Sounds + Food 'n' Retail

I added some more links to my blog-roll (scroll down, left side), such as Kottke's great little discoveries regarding restaurants or the Church of the Customer Blog, as well as a number of marketing and retail-related blogs and news-sites.

In addition to this, I added two Netvibes-pages, which means two pages full of feeds related to two areas:

Food and Retail:

and

Marketing and Art:

I'm not all-knowing after all.

In any case, it should provide plenty of material to others interested in the world of food and retail, and business related to this. Enjoy!

"What do you want to do?" is a terrible question. Not because I don't have the answer, but because it's always followed by "How are you going to do it?" It forces you to be honest and practical. Does "winging it" count?



No, probably not…

Knowing what you want to do is the greatest career-and life-related joy that can exist. It gives you a sense of purpose, and sometimes, not always, it gives you the answer to the question of how.

Luckily, the American National Retail Federation provides part of the answer, at least if you want to work in retail. I have decide to phrase it in a "Do you care about.." format, because that makes more sense to me than anything else, followed by the appropriate area in retail, and some sample job-descriptions. If anything, it should be of great help when answering human-resource questions.

Please note: If the picture is not legible, please click to see it full-size.



For further information about each field, go to the NRF-page and click on the "learn more" link below the texts. The site also kindly provides a nice chart to see where you stand as opposed to other functions and co-workers.

First of all, welcome to week 40 (or 39, depending on where you are). I'm feeling a little lazy to write today, probably because I need to re-enforce the rule of not writing on the weekends...

Part of customer-focus when blogging, is certainly "who are you writing for?" Fidji Simo, a much better blogger than me and a friend, asks the question on her blog and gets some great answers. I need to ask the question on mine at some point. If you treat the world as specialists, then who you're writing for becomes what you're writing about. I think I'm writing from the stance of an entrepreneur-to-be and an outsider to the world of FNR + business, doing research. So I write about a broad range of topics, and perhaps there are some like-minded people out there, perhaps not.

As I grow more experienced, starting a career in this field, starting a business, constantly keeping in mind the quote by Annie Dillard..

“If we listened to our intellect, we’d never have a love affair. We’d never have a friendship. We’d never go into business, because we’d be too cynical. Well, that’s nonsense. You’ve got to jump off cliffs all the time and build your wings on the way down.”

.. I expect to focus on more practical things.



So that is my "focus," but maybe I forgot the "customer" along the way? Note to self: don't make the same mistake when starting an actual business. Note to self 2: keep your sense of humour.

On HBR
So let's get back to Harvard Business Review, whose words I've been digesting slowly, but surely, over the last few months. There's a couple of things I appreciate about the journal, as a customer, and the most important one is their use of an editors' preview podcast to discuss next month's issue. Why I like that is because it saves me from going to the news-stand and leafing through it—however pleasurable that may be. BusinessWeek does something similar, as do other weekly/monthly magazines, I'm sure. But I really appreciate this from any news-vendor, because it's free, easily digestible, and is a great service.

And second, I appreciate their free content on the site; while it's not quite as valuable to me their magazine publication, it enforces the image that HBR is a quality-brand, worth paying € 15 for per issue.

By HBR
There have of course been some great words by HBR on the issue of customer-focus. As a matter of fact, I've just begun reading their special—OnPoint—issue on the lengthy topic of: "Staying focused on your customers, as you grow your business." I have only had time to read their editorial so far, but that already asks some great questions:

• What do customers really value in their relationship with you?
• How do they perceive the basic action of placing an order with you?
• Do you see total cost (in time/money) from their perspective?
• Do you understand the buying process of your most profitable customers?
• In designing new services, features, products, do you take a customer-centric stance?
• Can you clearly differentiate your products from those of competitors, in your customers eyes?
• How well do you learn about your customers' needs in the past/present/future? How wide is that learning shared, does it affect decision making?
• Is your customer strategy targeted enough towards acquiring, building a relationship with, and retaining them?

This has already given me plenty of food for thought today, and I hope it did the same for you!

The picture is courtesy of Solarseven on Stockxpert, but I was made aware of it via customersrock.wordpress.com.

So I watched this movie yesterday, I think it illustrates the concept of shareholders and investors, and what businesses really stand for, quite well. In part, you have a responsibility towards your employees today. In part, and that's where investors come in, you have a responsibility towards the future. In a sense, if both stakeholders were to communicate, the world would be a better world…

For me, it's a pretty safe bet that if I want to start a business, I'll need investors. And people starting a business in the world of food/retail venues, will definitely need a team also. Both will be depending on getting paid; the employees depending on today's cash flow, and the investors betting on a future value. That is life and the way this resource-intensive industry works.

