After six months of painstaking networking within the Contra Costa Family Court system, Jill Chioino (the Martinez franchisee) finally secured approval for AccuDiagnostics in Martinez to become a court approved drug testing company. Her efforts included taking a judge to lunch as well as talking to attorneys and other court personnel.
This is a major step in developing the court ordered drug testing market. It is also critical in credibility with attorneys who always want to know if you are court approved. This is one of the first questions an attorney will ask when they are approached for referral court ordered drug testing.
Now, at least in Martinez, AccuDiagnostics is a court approved drug testing company.
A big high-five to Jill for not giving up and for sticking to her strategy of winning over court personnel through follow up and being right on top of her game.
Thursday, June 11, 2009
Tuesday, June 9, 2009
Empowerment
Entrepreneurs become successful when they learn how to empower others. Below are two great quotes that I find packed with insight:
Before you are a leader, success is all about growing yourself. When you become a leader, success is all about growing others
- Jack Welch
Surround yourself with the best people you can find, delegate authority, and don't interfere
- Ronald Reagan
What each of these great leaders understood is that you cannot achieve success all by yourself. Often entrepreneurs are so concerned with the getting the job done right that they end up doing it themselves. Getting a job done right, especially if it involves providing great customer service, is important -- but to be able to scale and grow, others must be empowered. Without empowerment, an entrepreneur can never achieve ultimate success.
One of the most frequent reasons for entrepreneurial failure is not being able to hire, train, delegate and THEN let go. Sure, when others are empowered there will be failures. However, in the long run, success is much more probable when others are significantly empowered.
Before you are a leader, success is all about growing yourself. When you become a leader, success is all about growing others
- Jack Welch
Surround yourself with the best people you can find, delegate authority, and don't interfere
- Ronald Reagan
What each of these great leaders understood is that you cannot achieve success all by yourself. Often entrepreneurs are so concerned with the getting the job done right that they end up doing it themselves. Getting a job done right, especially if it involves providing great customer service, is important -- but to be able to scale and grow, others must be empowered. Without empowerment, an entrepreneur can never achieve ultimate success.
One of the most frequent reasons for entrepreneurial failure is not being able to hire, train, delegate and THEN let go. Sure, when others are empowered there will be failures. However, in the long run, success is much more probable when others are significantly empowered.
Monday, June 8, 2009
Media Can Make or Break a Franchise
Contrary to popular opinion, any ink is not good ink. In the last year, giants such as AIG, Bear Stearns, and Chrysler have learned this cold, hard lesson. There is a vast, dark chasm between good ink and bad ink.
As an entrepreneur, you must strategically decide which media outlet makes the most sense for your business. In order to take full advantage of the correct outlet, an entrepreneur must build a solid foundation with the members of that media.
Media can build or destroy a business. Furthermore, news and media is created by journalists—real people with feelings, opinions, and bias. Treating every reporter you meet with respect, dignity, and friendliness will encourage them to treat you and your business in like kind.
While a previous bad experience or hearsay may cause an entrepreneur to shiver in fear at the mere mention of a reporter, not every media encounter needs to be a negative one. Successful entrepreneurs have established positive relationships with media outlets and received the coverage they want and need.
To do this well, an entrepreneur must immediately set aside any previous feelings or predetermined opinions about a reporter’s past coverage, style, or bias.
Other important strategies for working with members of the media include:
* Be quick!
If someone calls to request an interview, ask what the subject matter is and when it needs to be completed by. Return the call at the earliest opportunity. Reporters work on tight deadlines, and if you do not contact them quickly, you may miss an opportunity—and irritate the reporter.
* Be thoughtful!
Consider the content. Before returning the call, think about what you want the final piece to say about you and your business. If necessary, jot down some critical information that you do not want to forget to mention. Also, keep important facts and statistics easily accessible so they can be referenced during the interview.
* Be honest!
If you don’t know, say so. If you do know, say so. It is a reporter’s job to get the information, and many will cross-reference and research until they find the truth. A lie can be a death sentence for company integrity.
* Be personal!
A reporter can become your worst enemy or very best friend. It is absolutely critical to establish a positive relationship at the earliest opportunity. This can be done by using the interviewer’s name throughout the interview and maintaining eye contact.
* Be relevant!
Stories can be interesting or entertaining, but only if they are relevant and positive. An irrelevant story can undermine your position or bore the interviewer.
* Be concise!
