Saturday, October 1, 2011

Eight Keys To Creating A Customer Service Culture

1) Management must make the measurement of service quality and feedback from the customer a basic part of everyone's work experience. This information must be available and understood by everyone, no matter what their level. The entire organization must become obsessed with what the customer wants.

A printing firm has signs all over the shop saying, "Is it good enough? Ask the customer." This statement serves as a constant reminder to everyone that customers are the ultimate judge of whether the service is what it should be, and that all employees must be constantly surveying customers for what and how they want it. The firm regularly sends out questionnaires about the quality of their service and then posts these results for all to see.

When you survey your customers on the quality of service, make sure that everyone, from the top down, knows of the results and receives recognition for the things that are going well. Behavioral research has shown that you get more of the behavior you reward. So don't make the mistake of mentioning only the area of poor performance; also mention and reward those who are doing well, and involve all employees in brainstorming ways to improve the things that are unsatisfactory.

2) Be very clear about specifying the behavior that employees are expected to deliver, both with external customers and their coworkers.

3) Explain why giving excellent customer service is important -- not only for the company, but for the world. What does your company do that makes life easier for everyone? What does your product or service add? Be sure to include this in the reasons for achieving customer service excellence.

A good example of this principle at work is in the field of health care. People are often drawn into this profession because they enjoy helping and caring for people. Smart health care organizations show how their desired customer service behaviors enable employees to help and care for the patients and their families.

Reward people for their good service behaviors. Cash awards are nice, yes, but there are many other ways to say, "job well done." Extra time off, for instance, or an article in the company newsletter, a trophy or plaque awarded at a special recognition dinner, tickets to special events tied to an employee's interests, or a simple written note are all ways to reward the kinds of behaviors you want to see more of.

4) Create ways to communicate excellent examples of customer service both within and outside the company. Institute celebrations, recognition ceremonies, logos, and symbols of the customer service culture and its values. This is where you want the mugs, buttons, and banners. Have a customer service bulletin board to feature service incidents that were special. Seize every opportunity to publicize the times when employees do it right.

A newsletter should be developed to boast of customer service successes so that the idea of service is constantly in front of everyone. One company, a major utility, devoted an entire issue of the company magazine to "24 Karat Customer Service." It featured examples of how individual employees defined customer service, stories of humorous or unusual customer service situations, an article on the importance of internal customer service, and other ideas designed to keep employees aware of the importance of their efforts in achieving quality customer service.

A hospital not only touts their customer service "hero stories" in their newsletter, they also have a giant pep rally once a quarter for everyone to share their stories. Individual teams get together often to focus on what has gone right as well as wrong in their patient and other customer relations.

Even if you are a very small business with only a few employees, post instances of superior customer service of your own and others that you read about. Talk about customer service and its importance every day.

5) Indoctrinate and train everyone in the culture as soon as they are hired. Disney is famous for this. It puts all newcomers through a "traditions" course that details the company history with customer relations and how it is the backbone of Disney. Your orientation program is a key part of the ultimate success of your customer service efforts. Make sure that it contains more than an explanation of benefits and a tour of the facilities. It can be an important element in planting the customer service culture of the company so it can flourish and grow.

6) Encourage a sense of responsibility for group performance. Help employees see how their performance affects others. Emphasize the importance of "internal customer service." Help everyone to see that if you don't serve each other well, you can never hope to serve your ultimate customer.

Does accounts payable or shipping see that the timeliness of their service to other employees makes a big difference in how the customer is served? Does the cook realize how important it is to get the order exactly right in the kitchen so the waitstaff can please the restaurant customer? Even something as seemingly insignificant as returning from lunch break on time can affect the quality of the customer service you offer by determining whether you have enough coverage to serve employees promptly.

Repeat again and again that customer service is the responsibility of everyone in the organization, not just the "customer service department."

7) Establish policies that are "customer friendly" and that show concern for your customers. Eliminate all routine and rigid policies and guidelines. Knock yourself out to be a company that is easy to do business with. Never let your customer service representatives say, "Those are the rules I have to follow; there's nothing I can do about it." There is always a way to satisfy the customer. You must give your employees the power to do so.

8) Remove any employees who do not show the behavior necessary to please customers. Too many companies allow frontline service representatives to remain on the job when they are not suited to a customer service position. If employees don't want to serve the customer in the best way possible, document their behaviors and use this information to help them change or to move them to areas away from customer interaction.

In order for a culture of customer service excellence to grow and thrive, management must have a burning desire for it to be that way and the energy to ensure that this desire spreads throughout the organization and remains there permanently. You must become a totally customer-focused organization. Everyone, from the top down, must believe that they work for the customer.

This material was excerpted from Customer Service -- the Key to Your Competitive Edge, a common-sense guide to establishing a customer service program by Peggy Morrow. Morrow is a speaker, author, consultant, and president of Peggy Morrow & Associates, a training and development firm specializing in highly customized speeches, seminars, and workshops.

Thanks to Peggy Morrow / Inc / Mansueto Ventures LLC.
http://www.inc.com/articles/2000/08/20028_Printer_Friendly.html

20925 Results For "Customer Service" In Books

 

What Does The C Suite Want From HR?

Over the next few weeks I'll have the opportunity to speak with thousands of HR Professionals & Leaders in business.  This week I will be in North Carolina and soon following in Minnesota, New Jersey, Bahamas, Venezuela, Orlando and Virginia.

Part of the conversation happening in this community is the relationship between the C Suite and HR.  Does the C suite value the work?  How can HR bridge gaps to gain credibility, support, strategic influence and cold hard cash to make a meaningful contribution? What if the C suite just doesn't get it?

Real questions.  A real interesting conversation during a time of HR transformation where 90% of business leaders surveyed said that they are focused on making significant changes to their human-resource policies in the next 12 to 18 months (PwC's 2011 annual global CEO survey).

Last week while working with a client I was fortunate to attend a business briefing where a panel of 4 CEO's talked very specifically about what they want from HR.  The focus of the conversation was how they define a "strategic HR business partner" and "what they want and need from HR now."

4 key themes emerged from this C Suite panel regarding HR as a Strategic Business Partner:

Understand the Business: HR work starts with the business.  You need to be informed and understand the business strategy, objectives and obstacles as well as you understand HR.  Speak the language.  Do the requisite homework. Become an expert in the business you support and serve.

Be Present with Presence: Be visible.  Set meetings that focus on HR serving the business.  Offer to attend meetings that focus on business strategy and priorities.  Develop collaborative relationships with functional leaders across the enterprise in support of the HR value proposition.  Ask for feedback and establish clearly defined expectations and objectives around the HR contribution.

Influence for Impact: Guide leadership to serve the business the right way related to people and performance.  Coach communication.  Cultivate and celebrate culture. Reinforce and recognize values.  Be ready to demonstrate and dollarize the impact to the business around people practices.

Lead the People Strategy: Be proactive.  Serve as a catalyst for change.  Show up with new ideas and solutions to problems that have not been considered.  Challenge the status quo. Be an advocate for what the business needs to be doing better in an effort to optimize people and performance.  Hold the business accountable

In short summary, what the CEO wants from HR or any function for that matter is simple.

Results.

It is all about performance.

Deliver.

Don't be denied.

Do the work.

Demonstrate a result.

Dollarize it.

Today you can influence the business from almost any level of the organization.  You don't need permission to have influence.

But the one thing you do need?

Impact.

That is what the C Suite wants the most.

Impact. Performance. Results.

Talent is a top of mind priority in the C Suite and HR is incredibly well positioned to deliver increasingly more value to the business. No doubt it is going to look different and I look forward these future directed conversations, ideas and insights in the coming weeks.

Thanks to Ryan Estis / Passion On Purpose Blog
http://www.passiononpurposeblog.com/what-does-the-c-suite-want-from-hr/

11965 Results For "C-Suite" In Books

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How To Make A Solar Power Generator For Less

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Simple!
Even a child could make one.
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Here I am in 2010 with my nephews and the original $300 solar power generator I designed in 1996. None of them were even born yet. They think solar power is "steampunk."

Using parts easily available from the internet (see helpful links) and your local stores, you can make a small solar power generator for $250 to $300. Great for rolling blackouts, life outside the power grid, or the coming zombie apocalypse. Power your computer, modem, dvd, tv, cameras, lights, fans, or DC appliances anywhere you go. Use in cabins, boats, tents, archaeological digs, or while travelling throughout the third world. Have one in the office store room in case of power failures in your highrise. I keep mine in my bedroom where it powers my music, lights, dvd player, laptop, and (ahem) a back massager. I run a line out the window to an 8" x 24" panel on the roof. This is the smallest simplist set-up practical for daily use. It saves me about five dollars a month off my electric bill. It also saves the environment. (Do you know that most of the electricity coming out of your wall socket is generated by coal?) All of the parts you need can be bought from Amazon.com or the merchants linked to this page for your convenience. Plans for larger systems can be found here (in an adorable video).

