Category: Business

Toughen Up – Michael Hill

what I’ve learned about surviving tough times

mh_book

I have just finished reading Michael Hill’s recently released book ‘Toughen Up’ I found it an extremely easy and interesting read and the messages inside really helped my re-focus on where my energy should be put.

The general message is one that I have previously written about that the current economic times are a re great time to look for opportunities.

The book is broken up in to 16 chapters which form the basis of Michael’s business philosophy:

  • Don’t Panic
  • Tough times are good for you
  • Never be afraid of change
  • Hunt the right people and help them become better
  • Get down to the coalface
  • Embrace mistakes
  • Work is the wrong word
  • Keep an eye on the underdog
  • Now you see it: the power of visualisation
  • It’s nothing personal…
  • Start at the bottom
  • Present yourself perfectly
  • Keep your balance
  • Give back and you shall receive
  • Find your point of difference
  • Money is just a yard stick

Unlike many business books only about 50% of the book relates directly to business, the other 50% is a mix of stories from some of Michael’s staff and a series of anecdotes that help provide the context for each of the philosophies.

I definitely recommend the book – I for one like to read about other business leaders stories and ideas – and it is especially good to read about a New Zealander.

As many of you know Michael has done pretty well for himself (private golf course etc etc) and for that reason all the proceeds of the book to Cure Kids – an extremely generous gesture.

Xero Capital Raising

It was great to see Xero’s recent annoucement about raising more capital.

The main thing this highlights to me and I talked about this in an earlier post: Even with economic times being the worst they have been for 60 years there is still opportunities to grow.

It also highlights that I have heard mentioned previously “Raise Capital before you need it as it will be easier to source than when you actually need it!”

The Power of the Internet

Using the Internet to communicate and sell is basically taken for granted these days, however from time-to-time it never ceases to amaze me on how quick things can happen. Also because everything is handled electronically the ability to monitor and analyze results is incredible – in days gone by it was time intensive to try to determine responses to direct mail campaigns and the information was never very accurate.

Yesterday Cadimage Tools announced the release of a book – the GDL Handbook:

gdlimage

At 4:18pm I sent 3942 Emails to all my Customers – (customers who have opted in to receive Newsletters so not Spam!)

The Email, while focusing on the Book, also had a couple of other topics of interest to our customers and included a series of links that the customers could follow for further information about the Topics.

Within 2 minutes of sending the email customers were already clicking the links.

Within 10 minutes the it was easy to see that the two links relating to the GDL Handbook were the most popular links.

At 4:24pm we received the first Sale of our new book! 6 Minutes after the original email – Wow!

By 10:19pm (6 Hours 1 minute after email) we had orders for 9 Books from Australia, Germany, Luxembourg and the USA

Having now arrived at the office (8:12am next day) I have looked at the ‘link stats’ which are also interesting:

In the first 16 hours:

We have received 709 Clicks from 403 Unique Customers (approx 10% of email recipients)

229 Clicks have been registered against a PDF of sample pages from the Book

130 Clicks have been registered against the Product Page on our Website where customers can purchase the Book

While some of these numbers aren’t necessarily big, it is the speed of them that amazes me.

Now while the above makes it sound easy to do business on the Internet this is certainly not the case:

  • We have invested for over 4 years in establishing our International eCommerce Website
  • The Book has taken Andrew Watson over a year to write
  • It has taken 3-4 weeks to get all the marketing and launch material together

The main point is though, all this effort is being rewarded and because of the infrastructure we have build we know we can easily launch new products quickly and make sales from around the world.

BAU 2009 – Architecture, Materials and Systems

I am currently in Munich to catch up with some of our Cadimage Tools partners during the BAU2009 Trade Show.

To say BAU is enormous is an understatement – BAU 2009 is being held at the Munich Trade Fair Center and covers all 16 Exhibition Halls.

Not surprisingly all the big names in Architectural Software were there. More surprising for me was the number of other CAD solutions on offer.

However, BAU is more than just software and IT though it is all about Building and simply the sheer quantity of building products – from mail boxes to car stacking systems – was mind blowing.

During the show I got a chance to catch up with some more Kiwi’s on the FrameCAD stand – it was really great to catch up with another New Zealand company taking architectural software to the world. FrameCAD were very pleased with the response they were getting from the show – not only from German companies but companies from Turkey, Poland, Romania, Iran… the list goes on.

2009 – A Year of Opportunities

Firstly Happy New Year!

