supply chain Archives - Page 3 of 4

Don’t believe what you heard

Posted on February 19, 2008 by Steve Sammartino

Cold Calling – is the hardest part of being an entrepreneur. A skill which is game winning.* Don’t believe what you’ve heard, the truth is very few businesses can grow without getting on the phone.

* We’re not talking about selling insurance to unsolicited numbers…no.

We’re talking about contacting people in our world, our place of business, our industry, our corner of technology. Contacting people where a relationship could be valuable to both parties. We’re not selling either, we’re collaborating. But have no doubt, we are still cold calling.

Webpreneurs

Posted on February 15, 2008 by Steve Sammartino

Dear Webpreneurs,

Click this. Study this. Understand this. Change this.

Thanks to Chris at rawstylus for the heads up!

Business hygiene

Posted on February 12, 2008 by Steve Sammartino

We wake up in the morning. Stumble into the shower, have a shave (legs or face), wash our hair. We put on deodorant, brush our teeth, and head off to work.

We work all day.

We return home. We go to the gym or for a jog, return and shower again. Cook dinner, do the washing, tidy up the house, do the dishes, wipe down the sinks.

These are our daily tasks. Simple things which just become part of the fabric of living daily. They’re about hygiene and health.

Our business also requires daily hygiene tasks. Tasks which must happen on a daily basis: Paying invoices, managing cashflow, ordering stock, doing paperwork, answering emails, returning phone calls, talking with employees and customers, planning our day, reading industry related information…… ‘business hygiene’ tasks.

Business hygiene tasks are not game winners, but they keep us alive in a business sense. Forget these and our business can catch some terrible diseases, maybe kill it.

The best approach is to get them into a routine we perform on autopilot. Just like brushing our teeth. Then we can focus on the fun stuff.

Succession planning

Posted on February 6, 2008 by Steve Sammartino

Sadly Roc Kirby the founder of the Village Roadshow empire in Australia died last week. While reading an article in the Australian Financial Review the reporter mentioned how his kids had taken over the organization with great success. But we also were given another clue as to why.

As soon as his kids were old enough they worked the concession stands serving soda and popcorn and selling cinema tickets. Not in junior executive positions. They learnt the business bottom up.

No amount of explaining spreadsheets, balance sheets, P & L statements, and public company boardroom battles can prepare someone for a running a business like working at ground level can. The real understanding of any business comes from being where the money is exchanged with actual customers. This is what builds the foundations for a deep understanding of what’s important in a business – operationally and strategically.

If you’ve got a business which is succeeding and you need to think of succession. Startup blog says – think bottom up, not top down.

Access vs ownership

Posted on February 2, 2008 by Steve Sammartino

We often have a default thinking that we must ‘own’ something to benefit from it. Particularly when it comes to assets. The truth is more like this…

we only need access, not ownership.

We don’t need to own a Boeing 747 to fly to Sydney, New York or London. We just need a seat on it – access to it. A lot of the time it doesn’t make any sense at all to own something.

It’s just as silly to think we need to have (own) all the technical skills our startup or business requires. And here’s an example which will makes us all very excited.

Yes Skype. The founders of Skype, Zennstrom and Friis, are not programmers. They outsourced all their technical requirements to a team of coders in Estonia. They wanted fresh eyes on the project. None of the coders had telecommunications experience either. They just told them what they wanted and made it happen.

No need to discuss what happened next.

The 5% rule

Posted on October 27, 2007 by Steve Sammartino

Five percent of the people we meet simply like to be difficult. They can’t be sold to, convinced, enlightened, managed or taken on any kind of journey. They might be customers, consumers, buyers, retailers, developers, employees, colleagues or anyone in our start up value chain.

Words to describe these people often include:

Obstinate

Arrogant

Rude

Apathetic

Dismissive

(insert negative adjective here)

No change in approach will change this fact. We didn’t make a mistake, we weren’t unprepared. It just is. We need to accept it and move.

Success is about people and numbers.

What we need to be aware of is if the 5% grows and becomes 10% or even 20% of people….. then it’s time consider whether we are on the wrong side of the 5% rule.

Cut through v2.0

Posted on October 17, 2007 by Steve Sammartino

In March of this year I did a post on a small business gaining some cut through which you can see by clicking here.

And just yesterday local water manufacturer ‘Another Bloody Water’ had a delivery truck driving around with the entire truck covered in grass, which can be seen below.

In the middle of a concrete grey city you know it turned heads and had plenty of cut through.

I know a trend when I see one!