The Threat of Bedtime

figured out today that if I could have a perpetual threat of it being bedtime I could get my 3 year old to eat a lot more food. She is one of those people who loves life and the excitement of it, and frankly, eating is a bit of a bore; especially if there is anything interesting happening. This leads to bowls of unfinished food everywhere.

However, simply stating “Its Bedtime” creates in this little princess a voracious appetite for just about anything she can get her hands on. It is worth doing ANYTHING to delay bedtime, eat food, drink milk, multiple glasses of water (3 at least) (note the rest of the day water is detested and avoided in favor of any other liquid refreshment), help dad do the dishes, comfort the baby…. You get the picture.

It made me realize how silly most of us are. What makes a job or task hard? The fact that you don’t want to do it! Hard and easy are all relative (on the assumption that you actually have the capacity to do the task in question). So how do you make doing the things you need to get done easier? Keep a list of tasks around that you don’t want to do more that what you should do. Then whenever you are tempted to say “I really should do ______________, but I don’t want to..” whip out one of your “harder than tasks” to replace it with.

For example: “I really should exercise tomorrow.” And when that little temptation comes that says “I don’t want to” just whip out one of your harder than tasks. Tell yourself: “Wonderful! Since you have freed up that half hour by not exercising, you will have time to take a toothbrush to that black grime growing in that dark space behind the toilet.” I bet you can persuade yourself that you are too busy exercising to do the cleaning. :-)

Motivation to Buy!

I read a couple of interesting articles today, and I will put the links to them at the bottom of this post.

Basically they detailed how there is a new line of lucrative business in windshield repair and replacement. In fact so many profits are being raked in that insurance companies are stopping the practice of no-deductible windshield repair and replacement. It seems that windshield glass repair places are going door to door, accosting people at gas stations, and circling parking lots looking for people who “need” free windshield repair. Unfortunately some of those people didn’t need windshield repair until the sales person entered the proximity of their car.

But so what? What’s the big deal? It is free repair right? Not free to your insurance carriers who are seeing a skyrocketing in glass claims at exorbitant prices. Most companies are either raising rates or discontinuing glass coverage as a result.

I always used to say that auto insurance wouldn’t get as expensive as health insurance because people wouldn’t run around crashing their cars, unlike how they don’t take care of their bodies. But apparently some money hungry people have figured out a way to fabricate legitimate claims out of the blue.

There are many angles that I could take on these stories:

• · How the tragedy of the commons destroys anything that is nice and easy (like having glass repair automatically paid for at no cost to the car owner).
• 
  
• · How regulations only seem to be a pain and slow down for honest people, and those who are dishonest work the system, no matter what system you create. (ie gun laws only affect people who are honest)
• · How it seems like it is the dishonest people who always win unless they get caught.

But instead I choose to focus on the similarities between insurance, and a credit card that has a nice cushion of available credit.

First though: Why is it that scam artists are willing to work so hard to exploit systems? Why is it that they put all that creativity into making a fast buck instead of doing something that actually improves the world?

The No Brainer Price

While I was going to college I had this delusional idea that I could make up for my lack of cash flow by being an independent salesman (read person who values the freedom to be broke all the time over having to put up with a boss). During that time I learned two important lessons.

1. People don’t buy what they need, they buy what they want.
2. People buy based on emotion, and justify their decisions with “logic”.

I learned these lessons the hard way (read: by spending a lot of time being broke and frustrated) because I have always prided myself on being a very logical and analytical person. It seemed clear to me that if I presented people with the facts surrounding why they needed my product, if they could afford it, they would buy it. Right? Wrong! Why? Because of that little question of affording it.

See most companies that let you sell stuff for them have this nasty habit of asking you to sell it at a price that is just a little higher than what people want to pay for it. This is exacerbated by the fact that if you have to buy it before YOU can sell it, you have to pay a little bit higher wholesale price for it than you wanted to. (This is why network marketing companies don’t really expect you to sell the product for retail price, they just want you to sign people up to pay the slightly-higher-than-you-want-to-pay wholesale price. Have you ever noticed that good salesman quote you a huge price and then work their way down with you to the price that is “just a little more than what you wanted to pay.” Why? Because this creates a temporary illusion that you are getting a “really good deal” because you have now seen what this could cost, and therefore your estimates of what you wanted to pay were “obviously” wrong.