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1. Buy (or make) yourself a small solar panel. For about $100 you should be able to get one rated at 12 volts or better (look for 16 volts) at an RV or marine supplies store or from Earthtech or Solar Sphere.

Powerfilm F15-300N Foldable Solar Panel - approx. 5 watts
Powerfilm F15-300N Foldable Solar Panel - approx. 5 watts
- $ 79.47
Wow! What a great price on this foldable solar panel. Get one while they last! 15.4 Volts 300ma size: 648mm x 279mm (25.5 x 11 inches) folded: 140 x 114 x 1.9mm (5.5 x 4.5 x 0.75 inches) weight: 0.38 lb.Assembled in China with USA panels and other foreign components.
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2. Buy yourself a battery. We recommend rechargeable batteries from this green company: Greenbatteries Store. Get any size deep cycle 12 volt lead/acid or gel battery. You need the deep cycle battery for continuous use. The kind in your car is a cranking battery--just for starting an engine. Look for bargains. The more amps, the more expensive. Figure out how many amps you need (see FAQ'S). Twenty amps is a good estimate of what a one-room home with a family of five would need. The cheapest ones should cost about $50-60. Schools and health care facilities would need amps in the hundreds.

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3. Get a battery box to put it in for $10. (This is good for covering up the exposed terminals in case there are children about If you going to install the system in a pump shed, cabin, or boat, skip this.)

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3. Buy a 12 volt DC meter This will help you monitor the charge in your battery. Discharging it below 50% can damage it. Overcharging it can damage it. Keeping it at about 80%-90% charge will keep your battery well for a long time.

4. Buy a DC input. I like the triple inlet model which you can find at a car parts store in the cigarette lighter parts section for about $10. This is enough to power DC appliances, and there are many commercially available, like fans, one-pint water boilers, lights, hair dryers, baby bottle warmers, and vacuum cleaners. Many cassette players, answering machines, and other electrical appliances are DC already and with the right cable will run straight off the box.

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5. But if you want to run AC appliances, you will have to invest in an inverter. This will convert the stored DC power in the battery into AC power for most of your household appliances. I bought a 115 volt 140 watt inverter for $50 fifteen years ago--it still works. The prices have actually dropped on inverters. Count up the number of watts you'll be using (e.g., a small color television(=60 watts) with a VCR(=22 watts), you'll need 82 watts. Cheap inverters of many sizes can be had online.

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6. Use a drill to attach the meter and DC input to the top of the box.

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7. Use insulated wire to attach the meter to the wingnut terminals on the battery. Connect the negative (-) pole first. Only handle one wire at a time. Connect the DC inlet to the battery in the same way. Connect the solar panel to the battery in the same way.

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8. Close the lid (I use a bungee cord to keep it tight). Put the solar panel in the sun. It takes 5-8 hours to charge a dead battery; 1-3 hours to top off a weak one. It will run radios, fans, and small wattage lights all night, or give you about 5 hours of continuous use at 115 volt AC, or about an hour boiling water. This system may be added on to with larger panels, inverters, and batteries.
Options: A pop-up circuit breaker may be added between the positive terminal and the volt meter. Some of you will want an ampmeter as well. The panels I recommend have built-in bypass diodes, but I recommend charge controllers for people who have panels without diodes. Another option is a voltage regulator, which is not necessary for a system this small, but a larger system would require one.

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9/11 a tribute by PiratePhil

Having trouble? Watch our Video Tutorial "How to Wire a Solar Power Battery Box" on YouTube. More Solar Power Videos including "Pasteurization with Sunlight" and "Refrigeration without Electricity" by Phil now on YouTube.

New! Answers to Frequently Asked Questions: How many appliances will this run? How long will it run for? Will it run my refrigerator? (No.) Can it pasteurize water? (Yes.) Ummm...what's an ohm? (Click Here.)

Q: Why should I buy a PDF file of information that I can get for free off your website?
A: Short Answer: A website can disappear overnight and a PDF ensures you have all the info in an emailable format.
Long Answer: An NGO volunteer in the Philippines requested a PDF file because he did not have web access where he was, just email. He pointed out that people who need this device do not have electricity. People without electricity don't have phones, modems, telephone lines, internet or computers. People who can go to my web page already have all that stuff. So wrote it in PDF and emailed it. Now he is happily rigging up one for each family in a small village. In order to make the technology easier to reach my intended audience, now the PDF file (good for Macs or Windows) is available to the public at cost.

Thanks to Phil Heiple / How 2 Solar
http://www.rain.org/~philfear/how2solar.html

5296 Results For "Solar Power" In Books

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Amazon Unveils Kindle Fire Tablet; Kindle Touch eReader, Kindle

Amazon Unveils $200 Kindle Fire Tablet; $99 Kindle Touch eReader, $79 Kindle

During a press event in New York City on Wednesday, Amazon took the wraps off of its $200 Kindle Fire tablet. The Kindle Fire is equipped with a 7-inch display and will have access to all of Amazon's services including AmazonMP3, Amazon Prime, Amazon Kindle, Amazon Instant Video and the Amazon AppStore. The tablet is powered by a dual-core processor and weighs 14.6 ounces. Customers can pre-order the Kindle Fire today and it will ship in November. Amazon's CEO Jeff Bezos also unveiled a brand new version of his company's popular eReader, dubbed the Kindle touch. The $99 Kindle touch is equipped with an infrared layer on top of the E-Ink display to help avoid with any interference while reading. It also has Amazon's EasyReach technology for turning pages by tapping the screen in specific areas. In addition, an X-Ray feature allows users to view where and when certain characters or places take place in a book. Amazon will also sell a separate Kindle touch 3G model for $149. Pre-orders for the Kindle touch eReader begin today and will ship by November 21st. Finally, Bezos announced a new standard Kindle for $79 that does not offer a touchscreen. It is available now and will also ship today. We are hoping to bring you hands-on photos with Amazon's new devices shortly. In the meantime, be sure to keep your browsers pointed to our live coverage of the event. Read on for the full press release from Amazon.

Introducing the All-New Kindle Family: Four New Kindles, Four Amazing Price Points

New latest generation Kindle – world's bestselling e-reader now lighter, faster, and more affordable than ever – only $79
New "Kindle Touch" with easy-to-use touch screen – only $99
New "Kindle Touch 3G" with free 3G – the top of the line Kindle e-reader – only $149
New "Kindle Fire" – the Kindle for movies, TV shows, music, books, magazines, apps, games, and web browsing with all the content, free storage in the Amazon Cloud, Whispersync, Amazon's new revolutionary cloud-accelerated web browser, vibrant color touch screen, and powerful dual-core processor – all for only $199
SEATTLE, Sep 28, 2011 (BUSINESS WIRE) –

(NASDAQ: AMZN)–Millions of people are already reading on Kindles and Kindle is the bestselling e-reader in the world for four years running. Today, Amazon is excited to introduce an all-new Kindle family: three all-new Kindle e-readers that are smaller, lighter, and more affordable than ever before, and Kindle Firea new class of Kindle that brings the same ease-of-use and deep integration of content that helped Kindle re-invent readingto movies, TV shows, music, magazines, apps, books, games, and more.

"We've now reached the magical two-digit price point for Kindletwice: the new Kindle and Kindle Touch are only $79 and $99. Kindle Touch 3G is the new top of the line e-reader with free 3G – no monthly fees or annual contracts – and is only $149," said Jeff Bezos, Amazon.com Founder and CEO. "Kindle Fire brings together all of the things we've been working on at Amazon for over 15 years into a single, fully-integrated service for customers. With Kindle Fire, you have instant access to all the content, free storage in the Amazon Cloud, the convenience of Amazon Whispersync, our revolutionary cloud-accelerated web browser, the speed and power of a state-of-the-art dual-core processor, a vibrant touch display with 16 million colors in high resolution, and a light 14.6 ounce design that's easy to hold with one handall for only $199. We're offering premium products, and we're doing it at non-premium prices."

