Nail It Then Scale It and Chick-fil-A

This semester I have had the opportunity to take a class from Nathan Furr, co-author of "Nail It Then Scale It" (NISI). The basics of NISI are that start-ups fail because they are doing the right things, but in the wrong order. Often entrepreneurs focus on building the perfect product before involving the customer. They come up with an idea/product and jump right in to raise capital and build a company around it, only to find that their customers are not buying the product. Either the product is not relevant or the customer wants something else. The entrepreneur has now invested so much time and money that they can no longer pivot or change, and ultimately go out of business.

In NISI, the process is rather simple but often overlooked. You start with a pain, not a solution--identifying the pain through getting out of the office and testing and validating it with customers. Once you have nailed the pain, you can start on the solution. That does not mean to invest a lot of time and money building a perfect prototype or final product, but to conduct rapid tests with customers with minimum feature sets, virtual prototypes and tangible prototypes. By getting the hypothesis and minimum feature set in front of the customer early and often, it will help you nail the solution and provide you the opportunity to pivot and change before it is too late.

At NSHMBA this last weekend I received a copy of "How Did You Do It, Truett?" by the founder of Chick-fil-A, Truett Cathy. In his book, Cathy talks about how he started and grew Chick-fil-A to where it is now, a $4 billion company. As I was reading on the flight back home, I was amazed to read that Cathy built his company and his products on NISI principles. A few quotes from the book:

"We had to take special care...to make sure fried chicken was prepared properly, especially drumsticks. If you didn't cook it just right...customers would send it back and ask for another piece. So the problem wasn't the chicken, it was the bone." 

"So when I tried various ways of preparing the boneless, skinless chicken breast, I always offered samples to customers and asked for their opinions. I tried a lot of different seasonings, and each time I changed the recipe, I asked customers how they liked it and what they thought I might change to make it better...As I closed in on the right recipe for the meat, customers told me they wanted just a bit more zest. Instead of adding more spice to the seasoning, I tried two dill pickles. My customers loved it." 

"We take advantage of out biggest opportunities when we keep it simple."

Truett Cathy, unknowingly, was applying NISI principles 60 years ago. He understood that by looking at the pain/problem he could then build the perfect solution. If he kept the customers involved in the process from the start, he could develop exactly what they wanted. Anyone who has had an original Chick-fil-A sandwich knows how perfect it is, and it is not by chance. In addition, he understood that by keeping things simple, he could pivot and take advantage of opportunities he could not see. Originally he started a restaurant called "The Dwarf House." As he saw peoples food consumption shift to chicken, he was able to pivot because he was not so fully invested to another idea or product that he couldn't shift. I think one of the reasons that Chick-fil-A has been so successful over the years is that they understood the correct way to innovate and start with the customer and their pain and to get out of the office/kitchen and get the ideas in front of customers.

I spoke with Nathan Furr about this and he made the comment that the NISI principles are not new principles. After reading Cathy's book, I see that it is true. I think that anyone who reads NISI would say that it seems like common sense, but it's in the execution and application of the principles that people make mistakes. People often get too excited for their solution and don't stop to consider the pain.

Marketing principles in “Parks and Recreation” and other awesomeness

Last night’s “Parks and Recreation” episode was awesome for so many reasons. It even had some great marketing principles in it.


Marketing:

• “It’s not my place to speak for the consumer.” I think often businesses and marketers forget, we are not the consumer. The restaurants in the town saw that people wanted larger sodas, so that's what they gave them. 
• Means-End Chain and Laddering. Chris is trying to motivate Andy to run. The desire to pass the physical requirements to be a cop is not enough, so he helps Andy make a means-end chain and ladder up to the ultimate reason that will motivate him. Love and family is the ultimate value that motivates him. In marketing, just as passing a physical test was not enough to motivate Andy, only marketing features will not motivate consumers to buy something. 

Just awesome:

• Font usage. “Yeah people, consistent font usage. Come on! ... Papyrus?! Are you kidding me? There is no place for that in a professional office setting.” It drives me nuts when people use unprofessional fonts on business documents and presentations. I am always amazed when I see documents with multiple fonts. Ctrl + A and make the whole document a professional font.
• Child size drink. I kind of wish someone sold a “child” size 512 oz (the size of a liquefied 2 year old). Before I came back to school I was an avid soda drinker. I had this great 100 oz insulated mug that would keep my Dr. Pepper cool and delicious all day. I sure do miss it. Sometimes on weekends I make a soda run for old times.

