Bluerant

Cream Cheese as Customer Service

Walking the streets of NYC again lately has invariably led me to the doors of one too many bagel places. It’s been a while since I’ve had a real choice of where to get those wonderful luscious loops of carbohydrates that are are simply impossible to find in Boulder, CO.  The increased access however has also reminded me of how the little things can make such a big difference in the perception and reputation of a business.  In this case, that little thing is cream cheese.

Whenever I order a bagel with cream cheese, I am curious to see exactly how much cream cheese is slathered on my radiant ring of guilt-ridden goodness.  You see, it’s the cream cheese that really leads to the first impression – not the bagel.  Is there so much that I can barely pull the two halves apart without it dripping all over my sleeves and lap?  Is there so little that I am forced to eat the top and bottom halves together so that I can get at least a little bit in each bite?  Why can’t anyone just use the right amount? Well, because the right amount isn’t a set amount – it depends on the person, the bagel and many other things that all effect what the customer is in the mood for.

That’s the whole point.  I don’t want anyone to assume how much cream cheese is enough, or too much.  I want to enjoy my bagel how I want to enjoy it.  I will gladly tell you how much that is if you simply ask.  If I pay you $19.95 for a bagel and lox platter and you give me one pathetic little container of cream cheese that has no hope of covering both halves of my bagel and then, even worse, attempt to charge me extra for another pathetic little container – shame on you!  You have not only lost me as a customer, but I will walk right out and tell all my friends and family – including my not too discreet grandmother who will initiate the Jewish-Grandma kvetching mill instantly.  So much for your reputation as a business.

By simply asking me how much I want, or if what I have is enough, you have instantly made me feel like you take pride in what you do and care about how I, your customer, feels about your product, service or establishment.

Whether it’s parmigiana on your pasta, curry in your Chiang Mai Noodles, or sauce on your steak au poivre, it’s what you surround your core product with that can make or break the deal.  As long as you remember that very few people like the same amount of cream cheese, it shouldn’t be hard to figure out how to make them all happy – assuming your bagel rocks.

Rule No. 76: No Excuses. Play Like a Champion

Role models matter.

No matter how hard we try and do what we believe is the right thing to do in any given situation, it is always helpful, and sometimes critical, to have someone else that we can look to, or point someone else to, to help guide our decisions and actions.

While role models can be found anywhere, and at any age, sports have always been used as a potential source of inspirational people.  Unfortunately, those role models often let their believers down – mostly because they achieve role model status because of their sporting abilities and not their personal actions.  It’s the personal actions that make a difference.  That’s where the truly hard battles are fought. That’s where the lessons are learned.

Recently, Men’s Fitness did a small piece on one of my sports hero’s and it reinforced the reason why I’ve always respected him:

When motorcycle racer Nicky Hayden showed up at the Red Bull Indianapolis Grand Prix in September, there was a tiny sticker on a piece of his equipment. “Rule No. 76: No Excuses. Play Like a Champion,” it read. Now before you write that off as just another empty sports cliché, consider the equipment the sticker was attached to: crutches.

Hayden had a broken bone in his heel but was still prepared to pilot his motorcycle at speeds approaching 200 miles per hour in the first MotoGP race at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. He led for 12 laps and finished second behind five time world champion and current points leader Valentino Rossi.

True to his “no excuses” mantra, Hayden didn’t blame his finish on his bum leg. “Getting on the podium is good. But honestly, I’m greedy. I want to win,” he said. Hayden won the MotoGP world championship in 2006, ending Rossi’s five-year reign, and wants nothing more than to get back to the top. “Once you’ve tasted blood and had that success,” he says, “there’s no going back to just being a contender and being happy with it.”

Hayden has never looked to the other’s weaknesses as his opportunity, he focuses completely on turning himself into the best he can possibly be.  And not just on the track, but as a “Racer” and everything that that term means.  His demeanor with his fans, the way he interacts with his competitors and his team (and that hasn’t been easy given the team dynamics recently – read here for more info), and his realization that being a good person is clearly part and parcel with everything he does.