New Latest Generation Kindle–Fits In Your Pocket–Only $79

The new latest generation Kindle is for readers who want the lightest, most compact Kindle at an incredible price. The latest generation Kindle features a new design that is 30 percent lighter at just 5.98 ounces, 18 percent smaller, and turns pages 10 percent faster. Kindle is now small and light enough to fit easily in your pocket and carry with you everywhere, yet it still features the same 6-inch, most advanced electronic ink display that reads like real paper, even in bright sunlight.

The new latest generation Kindle is only $79. Kindle is available starting today at www.amazon.com/kindle.

New Addition to the Kindle Family–"Kindle Touch"–Only $99

Kindle Touch is a new addition to the Kindle family with an easy-to-use touch screen that makes it easier than ever to turn pages, search, shop, and take notes – still with all the benefits of the most advanced electronic ink display. Kindle Touch is also lighter, smaller, eliminates battery anxiety with extra-long battery life and holds thousands of books.

New "X-Ray" Feature

Amazon invented X-Ray, a new feature that lets customers explore the "bones of the book." With a single tap, readers can see all the passages across a book that mention ideas, fictional characters, historical figures, places or topics that interest them, as well as more detailed descriptions from Wikipedia and Shelfari, Amazon's community-powered encyclopedia for book lovers. Amazon built X-Ray using its expertise in language processing and machine learning, access to significant storage and computing resources with Amazon S3 and EC2, and a deep library of book and character information. The vision is to have every important phrase in every book.

The new Kindle Touch is only $99. Kindle Touch is available to customers in the U.S. for pre-order starting today at www.amazon.com/kindletouch and ships November 21.

New Top of the Line Kindle e-reader–"Kindle Touch 3G" –Only $149

Kindle Touch 3G is a new addition to the Kindle family for readers who want the top of the line e-reader. Kindle Touch 3G offers the same new design and features of Kindle Touch – small and light, easy-to-use touch screen, storage for thousands of books, and extra-long battery life – with the unparalleled added convenience of free 3G. Kindle's free 3G connection means you never have to hunt for or pay for a Wi-Fi hotspot – you simply download and read books anytime, anywhere in over 100 countries around the world. Amazon pays for the 3G connection so there's no monthly fee or annual contract.

The new top of the line Kindle Touch 3G is only $149. Kindle Touch 3G is available to customers in the U.S. for pre-order starting today at www.amazon.com/kindletouch3G and ships November 21.

All Kindles have instant access to the Kindle Store with the largest selection of the most popular books people want to read. Millions of free, out-of-copyright, pre-1923 books are also available to read on Kindle devices, and Kindle customers can now borrow Kindle books from their public library. Kindle books are "Buy Once, Read Everywhere"on Kindle, Kindle Touch, Kindle Touch 3G, Kindle Fire, iPad, iPhone, iPod touch, PCs, Mac, Android phones and tablets, BlackBerry, Windows phones, and web browsers with Kindle Cloud Reader.

All three new Kindle e-readers also come with special offers and sponsored screensavers that appear when you're not reading. Customers enjoy special money-saving offers delivered wirelessly sponsored by AT&T, the Dove beauty brand and Amazon.com Rewards Visa Card by Chase. Kindle e-reader customers will also receive special offers in their own backyards from AmazonLocal, Amazon's local deals marketplace with discounts on local services, products, and experiences. Customers can also choose to purchase a Kindle without special offers and sponsored screensavers.

New Class of Kindle–"Kindle Fire"–Only $199

All The Content–Over 18 Million Movies, TV Shows, Songs, Apps, Games, Books, and Magazines

Kindle Fire puts Amazon's incredible selection of digital content at your fingertips:

  • Over 100,000 movies and TV shows from Amazon Instant Video, including thousands of new releases and popular TV shows, available to stream or download, purchase or rent – all just one tap away. Amazon Prime Members enjoy instant, unlimited, commercial-free streaming of over 11,000 movies and TV shows at no additional cost. Kindle Fire comes with one free month of Amazon Prime.
  • Over 17,000,000 songs from Amazon MP3, including new and bestselling albums from just $7.99 and individual songs from $0.69.
  • Over 1,000,000 Kindle books, including thousands of bestsellers, children's books, comic books and cookbooks in rich color.
  • 100 exclusive graphic novels, including Watchmen, the bestselling – and considered by many to be the greatest – graphic novel of all time, which has never before been available in digital format, as well as Batman: Arkham City, Superman: Earth OneGreen Lantern: Secret Origin and 96 others from DC Entertainment.
  • Hundreds of magazines and newspapers – including The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, USA Today, Wired, Elle, The New Yorker, Cosmopolitan and Martha Stewart Living – with full-color layouts, photographs, illustrations, built-in video, audio and other interactive features are available from the new Kindle Fire "Newsstand." Kindle Fire customers will enjoy an exclusive free three-month trial to 17 Condé Nast magazines, including Vanity Fair, GQ and Glamour.
  • All the most popular Android apps and games, such as Angry Birds, Plants vs. Zombies, Cut the Rope and more. All apps are Amazon-tested on Kindle Fire to ensure quality and Amazon offers a new free paid app every day.

Cloud-Accelerated Web Browser – "Amazon Silk"

The Kindle Fire web browser Amazon Silk introduces a radical new paradigm – a "split browser" architecture that accelerates the power of the mobile device hardware by using the computing speed and power of the Amazon Web Services Cloud. The Silk browser software resides both on Kindle Fire and on the massive server fleet that comprises the Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2). With each page request, Silk dynamically determines a division of labor between the mobile hardware and Amazon EC2 (i.e. which browser sub-components run where) that takes into consideration factors like network conditions, page complexity, and cached content. The result is a faster web browsing experience, and it's available exclusively on Kindle Fire. Additional technical details are available in the Amazon Silk press release, released today at www.amazon.com/pr. To see a video about Amazon Silk go to www.amazon.com/silk.

Simple and Easy-To-Use

Amazon designed the Kindle Fire user interface from the ground up to make it easier than ever to purchase, manage, and enjoy your digital content. Just like with Kindle e-readers, Kindle Fire comes automatically pre-registered to your Amazon.com account so you can immediately start enjoying your digital content purchased from Amazon or shop for new content. All of your digital content is instantly available to enjoy and manage with a simple, consistent experience across all content types.

Free Cloud Storage

Just like Kindle e-readers, Kindle Fire offers free storage for all your Amazon digital content in the Amazon Cloud. Amazon digital content is automatically backed up for free in the Amazon Cloud's Worry-Free Archive where it's available for re-downloading anytime.

Amazon Whispersync Now for Movies & TV Too

Just like Kindle e-readers, Kindle Fire uses Amazon's popular Whispersync technology to automatically synchronize your Kindle library, last page read, bookmarks, notes, and highlights across the widest range of devices and platforms. With the introduction of Kindle Fire, Amazon is expanding this technology to include video. Start streaming a movie on your Kindle Fire, and when you get home, you can resume streaming right where you left off on your TVavoid the frustration of needing to find your spot.

Easy to Hold in One Hand

Just like Kindle e-readers, Kindle Fire was designed to disappear so you can lose yourself in the content. Weighing in at just 14.6 ounces, Kindle Fire is small and light enough to hold in just one hand and carry everywhere you go. The lightweight, compact design makes Kindle Fire perfect for web browsing, playing games, reading and shopping on-the-go.

Brilliant Color Touchscreen

Content comes alive in rich color on a 7-inch full color LCD touchscreen that delivers 16 million colors in high resolution and 169 pixels per inch. Kindle Fire uses IPS (in-plane switching) technology – similar technology as used on the iPad, for an extra-wide viewing angle – perfect for sharing your screen with others. In addition, the Kindle Fire display is chemically strengthened to be 20 times stiffer and 30 times harder than plastic, which means it is incredibly durable and will stand up to accidental bumps and scrapes.

Fast, Powerful Dual-Core Processor

Kindle Fire features a state-of-the-art dual-core processor for fast, powerful performance. Stream music while browsing the web or read books while downloading videos.

Free Month of Amazon Prime

Right out of the box, Kindle Fire users will experience the benefits that millions of Amazon Prime members already enjoy - unlimited, commercial-free, instant streaming of over 11,000 movies and TV shows with Prime Instant Video and the convenience of Free Two-Day Shipping on millions of items from Amazon.com.

Only $199

The all-new Kindle Firewith all the content, Amazon's revolutionary cloud-accelerated browser, free storage in the Amazon Cloud, Whispersync, 14.6 ounce design that's easy to hold with one hand, brilliant color touchscreen, and a fast and powerful dual core processoris only $199. Customers in the U.S. can pre-order Kindle Fire starting today at www.amazon.com/kindlefire and it ships November 15.

