Goals

After work today, I decided to walk from Wall Street to the Upper East Side of Manhattan, all in the hope that by literally killing my feet, I could drop a couple of undesirable pounds. It was a big goal, a lofty ambition, especially given the fact that I was wearing rain boots that hugged my heels a little too tightly thus making long walks nothing short of torture.

I set out to accomplish my goal by dividing the trek into measurable chunks. I figured it this way: Wall Street to Canal: 30 minutes. Canal to Houston: 15 minutes. Houston to Union Square: 30 minutes. Union Square to the Barnes and Noble at 45th Street and 5th Avenue: 30 minutes. Barnes and Noble to Trump Tower: 15 minutes. Trump Tower to the Metropolitan Museum of Art at 82nd Street: 30 minutes. Grand total minutes to accomplish my goal: 2.5 hours. Amount of fat melted, 2 pounds. How hard could that be?

And, I would have made it if I hadn’t decided to stop in at Barnes and Noble to use the loo. By the time I walked back out two hours later, having sat down to read a couple of magazines and books, and eat two slices of coffee cake, and drink a tall chai, it was pitch black outside, and already 9:00 p.m. I wasn’t about to walk to 86th and Lexington via Central Park West, to catch the IRT back downtown now. I mean, it's a good neighborhood and everything, peopled by doormen opening and closing doors for their Christmas bonus, but I wuddn't gonna do it. My common sense told me it was time to head home.

But the coffee cake weighed heavily in my stomach. So that even if I could not fulfill my goal of walking to the Upper East Side, I had to work off the sugar. So I turned around and headed back downtown to Union Square where I caught the “L” train back to Brooklyn. It was probably the same amount of time, yet, I was quite bombed. How could I have allowed myself to fall so short of my goals? My goal was to walk to 86th and Lex!

Now that I am home tapping away on my computer (and hoping I can get this entry in before today turns into tomorrow), I realize that sometimes, even though we set goals, we have to allow ourselves some flexibility. As small business owners, the path to success is not necessarily linear. There are going to be curves and turns and start-overs. There are going to be lapses, and failures and disappointments and falls off the wagon too. The important thing is to not to let temporary set backs turn into permanent blocks.

Sure, the experts tell you that one of the first steps in achieving success is to write it down as a goal, and to write out your “flight plan” so that you can make sure that you know exactly where you are going and how long it is going to take you to get there. But many experts will also tell you that, every flight goes off course at some point during the trip, yet most flights arrive quite safely to their destination. So it is not about necessarily staying on the exact charted course that results in success. It is not about sticking to the goal without veering off from time to time to read a book or have a slice of chocolate cake, necessarily. It’s about the bigger picture really.

The goal is the end destination. How you get there is beside the point. Because if you think about it, I probably walked about the same distance by walking from 45th Street, to Union Square, as if I had walked from 45th Street to the Met.

And I lost exactly the same amout of weight, which is pretty much zero pounds.

So the point is, I shouldn't be feeling bombed that I did not accomplish my goal. What was the ultimate goal? To lose 2 pounds. Did I accomplish it? I might have if I hadn't eaten the coffee cake. But the fact that I veered off my path is not the reason I did not accomplish my goal. It was the darn cake. I did not accomplish my goal because I ate the darn cake.

Well, I can always get back on the wagon tomorrow.

DNA

I once knew a guy who I will call “Wall Street Tycoon.” He had dreams of starting a hedge fund on Wall Street. So what did he do? First, he got really good stationary. And then he went out and he recruited about ten of his friends, acquaintances and associates from his private club and then he asked them to come aboard his newly formed corporation. Now, the only vetting criteria he used is where they went to school and what their resumes sounded like. PHD in French Literature from Standford? Check. BA in political science from Yale? Check. Former Harvard Law School Dean of Students? Check. You name it, he got every elite school grad he could find and he asked them to join his company.

And he got really good stationary and really good paper. Then he proceeded to set up a hedge fund that traded heavily in real estate. Sounds good so far? It was. The only problem is, for all their PHDs and impressive educational pedigree, not one of these people understood the fundamentals about starting or running a hedge fund. Many of them did not know for sure what a hedge fund did. Actually, the only person who knew anything about hedge funds was Wall Street Tycoon.