Saying as much as you can in as few words as possible is the ultimate key to a successful interview. Even if the interviewer is willing to listen to an hour-long interview, the content will likely be shortened to a few quick words in the paper or a few seconds on the air. Getting to the point quickly will give the reporter more quality content to work with.
* Be realistic!
Hypothetical situations can be the downfall of any interview. Do not answer hypothetical questions and do not hypothesize about imaginary circumstances.
* Be quiet!
Journalists are often taught to use long silences to their benefit. Frequently, there are prolonged periods of silence after the interviewee has responded. During these awkward pauses, many nervous interviewees will try to fill the gaps with extra information. This is where journalists often find their most interesting and damaging content.
* Be helpful!
‘No comment’ is the most fatal phrase an entrepreneur can utter to a reporter. By stalling or slowing the journalist’s progress on their assignment, you have established yourself as unfriendly and are more likely to be villanized by the offended author.
Consider requiring all interview questions to be submitted in advance. Some businesses and individuals require this, as it provides the entrepreneur with the opportunity to ponder the answers deeply and even write them down to avoid saying – or forgetting to say – something critical.
As an entrepreneur, you must strategically decide which media outlet makes the most sense for your business. In order to take full advantage of the correct outlet, an entrepreneur must build a solid foundation with the members of that media.
Media can build or destroy a business. Furthermore, news and media is created by journalists—real people with feelings, opinions, and bias. Treating every reporter you meet with respect, dignity, and friendliness will encourage them to treat you and your business in like kind.
While a previous bad experience or hearsay may cause an entrepreneur to shiver in fear at the mere mention of a reporter, not every media encounter needs to be a negative one. Successful entrepreneurs have established positive relationships with media outlets and received the coverage they want and need.
To do this well, an entrepreneur must immediately set aside any previous feelings or predetermined opinions about a reporter’s past coverage, style, or bias.
Other important strategies for working with members of the media include:
* Be quick!
If someone calls to request an interview, ask what the subject matter is and when it needs to be completed by. Return the call at the earliest opportunity. Reporters work on tight deadlines, and if you do not contact them quickly, you may miss an opportunity—and irritate the reporter.
* Be thoughtful!
Consider the content. Before returning the call, think about what you want the final piece to say about you and your business. If necessary, jot down some critical information that you do not want to forget to mention. Also, keep important facts and statistics easily accessible so they can be referenced during the interview.
* Be honest!
If you don’t know, say so. If you do know, say so. It is a reporter’s job to get the information, and many will cross-reference and research until they find the truth. A lie can be a death sentence for company integrity.
* Be personal!
A reporter can become your worst enemy or very best friend. It is absolutely critical to establish a positive relationship at the earliest opportunity. This can be done by using the interviewer’s name throughout the interview and maintaining eye contact.
* Be relevant!
Stories can be interesting or entertaining, but only if they are relevant and positive. An irrelevant story can undermine your position or bore the interviewer.
* Be concise!
Saying as much as you can in as few words as possible is the ultimate key to a successful interview. Even if the interviewer is willing to listen to an hour-long interview, the content will likely be shortened to a few quick words in the paper or a few seconds on the air. Getting to the point quickly will give the reporter more quality content to work with.
* Be realistic!
Hypothetical situations can be the downfall of any interview. Do not answer hypothetical questions and do not hypothesize about imaginary circumstances.
* Be quiet!
Journalists are often taught to use long silences to their benefit. Frequently, there are prolonged periods of silence after the interviewee has responded. During these awkward pauses, many nervous interviewees will try to fill the gaps with extra information. This is where journalists often find their most interesting and damaging content.
* Be helpful!
‘No comment’ is the most fatal phrase an entrepreneur can utter to a reporter. By stalling or slowing the journalist’s progress on their assignment, you have established yourself as unfriendly and are more likely to be villanized by the offended author.
Consider requiring all interview questions to be submitted in advance. Some businesses and individuals require this, as it provides the entrepreneur with the opportunity to ponder the answers deeply and even write them down to avoid saying – or forgetting to say – something critical.
Friday, June 5, 2009
Pass the Butter
One of the challenges of being an entrepreneur is finding time to stay physically fit. One of the critical mistakes an entrepreneur makes is not allowing for time to exercise and eat right. One of the simple things that can be done is to eliminate from your diet things that tend to be bad for you.
The other day, I read this essay on bad things people put into their bodies. The essay was called, “Pass the butter… please.”
Do you know the difference between margarine and butter?