For high resolution images and video of the all-new Kindle family, visit www.amazon.com/pr/kindle.

About Amazon.com

Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN), a Fortune 500 company based in Seattle, opened on the World Wide Web in July 1995 and today offers Earth's Biggest Selection. Amazon.com, Inc. seeks to be Earth's most customer-centric company, where customers can find and discover anything they might want to buy online, and endeavors to offer its customers the lowest possible prices. Amazon.com and other sellers offer millions of unique new, refurbished and used items in categories such as Books; Movies, Music & Games; Digital Downloads; Electronics & Computers; Home & Garden; Toys, Kids & Baby; Grocery; Apparel, Shoes & Jewelry; Health & Beauty; Sports & Outdoors; and Tools, Auto & Industrial. Amazon Web Services provides Amazon's developer customers with access to in-the-cloud infrastructure services based on Amazon's own back-end technology platform, which developers can use to enable virtually any type of business. The new latest generation Kindle is the lightest, most compact Kindle ever and features the same 6-inch, most advanced electronic ink display that reads like real paper even in bright sunlight. Kindle Touch is a new addition to the Kindle family with an easy-to-use touch screen that makes it easier than ever to turn pages, search, shop, and take notes – still with all the benefits of the most advanced electronic ink display. Kindle Touch 3G is the top of the line e-reader and offers the same new design and features of Kindle Touch, with the unparalleled added convenience of free 3G. Kindle Fire is the Kindle for movies, TV shows, music, books, magazines, apps, games and web browsing with all the content, free storage in the Amazon Cloud, Whispersync, Amazon Silk (Amazon's new revolutionary cloud-accelerated web browser), vibrant color touch screen, and powerful dual-core processor.

Amazon and its affiliates operate websites, including www.amazon.com, www.amazon.co.uk, www.amazon.de, www.amazon.co.jp, www.amazon.fr, www.amazon.ca, www.amazon.cn, www.amazon.it, and www.amazon.es. As used herein, "Amazon.com," "we," "our" and similar terms include Amazon.com, Inc., and its subsidiaries, unless the context indicates otherwise.

Forward-Looking Statements

This announcement contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. Actual results may differ significantly from management's expectations. These forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties that include, among others, risks related to competition, management of growth, new products, services and technologies, potential fluctuations in operating results, international expansion, outcomes of legal proceedings and claims, fulfillment center optimization, seasonality, commercial agreements, acquisitions and strategic transactions, foreign exchange rates, system interruption, inventory, government regulation and taxation, payments and fraud. More information about factors that potentially could affect Amazon.com's financial results is included in Amazon.com's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including its most recent Annual Report on Form 10-K and subsequent filings.

Thanks to Todd Haselton / BGR / BGR Media, LLC
http://www.bgr.com/2011/09/28/amazon-unveils-200-kindle-fire-tablet-99-kindle-touch-ereader-79-kindle/

5473 Results For "Kindle Store" In Books

Kindle Store
 

Creating The Lean Startup

How Eric Ries developed a scientific method for launching profitable companies

Squandered capital, wasted efforts, shattered dreams. Eric Ries, author of The Lean Startup, is on a mission to save entrepreneurs from such a fate. Ries, a serial entrepreneur, co-founded IMVU, an online social network that made the Inc. 500 last year. Through trial and error at IMVU, Ries developed a methodical approach to launching companies that goes beyond bootstrapping. Now he's creating a movement.

Stop me if you've heard this one before. Brilliant college kids sitting in a dorm are inventing the future. Heedless of boundaries, possessed of new technology and youthful enthusiasm, they build a company from scratch. Their early success allows them to raise money and bring an amazing new product to market. They hire their friends, assemble a superstar team, and dare the world to stop them.

More than a decade and several start-ups ago, that was me, launching my first company. It was 1999, and we were building a way for college kids to create online profiles for the purpose of sharing...with employers. Oops. I vividly remember the moment I realized my company was going to fail. My co-founder and I were at our wits' end. By 2001, the dot-com bubble had burst, and we had spent all our money. We tried desperately to raise more capital, and we could not. It was like a breakup scene from a Hollywood movie: It was raining, and we were arguing in the street. We couldn't agree even on where to walk next, and so we parted in anger, heading in opposite directions. As a metaphor for our company's failure, this image of the two of us, lost in the rain and drifting apart, is perfect.

If you've never experienced a failure like this, it is hard to describe the feeling. It's as if the world were falling out from under you. You feel you've been duped. The stories in the magazines are lies: Hard work and perseverance don't lead to success. Even worse, the many, many promises you've made to employees, friends, and family are not going to come true. Everyone who thought you were foolish for stepping out on your own was right.

The grim reality is that most start-ups fail. Most new products are not successful. Yet the story of perseverance, creative genius, and hard work persists. Why is it so popular? I think there is something deeply appealing about this modern-day rags-to-riches story. It makes success seem inevitable if you just have the right stuff. If we build it, they will come. When we fail, as so many of us do, we have a ready-made excuse: We weren't in the right place at the right time—we didn't have the right stuff.

After more than 10 years as an entrepreneur, I have come to reject that line of thinking. Start-up success is not a consequence of good genes or being in the right place at the right time. Success can be engineered by following the right process, which means it can be learned, which means it can be taught.

Let me tell you a second start-up story. It's now 2004, and a group of founders have just started a company. They have a huge vision: to change the way people communicate online by using a new technology called avatars.

I'm in this second story, too. I'm a co-founder and chief technology officer of this company, IMVU. Although my co-founders and I were determined to do things differently, we ended up making a lot of mistakes. Despite various setbacks, the methods we developed over time at IMVU have become the basis for a movement of entrepreneurs around the world. It represents a new approach to creating continuous innovation. I call it the Lean Startup.

Our "Brilliant" Business Plan
The five of us involved in the founding of IMVU aspired to be serious strategic thinkers. Each of us had participated in previous ventures that had failed, and we were loath to repeat that experience. Our main concerns in the early days dealt with the following questions: What should we build and for whom? What market could we enter and dominate?

We decided on the instant messaging market. In 2004, that market had hundreds of millions of customers, the majority of whom were not paying for the privilege. Large companies such as AOL, Microsoft, and Yahoo ran their IM networks as a loss leader for other services while making modest amounts of money through advertising. The common wisdom was that it was more or less impossible to bring a new IM network to market without spending an extraordinary amount of money on marketing.

The grim reality is that most start-ups fail. Most new products are not successful.

At IMVU, our strategy was to build a product that would combine the mass appeal of traditional IM with the high revenue per customer of video games. Because of the near impossibility of bringing a new IM network to market, we decided to make our product compatible with existing IM networks. Customers would be able to chat online using their IMVU avatars without having to switch IM providers or learn a new user interface. They wouldn't have to persuade their friends to switch, either.

We thought the third point was essential. Every IM communication would come embedded with an invitation to join IMVU. Our product would be inherently viral, spreading throughout the existing IM networks like an epidemic. To spur rapid growth, it was important that our product be compatible with as many IM networks as possible.

With this strategy in place, my co-founders and I began a period of intense work. As the CTO, it was my responsibility to, among other things, write the software that would support the various IM networks. Because we had limited funding, we gave ourselves a hard deadline of six months to launch the product and attract our first paying customers. It was a grueling schedule, but we were determined to launch on time.

The project was so large and complex and had so many moving parts that we had to cut a lot of corners to get it done on schedule. I won't mince words: The first version was terrible. We spent endless hours arguing about which bugs to fix and which we could live with, which features to cut and which to cram in. It was a wonderful and terrifying time. We were full of hope about the possibilities for success and full of fear about the consequences of shipping a bad product.

I was worried that the low quality of the product would tarnish my reputation as an engineer. People would think I didn't know how to build a quality product. We envisioned the damning newspaper headlines: Inept Entrepreneurs Build Dreadful Product.

Six months later, teeth clenched and apologies at the ready, we released our website to the public. And then—nothing happened! It turned out that our fears were unfounded, because nobody even tried our product.

We Resort to Talking to Customers
Over the ensuing weeks and months, we labored to make the product better. We eventually learned how to change the product's positioning so that customers at least would download it. We were making improvements continuously, launching bug fixes and new changes daily. However, despite our best efforts, we were able to persuade only a pathetically small number of people to pay $29.95 for the product.

