Talent vs. Skill

June 24, 2015 Lindsey

Original photo from Death To The Stock Photo.

Talent is something you’re born with. Skill is something you refine.

I watched Brittany Allen perform last night on America’s Got Talent.

She was the perfect example of inherent talent. But she didn’t demonstrate refined skill in her performance.

It seemed like she lacked the 10,000 hours Macklemore talked about. You know, those 10,000 hours that ensure mastery of a skill.

If you read James Altucher’s post Snoop Dog for CEO of Twitter from this past This Week's Gold, you may have noticed mastery was a theme. In fact, Point F showed how Snoop understood the difference between talent and skill. It seems like all the greats do. They all inherently had talent, but the greats were great because of their skill.

The skilled are the champs.

Though Brittany Allen got by last night on her talent alone, we may not be so lucky. Let’s refine our talents. Let’s put those 10,000 hours in.

We already have talent. Let’s get skilled.

The Way To Get Things Done

June 22, 2015 Lindsey

We hold tasks a little too close to our chest, don't we?

Maybe we want them done our way. Or maybe we think no one else can complete them as perfectly as we can. Maybe we don't want to impose on others and so we'd rather do it ourselves. Maybe we want all the responsibility because we want the potential glory. Or maybe we fear if we give tasks to others, we'll make ourselves obsolete.

All of these are flawed. We get stuff done and avoid burn-out by delegating. We serve others by including them and giving away the credit. We won't be obsolete because we will always have value to give to the world.

Let's get stuff done by including others. And let's serve them with the credit due in the process.

If you're looking for more business quotes, I've found some good ones on this BrainyQuote page.

This Week's Gold

June 20, 2015 Lindsey

Original photo from Kaboompics.

This Week's Gold is a curated collection of fresh gold I pick up as I travel around the Internet each week. I share it to help you create a healthy business and life. You can follow via Feedly (simply add tobusinessowners.com to your feed) to ensure you don't miss out on any gold.

THIS WEEK'S GOLD:

Jackie Barretta kicks some pervasive leadership myths off their pedestals in Primal Teams: Defying The Modern Myths Of Business Leadership. I love how she implicitly calls leadership back to viewing employees as people instead of as a means to an end.
Online sales can be such an excellent revenue stream for small businesses. 5 Easy Steps to More Sales From Your Website by Graham Jones offers some excellent tips on increasing sales. I highly value points 1 & 3 when I buy.
Snoop Dog For CEO of Twitter. Here's Why: by James Altucher. 'Nough said.
It's foolishness to think we can do it all on our own. Danny Brown hammers home this beautiful truth in Want Success? Make it About the Team - Always.

Have a wonderful weekend appreciating others and celebrating life!

An Interview With The Hairsmiths

June 19, 2015 Lindsey

I am so thankful and excited to share this interview with you today. I got to virtually interview The Hairsmiths - a husband-and-wife barber team in Carlisle, PA - who are also my aunt and uncle. Their names are Bernie and Carol Smith - so obviously The Hairsmiths is an awesome business name.

When I was young, we would take the 2-hour journey to visit them. I remember asking about the barber pole out front, getting my hair cut off and overhearing discussions about how I hated to bath (which my aunt reassured my mom that that would change - and oh, it has). I remember learning about plants (my aunt has a superior green thumb), laughing with family (even when I was too young to understand the jokes) and eating incredible brownies (a love of sugar is in my genes).

Overall, their humility has floored me. They keep their business going, but always have time for family. They’re amazing people and I hope you enjoy gleaning wisdom and getting to know them through this interview.

Here goes:

How many years have you run your own business?

We have been in business together for forty years and married for forty-one years. We have been partners in all senses of the word for forty-one years. After a year of marriage, Bernie realized he wanted to get out of the army to start a business of his own. So we did an inventory of our strengths and weaknesses, what we liked to do and what we didn't want to do.

What has been the most valuable lesson you've learned in that time?

One of the big lessons, we have learned starting our own business, is not to be discouraged by people telling you it can't be done. Welcome positive advice but take negative comments with a grain of salt. It's amazing how many people will try to discourage you, from making positive changes in your life, with gloom and doom stories or comments.

What is something I'd be surprised to know about your experience in business?

You may or may not be surprised to know that neither one of us is too fond of social situations. Probably the biggest similarity between us is our shyness around other people. Sometimes after a busy day we are both exhausted from dealing with so many different personalities and want to be alone and regroup.

What was something that concerned you in business, but now feel like it wasn't worth the worry?