Think about that when you you’re in your workplace, when you’re interacting with your children, when you’re simply hanging out with friends.  Everyone needs and looks for role models.  Be one.

The Law of Holes

The deeper you go, the darker it invariably gets…

One of the very first rules I learned way back when I was just starting in business, was, “The Law of Holes.”  I have no ideas who first coined the phrase, but it is easily one of the most useful laws I’ve encountered in both life and business.  It states very clearly:  When you find yourself in one, stop digging.

Seems simple, and it is.  Until you witness how many times it’s ignored.  This week there were two very sad instances of clear ignorance to the Law of Holes, both surprisingly brought to us from the State of Tennessee.

The first instance was from Tennessee Republican Chip Saltsman, a candidate for the Republican National Committee chairmanship.  Good ol’ Chip was wise enough in his attempts to gain favor with the RNC committee members, that he sent all committee members a CD for Christmas, entitled, We Hate the USA” — which included a song titled “Barack the Magic Negro.”

Now, I won’t even comment here on the intelligence behind actually sending out something like that — something that also contains songs such as, “Ivory and Ebony” and “The Star Spanglish Banner.”  My focus here is on how Chip – who is clearly exhibiting the type of moral and rational judgment that we would all look for in a national leader – is ignoring the Law of Holes in the aftermath.  In reply to CNN, Chip states, “I think most people recognize political satire when they see it.  I think RNC members understand that.”

I guess in Chip’s world, racial slurs and degrading cultural muses synonymous with politics.  And if the wasn’t clear from the start, by ignoring our good friend The Law of Holes, Chip has just dug himself deeper into the dark world of political suicide.  Instead of simply apologizing for his egregious lack of judgment, Chip stuck by his shovel and put some good ol’ intolerable elbow grease into his digging.  Chip, stop digging now while you can still see the sky.

Our second example of digging ignorance comes from TVA — a federal corporation and the nation’s largest public power company.  Apparently, a retention wall that held back billions of gallons of sludge, a byproduct of the ash from coal combustion from the Tennessee Valley Authority’s power plant in Kingston, about 40 miles east of Knoxville, breached sending the sludge into the nearby community.  Again, a horrible situation on its own.  TVA’s response to the situation will be critical in determining their public perception coming out the crisis.

After a similar situation eight years ago in Kentucky virtually destroyed all aquatic life in the area, when questioned about the piles of dead fish on the banks of the nearby Cinch River, a TVA spokesperson stated that the dead fish had nothing to do with the toxicity of the situation, “What happened — when you have a surge of ash, that created a wave to push the fish up and onto land,” Moulton said. “When the water receded, there were dead fish. They weren’t killed by any toxic chemicals, they were stranded by the wave.”

I am betting that TVA will keep digging here until the list of deceitful comments intended to save their reputation will actually be responsible for years of irreparable damage.

Once again, arrogance, underestimation of the general population, and a true ignorance to the Law of Holes define the path of choice for large scale public communications.

And they wonder why it gets darker and darker…

Common Sense and being human…

“It’s not personal, it’s only business!”

For some reason, that phrase has always been immediate cause for me to abandon any relationship with any person using it – whether business or personal.  In my mind, there is no difference.  Something I’ve been challenged on in the past, but have yet to see an argument to convince me that I’m off in my beliefs.

Today, I saw two blog posts that really hit home for me as great (as in “positive”) examples of this theme and felt they were more than worth sharing.

The first is from Rafe Needleman.  Rafe is an editor at CNET and someone I’ve always respected.  Aside from a great list of other tips, this one really hit home with me.  Tip #58 Agreed. Business is about relationships and relationships aren’t created through contracts.  They are created through trust.

