Latest Event Updates
Are you Visionary or Insightful?
Having great ideas that go misunderstood or unvalidated is pointless, just as being great at “filling in the gaps” does little if what you are building achieves little toward your needs and goals. This post is about Dreaming Big and turning those dreams into actionable plans.
Let me preface this post by stating that both are important and complementary roles. But if you don’t recognize the difference between the two, it becomes much more challenging to execute and realize value/gain a competitive advantage.
The Visionary has great ideas but doesn’t always create plans or follow through on developing the idea. There are many reasons why this happens (distractions, new interests, frustration, lack of time), so it is good to be aware of that, as this type of person can benefit by being paired with people willing and able to understand a new idea or approach, and then take the next steps to flesh out a high-level plan to present that idea and potential benefits to key stakeholders. People may view them as aloof or unfocused.
The Insightful sees the potential in an idea, helps others understand the benefits and gain their support, and often creates and executes a plan to prototype and validate the idea – killing it off early if the anticipated goals are unachievable. They document these experiences, learn from them, and become increasingly proficient at validating the idea or approach and quantifying the potential benefits. They are usually very pragmatic.
Neither of these types of people is affected by loss aversion bias.
I find it amazing how often you hear someone referred to as a visionary, only to see that person could eliminate some of the noise and “see further down the road” than most people. While this skill is valuable, it is more akin to analytics and science than art. Insight usually comes from focus, understanding, intelligence, and being open-minded. Those qualities matter in both business and personal settings.
On the other hand, someone truly visionary looks beyond what is already illuminated and can, therefore, be detected or analyzed. It’s like a game of chess, where the visionary person thinks six or seven moves ahead. They connect the dots across various future possibilities while their competitor is still thinking about their next move.
Interestingly, this can be frustrating for everyone.
- The Visionary with an excellent idea may become frustrated because they feel an unmet need for understanding.
- The people around that visionary person become frustrated, wondering why that person can’t focus on what is important or why they fail to see/understand the big picture.
- Others view the visionary ideas and suggestions as tangential or irrelevant. It is only over time that the others understand what the visionary was trying to show them – often after a competitor has already begun implementing a similar idea.
- The Insightful, wanting to make a difference, can feel constrained in static environments, which offer little opportunity for change and improvement.
Both Insightful and Visionary people view themselves as strategic. Both believe they are doing the right thing. Both have similar goals. What’s truly ironic is that they may view each other as competitors rather than seeing the potential for collaboration.
A strong management team can boost creativity by fostering a culture of innovation and bringing these people together to work toward a common goal. Providing little time and resources to explore an idea can lead to remarkable outcomes. When I had my consulting company, I sometimes joked, “What would Google do?” to describe how amazing things were possible and waiting to be done.
The insightful person may see a payoff from their ideas sooner than the visionary person, because they focus on what is already in front of them. It may be a year or more before what the visionary person has described shifts to the mainstream and into the realm of insight – hopefully before it reaches the realm of common sense (or worse yet, is entirely passed by).
I recommend that people create a system to gather ideas, along with a description of the purpose, goals, and advantages of those ideas. Foster creativity and innovation by rewarding people for participation, regardless of what becomes of the idea. Review those ideas regularly and document your commentary. You will find good ideas with luck – some insightful and possibly even visionary.
Look for commonalities and trends to identify the people who can cut through the noise or see beyond the periphery and the areas having the greatest innovation potential. This approach will help drive your business to the next level.
You never know where the next good idea will come from. Efforts like these provide growth opportunities for people, products, and profits.
Investing in Others – Becoming a Mentor
I have been very fortunate throughout my career. There have been incredible opportunities, risks with big rewards, and lessons learned from mistakes and failures (e.g., one of the biggest early lessons is that most mistakes will not kill you, so you can find a way to recover from them). In hindsight, the people who saw something in me and invested in my career – my mentors – have been most valuable in shaping my career.
None of these people had to help me. It’s possible that they did so for their own benefit (i.e., the better I do my job, the easier it is for them), but I believe they were passing along a valuable gift. I was lucky to have received these gifts early in my career, as they have been invaluable both personally and professionally.
As a mentee, you may not recognize either the value of what you are receiving or the effort that has gone into providing that gift to you. You fully appreciate what others have done for you only years later.
In my first programming job, my manager (Jim) assigned me to work with various key people and would follow up to ask what I had learned. One day, he gave me my first project – something that was far above what a new programmer was tasked with. I was excited but anxious because I did not want to let my mentor down.