Failure was one thing we shouldn't have worried about. One does what one must to pay the bills.

Where did you find your motivation to stay in it when times were hard?

Motivation comes from having a goal to work toward. Our goal in life has always been to nurture our love for each other, our children and our grandchildren. It's not hard to get motivated when your labors help the ones you love have a better life.

They're so selflessly humble, right? I love how they use business as a tool to serve people in their lives instead of making business their lives. Your business doesn't have to consume you.

We can love and serve others with what we have. We just have to be careful not to make it about us.

Fighting the "Basic" Lie

June 17, 2015 Lindsey

Original photo by Ryan McGuire.

You’ve heard about being “basic” right? In the past month, I’ve seen both a random stranger and a good friend identify themselves as “basic”. And I hate it.

I get it. You have interests that are common with the majority, but who the heck wants to be identified as basic? It’s like saying, “Hi, I’m ordinary. There’s thousands of others like me. I’m a dime a dozen.” Of course, you’re not really saying that. But you’re admitting to some degree of it. And that’s heartbreaking.

I know being basic is a joke. I know I may be taking it too seriously. But it also falls into the category of stereotypes. You know - the mental constructs that allows for everything from off-handed comments about girls being basic the whole way to justifications for horrific racist actions.

It’s fine to joke. But it’s not fine to think of yourself or anyone else as basic.

Because if you really think you’re basic, then it’s hard to believe that you have something unique to offer the world. And you do. You are incredibly unique and the world needs what you have.

If you think you’re basic, not only do you not have to think you’re unique, you also don’t have to share your uniqueness. Thinking you're basic is a lie that binds you to keeping the world from knowing you in all your uniqueness.

It’s fine to love Starbucks, Taylor Swift and The Notebook. But it’s not fine to think you’re “basic”.

You're the rarest diamond. Don't hold back that sparkle by believing the lie that you're "basic".

There Is Always Opportunity

June 15, 2015 Lindsey

This is always true. It might not be the opportunity you're looking for. It might not be easy, but there is always opportunity.

Chaos makes us reactionary. For some, it incites fear and stress. It's understandable. We generally want comfort, reliability and predictability. Not chaos.

Yet, we don't need to scorn chaos. It holds opportunity. And opportunity holds hope for change. Hope for making something better.

It's hard to deny fear and stress when we're in chaos. But if we can step back and evaluate the situation, we may see an opportunity. Which can change everything.

This Week's Gold

June 13, 2015 Lindsey

Original photo from Life of Pix.

This Week's Gold is a curated collection of gold I pick up as I travel around the Internet each week. I share it to help you create a healthy business and life. You can follow via Feedly (simply add tobusinessowners.com to your feed) to ensure you don't miss out on any gold.

THIS WEEK'S GOLD:

Though I don't like it, I often find myself saying "What do you do?" when I meet people. I want to start using the alternative Danielle Yeager offers in Redefining the Question - "What do you do?"
I love how technology saves me some of my most precious resource. So naturally, I like Eyal Shinar's roundup of tech tools in Entrepreneurs And Small Businesses Thrive With These 5 Tech Tools. I'd never heard of #3, but it sounds awesome.
Speaking of time, Regina's 7 Epic Time Investments You Can Make In Your Business inspired ideas in me. It's hard to prioritize time for extra work, but her ideas seem worth it.
There is so much intro and background that would enrich Jay Mitlo's Helpless for you, but I'll leave it to stand on its own. If you want more info, explore his site. Either way, read it. So good.

Explore humility today. We (will always) have so much to learn.

Have an extraordinary weekend, friends!

A Simple Way To Revolutionize Your To-Do List

June 12, 2015 Lindsey

Original photo by Death to the Stock Photo.

Is your to-do list kind-of a pain?

Sure, it's nice to keep everything written down, organized and ready to be checked it off. But sometimes a to-do list can be overwhelming, boring or even feel pointless.

When my to-do list is long, I get overwhelmed. Then, I tend to procrastinate. Other times, my list isn’t even that long, but it bores me to have my day mapped out. Worse than that, sometimes when I look at my to-do list, I feel hopeless because I don’t know if the tasks will even make a difference in the big picture.

Then a few weeks ago, I was humbled and came back to what matters most - loving others. And I started to see my to-do list not as tasks I had to complete, but rather as opportunities to love others.

So this is the simple way to revolutionize your to-do list -

Write next to each task who you're loving through it.

