Lessons from the Favre fiasco

MARK HEALY

Globe and Mail Update

June 9, 2008 at 4:42 PM EDT

Brett Favre has been traded to the New York Football Jets. Officially. Finally. I've been calling this thing Favrever. It marks the end (we think) of one of the most bizarre, poorly handled, brand and reputation degrading, public soap operas anyone who watches sports has ever seen played out. The whole thing smacked of a lack of professionalism. On all sides. Professionalism starts with respect — for others and for self — and manifests in actions and communication. The Packers' management team was relatively unknown until about a month ago. Favre is a legend — a Pro Bowler and a first ballot hall of fame lock. Yet for both parties, obscure or celebrity, comportment is the only thing being talked about.

There's a good lesson in all of this: people think of/remember you more for how you act than what you do.

I got a letter in the mail last week. It was from a VP at Corus Entertainment. I had previously written to the CEO of Corus in one of my regular bouts of guerilla-business-development. Here is what it said. (I'm paraphrasing) 'We don't want your services.' What's special about it is the organization took the time to craft a custom letter, print it on fancy, branded letterhead and express mail it to my office. It caught me by surprise—not because the news was negative (you win some, you lose some)—but because it came at all. The bar in my mind, for professionalism in business, at least in this town, is set so low right now that I actually kept the letter and phoned the VP to tell her I was impressed with her organization.

Sad. But true. Did I miss a memo? Has it become accepted practice to not return phone calls, or emails, or letters? Is it now cool to call someone up, express interest in their services, have them go to hours of trouble crafting a proposal/quote/whatever, and then not contact them again? Even after they call you to ask about the status. Repeatedly. How about canceling meetings at the last minute, or outright no-showing? I've stopped counting the number of times I've called on or phoned someone, at a prescribed hour, only to find they are still on vacation—or the number of deals I've wiped of my whiteboard, deals which are into a 2nd or 3rd draft, because the potential client has disappeared into the Bermuda triangle.

My business partner (Mark Binns) and I talk about this often. We are both 33. And we feel like we are at the very trailing edge of old-school principles when it comes to business and dealing with other human beings. We have trouble understanding how other folks stay in business with their (in our opinion, perhaps we in the minority) shocking lack of business professionalism. We return every phone call and email, we don't cancel meetings whether with executives looking for projects or with students looking for jobs, and if we are just kicking tires we tell vendors as much and say Yes or No quickly.

If you buy this — that standards of behaviour and expectations have decreased — and you are running a SMB, you may have found a new differentiator. Not service per se, but business professionalism overall. Because it is part of the customer experience. A big part of it. And customer experience is the major driver of loyalty in marketing and in business.

To understand where business professionalism can be measured and improved in your business, a quick summary of customer experience mapping makes sense. This is a fancy term applied to a very straightforward idea: you should look at every interface between your company and your customers. Each of these customer touch points should then be graded or measured for continuous improvement. For example, if you are running a medical supply company, your touch points will include obvious spots:

• Website

• Customer service department

• Sales and service reps in the field

• Delivery or fulfillment personnel

But, there are not-so-obvious spots where customers/stakeholders come into contact with your brand:

• Accounting and accounts payable (folks chasing you for their money) • Investor relations firms, agencies or PR professionals acting on your behalf • Even order updating or re-filling forms As such, people will judge you on professionalism at every touch point. So, here are five very simple, yet commonly ignored, guidelines for professionalism which can set you apart from your competition:

1. Train basic etiquette into all your employees, as they are all brand ambassadors and customer experience drivers for your business

This is table stakes for business professionalism. Everything else is predicted on having this down pat. Let's start with the very basics here. 'Please', 'thank you' and 'you're welcome', as well as 'good morning, this is Paul, Jane isn't available right now, may I take your name and number?' and 'I'll look into it and follow up with you in two days' go a long way these days. If you have employees whom you think could use a refresher — either on basic etiquette (we're not talking about what fork to start with) or on basic communication skills (grammar, active listening) — bring in a professional coach. It will save you from being the bad gal/guy, and is relatively inexpensive ($200-$500 for a good session).

2. Set standards and follow them vehemently

The standards matter. And adhering to them matters more. Since communication is the first and usually most important touch point — whether it is an email sent in or a call placed to customer service — it is critical you make a good first and on-going impression. For the majority of SMBs, phone calls — all of them — should be returned on the same business day. Emails should be returned within 24 hours. If you are going to be away and not able to fulfill on your standards, you should re-record your voice mail directing callers to someone else, and you should set an out-of-office alert on your email. Your website should be easy to navigate, provide all contact information including your phone number, and it should be up 99.9% of the time (if it's not, change hosts). Look at your fulfillment promises (10 days for delivery, 20 minutes or it's free, etc.) and ensure you are meeting them consistently — you are better to relax them and manage expectations properly than to miss the mark on what you are promising. And keep all your meetings — canceling late or standing someone up is a real no-no.

One more note on training and standards. Hold your Partners (agencies, PR shops, etc.) to the same standards to which you hold your employees. They represent your brand.

3. Have the courage to say no. Quickly. Don't you hate it when you are pitching business and you can't get a straight answer from your prospect? We all do. So don't procrastinate when it's your turn. If the answer is no, pick up the phone and say No, and give your rationale.

4. Don't fight, problem solve.

We have an expression: the client is always right, except when they're wrong, now we're really consulting. Don't fight with your clients/customers. No matter what the situation. Problem solve with them to get to a resolution. Sometimes letting a customer save face is more valuable than a discount. And if you are in the wrong, admit it, fix it, and move on.

5. Pay on time.

You chase customers for money owed, right? To keep you're A/R down? Pay people on time. It's one of the greatest signs of respect, and will buy you favours you may need if you get in pinch.

That's it. Pretty simple, but the devil is in the details. If you can execute on the five points above, you will have a leg up on your competitors regardless of other dimensions of your business.

Business incubator panelist Mark Healy, P.Eng, MBA is a Partner at Torque Customer Strategy, a boutique marketing consultancy focusing on bringing organizations closer to their customers via insight development and a no-assumptions model. Mark has completed over fifty studies in this new space over the last four years. He is regularly quoted in the national media on topics ranging from customer loyalty to managing professional service firms. Mark teaches" Customer Intimacy for Marketers" at the Canadian Marketing Association, and a "Demystifying Consulting" module at top Canadian business schools. His full bio can be found at torquecustomerstrategy.com.

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Getting the inside scoop: How to mystery shop the competition

Ever apply for a job you weren't sure you really wanted? Do up a resume, sweat the cover letter, follow up, go through the interview process? Just to kick the tires — look around the office and meet some people? You figure the worst that comes of it is you meet some new contacts and learn something about an organization you didn't know much about already. You've just been mystery shopping, consciously or unconsciously.

So what is mystery shopping? It's a powerful tool in your market research toolkit is what it is. It's an opportunity to get out and experience, directly, what customers experience during their research, browsing, purchase and post-purchase processes. Maybe your customers. Maybe your competitors' customers. One thing's for sure — it's a vital part of any real market research exercise — could you thoroughly understand a market situation without seeing it/feeling it/experiencing it live? And it's inexpensive and straight-forward, if you know what you are doing.

First, some definitions. Mystery shopping goes by a lot of other names, although each refers to a slightly different beast:

- competitive intelligence (incorrectly in this case, as CI is its own discipline, where mystery shopping can be a component)

- in-field research/in-field observation (normally means there is no engagement with other humans)

- shop-along's/walk-along's/ride-along's (necessarily implies live interaction with customers, but may not engage sales reps, etc.)

The first question, when it comes to mystery shopping, is why do it in the first place? There are a hundred good reasons to do this regularly, as a business owner, or as a marketing/sales manager. But the USDA Grade AAA Prime motives revolve around customer, competitive and channel research and insights.

- Customer: you want to understand the customer experience you deliver

- Competitive: you have assumptions about your competitors' products or retail environment which you want to confirm or dispel

- Channel: you seek clarity on how your channel partners are representing your brand and products

You can probably think of others specific to your situation.

Can mystery shopping be done in a B2B environment? Yes, although it is very cumbersome to carry out within your own B2B business development process, so when it occurs it is almost always a major component of a competitive intelligence gig. It's tricky, it has moral and ethical rules and constraints attached to it, and it can be very time consuming. We lose deals at the eleventh hour once-in-a-while where I wonder if we had just been mystery shopped, and it drives me nuts since so much time is invested in services pitches. For the purposes of this discussion, let's stick to a B2C environment, like a retail store or a restaurant or an e-commerce portal — where the rules of engagement are much cleaner.

So, the second question about mystery shopping is — what are you looking for. The answer should be — everything. That can be a lot to take in, though. I usually bucketize what I'm investigating into three areas:

1) The arena

2) The products

3) The people

Let's start with the arena. The field of play. The context for the situation. I try to observe and capture as much as possible about the environment, whether it is a big box store or a fast food outlet. Size, colours in use, construction and decorating materials used, signage, marketing messages displayed, music playing in the background, volume of ancillary noise, smells in the air, lighting, aisle width and traffic flows including entrances and exits, line length at cash/check out, and cleanliness are all valuable to note. Details really matter here, as everything can have an effect on sales.

When it comes to products, there are fairly obvious attributes to record: brand, product size and format, packaging, pricing, model numbers, any promotions or special offers, and ingredients/features if appropriate. But just as important can be contextual product traits, such as placement on the shelf and in the store, or on a website, placement relative to other similar and dissimilar products and brands, and on-premise and point-of-purchase displays and materials.