I was getting pretty fed up hearing him bad mouth everybody when deal after deal fell through. “But why did you bring this guy aboard in the first place?” I asked one day in exasperation. “He knows nothing about what you are doing and you knew that from the start.” Wall Street Tycoon got really angry and impatient with my ignorance. “This guy is a PHD!” he rasped.
“Yes," I concurred. "But PHD in what?!”

He was a real genius this guy, Wall Street Tycoon. He personally guaranteed about $5 million dollars using his house as collateral for the debt, and proceeded to spend money, a lot of money on things like sponsoring scholarship funds for major universities in the city in an effort to get on “the Board” so that he could be in the right circles, and get investors for his fund.

But when you really got down to asking him what exactly his company does and what his vision was for the firm and what his strategy was for accomplishing his vision and how any of these people fit into the mold other than to add impressive resumes, he got defensive and told you things like “this is very creative. You are not going to get it. I know what I am doing. This is what I do. I am a financial engineer.”

Well, I was not an engineer but I got a bad feeling about this company from the start. I told him he needed to sit down and do some root canal and figure out what it was his company was about, and give everyone clear goals, and surround himself with some people who knew how to run and maintain a hedge fund. In short, I was asking him to figure out the company’s DNA before going one step further.

Do I need to recount in numbing detail how this story ended?

The moral is, before you take a step further, figure out the DNA of your company. Believe me it is a lot more complex than fancy resumes and stock paper.

Globalization

Whether you run a textile mill in rural China, or an organic juice factory in the South of France, a hedge fund in Mumbai, a winery in Southhampton, or a IT outfit in Silicon Valley, you would have to literally be living under a rock not to realize that business has gone global.

The internet has shattered barriers and ceilings and have opened up all nature of commerce to global consumption. It is imperative that small businesses, just like large businesses, learn to think globally even though they may be local actors.

That is going to mean getting technologically literate. At the bare minimum, you need to invest in a website. That is your primary point of sale (POS). With a website, while you are acting locally, people around the globe can find your business and you may be surprised that you can generate customers that way. Of course, the key will be optimizing your website, using the kind of key words that Google would pick up in a search done around the globe. That is not easy or inexpensive but small businesses need to keep these issues in mind as they develop their strategy and chart their goals. And this is just for starters. There is so much more to think about in this shifting global economy.

Just because you are a small business in New York city, for example, and your services are strictly confined to New Yorkers, doesn't mean that over time you could not or should not expand to other markets. You can bet that your competitors are keenly aware of this phenomenon called Globalization, and they are constantly thinking of ways to exploit these global markets - as should you.

If you are interested in even more sophisticated and proven ways to get the job done, check out this blog.

Bureaucracy

One of the blessings of small businesses, is that they don't tend to get as bogged down by red tape and bureaucratic nonsensicalness like a lot of big companies do. But that doesn't mean they don't have their share of headaches, stonewalling and pettiness that can derail goals, mess up strategy, block vision and otherwise leave the business in flux.

The thing with having bureaucratic red tape in charge of the simplest bottle of white out, is that it wastes a lot of time. And it produces nothing but unproductivity. So one of the goals of any small business has to be to "trim the fat." Make the operation as lean as possible. Cut costs, green up, and always strive to maximize output. Maximize production. Whatever the calculus that is needed to achieve this, get on board and create a conduit.

And if it ain't broke, don't fix it. But if it is broke, fix it fast but keep the bureaucrats out of the building.

Strategy

What is your strategy? What is your business about? What are its values? What is it's mission? What is your brand image? How do you define your company? Why do you exist as a company? Are you adding value to the industry you are in? Why should a client or customer come to you and not the other small business down the street? What is your purpose for running this business? And you. Are you a good leader? No strategy can be implemented without a good, appropriate leader and project manager. How are your managerial skills? What is your vision for your company? What are your specific step by step methodology for the implementation of your strategic goals? What is the "DNA" of your mission and strategy? Have you broken down what you are trying to accomplish to its nucleus and have put each component together to visualize a architectural prototype for success? Have you given yourself a time frame to accomplish your objectives? Have you set measurable goals? Do you have an organizational chart? Have you done your research? What role will you play? What will be your business personality? Ally? Provocateur? Apprentice? Boss? Arrogant? Confident? Humble? Cut throat?