I only had six months of experience, and this was a big project for an important automotive customer (Subaru), the first fully customized customer loyalty coupon system for a major auto manufacturer in the late 1980s. It was a stretch for me, and the system had to be production-ready in six months.
Jim let me build it, checked daily at first to see if I had questions, and provided feedback and direction if I asked. Aside from that, he pretty much left me alone. He seemed more confident in my ability to succeed than I was at the time.
After two months, I thought I was finished. We reviewed everything, and Jim constructively picked apart my system, pointing out various flaws and discussing the logic and reasoning behind my decisions. We spent half a day on this exercise, and only years later did I realize he was helping me learn more than just validating the system design.
After another two months, we reviewed this system’s second iteration. He told me that while this version would work and would be acceptable from anyone else, I still had time remaining, and he was confident that I could do even better next time. He provided a couple of tips about high-level areas he focused on while designing and developing systems and left it at that.
When I returned with the third iteration of the system, he reviewed it, smiled, and said he could not have done it better himself. At first, I was proud to have completed my first independent project, but later I realized how much I had learned over those six months. This experience provided me with a lifelong benefit and the motivation to help others in a similar manner. My mentor was (and still is) a great leader!
As a manager, he had so many reasons not to give me the project, to just tell me what to do, and to not let me redo it (twice). From a short-term management perspective, what he did was wasteful. But, from a big-picture perspective, he was doing things that helped me create more value for the company for the 3-4 years I continued working there. The benefits outweighed the cost; Jim was wise enough to see that.
Several years ago, a young woman in Australia contacted me via LinkedIn, asking for suggestions on improving her skills to advance her career. I gave her many assignments over the course of a year, and she did amazing work. She advanced in her company, later relocated to another country, and then switched industries. She currently holds a high-level position and has been very successful. It made me feel good knowing that my efforts played a small part in her advancement.
From my perspective, it all comes down to how you view people and relationships. Are they like commodities that are used and replaced as needed, or are they assets that can grow in value? I like to think that I have helped several people’s “career portfolios,” which helps ensure that business is not a zero-sum game. Hopefully, those people will do the same, increasing leverage on the investments that started with Jim.
So, what do you think?
Failing Productively
As an entrepreneur, you will typically get advice like, “Fail fast and fail often.” I always found this somewhat amusing, similar to the saying, “It takes money to make money” (a lot of bad investments are made using that philosophy). Living this yourself is an amazing experience – especially when things turn out well. But as I have written about before, you learn as much from the good experiences as you do from the bad ones.
Innovating is tough. You need people who always think of different and better ways of doing things or question why something has to be done or made a certain way. It means shifting away from the “how” and “why” and focusing on the “what” (outcomes). It takes confidence to ask questions that many would view as stupid (“Why would you do that? It’s always been done this way.”) But when you have the right mix of people and culture, amazing things can and do happen, and it feels great.
Innovating takes a willingness to lose time and money, hoping to win something big enough later to make it all worthwhile. This is where many companies fall short because they lack the patience, budget, or appetite to fail. I believe this is why innovation often comes from small companies and small teams. For them, the prospect of doing something cool or making a big impact is motivation enough to try something, and the barriers to getting started are often much lower.
It also takes a lot of discipline to follow a plan when a project appears to be failing, but it takes even more discipline to kill a project that has demonstrated real potential but isn’t meeting expectations. That was one of my first and probably most important lessons learned in this area. Let me explain…
In 2000, we looked at franchising our “Consulting System” – processes, procedures, tools, metrics, etc., developed and proven in my business. We believed this approach could help average consultants deliver above-average work products in less time. The idea seemed to have real potential.
Finding an attorney who would even consider this idea took a lot of work. Most believed it would be impossible to proceduralize a somewhat ambiguous task like solving a business or technical problem. We finally found an attorney who, after a 2-hour no-cost interview, agreed to work with us. When asked about his approach, he replied, “I did not want to waste my [his] time or our money on a fool’s errand.”
We estimated it would take 12 months and cost approximately $100,000 to fully develop our consulting system. We met with potential prospects to validate the idea (it would have been illegal to pre-sell the system) and then got to work. Twelve months turned into 18, and the original $100K budget increased nearly 50%. All indications were positive, and we felt very good about the success and business potential of this effort.
Then, the terror attacks occurred on Sept. 11th, and businesses everywhere saw a decline. In early 2002, we reevaluated the project and felt that it could be completed within the next 6-8 months and would cost another $50K+. Our confidence was high.