The second, is from Lawrence Coburn, CEO of RateItAll.  I have never read Lawrence’s stuff before, but found him through Rafe. I love this post and, having had to do something very similar in my past, can relate to his well-deserved rant in, “Layoffs should not be part of your PR strategy.”

All good food for thought.

Change happens one person/musician at a time…

Just found this video through a friend of mine.

It’s a great illustration of how a common goal can get intepreted by anyone into a message of their own.  Their own language.  Their own feelings.  Their own music.

Listen to the notes of the world, and make them into your own song…

Learn more here…

Why has Formula One become a penalty game?

If you’re not a top-level motor racing fan, then you’ve missed the transformation of one of the most-watched sports in the world from a struggle of man and machine against each other in a very traditional sense, into a battle of lawyers, rules makers and conspiracy-theory riddled umpires who are now in control of the championship. Not a very graceful evolution for the sport where the phrase, “that’s racing” ruled the past.

Over the past four races, in Belgium, Italy, Singapore and Japan, there have been at least six different penalties meted out by FIA Formula One Race Director Charlie Whiting or his disciples that have had significant influence on the overall World Championship contest. Almost all of them either completely unnecessary or extremely poorly handled when compared with near recent racing history. In the prior season, the entire World Championship was decided by court-room proceedings on the scale of the Watergate incident.

Cries of conspiracy theories, bribes, and personal agendas at the top echelons of the sport are becoming common discussion. Where does this leave the fans?

For a sport saddled with monumental costs about to face a major global recession, this is not an enviable position to be in. When the machinations of a small number of extremely wealthy and selfish people are being blamed for the possible demise of the modern global financial infrastructure, do the leaders of the FIA and Formula One really want to draw such easy parables to their own situation and infrastructure?

The spirit of the sport is what keeps people coming back. The passion to win and the belief that great, or even historic things can happen at any turn is the inspiration behind a fanatical fan base. To negate those emotional drivers with controversy-tinged penalties that ruin the spirit of the sport can easily be the beginning of the end.

With only two races to go, and an incredibly tight battle for both the Driver’s and Manufacturer’s Championships, we can only hope that the spirit of the sport returns and we can witness a fitting end to an epic battle on the track, not in the courts.

I’m Fed Up and You Can Too!

Please, please, please make the political pain go away!

Make the horrid, demeaning, hypocritical political attack ads that assume I’m an idiot stop yelling at me. Make our current President stop pretending that the American people care at all about what he says. Make the pandering about American Values stop ringing in my ears.
Make it all stop.

And please, please, please remind people in power that they do, as opposed to sports figures, have an honest to god responsibility to act as role models for all citizens.

When will we learn???????

When can we turn the corner?

Country First?

What’s the Difference Between a Hockey Mom and a Pit Bull?

Well, aside from the presence of opposable thumbs required to drive a mini-van, quite a few other things as well, it turns out.

For one thing, Hockey Moms, or really, any kind of mom, have a responsibility to themselves and their families to make rational and intelligent decisions based on facts about the best way to raise their kids and manage their lives. If there was a hunk of raw meat sitting on the ground a few feet away, and one of their children was wandering into the pathway of a maximum security bus transport from the local penitentiary at the same time, what would she do? What would a pit bull do? What would you do?

While it’s easy to make simple, sweeping statements that endear oneself with a certain audience, the reality is that knee-jerk decisions based on instinct, or even worse, ignorance of belief, are clearly not the way people responsible for the lives of others should make decisions.

Convictions based on logic, reason and real-world experience used to count for something. Hopefully they will, again.

Ahem…Is this thing on???

Thanks to the New York Times for this piece of classic ignorance….

“Two prominent Republicans — one of them a close ally and former aide to Senator John McCain — were caught on a live mic on MSNBC bemoaning the selection of Gov. Sarah Palin and the controversy surrounding her.”

Mike Murphy, who worked on Senator McCain’s campaign in 2000, and Peggy Noonan, speechwriter for Ronald Reagan and columnist.