Things you can learn from the sports page

“We learn something every day, and lots of times it's that what we learned the day before was wrong”. Bill Vaughan

I love reading the sports pages – well, to be accurate the sports web pages. Reading about the trauma and drama of players, teams, coaches, fans and owners offers a great microcosm into life in general and business specifically. When you watch these ultra wealthy pro franchise owners, who became wealthy by being successful business people, make some of the most lame-brain decisions and do things they would NEVER do with their companies its great entertainment in a head scratching way.

What I’ve been watching recently involves the ongoing saga of my alma mater Indiana University. I’ve written some past blogs on some of it and it appears to be about to come to a sad close and maybe, just maybe, they can get back on the road to not being embarrassing again.

The final chapter in this mess involves the resignation of Rick Greenspan the Athletic Director. Under Greenspan the University hired and subsequently fired a known rules violator in Kelvin Sampson. Because he repeated his bad behavior IU is being penalized. Because no one monitored Sampson’s behavior Greenspan has been forced to resign. The big debate is did the former IU President force Greenspan to hire Sampson. Rumor suggests this to be the case. That President, however, is gone and not talking. So was Greenspan the fall guy?

Many moons ago I got my first promotion to “Vice President”. The title came with a relo to a new region with lots of problems. The new General Manager recruited me to come in and “fix things”. What I learned was that his idea of fixing was essentially getting rid of the entire existing management team. This became my duty. Greg Strouse, Ax Man. He ID’d them, I whacked them. I thought some of them were pretty decent employees and certainly had a ton of experience. But, I was told to whack, so I whacked. Once all the cleansing was done and new people hired the performance of the place went even deeper into the hole. Too many new people and morale was terrible. I was unceremoniously fired. After all, everyone hated me and blamed me for the problems.

Now my story has a happy ending that I’ll tell you someday but here’s what I learned.

If you are an executive level performer with a large budget, lots of employees and the responsibility of running a successful operation it is your duty to assess the entire landscape and if need be go to battle with your boss on the proper path. You may lose. Actually, you’ll probably lose. But personal accountability and professional honor should win out.

Read the sports pages, see how it’s usually done these days in the world of sports…and do the opposite.

I love spam

“There are people I know who won't hurt me. I call them corpses.” Randy K. Milholland

No, not that kind of Spam (more on that at the end)

I just received an email telling me I was the Grand Prize Winner and had won a new “Peugoet” car. Now, two things: first its spelled P-E-U-G-E-O-T and second even if it was true I would suppose 2nd prize would be two cars. Frankly, Peugeots have all the bad French qualities (small, slow, noisy and smoky) without any of their redeeming qualities (i.e., they don’t come with a lady from Bois de Boulogne Park carrying a case of Bordeaux).

Spam is today what snake oil salesmen were in 1800’s, part fact, part fiction, part entertainment, part annoyance, and totally for the naïve.

I feel bad for the naïve. Often times they are more desperate than dumb, more out of step than out of mind. And some of these offers just seem SO…DAMNED…GOOD. You want to believe. I want to believe. We all want to believe. But alas, the old adage “If it seems too good to be true, it probably is” usually wins out.

So, once you get over your outrage and annoyance of spam you can see it for what it is….pure entertainment. I mean, come on, you absolutely have to find great entertainment in the offers: ED remedies, free computers, discount drugs, discount girls, the list is endless. My absolute favorite is the letter asking you to act as a financial conduit for their foreign company. That for simply funneling these foreign funds into the U.S. for them you’ll receive a large sum of money. And all you have to do is email them your bank account information. Now really, what could be more harmless than that?

One of the biggest problems of spam, of course, is the occasional legitimate email of some importance that gets trapped in the myriad filters used to combat these pests. Deals get lost, opportunities get missed and relationships get postponed, much like lost mail but at cyber speed.

If you rely on email – as we all do – for your business communications you must fight the battle when a client or prospect doesn’t respond to an email as to whether they’re purposely not responding, have poor communication protocol or never received the message. If your email signature is getting trapped in a spam filter then sending more emails won’t solve the problem.

So, pick up the phone. If they’re purposely ignoring your email they’ll ignore your call THEN you’ll have something to fret about.

By the way, click here for the famous Monty Python skit about Spam. http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=anwy2MPT5RE

Service vs. Product

“At my lemonade stand I used to give the first glass away free and charge five dollars for the second glass. The refill contained the antidote.” Emo Phillips

My wife and I got into an interesting discussion this evening. The theme, Service vs. Product, came about because of the restaurant where we had dinner. This restaurant is her absolute favorite. Me, on the other hand, could never go there again and be very happy. So, naturally we go there a lot. And by a lot I mean on average twice a week.

Here’s the debate point. The food is quite good. Good standard fare, good specials that change monthly, interesting special events. What’s not to like? Well for me it’s this; the prices are premium and the service is spotty. The wait staff can be mediocre and they tend to be inflexible. There’s also this, after 5 years and thousands of dollars spent the owner still acts as if he’s never seen me before. Now, I’m truly not vain enough to expect a “Well, hello Mr. Strouse, I have your favorite table waiting” every time I walk in but a simple “Hi, it’s good to see you again” would be really nice.

In contrast there’s a restaurant I go to maybe a half dozen times a year. Yet when I walk in whichever of the two owners who happen to be working will see me act as if I’m the proverbial long, lost cousin. Now, they don’t know my name from Adam, but they at least recognize me.

So, what’s more important, Product or Service?

The answer is of course both. If you have both great product and great service you’ve unlocked the keys to the kingdom, and doing everything to provide this should be your obsession every waking minute.

But, if you can’t yet pull off having a great product, you’d damn sure better have great service. Because if having both is nirvana then having neither makes you a Detroit car company, a major airline carrier, a cable company, or the NBA.