• Ron Swanson. I love his remote control door closer. One day I will have one on my office. If you have never looked at the “Ron Swanson Pyramid of Greatness” check it out below.

• April’s motivational tactics. They may not be as effective as making a means-end chain, but they are hilarious none the less.

How to pack a carry-on

Many of my classmates are leaving today to go to the National Black MBA Conference, a career fair for MBA students. Next week I am going to NSHMBA, another MBA career fair in Florida. Since the conferences only last a few days most will be trying to pack in carry-on luggage. I have to admit, before this summer I always struggled to cram everything into a carry-on. Especially with a suit, sports coat and dress shoes.

This summer, I stumbled upon a video by a guy named Joel Bauer on how to pack in a carry-on. He is half genius, half crazy! Some may remember him from "Your business card is crap!"

His video on how to pack is even better. It is about 20 minutes, but well worth it. My favorite line in the video is when he describes a laptop neoprene sleeve as "air tight and water tight like a frogs butt," without even cracking a smile. I would say the video is make up of about 80% crazy, 20% genius. Even with all the crazy, he does have a few good tips. The way he folds his suit coat is awesome and I went out and bought a travel steamer that I use all the time.

So if you plan to traveling in the near future or you need a good laugh, take 20 minutes and watch.

Why are you dressed up?

I get this question at least once a week. I wear business casual every day to business school, but people seem to think you need a reason to dress up to go to school. Don't get me wrong, I love a good pair of basketball shorts and t-shirt as much as the next guy, but in my opinion, business school is enough of a reason. Here is why:

1. The better you dress, the better you perform. I remember in high school people would show up for finals in sweats and slippers. One year before finals, one of our teachers showed us a study about how you perform being directly proportional to your appearance/dress. I completely agree. If you have ever worked from home or tried to do homework at home, you have probably noticed this. You sit down at your desk but it takes forever to get going. By showing up in business casual, I feel prepared to perform in a business situation and discuss business topics.
2. Dress the part. If you are attending business school, you should dress the part. I know that some companies offer the "benefit" of wearing shorts and flip-flops to work, but most don't. Business people wear business clothing. If you are attending business school you should probably dress the part. The professors should not be the only ones dressed up.
3. First Impressions. One of the reasons I came back to school was to build up my network. The network I am building is made up of people I am meeting here at school. Dressing up contributes to my first and subsequent impressions with my network.
4. You never know who you will run into. Last year I always showed up early for my first class in the morning to prepare for the day. One day while I was sitting in the classroom, a guest speaker showed up early as well. He sat down next to me and we had a 30 minute chat. Turns out he was the CMO for one of the top Fortune 500 companies. Imagine if I was wearing flip-flops and a backwards hat. This year, I have had info sessions pop-up almost every other day. Instead of running home to change, I can take that time to do my research on the company and relax.

So why I am dressed up? To be more successful.

Duck and Bunny

Quite often companies rush to hurry & sell a product before they speak to their customers about what the customers want. A company will take an idea, vaguely speak with the customer once or twice, pour time and money into developing the final product/solution, then run and start selling. Without taking the time to speak with the customer or put a minimum viable product in front of them, companies often waste their time and money--not realizing they are building one product when the customer really wants something completely different. I am not saying that a company should sit and wait to build anything; rather, they should get the customer involved as soon as possible to avoid building a solution that does not fit.

This summer I saw this play out firsthand. At times, the business units I worked with were so anxious to take an idea and start selling it that they didn't bother to speak with customers to find out if the product they came up with even solved any pain (problem). The customers were then sold a product that didn't fit their needs, or worse yet, that they didn't need at all. As a result, the customers wrote off the company as someone who did not understand their needs or didn't offer products that fit their needs.

We were there to help our client take a step back in the product development process. Before any development even started, we helped the company sit down and speak with the customer to ask about their needs/pains, work with them to find out what they need in a solution, change the hypothesis/product, re-evaluate with the customer, and repeat.

Shifting the focus to solving the pain rather then focusing on shipping and selling seems counter-intuitive and may feel like you are moving slow or not at all. In reality, however, it allows you to move faster because changes can happen quicker, you can easily pivot, and you are not spending months and months on developing one product when the customer really wants something completely different.

In an effort to help our client understand this principle, I created a video that highlights the problems of focusing on development and selling instead of focusing on the customer and their pain/needs.