After a long and emotional debate, we decided to kill the project – not because we felt it would not work, but because there was less of a target market, and now the payback period (time to value) would double or triple. This was one of the most difficult business decisions that I ever made.
A big lesson learned from this experience was that our approach needed to be more analytical.
- From that point forward, we created a budget for “time off” (we bought our own time, rather than waiting for bench time) and other project-related items.
- We developed a simple system to collect and track ideas and feedback. When an idea felt right, we took the next steps and created a plan with a defined budget, milestones, and timeline. If the project failed to meet any defined objectives, it would be killed – No questions asked.
- We documented what we did, why we did it, our goals, and expected outcomes and timelines. Regardless of success or failure, we would conduct postmortem reviews to learn and document as much as possible from every effort and investment.
We still had failures, but with each one, we took less time and spent less money. More importantly, we learned how to do this better, which enhanced our resilience and helped us realize several successes. It gave us both the structure and the freedom to create amazing things. Since failure was an acceptable outcome, we never feared it.
This approach was more than just “failing fast and failing often”; it was “intelligent failure,” and it served us well for nearly a decade.
Profitability through Operational Efficiency
In my last post, I discussed the importance of proper pricing for profitability and success. As most people know, you increase profitability by increasing revenue and/or decreasing costs. However, cost reduction does not necessarily mean slashing headcount, wages, benefits, or other factors that often hurt morale and cascade into lower quality and customer satisfaction. There is often a better way.
The best businesses generally focus on repeatability and reliability, realizing that the more you do something, the better you get at doing it well. You develop a compelling selling story based on past successes, build a solid reference base, and identify the sweet spot from a pricing perspective. People keep buying what you are selling, and if your pricing is right, money is available at the end of the month to fund organic growth and operational efficiency efforts.
Finding ways to increase operational efficiency is the ideal way to reduce costs, but it takes time and effort. Sometimes this happens through increased experience and skill. But, often optimization occurs through standardization and automation. Develop a system that works well, apply it consistently, measure and analyze the results, and then make changes to improve the process. An added benefit is that this approach increases quality, making your offering even more attractive.
Metrics should be collected at a “work package” level or lower (e.g., task level), which means they are related tasks at the lowest level that produce a discrete deliverable. This project management concept works whether you are manufacturing something (although a Bill of Materials may be a better analogy in this segment), building something, or creating something. This allows you to accurately create and validate cost and time estimates. At this level of detail, it becomes easier to identify ways to simplify or automate the process.
When I ran my company, we used this approach to win more business with competitive fixed-price project bids that provided healthy profit margins while minimizing risk for our clients. Higher profit margins let us invest in our own growth and success by funding ongoing employee training and education, innovation efforts, and international expansion, as well as experimenting with new things (products, technology, methodology, etc.) that were fun and often taught us something valuable.
Those growth activities were only possible because we focused on doing everything as efficiently and effectively as possible, learning from everything we did – good and bad – and having a tangible way to measure and prove that we were constantly improving.
Think like a CEO, act like a COO, and measure like a CFO. Do this and make a real difference in your own business!
The Importance of Proper Pricing
Pricing is one of those things that can make or break a company. Doing it right takes an understanding of your business (cost structure and growth/profitability goals), the market, your competition, and more. Doing it wrong can mean the death of your business (fast or slow), the inability to attract and retain the best talent, and creating a situation where you will no longer have the opportunity to reach your full potential.
These problems apply to companies of all sizes – although large organizations are often better positioned to absorb the impact of bad pricing decisions or sustain an unprofitable business unit. Understanding all possible outcomes is an important aspect of pricing, especially when it comes to risk and risk tolerance.
When I started my consulting company in 1999, we planned to win business by pricing our services 10%-15% lower than the competition. It was a bad plan that didn’t work. Unfortunately, you see this approach all too often in businesses today.
We only began to grow after increasing our prices (about 10% more than the competition) and justifying it with our expertise and the value we provided. We were (correctly) perceived as a premium alternative, and that positioning helped us grow.
A few years ago, when I took over sales for the Americas, one of the first things I did was analyze everything that was within my control. Pricing and SKUs were an unexpected surprise. Nobody had looked at this since the company was launched three years earlier. We had multiple items with a single SKU, and many customers were buying one product (and often one or two subscriptions) and using many – which was both a pricing and compliance matter. We had a gateway product that was half the price of our DBMS and allowed products to run on competitor products. I added SKUs, doubled the price on gateways so companies would have a fair choice, and increased several products by 3%-5%. Those changes added 7% to our revenue over the next year.
