Two Words to Live By

Want to know a way for your business to stand out from others?  It’s simple.  It won’t cost much, if anything.  And best of all, it’s guaranteed to generate more customers.

Ready?  Okay, here it is:  be available.

If the phone rings, answer the darn thing.  At a minimum, don’t let it go into voice mail unless you – or someone else on your team – absolutely, positively will call back within a specified time.

During a recent interview for my upcoming book on late blooming entrepreneurs, one successful business owner had this to say:  “Always answer your phone and say yes –then do what you said you would do.”

Another said he picked up a nice chunk of new business simply because he answered his phone.  That didn’t happen when the customer called four other companies.

Ever called a business to place an order — and got a recorded message saying the phone mailbox is full and not accepting messages?  Makes you wonder, doesn’t it?

On the opposite end of the spectrum are companies like L.L.Bean, which receives top service ratings in part because it strives to answer most calls within 20 seconds and always with a “live” person.  Granted, L.L.Bean has a bigger budget than many businesses, but its service philosophy isn’t that difficult to adopt, is it?

The same principle applies to email, of course.  Sure, most business websites have a “contact us” section – but many times, you won’t find the name of an individual who can help with questions or problems.  More often than not, the listed contact is something warm and personal like “info@companyname.com.”  The name alone leaves doubts about whether you’ll receive any response at all.

Having been customers all their lives, people who start businesses later in life tend to appreciate the “be available” approach to customer service.   In an era of automatic communications, it’s become unusual to call or email a business and reach a human being on the first try.  Why not make your business one of the few, special places where that happens?

By the way, if you have any comments on this post, please let me know.  I’ll get back to you in a few weeks.  Maybe.

Michael Jackson — a Savvy Entrepreneur

Music wasn’t Michael Jackson’s only talent. He was a sharp, polished entrepreneur who knew his audience and who, until his death in 2009, was constantly trying to improve his product and refine his brand.

In an interview with BusinessNewsDaily, Joe Vogel, author of ”Man in the Music: The Creative Life and Work of Michael Jackson,” says one of Jackson’s greatest qualities was “his ability to envision something in his mind – something bold and different and innovative – and then have the willpower and work ethic to realize it.  He was constantly challenging himself and those around him to push beyond the ordinary.”

Vogel tells BusinessNewsDaily that Jackson often had friends and collaborators read “Jonathan Livingston Seagull,” which is about refusing to conform and striving for excellence.  “You see, even with his “This Is It” concerts at the age of 50, he wouldn’t accept mediocrity,” Vogel says. “He wanted the shows to be unlike anything people had experienced before.”

In addition, Vogel says he thinks Jackson “was a lot like Steve Jobs in that each new product – whether an album or video or single – was an event.”

You can read the full BusinessNewsDaily interview here.

Super Bowl Ad Encourages Aspiring Entrepreneurs

Among the many television commercials during this Sunday’s Super Bowl will be one from the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, a nonprofit that focuses on fostering U.S. entrepreneurship.  During the football game, the animated, 30-second advertisement will air in four television markets:  New York, San Francisco, Washington, DC and Kansas City (where the foundation is based).

As pointed out in a CNNMoney article, a plug for entrepreneurship during the Super Bowl may seem out of place at first.  The ad, however, is part of a broader Kauffman Foundation campaign to inspire everyday Americans — including nacho munching football fans — to launch their own businesses.

You can learn more about the ad from CNNMoney’s article or from this Kauffman Foundation news release .

Basic is Beautiful for Five Guys Franchisee

By Lynne Strang, Late Blooming Entrepreneurs

Bill McKechnie

Want to know the secret to entrepreneurial success?   Pick one or two products to offer your customers and do them well.  Really well.

Okay, there may be more to it than that.  But not much, says Bill McKechnie.

“I subscribe to the mantra that success can be found in simplicity,” says McKechnie, who owns 5G Holdings, LLC, the Nashville, Tennessee franchisee for Five Guys Burgers and Fries.  “If you divide your success too much, you will degrade the quality of your product.”

It’s a view that mirrors the philosophy of the Five Guys organization, which began in 1986 as a carry-out burger joint in Alexandria, Virginia and now has 969 locations (and counting). According to the company’s website, owners Jerry and Janie Murrell and their five sons attribute Five Guys’ phenomenal growth to “their passionate and often fanatical focus on Quality Service and Cleanliness and their continual effort to keep things simple.”

Since acquiring Five Guys’ Nashville territory in 2006, the 54-year-old McKechnie has opened four stores in the area and plans to open eight more, including three this year.  In 2004, he got his start in the hamburger business by purchasing the rights for the Five Guys territory in Charlottesville, Virginia, where he operates three locations.

In one sense, McKechnie returned to his roots by acquiring the territory in Charlottesville, his current hometown and the site of his alma mater, the University of Virginia. In addition to his undergraduate degree from UVA, he has an MBA from the University of Chicago and a master’s from the London School of Economics.

Finding a Passion

After finishing school, McKechnie went to New York and became a security analyst – a job he didn’t like (“I was spending more time with analyses and less with people,” he says). He moved to the Washington, DC area to accept a position as director of finance and administration for a defense electronics firm in Fairfax, Virginia.

