Communicating your core. Are you neglecting your center?

Sun Diagram Credit: http://burro.astr.cwru.edu/stu/advanced/archive_curevnt_2005.html

Behaviors are surface. So much of what we do deals with behaviors. We want behavior modification for our employees. We try to incentivize the right behaviors. You have good behavior. I have bad behavior. The trouble with behavior is that, by the time you see a behavior you don't like, things have been changing for that person long ago and deep within themselves. Behaviors sit on the surface.

Values are core. Behaviors are like solar winds. They are the last things thrown off by the nuclear reaction in a star. In that star's core is the reaction that generates the heat, the gravity, the energy the light. So what's at your core? What generates the heat and light in your life that radiates into the world around you?

Finding your core. Go somewhere quietly and write down why you are in business.The easiest way to keep digging is to keep asking yourself "Why?"

Why am I in business? To make money.

Why do I want to make money? To get a great car.

Why do I want a great car? Because it makes me feel good.

Why does the great car make me feel good? Because people notice me.

Why do I want people to notice me? Because I like the attention.

Why do I like the attention? Because it makes me feel valuable.

Why do I need to feel valuable? Because I want my life to matter.

Why do should my life matter? Because…

See how you get to some interesting places? It works on business initiatives, too. Just substitute "How?" for "Why?"

Why are we in business? To make money.

How do you make money? We sell apples.

How do you make money selling apples? We charge more than it costs to grow them.

How do you get to charge more? We sell direct to the customers who visit.

How do you get customers to visit? We advertise, promote in the media, and post social media to convince customers to visit.

How do you convince them? We offer a premium product.

How do you prove it's premium? We…..

See how using this strategy allows you to blast some assumptions? This leads you past "we always have done it", "people have just been coming for years", "Word of mouth is all that works", "Everyone knows that we (fill in the blank)" - insert any assumption you are making and eventually you'll work your way to the core of the problem which is, What is your core?

I can't answer this for you. It's your core. You alone can plumb the depths of your being to determine the value, the purpose you bring to the world each and every day. I can tell you it is likely that not enough people know your core and your business' core. I'm sure you don't communicate it often enough.

Why it matters. Neglecting your core has a number of unintended consequences.

For you. Neglecting your core leads to frustrating days when you are really busy and don't feel like you've gotten anything done. (Ever have one of those?!) When this happens to me, typically, I was not focusing on the right activities, even though I was doing tasks. I wasn't moving forward the greater purpose of my life. Even accounting (the bane of my existence), has meaning when framed in the purpose of providing for my family, our family of operators and caring for guests.

For your employees. You job is to be successful in your business so the bills get paid, employees payroll checks clear and the business moves forward to a happy future. When you start neglecting your core, a number of things start going wrong. You start doing jobs you shouldn't be doing. Are you doing minimum wage jobs? Jobs teenagers can do? You are stealing from the company and you'll start getting frustrated because, the bathroom needs cleaned, but that's not your core responsibility. You have to stop and look around, metaphorically, to see if you are really focusing on the core of the business.

For your guests. No one can care for your guests like you do. One of your core values likely is (approximately) providing an environment of wonder for your guests so they can't help but talk about your business. If you drift from this core value, your guests will notice. Make sure you are on the front line, not necessarily the front register, of greeting and ensuring your guests are well cared for.

At the Fun Park, our core is a mantra: Make people happy. Three little words my teenagers have memorized before orientation is over, yet everything they do, we do, we train them to do gets filtered through it. It is our core.

What's at your core? Take some time to thoughtfully consider it between now and the new year. You'll find a whole lot more motivation in this one exercise then in a thousand New Year's Resolutions.

Resolutions typically have to do with behaviors, but behaviors are just on the surface.What matters more, what motivates more is what's in the center.

Merry Christmas to all and to all a great week.

Hugh

See Maize Quest's attractions for entertainment farms at:

www.MazeCatalog.com

Vulnerability makes a stronger connection, than strength.

