my SMB goal

it made me feel good when last week a buddy of mine walked up to me & handed me a flyer for a free seminar on "how to start or run a small business." eventually i do want to run my own business & it's great that my friends realize that fact & are there to support me. right now i'm enjoying my position in corporate america & working hard to learn as much as i can & to engage with as many smart people as i can come in contact with. at the same time i'm building a nest egg for the future & having lots of fun on the side.

in less than a month i'll turn 31 & i'm going to take one from a buddy's playbook. i'm going to determine 10 BIG things that i want to do before turning 40. i don't feel that i have the full top 10 right now, however, i do know that running my own business will make the list.

shave & suit

in november/december of last year i was sporting a mountain man beard. while i’m not a fan of the beard today it was fun at the time & i enjoyed not having to shave for those 5 – 6 weeks. given that i had to shave daily & get hair-cuts weekly while serving as a US marine i haven’t been a fan of either activity ever sense. after the mountain man experience i began using the shortest guard on the beard trimmer & i’d usually only shave twice a week.

my “no shaving” style for 2008 all ended this tuesday, march 11th, when i shaved with a real razor. i was meeting with nokia folks at their office in white plains, NY & i felt the need to “clean-up.” not only did i shave; i was sporting a suit for this meeting. while fun to dress up everyone now & then i really prefer jeans & a nice shirt.

to my surprise my shave & suit were not necessary. i was expecting a room full of suits & what i got was a bunch of 30-some dudes (minus the accounting guy) wearing jeans, nice shoes, & those pin-striped shirts that are currently so popular. worse off, 2 of the 7 guys had that short shave look that i’d been sporting. oh, & then there was the most senior of all the guys sporting sunglasses on his head.

boy did i feel like a bone-head. i have to remind myself of the industry that i am in & that in tech almost any thing is allowed – even from folks that are with a big organization like nokia.

the value of a timeout

for any of you who have ever watched a sporting event, especially basketball, you know the value of calling a timeout. when one team goes into a slump & the other team is on a high & scoring left & right the team that is in the slump always calls for a timeout. the coach pulls the team together, they talk about a strategy, & then the team hits the floor with a clear mind & usually the slump has ended. at a minimum, the team that was in the slump has it a least slowed the momentum that the other team had.

so why do we not call more timeouts in our own lives? i’ve watched so many sporting events where the crowd i’m with has yelled until they are blue in the face for one team to simply call a timeout to slow things down. yet, these same people who are able to identify the need for a timeout in sports don’t see the value in their own lives when a timeout should be called. whether at home or at work i believe the timeout brings value & isn’t called enough.

just last week i had one of those weeks at the office where every time i turned around it seemed like something wasn't working in the worst way possible – in our office we refer to these types of mishaps as events or outages. was it true that three servers hosting crucial databases could all fail in the same week at different times throughout the week or was it due to the fact that the whole company got into a rhythm of accepting these types of outages (ie: we were in a slump) & therefore every other day we had one? could we have avoided one of these outages if we would have simply slowed down after the first one (called a timeout), called the team together to regroup, & then get back to the game plan of focusing on every day work & making sure the "i"s were dotted & the "t"s were crossed in an effort to prevent future outages?

i suppose this is why we take vacations from work & from home. maybe we venture off to a new city or country, we relax at resorts, & sometimes we just stay at home & do nothing. while vacations are a quite valuable time indeed & definitely a form of a timeout i think we rely on these "extended timeouts" all to often when all we really need are more mini timeouts to slow the momentum of whatever it is in our lives that is out of control. in basketball you can take a full timeout or a 20-second timeout. sometimes those 20 seconds are all a team needs to regroup.

so next time you feel like "it" is out of control or that you can't get a grip on things remind yourself to take a timeout to get yourself back in the game with a new game plan.

you get what you pay for...

i’ve commented before that kristin & i do the majority of our grocery shopping at whole foods & central market; probably 75% at whole foods & 20% at central market. the other 5% of grocery shopping is done at HEB & just recently we ventured back to costco.

