Sunflower Seed Service

I heard a fascinating story yesterday that I want to share. I had lunch yesterday with one of my favorite clients- Dan Kahn who owns Floors To Your Home. He related a customer service story that really captures the contrast between a great and terrible customer experience. 

Dan loves sunflower seeds on his salads. He gets the same salad for lunch almost everyday. But the Marsh near his office was out of them. He decided he'd still have a salad but told the cashier when he was checking out that the sunflower seeds were out at the salad bar. She said- yes, our supplier is no longer stocking them but I can let the manager know. Dan said that he appreciated that since he has been coming for years to get the same sunflower seed salad.  

While Dan was just getting seated the cashier appeared with a little plastic cup filled with sunflower seeds. She let Dan know these were on the house and that they were sorry the seeds were not there when he wanted them. Shortly afterwards the store manager came up, again apologized and told Dan that they were going to re-stock the sunflower seeds themselves so Dan could always get the salad he wanted. 

Needless to say, Dan was one happy guy. But he had a much different experience when he went to the Marsh by his house. He also found sunflower seeds missing at the salad bar, same mischievous salad bar supplier, and again notified the cashier on check out- hey, no seeds, me like seeds, tell manager please, etc. But this time the cashier didn't appear to be listening so he repeated himself- no seeds, me want. When she finally gave him her attention she told him- yeah, they aren't stocking them anymore. So he asked that she mention his concern to her manager, I get this salad all the time, etc. She looked up at him and said "I'm sorry, to be honest, I don't think he'll care". Dan was speechless. He walked out with his seedless salad and began to consider the two experiences. 

Sunflower seeds are small things and small things are easy to overlook. They might not seem important, they might seem replaceable with another seed but for Dan they make the salad. He realized that this was true with every customer experience. Often there is something small that the customer really, really loves- it could be a person in your organization they really enjoy talking to, the annual holiday gift you send, the way your product is packaged or…sunflower seeds. 

Dan is using this experience to take his company's customer service to another level. He is working with his team to identify what their customers' "sunflower seeds" are. Experiences are rooted in the culture of the business. One manager had created a customer centered culture and the other a self centered culture. 

Building a culture that cares about "sunflower seeds" is more important than having the best price or location. Every business must work to create amazing experiences that build loyal customers who then tell stories like this one to everyone they meet. That's the core of culture powered marketing which is by far the most cost effective marketing around. 

How To Get A Job

I spoke to a group of Purdue students last night. They were taking an entrepreneurship class taught by my friend, and fellow Speak Easy co-founder, Andy Clark. Much of the Q&A focused on how to get a job. More specifically, how to get your foot in the door with a small company. I had some suggestions which I shared with the class as well as some additional thoughts. Here they are:

Build Your Army
Note that I didn't say "build your network". Network feels too passive for me. You need an army to get a job. People that are actively thinking of opportunities to send your way. This means you have to stay top of mind with these people, your army. Engage them on Twitter, check in via email, buy them lunch or drinks, attend events they attend. There is a line to walk between being persistent and being annoying. But most job seekers could error on the side of being annoying. They give up way too fast. 

Ask For Informational Interviews

A job interview is something of a formal thing. Most companies have processes around it- usually starting with an opening being announced. An informational interview is a much more casual but effective way of getting your foot in the door. Lead with your curiosity- why did you start the business? What kind of employees do you look for? What are your plans for the future? I've seen this approach work. Also, you get to build your army as you go. The companies you talk with might not hire you but, assuming you do an effective job, they will become part of your army and send opportunities your way.

Align Your Passions

Everyone has things they are passionate about. Figure out what your taget employer is passionate about- sports, music, hunting? Then align, authentically, with those passions. "Hey, I saw you were really into vinyl records, here's a link to a great vinyl review website I write for..." 

Simplify Your Emails

So many of the emails I receive from prospective hires border on being short novels. I don't have time to read them, no-one in my position does. Quantity does not equal quality when it comes to communication. Make your point and respect my time. That will leave a far greater impression than the well crafted 500-1000 word essay you were taught to write in college. Don't get me started on how colleges foster a quantity over quality mentality. If it takes more than 30 seconds to read then it's too long.

Any other business owners out there have some good tips on how to stand out and get hired?

The Music Scene Is Broke

This past Saturday, October 12th, was the 6th annual Broad Ripple Music Fest. It was well organized and marketed. It had great music of many stripes and a nice variety of venues all in walking distance. In every way it was set up for success. Jack Shepler, who inherited the show from SmallBox, did a great job. But the turnout was lower than hoped and the cops shut down the outdoor tents at 10. It put a serious damper on what was still a great night of music. But it's pretty clear what's really going on...