Most important is observation and engagement with, if possible, people. I love watching how people shop, and discovering their decision making criteria and processes. I did a study a couple of years ago on magazine buyers in grocery stores. How complicated can that be you ask? Turns out it was fascinating. The location of the rack in the store was crucial — had to be line-of-sight from a high traffic aisle to attract browsers. And people would walk up only to be overwhelmed by the colours of the different titles, seen as one giant blurred mosaic from 6-20 feet away — so the insight there was divided racking and title repetition helped people consume information, select and ultimately purchase. Just as important is observing and engaging with staff and on-premise reps, who contribute greatly to the experience via their interactions with customers, and with each other. You can learn a lot by asking a sales rep a bunch of dumb questions.

Which brings us to 'how'. How is mystery shopping actually carried out? There are two scenarios possible:

A) The mystery shop is 'blind', i.e. no one knows you are there or what you are doing

B) The mystery shop is 'green lit', i.e. you are there with full knowledge of the management/staff

In scenario A, there is a spectrum of approaches, ranging from behaving like a standard shopper (go through the experience like anyone else would) to more aggressive techniques such as timing elements on a stop watch to writing notes on a pad or in a BlackBerry to snapping pics on a cell phone camera (this is normally against regulations, by the way — tread very carefully here). Scenario A can be stressful, and it normally helps to pick on a number of locations, focusing on different things (products, people, etc.) in each location. I was once kicked out of drug store in California for 'loitering' — I was actually standing around counting customers coming in and out of one of the departments. Good times.

In scenario B, a much preferable situation, you have free reign to set as much context with reps and customers as you like before engaging them in a mini interview or 'shop along', in addition to all the observation you want to conduct. I usually choose to set maximum context, challenging people to be part of the process and help solve the problem I'm tackling with me. People are smarter and more observant than you might guess, and can often offer up insights you'd never get by simply walking up and launching into some questions. In any event, here you have the opportunity to get past 'what?', and onto 'how?' and 'why?' This is where you're going to find out from a rep that even though product X has the lowest price, no one buys it because the reps won't recommend it — or that shoppers order nothing off the value menu because it is 'plain and ugly'.

If you run and/or market for a B2C company, and you haven't spent any time in the field lately, it won't be a waste of time for you.

Business incubator panelist Mark Healy, P.Eng, MBA is a Partner at Torque Customer Strategy, a boutique marketing consultancy focusing on brining organizations closer to their customers via insight development and a no-assumptions model. Mark has completed over fifty studies in this new space over the last four years. He is regularly quoted in the national media on topics ranging from customer loyalty to managing professional service firms. Mark teaches" Customer Intimacy for Marketers" at the Canadian Marketing Association, and a "Demystifying Consulting" module at top Canadian business schools. His full bio can be found at His full bio can be found at torquecustomerstrategy.com.

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Pump and dump: How small business can survive rising oil prices

Oil at $125-$150/barrel. How do you like them apples? It seems like anytime an "analyst" from an investment house puts out an opinion on oil, the price jumps. What happened to the good old days when your last name had to be Rockefeller or Kennedy to move the needle on THE ENTIRE WORLD ECONOMY by sharing a point of view? But that is the world we live in now — the instant-over-correction world.

That oil costs billions more to find, extract, pipe, refine, ship, crack, convert to gasoline, distribute and sell, yet until very recently was priced lower than, water or pop isn't relevant. What is relevant is that you — Mr. or Mrs. SMB Owner — will feel the rising price of oil. Will it stay high for good? Who knows, the experts don't agree. It's a pretty safe bet that prices will stay high for the rest of the summer, though. So how will this impact you and what should you do?

The fiscally savvy set is screaming "hedge!" Uh huh. Most of us cannot spell derivative, let alone sort out how to make them happen, so let's put that aside. For many SMBs, understanding, preparing and executing is more practical.

Understanding what is around the corner, if not already here, is key. So let's start with: at a high level, what do rising oil prices mean for SMBs?

1) Higher energy prices and utility bills. It's inevitable your gross rent, or your gas bills etc. are going to be higher.

2) Higher input costs. Almost anything you buy to convert into a finished product has and likely will continue to escalate in price — from food to plastic parts. For once, a high proportion of cost represented by labour might be a good thing.

3) Higher maintenance and services costs. Whether we're talking air conditioning repairs or sending out laundry, prices are bound to go up.

4) Higher transportation costs. From fuel in your cars/delivery trucks to airline tickets, it will cost more to get you and/or your goods around.

Let's deal with points 1-3 first. Understanding they are coming is one thing. Dealing with them is another. There are no magic bullets, so the old adages of 'sharpen your pencil' and 'shop around' still hold true. When was the last time you:

- picked over your income statement, line by line, asking if the cost is needed at all, and if it is what or how you could cut it?

- conducted a supplier audit — maybe even a 'bake-off' (competitive bids) — to make sure you're getting the best prices?

- visited or called your suppliers to ask for discounts or concessions?

- looked overseas for alternative/cheaper inputs?

- put a real focus on efficiency, particularly on reducing start-up/shut-down time, energy use during non-core hours, and in-process transportation?

- rationalized your product or service offering, taking costly but poorly selling offerings off the menu entirely?

- shared your full financial statements with your team/employees, to implore them to help you reduce costs, and to ask them for creative ideas on cost avoidance?

A lot of the options above are straight forward, and easier said than done. But a little can be a lot. And there's always room for improvement. An industrial engineering instructor of mine used to say that if a process hadn't been looked at in over a year, there was 10% to be saved, guaranteed.

That leaves us with transportation costs. Tricky. Simply saying 'reduce transportation' doesn't make sense. Sometimes you have to invest in a relationship to get a sale. Often a customer has to visit you before they will buy. Nevertheless, the cost of driving and flying is going to go up in an ugly way. So a good framework here is to ask yourself whether customers come to you to purchase, or whether you go to customers to win sales. The impact of high oil prices is different in each case.

If customers come to you:

Whether you are selling hot dogs or surround sound home theatres, you can probably count on two phenomena if gas prices stay high:

- Customers will not travel as far to visit you.

- Customers will not travel as often to visit you.

Let's tackle geography first. Appealing more to the local market and increasing the frequency of visits of customers closer to home the logical defense here. Blowing your brains out on marketing in regions where you are used to drawing from may be effective for a time, but it won't take away the travel cost. I know a great hot dog stand in Port Dover, Ontario — called The Arbour — which traditionally pulls folks in from as far away as Hamilton. I feel for the owners — marketing to the locals and folks in neighbouring towns probably makes more sense this summer. And if you are in, or part of, the tourism economy, re-conceptualizing your business as a service or local expert or homegrown traditional business might make a lot of sense for the time being.

Again in looking at customers not visiting as often, spending money on marketing to change that behaviour likely is not the wisest course. It is better to understand that behaviour, even empathize with it in dealing with customers, and to try to incentiveize customers to spend more on each visit. There are different techniques, from discounting 2nd and 3rd items and bundling, to more unique plays such as special promotions/features (The Keg is great at this) and education (to help customers understand, say, the value of a full system and not piece-meal purchases).

If you travel to customers

Are you going to halt all business travel? No, of course not. But will you reduce it? I bet you already have, and you'll likely continue to do so. You'll probably:

- Fly less frequently.

- Drive fewer kilometers.

If you fly to win/keep business, you've got some tough decisions to make. Sure you can shop around, but a surcharge is a surcharge. Maybe it's time to look at web conferencing again (or for the first time). Even if it means an up-front investment. Even if you have to buy the equipment for a few of your customers and ship it to them/train them on how to use it. You can explain to these customers that it's important to cut costs in order to continue a high level of service, or you can spin the decision as part of going green, or both. In the end, you'll save a lot of time and money — just make sure you don't lose the business along the way.

If it's driving we're talking about, segmenting your customers on some type of value or importance scale is good first step. No one likes to think of good and bad customers — all customers are good customers. It's just that some are better, and merit the drive. Maybe some prefer the phone or email anyway? And even something as simple as being more organized (combining visits with other necessary travel) can help reduce costs and time. Whether flying or driving, having an open and trust-based relationship with customers in more important now than ever. Keeping the lines of communication open can save you some unnecessary travel, and a lot of money.

I hope that OPEC rams up production, that some security threats are reduced, and that the US government does something about oil speculators as much as you do. But it's going to take some time. Getting ready for increased costs is prudent, and a worse a great exercise in strategic review and profit generation.

Business incubator panelist Mark Healy, P.Eng, MBA is a Partner at Torque Customer Strategy, a boutique marketing consultancy focusing on brining organizations closer to their customers via insight development and a no-assumptions model. Mark has completed over fifty studies in this new space over the last four years. He is regularly quoted in the national media on topics ranging from customer loyalty to managing professional service firms. Mark teaches" Customer Intimacy for Marketers" at the Canadian Marketing Association, and a "Demystifying Consulting" module at top Canadian business schools. His full bio can be found at His full bio can be found at torquecustomerstrategy.com.

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What exactly is networking?: A referral strategy for SMBs

A good friend of mine just returned from four days in Vegas. He looks like hell. Pallid, haggard, broke. You get the picture. I asked him what he was doing there (stag party) — he said "networking".

Networking. Fewer terms are bandied about so frequently yet carry so many meanings. I dare you ask the next 10 business folks you run into to tell you what they think networking means. I bet you will hear something along the lines of:

• Taking clients to hockey games
• Joining a professional club or network group
• Working the cocktail party circuit
• Volunteering as a board member

For SMBs, networking is vital. I think this is generally accepted as truth. Ask most SMB owners and they'll tell you that some large percentage of their business comes in through their network. However — this is the big but — if you dig, you'll find that most of the time, the business didn't come in 'cold' from the 'networking'. Someone made a phone call. Or sent an email. Someone who had already worked with that SMB. And probably not of their own accord — they were prompted. So was it really network that landed the business? It was referral networking.

The business owners I know who are very good at drawing in new business via directed networking have two things in common:

1. They ask their current customers for referrals. Actively, not passively.
2. They have a top-notch (conscious or unconscious) referral networking strategy in place.

Which brings us to, as they say at the Cineplex, our feature presentation (note to feature movie sponsor — I am not richer than I think): the elements of a good referral networking strategy for SMBs.