And so salesmen are stuck with the fact that they can’t sell at the “no brainer” price (the price that the majority of people will want to buy at) and still make a living. Why? Because most people want a slightly above average income for what they do, and to get that, you have to charge slightly more than what people want to pay.

So then you have places like Wal-mart that master economies of scale so that they can offer the products to you at the no brainer price…. And people buy and buy and buy. Problem is that the second and third “buy” in the previous sentence were because the first two broke because they were made in China and you have to buy them again. So really you are still paying “slightly more” than you wanted to pay because you did it in “three easy installments.”

So what does all this have to do with insurance? Any salesman would love the job of selling things to people who all had a rich uncle Bob who was REQUIRED to pay the invoice on anything the customer had signed for. Just think of it! You get to convince people that they want something, and then you don’t have to convince them to pay the slightly-higher-than-they-wanted-to price, because Bob HAS to do it. It is the dream world for a salesman.

The debt crisis in America, and the affordable health care crisis, and the new problem with glass repair are essentially all the same thing: The overwhelming creation of a want, with a buffer that allows a slightly-higher-than-you-wanted-to-pay price.

For the debt crisis it is easy credit, which allows you to easily buy what the salesmen persuaded you that you desperately wanted without having to really think about how it affects your budget. This allows you to swallow the higher price because you REALLY want it.

For services like health care and windshield repair that are paid for by insurance it allows you to get the service without facing the full brunt of the price, which creates a buffer between you and the service provider that does not encourage them to be as competitive as they could be.

In short, insurance and credit cards are very handy and at times very critical things to have. (Note I work for an insurance company and believe that when well administered, and when your clients and claimants are honest, insurance is a VERY good thing.)

I am just saying that these two very nice things actually allow inflation to happen by making “more than you wanted to pay” affordable.

So those who put all creative effort into exploiting the system are those who have found that cash comes easier by making someone think they are getting the no brainer price for something, (by making someone else pay for it or put it on “easy credit” with “no interest”) rather than allowing them to feel the full weight of the price of what the salesman is trying to sell.

So is there any hope for legitimate small business? Can someone starting a business actually hope to be successful in it without “working” the system somehow? Can someone starting out provide competitive prices and treat people fairly? My answer is yes, but you need to keep a day job too. Entrepreneurs don’t like to hear that, but the fact is that until everyone is ethical you need some sort of buffer against all the bad guys out there.

Back in my days in sales I had finally started figuring it out and was getting better at making sales and helping people see the value in what I had to offer. I even had a financial pattern set up that would allow me to grow the business gradually and not overextend. Then a customer found a creative way to steal over $1200 worth of merchandise from me. That was enough (since I didn’t have a good day job) to take the wind out of my sails and I only floundered after that.

So in conclusion: people do buy based on emotion, and without emotion there is no motivation. But you can sell at competitive prices if you have another stable income during the build up phase (1-5 years depending on the business). Then when you have the brand and the resources, you will have enough customers and dependable enough systems to survive the scammers out there and still price competitively. I have seen more businesses fail than I would like to admit, but in every case that I personally saw, they failed because the principles were too quick to want to keep the profits for themselves rather than let the business build enough to weather the storms and the bad guys first.

The challenge today is that we have forgotten that when the American Dream was built there was no such thing as a microwave. Impatience is what has created the bad financial state the country is in now.

Teaching patience and ethics to the rising generation is the only thing that will stem the ever growing rate of fraud and inflation.

As promised here are the links to the articles that spurred the above stream of consciousness:

http://redtape.msnbc.com/2010/10/windshield-bullies-a-growing-fraud-problem.html

http://www.propertycasualty360.com/2010/11/03/auto-glass-from-nuisance-to-nightmare#

The Odd Pickle

My lips are hot… well actually they were a little while ago, and now they are not. (Thankfully).
Sometimes the courage to throw a whole hot pepper in your mouth and chew is really just foolishness. Honestly, I didn’t think it would be that hot. I was wrong…. I am usually so good about remembering not to let the hot pepper actually touch my lips. My lips haven’t felt that hot since I was 5 or 6….