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Vulnerability makes a stronger connection, than strength. A different thought is circulating in the marketing world, but one you might have noticed some in the local food movement already use: Marketing your vulnerability. I see this as an offshoot of marketing with authenticity, or just being authentic; just being yourself. (This was inspired by an article I could not find again, but this article is a good connection to vulnerability marketing connections.) Spotlighting your vulnerabilities takes courage,but there are a few specific reasons why it can be effective for small business owners like us. 

You are authentically are vulnerable. The most important thing to remember is that you are vulnerable. No business is a fortress. No business can exist without customers. Mother nature can turn on a dime and leave successful operators wondering what happened. 

Empathy builder. Sharing your honest concerns for your crops with your customers, all in good measure, helps them relate to you. It connects them to you and activates empathy within them. That empathy, a very regular human emotion, is not accessed by "We're the best!" marketing messages. It's a personal connection through pictures of frost-bitten blossoms and apples fallen to the ground.

It's hard to be Superman and everyone knows you're Clark. I know this because for years I was on the by-the-book, everything's-great-here, we're-the-best-all-the-time-at-everything marketing plan. It's so hard to keep trolling out the superlatives, awesome, great, something for everyone, best-ever-and-ever-and-ever again(!). Seriously, nobody's buying it. They all know your secret identity as a real person. 

Social media allows you to tell your story.Social media also encourages it. The people who "Like" your business have asked for a closer look into your business. They can hear your ad on the radio, but they connected to hear your story. Facebook & Twitter are built to allow you to share pictures, joys, disasters, worries, successes all with a click of your smartphone. The platform s there. You just have to commit to using it to connect. 

How to appropriately connect. You can take this too far. No one is interested in your bad-mouthing the weather, complaining about every circumstance or belittling troublesome employees.(If that's really a rut you get into, please adjust your "authentic self" for the sake of your business and lighten up.) 

Go for balance. Stay positive 13/16ths of the time and add in a real, true vulnerable moment. 

Use pictures. Don't complain about the weather, show the snow and explain what it means, good or bad, for the crop. 

Education & empathy. Use the posts to tell the story of the plant, the crop, the people. In short, educate your customers with these authentic moments in farming. 

What a relief. Isn't it nice to know that you don't have to be perfect any more? It was such a relief to me because I was failing miserably at perfection. The world ain't perfect. Your customers ain't perfect and, thankfully, you don't have to be. You have to be positive, but not perfect. 

Share your vulnerabilities every now a then and let people know the real you and the real story of your family's farm. People are desperate for something real in an age of posers and politicians. 

Have a great week,

Hugh

PS Registration is open for NAFDMA (North American Farmers Direct Marketing) Conference! This has been my favorite place to meet folks doing pick-your-own, pumpkin patches, corn mazes just generally fun folks who do what we do. It's Feb 1-6, 2013 in Portland, OR. I'm leading one of the Bus Tours, the "TechnoBus"- it''s a workshop on wheels where we explore the world of social media and technology in a quest for customer connections. You can see the Bus Tour destinations here.

 

1-866-935-6738 ext 102

hughmc@cornmaze.com

Activation Energy. What do you want to activate?

One of the most important ideas in "The Happiness Advantage" is the idea of Activation Energy. The goal is to reduce the amount of energy it takes to do the right thing and increase the amount of energy it takes to do the wrong thing. Simple as that, but how do you really do it?

Choose what you want to do. The key to developing any change or progress is to identify the thing you want; the way you want things to be. Write down you goal. It might be to quit smoking, make more sales calls or follow a stricter spray schedule and reporting plan. Whatever it is, write down the ultimate goal.

Example: I want to have easy reporting with my fruit buyers by having all my spray schedules up to date right when I need them. 

Choose what you no longer wish to do. Write down what you reject. I hate having my spray schedules and information missing, incomplete or disorganized. It makes me so mad I could spit!

Change the activation energy for your goal. You need to purposely reduce the energy it takes to do the right thing. Often this is as simple as developing a system that can basically run itself. You could printout the most likely sprays you will apply with blanks below so all you have to do is fill in the date you apply them. Make it as easy as circling what you applied and writing the date. Then, add a clipboard with a compartment to your spray shed to hold all the information. Add one day on your calendar per month where you do nothing but spray schedule organization from 3pm-5pm on a Thursday afternoon.

