The Outfitter

The troops at 37Signals have updated Basecamp so you can now attach files and leave comments to to-do items and milestones.  The changes have been well accepted.  Here’s what some users have had to say: 

“This is great!  To-do deep linking is a great feature by itself, but being able to attach a layout to a to-do list or comment on it is great.  We’ve been waiting for this.” 

“This is a really big deal.  A single feature changes Basecamp from a communication tool to a task management system.” 

“I’m very excited about this update.  With direct linking, I think I can get many more people to use Basecamp in my office because of it.  Great job!” 

“I do believe I’m going to cry.  Yes.  Yes, now I’m crying.” 

Basecamp just keeps getting better and better.  Join the revolution and sign up for Basecamp today.

Derek Sivers is the genius behind CDBaby.com, the online record store for indie music.  Sivers is a graduate of the Berklee College of Music and he was recently asked to return to his alma mater to address the incoming class of freshman. 

What Sivers had to tell the freshman can be useful to anyone in any walk of life.  He touched on six different points, but I want to focus on the first.  I think it has strong application for owners of small businesses.  If you want to check out all six points, click here 

Sivers first point is: Focus. Disconnect. Do not be distracted. 

Here’s what he had to say:

“My favorite part of the movies is the training sequence, where a young Bruce Wayne, Neo or Kung-Fu Panda goes to a remote location to be trained relentlessly, nonstop, past all breaking points, until they emerge as a master. 

The next few years can be your training sequence, if you focus. 

Unfortunately you’re not in Siberia. You’re surrounded by distractions. 

You’re surrounded by cool tempting people, hanging out casually, telling you to relax. 

But the casual ones end up having casual talent and merely casual lives. 

Looking back, my only Berklee classmates that got successful were the ones who were fiercely focused, determined, and undistractable. 

While you’re here, presidents will change, the world will change, and the media will try to convince you how important it all is. 

But it’s not. None of it matters to you now. 

You are being tested. 

Your enemy is distraction. 

Stay offline. Shut off your computer. Stay in the shed.

When you emerge in a few years, you can ask someone what you missed, and you’ll find it can be summed up in a few minutes. 

The rest was noise you’ll be proud you avoided. 

Focus. Disconnect. Do not be distracted.

This is your #1 most important challenge. If you master focus, you will be in control of your world. If you don’t, it will control you.”

 

It works for songwriting, it works for students studying music, and it definitely works for anyone working to build a business.

If you manage other people, I have one word for you: CLIMB. 

CLIMB stands for: 

Coach

Lead

Inspire

Motivate

Bolster

If you can do these five things effectively, then you can effectively manage other people.  None of these things are easy, but they are all necessary.  Which of these skills are you good at?  Which ones do you need to work on?  Learn to be strong at all five and your employees will help grow your company beyond your wildest dreams.  Fail to do any of them and your employees will look elsewhere for what they need. 

CLIMB your way to the top!

I received an email today from Owen Frager.  Owen owns Frager Creative, writes an excellent blog called The Frager Factor, and is an overall marketing genius. 

In his email, Own talked about how innovation always starts with someone having a dream.  In his email, Owen quoted Steve Jobs, founder of Apple and creator of the MAC computer.  When Jobs was introducing the MAC to the world, he started his introduction with this quote: 

“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life.  Don’t be trapped by dogma – which is living with the results of other people’s thinking.  Don’t let the noise of other’s opinions drown out your own inner voice.  And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition.  They somehow already know what you truly want to become.  Everything else is secondary.”

 There’s nothing more to be said.  Have a great weekend.

Last March, Seth Godin wrote a post on his blog looking to hire five interns to work on a variety of projects with him, including Squidoo.  Godin knew he would receive a lot of applications, but what he wasn’t prepared for was the quality of the applicants. 

In order to help him determine which five he would hire, Godin set up a Facebook group and invited the applicants to join.  Based on their “performance” on Facebook, Godin chose his five interns. 

But he didn’t want the other highly qualified applicants to just go away, so he started a group on Basecamp and invited the non-selected applicants to join an unpaid virtual experience.  Godin listed some projects he needed to have done and the non-selected applicants had the opportunity to work on them, albeit without pay. 

According to Godin’s blog: 

“So I started a group on Basecamp and invited the rest of the interns to try an unpaid virtual experience.  The idea was that I’d provide a platform and some projects, and they could (if they thought it might be interesting), participate online.  No grunt work, just interesting stuff to try.  To my amazement, more than sixty took me up on it.  The conversations ebbed and flowed, the work got done (or didn’t) but I think everyone learned a lot.”

The entire blog post can be found here.

What a great way to use Basecamp.  It seems like every day, I learn of a new way to use Basecamp or another type of business that is using Basecamp.  It is a wonderful, flexible project management program that is not only easy to use, but highly effective.  Check it out for yourself right here.

I don’t like administrative fees.  They seem like a rip-off to me.  If you buy a new car and spend tens of thousands of dollars, the dealership is going to charge you $25 - $200 just to do the paperwork.  They call it an “administrative fee.”  Shouldn’t that be included in the price? 

Can you imagine going to a retail store to buy a gallon of milk and after charging you for the milk, they tack on a couple of bucks for ringing up your purchase?  Then they ask if you’d like to “purchase” a plastic bag to carry your gallon of milk in.  No one would put up with that, but for some reason we accept it when we spend a hell of a lot more money to purchase a car. 

