Hugh Hollowell

Well, I have learned a lot over the past few years I have been blogging. For example, I have learned how to drive local customers to a store with a blog and how to market yourself and achieve your goals through blogging. Pretty much any success I am now enjoying professionally is a direct result of my blogging.

Because of blogging, I have met some awesome people and made great friends. I want to share some of that, to talk about the lessons I have learned and still am learning and how we can use the blogging medium, as well as the Internet itself, to market our small businesses and achieve our goals. I want to talk about small business in general, about how owning a small business can help you achieve your dreams, as it has for me. And, I want to hear your voice as well; I want to build a community of small business owners and those who want to be, to be a resource for them, to help them find their souls again, to engage their passions again.

I have a reputation for being politically incorrect; you can expect that to continue. I see myself as a change agent; sometimes that gets messy and requires some sacred cows to get grilled. That’s OK, I can take the flak. Regardless, I will be out here, flailing away at windmills with my scruffy toothbrush, talking about blogging, small business, making your own way and living your own life. After all, the reason you went into business was to be able to meet life on your own terms, to find your own definition of success. I have found what mine looks like; perhaps we can help you find yours.

For a living these days, (barring investment income and residual income) I make money in two ways: I help people with blogging, with everything from setting up a blog for you from scratch to writing content to just getting you on the right track. The other way is as a freelance writer, doing everything from writing websites about golf to doing press releases to writing biographical articles for the not yet rich and famous. It is tough, it is gritty and it is the most fun I have had with my clothes on in years! I am living my dream, and I owe it all to the internet. I truly feel I am a lucky man.

As you can tell from the sidebar, my most popular post ever is 5 Things I Wish Someone Had Told Me. I cranked that one out in early summer of 2007, and honestly, I did not plan for it to be some great post; I just sort of threw it out there. It is six times more popular than my next most popular post, Are you Selling What Your Customer Wants To Buy?.

That being said, it amazes me that people either love it or hate it. The emails and comments I have gotten over that post either lean toward telling me I am full of it, or telling me that they love it and wish they had heard it sooner.

The theory behind those 5 things is a guiding force in my life, however, and I thought I would expound on it and perhaps they will make a bit more sense.

For all the talk about the law of attraction and the power of positive thinking, I also believe in the power of negative thinking, or put another way, the assumption of a negative outcome. Let me explain:

Most of the things you attempt, will fail. If you are a salesperson, most of the people you call on will turn you down. If you are looking for a mate, most of the people you go out with will not work out. If you are learning a new skill, you will mess up a lot on your way to mastery.

Now, instinctively, we all know this. However, we all assume the new job will work out, that the marriage will work, that everything will work out. The moment that happens, you give up options. I believe that you are free to the extent you have options.

Behind those 5 points is the belief that most things will not work out, so you need to keep your options open. You need to strive to have as many deals, as many promotions, as many options open as possible. You need to assume on the front end the worse possible outcome, because, more than likely, that is what will happen.

To believe anything else is to ignore history, to ignore what you have experienced in your own life and what you have observed. To ignore all of that seems, to me anyway, irrational.

I owe much of this philosophy, believe it or not, to Dale Carnegie. In his book How To Stop Worrying And Start Living, he said if you imagine the worst possible outcome to a situation often you will see it really just is not that bad. It might not be desirable, but it is usually something from which you can recover. I went one step further and decided to assume that the worst case would happen and plan for it. By doing this, I removed it’s power over me and the fear of being tied to the outcome.

Now, this does NOT make me a pessimist. To the contrary, I am perhaps the most optimistic person I know. I am able to be an optimist, however, because of my assumption on the front end that things could not work out and I have taken that into consideration in my planning. I know that because most things will not work out, I need to plan for that from the very beginning.

Now, I know this is not very warm and fuzzy cheery thought stuff; if you want that, you are at the wrong blog. You should go back to the nursery and eat your cookies and milk; you will be much happier.

If, however, you are about taking control of your life, taking charge of your situation and deciding your own destiny, then you should really give the power of negative thinking a try. You might just be surprised.

In the Marines, I was taught an excellent management technique known as The Commander’s Intent. Like business, battle is a highly fluid situation. The more detailed you make your plans, the less likely they are going to pan out as you envision them (It was here that I learned my Ready. Fire. Aim technique). Because of this, the Marines adopted the Commander’s Intent technique.

The Commander’s Intent is the ultimate desired outcome of a given action. It is NOT the plan. For example, the plan may state that you are to march up this hill, and then you will rendezvous with that company and engage the enemy at that point and take possession of this village to ensure that the bridge over the river is secure. The Commander’s Intent is that the bridge be secure.

It is how success is determined. If you march up the hill successfully, rendezvous successfully, engage the enemy successfully and take possession of the village successfully, yet the bridge is still not secure, you have failed. Likewise, if all that stuff goes wrong yet you still manage to secure the bridge, you have succeeded.

Focus on the desired outcome

In the civilian world, it is called being outcome oriented.