Increase the energy it takes to do things wrong. Label the loading dock and tractor cab with a P-Touch machine reminding you to fill in the paperwork. Ask your field consultant to check your docs when they arrive, so you will be letting someone else down if you fail to do your organizing.

Do you see the structure? What could you reorganize to reduce the activation energy for good?

Practical examples:

Want to give up your Crackberry? Plug it in to charge in your car, locked in the garage at 6PM when you get home.

Want to workout in the morning? Set out your shoes, preload the DVD and fill a water bottle.

Want to make more calls? Take a morning to organize your list, set up your post voicemail emails, script what you want to say, so you can just fire away without thinking.

Want to get to the farmer's market earlier? Preload the truck the night before, or at least preload the pallet, so you roll in and roll out without a hassle.

How about on the negative side? How can you increase the effort to make the wrong moves during your day?

Want to lose weight? Pack a lunch and elimate unhealthy snacks in the office - pack a water bottle!

Want to quit smoking? Stop hanging out with smokers (and utilize other more medical means as directed by your doctor to replace the social and phsyical responses to "smoke time")

Want to avoid distractions? Make your email check for new messages only once an hour.  Put your phone on Do Not Disturb for 2 hours while you work on an important project. 

Want to stop thinking so hard when you go to the store? Make a shopping list of your most often purchased 40 items, by aisle, and hit "PRINT". Don't even waste your brain on the things that don't take brain power. 

Did you know that making lists is the original activation energy technique? If you write out what you have to do you don't have to keep thinking to remember it. It's very easy to get started.

The question is what do you want to activate? What do you want to suppress?

Think about it and have a great week.

Hugh

Business Model Challenge for Farmers

So often I think we forget that our farms are really businesses. Just like other businesses selling widgets, the rules of the market apply to us! Here is an exercise to help you think of the way your farm does business and interacts with vendors, suppliers and cusomters in your market.

 

I've included a picture attachment so you can printout the Business Canvas described. See what you come up with!

-Hugh

BLANK Template: 

 

EXAMPLE Template: 

The Rest of the Speech from Steve Jobs.

Are you living someone else's life?

Are you living someone else's life? Often we are living in our lives in the constructs given to us by our parents, our situation, our friends, or our education. Later in life, we join social or working groups and, as is natural, we begin to meld our views with the group view as part of the acclimation process.

Occasionally we must look beyond the constructs of our lives to see if there is a better way to live life before time passes us by. The only question is: Are you looking?

Parental Constructs. Throughout most of our developmental lives we are most influenced by our parents. This has profound effects on the way we view the world. Who were your parents? How did they view money, God, life, other people, alcohol, school? Part of our teenage years is spent rebelling to find our own way, but our parents worldview remains and often pervades our current lives.

For instance, if you grew up on a farm with farm parents you probably found yourself in routine debt to FSA, the bank, land mortgages and often in risk if weather patterns didn't work out in your favor. This can lead to a number of outcomes. Maybe you fled the farm feeling more risk averse and spend your life preparing for financial Armageddon. Maybe you run bad debts too, figuring that's just the way business is done. Maybe you became an accountant to cope with the stress through understanding the system. 

Any and all of these outcomes are possible, even probable, simply because they are the life we have lived and are living. We may have built up cloaking systems to hide the reality or coping systems to mitigate the negatives, to 'get by', but still the underlying system is there running our lives like a silent autopilot. 

Relationship constructs. Even more subtle is the way we interact with the people we love with our families, our children, our significant others. My guess is that, outside of traumatic event, you haven't thought about the way you interact on a daily basis with your spouse, your kids. You just do it. Did you grow up with a father who yelled until he left for the barn? A mother who never hugged you? Grades were never important as long as you baled enough hay? A Tiger Mom who berated your smallest misstep? A hovering Dad who wouldn't let you climb the monkey bars because it was too dangerous? 

There are countless other examples that have likely crept into your life and you now implement in your own life. You might be overprotective, too. You might throw caution to the wind because you rebel against overprotectiveness. Either way, you are leading someone else's life. You might be following a family pattern of divorce and you might be clinging to your marriage to 'never let it happen to you.' It's still someone else's life.

