Understand First In Order to Motivate Yourself and Others

According to Parker-Pope, in "In You Find the Motivation, Exercise Follows", in The New York Times, a Consumer Reports survey found that 40% of individuals who own home exercise equipment use then less than they expected. This is a massive population, considering consumers spend an estimated $4 billion on home exercise equipment, yearly. The purchase of home exercise equipment appears to influence whether people start an exercise regime, but research suggests that those with home exercise equipment are less likely to stick with an exercise program, over time. These studies are showing that ownership of personal is not the most important factor in sticking with an exercise plan; rather, self-efficacy is more influential. Self-efficacy is one's true belief that they have the ability to achieve their goals. The journal Annals of Behavioral Medicine reported that individuals who scored high on measures of self-efficacy were "nearly three times as likely to be exercising after a year as those with lower self-efficacy scores, whether or not they owned an exercise machine." Your ability to meet your own expectations was also shown in influence whether you stuck to your exercise plan.

Research has shown that individuals often fail to take these factors into account when they embark on a new exercise plan. David M. Williams, assistant professor at the Alpert Medical School of Brown University, suggests the following to help increase your chance of sticking with an exercise plan:

• work out with friends or family members
• master an exercise
• work with someone who motivates you (ex. a personal trainer)

These changes to your exercise plan can increase your confidence and improve your chance of continuing it. Along this line, Ravi Dhar, director of the Yale Center for Customer Insights and a professor of marketing and psychology, suggests that "'most goals we set for ourselves tend to be unrealistically high.'" Therefore, when one purchases a home exercise machine, they tend to focus only on the positive without taking the barriers into account, such as giving up spending time with friends or on the Internet. In a study of undergraduates, those who were guided in making decisions based in the reality of life were willing to spend less money for home exercise equipment, as they understood the disparity in their expectations and what they would more likely accomplish. It is important to understand the difference of an ideal setting and the actual life that you live. Kurt A. Carlson, assistant professor at the Fuqua School of Business at Duke, clarifies that "we're not telling people to stop buying treadmills. The question is how to get the right people to buy them. Everyone else should recognize they don't have the motivation, and take the money and use it on a personal trainer or something else that's going to get them motivated."

Build a stronger business by setting realistic expectations.

Time is Relative

A (theoretical) timetable of events around the world, gelaned from a variety of news sources:

• Every 2 seconds someone in America requires a blood donation. (American Red Cross)
• Every 6 seconds someone dies from tobacco use. (World Health Organization)
• Every 6 seconds an Australian buys an item of clothing on eBay. (The Age)
  
• Every 6 seconds someone is killed or injured on a road somewhere in the world. (Make Roads Safe)
  
• Every 15 seconds the Large Synoptic Survey telescope in Chile photographs a section of the night sky. A complete panorama of the firmament is completed every three days. (The Guardian)
  
• Every 25 seconds someone in the United States is burned or scalded in the home. (Health News Digest)
  
• Every 26 seconds a student drops out of an American public high school. (America's Promise Alliance)
  
• Every 30 seconds someone in the world commits suicide. (W.H.O.)
  
• Every 30 seconds a child with birth defects is born in China. (China Daily)
  
• Every 30 seconds someone in the world loses a limb as a consequence of diabetes. (U.S. News & World Report)
  
• Every 35 seconds a child in the United States is reported neglected or abused. (KansasCity.com)
  
• Every 45 seconds a plane takes off or lands at Heathrow Airport, London. (The Economist)
  
• Every minute 1,000 people around the world sign up fr a cellphone. (TheStar.com)
  
• Every minute 253 children are born into the world. (U.S.Census Bureau)
  