Butter:
- Both have the same amount of calories
- Butter is slightly higher in saturated fats (8 grams compared to 5 grams)
- Butter increases the absorption of many other nutrients in other foods
- Butter tastes much better and can enhance the flavors of other foods
Margarine:
- Margarine is high in Trans Fatty Acids
- Margarine triples the risk of coronary heart disease
- Margarine increases total cholesterol and LDL (bad cholesterol)
- Margarine lowers HDL cholesterol (good cholesterol)
- Margarine increases cancer risk as much as 5 times
- Margarine lowers the quality of breast milk
- Margarine decreases immune response
- Margarine decreases insulin response
- Margarine can increase heart disease in women 53% over eating the same amount of butter
Furthermore, margarine is one molecule away from being plastic.
Try this…
Purchase a tub of margarine and leave it in your garage or shaded area. Within a couple of days, you should notice a couple of things:
1. No flies. Not even those pesky fruit flies will go near it -- that should tell you something!
2. It does not rot. It does not even smell differently, because it has no nutritional value. Nothing will grow on it, not even those teeny weenie microorganisms. Why? Because molecularly, margarine most closely resembles plastic.
Would you melt your Tupperware and spread that on your toast?
Sometimes just not doing something, or in this case eating something, can make a big difference. An entrepreneur that has a lifestyle that fosters unhealthy eating habits and a lack of exercise will compromise the long-term success of all the hard work that has been put into building a successful enterprise.
Thursday, June 4, 2009
Time: Your Most Precious Commodity
Five, ten, or twenty years ago time management meant deciding if you should take a phone call or not. Today, it is an entirely different beast.
There is an avalanche of information that can overwhelm. In order to get done what needs to get done, you have to accept that there is a finite amount of time and an infinite amount of work to fill the day. Once this concept is grasped, the challenge becomes putting first things first and letting the rest go.
This is a nearly impossible task for any entrepreneur
To a large extent, entrepreneurs will only be as successful as their ability to focus on the important things. What is your day made of? Can you actually not do the things that do not have a direct impact on your success? That is the hardest thing an entrepreneur has to do and learn to do well.
What not to do is as important as what to do.
Tuesday, June 2, 2009
Technology Challenges IV: A Solution
My last two posts have discussed my computer issues anyhow I attempted to resolve them. To recap briefly, I left off after telling how a company called iYogi successfully resolved two Microsoft Office Outlook issues and optimized my laptop, dramatically improving its performance. All of this for a $139.00 annual technical support agreement.
It did not take long for my next computer problem to surface.
The very next day, I tried to log on to my wireless network. It would not work. Rather than trying to figure this issue out or phoning my on-call $125 an hour technical support expert, I called iYogi. They reconfigured my wireless router and I was up and running in less than 20 minutes. The cost? $0.
The first three issues resolved the previous day had compensated for the $139 fee. I figured the rest of my technical support was just gravy.
There are some things to consider when using a firm like iYogi. They are in India (hence the inexpensive annual fee). They are only software solutions specialists. There still needs to be a maintenance agreement in place to handle hardware failures (which will come) and a hardware specialist for installation and hardwiring issues.
However, for pure software technical support, it is hard to beat the iYogi service.
Check them out at http://www.iyogi.net/.
It did not take long for my next computer problem to surface.
The very next day, I tried to log on to my wireless network. It would not work. Rather than trying to figure this issue out or phoning my on-call $125 an hour technical support expert, I called iYogi. They reconfigured my wireless router and I was up and running in less than 20 minutes. The cost? $0.
The first three issues resolved the previous day had compensated for the $139 fee. I figured the rest of my technical support was just gravy.
There are some things to consider when using a firm like iYogi. They are in India (hence the inexpensive annual fee). They are only software solutions specialists. There still needs to be a maintenance agreement in place to handle hardware failures (which will come) and a hardware specialist for installation and hardwiring issues.
However, for pure software technical support, it is hard to beat the iYogi service.
Check them out at http://www.iyogi.net/.
Monday, June 1, 2009
Technology Challenges III: A Better Deal
As I outlined in my last post, I had software issues on my laptop.
The issue was related to Microsoft Outlook. For some reason, my junk mail filters were not working properly. I could never figure this issue out, even after spending hours of my personal time (a big no-no, I.e. the “Operational Black Hole”).
Also, reminders for appointments and tasks were not working properly. Neither of these issues is mission critical but they were a major annoyance. The straw that broke the camel’s back was a missed phone appointment.