How to make your own life. 

Step 1: Stop. Put your life on hold for just a few precious hours and look at it from the outside. In practice, you need to segment your life and look at each segment in stages. Space these out over time. You simply can't affect change on too many 'fronts' at once.

Step 2: Wave your magic wand. After seeing the way things truly are, and I mean brutal honesty, I like to wave my magic wand. "If I had a magic wand and could have things change instantly, how would they look? What would that be like?"

Step 3: Write down the ideal situation. If nothing else comes of the process, but you write down the ideal situation you are ahead of 95% of the world. These aren't goals in the classic sense, but all goal setting rules apply.

Step 4: Take one action per day. We've heard the quotes "Begun is half done." "Journey of a thousands miles begins with the first step." News Flash: It's true. Just do one thing per day towards that one goal.

Examples, because I know this is a bit ethereal.

1. Master Charge. A number of years ago I started another business with a partner. We were both young and back then financing was tight. His solution was get a Discover card with a big balance and charge happily away. I either didn't know any better or didn't have any better ideas, so away we went. This isn't your classic tale of credit card financing. The business did well, but that heavy usage of credit cards slowly over years seeped into the rest of my life. After a while I had credit cards with high limits personally. On one rainy October weekend, I realized that I had some big balances and light attendance and it hit me that I was living someone else's life. My partner's usage of cards had permeated my own financial system. I had to stop, reassess how I wanted things to be and make a change.

2. You are fat and your wife deserves better. Many of you have followed this example over the past three years. I came to realize that my body, energy and health were out of whack. I felt bad, was eating junk food all the time, because we had a snack bar as many of you do and I had lost track of my relationship with my body. I was a high school varsity letterman in soccer and track, sang and danced in the Penn State Singing Lions and marched in the Blue Band. I had been in great shape, but the slippery slope of a candy bar here, extra slices of pizza there had caught up with me. It took the traumatic event of my mom's death to shake me free of the false reality I that slowly overtook me. That made me stop. I looked around at my wife and kids and thought, they deserved a better, healthier family leader. I found a program I liked and started on a road that, eventually, made me stronger, faster and leaner than I was in high school. (The programs I've used are P90X, Insanity, Rev Abs, Insanity: Asylum and P90X2, in case you are wondering.)

3. Pay yourself. In my family, the farm is its own entity; its own being. Everything you had was poured into it and everything it produced was returned to it. You lived as a temporal steward of it in hopes it would survive to be tended by the next generation. You most assuredly did not pay yourself. I grew up with depression era grandmother and aunt as our primary babysitters. My father unbelievably saved the farm from financial ruin at age 18 after the sudden death of my grandfather through will and determination. It was also through trauma and that much trauma leaves marks. It wasn't until, again trauma, my mom died grossly underinsured that I got the wake up call. Now we plan for insurance, savings, and a regular paycheck to stabilize our family and provide for the future. We look at the business as a tool to provide for the family unit, not the family to provide for the business unit.

4. A win is a win. We all start our business lives young, foolish and selfish. With dreams go 'big money', dollar signs in our eyes we chase every avenue to cash we can, or at least I did. I was so focused on my business in the early years I'd work late,  sleep in the office and do it all again the next day. The only 'win' was a bigger attendance or more clients. I read voraciously business and motivational books and, steeped in that world of grow, grow, grow, I valued only another sale. It was the only win for me, but it really was someone else's life. I was trying to live the ideal life fabricated from all those books put together. The world was to be my oyster and I was the center of it.

Then I got married - trauma. Then I had kids - trauma. Then that 'success by the dollar' stuff seemed to tarnish. I had to stop and rethink, if I could wave my magic wand, what would life look like now? I had to reboot, reset, reevaluate. Now, going home early to run the kids to swim lessons isn't a distraction, but a win. Lunch with my wife - win. New client - win. Extra choir rehearsals for Easter - win. How wonderfully freeing when everything in life AND business becomes, not a distraction, but a win.

Why do I share all of this? Because I spent years in different segments of my life living other people's lives instead of my own. Some situations were learned, some forced, some just happened over time, but they weren't who I really wanted to be.