• Every 4-8 minutes violent, profane, or sexual content appears during prime time "family hour" television programming. (Parents Television Council)
• Every 8 minutes a woman in a developing country dies of complications from an unsafe abortion. (W.H.O.)
• Every 15 minutes someone in Scotland has a heart attack. (British Heart Foundation)
• Every 38 minutes Louisiana loses a football-field-sized portion of it s wetlands. (Science Daily)
• Every hour & 44 minutes there is a case of "dowry death" in India. (The Guardian)
• Every 2 hours someone in New Zealand fractures a hip. (Osteoporosis New Zealand)
• Every 10 hours a driver with a suspended license crashes in Maine. (The Morning Sentinel)
• Every Day more than 1.6 million blog posts appear online. (Technorati)
• Everyday 6,800 are infected with H.I.V. (United Nations)
• Every fortnight a language falls out of use. (The New York Times)
• Every month 300 specialist nurses leave South Africa. (W.H.O.)
• Every month the American government adds around 20,000 names to its terrorist watch lists. (A.C.L.U.)
• Every month about 130 million rides are taken on the New York City subway. (M.T.A.)
• Every year the average American eats nearly 200 pounds of meat, poultry and fish. (The New York Times)
  

Just Because It's Popular Doesn't Make it Right to Bribe

According to a study first reported in Transparency International and later referenced in Winik's article, "World's Top Bribe-Payers", in Parade Magazine, the following nations’ businessmen were the most likely to offer bribes when conducting international business:

1. India
2. China
3. Russia
4. Turkey
5. Taiwan
6. Malaysia
7. South Africa
8. Brazil
9. Saudi Arabia
10. South Korea

The Swiss and the Swedes were the least likely to offer bribes.

Build a stronger business through ethical behavior.

Is Social Media Valuable for Entrepreneurs?

It may seem like a no-brainer: these days, businesses should use social networking tools like Facebook and Twitter as part of their marketing strategy. As reported in The Wall Street Journal, in 2009 social-media adoption by businesses with fewer than 100 employees doubled to 24% from 12%. If you're not addicted to social networking yourself, you're bound to know plenty of people who are.

But social media may not be as useful as we think. A survey of 500 small-business owners found that just 22% made a profit last year from promoting their firms this way. A lot of time and energy can go into maintaining the company's presence on social sites, and rewards in sales - if they come - can be slow to arrive. Indeed, using social media "could harm you if you end up inadvertently saying something stupid, offensive or even grammatically incorrect," says Larry Chiagouris, professor of marketing at Pace University's Lubin School of Business.

In order to see benefits from this kind of marketing, you have to be patient, dedicated, and consistent. Stephen Bailey, of John Fluevog Boots & Shoes Ltd., says his company saw a 40% increase in online sales in 2009, the first full year they consistently engaged in social media marketing. There are several free services available to help companies track Web traffic from social media sites, including Hootsuite, Google Analytics, CoTweet, and Lodgy.

For some businesses, social media makes sense. Like everything else, though, it's not a silver bullet. Build a better business by using a smart marketing mix.

Our Environment's Unacknowledged Influence

We all let social cues from the people we eat with inform our own portion size. A recent study at the University of British Columbia, however, shows that even the body type of the other person eating has an effect on our choices. Study participants were asked to serve themselves some M&Ms before settling down to watch a video. A researcher posing as another participant took M&Ms first; though the amount taken by this confederate was always the same, the confederate was sometimes a size zero and sometimes a size sixteen. The results:

• 2.05 ounces of candy were taken by subjects when the nearby eater was obese.
• 2.62 ounces of candy were taken by subjects when the nearby eater was thin.

Build a stronger business by being aware of your environment.

What's Happening Now Around the World

Did You Ever Wonder About...?

A (theoretical) timetable of events around the world, gleaned from a variety of news sources:

• Every 2 seconds someone in America requires a blood donation. (American Red Cross)
• Every 6 seconds someone dies from tobacco use. (World Health Organization)
• Every 6 seconds an Australian buys an item of clothing on eBay. (The Age)
  
• Every 6 seconds someone is killed or injured on a road somewhere in the world. (Make Roads Safe)
  
• Every 15 seconds the Large Synoptic Survey telescope in Chile photographs a section of the night sky. A complete panorama of the firmament is completed every three days. (The Guardian)
  
• Every 25 seconds someone in the United States is burned or scalded in the home. (Health News Digest)
  
• Every 26 seconds a student drops out of an American public high school. (America's Promise Alliance)
  
• Every 30 seconds someone in the world commits suicide. (W.H.O.)
  
