Breaking down the sales process

Credit Crunch, there, I said it. The markets are down, mortgages not yet cheap enough, businesses faltering, or so it would seem. What to do? Well i say fcek the credit crunch. Sell what saves or makes money, tune your business to take the budget scraps, deliver value greater than your project size, service, service, service your accounts, be loyal to your business and structured in your sales. Recessions happen to the overborrowed, anyone who mortgaged on the future. Take up a hobby, remember to breath, refocus your finances, if you have cash, invest near the bottom (the stockmarket will likely go up more in the next 12 months than at any time in the last 7 years) and ride out the year. Good luck.

Stock Boards

Fight on my men Sir Andrew said. I am wounded but yet not slain.
I'll just lay down and bleed awhile. Then rise to fight again.

I'm an investor, i always have been. The door is half open, i see the qualities, other help me to understand the downside risks! Business, shares, property but when it all goes wrong for an investor then it's the people and the relationships you've invested in that still lift you up...

And it will go wrong, every 7 years for property, every market cycle for stock, you'll be riding high and the market will take a tumble. In hindsight it's always obvious. In the UK property has doubled every 7 to 10 years since 1930, so if it triples, then it's likely to drop 33% in the next correction. Here in the UK, property tripled and now we have an 8.2% drop in property prices (to July 2008), so we could drop a further 25% off the peak. It should, on average, double off that low within 7 to 10 years.

A good early read on investing is Robert Kiyosaki, Rich Dad, Poor Dad. He won't really give solutions, but it'll start the journey of being an investor and growing assets. There are always setbacks but never reasons not to invest.

Walk training commences

I'm off for a 102 Mile walk along the Macmillan Way West from Barnstaple to Castle Carey in September in 6 days. It takes a little working up to as the first day is a Yomp practically all the way across Exmoor so some practice is required. Yesterday was my first 8 mile training walk with a pub and a curry dinner in the middle. At least my pack is lighter this year as i have left all the cooking equipment behind, water and cold rations this year with hot pub food to look forward to. I'll continue to post my progress here, shifting 1 stone before the walk would reduce my load considerably. Any comments on how to toughen your feet would be most welcome!

Personality testing

Knowing your personality is crucial in business.

Knowing other people's and being able to correctly interpret their actions and tailor your responses to their communication needs is a skill i have yet to fully master. So take your Belbin, Myers-Briggs, DISC and any other test that comes along. More importantly do them with your team and your significant other. Compare and contrast your results and you will all get along better! Below you can see my Brain Lateralization test, goodness knows what happened to the missing 12%, perhaps Alzheimers is setting in already!

Brain Lateralization Test Results

Right Brain (70%) The right hemisphere is the visual, figurative, artistic, and intuitive side of the brain. Left Brain (18%) The left hemisphere is the logical, articulate, assertive, and practical side of the brain

Are You Right or Left Brained?
personality tests by similarminds.com

Blue Ray Development

Blue Ray is the future standard for HD. 95% of the players in the US are currently PS3. The players are network aware so that you can interact with online. They use BDJ (rather old Java similar to J2EE mobile Java) and the current versions is 1.1 which means that the studios have abandoned early adopters but at leas late hardware adopters will have a great user experience. All the £1000 player adopters will, i'm afraid, have to upgrade!

Blue Ray authoring is an art which our multimedia arm, with a long history in software development, video and CDROM/DVD authoring has committed to. It is the future. However Blue Ray development follows a rather different profile to these older technologies. For instance, it's hard to preview to your client as until you've written 95% of the code you won't have anything decent to show! So the client may be used to DVD taking a few days or CDROM taking a week with a preview after a few days. Blue Ray will take longer and it's only toward the end of the project that you'll see the result actually functioning.

The flexibility of the platform and the quality of the video playback make this the future of HD distribution on disc for western economies. It has so many uses beyond film and TV disc based distribution. Due to it's Java authoring environment Blue Ray Games development is possible mixing a hybrid of video, server based communication, content and game elements.