• Do I want to get up at 530AM EVERY day? No, I want to be healthy.
• Do I want a new car every year? Yes, but I'd rather be financially secure.
• Do I want our business to be successful? Yes, but I want to be a good husband and father along the way.
• Do I still plow profits back into our business? Yes, more than most do, but I finally understand that the business is part of my life, not the sole focus.

I want this for you this week:

1. Stop.
2. Evaluate and wave your magic wand in just one area of your life, pick something important.
3. Write down the ideal situation.
4. Take just one action a day towards that end each day of the next week.

Steve Jobs said, "Your time is limited. Don't waste it living someone else's life."

See what happens as you pause to examine the constructs that have crept into your life. I dare you.

Have a great week.

Hugh

 

Your kid vs. Superkid.

This is a competitive world. No matter who you are or where you are in your stage of life or your business. There always seems to be someone better than you, better than your business, better than your kid. Looking left and right you can always find prettier, faster, smarter, better, richer and wiser. Looking in the mirror you can always find reasons to be disappointed because you are not, as Andy Stanley puts it, more "-er" than the next guy and the next guy's kid.

Typically this is because we manufacture not just any kid to compare our children with, but we invent a Superkid. All these comparisons prevent us from enjoying life, our businesses and even our kids.

Ambition. We would not be in business if we were not ambitious. Likely, it is in our blood and family mythology. My Grandfather Hugh, who died when my father was 18 years old, was that mythological figure in our family. He grew his farm to a size not before seen in the area, had the first mechanical combine and was considered an innovator in the industry which, at the time, was the potato business. He was ambitious and I always sought that acclaim as well.

Ambition is a good thing. It drives innovation which creates jobs and products and livelihoods. Without the ambitious, I fully believe that America would not exist  and we'd likely be peasants serving a king somewhere. Ambition in society creates competition which inspires creativity on the positive side and envy on the negative side. Competition and ambition aren't bad, but the envious  byproduct is.

Envy. If you've ever secretly hoped that someone successful would fail, you have felt envy. Follow the path of your life and you see a pattern of envy creeping in everywhere. When you were young, you wanted your friends toys. (My friends had big TVs and Atari)When you were in school, you wished to be cooler, smarter and definitely more popular. (Me: D. All of the above.) When you were in college, well honestly, it was just high school with beer until it was time to get a job, then you had to get as many offers as your friends.

In work and business, it's bigger, better, faster, more. Then get married and your spouse, well, you probably secretly wished to be thinner, taller, smarter, better paid, more active etc. (Except for me because mine's the best already. Love you, honey!)

Your kids. Then came your kids. Once you have kids, you are welcomed into the world of parenthood by your family and community. It really is a magical time, but competition starts early, so be ready if you want to win.  (Pardon me if you are reading this without having, or yet having, or never having kids. I'll bring it back to business soon enough, just stick with me. If you don't have kids and you think you'd be any different than I am about to describe, you are delusional. I know because I was, too.)

Prenatal competition. Mom's hook earphones to their bellies in hopes of teaching baby Mozart in the womb. "Preggo" yoga. Mommy-to-be fitness classes. Read to your womb. Seriously I've just scratched the surface. (I'd love to hear some of the far out things you did or "have heard about a friend who did.." PLEASE post them on the blog or Facebook.)

When baby arrives, ring the school bell. Baby Einstein, anyone? $90million in sales. Baby sign language? Did it and my daughter's smarter than yours. Kindermusic? The boy just got  "4" on the report card! Preschool? Preschool prep school? Early to kindergarden? Summer Academy for 1st grade? Do you see where this is going? We seem desperate to advance our kids in the world at any cost. 

Enter the Superkid. Time goes on. Kids grow. Competition increases. We hide the way we push our kids by saying as Andy Stanely put it, "We just want them to reach their full potential", but really we want them to beat those other kids so we feel good about our parenting skills; so they will win one for the family. So to rationalize pushing them further and harder, we invent Superkid. 