• Every 30 seconds a child with birth defects is born in China. (China Daily)
  
• Every 30 seconds someone in the world loses a limb as a consequence of diabetes. (U.S. News & World Report)
  
• Every 35 seconds a child in the United States is reported neglected or abused. (KansasCity.com)
  
• Every 45 seconds a plane takes off or lands at Heathrow Airport, London. (The Economist)
  
• Every minute 1,000 people around the world sign up fr a cellphone. (TheStar.com)
  
• Every minute 253 children are born into the world. (U.S.Census Bureau)
  
• Every 4-8 minutes violent, profane, or sexual content appears during prime time "family hour" television programming. (Parents Television Council)
• Every 8 minutes a woman in a developing country dies of complications from an unsafe abortion. (W.H.O.)
• Every 15 minutes someone in Scotland has a heart attack. (British Heart Foundation)
• Every 38 minutes Louisiana loses a football-field-sized portion of its wetlands. (Science Daily)
• Every hour & 44 minutes there is a case of "dowry death" in India. (The Guardian)
• Every 2 hours someone in New Zealand fractures a hip. (Osteoporosis New Zealand)
• Every 10 hours a driver with a suspended license crashes in Maine. (The Morning Sentinel)
• Every day more than 1.6 million blog posts appear online. (Technorati)
• Every day 6,800 are infected with H.I.V. (United Nations)
• Every fortnight a language falls out of use. (The New York Times)
• Every month 300 specialist nurses leave South Africa. (W.H.O.)
• Every month the American government adds around 20,000 names to its terrorist watch lists. (A.C.L.U.)
• Every month about 130 million rides are taken on the New York City subway. (M.T.A.)
• Every year the average American eats nearly 200 pounds of meat, poultry and fish. (The New York Times)

Prosperity Made Easy with YouTube

"Using YouTube For Prosperity" in the Wall Street Journal explains that many senior citizens are seeking to preserve their legacy through videos showcasing their famous recipes or hobbies, on YouTube.

Seniors ages 65 and older are the fastest growing segments of the online population, according to Jupiter Research. 39% of all seniors in the U.S. will regularly access the Internet by the end of 2007.

By 2010, half of the U.S. senior population is expected to be online. In response, Internet companies are launching services targeted at older online viewers.

Some grandchildren in their 20's are intimidated by the process of creating an online video so it is not surprising that grandparents are seeking their help with this process. Millie Garfield, 81, decided to feature herself in a series of videos documenting her son's pet peeves -- namely, her persistent requests for his helping opening coffee cans, rethreading dental floss, or opening tightly sealed bottles. Her son has helped her film and post the series on a blog, Mymomsblog.blogspot.com and on YouTube.

When you open your experiments up to the general public, like Google has done with YouTube and Blogspot, you find uses that you might never have imagined within your own company. When you spot trends like this, you gain the opportunity to build a stronger business.

Online Learning Pros and Cons

The Internet has made the online learning experience much like that in a real classroom. In the fall of 2006, 3.5 million students were taking online courses, up 10% from the previous year, according to Sloan Consortium, a nonprofit group that studies trends in online learning. Today, more than two-thirds of all higher education institutions offer online classes.

Professors and students have more flexibility learning online; however, there are disadvantages. Online professors are working just as hard as full time professors who meet with their students in person, but are being paid less. Many professors who do online learning are part timers, typically getting paid $1,000 to $1,500 to teach a course while a full time professor gets about ten times more than that, according to Professor Ruth at George Mason University. Spencer Anderson, an adjunct professor at North Lake College, says he was supposed to teach two traditional courses with about 12 students each but many students chose to take the online course, so he ended up teaching 40 students online and was only paid for one course, which has effected his income.

The biggest growth in online teaching has been at two-year colleges, and public colleges are at the forefront, according to the Sloan Consortium. The University of Phoenix has about 12,500 online faculty members. Online teaching gives teachers the opportunity of having a flexible schedule and supplemental income, while maximizing profits for the universities by decreasing expenses on salaries.