We need a framework for the strategy discussion. How about: if your end goal is to ask a current customer to refer you to a prospective customer ("hey Larry, could you call Sue and get the door open for me over there?), then all of the elements of the strategy should build toward being able to confidently make The Ask. There are 5 elements to a solid referral networking strategy. Let's work backwards.

Element 5: Fantastic Customer Experience

Think about it. What is the one piece of the puzzle you need to have solved before you call Larry to make The Ask. It's great customer experience, no? If Larry had a poor or even average experience with you, are you going to make the call? No. Larry had to have had a really positive customer experience. What goes into engineering a great experience for customers? Depends on the industry or the product/service, but some basics usually include:

• relationship building,
• customer service, and
• a memorable differentiator. Don't underestimate how important it is to be memorably different.

The bottom line is that if you don't have confidence in the customer experience you are providing, this is the first thing to fix in your referral networking strategy.

Element 4: Product/Service Quality

So you need to create an environment for fantastic customer experiences before you can make the referral ask. What comes before customer experience? What needs to be in place before even the opportunity to provide a great experience can manifest? Well it likely has something to do with your product/service and its related quality. It's difficult to imagine a scenario where your product/service sucks, or is even average, and yet customers come away willing to say very positive things about you. This is one of those zero-sum games — like table stakes for my buddy in Vegas — product/service quality is expected. If you deliver, then people will focus on the intangibles (like great customer experience), but if you don't, then the recommendation will always be made with an asterisk. There are so many factors that affect quality, but not all that many that affect perception of quality:

• pricing, which ultimately leads to a judgment about value,
• purchase environment, whether a store, an office or a website — the details matter here, and
• guarantees/after-sales support. You have to get the check-mark here.

Element 3: Experience and Credibility

People can't give you the thumbs up on quality in order to move on to raving about customer experience and thereby agree to make a referral for you if they don't have an opportunity to buy/trial/otherwise experience your product or service in the first place. And the purchase criterion or step in the purchase process that normally comes right before actually pulling the trigger is a check by the customer on your experience/credibility. "Have you catered an event this larger before?" "Have you done any work in telecom before?" You can't cheat here. But you can put yourself in better light when it comes to experience and credibility. Some of the most effective methods of communicating know-how are:

• awards + client lists and testimonials,
• partnerships with known/branded entities, and
• case studies, published articles/white papers, etc.

If you have weapons, don't hide them in the cellar. Pull them out and put them to work.

Element 2: Awareness and Relevance

One step removed from experience/credibility is awareness and relevance. In other words, if experience is judged just before purchase, this means the customer is already engaged in a decision process about you and must therefore be aware of not only who you are but also what you do, and must think you are relevant to their current need. So how the heck do you create awareness of product/service and communicate relevance? We almost back to the basics of marketing now:

• a well constructed website that clearly articulates the value proposition and covers the basics,
• effective marketing collateral, designed around your different customer segments, and
• normally most important for SMBs with lower brand equity — legitimate PR.

It's more important to be accurately known to your target segments than widely known to all.

Element 1: Brand

Before you can be known for what you are all about, and get the chance to prove your product/service is relevant, you have to be known, period — to your prospective customers. People have to have heard of you before they can hear of what you are good at. Obvious, but none-the-less true. Getting known involves building a brand. Maybe not the Nike brand or the Lululemon brand, but a differentiated and clear brand. These days, building a good brand involves, among other things:

• a thorough understanding of customer behaviours/needs/wants,
• sharp internal understanding of the brand promise: everyone must sing from the same sheet, and
• crystal clear and consistent messaging and manifestations of the brand promise.

It doesn't have to be whizbangy, it has to be real and it has to be reiterated a lot.

A solid referral networking strategy is like and upside-down triangle, with slices cut across it like layers in a trifle. At the very top is brand — getting known; which leads to awareness and relevance — building an understanding of what you are good at and matching it to the customer need; which then drills down into experience and credibility — proving out that you are worthy of the purchase; which in turn leads to product/service quality — a necessary check point on the road to a great experience; and ends at fantastic customer experience — the most important and last element in the chain that leads to a referral.

If you have done a reasonable job of building a brand, communicating awareness and relevance, demonstrating experience and credibility, ensuring high quality and creating a positive, memorable customer experience — you are in great shape to ask your customers for referrals. And to tell people you get a lot of business from networking.

Mark Healy, P.Eng, MBA is a partner at Torque Customer Strategy He has completed over fifty studies in this new space over the last four years. He is regularly quoted in the national media on topics ranging from customer loyalty to managing professional service firms. Mark teaches" Customer Intimacy for Marketers" at the Canadian Marketing Association, and a "Demystifying Consulting" module at top Canadian business schools. His full bio can be found at torquecustomerstrategy.com.

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What you can learn from watching the chase for Stanley's cup

Montreal

Pittsburgh

NY Rangers

Washington

Detroit

San Jose

Anaheim

Colorado

Eventually, San Jose over Montreal, to win their first cup. Those were my picks as of the start of the playoffs a week ago. I'm sticking with them.

I often look to pro sports for business analogies. The leagues provide great models for strategy, leadership and execution in that a) the rules are very defined so causal effects of decisions (bench a player, invest in defense) are easy to evaluate — there is no 'blaming the market' in sports, and b) the results are measurable and tangible both short-term (nightly in some cases) and long-term (a season, a decade).

I, like you, run a SMB. And I'm a hockey fan — a Habs fan in fact. It kills me to pick the Sharks over the Habs, I just think it's their time. Anyway, this time of year gives me plenty of opportunity to 'study' the NHL, digging for business truths. And to use the nuggets to predict the fate of each team in the playoffs.

So, here's the analysis framework, based on the basic hockey club hierarchy:

• General Managers of hockey teams are likes CEOs/Presidents of Businesses. Their role is primarily to set direction for the organization overall, to evaluate talent/hire/fire/build the team, and to manage payroll. Sound like your role?

• Coaches are more analogous to COOs or Division Managers. Coaches run the day-to-day operations. Their job is to study the opposition in order to make short-term, tactical plans, to motivate and manage players, and ultimately to wear the blame or take the credit for execution of strategy.

• Wingers get a lot of glory and in many businesses that role is Sales. The job of the Winger is primarily to take care of business within their own purview and to score a lot of goals, not unlike winning deals or making sales.

• Centers are more like Marketers. Centers have to score some goals but they're expected to be play makers provide a ton of support to their Wingers and to the Defense — to set the team up for success, one step removed from a goal (sale).

• Defensemen act like core Operations folks in businesses. Their role, for the most part, is to guard the status quo — to keep the game flowing without allowing the team to be scored on. I see this role as similar to engineers in a manufacturing plant, servers in a restaurant, accountants in a tax firm, etc. — expected to run a tight ship and keep quality high.

• And finally, goalies are the last line of defense which in many businesses is the job of Administration and Finance. Goalies are expected to not give up the big goal and to quietly direct the rest of the players on the ice. CFOs and Administrative Assistants often do the same thing.

Okay, if you buy the framework above, here's why I think each of the playoff teams will succeed or fail in this year's Stanley Cup run.

The East

• Montreal: The Habs have great balance throughout the business and will go far. Bob Gainey is a fantastic, experienced CEO, and their Operations are rock solid. In the end, I think they are a tad green in the COO and CFO positions, where experience is crucial. Predicted finish: lose in the finals.

• Pittsburgh: All kinds of talent from Operations to Marketing to Sales. I just don't love the track record of the COO or the CFO. Predicted finish: out in the 3rd round.

• Washington: They have the best pure Business Development (Sales + Marketing) professional in the business. The COO is a complete unknown who has turned the team around but has never been to the show before. Predicted finish: out in the 2nd round.

• NY Rangers: This is a dangerous organization. Great Sales and Marketing depth. An underrated CFO. I don't know about their Operations though. Predicted finish: Out in the 2nd round.

• New Jersey: The CFO is old and now overrated. Great Operations and a gritty COO. But not enough firepower in Sales or Marketing. Predicted finish: out in the first round.

• Philadelphia: Solid in all areas, although a bit raw in the COO role. But no stars in any one department. Predicted finish: out in the first round.

• Ottawa: The Sens have one person trying to fill both the CEO and COO role, an almost impossible assignment these days. And their Sales and Marketing folks just look tired and de-motivated. Predicted finish: without sales there is no cash flow, bounced in the first round.

• Boston: Weak Sales and Marketing and an unproven CFO. Predicted finish: out in the first round.

The West

• Detroit: On paper, it is hard to argue they are not the deepest organization. A very well respected CEO. A COO with a tremendous track record. Great Sales and Marketing. The best Operations/CFO tandem in the league. Yet, I'm just not a believer. Not enough corporate culture? Predicted finish: out in the 2nd round.

• San Jose: Amazing balance from top to bottom here. The CEO drafts well. The COO is experienced. One of the best Marketers around and very effective Sales people. No holes in Operations or in the CFO/Admin area. Predicted finish: WIN THE STANLEY CUP.

• Minnesota: I love the CEO/COO management team. And I love the gritty Operations. Just not enough Sales: predicted finish: out in the first round.

• Anaheim: Experience pays. Brilliant CEO who is a great talent evaluator. A COO who has succeeded. Great CFO. But I just don't think they've their Operations, Marketing or Sales departments have quite enough talent anymore. Predicted finish: out in the 3rd round.

• Dallas: They're a lot like Detroit — all the ingredients of a GE style organization. I just don't know about the COO. Predicted finish: bounced in the first round.

• Colorado: Look out. The only weak spot here is the CFO — and not all the time. The COO is way underrated. Predicted finish: out in the 2nd round.

• Calgary: A bit old school, no? The COO manages through fear. The Ops guys like to fight in the parking lot. The Sales people are more account managers than hunters. Predicted finish: out in the first round.