Eventually, out of desperation, we began bringing people into our office for in-person interviews and usability tests. Imagine a 17-year-old girl sitting down with us at a computer. We say, "Try this new product; it's IMVU." She chooses her avatar and says, "Oh, this is really fun." She's customizing the avatar, deciding how it's going to look. Then we say, "All right, it's time to download the instant messaging add-on," and she responds, "What's that?"

"Well, it's this thing that interoperates with the instant messaging client," we say. She has no idea what we're talking about. But because she's in the room with us, we're able to talk her into doing it. Then we say, "OK, invite one of your friends to chat." And she says, "No way!" We say, "Why not?" And she says, "Well, I don't know if this thing is cool yet. You want me to risk inviting one of my friends? If it sucks, they're going to think I suck, right?" And we say, "No, no, it's going to be so much fun once you get the person in there; it's a social product." She looks at us, her face filled with doubt; you can see that this is a deal breaker.

Of course, the first time I had that experience, I said, "It's all right; it's just this one person. Send her away, and get me a new one." Then the second customer comes in and says the same thing. Then the third customer comes in, and it's the same thing. No matter how stubborn you are, you start to see there is something wrong.

In response to the feedback, we created ChatNow, a feature that lets you push a button and be randomly matched with somebody else anywhere in the world. The only thing you have in common is that you pushed the button at the same time. All of a sudden, people were saying, "Oh, this is fun!"

Any effort that is not absolutely necessary for learning what customers want should be eliminated.

Then, maybe they would meet somebody they thought was cool. They'd say, "Hey, that guy was neat; I want to add him to my buddy list. Where's my buddy list?" And we'd say, "Oh, no, you don't want a new buddy list; you want to use your regular AOL buddy list." You could see their eyes go wide, and they'd say, "Are you kidding me? A stranger on my buddy list?" To which we'd respond, "Yes; otherwise you'd have to download a whole new IM program with a new buddy list." And they'd say, "Do you have any idea how many IM programs I already run?"

"No," we'd say. "One or two, maybe?" That's how many each of us used. To which the teenager would say, "Duh! I run eight." It started to dawn on us that our concept was flawed.

Our early adopters didn't think that having to learn a new IM program was a barrier. Even more surprising, our assumption that customers would want to use IMVU primarily with their existing friends was also wrong. They wanted to make new friends, an activity that 3-D avatars are particularly well suited to facilitating. Bit by bit, customers tore apart our seemingly brilliant initial strategy.

Was It All a Waste?
I wish I could say that I was the one to realize our mistake and suggest the solution, but in truth, I was the last to admit the problem. I had slaved over the software that was required to make our system work with other IM networks. When it came time to abandon that original strategy, almost all of my work—thousands of lines of code—was thrown out. That was really depressing.

I wondered, in light of the fact that my work turned out to be a waste of time and energy, Would the company have been just as well off if I had spent the past six months on a beach sipping umbrella drinks?

There is always one last refuge for people aching to justify their failure. I consoled myself with the fact that if we hadn't built our first product—mistakes and all—we never would have learned these important insights about our customers. We never would have learned that our strategy was flawed. There is truth in this excuse: What we learned during those critical early months set IMVU on a path that would lead to our eventual breakout success. Today, IMVU is a profitable company with more than $50 million in annual revenue and more than 100 employees. IMVU customers have created more than 60 million avatars.

For a time, this consolation made me feel better, but some questions still bothered me. If the goal was to learn important insights about customers, why did it take so long? How much of our effort actually contributed to that learning? Could we have learned those lessons earlier if I hadn't been so focused on making the product "better" by adding features and fixing bugs? I had created software to support more than a dozen IM networks. Was this really necessary to test our assumptions? Could we have gotten the same feedback from our customers with half as many IM networks? With only three? With only one?

Here's the question that kept me up nights: Did we have to support any IM networks at all? Is it possible that we could have discovered how flawed our assumptions were without building anything? What if, before building anything, we simply had offered customers the opportunity to download the product solely on the basis of its proposed features? Almost no one was willing to use our original product, so we wouldn't have had to do much apologizing when we failed to deliver.

In other words, which of our efforts were creating value, and which were wasteful? This question is at the heart of the lean-manufacturing revolution; it is the first question any lean-manufacturing adherent is trained to ask. Learning to see waste and systematically eliminate it has allowed lean companies such as Toyota to dominate entire industries. Lean thinking defines value as "providing benefit to the customer"; anything else is waste. But in a start-up, who the customer is and what the customer might find valuable are often unknown. I realized that for start-ups, we needed a new definition of value. The real progress we had made at IMVU was what we had learned over those first months about what creates value for customers.

Learning as Fast as We Can
If learning is the essential unit of progress for start-ups, any effort that is not absolutely necessary for learning what customers want should be eliminated. So how do we do that? By building what I call a minimum viable product—or MVP. It helps entrepreneurs start the process of learning as quickly as possible. Unlike a prototype or concept test, an MVP is designed not just to answer product design or technical questions. Its goal is to test fundamental business hypotheses.

Yes, MVPs are sometimes perceived as low quality by customers. When that happens, it's an opportunity to learn what attributes customers care about. This is infinitely better than mere speculation or whiteboard strategizing, because it provides a solid empirical foundation on which to build.

Sometimes, however, customers react quite differently. Many famous products were released in what might be called a low-quality state, and customers loved them. Imagine if Craig Newmark, in the early days of Craigslist, had refused to publish his humble e-mail newsletter because it lacked high design.

Customers don't care how long something takes to build. They care only that it serves their needs.

In the early days of IMVU, our avatars were locked in one place, unable to move around the screen. The reason? We had not yet tackled the difficult task of creating the technology that would allow avatars to walk around their virtual environments. In the video game industry, the standard is that avatars should move fluidly as they walk, avoid obstacles in their path, and take an intelligent route toward their destination. Best-selling games such as Electronic Arts's The Sims work on this principle. We didn't want to ship a low-quality version of this feature, so we opted instead to ship with stationary avatars.

Feedback from the customers was very consistent: They wanted the ability to move their avatars around. We took this as bad news, because it meant we would have to spend considerable amounts of time and money on a high-quality solution similar to The Sims. But before we committed ourselves to that path, we decided to try an experiment. We used a simple hack, which felt almost like cheating. We changed the product so that customers could click where they wanted their avatar to go, and the avatar would teleport there instantly. No walking, no obstacle avoidance. The avatar disappeared and then reappeared an instant later in the new place. We couldn't afford fancy teleportation graphics or sound effects.

Imagine our surprise when we started to get positive customer feedback. We never asked about the movement feature directly (we were too embarrassed). But when asked to name the things about IMVU they liked best, customers consistently listed avatar teleportation among the top three. It outperformed features that had taken much more time and money to make.

Customers don't care how much time something takes to build. They care only that it serves their needs. Our customers preferred the quick teleportation feature because it allowed them to get where they wanted to go as fast as possible. In retrospect, this makes sense. Wouldn't we all like to get wherever we're going in an instant? Our expensive real-world approach was beaten handily by a cool fantasy-world feature that cost much less but that our customers preferred. So which version of the product is low quality, again?

Going Lean
At its heart, a start-up is a catalyst that transforms ideas into products and services. As customers interact with those products and services, they generate feedback and data. The feedback is both qualitative (what they like and don't like) and quantitative (how many people use it and find it valuable). As we learned the hard way at IMVU, the products a start-up builds are really experiments. Learning about how to build a sustainable business is the outcome of those experiments. Each experiment essentially follows a three-step process: Build, measure, learn.

Many people have professional training that emphasizes one element of this three-step loop. For engineers like me, it's learning to build things as efficiently as possible. Plenty of entrepreneurs obsess over data and metrics. The truth is that none of these activities by itself is of paramount importance. Instead, we need to focus our energies on minimizing the total time through this loop. That way, we can avoid much of the waste that plagues start-ups today. As in lean manufacturing, learning where and when to invest energy results in saving time and money.

The Lean Startup method builds capital-efficient companies because it allows start-ups to recognize that it's time to pivot—or change direction—sooner, creating less waste of time and money. I named this loop "build, measure, learn" because the activities happen in that order. But the planning really works in the reverse order: We figure out what we need to learn, then figure out what we need to measure to get that knowledge, and then figure out what product we need to build to run that experiment and get that measurement.

So what would organizations look like if everyone were armed with Lean Startup principles? For one thing, we would all insist that assumptions about what customers want be stated explicitly and tested rigorously. We would look to eliminate waste, not build castles in the sky. We would respond to failures and setbacks with honesty and learning, not with recriminations and blame. Most of all, we would stop wasting people's time.