Building a stronger business is about scaling up, and there's a lot to be learned from the virtual education model.

Eliminate Stress, Live Longer

Worrying takes 16 years off your life! proclaims the article “Chill, You’ll Be Fine” in Men’s Health.

Negative thinking produces cortisol, a stress hormone that can be bad for your health when elevated for long periods of time. Stress-coping habits like overeating can also contribute to overall bad health, but activities like volunteering can help eliminate stress.

Review Your Priorities to Build A Stronger Business

The article “Final Take” from The New York Times What’s Offline section reveals some startling research about people’s spending priorities.

According to research from AllianceBernstein published in Money magazine, some 58 percent of parents “spent more on restaurants and takeout last year than they saved for college.”

Look at your priorities and long term plans this year and see how they compare with your overall strategy for building a stronger business.

New Businesses Face Real Challenges

Although starting a business can involve a steep learning curve, the number of companies that fall over the edge in the first few years has not been adequately quantified.

According to Amy Knaup, a researcher at the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 66% of 212,182 employer businesses started in the second quarter of 1998 lasted two years while 44% lasted four years.

Brian Headd, Small Business Administration’s Office of Advocacy economist, used Census data available on 12,185 firms started between 1989 and 1992. Headd discovered that while 66% remained open after two years, 49.6% persisted after four years, and 39.5% were still around after six years. But success is truly in the eye of the beholder. The one third of businesses that shut down or were sold were still considered successes by their owners. That’s because some of the owners chose to shut them down because of retirement or ill health or wanted to turn a profit.

But the Achilles heel of this study is that while it is possible to get solid stats on companies with employees, it is virtually impossible to ascertain the fate of non-employers which account for ¾ of all U.S. businesses; they file little information on their companies.

It helps to know the odds of success however confident you are in your business venture. Whenever businesses do succeed it’s a triumph of a well researched understanding of a sector and your unique response to it. If you keep a steely-eyed composure in the face of overwhelming odds, you will continue to build a stronger business.

Monitor Your E-Mail before The Company Does

Companies are monitoring employees’ e-mail to guard company secrets and enforce rule violations, according to a survey by Forrester Consulting.

In a study with 294 participating companies, 37.8% said they employed e-mail monitoring staff. Nearly half of the surveyed companies audit outbound e-mail. Perhaps not surprisingly their suspicions are well-founded. Approximately 21% revealed that they had arranged for their employees e-mail to be subpoenaed in the past year, a figure that has doubled since 2005.

Inevitably, when companies make such a decision, they risk violating employee privacy, says Keith Crosley, Proofpoint director of market development. He emphasized that the use of mobile phones for e-mails blurs the line between personal and work settings and that people will inevitably send personal e-mails from work e-mail accounts.

If you encourage your staff to create a clear line between their personal and professional lives and encourage them to use a non-work e-mail for their personal correspondence, you will take the fear of privacy violation out of the equation and you will build a stronger business.

U.S. Tech Talent Grows Scarce

The shortage of technical talent in the U.S. has driven companies to develop desperate measures. While firms have worked to shore up the positions they have already filled with attractive benefits, the search for more staff is taking these companies overseas to countries such as China and India as highlighted in The Wall Street Journal article, “U.S. Firms Search for Technical Talent”.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics the U.S. needs to fill 135,000 new computer jobs each year, but American universities are only generating 49,000 computer science graduates annually. The bureau also predicts that there will be a 26% increase in the need for science and engineering graduates to 1.25 million by 2012. China, by comparison, produces significantly more science, engineering and computer technology students; in 2004, Chinese universities generated 351,000 graduates in these fields. India was second, though significantly behind, with 112,000 graduates.

One of the fields that will be among the hardest hit by a lack of interest is the mining industry. The lack of technical ability and the retirement of 2,600 of the 5,200 practicing mining engineers in the next 12 years hangs like an ominous storm cloud over the sector.

The oil sector also looks vulnerable. According to the Society of Petroleum Engineers 1,732 students were enrolled in petroleum-engineering university programs in the U.S. in 2004 compared with 11,014 in students in 1983.