Here’s my question. If you’ve achieved the hard part of creating a great product why oh why, outside of stupidity or greed, wouldn’t you surround it with good service?

A little time away

Sorry, I needed to take some time away to attend to some things. Game on.

Paid to be dumb

"Fill what's empty. Empty what's full. And scratch where it itches.” Murphy’s Laws on Technology

So, the big news currently revolves around the merger of Northwest and Delta. They are two old, big, recognized air carriers who have been bleeding money for decades. So now they’re going to take their corporate stupidity and join them together. Any 5th grader should be able to figure out the outcome of this one.

I remember when I was working in Chicago but still living in Michigan. I called Northwest and inquired into pre-buying multiple tickets for a set price. At the time (pre-911) tickets between Detroit and Chicago went for about $100 bought in advance and $250 bought the day of departure. I offered to buy 50 (essentially a years worth) for a preset price somewhere in between the two prices. All I really wanted was to not have to pay the change fee ($100) when I had to change my flight days. The response? “We don’t have a program like that”. OK, so I worked my way up the chain with the same response. So here’s someone TRYING to give them money and they “don’t have a program for that”.

Doomed!

So now I’m listening to all these “experts” talk about how bad this merger will be. Bad for, pick one: the economy, the employees, the passengers, global warming, ED, whatever.

I'm listening to industry experts, economic experts, transportation experts and, of course, politicians blather on and on about how BAD this merger will be for ______. It’s amazing to me how so many allegedly intelligent people can sound so dumb. One of two things, either many of these experts are really dumb or they’re being paid to be dumb. That is, someone with a special interest is paying them to pitch a viewpoint. I’d like to think it’s the latter, because if there really are that many people roaming around being paid mega bucks to be an “expert” or being paid mega bucks to be in office (yeah, I really believe most public servants make a lot of money to think a certain way) who really are as dumb as they sound then we really are all doomed. “Doomed, as doomed as doomed can be”.

I don’t know much, but let me tell you what I do know. Any space, once void, will be filled. I’ve watched this phenomenon happen over and over again in the technology world. Two giant companies will merge, the “experts” will predict doom for the customers and low and behold some new startup will come along and offer a better solution, with better service for a better price.

Happens every time. Will happen again this time.

Just shoot me

There's something intrinsically therapeutic about choosing to spend your time in a wide, open park- like setting that non-golfers can never truly understand. Charles Rosin

I try to keep this site as neutral as possible when it comes to race, religion, sexual preference or gender. However, the first part of this one will speak primarily to men. Others will have to derive their own analogy to fit.

I love to play golf but when it comes to watching golf I limit it mainly to The Masters, The British Open, and any tournament played on a course I’ve been privileged enough to have played. Otherwise I use golf like baseball, for napping.

While watching The Masters my dear wife decided to become interested in competitive, televised golf….for an hour. “Who’s ahead?”, “Where’s Tiger?”, “Why is -2 better than +2?”, “Why is that guy spending so much time looking at his ball?”, “This is stupid!”.

*sigh*

I know, I know. What a great opportunity to interest your wife in one of your hobbies, to spend some time together explaining something you understand to someone who doesn’t, yada yada. The great thing about watching golf is you don’t have to actually watch it, you can sort of hang around doing other things (like writing this blog). So when someone asks you a detailed question about something they just observed on the TV there’s a good chance your answer is “Uh, what?” Then they try to explain what they saw, but without being able to interpret it correctly and then, the whole conversation becomes a stressed, tense, marital experience. So much for a relaxing weekend afternoon.

That was Saturday. Today, on Masters Sunday, I’m going to put this damned PC away, we’re going to cook food together, have our kids over for dinner, and I’m going to watch The Masters with my wife instead of in spite of her.

You see, resistance to concentrating time and attention at home will directly correspond to the same trait at work with colleagues. Both are wrong and both are risky.

Rolodex Man

“Actions lie louder than words.” Carolyn Wells

I was helping a friend and ex-colleague by being a professional reference for a potential new employer. At least I hope I was helping.

Anyway, he finished First Runner Up to a person who “had a better Rolodex” in the area of M&A (Mergers and Acquisitions). Interesting this person who scored the job came from a company that had just filed for Chapter 7. That is, they went bankrupt. Seems to me a person with a great M&A rolodex could have brokered a deal to sell the company and prevent the doors from closing. I’m sure there’s more to the story, but it makes you go “Hmmmm”.

Having a rolodex is a funny term, especially since most people under the age of 50 have probably never used, hell, seen one. But the meaning is clear. It’s someone who knows and has the ability to contact large numbers of people who can help move business.

For me it’s also become a giant flashing yellow light. It has been my experience that anyone who touts their rolodex is immediately suspect. This is because I have been disappointed and frustrated multiple times by these alleged rainmakers.

In my “You can’t fix stupid” blog from January 11th I refer to a situation I was in that couldn’t be fixed. My big flashing light that I saw, understood, but continued to try to fix, was when given two choices for a head of sales the owner took the name-dropping, rolodex-waving, flashy young dude whose reference list included a relative and a girl friend over the understated, highly professional, middle-aged person whose reference list included a collection of C-level people who bought millions of dollars from him over the years but without any recognized names.

I, of all people, value a great network but only when it includes real people not just names and numbers.

Hiring people is the most critically important yet most neglected part of running a business. Good ones make you rich and successful and bad ones make you poor and bitter. Yet we choose people with less intensity than we pick fruit at a market.

I recently read a Fortune Magazine article about Target Corporation and how the CEO personally interviews the people in the top 600 positions of the company. Any way you do the math that is a large chuck of time. But maybe there’s reasons they’re one of the most successful companies around.