Broad Ripple used to be the music scene, now it's Fountain Square. Makes sense really. It's too expensive for musicians to live in Broad Ripple. Really, that's the rub of it: musicians move into a neighborhood, make it cool and attract the yuppies who, with good intentions, improve the neighborhood and essentially evict the musicians with raised rents. So musicians are chased around town, never really building a solid scene. This is the story of Indianapolis' music scene- Indiana Ave, Broad Ripple and now Fountain Square, etc. And it's the same in many other cities. 

A vibrant music scene is a baseline item for young professionals. They look around the country, post college or in transition, and build a short list of "cool" cities. Try to find one "cool" city that doesn't have a great music scene- Austin, San Francisco, Seattle, Chicago, etc. I don't think it's a secret that Indy isn't on the "cool" list very often. That's the problem, and it's a real problem. We are missing out on the energy and vitality these people could be bringing to our city.

If we are serious about Indianapolis becoming a world class city then we need to fix the music scene. It needs a home- I suggest we create a Music District in Fountain Square. It needs venues of all flavors and stripes. It needs fans that support it. Most of all, it needs to be sustainable. Musicians need to be able to make, or augment, a reasonable living here. Until we stop chasing the music scene around town and give it our sustained support Indy will not earn a permanent spot on that short list of "cool" cities that attract transformative talent. 

Raising Taxes To Create Jobs

Romney loves to say that lowering taxes on companies will create jobs. This is spoken like some gospel truth. I actually stopped to think this through tonight and came to a much different conclusion. 

I believe that higher taxes can actually encourage increased hiring and investment. Why? Because, as a small biz employer (structured as an S Corp) company profit flows through to my personal taxes. As both candidates regularly note, 90%+ of all businesses are structured this way.

So if you reduce my tax rate then I'm more likely to take money out of the company since the penalty for doing so (taxes), is reduced. Whereas a higher tax rate means I'm incentivized to take a reasonable salary and continually reinvest the profit in the business- new hires, marketing, etc, instead of taking the profit and paying the taxes. This reinvestment will then grow my business. So I hire more people, the economy grows and the value of my business also grows. Everyone wins.

Also, consider what happens to the profit business owners take out of their companies with this lower tax rate. Will they reinvest it here or overseas? Chances are they will do some of both leading to an exodus of cash. 

I am, of course, writing from the small business perspective. An enterprise (think Walmart) business may see this differently but from where I'm sitting: higher taxes=encourage reinvestment=more hiring. Am I missing something obvious here? 

The Case For Redistribution Of Wealth

I love Monopoly. It was my favorite game growing up. Capitalism 101. But there was another lesson I was learning as well- it's no fun to play when you own everything. The end of a Monopoly game is pretty boring. You are just taking turns waiting for your opponents to go bankrupt. So when I was winning I would often "loan" others money just to keep the game going. Yes, I was a tax and spend liberal at a young age.

Redistribution of wealth has gotten a bad rap. The Republican party has done an excellent job of demonizing it. To many observers this is deeply ironic since Republicans have also worked to create tax code (hello Bush tax cuts) that redistributes wealth towards the rich. Fox News recently tried to distract their viewers away from Romney's 47% percent comments with a decade old recording of Obama saying he believed in redistribution of wealth. It was presented as damning evidence- how dare he suggest the government redistribute wealth! In reality, that is one of government's core functions.

I believe that a healthy, diverse economy requires redistribution of wealth.  I also believe that government is the only institution in a position to do this redistribution. When companies and individuals amass huge amounts of wealth they need to be encouraged, or if necessary- forced, to put that money back in play. How this money re-enters the economy is another area where the government comes in. 

Government needs to pick winners and losers. Clean energy, technology, life sciences, local food- these are the future of our economy. Fossil fuels, housing booms, big farm subsidies, processed food- these are the past. Tax code must be written, and often revised, to encourage the industries that will build our future. Too often we see government incentivize mature industries that don't need it- oil being the most obvious example. This is often done in the name of "jobs" but that thinking is incredibly short sighted. The jobs these aging industries create may not survive the coming changes disruptive technologies will bring. So the investment will be lost along with the jobs we could have had from investing in new technologies.

Markets cannot be depended upon to protect our future. They aren't built for it. Our strategic direction, economic and otherwise, needs to come from government and non-profit institutions. Organizations that can step outside of the day to day and consider 5, 10 or 100 years out. Organizations with no other interest than the good of the country or the world. They need to help us answer: how do we prepare for the future? What investments do we need to make? And no matter how you answer that question, redistribution of wealth will be part of the equation.