The problem with sourcing staff from overseas is that the federal government restricts short-term visas for foreign workers in the U.S. – H-1B visas -- to 65,000 a year. However, there was a temporary suspension of that figure in 2001 to 2003 when H-1B visas were raised to 195,000. Another 20,000 visas are open to foreign-born workers who received a masters or doctorate from an American university.

If the course of staff shortages in the tech industry is to be reversed, young people need to be given more incentives to enter these fields. If you provide the right balance between offering a rewarding job and providing the right incentives for employees to stay, you’ll build a stronger business.

Internet Cookies are Crumbling

Today's NYT Business article covered the February 2006 Jupiter Research that found that 2/5 (41%) male Internet users deleted cookies at least once per week, while 1/4 (25%) of female users polled wiped them out.

This is an increase in manual cookie deletion from previous year's surveys, such as the Revenue Science one that took place in December 2005, indicating two trends:

1. Capability awareness: As more people learn how to do this to prevent advertisers and other marketers from compiling statistics about site visits, they exercise this capability.
2. Risk awareness: As more stories are reported about privacy breaches (from credit card/insurance companies/ etc losing sensitive data or safeguards being breached by hackers to government agencies collecting telephone records to scan for potential terrorist contacts), users are taking preventative security measures.
   

If your business relies on Internet cookies to evaluate the effectiveness of its web traffic or ad campaigns, perhaps it's time to look into other technologies or methodologies for your metrics.

Airline Service Drops are OK with Flyers So Long as Fares Stay Low

Did you know that airline passengers are generally satisfied with their flying experience in a survey released this week?

75% of the 529 adult flyers who have used the airlines in the last year said that they were satisfied with the job major airlines are doing.

What a shot in the arm for United, American, Continental, Delta, and US Air!


There's no denying that service and amenities have fallen, the USA Today/CNN/Gallup poll acknowledges. As customers, we've decided that the trade-offs are worth the lower fare and air travel still beats the alternatives.

Let's look at three of the underlying messages and see how they apply to your business:

1. When you provide less value, lower your fees.

The airlines had to lower their cost structure after 9/11 to stay in business. But with fewer staff and fewer flights, lines became longer and patience grew thinner. Pressures from carriers like Jet Blue and Southwest Airlines also contributed to lower fares all around.

If appropriate, how has your business passed along cost savings recently?

In tense situations, such as flyer-airline operator relationships, savings go a long way towards maintaining relationships.

2. Re-examine what your customer is buying

You've heard the expression that people don't buy a drill, but they buy a device to make holes.

In the airline industry, they pared back the relationship to the bone. Flyers pay to be transported from city to city, safely and swiftly. Everything else is negotiable, such as the meals, the snacks, the pillows.

What's the core benefit your customers are buying?

3. If your customers are satisfied when you remove parts of your solution that were previously 'bundled' maybe that's a good thing.

Airline executives who thought that their stale peanuts and pretzels were added bonuses for flyers were deluding themselves.

More than likely, they were part of the unchallenged assumption of what constituted a satisfying "flying experience."

What assumptions could you challenge and test about your customer experiences that simply might be unappreciated expense on your part?



Competing on cost typically has detrimental (oftentimes fatal) impact on a business. Learn from the airline industry example, but do all that you can to avoid emulating it.

Open Source ≠ Anonymous Source Wikipedia Shows

According to Jimmy Wales, the founder of Wikipedia, predicts that the process used in Wikipedia in which entries are open to innumerous input and editing will overshadow the process used in Britannica, in which editors review a piece and an article is published. Stross also notes in "Anonymous Source Is Not the Same as Open Source" (The New York Times), that Mr. Wales is concerned about entrusting the "Wikipedian culture" on to new individuals. Wikipedia currently offers 923 "feature" articles which have been double checked and edited. However, only about one new article gains feature status per day. Mr. Wales would like to improve this by looking at open source software models. This would include the inclusion of many contributions and then a restrictive policy to prepare for release. According to Mr. Wales, Wikipedia has "'half the model.'"