You may not even know that you are doing it, but you are creating Superkid. Superkid gets his powers like this: We take the 5-10 of our kid's classmates, cherry-pick the best skill from each child and merge these best skills. Superkid is the best at everything because he represents the single best ability of 5-10 kids. We then proceed to hold our child up next to imaginary Superkid to compare and contrast. 

"Well you might have gotten a 95% on the spelling test, but Timmy got 100%." 

"You got an A in music, but Sally got an A in English." 

"You scored a goal in soccer, but Billy's on the travel team."

"Oh, you're in the Gifted program, nice but I heard Kyle is skipping 6th grade."

Now let's be honest, Kyle can't play soccer. Sally needs help with math. Billy can't spell and Timmy can't carry a tune in a bucket, but TOGETHER they merge to form Superkid: The unassailable-bastion-of-everything-awesome-that-would-really-help-us-feel-better-about-being-a-parent-as-I-live-vicariously-through-you! (Cue superkid's theme song)

How to defeat Superkid. Every Super Hero has a weakness and Superkid's is glaringly obvious: He doesn't exist. Just as we have had to come to terms with our own strengths and weaknesses, our own shortcomings and advantages, we must come to terms with those of our children. No one in the world is put together like you are. No one in the world is like your child. Super heroes are super because they are unlike anything else in the universe and each child is already uniquely their own little person. Superkid's real power is mind control over adults who, despite rational understanding and self-control, perpetuate the idea of Superkid as "real".

SuperBizKid. We do this in our businesses every day. We wake up and should look forward to another day serving our customers, doing what only we can uniquely do. Instead we wake up in fear of SuperBizKid. We take the best of our closest 5 competitors and we mentally merge them into one being, so powerful we could never survive.

We start thinking of all the ways in which we fall short of Jones' berries, Smiths' sweet corn, Carolyn's school tours and Jerry's corn maze. Why, in the face of all that, one look in the mirror tells us we just don't measure up.

How to defeat SuperBizKid. The first chink in the armor of SuperBizKid is that our internal feelings are universal. Everyone feels like this! Carolyn wishes she grew corn like Smith, Jerry can't grow berries, Jones is scared of talking to kids and Smith is navigationally challenged.

In agritourism, more than any other industry we can each focus on our primary area of interest, mix in our special mix of all the unique things that make us who we are, add a heaping helping of hard work and be successful. 

Is your mindset fixed or flexible? Going around the circles of literature these days is the idea of "Fixed" vs. "Flexible" views of the world. Kids are a great example. Is a child's I.Q. and ability to be successful fixed at birth or flexible to grow throughout life? 

Fixed. Fixed mindset says, "You get what you get. If you are smart, you were lucky to get it at birth." In studies, kids told they were "smart", or given a fixed mindset, were less likely to try difficult problems they didn't know how to solve because they were worried about using the designation of "smart".

Flexible. The flexible mindset says, "Growth and learning are a process. You make mistakes along the way, but that's part of learning to get better." Kids told they were "hard workers", excelled in solving tough problems because they weren't wrapped up in losing their "title" of "smart". Making mistakes is part of the process.

Being a Superkid. Let's face it: We all want to be Superkids. We all want the best for our families and businesses and we sure do like to win. Being a Superkid takes a lot of hard work, persistence, patience and a willingness to permit failure. If we want tough, resilient kids, we have to allow them to fail, stick by them, dust them off and put them back in the game or classroom to try again. We also must allow them to be the unique conglomeration of strengths and weaknesses they are without the pressure of living up to a fantasy Superkid.

It's the same in your business. Be that magical, unique amalgamation of strengths and weaknesses that only you can be. Fail early and often. Pick yourself back up and do it again. Focus on being hardworking and persistent, so you don't have to be "smart'". Be flexible and treat your business experiences as a ongoing journey towards mastery. That's how to be truly super, and you can be sure your kids are paying close attention to what you do and how you do it. 

My son recently asked, "Daddy why do you have to travel so much." 

I answered, "Because I'm building our business." 

He asked, "Isn't your business big enough already?"

Don't let competition with Superkid devalue the wonderful life you already lead. Fight the desire to push your kids to compete with Superkid and simply enjoy their individual life-learning adventure. Squeeze great pleasure from serving the customers you have really, really well. Stay ambitious, but keep gratitude in your heart for each blessing that has already been bestowed.