In the video, the "company" shows the customer a ambiguous drawing that could be interpreted as either duck or a bunny. The customer sees/wants a bunny; the company sees/builds a duck, and hurries to build and sell a product. When the company gets feedback that the customer wants something different, the company hurries to make changes--but since they have spent so much time into building a duck, they can only make small changes to try and make the duck fit for what the customer wants. If the company would have taken a bit more time at the beginning to speak with the customer or involve them more in the development process, they would have realized they were building a duck, when all the customer wanted was a bunny.

Enjoy!

Duck and Bunny from Curt Smith on Vimeo.

Internship

The summer has finally come to a close and I start back at school today. The summer was filled with lots of work, travel and learning. I had the opportunity to intern with a company call "The Bennion Group."

After interviewing at several other companies and turning down a few other offers, I decided to take an internship working at a consulting company in Provo, UT. As I started my search for an internship at the beginning of school, I said that I really did not care where I went as long as it was a large well known company, outside of Utah. As you can tell, I did not stick to my original plan. Not because I did not have offers from big companies outside of Utah, but because I decided to made my choice based off of the experience I would gain.

After speaking with other students about their internships, I am glad I made the decision I did. Although I did not intern for a large corporation outside of Utah, I was able to consult a HUGE corporation (ranked among the top 500 global companies.) In addition, working at a smaller organization allowed me to have a great deal of responsibility as well as gain some greatexperience.

The majority of my work was consulting for a corporate business incubator helping validate business ideas, test markets, develop new products, and help build business plans and go-to-market plans and strategies. We did this through business competitive intelligence, marketresearch, customer interviews, and internal and external analysis. In addition to consulting for other companies, I was also able to help with business development within the company and help prepare training and presentation material.

All in all, I was very happy with my decision to go with a small company and the skills andexperience I gained. I was still able to get experience in a large corporation but still have asignificant impact.

Now, I am excited to return to school for two more semesters and move forward with my career.

Why I don't have a Facebook account

I get it all the time, "You don't have a Facebook account?!" (announced with a gasp of astonishment.) No, I don't have a Facebook account...really, I don't. I didn't just get fed up with Facebook one day and delete my account. I never signed up for one, never have, and never will.

I know many people probably wonder how I can consider myself a marketer and say that I understand social media, but not have a Facebook. Before I get too far let me point out that I have had business Facebook accounts (and that plays into why I will not have a personal one.)

Don't get me wrong, its not that I hate Facebook or anything. I think Facebook is a great social media tool, and have seen first hand the power of it using it as a marketing tool.

So then why don't I have a Facebook account?

1. If you are not buying the product, you are the product.

Facebook is about to issues one of the largest IPO's in history. That can tell you exactly what your information is worth. Having worked on the other side of social media, I can tell you it is amazing what information you can get from people Facebook accounts, especially if you are willing to pay for it.

Yes I know that Twitter, Gmail, Linkedin, and all other social media have a similar method of revenue, but I see more personal benefit to those services.

2. It's a huge time suck.

I can't tell you how many times I would walk past students on campus (even during finals week), nurses at the doctors office, government employees, and friends, all wasting time on Facebook when they should be doing something else. People seem to get sucked in and never leave. I have enough time wasters, I don't need another.

3. It distracts people from personal interaction.

I hear it all the time. Instead of talking to someone, calling them, or even texting someone for goodness sake, people just log on to Facebook to find out about a friend.

4. Controlling your brand.

I think few people understand what they risk by posting things on Facebook, and even worse, what their friends post. Call me a cynic, but I don't trust everyone else on Facebook to keep my best interest in mind when they "post on my wall" or tag me in a photo. I prefer to have more control over my personal brand.

5. Facebook etiquette.

When do you friend someone? Do you friend your boss? Will they be offended if I un-friend them? It is much easier to just say "Sorry, I don't have Facebook."

Ultimately I think it comes down to value offered in exchange for your information. And with Facebook, I just don't see the personal value being that great, especially with so many negatives.

DECA

In high school I participated in DECA, and it was a great experience. DECA was where I got my first exposure to business and marketing and it really drove my decision to pursue business and marketing as a career.

So what is DECA? At one time DECA was an acronym for 'Distributive Education Clubs of America.' They have since dropped the acronym and now it has the tag line: "DECA prepares emerging leaders and entrepreneurs for careers in marketing, finance, hospitality and maagment in high schools and colleges around the globe."