Several years ago, I had a management consulting engagement with a small software company. The business owner told me they were “an overnight success 10 years in the making.” He was concerned they might not be able to capitalize on recent successes, so he sought an outside opinion.
I analyzed his business, product, customers, and competition. His largest competitor is the industry leader in this space, and products from both companies were evenly matched from a feature perspective. My client’s product even had a few key features that were better for management and compliance in Healthcare and Union environments that his larger and more popular competitor lacked. So, why weren’t they growing faster?
I found that competition was priced 400% higher for the base product. When I asked the owner, he told me their goal was to be priced 75%-80% less than the competition. He could not explain why, other than saying he believed his customers would be unwilling to pay any more than that. His lack of confidence in his product became evident to companies interested in his solution.
He often lost head-to-head competition against that competitor, but almost never on features. Areas of concern were generally the company’s size and profitability, and the risk each posed to prospects considering his product. And despite this being an issue over and over, he never came up with a proactive approach to diffuse this before it became an issue.
I shared the graph (below) with this person, explaining how proper pricing would increase profitability and annual revenue, and how both would help give customers and prospects confidence. Moreover, this would allow the company to grow, eliminate single points of failure in key areas (Engineering and Customer Support), add features, and even spend money on marketing. Success breeds success!
In another example, I worked with the Product Manager of a large software company responsible for producing quarterly product package distributions. This work was outsourced, and each build cost approximately $50K. I asked, “What is the break-even point for each distribution?” That person replied, “There really isn’t a good way to tell.”
By the end of the day, I provided a Cost-Volume-Profit (CVP) analysis spreadsheet that showed the break-even point. More importantly, it showed the contribution margin and demonstrated that these products provided very little operating leverage (i.e., they weren’t very profitable even if you sold many of them).
My recommendations included increasing prices (which could negatively impact sales), investing in fewer releases per year, or finding a more cost-effective way of releasing those products. Without this analysis, their “business as usual” approach would have likely continued for several years.
Companies are in business to make money – pure and simple. Everything you do as a business owner or leader needs to be focused on growth. Growth results from a combination of factors, such as the uniqueness of the products or services provided, quality, reputation, efficiency, and repeatability. Many of these are the same factors that also drive profitability. Proper pricing can help predictably drive profitability, and having excess profits to invest can significantly impact growth.
Some customers and prospects will do everything possible to whittle your profit margins down to nothing. They focus on their own short-term gain, not the long-term risk they create for their suppliers. Those same “frugal” companies expect to profit from their own business, so it is unreasonable to expect anything less from their suppliers.
My feeling is that “Not all business is good business,” so it is better to walk away from bad business in order to focus on the business that helps your company grow and succeed.
One of the best books on pricing I’ve ever found is “The Strategy and Tactics of Pricing: A Guide to Profitable Decision Making” by Thomas T. Nagle and Reed K. Holden. I recommend this extremely comprehensive and practical book to anyone responsible for pricing or with P&L responsibility within an organization. It addresses the many complexities of pricing and is truly an invaluable reference.
In a future post, I will write about the metrics I use to understand efficiency and profitability. Metrics can be your best friend when optimizing pricing and maximizing profitability. This can help you create a systematic approach to business that increases efficiency, consistency, and quality.
At my company, we developed a system that tracked how long common tasks took and tracked efficiency factors for each consultant. This allowed us to create estimates based on the type of work and the people most likely to do the task, and to fix-bid the work. Our bids were competitive, and even when we were the highest-priced bid, we often won because we would be the only (or one of the few) companies to guarantee prices and results. Our level-of-effort estimates were +/- 4%, which helped us maintain a 40%+ minimum gross margin on every project. This analytical approach helped our business double in revenue without doubling in size.
There are many causes of poor pricing, including a lack of understanding of cost structure; Lack of understanding of the value provided by a product or service; Lack of understanding of the level of effort to create, maintain, deliver, and improve a product or service; and Lack of concern for profitability (e.g., salespeople who are paid on the size of the deal, and not on margins or profitability). Each of the experiences listed above has been a great lesson learned for me, and can help you as well.
With a little understanding and effort, you can make small adjustments to your pricing approach and models that can measurably improve your business’s bottom line.
Where Ideas, Experiences, and Lessons Learned Intersect 