You've already got Superkids. Do you really know them?

Have a great week.

Hugh

Pour out your cup.

It's your job to pour out your cup of knowledge, to share what your have learned, into the cups of other people. It's not your job to fill their cups and you are not responsible for what they do after you've poured, you are just responsible to pour yours out.

It's convention season and I love it. It's a time, at Maize Quest, when we get together with our operators at the Maze Master Summit. We share ideas, network, introduce our clients to each other and host guest speakers to enrich our business lives with new, fresh information. It's a wonderful time.

Over the past few weeks I've caught the 'bug' of this rich information sharing as I've called to touch base and personally invite our clients to the Summit. Our operators have had such a wide and varied set of experience, just in one year, that we started collecting pictures and stories for our "My Best Idea" segment of the Summit.

Pour out your cup. I came across this idea somewhere, probably on a Podcast. It's the idea that it is our responsibility to share, give, help and care for other people.

That's nice and mushy, touchy-feely-blah-blah-blah, but I really liked the second part of the thought: It's not your responsibility to fill their cups, it's just your responsibility to pour.

It's as if the mere act of sharing, of pouring, creates the benefit to you. Most of us can relate to a situation in which we gave our time or talents to an organization or group of people and came away feeling richer for the experience. You didn't solve all the group's problems that day, but you received intrinsic benefits just the same.

Let's face it: We've all been on receivers from great people who willingly share their knowledge. We've all gotten a great idea from someone else, snagged a marketing tip and added a product after learning from someone else who sold it. We all owe a debt to the greater universe for some part of our current success. Pour away! Share your knowledge! Add to the conversation. More is more!

Giver or receiver. Being on the pouring side of the equation is just part of concept. While I believe you will receive benefit from pouring, we all benefit from receiving; receiving knowledge, ideas, feedback, understanding and a sense of community. Remember the responsibility for filling your cup, rests squarely with you as well. Chances are that you can't fill your cup from a single source, so you must actively seek new sources. You must, in this situation, be an active giver and an active receiver.

Why we go to conventions. When it comes to sharing information, we, as direct marketers, have limited options on a daily basis. We are distributed across the globe, but conventions bring us together. Where else can you go to a meeting and come away with multiple $1,000 ideas?! I know I'll have my travel budget paid for before the end of the Bus Tour.

This big reason I enjoy conventions, NAFDMA and the Maze Master Summit being my favs, is that I enjoy the company of people who understand. People who understand my business, face similar challenges and have successes they want to share. Sure, I do my share of pouring, but its the refilling of my cup from so many varied sources that fires me up for another year of hard work.

So, what do you get out of your off-season? Do you have a plan for rejuvenation through kindred spirits sharing failures and victories? I'll be at NAFDMA and hosting the Maze Master Summit for our operators. I certainly hope you avail yourself this opportunity.

It's your responsibility to pour out your cup for the benefit of others, but luckily the pressure's off - you are not responsible for filling anyone else's cup but your own.

Have a great week,

Hugh

PS Drop me a line if you're heading to NAFDMA! We're launching our newest game there - think technology + corn maze...

You are the pancreas.

You are the pancreas. Many of us feel like we are the "brains" of this operation or maybe you're the "heart" of the business or maybe you're the "lifeblood" of your business, but it is much more likely that you are, or need to be, the pancreas.

 

Dear friends of mine have a child with diabetes. This has given me a much deeper insight into the role and function of the lowly pancreas. I also have enjoyed with my children some great books called the Organ Wise Guys and recommend them to you as well. http://www.organwiseguys.com/ 

In reading about the body from a child's perspective, I've come to associate people in our business with organs of the body. It's weird, I know, but you already knew that about me, so stick with me and I'll explain more about the "Internal Organs of Your Business."

 

The true "brains" of the operation always seems to me to need to be a cold calculating mass of gray matter. The brains of the operation can't be swayed one where the other by emotions and thus is the perfect analysis machine. Being the brains of the operation sure does sound like a great job unfortunately no matter how good the brain of the operation is if you can't get along with other people and manage the feelings of people and acknowledge the existence of peoples' feelings the "brain" will be unsuccessful.

