Is 'Juggle' in your toolkit?

Embrace Uncertainty!

For me, life and business has always been unpredictable.
From 7 years working for a media group with a fluid, evolving role, to 9 years working for myself, I’ve never known what's around the corner, never had a grand plan. Instead, it’s all been gloriously random.

This was what my session with Melissa Pierce at this year's SXSW was all about - the beauty of the unplanned life. It’s a constant theme in many of my business relationships. I talked about it recently with Chris Barez-Brown of ?What If! and he agreed that even for a company like ?What If!, it's difficult having long term plans.

So I forget sometimes that this scrambled up world of work is not everyone's story. A friend of mine who's been made redundant is keeping busy at an interim sales role while he's applying for tens of jobs. But he told me he was very frustrated that he couldn’t plan for the future; not just career plans but what he and his wife were doing at the weekend. He found this uncertainty unsettling, and understandably so. And sure, if you're used to stability and a role with certainty, that change can be a huge culture shock.

I guess uncertainty is something I have got used to. I know what I’m doing next month, but literally, I have no idea what I am doing in July. Sure, that’s scary when you run your own business but I like the opportunities that come from being open-minded and reactive. A meeting tomorrow can – suddenly – change things. That’s always been my story.

So who knows what the rest of 2009 will bring. Is it going to be tough? Sure. Is there going to be uncertainty. Yes.

Success and survival - as ever - will be about being flexible, reactive, quick to embrace and monetise opportunities and my strategy for the next few months will be that I have employed before: MAKE IT UP AS YOU GO ALONG.

The Story of The Billion Dollar Online Shoe Store

Now my book ‘Juggle!’ is sitting in Zappo’s HQ in Nevada, I’ve been soaking up more information about Tony Hsieh and the story of Zappos. There’s a great interview and profile written by Max Chafkin in May’s issue of Inc. magazine.
You can read the article online here, but here are some extracts:

Zappos & The Importance Of Books

‘At the conclusion of the tour, we are invited to peruse the company library, which is filled with multiple copies of two dozen business and self-help books. We are urged to take whatever grabs our fancy, a policy that applies to employees as well. Roberson explains that one of Zappos's core values is personal growth and that books are given out to help employees grow with the company’

Zappos’ Focus On Hiring for Culture

‘Such rapid growth was exciting. But it also led Hsieh to wonder how he could preserve Zappos' radical dedication to customer service and its fun, loose work environment. "We always hired for culture fit," he says. "But we were growing so quickly that managers who hadn't been around for very long might not know what our culture was." He wrote an e-mail to the entire company asking for help, and he distilled the responses into a list of 10 core values, including "Be humble," "Create fun and a little weirdness," and "Deliver WOW through service." Then he assigned and collected short essays from every employee on the subject of the company's culture and published them, unedited, in a book that he distributed to the staff.’

Zappos & The Future

‘At a time when most business leaders are retrenching, Hsieh is thinking big. In late 2006, he launched an outsourcing program to handle selling, customer service, and shipping for other companies, and last December, he started an educational website for small businesses that charges them $39.95 a month to tap Zappos executives for advice. Hsieh has said Zappos will eventually move beyond retail to businesses such as hotels and banking -- anything where customer service is paramount. "I wouldn't rule out a Zappos airline that's just about the best customer service," he announced at the Web 2.0 conference last fall’

Zappos is not (yet) a household name outside of the USA but the story of Hsieh and his brand success is starting to spreading. Here in the UK, you can order from the Zappos website, but it lacks the ‘wow’ of the US experience; the shipping is not free here, but that may change if they choose to have a UK presence in the future.

So watch out for Zappos....

Implement The Juggler’s Manifesto

We live in uncertain times; the world of work and business is increasingly unpredictable and there’s no single recipe for success. But there's a new trend evident in 2009; it’s clear that more of us are juggling more than one role or venture, whether we are CEOs of corporations or freelancers running multiple projects. Not only does plurality make us more enterprising it also makes us more passionate about what we do, as we go beyond a job title to carve out a unique work life. Juggling is about creating a work portfolio that reflects our multi-dimensional talents. This theme is at the heart of my book ‘Juggle!’ where I interviewed business leaders including Kevin Roberts, Worldwide CEO, Saatchi & Saatchi and Gary Vaynerchuk, wine entrepreneur & internet star.