DECA was a great program for me. A large part of DECA are the competitions. Each student has the opportunity to pick a focus to compete in. At the competitions they take a 100 question test and participate in 2 role plays. The role plays are like mini case studies. They have 10 minutes to read and prepare before role playing with a judge for ten minutes. It's pretty intense.

Yesterday I had the opportunity to judge a few events at the National DECA conference that is being held in Salt Lake City. It was a great experience. Over all, I was very impressed with what the students came up with in 10 minutes. I remember well, sitting on the other side of the table during the role plays. It was fun to sit and think about about how DECA opened my eyes to marketing and business years ago, and I was glad I had the chance to give back just a little and help out the current students. I hope that DECA can make as much of an impact on the current students as it did on me.

And good luck to the finalist at nationals today!

Why the Corporate World Should Seek Out Entrepreneurs

Quite often I get asked about my entrepreneur experience and how it will relate to working into a corporate environment. To me this is an easy question.

Being an entrepreneur has allowed me to see and experience situations from various roles, ranging from employee, employer, owner, and everything in between. Having had experience in a variety of capacities gives me familiarity in various aspects of business, such as distribution, manufacturing, project management, human relations, human resources, budgeting, marketing, leading cross-functional teams, go-to-market strategies, positioning, customer relations, and many more. In addition, I have had the experience of starting and growing companies in a down economy and understanding what is required to be successful.

Recently I attended a marketing case competition in Boston at Babson College. They are the #1 MBA program for entrepreneurship. (BYU is #2) The reason the #1 business school in entrepreneurship was hosting a marketing competition is they understand the value that comes from entrepreneurship. On their website they state:

"The entrepreneurial, opportunity-driven mindset is critical for marketers in order to drive growth in both large and small organizations."

I think companies would greatly benefit from seeking out and employing entrepreneurs. So why are companies so hesitant to hire entrepreneurs?

Unfortunately over the years entrepreneurs have been labeled as inexperienced, flighty, scatter brained, and unprofessional. I am here to tell you this is not the case. Every entrepreneur I have had the pleasure to work with has been the opposite!

So if you are looking to gain more experience, or for your next employee, look to entrepreneurship.

WebOS, you will be missed

After holding on to my Palm Pre for almost 3 year (and palm phones and PDS for 13+ years), I finally gave it up this weekend...for an iPhone. It was a sad day. I already miss it...kind of. Anyone who has used a WebOS device understands what I mean. WebOS is such an awesome mobile operating system, but without apps and adequate hardware I had to let it go.

Having an iPad, I knew the trade offs I would make in operating system and hesitantly traded in the Pre. I miss opening new cards, using "just type" and all the on screen gestures. I don't miss a lack of working apps.

As I was trying to decide to switch to an iPhone 4S, Galaxy Nexus S2, wait for the new iPhone (June, October, who knows), or wait for the Galaxy S3, or hope that one day someone buys WebOS and makes a phone, I realized that it comes down to the apps. That's it! Everything else is more or less a point of parody (PoPs). They all have high quality cameras, similar speeds, make phone calls, get emails, send txt's, etc. The app offering is the point of difference (PoDs). This is what ultimately drove my decision. I knew exactly what apps I had on my iPad that I wish I had on my Pre and I know other people who have gone with Android phones for the same reason. Do I love my new iPhone? No, I love my apps. Yes I miss the OS, but the benefits from the apps far out weight the benefits of the OS.

Moral of the story, watch your PoPs and PoDs.

How Customers Think

I have been reading How Customers Think by Gerald Zaltman. I have really enjoyed Zaltmans insights. He introduces this idea that most of our decisions are made by our unconscious mind, and points out that as marketers we tend to focus logical benefits when we make our strategies. Here is a quote from the book:

"The limitation of this belief [that customers can explain their decisions] and the research practices it fosters stem from the assumption that most of our thinking takes place in our conscious minds. In actuality, consumers have far less access to their own mental activities than marketers give them credit for. Ninety-five percent of thinking takes place in our unconscious minds."

What a powerful idea to understand! I think at times we can get wrapped up in frame works and steps and forget to really understand the consumer, and overlook the deep metaphors that are driving their decisions.

I have had quite a few "ah-ha" moments as I have read, and if anyone is looking to learn more about consumer decisions, I highly recommend this book!

Welcome

Welcome to my blog! I started this blog as an outlet for my thoughts, reactions and opinions. Hope you enjoy reading.