• Nashville: Can you name the CEO? What about the COO? Okay, the CFO? Predicted finish: out in the first round. Oh, and no, Jim Balsillie did not buy the team. Yet.

Mark Healy, P.Eng, MBA is a partner at Torque Customer Strategy He teaches a "Demystifying Consulting" lecture series yearly at The Richard Ivey School of Business, as well as Schulich's and Laurier's Business Schools. Mark's full bio can be found at torquecustomerstrategy.com.

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HRethinking social networking—Why I think Facebook is finished

I just got the results from round #1 of our annual NCAA office pool from Karen, our resident bracketologist. Note to federal and/or provincial authorities: we play for embarrassment rights. Amazingly, I am not in last place (like an annual rite of spring). See, I think there are only two ways to approach a pool like this. You can pick a mix of favourites and upsets, going out on a limb in a few instances (my preferred method). Or, you can just pick the favourites, but where's the fun in that? The advantage of the latter is of course the 'odds' are in your favour. The problem, though, is we all know some of the higher ranked teams will get knocked out. Beware the top-ranked.

In the same way I was leery of Vanderbilt, I am now leery of Facebook. If you run a SMB and you're considering a Facebook push, of if you're about to launch a start-up and your strategy includes Facebook, maybe you should be too.

But we're getting ahead of ourselves. I often get asked by clients "should we be on Facebook?" And I think "oh, boy." There is a process here.

• The first step is a qualifier: are you running a B2C or B2B venture — if B2C, proceed — if B2B, do not pass Go, do not collect $200 (social networking sites are next-to-useless for B2B businesses, because their owners/decision makers do not look for leads or information on these sites). (For those of you screaming "what about LinkedIn?!" — fair — but we're not talking about connecting to others or recruiting here — we're talking about making money.)

• The 2nd step is to check on whether you have a solid understanding of social networking in the first place.

• The 3rd is to assess what you're trying to accomplish, and whether that matches up with the audience you are trying to access and the functionality of the sties.

• If the moon and the stars are still aligned, then the last step is to sort out which site makes the most sense: it might be Facebook, but then again it might be YouTube or something specialized.

So, let's back up a step and talk about the social networking phenomena first, for those new to the space. Social networking is a massive misnomer for starters, in the same way that reality TV is an oxymoron — I don't actually know any teachers who hang out in the jungle and run obstacle courses sponsored by Mountain Dew — but perhaps that's just me. Social networking should actually be called antisocial networking, given that you necessarily have to have a computer display between you and others to participate. Here's a highly unofficial but fairly accurate definition of social networking: a forum for individuals who wish to congregate online for the purposes of displaying details of their lives to others, sharing pictures or stories or videos, starting or participating in discussion groups, finding and/or observing/bothering ex-girlfriends or ex-boyfriends, or unabashedly pushing a personal agenda, product or service (normally not overly successfully). The behemoths are MySpace (109 MM unique visitors in Jan 08), Facebook (102 MM, same metric) and Bebo (22 MM, same metric). (source: ComScore)

Ok, so at this point we have at least a slightly better idea of what social networking is and isn't. Now let's talk about what you're trying to accomplish, assuming you're running a B2C play. In very general terms, here are some good reasons for considering social networking sites:

• you are trying to generate awareness for your product or service, in a fairly tight demographic — if you 'seed' the idea/whatever with the right social influencers in the site (those that have many 'friends' and are respected by peers as opinion leaders), you have a shot. Real success stories are fairly rare, though — and success requires a dedicated effort, just like a traditional campaign.

• you are looking for feedback from customers/potential customers — the user bases of these sites are so large, it's not hard to get at least a decent data set to a few questions.

And here are some bad reasons to jump on the bandwagon:

• you want to sell more product/service today — social networking users typically hate an obvious pitch, because it will have zero to do with why they signed up in the first place.

• you want thousands of people to say great things about your product/service — trying to control the message is both dangerous and unrealistic — the word will spread, good or bad. (There's a saying I'm hearing a lot lately: "Facebook was great until the marketers showed up.")

• and the big one, your new business idea involves connecting like-minded people (fishermen or train spotters or whoever) to one another, and you're hanging your strategy on a Facebook application and advertising revenues.

Opinion of one: Facebook has peaked and is in for an ugly decline. I work with an alumni group considering launching a new portal. I'm encouraging the group not to tie the portal into Facebook so that they are not caught with two drinks in hand when everyone starts to leave the party. If you are merely trying to drive awareness or solicit feedback, no big deal — there will inevitably be another popular venue. If you're counting on Facebook for customers, or as a pillar of your business model, be careful. I had Matt who does core research for us pull some up-to-date stats on Facebook (I'm going to ignore MySpace and Bebo as they are not as popular in Canada — Canadians have adopted Facebook in a serious way, though — the 2nd largest Facebook community in the world is the Toronto community). You be the judge:

Declines and business model issues

• Between Dec 07 and Jan 08, the UK (ahead of Canada in Facebook adoption) saw for the first time a decline in users (5%) and Canada experienced a 2% decline. (source: Economist.com)

• In Britain, it appears Facebook has hit a natural plateau. Bebo and MySpace hit their user peaks in mid-2007. (source: Economist.com)

• The consensus from several bloggers: ads/promotions and personal space just don't work very well together. Social media users click on ads fewer times than do search engine users. (source: Blogger.com)

• Rupert Murdoch, who purchased MySpace.com in 2005, which has since doubled its users, scoffs at a multi-billion dollar Facebook valuation, saying the site is a utility, worth little more than a phone book. (source: Economist.com)

Some recent problems/complaints

• Beacon program (Nov 07): Facebook's ad system that puts people's purchases from other sites (e.g. amazon.com) in their friends' "news feed." Described by my crew as an invasion of privacy, so Facebook had to go back and retool the program because of the huge backlash.

• Ryerson Facebook cheating scandal: one student encouraged the sharing of answers/information in a Facebook group that was already set-up.

• Pro-anorexia groups: Facebook refuses to step in and take down the groups that provide teens with the means to justify their actions, not get help with the disease. Perhaps Facebook should not act here — but you can see the slippery slope.

Beware the top-ranked. I'm not saying that you should outright ditch your Facebook-related plans if you're about to place your bet. The number of users (base) is still clearly very high (64MM + users worldwide, 2/3 of Canadian internet users have an account), and the 'quality' of the consumer base is good in that you can micro-target based on demographics and user preference. Plus the two age groups that dominate are the desirable 18-24 year-old university crowd and the 35+ year-old high-disposable-income folks. But, marketing fatigue in Facebook is starting and the whole site could see a big backlash if privacy concerns, PR nightmares and the lack of new/useful functionality are not dealt with publicly and effectively. I'm just saying you should walk through your logic and think about whether you want to go all-in.

Mark Healy, P.Eng, MBA is a partner at Torque Customer Strategy He teaches a "Demystifying Consulting" lecture series yearly at The Richard Ivey School of Business, as well as Schulich's and Laurier's Business Schools. Mark's full bio can be found at torquecustomerstrategy.com.

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How to build a great web site—with no tech skills

I'm doing renos on my house. Going for a very modern look. Straight, clean, sleek lines. Low knickknack factor. If it was entirely up to me, most rooms would looks like the inside of the Death Star (just dated myself) — all glass and dark metal. No plants. Unfortunately, or fortunately, depending on your perspective, I'm married and my wife has input on these decisions.

Anyway, here's what I was told would happen, by my friends who had been through the process: "it will be way more work than you're predicting." They're correct.

The same can be said for overhauling a website. We just went through a complete company website rebuild. It was a massive amount of work. And we learned a ton. I sat down with Terence Smith, one of our consultants who led the site build from our side, to sort out exactly what we learned. I didn't have a tape recorder (just dated myself again, doh!) so what follows is a somewhat approximate/in some cases mostly made up transcription of the 'interview'.

Me: Wow, our new site is killer! I'm going to look like a genius!

Terence: But I did all the work.

Me: Ah. Yes. You're going to look like a genius!

Terence: Can we just get on with this? I have real work to do.

Me: Right. So, what were our top three learning's from the whole experience?

Terence: Besides me needing to ask for a promotion?

Me: [blank stare]

Terence: Well, the first big takeaway is that creativity takes time. The whole creative design process just can't be rushed if you're going to get it right. The second is you have to hire the right firm. We used n49 (www.n49.com) and they were a great match in terms of skills and the way they work (like us). Last — there is a massive amount of work required before the coding starts — it's the classic iceberg analogy where what you see in the end is about 10/11 of the up-front work required to get it right.

Me: Ok, can we go back to the start and work through the process in order?

Terence: Don't you ever get sick of recording processes?

Me: Huh?

Terence: Forget it. The very first step in the process was really when you decided we needed to re-communicate our brand entirely. That led to us examining all our brand touch points — it helped us understand that a complete website rebuild was required. So we blew it up and started over.

Me: See, I told you I would look like a genius.

Terence: Whatever you say. Anyway, assigning an internal champion to run with the project was the second step, with an understanding there would be time and money support from the Partners.

Me: Didn't you really start with an analytics audit of our current site, to understand which pages mattered most?

Terence: Yup — and the home page, experience/clients and team were definitely the most important.

Me: Ok, what next?

Terence: I looked at a ton of websites — both at other professional service firms/marketing organizations, and at sites that had nothing to do with us. I looked for 'goods' and 'bads', and then revisited the good sites to write down best practices.

Me: But the research went deeper — we also looked at the viability and alignment with how customers want to or should experience us on the web as well, right? (e.g. not everyone wants to come to our site every day — they come with questions, and they look for stories, etc.)

Terence: Right. So, I made a series of documents for us and for the firm we would eventually hire (a rough sketch of pages we'd need, a functional specification, and a deck of elements we generally liked and hated in terms of aesthetics and navigability).

Me: Please speak more in English.