My book explains how to reframe your working life through The Juggler’s Manifesto:

1. DO MORE THAN 1 THING, discover the value of being across more than one discipline. Sticking to just one thing limits your potential; place no limits on what you do and you’ll be more fulfilled.
2. BE PASSIONATE about all you do; let your passions and desires inform and shape your work life. Go beyond a job title and carve out a unique You-role. Do it your way.
3. BE AUTHENTIC, the Work You can be The Real You.
4. MIX UP WORK & PLAY. Forget work/life balance! Being a successful juggler is about integrating work and play, not aiming to neatly segment them.
5. BE A CHAMELEON, FLEXIBLE AND ADAPTABLE. Re-think all you do, be happy to change the rules again and again. Don’t stay entrenched in rigid ideas of how things should be done, be happy to learn new stuff, embrace new ideas.
6. THE BEST PLAN IS A NON-PLAN. Success in this new economy is about making it up as you go along, so forget a fixed long-term plan.
7. DEVELOP A PERSONAL BRAND to unite and communicate your strengths. Think and act like a big brand, sell yourself and blog/tweet/shout about your multi-dimensional talents.
8. DON’T PUT YOUR DREAMS ON HOLD, start living your dreams now and start incorporating them into your work life.
9. HAVE PURPOSE IN ALL YOU DO. Focus on making a difference and leaving a legacy.
10. RE-THINK WORK. Work is not a place you go; it’s a mindset you dip in and out of. Redefine success; it’s not just about your salary but a bunch of other stuff too like quality of life and flexibility.

Are You Getting Up At 2am For Your Customers?!

I wrote on this blog recently about the importance of ‘going the extra mile’ in customer service. And then a week ago I experienced service from a small business owner that really ‘wowed’, an example of someone who drove (literally) quite a few extra miles in the pursuit of service.

We were on holiday at The Ammos Hotel in Crete, a small privately-owned hotel. On the first night there our 3 year old woke up in pain. It was 2am in a foreign country; we had no hire car, no knowledge of where the nearest hospital was. We dialled the ‘emergency number’ that had been provided, which turned out to be the mobile ‘phone of the owner, Nikos. When he discovered he couldn’t get a doctor to us, he drove from his house to collect my wife and son and took them to a hospital. There, he acted as translator; they saw a paediatrician who diagnosed an ear infection and issued a prescription. Nikos then drove my wife to a pharmacy to get the medicine - which he insisted on paying for. He then returned them to the hotel where I was waiting with our other child. In the morning I went to shake his hand to thank him so much for all he had done and to apologise for his interrupted sleep. He just replied ‘It was nothing’.

That demonstration of ‘wow’ service really got me thinking; and whether you are a hotel owner, a freelance copywriter, an airline or a huge retailer, it’s a great lesson of the power of great service. So ask yourself, are you doing the equivalent of getting up at 2am for your customer?

'Juggle!' Goes To Vegas

Like a lot of connections as a result of attending SXSW, I can’t remember exactly how I ‘met’ Espree Devora (although unfortunately we only met on Twitter just as I was leaving town). But Espree read my book 'Juggle!' and was kind enough to wow about it; she called it ‘an entrepreneur’s bible’.

Espree and her team at action sports company Zex Sports have been inspired by Zappos and their commitment to customer service. So when Espree went to visit Zappos recently, she wanted to send the executives she'd met a gift; and she kindly ordered 20 copies of ‘Juggle! Rethink Work, Reclaim Your Life’ that I signed for each of them.

The books are now sitting in Zappos' HQ in Vegas and a few copies in the company’s library for staff and visitors to browse.

I want to say a huge thank you to Espree for bigging-up the book and spreading the word to Zappos and beyond. As they say at SXSW, ‘awesome’!

Make Your Company Accessible (& Make Sure You Check Your Info@ Emails)

Whether you are a one-person company or a huge corporation and you’re in the service business, make sure your customers can – easily - get in touch. Put a contact number or email address on every page of your website. Make your organisation – and the executives within it – accessible.

If you don’t feel confident about publishing the email addresses of your executives, then ensure you do have an info@ address (or a contactus@ or talktous@ or hello@). Some way of getting in touch.

But that is only half the story. Having a generic enquiry email address is only effective if it is someone’s responsibility to action. Make sure someone is checking – and dealing with – your info@ address.

It might be an enquiry about a piece of new business or a customer complaint. Either way, it matters.

I had a disappointing customer experience in a restaurant/cafe. A company who failed in their brand promise. I thought they had a good brand and they would be grateful for me talking the time and trouble to feedback. I wanted to email the CEO but could not find his email address in the public domain so I wrote to him c/o the info@ email address that I found on the company website.

That was 13 days ago.
And I have heard nothing back. No acknowledgement. Nothing.

And that lack of response has dented their brand equity*. It might only be feedback over a £2 cup of coffee but that oversight has the potential to damage their reputation. So stay on top of customer feedback, whatever business you are in.

*but I’m giving them a second chance and have filled in an enquiry form on their website: let's see if they are listening.....