During that time, he got his first taste of entrepreneurship when he became involved with a startup that provided training and logistics support for the defense industry.  “I enjoyed the mechanics of starting something from scratch,” says McKechnie.

Still, McKechnie says he wasn’t enamored with his industry, which dealt with intangibles and “lacked a sense of identification with the product.”  He began searching for a new opportunity that would give him a passion.

That search led him to Great Harvest Bread Company, a specialty bakery franchise company based in Dillon, Montana.  In 1993, he opened his own Great Harvest Bakery in Alexandria, Virginia, where he embraced the company’s mission to “be loose and fun, bake phenomenal bread, run fast for customers, create exciting bakeries and give generously to others.”

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“Quality requires focus and focus requires discipline.” – Bill McKechnie, 5G Holdings 

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Eleven years later, McKechnie sold the bakery and moved back to Charlottesville, trading DC’s hectic pace for the more laid-back atmosphere of a mid-sized city.  He thinks his transition from Great Harvest to Five Guys wasn’t overly difficult because of the commonalities between the concepts.

“Hamburgers and bread are almost like commodities where the customer has many choices and differentiation is blurred,” he says. “If you stand for quality, you need to set a clear, recognizable standard to distinguish yourself — so that when it comes time for that customer to make a choice, only one name comes to mind.”

While this strategy may sound simple, executing it properly isn’t.  “Quality requires focus and focus requires discipline,” says McKechnie.  “Whether you are talking bread or hamburgers, you have a much greater ability to control the quality of the product when you only focus on a very limited number of offerings.”

“If I de-simplify and offer additional products in an effort to gather additional customers,” he asks rhetorically, “how much does that take my eye off the ball and risk losing my core customer and what I do well?”

Working Smarter

For McKechnie, who was 46 when he bought his first Five Guys franchise, being an older entrepreneur has advantages and disadvantages.  “With my age, I’ve acquired skills and experience that run the business gamut,” he says.  “I have an understanding of demographics, which enables me to support and defend the development side of what I do.”

“On the other hand, it’s the restaurant industry and a 24/7 business,” he adds.  “I’ve probably lost a step, but I try to counteract that by working smarter.  I wish I had the same energy I had at 20 but would not trade the experience I’ve gained.”

Part of that working-smarter approach is getting sufficient rest.  “I have a life outside of work – family, kids, wife, friends,” he says.  “Balance is key.  For me, that means being able to refresh with things that are important to me.”

Between opening more Five Guys locations and overseeing his current ones, McKechnie knows his workload won’t lighten anytime soon.  But he’s having a good time.

“Any entrepreneurial endeavor requires large amounts of time and energy,” he says.  “You had better be willing to make those commitments if you want to enter that environment.

“Otherwise, you’re better off staying out of it.”

How a Cocktail Napkin Inspired a Business

Jeff Block, who has a mechanical engineering degree from Cornell University and a master’s degree from the University of Chicago, never expected a paper flower made from a napkin would lead him to start a business.  But it did.

As a result, the Georgia resident’s early dreams of entrepreneurship have come true.

The 57-year-old Block owns JustPaperRoses, which he founded around 1999.  For the first three years, he only did paper roses for first anniversaries.  Today, Block’s mostly Internet-based company not only sells roses made of paper but also out of wood, leather, lace, steel, silver and other materials that fit traditional wedding anniversary gift lists.

As he explains in a recent macon.com article, Block became interested in origami — the art of making designs out of folded paper — after a friend showed him how to make a rose with a cocktail napkin.  Eventually, his hobby led him to found JustPaperRoses.  He now does about 5,000 orders a year, mostly for anniversaries.

“My objective was to never again have a boss,” he says in the article.

You’ll find macon.com’s full story about Jeff Block and JustPaperRoses here.

Tennis Great Chris Evert Says She’s a Late Bloomer

Chris Evert has come a long way from the days when she burst onto the international tennis scene at age 16.  Today, the 57-year-old Evert and her brother, John, own Boca Raton, Florida’s Evert Academy, which provides year-round training for juniors dreaming of becoming tennis pros.  In a Washington Post article, Evert talks about her ups and downs and the discovery of a new life where the old one had been — on a tennis court.  In addition to the academy, she’s forging a business career with television commentary and new endorsement deals.

“I think that what I have gone through the last couple of years, a normal person would have gone through a long time ago,” Evert says in the article. “When you’re a famous, successful person at 16 years old, the rules change for you. Everybody is doing things for you to make life easier so you can go out and play. And I think you miss out on lot of growing up and a lot of reality checks.”

The full Washington Post article can be found here.

Outstanding Entrepreneurs Wanted

Ernst & Young is seeking nominations for its 2012 Entrepreneur of the Year awards.  To be eligible, the nominee must be the owner or manager of a private or public company that’s at least three years old.  Employees, spouses, attorneys, public relations people or anyone else associated with a successful entrepreneur can nominate a candidate — plus self nominations are encouraged.  Just be sure to submit your application by the March 9th deadline.

If you’d like to throw your hat in the ring, you can check here for more details about the awards program.  Good luck.