When I’ve forced myself to write down who is loved by each task, I find that tasks that I didn’t think of as important to loving others actually are. Take doing laundry for example - having clean clothes of course loves others through my appearance (and lack of smelliness). But less obviously, having clean clothes in my closet means I can get dressed quicker and with less stress, which means I can spend more quality time with others.

If you are at odds with your to-do list, give it a try. It’s a simple fix that could revolutionize how you view your work.

Let's Talk: Managing Profit Margin for More Working Capital

June 10, 2015 Lindsey

Original photo by Death to the Stock Photo.

Disclaimer: I am not a financial advisor or accountant. This article is for informational purposes only. Please use the info at your discretion.

If you’re starting out your business and you're selling through every channel you can, you might be doing it wrong.

You know what profit margin (PM) is, right?

It’s especially important that you focus on the highest profit margin products when you're starting out and trying to grow your business.

You only have so much time and product. You have limited resources. You need to use them to get the biggest bang for your buck (and minute).

This is simple. It makes sense. But we get distracted by opportunities for cash. When you start out, not all selling is “good”. We get excited that people like our product and think we should take on every opportunity to make cash. But we shouldn’t (as Isa Seminega testified to in this post).

Let’s look at a real-life example (specifics modified/removed for privacy) -

My friend runs a business where she makes and sells handmade items. When she started out, she went through the traditional wholesale channels to sell her product. She went with the traditional pricing as well (without really looking at her numbers) - she marked up her product for about 2x what it cost her. And the wholesaler marked it up 2x what it costs them.

She also sells her items online for the full retail price (plus shipping), so she’s making about 4x her costs on those sales (as opposed to 2x the cost on wholesale).

In a fairly short time, my friend found that there was significant demand for her product. So much so that she is having a hard time keeping up with demand. Now she’s gotten into a terrible pinch where she barely has enough working capital to pour into the business in order to keep up with demand.

How did this happen? Simple - precious product and time was frittered away on very low PM wholesale accounts.

After looking at the numbers, my friend isn’t making 2x her cost on wholesale after all, because the cost only included the variable costs, not her overhead costs. In fact, she may have just been breaking even on some of it. Also, by continually selling most of her products through wholesale, she lost the opportunity to sell it online for the higher PM. It became a cycle where her lower PM wholesale accounts were tying up her product, which kept her from making enough working capital to keep up with demand.

She could have avoided some of this pinch by going with the highest PM sales channels to begin with. However, it may be that her wholesale accounts were the reason for her increased demand and so they’re not to be vilified. The numbers should have simply been hammered out before setting the wholesale price to ensure she had enough working capital to keep up with and grow her business.

It may not always be as simple as cutting the low PM sales and focusing on the high ones. There are other factors to take into account - maybe you want to give some work away because there’s a decent chance you’ll get repeat business from it, maybe you have some accounts that depend on lower PM services, maybe the only way to get a higher PM right now is to sacrifice quality (and that’s not something you’re willing to do).

The bottom line is, you need to pay attention to your profit margin.

If not, you can get pinched for working capital and when that happens, the life-size Jenga that is your business can become unfortunately unstable. Not to worry though, because now that you know this, you can start making changes now to sure up your business for the long haul.

I'm so glad each moment is new, aren't you?

The Marriage of Rank & Responsibility

June 8, 2015 Lindsey

I have been a fool when I have wanted to be the leader so things could be done my way. Because the only power you receive when you lead is to serve.

When I was a child, I heard phrases like "because I said so" and "when you're grown up you can do it how you want". Instead of learning in humble wisdom, my thoughts rebelled, "yeah, I'll do it MY way when I'm grown."

I've had many experiences since where I thought my way was better, but I was forced to submit to those in charge. All this welled up in me to create a desire for leadership so I could do things MY way. So foolish.

Because leadership isn't a place to impose our ideas and rule on others. Leadership is responsibility to serve others and look out for their best interests. The best leaders get this. And I hope we're like them.

Let's not be foolish enough to try to divorce rank and responsibility. They're meant for each other.

Oh and if you're looking for more motivational, leadership and business quotes, you can check out my pinterest board of curated quotes below -

Follow Lindsey's board Business Quotes on Pinterest.

To: Business Owners

THIS WEEK'S GOLD:

Have a wonderful weekend appreciating others and celebrating life!

Here goes:

THIS WEEK'S GOLD:

Explore humility today. We (will always) have so much to learn.

Have an extraordinary weekend, friends!

So this is the simple way to revolutionize your to-do list -

Let’s look at a real-life example (specifics modified/removed for privacy) -