Our President just said that she would rather be right than be popular.

That is what most politicians and managers always say.  But doing that is harder than imagined, especially in Asian countries.

The culture is still very new to the delineation between business and family.  In many Asian homes, the home and the place of business is one.  The need to be liked is quite strong, and there is a tendency to be easy on people, especially if they are also your friend.  One of the very hard things i constantly have to work with my managers is to promote people who are competent, not the one who is loyal or close to you.

One of the important things to develop in a company is a meritocracy system where nonperformers are put on notice to improve, and people are promoted for the right reasons, especially not based on connections.

There is nothing wrong to mix up personal goals with business ones.  In fact, as I said, I live a business driven life, because like many people, my social, family and business life are intertwined, and more often than not, it is hard to separate my personal life with that of my business.

In any competition, you don’t have to be the best.  You just have to be better compared to the ones that you compete.  And if they don’t have the weakness and need to be liked, and you have, that may work to your disadvantage.

Bizdriven was featured in the following blog carnivals which also contains excellent selections on business and entrepreneurship:

-Carnival of Entrepreneurs #36: August 27, 2007
-Carnival of Bootstrapping Entrepreneurs #6
-Carnival of Small Business Issues - Edition 17
-20th Edition - Carnival Of Network Marketing - August 28, 2007

For the last few months that I have been blogging, I have also been interested to see how to earn money or push my business objectives through blogging.  As a person also in the ICT industry, I wanted also to gain first hand knowledge on how web banner advertising works.

So I signed up to put some ads in the blogs, as well as signed up to be an advertiser to bring traffic to my blog and our other websites.

I found out one thing — I was excited, and for a good number of times every day, I would go to google adsense to check out  how much traffic I have been getting, and how many clicks were there, and how much I was earning.  I would get excited when I earn ’so’ much.  I am sure numerous bloggers can give you many tales on how excited they are to earn money — money that can’t even pay for their cup of coffee.

The truth of the matter was that I was spending 5 to 10 times more to advertise my blog than what I was earning in return…. But what I was spending did not excite me.  It was that I could be getting income as well — and as many people in the web industry or even in many other industries rationalize — of course you are spending more than what you are earning, but once you make your name, your advertising or marketing will slowly decrease while the traffic will continue to increase such that there will come a time when what you are earning will exceed your advertising, and voila!  you have a viable business.

However, as experience will tell you, that DOES NOT happen most of the time, and there will come a time when you know  that you have to give up.

It is in the very nature of entrepreneurs to be so enthused, and to think that day will come.  But it may never , and before you start spending 10 dollars to get your one dollar in business, start to work on the business plan earnestly first.

Dont’ get into the mistake of focusing too much in growing your sales at the expense of your bottomline!  

Everyday when I go over blogs and news, I come across a good number of postings ranting about incompetent bosses.  Although you don’t read it as much ( its not popular when the manager complains about bad employees in public, is it?  After all, the reason you are the boss is invariably you get to enjoy the fruits of your employees’ labor, as well as answer for their shortcomings), in private circles when you talk among fellow businessmen and entrepreneurs, you hear a lot of stories about how inutile employees could not get things done, or messed up, sometimes comically, sometimes disastrously.

It makes me muse — what destroys capital value faster?  A company with a bad boss but competent employees and a good system, or a company with a great boss, but with no system, and so-so employees?

I know popular management books will make it sound that a good manager is everything, and can make bad things work, but please do think about it for a while ….

Think about McDonalds and their over 30,000 stores.  I am sure some of their store managers are wanting, but the system makes it work.

Think about an entrepreneur who we know is a great manager, and have great success in venture one, but failed miserably in venture two.  The timing, and the people he worked with, did not work out.

The omni-capable entrepreneur is overrated, and there is only so much even an excellent manager can do.  What do you think?

I recently read in a newspaper - a  famous celebrity star was being sued for business malpractice.  I knew the guy.  We were together a couple of times  in several forums promoting entrepreneurship to various chambers of commerce and universities.  He was serious to be in the business.  He had meet success in becoming famous, and in several talks, he manifested his intentions of being more than just a ‘pretty’ face.  He wanted more than just adulation from young fans.  He wanted respect from professionals, and an income stream that is build on a foundation of business acumen.

He did not yet have quite the grounding and trainings for business, but his passion was there.  Which I believe is the reason  he got into trouble.  When you are famous, you will not find a shortage of partners or business ideas.  With rapid succession, he build several different companies, some even in IT which he does not have quite an idea, many of whom with business partners who ‘take’ care of the business while he was busy somewhere else.

When the business carries your name, and you are famous, two things can easily happen.  First obviously your business partner will scatter your name all over and use it to get business.  Some will probably abuse it.  The other side is of course, being famous makes you larger than life, and gives you the halo effect - it makes you more capable than you really are, and fuels high expectations.