On the other hand, though Wikipedia is far from Britannica, Jess Bates, a vice president of the Open Source Technology Group who oversees SourceForge.net, the host of more than 80,000 active open-source projects, suggests that Wikipedia is still not an open source, since one individual takes responsibility of the informations, though many contribute.

Build a stronger business by listening to industry and customer feedback and evolving your products.

Are You Watching Your Numbers?

In the post-dot.com and post-Enron era, one would think stock inflation had been outlawed altogether. But according to the article “Soft Numbers” in The New York Times Don Durfee’s research in CFO magazine tell a different story.

Durfee reports that more than half of chief financial officers say they can legally influence reported earnings by 3 percent or more.

“When presented with various scenarios in which their companies would either beat or miss analyst expectations, a third of respondents said they would try to influence the results,” notes Durfee.

“If your percentage of sales uncollectible could fall anywhere between 2.1 and 2.5 percent with equal likelihood, you might choose 2.1 percent if you wanted to increase your earnings,” says Michael Peters of Villanova University School of Business. Peters helped survey 743 senior finance professionals worldwide, along with Rich Houston of University of Alabama and Jamie Pratt of Indiana University.

Finance chiefs don’t believe many auditors would report any manipulations, even if they caught them. Every company must ultimate make their own decision about ethics policies. But decisions made for short-term gain can have long-term repercussions. Keep that in mind as you work towards building a stronger business.

Without Outside Feedback, People Tell Themselves Strange Stories

It's all too common (and easy) for us to criticize leaders in government and industry for their shortcomings and missteps -- and sometimes they give us ample ammunition!

Of all of the recent talk about President Bush's nomination of Harriet Miers for the supreme court post that I find most interesting is that on his selection process. Both conservatives and liberals hark on the limited pool that President Bush drew from in selecting Miers.

What's remarkable about this line of criticism is that they're right about the distortion. And that we do the same thing to ourselves more often than we realize.

Here's an example. 74% of Americans believe that they're above average drivers, according to a 2003 survey by the Journal of Safety Research.

Doesn't that strike even the most mathematically challenged among us as being slightly off kilter?

Only 1% of those surveyed believe that they're below average drivers.

To build a stronger business, we must take a hard, honest look at our current situation -- our customers, our finances, our communications, our marketing, and so on -- and that's easier to do cleanly with expertise that is not part of the company culture that we've created.

I know the truth in this from working inside a Fortune 100 company, as a entrepreneurs who's hired outside lawyers and accountants, and as a consultant to business leaders.

How about you? What are your perspectives and experiences with outside feedback?

Quick Quiz -- What Holiday is Responsible for the Most Greeting Cards?

Is it:

Valentines Day

Mothers Day

Christmas

Fathers Day

Hint: It's a holiday centered around someone wearing red, but it's not the one you think!

According to Hallmark, Christmas dwarfs the second-highest, Valentines Day, by a hundredfold.




Here's the data from Hallmark: Christmas (1.9 billion cards), Valentines Day (192 million), Mothers Day (150 million), and Fathers Day (101 million).

Happy Valentines Day. ;-)

Cap It So You Can Keep It

The EPA's report released a few days ago confirmed previous tests that airline drinking water did not meet the agency's safety standards.

Obvious implication: when you fly, bring your own bottled water; or, request bottled or canned beverages on board, because even tea or coffee can contain the "compromised" water.

Now, here's the part that really makes my turbines spin: From Q3 2004 testing period to the Q4 2004 testing period, coliform bacteria was found on MORE planes, not fewer. In September, it was found in 13% of the planes in the sample, in December, it rose to 17%. That's approaching almost 1 in 5 planes ...and this reading takes place 3 months after warnings were issued!

OK, the airlines are getting an undue share of the public's attention and criticism (so many of us are concerned!). Perhaps we can't make changes to airline operations and stocking procedures. However, let's take a quick check in our own back yard.

What's one small, simple-to-correct flaw, mistake, or weakness in your business that you've been tolerating even in the face of client (or, gasp, government regulatory) feedback?

Three words of advice from this business leadership coach: fix it now.

Cap your water when you travel so you can keep your lunch; cap these energy leaks in your business so you can keep it healthy and growing.