This article is adapted from The Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses, by Eric Ries, published this fall by Crown Business.

Eric Ries will discuss his new book and answer questions during a live video chat on October 5 at noon Eastern Time.

Thanks to Eric Ries / Inc / Mansueto Ventures LLC.
http://www.inc.com/magazine/201110/eric-ries-usability-testing-product-development_Printer_Friendly.html

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How To Set Business Goals

Your company's goals will only be effective if you have a clear vision of what you want to achieve--and how.
By Peter Vanden Bos | Jun 29, 2010

A smart CEO understands the inherent value of goal setting in steering a growing business in the right direction. Unfortunately, figuring out exactly what the right direction is—and the road map to get there—isn't as much of a no-brainer.

More than 80 percent of the 300 small business owners surveyed in the recent 4th Annual Staples National Small Business Survey said that they don't keep track of their business goals, and 77 percent have yet to achieve their vision for their company.

Though the statistics are grim, they should make sense: establishing business goals involves a fair amount of introspection into what makes your business tick, and what you want its future to be. Devoting the proper amount of time to do that can be difficult in a struggling economy, but your goals will be more achievable and effective if you do.

"You have to know what you're going for, and do it with your eyes wide open," says Francisco Dao, founder and president of The Killer Pitch, a firm based in Tarzana, California, that helps companies and entrepreneurs refine their message, and former business coach and columnist for Inc. "Look at yourself in the mirror and ask yourself what it's going to take to achieve your goals."

Here's Inc.'s road map to setting (and achieving) business goals.

Setting Business Goals: Determine Your Long-Term Aims

Start by distinguishing your long-term goals from your short-term ones. Your long-term goals should have a timeline of about three to five years, says Maria Marshall, an associate professor at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana, who has conducted research on small and family-owned businesses.

They should articulate your company's mission statement, reflecting the reason your company was founded. "When you think about why the company is there in the first place, goals take on a whole different meaning," says Bill Baren, a business coach and founder and president of Bill Baren Coaching, based in San Francisco. "There's more energy behind them. They don't feel forced."

Marshall says that these types of visionary goals usually fall within four general areas: service, social, profit, or growth:

•    Service - Goals related to improving customer service satisfaction or customer retention.

•    Social - Goals that focus on giving back to the community, through philanthropy or volunteer organizations, for example.

•    Profit - Goals set to increase profits by a certain percentage.

•    Growth - Goals related to the expansion of the company, through new employees, for instance.

Marshall likens each type of goal to a vacation destination, and the related short-term goals and objectives you establish afterward as the road map for getting there.

To emphasize the distinction between long- and short-term goals, Baren suggests using different language. "Look at a long-term goal as an initiative," he says. "If you're constantly calling them goals, people will say they've heard it before. [To them,] it will feel like a marathon. Sometimes, a goal needs to be positioned as something bigger."

If you're truly thinking big, you might want to consider creating a B.H.A.G., a "big, hairy, audacious, goal." The term—coined by James Collins and Jerry Porras in their 1996 article "Building Your Company's Vision"—refers to the 30-year game changing goals, like Sony trying to change the worldwide perception of Japanese products being of poor quality.

Dao also points to the example of Boeing building the 747. "They were going all in," he says. "If it didn't work, Boeing was going to go bankrupt. B.H.A.G.'s aren't impossible, but the company better be willing to bet the farm."

Regardless of just how long you want your long-term goals to be, be cognizant of how quickly they can change. Lori Becker, founder and CEO of Boston-based education publishing firm Publishing Solutions Group, says she is a fan of the five-year goal, but the current economy and some major changes in her industry have forced her to reevaluate. "Instead of a few years out, I'm now looking quarter to quarter," she says. "My goal is just to make more money than I did last year."

Setting Business Goals: Create Short-Term Objectives
 
Now that you've figured out what you want in the long term, you need to figure out how to get there. Marshall recommends an easy way to think about your short-term objectives for accomplishing your long-term goals. Make them S.M.A.R.T.:

•    Specific. In order to work, objectives need to be concrete (not as abstract as your long-term aims) and highly detailed.

•    Measurable. Put a figure or value, such as a dollar amount or percentage, to the objective.

•    Action-oriented. Lay out which actions need to be taken by which people, and when.

•    Realistic. Make goals challenging, but consider your resources so that you can actually achieve them reasonably.

•    Time specific. Set a deadline to keep things on track.

"You have to understand what the long-term goal means on a daily basis," Dao says. "How do you establish the goal at its most fundamental level? If I want to increase sales annually by 24 percent, how many new customers or orders a day is that?"

The short-term objectives should ideally have a much narrower timeline. "Increasing sales 24 percent a year is a pretty big number," Dao says. "But increasing sales two percent each month seems totally doable."

Break down specific actions to be taken by specific people, assigning someone in each department involved to be accountable—and to help motivate employees.

Perhaps the most important component of these short-term goals is tying them into the long-term ones. Because you've already identified those long-term goals, it's easier to see how focusing on seemingly small details can be a step toward achieving a broader long-term aim.

For example, one of Becker's long-term goals is to keep costs and overhead under control. When she saw that she was paying over $1,000 a month for pay per click color prints on her publishing firm's copier, she invested the time to figure out why the fees were so costly. It turned out that employees were needlessly printing out e-mails with blue hyperlinks in color, so Becker made it a priority to reconfigure each computer to print in black and white by default.

Baren suggests that inspiration and accountability are also two essential components for turning goals from abstract into reality. "Accountability without inspiration is like a prison sentence," he says.

"Goals are not separate from the culture of the organization," he continues. "It's not an accident that Zappos.com has done over $2 billion in business. They've created a culture of caring—when they ask their employees to do something, they go and do it."

Setting Business Goals: Solicit Employee Input

You may have a clear vision of where you want your company to go, but it's also crucial to motivate employees so they're looking in the same direction you are. So, instead of issuing a top-down initiative, try co-creating goals with employees.

"It's really important that there is enthusiastic buy-in from your employees," Baren says. "Everyone feels like they have some ownership in the goal, as opposed to [the CEO acting as] a dictator mandating something."

Once you've asked employees to help you create your goals, get everyone on the same page. "We're very communicative, and very hands on," Becker says. "Know what your neighbor is doing so, you can help each other out." She organizes Monday morning meetings and Wednesday midweek check-ins to keep each one of her employees on track.

"Even a really good boss can't see it all," Dao says. "Get the feedback of people who are executing it on the front line."

Setting Business Goals: Stay Organized and Focused

The reality is, a growing business will have more than just a few goals. That's when a vigilant focus and a commitment to organization comes into play.

For example, Becker keeps checklists of her short-term goals, and also uses to programs like Microsoft Excel to keep track of them. Each Monday morning, she checks in on the status of her goals. "I don't want to forget about long-term goals because so many tiny things can come up during the week to distract me," she says.

It might make sense to tackle one goal at a time. "If you become unfocused, it's like getting off on every exit of the highway," Marshall says. "You have to pick the exits you want to take very carefully, so you can maximize your strengths and minimize your weaknesses as a company."

Setting Business Goals: Be Consistent

Another problem that can arise with having many distinct goals for your business is the possibility they will conflict with each other.

"Companies will say that they want 100 percent customer satisfaction," Dao says, "but they'll also want the highest margins. Customer service is expensive, so that's not going to happen. You have to pick. Look at the big picture."

Also look out for a situation where you're unwittingly preventing employees from accomplishing a goal.

Dao points to the hypothetical example of a company that wants to improve customer service ratings, but which has an extensive automated phone tree before customers can talk to an actual person. "By the time they're on the fourteenth level, customers are already pissed off," Dao says. "How is that guy they finally speak to going to be able to get customer satisfaction back up to a 10 when there is nothing he can do about the system?"

Setting Business Goals: Build a Culture of Appreciation

One important (and often overlooked) part of the business goal setting process is rewarding the employees who are actually working to achieve those goals. This isn't always a financial incentive.

"You've achieved a set of goals, and the next day you hand out a new pile of goals to work on," Baren says. "What happened to a simple thank you, and celebrating what's gone right? If you work in a company long enough where that's not practiced, the motivation starts to disappear."

Thanks to Peter Vanden Bos / Inc / Mansueto Ventures LLC.
http://www.inc.com/guides/2010/06/setting-business-goals_Printer_Friendly.html

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The 5 Habits Of Quality-Focused Companies

Superior execution is often at the heart of small business success. Here are five ways to ensure that your team is prepared to achieve excellence.