When Google goes into email, it comes with a brand that has made a success in search engines, and thus people expect more.  It is no secret that when Apple launches Apple TV, it comes with high expectations than if the provider was somebody else.  In the case of iPhone, they delivered, but it can become a challenge when it is less than a spectacular success.

So going back, the guy was apparently a victim of both.  His partners peddled his business in a way that fueled investors and customer expectations in an unrealistic high.

That can always happen when you become well known, or your brand becomes established.  It is easier to sell since people has expectations.  However, managing these expectations is a continuing challenge that you should be aware of.

Be wary — fame comes with its own baggage you have to know how to handle.

When you read a lot of business articles, you come to a point where there are arguments for both sides, and you really have to think which better applies to you.

For sometime, I have been believing that if you open a store, the one thing you should do is to make sure that you have a big welcome door – the theory of course is that you make it easy for people to come in, but difficult to get out…

I was just going over an alternative strategy that purportedly Macy’s used in good effect in the 1930s thus beating many department stores  then — the strategy being that make the entrance door small.

Of course, then you create a perpetual saga that there are people lining up to get in and I guess you know good traffic which builds a semblance of good business brings in more traffic.  This is most highlighted sometimes in restaurants where people are willing to stand in line and crowd a restaurant — the longer waiting time, the better.  After all, if people are lining up, the store must be good ….

What do you think?

I am putting on another ode to sometimes take a step back.

Last night, for some reason, the internet slowed.

I always try to accomplish as much in as short a time, and like myself, I immediately setup the computer to do as many things as it could ( the computer is better than multi-tasking as a human — it will slow down but at least unlike people, it won’t drop the ball or become confused.  Nowadays, dual and quad core PCs which processors can multitask because it has two or four brains are much valued…  but that’s still another story).

When I logged in, I  immediately start downloading my news, my email, and start also opening multi-tabs of websites that I need to check.  Since the internet was slow, opening myriads means each application comes to a crawl, and ultimately displays an error message.

I keep retrying a couple of times, and after half an hour, I sighed in frustration.  There was no way  I could get it done if I insisted that it did all at the same time, so I close down some applications that was not as important and urgent, and finally the applications that I deemed more important started moving.

That happens to us in real life as well.  There will be a time that we will be overwhelmed, and the bandwidth ( or your mental and physical capacity) just cannot handle the task at hand.  At that moment, we need to stop, focus and reprioritize.  

If you are already overworked, don’t insist in doing it all!  How many things are you doing now that will matter 1 or 2 years from now?

As the Chinese say, " Two steps forward, one step back.".  Sometimes we need to step back to move forward.   UNCLOG!

Related Posts:

- MultiTasking for Productivity

- MultiTasking Hell

-The cost of unnecessary mail

- Never Lose your Ideas

I just wrote a post about trying to multitask.  Here is a story that is a grim reminder that we can only do so much ….

I can understand that.  Two years ago, I bumped a car while trying to dial out from my cellphone.

I know we try to do a lot of things, and I read that many people shave, comb their hair, even put on makeup while driving to work.  Many of course, also eat and drink.  Ocassionally it happens, but if it becomes part of your routine, maybe it is time to rethink …..

Hit by Train While Text Messaging

David Pescovitz: Zacharia Smith, 18, of Cincinnati, Ohio was hit by a train as he walked across the tracks on Monday, but fortunately survived. The gates were down. Witnesses report that Smith appeared to be sending a text message while he was walking. He’s listed in serious condition. From the Cincinnati Enquirer:

I liked to think I am productive, and most of the time I try to cram and do as many things as I can.  It is like a personal victory to be able to juggle as many balls as possible without letting any fall. 

On retrospect, that is fine for menial tasks.  If I am able to do 5 menial tasks at a time, then those menial tasks must not need much concentration and brainpower to do.  If that is so, maybe one of our employees, or assistants should be doing it.  Would I say I am maximizing my worth by doing easy tasks 20 or 50% faster than my people? 

Or should I be focused on doing the things that my people cannot do, and if they can do it ( even albeit slower or slightly less good than I could do?), they should.

Anything worthwhile doing is worth doing well, and is well worth done well by concentration, not while juggling 3 balls in the air.  After all, what will move your plans forward is not the many small tasks you can do, but the few challenging tasks you focus on — something that needs concentration and think time.

Chopsticks picked up in new China scare - Yahoo! News

BEIJING (Reuters) - A Beijing factory sold up to 100,000 pairs of disposable chopsticks a day without any form of disinfection, a newspaper said on Wednesday, the latest in a string of food and product safety scares.

Counterfeit, shoddy and dangerous products are widespread
in China, whose exports have been rocked in recent months by a
spate of safety scandals, ranging from pet food to medicine,
tires, toothpaste and toys.

Officials raided the factory and seized about half a
million pairs of disposable bamboo chopsticks and a packaging
machine, the Beijing News said in a story headlined “Dirty
Chopsticks.”