The online world has a similar phenomenon.  It’s called an “activation fee.”  It’s applied when you sign up for an online product or service.  It works like this: 

First, you research the product/service and decide to buy it.  It might be a few dollars or a few hundred dollars.  It doesn’t matter.  You go to pay for your purchase and you notice that the merchant has added $25 or $35 (or whatever amount) to your purchase as a one-time activation fee.  Why?  What is an activation fee anyway?  Is there really anything involved in activating an account?  My guess is that in most cases the activation process is automated.  Even if it’s not, why should you have to pay a fee for the privilege of purchasing someone’s product or service?  You shouldn’t. 

If you sign up for Basecamp, Backpack or Highrise – even if you sign up for the free plan – there is no activation fee.  Not now, not ever.  That’s just another reason to sign up. 

I’m a big fan of Timothy Ferriss’ book, The 4-Hour Work Week.  Perhaps the one thing I don’t like about the book is the title.  To me, it promises too much and sets expectations that are not only not met, but are not what the book is about in the first place. 

What the book is about is creating a lifestyle that you desire and about having options.  My guess is that very, very few of the readers of the book will ever travel the world and indulge in tango contests in Argentina and kickboxing tournaments in China the way the author did.  Even so, just having the option to do such things even if you never do them is a good thing. 

I’ve tried to implement recommendations from the book in my own life.  In some areas I’m doing a good job, in other areas I have work to do.  But for me, the most important thing about The 4-Hour Work Week is that it motivates me because I know that there is a better way to earn a living than working 60-80 hours per week. 

One of the things I have done to create more efficiency in my life is to rely on Backpack to organize my efforts and the efforts of my employees.  Backpack provides all of the tools I need to stay organized and on task without a bunch of distracting and unnecessary bells and whistles.  It also took virtually no time to learn how to use Backpack.  It’s very simple to use, but surprisingly powerful. 

Bernard Sandoval is the CEO of Sandia, a Colorado Springs-based marketing and design agency.  Sandoval took the tenets enumerated in Ferriss’ book to create an employee handbook.  At first blush, the handbook seems a bit stiff, although I can empathize with Sandoval’s motivation.  Even so, the employees of Sandia have embraced the new rules and have seen excellent results. 

The story of Sandavol’s story from the Colorado Springs Gazette can be found here.  A copy of Sandoval’s employee handbook can be found here. 

If you haven’t read The 4-Hour Work Week yet, do yourself a favor and get a copy.  You’ll be glad you did and it might just change your life.

Did you enjoy the story about Laser Monks (the post can be found here)?  It was inspiring, wasn’t it? 

Over the years, I have found that people love stories.  For me, I like to know about a business before I patronize them.  This isn’t always possible, but if two companies are competing for my business and one has a story to tell (and is willing to tell it) and the other one doesn’t, the company with the story will probably get my business. 

Telling your story to your customers is an important form of marketing.  By telling your story, you’re not selling a product or service, you’re selling yourself.  And once you sell yourself, it’s much easier to sell your products and services. 

When you are telling your story, make sure it is interesting.  Give details.  Use emotion.  Be forthcoming.  Don’t hold back.  People like to know the nitty gritty. 

Politicians are very good at telling their own story.  Whether you were for John Edwards for President or not, you probably knew that his father worked in the mills in South Carolina.  Edwards told the story over and over and over.  It was a powerful story and he told it often. He used the story to define himself. 

Before you tell your story to your customers, maybe it would make sense to tell it to your employees.  By telling your story to your employees, they become part of the story.  And by being part of the story, they take more ownership of their job.  Your customers become their customers.  Your goals become their goals (assuming you share your goals with them).  Your story becomes their story. 

Stories are powerful marketing tools and motivational tools.  Make sure you have a good story and be sure to share it frequently.

I love reading stories of how successful businesses got started.  It always serves to motivate me and energizes me to do even more with my business.  If the business involved is an unlikely success story, all the better.  That’s why I love the story of Laser Monks. 

Laser Monks is the story of a group of monks in Wisconsin who found a way to provide for the temporal needs of the monastery.  In the process, they created a growing, thriving business.  Their formula for success was simple: find a need and fill it better than others are already filling it.  How many times have you heard that formula? 

For the full Laser Monks story, click here.  And if you’re in need of printer ink or toner, give them a try.

On their blog, Great Brand Thinking, branding agency Brand Guardian published a post entitled “Small is the New Big (or how we run a distributed agency).”  Brand Guardian takes advantage of Basecamp, Backpack, Highrise, and the free chat program, Campfire.  Here’s what they had to say:

“We are small, but we have a number of offices, on several continents.  We have a range of clients – from HUGE to tiny.  But the way we work now – well I don’t think we could have done it even 5 years ago very easily.

We use a suite of tools that help us stay small, stay connected, keep us apart (in a good way – less traveling), help us manage our business, organise diaries, manage our clients, keep them connected, store all our crucial documents and data, and most importantly help us to be creative.  Sounds good eh?  And it doesn’t cost much…

“The four core products (which all run on a browser) – Basecamp, Highrise, Backpack, and Campfire do everything we need, and help us do things better, without the need for IT support or training.  You should check them out to see all the things they do, but the most important thing they are is simple…

“The benefits are that they allow us to manage our clients and their work, and our time and our ‘stuff’ more efficiently, and quicker, and easier.  They essentially allow us to get on with what we are paid to do, help solve our clients problems with minimal problems…We have found that by spending less time and effort managing our business, we can spend more time and effort helping our clients to run their businesses.”

Brand Guardians definitely gets it.  You can learn more about them at www.brandguardians.com.