Most small businesses achieve success not because they bring a truly innovative idea to market, but rather because they dazzle customers with excellent service. Yet a focus on superior execution—that is, on quality—is easier said than done. To be successful project to project over a period of years, a company has to develop habits that instill a passion for quality in all corners of the organizations. Here are five habits of organizations that focus on quality. Would you say that your business has developed them?

1. They set clear expectations.

To achieve quality, you have to define it, and you have to make sure that definition is disseminated throughout the rank and file. "It's the job of any business owner to be clear about the company's nonnegotiable core values," says restaurateur Danny Meyer. "They're the riverbanks that help guide us as we refine and improve on performance and excellence. A lack of riverbanks creates estuaries and cloudy waters that are confusing to navigate. I want a crystal-clear, swiftly flowing stream. Riverbanks need not hinder creativity, and in fact I leave plenty of room between the riverbanks for individual expression and personal style."

2. They collect and analyze data.

Collecting data is more common than ever, particularly with the advent of Web analytics. But companies that focus on quality have long stood out thanks to their passion for data. Moreover, the metrics they track go above and beyond either web or financial information. For example, Inc.'s John Case wrote a profile of Granite Rock, a phenomenally successful quarry (yes, quarry) in 1992. Customer surveys played a major role in the company's governing philosophy, with information collected at all kinds of intervals, and results shared widely among the quarry's 400 workers. "The role of managers," Granite Rock CEO Bruce Woolpert told Case, "is to make sure there's a flood of information coming into the company." Would you say that this was true in your business?

3. They invest in capacity.

An organization stretched thin on resources will never be able to overdeliver, and quality depends somewhat on the ability of a company to exceed expectations. For that reason, "we create infrastructure in anticipation of revenue," says Dawson Rutter, president of Commonwealth Worldwide, a Boston-based limousine company known for exceptional service. "That ensures service delivery will be impeccable 100 percent of the time. We can always handle 105 percent of our absolute busiest day. Is that a more expensive way of doing it? You bet. But the fact is we don't lose customers, which means we can afford to pay that premium."

4. They promote from within. 

Hiring can be a crapshoot, even with the most formidable screening systems in place. So companies with a focus on quality know that one of the keys to success is to develop talent from within. Begin by looking for current employees who possess the characteristics of your best performers, and create mentoring relationships and employee training programs to bring them along. Recruiting employees from within has the added benefit that they will already understand your company's products and services. And promoting from within tends to help you reduce your overall turnover rate, which will in turn help you achieve ever higher standards of execution.

5. They celebrate victories.

When you survey your customers on the quality of service, make sure that everyone, from the top down, knows of the results and receives recognition for the things that are going well. Behavioral research has shown that you get more of the behavior you reward. So don't make the mistake that many quality-minded managers make, which is harping on only the areas of poor performance; make sure you highlight those employees and teams who are doing exceptionally well, and involve all employees in brainstorming ways to improve the things that are unsatisfactory.

Thanks to Inc. Staff / Inc / Mansueto Ventures LLC.
http://www.inc.com/guides/201101/five-habits-of-quality-focused-companies_Printer_Friendly.html

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Why A CEO Needs To Have A Plan B

For nearly three decades, in good times and bad, Jack Stack has run his company, SRC, as though disaster could strike at any moment. Now, with the economy cratering, he's glad he did.

If you think times are tough now, consider that in the early '80s, the prime interest rate topped 21 percent, and unemployment was just shy of 11 percent. That was the economic environment confronting Jack Stack and 12 other managers of a small engine-remanufacturing plant in Springfield, Missouri, as they prepared to buy the factory from International Harvester in a desperate attempt to save their own jobs and those of the people they worked with. Their new company, Springfield ReManufacturing Corporation, survived that recession and went on to prosper for the next 26 years.

Today, Stack, the company's CEO, and his colleagues are weathering a recession of similar magnitude. But they find themselves in a far different situation. The enterprise, now called SRC Holdings, is a mini conglomerate of seven holding companies with 26 businesses whose 1,200 employees make automobile engines, irrigation pumps, home furnishings, and more. Its current health is no accident. Having launched the company to save jobs, Stack was determined never to be forced to lay people off. He spoke with editor-at-large Bo Burlingham (with whom he has co-authored two books) about how he has worked to keep that promise to his employees -- and build a company that is bucking nearly every current economic trend.

Most American manufacturers are in terrible shape right now. And yet you seem to be doing well. What do you attribute that to?

Paranoia. We've always been terrified of being forced to lay people off, and so we've spent the past 26 years trying to make sure we would never have to do that.

Where does that paranoia come from?

It goes back to our beginnings. When we started out in February 1983, we were at rock bottom. Everybody was at the bottom in 1983. It was ugly and painful, just like today. We'd bought our factory to save our jobs, but to do it we had to take on a huge amount of debt, $8.9 million, because we had very little money ourselves. Our debt-to-equity ratio was 89:1. Let me tell you, you're brain-dead in that situation. You're on life support. We had bank auditors literally camped outside our doors. If we'd had one little slip-up -- if we'd been an hour late with a payment -- they would have rushed in and closed us down, and 120 people would have been out on the street.

When you go through a period like that, you don't ever want to do it again. I am sure people who lived through the Great Depression developed some form of trapdoor thinking and contingency planning -- whether it was having two or three jobs or investments or just not living outside their means. Anyway, that experience made us realize that a job is never secure. If you let yourself get lulled to sleep, you're going to get screwed -- even if you have what you think is a fail-safe deal.

How do you keep from getting lulled to sleep?

We constantly look for our vulnerabilities. We do forecasting to determine where they are, and then we ask ourselves a lot of what-ifs. What if we're getting wrong information? What if a market goes down? What if we have a collection problem with a major customer? What if interest rates go through the roof? What if there's a 9/11? The whole idea is to provide our people with job security and job opportunities. I think it's led us to go one step further than most companies do. A lot of businesses put up a plan to satisfy their bankers or because they think it's what you're supposed to do. But our culture is, "Let's find out where our weaknesses and vulnerabilities are and then build something to offset them."

How does that work in practice?

We measure each piece of business by the amount of labor that goes into it. Then we see how concentrated our labor is. When we were starting out in the 1980s, more than 75 percent of our labor hours were in the truck market. We did some investigating and found out that the truck market has a recession every six years. So we had to ask ourselves what we'd do if we had a recession.

And the answer?

We thought about what goes up in a down market, and we discovered that automobile parts go up, because people keep their cars longer and fix them. That's how we got into the automotive aftermarket business. That kind of thinking became part of our culture and our way of doing business.

So is this all about saving jobs?

No, it's about creating jobs. That's our goal. And once you create them, you don't want to lose them. What we're doing here is helping people to get through life. I never want to have to take someone else's livelihood away because of mistakes I've made in not anticipating a problem -- even if it's a problem I couldn't have seen coming. It's management's job to anticipate those problems and prepare for them. A layoff is a failure of management. But the people who usually pay for that failure are not the ones responsible for it.

It's interesting to me that your paranoia actually led you to expand the company in some very ambitious ways.

Absolutely. The contingencies and trapdoors we developed eventually became new businesses. Our values drove our paranoia. Our paranoia drove our contingency planning. And our contingency planning drove our diversification. We knew the more we diversified, the safer we would be. So we spread out of our core competencies. We've spun off 55, 56 businesses as a result of this process.

A lot of people would say you took a big risk by getting outside your core competencies. The common wisdom is that you're supposed to stick to your knitting.

I think that's really bad advice in most cases. Sure, if we'd stayed in our core competency, we might have been very successful in the truck market. We could have reduced our expenses and increased our margins, but we would have been tremendously vulnerable. We would have had 100 percent of our eggs in one basket.

Certainly, some people have been successful by sticking to their core competencies.

Oh, sure. It's not too bad a strategy if you plan to sell the business. You build up your earnings and your sales, and then you cash out. But to create something sustainable, you have to be totally paranoid. You have to be realistic that you're going to get hit with a lot of unknown events. If you diversify, you can handle those unknowns. But it takes a lot of courage to fix a weakness when it's not immediately painful.

Describe the process that leads to the creation of the new businesses.

It's centered around our sales meetings, which we hold twice a year -- one in June and one in October. We tell people, "Give us your honest-to-God forecast. We'd love to see 15 percent growth. If we get 6 percent or more, that's OK, but tell us what it would take to get to 15." Generally, we prefer to grow organically, increasing sales of products we already make and selling to customers and markets we already have. Organic growth is the most profitable kind. Your margins are always better when you grow with something you're already strong at.