Terence: What we wanted, how it would work, and pictures plus flow diagrams.

Me: That's what I thought.

Terence: Next up we looked for help — we made the call that this was well beyond us, and we wanted to hire a firm that could do all of the things we wanted in a site. We interviewed six firms, and selected n49, based on some criteria we had set out and a good degree of gut feel (on quality, price, speed). I handed them all the documents we had prepared and you, Binns and Tasha started writing content.

Me: They walked us through a number websites, didn't they? Working with us to find more sites we liked and giving direction (vertical orientation, depth) on design?

Terence: Yes. And this is where we also really started to get specific in our 'asks' and direction. For example, at one point we asked for 'minimalism with strategic complexity', and somehow with enough discussion and iterations they actually delivered just that.

Me: Was the iterative process necessary?

Terence: Absolutely. We wouldn't have gotten close to what we wanted without all the back-and-forth's. It was iterative on the design front — in terms of look and feel, and on getting all our content into one voice.

Me: And this is when we finally got a layout and started the actual build, right? We're at about step 13 right now. That's nuts.

Terence: Well, it worked.

Me: Checkzone. So, what were the steps to finish it?

Terence: The designers put up an off-line site which we could check on and make comments on. We finalized on the design and they started coding. We did a soft launch so that we could get all the bugs out of it. And then we were finally ready for the hard launch.

Me: Man, I hope we don't do this again for a couple of years!

Terence: [blank stare]

The bottom line here is if you start your website build with page designs, you're probably already in trouble. The place to start is to ask yourself who you are in the world, and how you want to be seen and experienced. Oh, and get some good help — this stuff is really complicated.

Mark Healy, P.Eng, MBA is a partner at Torque Customer Strategy He teaches a "Demystifying Consulting" lecture series yearly at The Richard Ivey School of Business, as well as Schulich's and Laurier's Business Schools. Mark's full bio can be found at torquecustomerstrategy.com.

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How to build a killer survey

I just finished watching the 3rd episode of Lost, current season. The last TV show I watched religiously was the X-Files. It was cancelled 6 years ago. But dang! Is Lost ever getting good now or what? New characters. Flash forwards, not flashbacks. More questions. Zero tangential story line continuity. And the most compelling content always comes at the end, in the scenes-from-the-next-episode bit.

The way Lost is put together is exactly the opposite of how a good survey should be constructed. 180 degrees opposed. The anti-christ of survey construction. Note: my pet Lost theory is at the bottom of this column — aha!

Surveys can be very powerful tools for SMBs who are trying to get a better handle on any number of issues — customer experience, brand association, quality, etc. — if intelligently designed and well executed.

I've become a bit of a survey snob. I've built or edited so many over the past few years in my work life, I pick up on poorly thought out surveys in my consumer life. It's not that putting together a good survey is hard, it's just that — like anything else — there is a process to it, and attention to detail really matters. Here are some ground rules for building a killer survey and driving above-average participation.

The Process: Construction

The process underlying a solid survey build is very straight forward and obvious. Yet rarely followed. (Said in a country singer's accent) It goes somethin' like this:

A. Identify the target audience

B. Select the medium of distribution

C. Determine, specifically, the goal of the survey

D. Sort out the 3-5 metrics — things you want to measure/graph/report on later

E. Write the questions

This is where people usually go wrong: they start by writing questions. That is like flooding your backyard before leveling it or putting up boards — you'll get a rink but it won't be any good. Here is an example of a good consumer survey process.

• A restaurant chain wants to better understand how to appeal to youth. They would first define "youth" — age 6-18? or 14-21? or whatever.

• Next up they would pick the medium that makes the most sense to get at that segment. If the 14-21 year-old set is selected, an online survey probably makes more sense than an in-restaurant deployment.

• The first meaty decision is to really understand the goal of polling customers — in this case it might be to understand what marketing tactics (and not what menu items) would draw in this crowd.

• Metrics are next — determining what really needs to be measured. In this case, the chain might select a) TV advertising effectiveness, b) contest effectiveness c) social media effectiveness.

• Finally, questions would be crafted to address each of the metrics. For example, for contest effectiveness, two potential questions could be: i) if we offered free "dinners-for-two" as prizes in random draws, would you be more likely to eat here more often? (Y/N), and ii) on a scale of 1-5, how much did our X-Box contest influence your decision to eat here?

The Rules

There are 10 simple rules to building and launching a good survey:

1. The first rule of fight club is: do not talk about fight club. Never use the actual word "survey" in any of the communication about the survey or in the questionnaire itself — potential respondents will turn off immediately. ("Please take 5 minutes to provide us with your input on…" or something similar works better.)

2. Never start a survey with demographic questions — it is off-putting to some — ask these questions last.

3. Never start a survey with an "introduction" question that is actually a bit off topic — this confuses people.

4. Start with the most relevant questions — if people drop out after 4-5 questions, at least you have data for the questions you really care about.

5. Always start a survey with a question that will likely elicit a positive response — a yes or a good news answer — this puts people in a positive frame of mine and you are less likely to have people drop out of the survey.

6. Keep questions short and punchy, ensure they are unambiguous, and that each question goes after only one thought/idea.

7. Put a note at the top of the survey or in the communication that goes out with it from the Top Dog (President, CEO, Head, etc.) appealing to the reader ("help shape the future of your YYY…") — this increases response rates by as much as 50%.

8. Online survey respondents become bored and frustrated after the 10-minute mark. Keep surveys short and advertising up front that it "will take 3-5 minutes" helps.

9. Categorizing questions by topic is a convenient way to organize questions during the writing phase. However, arranging these questions to form a story helps respondents to see the purpose of each question in relation to the whole survey.

10. The response rate is always higher on the weekend for online surveys — so launch on Thursday / Friday to achieve the most rapid initial response.

The Process: Deployment

Again, there is a process for "launching" good surveys. Typical response rates for consumer surveys are in the 3%-8% range. I've seen response rates driven as high as 40% though smart planning and execution:

A. Get a second set of eyes on the survey before distributing anywhere. Any mistake — big or small — will lower participation and could skew the data.

B. Test the survey. Carve out a few test participants from your survey audience and send it to them first — then see how questions are answered and ask test participants for feedback on length, format and wording.

C. In parallel with B, get in touch with the participant audience and let them know a survey is coming and why it is important their voice is heard/how it will benefit them later. This is the crucial step in driving participation rates above the average.

D. Launch the survey.

E. Send a follow-up communication to the participant audience, imploring participation, to get one more bump or spike in "completes".

What you do with the data once you've got it is a whole other story. But putting together a tight survey is the 1st step toward getting good data. Done well, surveys can unlock deep insights and inform important decisions.

Ok, my Lost theory: it's all about the numbers. 4 8 15 16 23 42. Hurley heard the numbers when he was in the institution, and chased them all the way to Australia where he eventually got on Ocean 815 (8, 15), along with everyone else. They end up on the island and find the numbers — maybe the source of the numbers. There are all kinds of references to the numbers in each episode — the latest being the Oceanic 6 (there are 6 numbers in the set). The numbers form some kind of sequence or formula or code that is the key. In the end, it will be about the numbers, and Hurley will play the key role in unlocking the mystery. You heard it here first, kids.

Mark Healy, P.Eng, MBA is a partner at Torque Customer Strategy He teaches a "Demystifying Consulting" lecture series yearly at The Richard Ivey School of Business, as well as Schulich's and Laurier's Business Schools. Mark's full bio can be found at torquecustomerstrategy.com.

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It's amazing what you can find out, when you know how to look

My first job out of school, many moons ago, was with a tire manufacturer in the Maritimes. I was a newly minted Queen's engineer, ready to change the world one tire at a time. They put me through their industrial engineering training program. Here's an engineering secret: no engineering discipline actually operates under the correct name. Chemical engineering is really process engineering, and so on. Industrial engineering, as it turned out, is really efficiency or cost engineering. It's about increasing production or saving money. I wrote four words on my cinder block office wall: cheaper, faster, better, more. I figured if I wasn't trying to achieve one of those outcomes, I was doing something wrong.

Anyway, one of my roles was to conduct time and motion studies on operators. This means you follow the dude (or gal in the rare case) building tires around for his entire 12-hour shift and record everything he does, including exciting activities like going to the washroom. Everything. Then you report to his boss how more tires could be built if silly activities like "resting ones wrists for 3 seconds" were just cut out of the process. You can imagine how popular I was in the plant, especially when taking into account I had exactly 0 years, 0 days, 0 hours and 0 minutes of actual tire building experience. And I was 23. I used to joke (after ducking punches) with the operators that I should just wear a black t-shirt with a scull-and-cross-bones emblazoned on the front and be done with it. I learned a ton, but it was a dirty job.

In business, there are some dirty jobs as well. Carrying out competitive intelligence is one of them.

I get asked a lot 'how' to conduct competitive intelligence. i.e. how to extract information from organizations/firms/people that may or may not want to part with it. You can look this up online and find all kinds of vague moral and ethical guidelines, and links to nowhere. But no one really talks about what is acceptable and unacceptable, or how to do the work. Here are some simple guidelines and rules.

A. First, avoid it if at all possible

Ask yourself why your client/boss/whoever wants the information. What is it she is really after? What will the data be used for? What is the underlying need or problem that is being addressed? If you don't understand the context, that should be an automatic red light until you do. If the information will be used for any purpose you know or suspect is illegal (like say price collusion, or industrial espionage), you have to outright refuse the assignment. (This is very rare — I've never encountered it personally).

What I've seen more frequently is a) often the information sought would be interesting but make no difference to the outcome of a project or to the organization seeking it. Take for example a small manufacturer seeking to know how competitors will deploy their sales forces. It would be cool to uncover, but doesn't really change where customers are located or how they purchase. Or b) a different approach will yield the same answer. For example, industry governing bodies (like Professional Engineers Ontario) and aggregator organizations (like the Canadian Marketing Association) keep all kinds of industry stats on everything from pricing to salaries and many points in between.

