Giving Back

In business, if a production machine costs more to run than the outputs are worth, what happens? People lose money and if this occurs for a long enough period of time, the system fails. For example, I have a marshmallow machine that makes 10,000 marshmallows a day. It costs me $20,000 a day to run the machine and I sell the daily marshmallow batch for $5,000. How long can I run the machine before I go out of business? Depends on how long I can stand to lose $15k a day. I could borrow money to continue to run the machine, but that's not a solution either because eventually a loan payment will be due.

Much like the marshmallow machine, if you take in more services than you produce, you are a failure to the system. However, there are so many opportunities to serve. I know of eight non-profits in my community alone that desperately need board members and volunteers. When deciding where to serve, it's very important to look at what you have passion for. Maybe it's cancer, or the homeless, or children. Whatever your passion, there is surely a cause you can join to support. Also, check out the validity of the cause. Are the dollars raised going to support local impact? Is that impact measurable or is it unknown? If you help raise dollars for medical research, do the dollars go toward a high-paid celebrity to represent the campaign or do the dollars go toward the actual research?

The same is true with our society in general, but ultimately the communities we serve. You may say to yourself, 'communities we serve, I don't serve any communities'. That's my point exactly. Some people consider themselves 'residents' or 'employees' in a community, while I submit that we should all consider ourselves servants in the community! If you have an opinion about your child's school system, step up and take action - join the school board, go to PTO meetings, stay in touch with the needs of the teachers and students. Unless you're willing to step up and help, don't complain.

A machine has value only as it produces more than it consumes — so check your value to the community.

Quote by: Martin H. Fischer

Making a Plan

With the new year comes new resolutions or commitments such as losing weight, staying more organized, worrying less, or spending more time with the family. These are all great resolutions but are void without a plan. They are more of a hope than a resolution unless there is a specific plan for implementation.

Have you ever thought about how many things in our day-to-day life require a plan? These are things that you do all the time. Here are a few examples:

• Brushing your teeth: Dentists recommend brushing for at least two minutes after every meal. Two minutes can be a very long time without a plan of action. An example is to brush your teeth in a pattern. Do this by segmenting your mouth into four segments and brushing for 30 seconds each segment. If you do, it makes your brushing far more effective than just randomness which leaves certain teeth out.
• Laundry: If you took all your dirty laundry and just started throwing it into the washer, what would happen? Your colors would be bleached, your pants would have towel lint all over them and your underwear would turn pink most likely. I know because my kids do the laundry most of the time. However, if you sort your laundry in advance (plan it out), then you will have all the whites together, all the towels together and all the colors together, which makes for a much more successful turnout.

Another important part of a plan is measuring it. My daughter recently informed me she was dieting with her friends to see who could lose the most weight. I asked, “Did everyone weight themselves in front of each other”. She replied, “No, we don’t need to weigh ourselves to see who loses the most weight, we’ll just be able to tell by looking at each other”. Little does she know, that’s not quite how it works. If she doesn’t know where she started, she won’t know where she’s going to end up.

The same concept applies in business. We must set reasonable, achievable goals with due dates and people in charge. You’ve probably heard of keeping goals SMART – which is an acronym for:

S – specific

M – measurable

A – attainable

R – realistic

T – timely

So many times, small businesses want to make more money or grow their customer base, but don’t plan to do so. Instead of proactively marketing based on a plan, they react to industry slow-downs and economic downturns. Business drops down or the economy takes a hit and the business is ready to market. It’s tough to market when times are good because your time is limited. A well thought out plan will take care of your business whether times are good or bad.