I always find it quite refreshing to start a New Year – quite often things you never managed to complete the previous year don’t seem quite as important when you are full of new ideas after a break away!

Following on from my suggestions regarding Xero’s Top 5 Success and Survival Tips for 2009 I saw the following NZ Herald article reinforcing my thoughts that during tough times it is important to keep your eyes open for opportunities. Incidentally Greg helped my companies develop our business strategy and is constantly keeping me focused on achieving our goals.

Shortly I am off overseas again to see what opportunities I can turn into reality for 2009.

Top 5 Success and Survival Tips for 2009

With a New Year fast approaching and most economic news regarding 2009 being negative Xero have launched a great little thread on their blog.

Top 5 Success & Survival tips for 2009: tell us yours

There are so far only a couple of comments but I am sure over the next few days there will be lots of insightful advice.

My comment was:

Stay positive! I believe state of mind is all important. It certainly doesn’t trump all business advice in tough times but helps keep things in perspective.
Remember sometimes the best opportunities are available in tough times so don’t stop looking out for them.
Remember that business should be fun, why get out of bed if you don’t feel positive and full of energy!
On top of this remember to keep a constant eye on cash and expenses – but you should be doing that anyway!

While I appreciate being positive won’t make all the bad news go away it certainly helps. It also gives you perspective regarding all the tough decisions that may need to be made along the way.

Anyway, go add your comments now…

Internet Advertising

Running an Internet Based Business certainly has it’s challenges and marketing / attracting customers is at the top of my list.

Many people have the notion that because the Internet is so far reaching that you have a market place on your door step. What you have is access to a market place but you still need to be found!

Also, using Google Adwords is not a silver bullet marketing strategy for web based businesses – it is an important piece in the strategy but not the be all and end all.

Another piece of the puzzle could be Banner Ads, however the following article provides some very interesting light on that subject:

What If You Ran an Ad, and Nobody Saw It?

The interesting thing about the article is that I didn’t even notice that I wasn’t looking at the ads until I forced myself to look at the ads!

The other interesting and encouraging thing is that paid search ads do work so I’ll keep using Google Adwords as a part of my marketing strategy.

Xero at the London Apple Store

During my recent trip to the UK and Hungary I was able to fit in Xero’s presentation at the London Apple Store.

I had only been in the UK for 2 hours but decided it was the best way to catch up with Hamish and the team and see how things were going for Xero in the UK.

I have visited the Apple Store on numerous occassions but had never really appreciated how BIG it was till I had to find the presentation area towards the back of level 1.

I am continually amazed at what happens in an Apple Store – at one level it is basically a large, free, Mac based internet cafe. People check their email, update their Facebook and one guy was sorting himself a date on Polish Dating UK!

Anyway, back to the Xero presentation. Hamish and his team did a great overview and it was fantastic to see this NZ Company getting a great response and positive feedback to their innovative accounting software (who would have ever thought those two words would be used together!)

The Apple Store presents a somewhat difficult environment as it is hard to determine exactly how many of the people in the presentation area are there for the presentation and how many just are using it as seat and some timeout in an otherwise chaotic environment!

All I know is that Hamish believed the event to be a great succcess and is likely to do it again in the near future.

For any of you running a small business I definitely recommend Xero – currently available in NZ, the UK and soon AUS!

Business Planning – Make the Time!

Over the last three months the directors of The Cadimage Group have invested significant time into reviewing and renewing our business strategy.

While the cost of doing this, both in $ and time, is significant I can’t recommend it more highly.

As a small business owner there is the constant trap of getting caught in the busy’ness of business. As I have heard many times you have to “work on you business not in your business.”

To help us with this process we used Helen and Greg Cross of Cross Ventures. They bring an immense amount of knowledge and experience to the table and effectively we “chewed the fat” for a couple of days talking about our business and where it could go. Helen then put together a comprehensive overview of where we are and where we want to go along with a great financial model.

Having undertaken this process I found a huge amount of clarity in what we are doing and when attending the Morgo conference I found it easy to talk about what we do and where we are going.

I was pleasantly surprised to also be congratulated by a number of people for actually taking the plunge and investing in our strategic plan. To me, having completed the exercise it seems so logical to have done it, but again it is easy to get caught in the day to day running of your business and failing to come up for air and see where you are going.

Helen and Greg provide an awesome service and are there to check up on us as we move along our path so it is now time to start implementing and constantly reviewing.

On reflection my only regret is not doing this sooner!