last week i made a quick pit stop at the HEB in the arboretum after a workout & prior to picking up firebowl for dinner. it’s never a good thing to send me into a grocery store for just a few things especially after a good gym workout because i’m super hungry & i start making impulse buys left & right. the normal trip to HEB includes cat litter, cereal, a particular type of oat meal, a particular type of figs & prunes (can get the prunes at costco now), protein shakes (can also get at costco now instead) & a handful of other canned goods & pastas that are the same ones at whole foods & central market but about a 1/3 of the cost.

where i feel the most pain of going to a grocery store like HEB is at the check-out area. lines are long, people look miserable, cashiers are not friendly or very intelligent, the check-out lines are laced with trash magazines & candy crap, & what really got me the other night is their inability to bag your damn grocery somewhat correctly!

my first taxable job was sacking (call it bagging if you want) groceries at a tom thumb page grocery store (same store is called randalls here in austin) in garland. we weren’t called baggers or sackers either – they called us courtesy clerks :) anyhow, i was a damn good courtesy clerk too! we were allowed to accept tips back then & i would pocket $20 bucks on most days. back then it seemed everyone wanted their groceries taken to their vehicle for them – these days i rarely see someone having their groceries carried out for them. i knew who the BIG tippers ($2 bucks) were & i made it a point to take extra special care of those customers. i would tell all the ladies how great their dresses, hair, shoes, etc. look. most of the time i was actually being honest, i wasn’t just saying it to say it. if you look hard, you can find something nice about anyone :)

regardless of what i said or didn’t say i was a damn good bagger. i’d square up the bags whether paper or plastic, frozen foods were bagged with other frozen foods, cold with cold, can goods with can goods, products like soaps, bleach, tooth brushes, etc. were bagged separately. always treat the eggs, breads, chips, etc. with the utmost respect for care. not only was i diligent about my bagging, i was fast.

these kids at HEB are just a mess. they go right to the plastic 90% of the time without even asking what type of bag you prefer. they don’t attempt to talk to you at all – normally they are chatting with the cashier about homework or something, they throw things in the bag in the order they come down the line with no regard for colds, dry goods, chemicals, etc. hell, i go out of my way to put things on the conveyor belt to make things easier for them & still they F it up!

when i walked out of HEB the other night with my groceries one of the bags i was carrying ripped in half & spilled all over the parking lot – talk about me being pissed!

in the end i just shook my head & reminded myself that you get what you pay for.

naturally effervescent & germ free

a good number of my office mates have gotten ill recently. after having one of my guys tell me over e-mail thankfully that he definitely has strep throat i decided it was time to do some spring cleaning in the office. so i announced to the office that beginning today at 4:30 we’d break out the cleaners & wipe all areas down which would include clearing off mounds of paper & crap off of people’s desk.

i even stopped at whole foods on my way in the morning & picked up two boxes of emergen-c for everyone to take. i also for the first time picked up a bottle of organic synergy kombucha tea. it’s supposed to be super healthy & i’m all for defending my immune system from the crap folks have & are spreading in the office. i can’t risk getting sick at this stage of my training – i’m just beginning to ramp up & get in the groove. i was pretty excited about the drink so when i got in my car i quickly opened it & myself & the inside of my car got dosed with kombucha tea. i missed the little warning label on the top that reads “naturally effervescent – be careful when opening.” it was mostly a light mist of kombucha that was released – none the less it required a bit of clean-up. the stuff really is pretty horrible BTW.

it’s now 7pm & i’m not feeling sick & actually about to leave the office & head to the gym for some time with the bike training & food network so i suppose my double doses of emergen-c & kombucha tea paid off. probably didn’t hurt that i took a multi-V this morning & had 3 -4 cups of green tea throughout the day.

unfortunately i got consumed by conf calls & other work & forgot to have everyone start the cleaning today at 4:30 as planned & since no one really wants to clean no one reminded me. so tomorrow we’ll clean the joint up & make it as germ free as possible.