But we want people to have new products and new markets lined up in case they can't reach their goals organically. Those are the contingencies and trapdoors. Let's say one company needs 100 people this year and projects it will need 106 people to handle its growth next year. At the sales meeting, its representatives tell us how they plan to do it in terms of product lines, customers, and the marketplace. But they also have to consider that they might be wrong. So we ask them to come to the meeting with an additional 15 percent of sales in what-ifs. What if they can't cover the 106 people? Because if they're wrong on the forecast, they're also wrong on somebody's life.

And 15 percent is the magic number?

We want at least 15 percent of our projected sales in research and development at all times. The whole idea of the trapdoor is that if something happens, we can rush that new product to market, or we can rush that product we already have to a new customer. We look at a variety of factors. For example, one of our companies makes agricultural machinery, and agriculture tends to be good in the spring and the fall, but there's a gap in the middle. We asked ourselves, "What sells in the summertime?" The answer: refrigeration units. So we put refrigeration units in there. It was a contingency. We began to develop a lot of contingencies like that, and some of the contingencies ultimately became businesses.

Is that why you've done so well despite the current downturn?

Yes. Look at SRC Automotive. It remanufactures automotive and marine engines. Its biggest customers are Mercury Marine and General Motors. Our GM orders fell off a cliff in November. Up to then, we'd been doing 800 to 1,000 engines a month for them. In December, we sold 212 engines. Marine got hit hard, too. It was a tsunami. If we hadn't had these contingencies and trapdoors, we would have had no option but to lay off 35 percent of the work force and wait until the business came back. We figured that would be at least five or six months.

I take it that's not what you did.

Fortunately, we didn't have to. We were able to move some of the people into our other companies that needed the extra manpower and had jobs they could do. We also found a Missouri program that helped us out. Instead of laying people off, we put them on a four-day workweek, and they collect unemployment for the days they aren't working. On their days off, they wind up with about $10 less than what they'd been making, but that's a loss they can handle. Meanwhile, we bought time to execute our contingencies.

What did you do?

One of automotive's contingencies was to build natural-gas pumping units. They'd been looking at that opportunity for a year or more. When the cuts came, they went after the business. They also had their eye on remanufacturing engines for the postal service. So by February, automotive was back to a five-day workweek. March was a full month as well. In three months, they repositioned the company. And now, if their two main customers come back to normal levels, they'll be stronger than ever. In fact, they'll have to start hiring people.

That's impressive.

But understand, there's no way to develop new markets and new customers if you lay people off. How are they going to do natural-gas pumps or the post-office business if they've gotten rid of the people who do the work?

Is this the process you use in all the companies?

More or less. Our program is the four Ps: people, profits, positive cash flow, and positioning. We're saying to ourselves, "Look, we got this far by creating jobs. We've done all this to build the type of culture we want -- a culture that puts people at the center. What are we going to do to keep it? How much are we willing to invest in keeping it?" I'm willing to give up profits if the losses go to repositioning the company, so that when we come out of this thing, we're stronger than when we went in.

We had two months when we lost $200,000 while we were executing the contingencies and moving people around to keep them employed. But that's money we were going to lose anyway, and we were able to keep our cash flow positive by dropping our inventories. When you sell finished goods that were in inventory or when you don't buy as many parts to put in inventory, you have more cash. Of course, it doesn't hurt that we have so much cash in the bank -- enough to carry us for three or four years.

Where did that come from?

That was the result of another contingency. A little more than 10 years ago, we started a joint venture with John Deere to remanufacture diesel engines for its agricultural and construction equipment divisions. We'd been looking at Deere for a while as a potential way to diversify SRC Heavy Duty. That particular contingency turned into a business fairly quickly. We became 50-50 partners with Deere in the joint venture, which we called ReGen Technologies, and we each had an option to buy the other out according to a formula we agreed upon in advance. Last year, we mutually decided that the time had come for us to exercise the option and sell our interest in ReGen to Deere. This was several months before the financial crisis. The deal closed at the beginning of November and put all that cash on our balance sheet. Suddenly, we looked like the smartest guys in the world.

You have been thinking this way for decades. What do you say to people in small companies who are scared that they are not going to be able to make it through this recession?

Well, it's not so much what I would say as what I would ask. I'd ask, "How productive is your team? Are you leveraging the mental capacity of everybody in your organization?" Nine times out of 10, when I go into those small organizations you're asking me about, I find CEOs who have taken all the responsibility upon themselves. They're freaked out, because they believe they have to come up with all the answers. But that's what leads to failure, especially in this type of economic environment. People just don't understand that you do not have to take all the problems on yourself. Nobody is smart enough to take on a crisis like this one all alone. But people have been taught that it's the job of a CEO to have the answers.

What should CEOs be thinking about if they want to emerge from the crisis stronger than when it began?

If your sales are down and you're losing money, you're crazy not to be investing in repositioning. You have underutilized capacity. People are standing around. Don't lay them off. Have them come up with new products, new ideas, new services, new ways of doing things. Maybe you find something new to do with your underutilized capacity. Maybe you can change your products or go into different markets. That's how we got into making engines for pumping natural gas. Our automotive people were building engines for cars. Someone noticed that they could be refitted for other uses. Natural-gas pumping equipment looked promising, given the stricter emissions standards in California. They did the research, made some adjustments, built a prototype, worked out the quality procedures, and found customers. Each step required an investment. In a down period, while you may not have cash to invest, you do have excess people capacity. Most companies reduce it by having a layoff. That's what I call cutting to the bone. You wind up weaker as a result.

SRC is an employee-owned business. How important was employee ownership to doing all this?

That's a great question, but it's probably a question that has to be answered by the employee owners, not me. Personally, I don't think we could ever have come this far if I owned 100 percent of the company. I know myself; I couldn't have handled all that wealth. I would have felt guilty. That's not the person I am and not the person I want to be. I just believed from the very beginning that the employees create the value.

You have often spoken about what you call the company's contingent liability to its employee owners. Eventually, they will want to cash in their stock, and the company will have to come up with the cash to pay them. Your awareness of that contingent liability has driven a lot of the innovation, hasn't it?

I think that is the best-kept secret of running a successful company. Knowing we have to cover the contingent liabilities pushed us to find answers. If your company is publicly owned, you don't have that pressure, because there's a market for the stock. When you're privately owned, you definitely work in a different world.

Is that true only of employee-owned companies?

No, I think it applies to a lot of privately held companies, especially ones owned by families. It's different in companies founded by people who've already decided they're going to run it for five years and sell it. Granted, a lot of people tell themselves, "When push comes to shove, I can always sell the company." They don't think about how they're going to feel when they find out their employees don't want them to sell. You design a culture where people work 40 hours a week, make friends, raise kids, become members of a community. It's very hard to let go of it. But if you want to keep it, you have to be willing to ask yourself, "What are our vulnerabilities, and how can we address them?" I will say this: We did not walk away from that question. Our people had the courage to come up with answers. That was the beginning of creating the subsidiaries, which became our vehicles for innovation. They brought out the entrepreneurship in us. And we still have some trapdoors left that we haven't used.

What do you mean?

Well, 20 years ago, we bought a big piece of property here in Springfield for $250,000. Its value increased to about $4 million, but it's still on our books at the purchase price. We could sell it if we needed cash. We also helped start a bank that eventually was sold. The stock is on our books at less than $500,000, but it's worth $3.4 million.

Is there a downside to paranoia? Some people might say you miss opportunities if you are always worrying that something could come along and whack you.

I'd say you're a fool if you know you're going to get whacked and don't do something about it.

You actually enjoy working in an environment like this one, don't you? I can hear it in your voice.

I think that it's really, really hard to win with a lead. I like coming from behind. And we're all coming from behind right now. An economy like this one creates opportunities. You bring in something new, but you don't let go of what you had before. When the economy comes back, you get a twofer. In the long run, it creates more jobs and more security.

Why do you prefer coming from behind? Is it the challenge?

I think there's a sense of satisfaction when, regardless of how bleak the situation is, you find people succeeding. It gives you inspiration to see them going the extra mile. It gives you hope. In order to be courageous, you need to see things happening that generate hope. There's a lot of bad things going on, and we're totally influenced by the media, which tell us all about them. It's great to see people fighting back.

Thanks to Bo Burlingham / Inc / Mansueto Ventures LLC.
http://www.inc.com/magazine/20090501/why-a-ceo-needs-to-have-a-plan-b_Printer_Friendly.html

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