. “Just like PlayStation,” she says.

I expected a few more years to pass before they passed by the Old Man. She had practiced. I didn’t.

During the Drill no one is hurt. And we all process lessons and understand our capabilities.

And learn the limitations of the team.

And the boss.

A FireDrill will bring out the best in your people. And your managers.

Without the crash and burn.

The post Practice for Small Business Managers appeared first on Small Business Trends.