Since my Outlook reminder feature was not working, the appointed hour for an important phone call slipped by and I missed this appointment. This was a major embarrassment and it could prove to be a potentially very costly screw up.
I decided to get both of these problems fixed. I called my on-call computer expert.
He tried to resolve both of these issues online by logging onto my laptop, but after 90 minutes, he finally gave up and said that I would have to reinstall Outlook. Well, that was $187.50 ($125 x 1.5 hours) down the drain. I could have installed Outlook without spending $187.50.
Frustrated, I went online to Google and typed in “Microsoft Office Outlook technical support.” Naturally, I got the Microsoft technical support website. This was $99 for each resolved issue. Since I had two issues, the cost would be $198--but at least I would get the issues resolved.
I was just about to sign up for this solution when I noticed another link for a company called iYogi. I clicked on the link and reviewed the iYogi website, looking for information about their service. I was intrigued with what I read. This service is subscription-based, and for a flat annual fee of $139, they provide unlimited technical support on any Microsoft Office software issue or any other computer software issues such as wireless configuration of a LAN small office network, computer optimization, etc.
I called the toll free number to discuss their service. It just seemed too good to be true. After a five minute discussion, I decided to try it out. After all, for $139, I could resolve my two Outlook issues and even have them optimize my laptop.
The experience was unbelievable.
Their technician spent nearly three hours troubleshooting the Outlook reminder issues and the junk email issue and fixed both of them. I will not bore you with the technical issues, but I will tell you that reinstalling Outlook would not have resolved the reminder issue because it was a corrupt Outlook database PST file, which a new installation would not have fixed.
I then requested that the technician optimize my laptop. All computers slow down after a period of time, and optimization improves their performance. The technician spent 45 minutes optimizing my laptop. It now runs 30% to 40% faster.
All of this for just $139.00--and I still have 364 days left on my unlimited technical support agreement. Is some other issue going to come up where I can pick up the phone 24/7 and have them resolve it for me?
Tune in for my next blog to learn what happened next.
The issue was related to Microsoft Outlook. For some reason, my junk mail filters were not working properly. I could never figure this issue out, even after spending hours of my personal time (a big no-no, I.e. the “Operational Black Hole”).
Also, reminders for appointments and tasks were not working properly. Neither of these issues is mission critical but they were a major annoyance. The straw that broke the camel’s back was a missed phone appointment.
Since my Outlook reminder feature was not working, the appointed hour for an important phone call slipped by and I missed this appointment. This was a major embarrassment and it could prove to be a potentially very costly screw up.
I decided to get both of these problems fixed. I called my on-call computer expert.
He tried to resolve both of these issues online by logging onto my laptop, but after 90 minutes, he finally gave up and said that I would have to reinstall Outlook. Well, that was $187.50 ($125 x 1.5 hours) down the drain. I could have installed Outlook without spending $187.50.
Frustrated, I went online to Google and typed in “Microsoft Office Outlook technical support.” Naturally, I got the Microsoft technical support website. This was $99 for each resolved issue. Since I had two issues, the cost would be $198--but at least I would get the issues resolved.
I was just about to sign up for this solution when I noticed another link for a company called iYogi. I clicked on the link and reviewed the iYogi website, looking for information about their service. I was intrigued with what I read. This service is subscription-based, and for a flat annual fee of $139, they provide unlimited technical support on any Microsoft Office software issue or any other computer software issues such as wireless configuration of a LAN small office network, computer optimization, etc.
I called the toll free number to discuss their service. It just seemed too good to be true. After a five minute discussion, I decided to try it out. After all, for $139, I could resolve my two Outlook issues and even have them optimize my laptop.
The experience was unbelievable.
Their technician spent nearly three hours troubleshooting the Outlook reminder issues and the junk email issue and fixed both of them. I will not bore you with the technical issues, but I will tell you that reinstalling Outlook would not have resolved the reminder issue because it was a corrupt Outlook database PST file, which a new installation would not have fixed.
I then requested that the technician optimize my laptop. All computers slow down after a period of time, and optimization improves their performance. The technician spent 45 minutes optimizing my laptop. It now runs 30% to 40% faster.
All of this for just $139.00--and I still have 364 days left on my unlimited technical support agreement. Is some other issue going to come up where I can pick up the phone 24/7 and have them resolve it for me?
Tune in for my next blog to learn what happened next.
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