it is about time starbucks!

times finally aren’t so good for starbucks. about three years ago i tried to give starbucks coffee up – let me repeat that. i tried giving up “starbucks coffee”, not “coffee” – i’m not that crazy :) it wasn’t that i didn’t enjoy their coffee, in fact i love their coffee. i’m not one to order a frappucchino, a mocha, etc. – i just want a cup of black coffee with nothing added to it & in my opinion starbucks coffee quality & taste is consistent & rocks.

so why did i try to give it up? starbucks was becoming to commercial. it started feeling like a fast food shop – how quick can we turn a customer in/out appeared to be their driving concern. drive-thru windows were even installed. OK, i’ll admit that drive thru can be convenient at times. ever try sitting at a starbucks to actually do work? have you noticed that it’s always freezing inside starbucks & loud? you think that’s an accident? heck no, they want you in & out that door as quickly as possible. so they crank down the air & turn up the music & people leave because they can’t concentrate. the straw that broke the camels back was when they introduced t-mobile & *not* free internet - i was so pissed! then more food items started showing up (none of them good for you), they started selling walls of merchandise to include $1,500 espresso machines, CD purchases, & over-priced odwalla drinks, water, etc. most importantly of all these things – a tall coffee costs over a $1.70! i was checking out starbuck’s menu one afternoon & if you order anything other than a tall coffee or a espresso shot you are in for a $2+ drink. most drinks on their menu range from $3 - $4 bucks! give me a break!

the problem i ran into while trying to give up starbucks... other coffee spots were convenient given my location & the coffee was usually hit or miss day-to-day. it also seemed that ever corner i turned someone was giving me a starbucks card as a present so how could i avoid free coffee?

so i continue like so many others to frequent starbucks on a daily basis. how do i afford it? you’ll love this – the credit card kristin & i use is a starbucks rewards card. we don’t earn air miles – we earn starbuck’s points. for over two years now we’ve been fortunate enough that we’ve never had to “pay” the high dollars at starbucks due to the plethora of points that we earn each month.

we’ll i’m not the only one that has been frustrated by starbucks obviously & as a result starbucks IS now starting to feel some pain due to all their “dirty” tactics. they claim to serve their consumers – yeh right! gouge them for every dollar you can & get them out as quickly as possible has been their approach for too long!

it was just two weeks ago that they brought back their original CEO that took them to the top. early this month they fired jim donald & they reinstated howard shultz. if you own starbuck’s stock then you know that on jan. 4th their stock price was sitting at $18.11. the stock had fallen over half of its value since may 5th of 2006 when it was at its peak of $39.63 a share.

upon hearing this news i visited starbuck’s website & the home page was nothing but a letter from their CEO howard shultz explaining to consumers (aka investors) how he was going to turn things around & serve his customers ethically. you can still find the letter on their website but it no longer makes up their main page.

oddly enough starbucks is supposedly feeling the crunch from dunkin donuts & mcdonalds. i hear mcdonald’s coffee is actually really good & cheap; however, it goes against everything i believe in to visit a mcdonalds. as for dunkin, there is only one that i know of in austin & it’s out of my way to visit. i have been reading a lot about dunkin & how they have been working on changing their brand image recently. they’ve always been the coffee/donut shop for the common man. while i think they still stand by that statement, they are changing things up to draw more consumers (yuppies that are frustrated with starbucks) through their doors.

so this morning i heard something on NPR about starbucks that really peaked my interest. starbucks is going to offer a $1 cup of coffee. i have repeated it over & over that a cup of black coffee should *not* cost any more than a buck. unfortunately for me starbucks is only rolling this promo idea out in its seattle store locations to see how it’s going to work & probably more importantly whether they can sustain at selling coffee at this price. i think it may actually work for them & more importantly us – the consumer! now how about turning that A/C down & providing us some free internet shultz!

additional information about starbucks if you are curious:

- 1971: first stoor opened in seattle
- 1982: howard shutlz gets involved
- jul. 03, 1992: starbucks IPOs for $0.71 – 165 stores
- 1999: starbucks buys TAZO tea (ever wonder why they sell TAZO?)
- 2000: shultz steps down & orin smith becomes CEO
- 2001: the starbucks card that we all have learned to love makes its appearance
- 2003: starbucks acquires seattle’s best
- 2004: t-mobile hot spots installed (bad (greedy) move)
- 2005: orin smith retires, jim donald takes charge
- may 05, 2006: starbucks is at it’s peak $39.63 – 12,440 stores!
- jan. 04, 2008: starbuck’s stock is at $18.11 (less than half of what it was worth in may ’06)
- jan. 04, 2008: starbucks sells naked juice brand (cutting loss leaders)
- jan. 04, 2008: starbucks stops offering organic milks (cutting costs & inventory)
- jan. 07, 2008: donald is fired & shutlz is brought back in as CEO
- jan. 23, 2008: trying $1 coffee in seattle stores

- jan. 23, 2008: starbuck’s stock is at $18.67 (well, we are headed into a recession folks)

an update on my eagle entrepreneurs - 2008 take I

paul & his partner richard launched their website a couple of weeks ago. i was lucky enough to be partner one's first customer shortly after they finalized their reseller agreement with dell. that is right, SQ-0001 was processed by my company networkIP. i have talked to paul about once a week since he started partner one. we talk about current projects that i've got going & i suspect partner one to be an integral part to two of our biggest projects this year that will involve hardware procurement.

paul is always on top of his game & has the information i need on time. while i know paul is very busy with all that goes into turning up his business - he has never once denied me the time on the phone when i've called & in fact he goes out of his way to keep me up to date & dialogue with me at length about what he has going on.

i really hope all of paul's customers see what i see in him & partner one. thanks for always taking care of networkIP & more importantly thanks for being such a good friend at the same time.

don't contact us

we are working on a proposal to develop an application that would require a paging service component. you remember pagers from the early 90s right? anyhow, i'm trying to contact what i believe to be the top 3 companies (usa mobility, american messaging, & skytel) in this industry & it's becoming almost impossible to get someone on the phone; not even a sales person will pick up. this is a common problem that i run into & i'm using today's scenario to describe what normally goes down.

these companies begin by hiding their "contact us" link on their website. usually this link brings you to a form that simply submits an e-mail to the "ghosts" that these companies call employees. if you are lucky, you find a phone number behind one of these links. normally this number leads you to customer service or even worse an IVR computer system that never drops you to a real person. for almost 3 hours today i've been clicking on website links, making phone calls, talking to droids for the most part, & sending e-mails that seem to never land anywhere.

the industry leader, usa mobility, has by far been the easiest of the three to get a hold of yet still very inefficient for me. after finally breaking past customer service, which required making two separate phone calls & talking to two different reps that lead me now where, i pulled a name from the company directory that i found online. the directory actually listed the cell phone number of a women, julie. i skipped the office numbers & called julie's cell number immediately & she actually picked up the first time! she was out getting coffee, but was still able to chat with me for a bit & get me the name & number of the person in the business development group, nancy, that i needed to talk to. i then called nancy & left her a vmail. after not hearing back for some hours i called her again & she picked up. after talking for a bit she, just like nancy, realized i needed to talk with someone else. she pointed me to bill in the reseller of services group. nancy then provided me with bill's direct phone number & then transferred me. unfortunately bill did not answer after i was transferred so i then left bill a vmail. it's been 2+ hours & i have yet to hear back from him. so while usa mobility has been the easiest of the three to get a hold of, i still am no where close to getting the answers to what i'm looking for.

why in the world do companies make it so hard? i'm not trying to complain about services, report a problem, etc. i'm actually looking to partner with a company & bring them business that would result in additional revenue for them.

is this just the result of the corporate bureaucracy that eventually leaks it's way into a large business? has the digital age we are living in resulted in no human contact? or are these companies just that ineffective in opening their doors to new customers?