B. Understand the rules of engagement

Here's where I start with new consultants I'm training. If you feel bad/wrong doing what you're planning to do to uncover information, it's probably bad/wrong you should stop and re-think things. Let's get more specific: everyone has their own gray area or line, but what is clearly and blatantly over the line (unacceptable) is to misrepresent who you are or lie to obtain the information. For example, posing as a reporter or saying you are calling from a research organization, when you work for an IT services company, while creative, is completely off-side. Ultimately, you have to live with, and your firm's or organization's reputation depends on, the decisions you make in regard to the approach you take.

So let's focus on the four approaches/techniques that are widely accepted as above-board:

1. Just ask

As my business partner Mark Binns famously expounds, it's amazing what people will tell you if you just ask. There is nothing illegal or immoral about picking up the phone and asking people questions. If the folks on the other end of the line don't want to give you answers, they won't. If you get push back as to who you are or why you are asking, you don't have to answer either. The conversation ends, no harm, no foul.

2. Mystery shopping

This is the most common and most accepted means of garnering competitive information. All of us are consumers, and this approach works best in B2C environments. Going through a legitimate retail experience process, purchase process, after sales support process and/or facility tour can tell you an immense amount about how competitors operate, price, treat customers, etc. Here are some less obvious examples:

- you want to know how much a financial services company will negotiate, say on rate, with customers: call their sales centre and attempt to negotiate — but do it 3-5 times on different days. This will tell you how much wiggle room corporate gives front-line sales, and how uniform the process is.

- you want to know how stringent a competitor is on quality: go on a facility tour and look for control charts or visible process metrics, observe the condition/age of the equipment and cleanliness of the facility, chat with the tour guide and employees asking questions about commitment to 'right-the-first-time' and waste or scrap. A public tour can be immensely informative if you have your eyes open and ask a lot of questions.

- you want to know a competitor's advertising spend: piece together the components of the advertising (TV spots, billboards, etc.) and the frequency of the communication, then call the agency responsible for the campaign, and other agencies, and ask what it would take to put together a comparable campaign. Other players in the value chain (like agencies) sometimes hold the information you really want.

3. The white paper approach

For B2B environments, mystery shopping can be difficult if not impossible. Outside of 'just asking', which will normally be met with skepticism, a white paper approach is about the only acceptable approach that will be successful. It works like this: you have to tell every interview target/person you want to talk to or ask question of that a) you will gather the same information from every competitor, b) their confidentiality will be protected (and then you have to follow through), and c) that the results will be written up in aggregate and distributed to all parties involved. For example, if you run a B2B business and you want to know what your competitors are planning for after-sales service bundles, you can have a 3rd party interview each competitor, and then publish a short 3-page white paper on the results where each competitor is represented by a letter (company A plans a 6-month maintenance program, company B plans 2 months of free service, etc.). To close the loop, the white paper needs to actually be distributed back to all those interviewed. Industry benchmarks can be an incentive to uncover information.

4. Job postings and recruiting events

Finally, if it's culture or HR related information you're interested in gathering, scanning a competitor's job postings or attending one of their recruiting events can be very instructive. During this process, the competitor is in selling mode, and it is in their best interest to speak clearly about the firm's work environment, compensation plans and role responsibilities. Just reading job descriptions or showing up at a job fair can tell you what you want to know.

What's common to the four accepted approaches is that the information sought and found is not secretive or protected. It is publicly available, just not necessarily easy to access. If what you're looking for is not in this category, or cannot be uncovered by one of the four approaches above, you are playing a very dangerous game.

Mark Healy, P.Eng, MBA is a partner at Torque Customer Strategy He teaches a "Demystifying Consulting" lecture series yearly at The Richard Ivey School of Business, as well as Schulich's and Laurier's Business Schools. Mark's full bio can be found at torquecustomerstrategy.com.

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Everything depends on how well you understand your market

When I was a little kid, about once a week my dad would take me to the local corner store in my very small home town. This was in the days when convenience stores in Quebec were still called convenience stores, before they morphed into d้paneurs. Anyway, I'm already off track, and dating myself. One summer, what my dad would buy me never varied — a stubby glass bottle of Hires root beer and a box of Smarties. And my routine never varied. I would sit in the kitchen and empty all the Smarties on the table. Then, I would methodically separate the pieces of chocolaty gold by colour, and arrange them in sequential rows. If there were more of a particular colour, I would consume those additional Smarties until I had perfectly matching rows of colour.

The point here is not that I was obsessive-compulsive starting at a young age, it is that even back then I was a segmenter. That I spent a number of years studying and practicing biochemical engineering is inconsequential. I found my way back to my true calling. As a marketing consultant, I spend a lot of time and energy trying to understand my client's customer segments. When I was four, I was focused on demographic segmentation — grouping by descriptor. I'm a bit more savvy now — I group by behaviour. Good segmentation these days has a lot less to do with age/gender/postal code, and a lot more to do with understanding not who the people are but the how's and why's of their decision-making process. It's more intuitive, and tells you a lot more about your real customer groupings. And this in turns tells you what buttons to push in each segment, driving your marketing messages.

"What the hell is Healy talking about here?" Stay with me. I always use the same analogy when explaining this: read any classic marketing analysis relating to who buys a Ford Mustang, and this is what you'll see: 25-35-year old white male, single, middle class income. Demographics. I promise you that if I draw a blood sample from any 30-year old white, single male, there will be nothing in his DNA that predisposes him to buy a Mustang. What is more likely is that Ford Mustang drivers tend to be image conscious, mild thrill seeking individuals who put styling ahead of reliability on their list of buying criteria. (Before I get nasty letters about the reliability of Mustangs, I'm just saying it's not up there with the Corolla, okay? I drive an Envoy, for the record.) It's easy to miss the 40-year old female divorcee, or the 50-year old immigrant when trying to box customers into one demographic. The point here is that if Ford is messaging around the 30-year old white single male, it will likely miss some potential customers outright, whereas if the messaging is around the styling of the car and the thrill of the drive, it will hit that behaviour segment dead-on and sell more cars.

The concept is cool, but does any of this actually matter? If you're running a business, you bet your Led Zeppelin greatest hits albums it does. For starters, great marketing puts the customer (not the product, not the brand) at the centre of all thoughts and efforts. And not all customers are alike — they are grouped into segments. So, segmentation is really the heart of marketing. Secondly, segmentation focused on underlying behaviour patterns will get you a lot closer to the panacea of marketing — right person, right message, right time — than demographic segmentation ever will.

Wonderful. How do you sort out your customer segments, based on behaviours? Well, like anything else in business there are complex means of doing so, but there are also some simple rules which will get you started in a big way. They all involve talking to customers — surveys, interviews, intercepts, focus groups — for now the details are not important, what is important is getting inside the heads of customers to figure out how they make decisions.

1. Buying criteria is key If you only asked your customers one thing, this would be it: "what criteria do you use when you purchase my product/service, and in what order?" There are obvious criterions: price, quality, after-sales support. But you may find others you didn't know crept into the buying equation, like relationship with sales representative, trust, corporate social responsibility and simplicity of transaction. If 50% of customers rank quality #1, and 40% rank after-sales support #1, you have two strong segments. And, at a bare minimum, buying criteria will tell you what messages to harp on in each segment. Here's an example. We did some work about a year ago for a computer chip maker. They were about to launch a big, expensive, flashy TV campaign aimed at SMBs — the theme of the ads was speed: this chip was way faster than any competitor. Problem is we found a very large segment (70%+) who ranked reliability #1 and speed #4. This alarmingly large group didn't care about speed. Oops.

2. The buying process is next most important This seems pretty obvious too, but we're continually amazed at how complex the purchase process is for everything from corporate telephony services to magazines. The object of the game here is to map out the steps in the process different groups of people take that ultimately lead to purchase. If you find three distinct processes, that's a pretty good indication you have three distinct customer segments (and chances are their buying criteria order could be different as well). You want to pay particular attention to the influences (TV?, word of mouth?, referral?, company reputation?, etc.) and influencers (spouse?, sales rep?, co-worker?, industry expert blogger?) in the process. This will tell you both where and when to unleash your marketing messages on your customer segments.

3. Talk to non-customers Rules 1 and 2 are crucial, but only help you segment your existing customers. You may be missing another segment(s) entirely. The only way to find out is talk to people who aren't buying your product/service and find out why. Asking questions like what specifically has stopped them from purchasing from you in the past (didn't know about you?, price?, thought you did something else?, quality reputation?) and why they buy your competitors' products/services — along with criteria and process questions — may uncover a segment or two for you that you are not currently targeting at all but could easily pursue.

It's the start of a new year. Might be a good time to ask yourself how well you know your customers. And if your answer is shaky, conducting a basic customer segmentation — based on behaviours, not demographics — is probably a good place to start.

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Yuletide rules to live by

I'm sitting in a Tim Horton's as I write this piece. It's late. After-party revelers are slurring their double double orders. There are some very questionable covers of Christmas classics coming from the ceiling. The paper coffee cup that serves as my vehicle for caffeine transfer has a winter scene displayed — children sliding down a snowy hill. (The kids are actually wearing helmets in the picture. Man, what has the world come to? I'm going to date myself, but when I was a kid, the CSA had nothing to do with fun.) Anyway, it's official. The Holidays are here again.

There are some excellent management lessons cloaked in Holiday clich้s. SMB owners and managers — pay attention — I'm talking to you here.

1. People remember whether you have been naughty or nice What kind of talent manager are you? How do you treat your people - what's your management style? Are you dictatorial or inclusive? Are you closed or transparent when it comes to decision making? Do you manage via fear or via inspiration? Are you quick to judge or measured in your approach? Do your micro-manage or give your folks some rope?