 

Many of us feel like the "heart" of the operation the person who keeps everyone going no matter what concerned with feelings paying attention to how everyone's doing monitoring their emotions this is the job of the heart of the operation. Just as in your own body the heart of the operation is however quite vulnerable because the heart of the operation cares so deeply about the feelings of other people. Sometimes the heart can be swayed by the desire to make people feel better at any cost.

 

Maybe you'd rather be the "life blood" of the organization. That sounds important. You keep things flowing. You eliminate waste and refresh with oxygen, invigorating you business. The Life-blood is a very useful part of the system, but it doesn't really produce anything by itself. It needs the other parts to get anything done.

 

Which brings us to you, the pancreas. The lowly pancreas. Not much glamour there. No one ever says, "Your words cut me to the pancreas" or "I really put my whole pancreas into that project." No, the pancreas doesn't get much glory, but you are the pancreas. What your pancreas does, however, is so vitally important it really should get a more royal treatment. The pancreas is the body's regulator and without it, none of the other systems works correctly.

 

The pancreas' management of insulin and blood sugar levels is critical to your body's proper functioning.  As your body increases its demand for energy because of activity the pancreas must allow that energy to flow by reducing the quantity of insulin. You often have to stoke the fire of your organization. You have to free the flow of energy. 

Sometimes you have to provide the energy. That's what most of us think of when we meet a motivating person. That person, sometimes you, brings energy to the event, the room, the meeting or to the work day. Often, however, it is just as key to free the flow of energy from other people. Do you have oppressive paperwork? Dower bosses? Restrictive policies? These can all restrict the flow of energy from other people in your organization and it's your job to free them.

The energy regulator. Conversely, when a rush of sugar hits the body and the activity level does not require that energy, the pancreas must slow things down by pumping insulin. Being the regulator is tough enough when you are "freeing energy" for the organization, but slowing it down can be disastrous if mismanaged. Likewise, NOT slowing the crazy sugar train can derail the business. 

What do I mean? Rapid expansion is a classic example. As your business grows from your success, from all that energy you've successfully released, the temptation to forecast "blue skies only" is huge. "Why not take that loan? At the rate we're growing, we can never be stopped!" 

Riiiiight. Anyone ridden that crazy train before? It's your job to regulate the energy, not stop it, regulate it. When the gift items are selling well, often someone wants to order any and all gift items because "you can sell anything" to your guests. A good pancreas will slow things down to make sure new items fit the style of the business and the needs of the customers.

Planning to be a good pancreas. When my friend's family travels, eats out, has a snack they plan for the coming carbohydrates by doing calculations, setting the insulin pump appropriately and sticking to the plan.

"Roller coasters rides" are bad for blood sugar and for business management. This is the time of year for planning. I often use the quote "A goal without a plan is a wish.", and the benefits of planning keep growing for me as I implement a stricter planning system. 

• When you have a plan you worry less. You don't need to constantly be thinking "What might happen if..", because you already did in your planning cycle. 
• When you have a plan, you spend less. You don't fall for ad reps peddling "Specials" or emails touting new monitors, because you already know you are getting new computer gear this year.
• When you have a plan, you manage people more effectively. If you've ever been a parent, you know the key to managing children is to be on the same page as your spouse, implement the same rules and present a unified front to the children's relentless attacks. You have to have a plan for your employees, too.

So this is the season to get your plans together. Make budgets. Write marketing plans. Lock in ad rates. Write your employee expectations. Set down with your spouse. Write it down. Why? If you can't commit to writing your plans down, can you really be committed enough to actually accomplishing your goals? In less than a month, you'll be too busy and you'll run another full year wishing you could achieve your goals.

You can probably spot some of the ways people in your business function like the internal organs of a body; the "Organs of Your Business." 

If you truly want to be the "life-blood" of your business, if you want to be the real "brains" of the outfit, if you want to be the "heart" of your operation, you need to be the best little pancreas you can possibly be.

Have a great planning week,

Hugh