I was young boy happy to be at yet another party at Grandpa and Grandma’s house. I don’t remember what the party was for or much of the party at all; but I remember the pickle. Now keep in mind that Mom had trained me very well that I eat everything on my plate. Well I went around the food table filling happily filling my plate. I was surprised at how many of the veggie trays had pickles on them. Of course that was fine by me, since I love pickles and having them on multiple trays justified for me that I could take more than one, which I happily did. One pickle in particular was very unique in that it was smoother than all the rest and had stem.



I sat down to eat my food and enjoy my pickle sampling. That was until I got to the odd pickle… that first bite was spicy. I was intrigued though… I had never had a spicy pickle before, so I took the second bite out of curiosity. With my mouth now on fire, the third bite was out of the duty to finish everything on my plate… the fourth bite was to prove that I was strong. Having made it half way through the pickle I decided it was now time to go find Mom and see if just this once I could get a waiver on the “finish everything on your plate” policy. It was then that I was informed that the pickle was a jalapeño pepper. I got the desired waiver, and spent the rest of the afternoon trying everything imaginable to try and cool off my lips.

It is amazing how everything else around you fades into insignificance when your lips are on fire. Pain has an amazing capacity to supersede the relevance of everything else going on.
I once again had to beg off of the “finish everything” policy tonight as I spit the fiery pepper out of my mouth that I was trying to be brave on chew up.

My kids did enjoy watching their father panic though, and they all got a good laugh.
So if life hands you a sour pickle, try to see the bright side and laugh a little: at least it is not a jalapeño pepper.

Obedience and the Connection Between Relevance and Trust

If you don't do it, I will .......

What parent hasn't had to finish that phrase? And what goes on the end of that phrase really doesn’t matter. The most annoying thing is that you even have to say it in the first place. What makes it so annoying to say? Because the previous statement to you is usually some question from your child that basically demonstrates that they are weighing whether you will be relevant today or not.
Previous generations maintained that relevance by spanking. The problem with physical punishment though, is that if there aren’t clear ground rules set up, it can become a pride issue on the parents part… a sort of secret weapon to pull out whenever the child isn’t listening. But like most clichés it is something that is easy to wear out. The other problem is that it often leads to children running from the house at age 18 (or sooner) happy to get out from under the hand of the tyrant.
So how does a parent maintain order in a home when trying to raise children without constantly resorting to physical punishment?

The challenge is being both just and merciful. Let’s face it; in the short term mercy is far easier. Being just takes a whole lot of work because it requires such consistency. Mercy can be doled out as soon as there is an apparently penitent heart. For me it gives new relevance to scriptural references to wailing and gnashing of teeth like Matthew 13:42. God loves us and really takes no pleasure in seeing us frustrated. The verse is simply commenting on a truthful observation that some of God’s children are not going to be too happy about the outcome of justice.
The exhausting and frustrating part of setting up a justice / law based system of management, is that you have to enforce it or it totally looses its power. This past week when we informed our children of a consequence of disobedience, they went on for a good 10 minutes about how we weren’t being fair, and that if we had told them what was going to happen, they would have been obedient……. And it reminded me of some other children --- the Children of Israel.

God brought them out of Egypt and wanted to make them his covenant people. He wanted to have a personal relationship with them, let them hear his own voice and be his peculiar treasure. He wanted to keep their laws simple and operate in a relationship of trust. Basically a simple relationship where he gives principles and guidelines, they choose to make what he says relevant in their lives, and he blesses them for their obedience.

However, while Moses was in the mount getting the written instructions from God, the people chose to demonstrate that a God who’s voice was so powerful that they were afraid of it, was not relevant if He didn’t happen to be speaking with that voice to them at the moment. They specifically went against what they had heard Him command 40 days previously.

Why? Maybe because he didn’t explicitly tell them up front what would happen if they didn’t.

In other words…. “If you had told me what you were going to do if I ignored you I wouldn’t have done it.”

And so we find ourselves in a cycle where energy that could be applied to sharing greater knowledge and blessing the people is spent on disciplining them. It is the same way with children. They really could have so much more fun, if they learned to trust and simply obey their parents.