Other examples of potential solutions are HD video playback in car show rooms and exhibtions that automatically update their content, Web based presentations (i.e. like a web based video conferencing box with slides and live audio/video streams), chat and instance fanbase communication, buy the disc , join the group.

Setting up the studio is expensive, building the in-house expertise is not quick and you should start with a good base. And what of there are Test plans, QA and Qualification of your code and disc. We are building a center of excellence in Testing QA for Blue Ray as well as other other development team (.NET, Web, Java, CD, DVD, Content). Watch this space!

Business continuity

There is nothing like a burglary to focus the mind on Business Continuity. Last night two men broke into our business block, through our outer door, broke the glass on our interior door, caused a little mayhem, and scarpered empty handed. Although not before they'd appeared our our cctv in starring roles and left blood on the walls which police forensics are examining as we speak. It could have been so different.

No cctv (it was a neighbouring business who had it) and no alarm call (it took us an hour to get there and the police didn't even put in an appearance until the morning, low priority crime they say). Frankly these guys could have parked a van outside, taken their time (at least 30 minutes from alarm sounding to anyone being there) and emptied out everything.

What would we have done... were all our backups up to date... could we deliver our key jobs in time... what about software licenses... pieces of infrastructure... the books... receipts... paperwork!

Time for a spot of disaster planning, and luckily not too late, frankly these boys did us a favour but i'd still like them behind bars...

Family Alignment

If you haven't done this then please do...

sit your family/friends/colleagues down and ask them what they dream about... What would they like their lives to mean... If you can't dream it, you can't do it! Then work out how you need to behave and do in order to achieve these dreams. It's the healthiest thing you can do for yourself and for your team, family, friends...

Think... Be... Do... Have...

Go on, make a difference...

Quality Assurance

The office was lucky recently to be visited by a QA Guru. Shah Kahn gave us the low down on good QA processes and why these are crucial at all levels. QA issues are certainly something we have all noticed and to a person want to put right. Common sense is also a QA process so it's not just •can• it be done this way but •should• it be done this way...

Quality Assurance is a lifestyle, not just for Christmas. It has to be built into the DNA of a project from the initial brief and specification through, design, code production, module testing, system testing, user acceptance and client testing. You can't just add it at the end of a project and use it as a buffer to soak up project creep!

The opportunity for us in the UK business is to become a QA center of excellence and this is an ambition that we intend to grasp with both hands.

Brad Sugars

Bradley does a "DVD 6 steps to a better business" and a book called "The Business Coach", really these should be watched and read in tandem. Brad Sugars aims his book at all business people but the examples i have read are mostly targeted at people in the retail/service sector. This can mean that his books are dismissed as 'too lowbrow' however there are still great learnings to be made and a stepwise and systematic approach will surely be better than the scattergun methods that most of us Business Managers employ! Another enjoyable read. If you have a chance to go to one of his free seminars then i recommend it...

Good to Great

Good to Great by Jim Collins is a quantitative analysis of "what makes a good business become a great business?". The central learning, in the early stages of the book, seems to be that the answer is 'nothing out of the ordinary'. As you read on you discover that the leaders are not 'towering figures of management prowess' but inclusive, disciplined managers. They first select the best people to get the job done... And so i read on!

e-Myth

The e-Myth describes the schizophrenia which exists in many owner operated businesses today. You start the business because you are good at your job and want to do it for yourself. You then start to work in the business until all your time is used up, quality suffers, the books fall behind, you don't have time to recruit, train or retain staff...

Then there is the conflict between the workers, who just want to do their dayjob, the manager who wants it to be organised and the Entrepreneur who visualises the future with scant regard for today. Of course all these people think the others are barking mad!

Now i need to read on and discover solutions...!

Day 1 Run

Run 30 seconds walk 90 seconds. With a vow not to drink alcohol the night before a morning run! 3 miles run 489 calories burnt, iPod Nano recording my steps. Looped across the common and back up the Thames. Now off for parent taxi duty, party and breakfast!