How about with suppliers — do you constantly beat the tar out of your vendors, or do you treat them like partners understanding that they have to win sometimes too? Do you negotiate or discuss?

And how about with customers? Do you talk at them or open a dialogue with them? Do you sell to them or work with them to solve problems?

I'll make a bet with you. I'll bet all of my presents this year that the dictatorial, micro-managing, tough negotiating, hard selling owner/managers out there receive fewer presents than their inclusive, transparent, measured, problem solving counterparts. And I bet the first camp has a harder time hanging onto talent and doing business next year.

2. 'Tis better to give than to receive You should have been good to your people all year. You know this. But you probably weren't. You probably got busy, or distracted. You likely forgot to say thank you enough. You likely took credit for some wins, which you deserved, but maybe you didn't dish our as much credit as you could have.

Now's the time to make up for it. Beginning by making a list of contributions each of your crew has made through the year, and either privately, or better yet publicly, acknowledging the work and the value is a good start. But honestly, it's almost impossible to go too far. Make a splash. Do something special. You wouldn't have your business if your people didn't go the extra mile for you day-in and day-out, week-in and week-out.

3. The Holidays aren't much fun if you spend them alone. I'm lucky. I have great partners and a tremendous team. I often wonder how the SOHO's do it. I couldn't. But you don't have to be SOHO to spend a lot of time making management decisions alone. Whether your fiscal year lines up with the calendar year or not, there is a natural gravitation pull to this time of year. A lot of decisions tend to get made in December — what will stay the same and what will change?

This provides you with a fantastic opportunity for employee engagement. Get them involved in decision making. Open up a bit. Share. You don't have to offer up every decision you want to make for debate. But even including your staff in a handful of strategic, quasi-strategic or operational decisions will give them a sense of ownership and you'll end up making better decisions.

4. If you gorge now, you'll pay for it later I actually look forward to all the radio and TV commercials that hit the airwaves in January — you know, the gym and weight loss ads. They're usually pretty clever, and funny. These play to New Year's resolutions. But what they say to me is: "you were impatient to celebrate in December, and now you're impatient to look and feel better."

If there is one thing I learned as a manager this past year, it is a little patience goes a long way. I used to want to make decisions as quickly as possible, thinking that charting a course now and adjusting on the fly was better than waiting. But sometimes if you do wait, better information comes along and a better decision gets made.

Are you sure about that change you're going to make. Do you have enough data to be sure? Have you thought about it for long enough, from enough angles? Or can you wait until January, after you've had some time off and gotten some perspective?

5. Good things come in small packages You can spend a long time seeking the big win. The huge deal. The homerun. If you hit one or two or more this past year, congratulations. For those of you who didn't, were the negative implications only financial in nature? Of did it hurt your culture? Did you team start to get down on themselves? Did morale slip because people felt that goals weren't being met?

Maybe the goals were too lofty, or unrealistic. Or more likely, maybe you didn't celebrate the smaller wins along the way. Maybe you didn't leverage the successes you did see, and didn't use them as catalysts to get you even closer to that big win. Success is a funny thing — it can be real momentum juggernaut, you just have to get it started.

The malls are crowded. The music can get annoying. You have too many parties to attend and too much to do. But people, it's the Holidays. Take some time to thank and reward the folks that helped your business get to where it is today — your team, your customers, your suppliers, your bankers, and you're your supporters. It will pay off next year, I promise.

Mark Healy, P.Eng, MBA is a partner at Torque Customer Strategy He teaches a "Demystifying Consulting" lecture series yearly at The Richard Ivey School of Business, as well as Schulich's and Laurier's Business Schools. Mark's full bio can be found at torquecustomerstrategy.com.

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Five warning signs that your business is growing too fast

I read a great piece recently about a basketball player — you may have heard of him — Shaquille O'Neal. He is of some acclaim: four-time NBA champion, three-time finals MVP, league MVP, 13-time all-star. Etc. Anyway, the story goes like this. Back in the day, Shaq is given an invitation to basketball camp for promising high school players — guys with a legitimate shot at making the NBA. At the time, he was lumbering 6' 6", 225 lbs, or something like that. At the camp, he's impressive, but doesn't seem to be playing up to his size. So, on the third day of camp one of the coaches decides to broach the issue with him. He starts by asking "why aren't you dunking like a lot of the other guys out here?" Shaq's answer: "I'm 12."

He grew too fast.

How do you know if you are growing your business too fast?

Here are some tell-tale signs your business is growing too quickly:

1. The first, and most alarming, is a slip in quality. Each of the next five symptoms you will survive in the short-term and are correctable in the long-term. Quality problems can be deadly, though.

If you are running an SMB, you are likely in one of two camps: a) you/your firm is very good at a core competency — might be a product, might be a service — or b) you have raised money and are sorting out your value proposition. In the first camp, a quality problem if not corrected immediately could put you out of business. The Firestones and Bombardiers of the world survive bad bouts of quality control because they have deep cash reserves and solid brands to fall back on. Most SMB lack the customer base and customer forgiveness to outlast a bad run on quality. In the second camp, while the quality issues might not sink you quickly, they will just get worse and worse if not addressed immediately, anyway.

Superior customer service and response is the only answer to quality problems that have already cropped up. But a good defense against sustained periods of suspect quality is to establish a solid quality control/review process, and quality metrics. These can be as complicated as machine control charts, or as simple as "no report leaves the office without having been reviewed by two senior people". Metrics can be internal, but at some point have to measure how customers feel about quality delivered.

2. Taking business that is off-brand/off-core. This sign reeks of revenue focus, not business focus.

We all know that keeping the doors open at times means keeping cash flows positive—but we also all know that taking on ad-hoc orders or off-core clients is both risky and brand diluting. The risk comes in not knowing what exactly is involved in fulfilling on the request. If you are running a manufacturing operation, will the line produce the order to spec without machine modifications? If you are running a restaurant, will you be able to mass produce a non-menu item for a catered event? If you are running a professional practice, do you really know enough about the industry or function you just signed up to provide a solution for?

Referrals are so important for SMBs, and this is where brand dilution kicks in. You want your clients and supporters to talk about the work that you do. Except the work you do that is not really what you want to do long-term, right? Doesn't work that way.

3. Making questionable hiring decisions. There are probably some SMBs out there where talent doesn't matter much. I just can't think of any.

At Torque, we believe that our success rests fundamentally on the crew we build. If we get client-oriented, smart, hard working, genuine people who take initiative, there's nothing we can't do. If we hire consultants where we ignore either the talent or character sides of the equation, we'll get into trouble. The trick, during periods of growth, is to not say 'he/she is good enough'. Hiring a warm body may get you through a peak period, but turning that person over later will cause all kinds of heart ache—he/she will have forged relationships with at least a few employees who feel that the let-go decision is unfair. And there is real cost in terms of recruiting and training that will reoccur and in terms of morale impact and loss of productivity associated with assimilating a bad fit and then extracting that person from the organization.

Hold the line on talent. During periods of rapid growth, if the candidate in front of you wouldn't have made the cut three months ago, she/he can't make the cut now.

4. Losing touch with your current employees. As your business grows, some loss of touch between owners/founders/management and employees is inevitable. But, a rapid progression here though is a bad sign.

Relating to the point above, most SMBs that I've come in contact with succeed or fail based largely on their talent base. As an owner or operator, forgetting who is actually doing the work or delivering the service or making the sales can be demoralizing and dangerous. The demoralizing bit comes in the form of not thanking or acknowledging the hard/good work of the soldiers in the trenches. The dangerous bit lies in not knowing what is actually going on at the interface between your people and the product/service (see point 1 on quality slipping), or at the interface between your people and your customers/stakeholders. Poor customer service usually stems from a lack or back-off of management control, not poor training.

I sat on a sales and marketing panel yesterday, and someone from the audience asked me about how to avoid this. It's not complicated — just don't forget to make time every day to walk the factory floor or aisles of your store. It's the every day aspect that is important.

5. Firefighting, not planning. We've all heard the expression 'work on the business, not in the business'. I think this can be taken way too far—see points 1, 3, 4 above. But, there is merit to the idea that—as a poster from my childhood said—if you aim at nothing, you'll probably hit it. And this can be a sign of growing too fast.

There is a difference between firefighting because you can't delegate effectively and firefighting because you just can't find the time to plan. If you are looking at scenario two, you are growing too quickly. In any business, there has to be time to have an hour-long conversation about planning once a week, and a longer period of time—like a day—devoted to strategy and planning every month.

If you are not running it, it is running you. You are better off to turn away business in the short-term than to ignore the signs we've talked about here.

Mark Healy, P.Eng, MBA is a partner at Torque Customer Strategy He teaches a "Demystifying Consulting" lecture series yearly at The Richard Ivey School of Business, as well as Schulich's and Laurier's Business Schools. Mark's full bio can be found at torquecustomerstrategy.com.

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There's a great story you may have heard about a Ph.D student from a few years back at U of T (an institution with more colleges but fewer off-key Scottish songs than Queen's - Cha-Gheill!). It goes something like this. Every day at lunch, starting in the late spring, the student would walk out onto the football field. He'd bring with him a large bag of birdseed, and a whistle. He'd spread birdseed all over the field. Then, after 20 or 30 minutes of this, he'd blow the whistle. At first, a few birds would respond to the noise and drop in for some seeds. But gradually, over the course of the summer, more and more birds would descend on the field, expecting to be fed. And then the first football game of the autumn rolled around, and the players lined up, and the referee blew the whistle, and…

It's a great story. Problem is it's a story. It's a myth.

There are a lot of myths about entrepreneurship. I've written about some of them over the past eight months. On November 2, I participated in an online discussion to talk about them. Click here to see that discussion, or simply read on.

1. Entrepreneurs are crazy free spirits, and risk-takers.

Let's start here. You'll also read a lot of stats about new business failures. Those numbers are high. For some of the failures, the entrepreneurs in charge may have been crazy free spirits—and big time risk-takers. But for many of those failures, and most of the successes, you're likely going to be surprised here.