The fact is that venture-backed firms—firms that have external and usually active investors, which hold a share in the business—are usually more successful that firms that are not. The reason for this is that active investors, while sometimes appearing cruel, actually make a business more efficient through various mechanisms such "fat-"trimming and performance-based investing, and also through their know-how and contacts in the industry.

This of course depends on the type of investors you have. On Tech IT Easy, I wrote about the four types of business angels, namely:

• Operational Expertise Business Angels: These have been or are major executives in the industry they are again investing in and are instrumental in growing the company through providing both financing, expertise, and contacts to suppliers, partners, and customers. Venture capitalists highly value these types of early-stage investors.
• Financial Returns Business Angels: These are high-worth individuals, but characterised by a passive involvement in the companies they invest in, except for maybe some business-advice. Too many of these types has a negative effect on attracting venture capitalists, as it does not grow the financial pie.
• Guardian Business Angels: These are probably the most active types, provide a lot of support, take seats on the board of directors, help find venture capitalists, and are highly valued by them. Since entrepreneurship is a highly people-chemical business, this makes sense.
• Professional Entrepreneur Business Angels: These are investors with the personal experience of having set up their own firms. Also the most well-know type, I think. They may sometimes invest outside of their expertise, which can be a problem, but have a lot of experience in and provide support with market-research, building up the company, meeting milestones, and other business-building activities. They are also highly valued by venture capitalists.

That's all nice and hypothetical, but what it really comes down to is…

Garbage-in-garbage-out
When dealing with investors, it's important to find out what their expectations are. On what basis are they valuing your business. If it's garbage, there is no point in continuing with an investor. I'm not going to define garbage extensively, but if an investor is only after personal profit, then that's a sign of garbage. If he or she is after maximising profit for the business, that is better.. to the degree that the core-values of the business don't get minimised.

That's why it's better to deal with investors that have at least two qualities*, preferably three. One: he or she has to know the industry, or else how can they accurately calculate the value—taking into account stuff that can't be entered in formulas; Two: depending on the stage of the business, he or she will have to be in it for several years, at least 7 when it concerns a start-ups, I would think. And three, he or she has to be what is called a Mensch.
(*: feel free to correct me on any of those).

In terms of employees, you also need a certain profile of people. They need to be dedicated to the business, not necessarily their pay-check; They need to understand business-concerns, and for that to happen, be involved with the business beyond their job-function. They need to understand and share similar values, which again requires two-way communication.

The implication for management is fairly clear, I think. When trying to reconcile both parties, you need to understand you're dealing with someone beyond their job-description. Employees, active investors, shareholders, customers, all have something in common. They are human, they can have vision, they can learn, grow, adapt, change, do. This is important during the selection stage—which employees will I hire, who will I ask to invest in me?—and the co-operative stage—how will I find the middle-ground between these people's concerns?

Other people's money? Get rid of the "other," get rid of the dissonance, and you're on the right track.

First of all, "forgot the name?" Indeed I did and that's already a bad sign for any place. I was brainstorming with my dad on business-ideas in a pancake-shop that had just opened. It still smelled of paint and the coffee stunk as well. The owners were stuck at the back, busy with making pancakes. But ok, I can blame plenty of this on lack of experience, growing pains, whatever you want to call it.

But here's a list of some good things, I think a pancake-place should possess.

Pictures of pancakes: these are wonderful creations, can be filled with sweet and savoury things. Why not advertise that. Instead they had this:

Pancakes (list of ingredients).............Small.....Large

1 ingredient.................................price X...price Y

2 ingredients................................price X...price Y

3 ingredients................................price X...price Y

Very organised, but so lifeless. How does this make me want to try one of their oh-so-delicious pancakes. It doesn't.

A take-out menu: I was a vegetarian for two years. One of the things I missed was that there are very few places catering to non-meat eaters. A savoury pancake can not only offer a great alternative to meat-dishes, it's also a great alternative to pizza. Why not grow your business a little?

Feedback-cards: as a new food-venue, i would consider this vital. How do you know that your formula works? Customers (e.g. me) can sometimes be much more creative than you can imagine.

Free internet and plugs: I already made this point before, and I know pigs will fly before it happens, but free internet = viral marketing!

Something to make me remember the name: a take-out menu, feedback-card, business-card, anything; don't be a commodity!

Finally, a better coffee would be nice. I understand that it's a pancake-place but they don't expect everyone to eat pancakes, do they?

And something I was brainstorming about with my dad: the importance and fallacy of personality in running a food-related venue. I'm sure I'll go into that another time.

The picture is courtesy of thisnylife.com