The marketplace at large is very outcome oriented. They want their desired outcome from a given product or situation. They want clean dishes, they want to be thin, they want to be successful, and they are willing to spend time and money on those desired outcomes.

The funny thing is, while the marketplace is made up of individuals, most individuals are not outcome oriented. If more people were, more people would be successful. If the relationship was not moving toward the desired outcome, we would end it. If the food we ate did not move us toward our desired outcome (being thin, say), we would not eat it.

Instead, we say we want to be thin, yet we do not exercise. We say we want to have more money, yet we create more consumer debt. We say we want more free time, yet we continue to allow others to set priorities for us.

When you clearly define the outcomes you want and strive to tie your activities to those outcomes, success is nearly inevitable.

If you are thinking about starting a business, I know one thing about you already:

You do not have enough money.

You just don’t. Odds are, unless your name is Gates or Buffet, you are under capitalized. Know what? Everyone else is too.

I guess somewhere out there is somebody who had the proper lines of credit, the cash in the bank and had rolling positive cash flow in 1 week after they opened the door. But if there is such a person, more than likely, it ain’t you.

So what do you do?

Well, I could spend about 103 pages telling you how to do that, but someone much more qualified (and balder, but not by much) than me has beaten me to it. Seth Godin has made an early book of his available as a free download on changethis.com. The book, The Bootstrapper’s Bible, is quite simply one of the most realistic, best written, most truthful books I have ever read on what it really takes to start and succeed in business.

Warning:If you want fluff or BS, this is not the book for you.

Download the book now (pdf file) or read it in your browser.

[tags] Seth Godin, ebook, Bootstrapper’s Bible,  start a business [/tags]

Hughism: Actions are to feelings as 9 is to 1.

Everyone wants to talk about feelings. It is everywhere you look. People are saying things like:
I don’t make more sales calls because it makes me feel bad.

I don’t open my own business because I would not not feel safe.

If I started my own business, my feelings might get hurt if people were critical of me.

I did not get the project done because I did not feel good.

Bullfish.

Actions are to feelings as 9 is to 1. What you do is at least 9 times more important in any way that matters than what you feel. No one has ever given me a check because of what I felt, but I have gotten many because of what I have done.

We rarely suffer from a paucity of choice. If we want something, there is, often as not, more than one supplier. Given the proliferation of options available to us, you have to ask yourself this:

With all the various options in the marketplace, why should I do business with you?

The answer to this is, or at least should be, what Rosser Reeves called your unique selling proposition. If you are Fed-Ex, the answer is I want it there overnight, guaranteed. If you are M&M’s candy, it is because I want the chocolate to melt in my mouth, not in my hands.

What do you do in such a way that it separates you from the competition?

Are you:

• Faster
• Cheaper
• Slower
• Handmade
• Made in the USA
• More expensive
• Made by Bavarians
• Green (eco-friendly)
• Available in any color
• Politically Incorrect
• Trustworthy
• Machine made
• Been around forever
• New on the scene, with new ideas
• Not Green (eco-friendly)
• Conservative
• Liberal
• More Convenient
• Not Convenient (When was the last time anyone sought advice from the wise old man at the bottom of the mountain?)
• Politically Correct
• Bald
• Innovative
• Staid & Steady
• The Root of all Evil
• All about community

What about you? What makes you different?

Hughism: Everybody wants to go to heaven, but nobody wants to die.

The man I overheard at the concert said: “I would do anything to be able to play the piano like that“.

Anything, apparently, but take lessons and practice.

“It costs to be the boss” – James Brown

If you want to drive a ball like Tiger Woods, you have to drive thousands of balls a month, for years. To take a picture like Ansel Adams, you have to take thousands of crap pictures. Stephen King started getting rejection letters from the time he was 13; he was 27 before he published Carrie, his first novel.

Everything has a price; everything. It costs time, effort and [tag]commitment [/tag] to succeed. You can have all the [tag] talent [/tag], all the [tag]potential[/tag], all the education in the world, yet if you are not willing to pay the price of commitment, if you are not willing to submit yourself to all the hard work required, you will fail. As an early mentor of mine once told me: “Potential, minus commitment, equals zero.”

The bright side is that so few are prepared to pay the price that the field is flush and eager for those who will.

John Wayne Knew The Truth

In the movie The Shootist, John Wayne plays an aged gunfighter, John Books, who is eaten up with cancer. The movie is all the more poignant because while he was filming this movie, Wayne himself was eaten up with cancer.

My favorite scene in the movie comes when the young boy, an aspiring gunfighter himself, remarks about how fast a draw Books must have been when he was younger. Wayne looks at the boy and tells him,

“It’s not always being fast or even accurate that counts, it’s being willing. I found out early that most men, regardless of cause or need, aren’t willing. They blink an eye or draw a breath before they pull the trigger–and I won’t.”

Are you willing?

One thing I have noticed about successful people is that they have a firm grasp of reality.