2. It's about having a killer business plan.

You know what I'm talking about. The 45-page business plan. Bound. Sectioned. Great headers. With graphs. And Pro Forma's. Proclaiming how the business is the next Facebook. Uh huh. We'll talk about this some more as well.

3. The business idea has to be fully differentiated to succeed.

I've beaten this point to death before. This is a very common myth. It is a myth perpetuated by business magazines and business books, and, to some extent, by business schools. It's sexy. It's fun to research and write about. It sells. But it isn't true.

4. You can't teach entrepreneurship.

Or, as it is sometimes told, entrepreneurs are born that way. This presupposes at least two things are true: 1) there is no process to entrepreneurship. Hmm… And 2) that people can't/don't change. My old entrepreneurship professor and friend Eric Morse would have a body of work or two to say about that.

5. It's necessary/easy to raise $1 trillion to start a business.

Dragon's Den. Great show. Entertaining. But… There's a reason the term bootstrap also means something other than a cord in your Dr. Martens.

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I have bad coffee lid karma. Every morning I religiously spread my coffee allegiance to one of three coffee shops which I refer to in my head, as I'm getting off the subway, as 'cheap', 'expensive' and 'I'll contribute to my RRSP next month'. The same two thoughts occur to me everyday: 1) why are there differently sized lids? Why don't the cup companies make different volume cups, only with a uniform circumference opening? It would save everyone money. Ah. 2) Why do I always get the defective lid, or the stuck-together lids?

Definitions: a defective lid is one (available only at 'cheap') where you have to carefully tear open a section of the plastic lid (spilling hot coffee on your fingers), before bending it back and notching it onto itself (spilling more hot coffee on your fingers) — only it won't properly notch and stay closed. The challenge is now to use your burned index finger to hold the bent back lid open enough slurp coffee through the square opening in the round lid. The condition known as stuck-together lids occurs (at 'expensive' and 'I'll contribute…') when you attempt to pick a lid from the top of the stack and end up with two. The quagmire you are now facing is — do you pull the bottom one out and put it back, knowing you fingers have touched the inside of that lid (where coffee will go)? Or do you pry off the top lid and put it back, knowing your fingers have touched the outside of that lid (where lips will go). The answer is of course to throw one away — but how wasteful, how un-Al-Gore!

In either event, the real answer is engineering. Engineering, likely specifically the disciplines of Higher Quality Engineering or Teflonฎ Engineering, would solve these problems. Engineering holds a lot of answers, and lessons, for us. Here are some that apply for SMBs.

1. You can have it fast, good or cheap. Pick any two out of three.

This is a well known rule from engineering that carries over into small business. If one of your customers calls and wants to place an order or talk about a project, aren't these the parameters you really consider in the end when returning the spec, timeline and price? If you run an SMB and you're evaluating a new vendor, isn't this your mental checklist? If your boss asks for the world, isn't this your pushback?

2. Build in a healthy safety factor.

I'm going to let you in on an engineering secret. Engineering, real engineering, is imprecise. How do you think the engineers that built the Confederation Bridge calculated the force of waves it would withstand before being knocked over? The same way the engineers sort out how much power is required from turbines to keep improbably heavy airplanes in the sky. They take their best shot, using sophisticated models. And then they double it. At least. Just to be sure. Many jet engines are so powerful they could propel a square block off a runway.

Imagine you are trying to project demand for your product or service, during your busy season. Would you rather carry some excess inventory or stock out? If you are projecting your cash needs in advance of a fundraising round, would you rather ask for too much or too little? When planning a business trip, do you expect the customs agents and baggage handlers and pilots and meteorologists to stick to your itinerary, or not. The concept of lean has gone too far. Which leads to…

3. There is never time to do it right, but there is always time to do it twice.

Right-the-first-time is a much talked about and rarely practiced concept. In engineering, right-the-first-time requires rigorous process and exacting quality standards, bolstered by a strong management culture.

In business, right-the-first-time requires, well, exactly the same thing. Have you nailed your processes — I mean really nailed them, to a level of detail that would impress your accountant? Can you define high quality in a way that everyone in your organization understands and buys in? Do you or does your management team hold the line at 100%, and hold people accountable for anything but stellar performance?

4. If you have trouble spelling it, it's probably too complicated.

Does anyone really understand fugacity? Or nanotechnology? Of course not. Well maybe some of you do, but you're probably reading the wrong column.

It's the same in business. Does anyone really get paradigm shifting strategy? What does that mean? Isn't the answer to the problem normally simple? Like your price is too high, or low. Or your costs have crept up. Or you've neglected your brand for too long. Or your culture is unattractive to new graduates. The best solutions to business problems are usually simple ones. And the answers are usually sitting there — in the market — or with your people — you just have to go get them, and have the courage to act on them.

5. Donuts are the universal lubricant.

There is very little that you can't get done with a box of donuts in tow. I used to show up at pulp mills with two boxes of donuts — one for the operators and one for the managers. Different apparel, different salaries, same appetite.

When I started in business, I did the same thing with receptionists and suppliers and even employees from time to time. If you need a favour, honey curlers and Boston creams are your best friends.

Mark Healy, P.Eng, MBA is a Partner at Torque Market Intelligence, a boutique marketing consultancy focusing on customer intimacy via customized primary research on customers, competitors and channels. Mark has completed over fifty studies in this new space over the last four years. He is regularly quoted in the national media on topics ranging from customer loyalty to managing professional service firms. Mark teaches a "Demystifying Consulting" lecture series yearly at The Richard Ivey School of Business, as well as Schulich's and Laurier's Business Schools. Mark's full bio can be found at www.torquemi.com.

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Tips for the small biz traveller

In a previous life, I was a real road warrior. Had duffle bag, would travel. At one point I flew 300 times in three years. I was in my twenties, didn't need a ton of sleep, and had neither a wife nor a dog at that time. And yet it was still pretty tough — on the body and on the social life. Business travel sounds sexy, but really a hotel is a hotel and every restaurant ends up looking (and tasting) like Applebee's, eventually.

Or do they? That travel was contained to North America — really cool spots like Prince Albert, Saskatchewan and Beaumont, Texas. Lately, I've spent a great deal of time in Latin America. As part of a client engagement. The work is fantastic — exciting and challenging. But the travel… well, it's a whole different ball game down there. And we don't have a travel department to sort this stuff out — we're a 10-person professional practice — we book our own flights and hotels. Anyway, the experiences have led me to several conclusions and pieces of advice about international business travel for SMBs.

Check the visa requirements Different countries have different rules on what type of visa (if any) is required to do business in the country — that's pretty obvious. Let me demystify the process of getting a business visa for most Latin American countries.

A) Find the consulate of said country, in your city.

B) Look up the rules for the visa application on the consulate's website. Try calling to ask clarifying questions. No one will answer the phone. Print and fill out 14 forms, guessing in places.

C) Go to the consulate.

D) Find that the consulate is closed — because it is either before 10.00 am or after noon or Wednesday or a full moon.

E) Go back to the consulate when it is open. Stand in line. A lot.

F) Have an officious consulate person tell you your forms are wrong (you guessed wrong). Sit in a chair with no writing table and correct the forms on your knee with liquid paper. Get back in line.

G) Have an officious consulate person take away your passport for 10 days. Sweat for 10 days.

Do your homework on hotels and how to get around Thank goodness for Web 2.0. There are a lot of 4-star hotels in bad parts of town in Latin American. Sure, Expedia is pretty good. But as a bare minimum, hit Trip Advisor or a similar site to see what real people have to say about the hotel you are considering and the safety of the area of the city it is in. Even better, find someone in your town that knows the city you are traveling to, buy that person dinner, and get some local expertise on hotels and acceptable modes of transportation (i.e. hotel taxis, but not hailed street taxis). Safety first, kids

Knock yourself out It's a long flight to anywhere in Latin America. And probably an overnight flight. Don't be a hero — take a Gravol. On one of my recent flights I sat next to Herky Jerky — you know the guy — has three carry-on bags, one is too big for the overhead compartment but he insists on trying to stuff it in anyway, sits down and immediately takes out earphones and a book and a pack of gum and a sudoku puzzle and two differently coloured pens, but then gets up to adjust the too-big bad in the overhead, and then sits down again and drops his pens. 'Dude, please sit your butt down and stop being a whirling dervish!' Anyway, one Gravol and I forgot all about Herky Jerky.

Verify your hotel quality This is how you will know whether you have made the right choice. Check in. Go immediately to your room. Open the bathroom door. Check the toilet paper: if it is squared off, you are in a bad hotel — if it is folded neatly to form a triangular point, you are in a good hotel.

Don't get out of the hotel pool when the camera crew shows up or you might miss something entertaining. Filming movie scenes of questionable artistic content, while hotel guests are in the pool, is acceptable in at least one major Latin American city.

Enjoying a quick dip in the pool after a long day of work. Camera crew shows up. Sound guy shows up. Shady looking director with artsy glasses and killer moustache shows up. Actors/models (one male, one female) show up, in robes. Actors/models disrobe to reveal a lot. Actors/models get in the pool. Role tape. Guests including me gape on in amazement. Action. Actors/models do their thing. Cut. True story.

If you encounter 30 armed police officers, find a different restaurant Another true story. Was working in one Latin American city two weeks ago with one of my consultants. We had not had a good meal all week. So we ask the concierge (yes, our hotel had folded our toilet paper into points) for a restaurant recommendation. Hop in a cab. Spot a cool looking steak house through the window of the cab but keep going to our destination. Get out 50 yards away. Start walking toward our restaurant. Stop and look up as a school bus comes to a stop. At 10.00 pm. Full of ~30 cops, cocking shotguns. Cops jump off and start running, en masse, toward our restaurant, shot guns in hand. We quietly turn around a