Let’s define terms for a minute, shall we? Reality is not what we wish it was, what we want it to be, or how things should be. Reality is what is.

Example: I like wearing t-shirts, khaki pants and sandals. It is what I feel most comfortable in, what I am most productive in. When I call on investors for funding a project, this is not what I wear. Instead, I break out one of 3 ties, the grey worsted and the black oxfords. Now, I could show up in my work clothes, boldly stating that it does not matter what I am wearing because it is my ideas they are investing in, not my clothes. I also would not get very far.

Should it matter what sort of clothes I wear? Of course not. Does it matter? Of course it does.

What would your response be if your spouse was in the hospital with a brain tumor and the surgeon showed up for your first meeting wearing a Tank Top, Bermuda Shorts and flip-flops? I thought so.

One of the forums I frequent had a thread started by a contractor who was bitching because the company he dealt with (which, it turns out, was his only customer, and thus very important to him) ignored his 15 day NET terms on his invoice and often cut him a check a week to 10 days late. It also turns out they had told him if he would sign up for direct deposit he would get paid on time. His position was that the terms were clearly stated on the invoice, why should he have to bend to them and sign up for direct deposit? He is ignoring quite a bit of reality:

1. Many companies only cut checks 2 times a month.
2. A huge company is not going to change their entire accounting cycle so he can get a check when he wants it.
3. Many, many people wish their accounts payable would pay within 30 days, which is what is happening.
4. Besides, they (quite generously, I think) had given him an option so he could get paid when he wanted.

The way I see it, he has two options:

1. Sign up for direct deposit and get paid when he wants to, or…
2. Bitch about how wrong it is, fume on message boards to people not capable of fixing the problem, suffer in his righteous indignation and get paid when they want to pay him.

By dealing with, and accepting, reality, you put yourself far ahead of the pack. While they are bitching and whining (not uncommon behavior in today’s entitlement based culture), you are driving forward, adapting, improvising, overcoming. After all, the reason I am in business is to be able to accomplish my goals, none of which is the right to wear a tank top to a board meeting.

Hughism: The way things look is the way things are

Here is a confession: I am NOT the world’s neatest person. When I was in the [tag]Marines[/tag], I always had trouble with inspections; always, that is, until I met Staff Sergeant Britt. He had a reputation of being something of a hard ass and virtually none of us worker bees liked him. One week I drew the card to be the guy that followed him around with a clipboard and take notes during inspection. That week changed my life.

We would walk into a room that looked unremarkable: The rack (bed) was made, the floor was clean. He would stand in the center of the room, do a 360 and walk out. We would walk into the next room, see a dust bunny against the wall and spend the next half hour poking into cracks and crevices, looking behind things and generally ripping the resident of this room a new one.

After inspection, I asked him about what I saw as unfair treatment and this is what he said,”The way things look is the way things are. If a room looks neat, odds are it is neat. If a Marine looks sloppy, odds are he is sloppy. When I walked into the first room, I saw things looked neat, so I did not have to go any further. In the second room I figured if they would be sloppy about a dust bunny, what else were they sloppy about?“.

Now I know it is not a rock solid rule, but it does hold true much more often than not. If I walk into a restaurant and the counter is greasy and the windows dirty, I will walk out. If they are sloppy with the part of the restaurant I can see, God only knows what is going on in the parts I can not see. If the salesman did not shave that day, how can I trust him to handle the paperwork in a quick and timely manner? If a blog has ads everywhere, a huge header that takes up all the above the fold space and has a blinking banner, do they really care about me as a reader?

Again, it is not hard and fast, but this also can be a positive: If someone looks busy, they probably are busy. If someone looks neat, they probably are neat.

Thank you, Staff Sergeant Britt, for cluing me in. (The next week I received the first perfect inspection report I ever got !)

[tags]rule of thumb, rules of thumb, tips, Hughism[/tags]

Hughism: Everybody wants to be a regular somewhere.

Community is disappearing. 60 years ago, most people shopped at the neighborhood market, went to the neighborhood bars and they worshiped in the neighborhood. Everyone had all these places where they were a regular. Not any more.

As the Cheers song says, sometimes you want to go where everyone knows your name. People want to go where they are recognized, appreciated and listened to. Everybody wants to have their bar, their coffee shop, their restaurant.

If there was a restaurant that served great food and knew you by name when you walked in the door, would you not go there more often than to a place that just served great food? Of course you would.

Which would restaurant you be more likely to recommend? Which one would you take out of town visitors to?

There are many ways to cultivate regulars, but here are a few.

• Strive to remember and use their names. Nothing works better than this.
• Build a simple database of customer’s birthdays and significant event dates (wedding anniversary, etc) and send them offers related to those dates.
• Offer a coupon good only on the third purchase.
• Build multiple visits into your service.
• Build a club (such as a frequent shopper club) with actual benefits, such as coupons, special events for club members, etc.) This is a great way to build a database.

Any of you have any ideas for making your customers regulars? Let me know in the comments.