The Children of Israel then got a very “if… then” law called the law of Moses. That mapped out corresponding consequences for just about everything they could do. It was an arduous law, very technical and complicated to live, but it was what they wanted…. To be told before-hand why God’s commandments should be relevant to them.
How much better it can be for us if we will trust, and choose to make what God says relevant to us. It has made me realize why “Obedience is the first law of Heaven” (Joseph Smith)… because if you haven’t learned that lesson, you can’t exist in that environment.

So how are you doing today? Can God trust you to be obedient? Or does He need to re-prove His relevance to you?

Irrelevant Until Proven Otherwise i.e. The Relevance of Candy

Wouldn’t a Starburst be fabulous right now?

So my obsession with relevance started in college. This was when I was a tutor, and was amazed at how a one hour session focused on relevance could turn a totally belligerent student who couldn’t comprehend the subject matter and is about to fail into a student who readily performs her assignments perfectly with barely any help from the tutor. That is when I realized that no matter how long it took, it was worth my time to ensure that every student I helped saw relevance in what they were doing…. Or I was wasting my time.

That is when it hit me… students aren’t lazy, it is just that EVERYTHING is irrelevant until proven otherwise. So why does the previous generation label us the entitlement generation and call us lazy? Weren’t things irrelevant in their day? Actually, not as much. The key difference is the information age. We have grown up with the assumption that you type everything on a computer, not a typewriter, and that anything you really need know can be learned in about a half hour as long as your internet speed is fast enough. I actually remember the day in my senior year of college that I discovered that there was a section in the library with books about programming. It had just never occurred to me that a library would have books about programming… I was amazed… both that the section was there, and that I had never even considered the possibility of it being there. Why? Because frankly, a library is cumbersome to use. You have to wrap your mind around the way it works… where as Google tries its hardest to make the data wrap around the way your mind works.

So we live in an age of cheap information. So cheap in fact, that it is nearly worthless. Because of this, those trying to get your money make sensational multimedia presentations that are designed to catch at least one of your senses and pull you in. Eye candy if you will…. And then professors wonder why abstract concepts in a text book can’t hold the attention of the student.

The digital version of candy is very much like the physical version. What makes candy so relevant?

Candy provides:

1. A sweet taste

2. A short term boost of energy

3. Variety

4. No commitment to anything long term (like making it through a whole bowl of food)

5. In most cases flexibility to continue doing whatever you were doing, without slowing down to actually sit down and eat it.

And it is amazing what kids will do for candy. Take a group of children and tell them to pick up their clothes off of the floor. The “Lazy” children will tell you they can’t, that they can’t see any of their clothes, that it is too hard, that you “must” help them and generally do anything they can to get out of doing the chore. But take these same “lazy” children who can’t find their clothes and put them on a field with Easter eggs full of candy, and with blinding speed the entire field will be striped clean in 5 minutes. Why? Because candy is relevant.

Have you noticed that all major holidays have moved to candy now? The idea is that parents and leaders can skip all the complicated preparation that children may or may not appreciate, and go with candy which is sure to be a hit.

And there you have a generation now trained in entitlement. We have been trained that we are entitled to a compressed extracted compound of the sweetest stuff, with no required commitment to go through anything difficult to get it. Why? Because that is easier for our parent’s and guaranteed to be relevant to us. The result? An obese culture, with health care costs spiraling out of control because we can’t comprehend that we can’t live on candy.

What does this mean for you in practical terms? That when you present, teach, or try to persuade, you either use candy (real or digital) to make yourself relevant to your audience, or you are irrelevant. The best speakers start their discussions with jokes. Why? Because it is thought candy, to make them relevant so that you will give them 3 more minutes before you pass judgment. Hopefully by that time, you are actually enjoying the feast enough to keep eating.

So the next time you are preparing to present, remember that you are irrelevant until proven otherwise. So be relevant fast… or at least bring candy.

I should have known better

So for a team building event at work, we were asked to read a book and take a test. The book is Strengths Finder 2.0 and the test is on their website. First, I am impressed with the sheer brilliance of the business model --> A website that leads you to buy a book that leads you to use the website (ie 1st you purchase the book, and 2 you provide contact data so that they can continue to market to you) .... but I digress. Not really though... because the business model would fall flat on its face (or would that be its book cover) if the book didn't provide information that is immediately relevant.....

So anyhow I discover that my top 5 strengths per there test are:
1. Strategic - (Read: I can tell you that your current course of action will make people hate you 3 months from now whether you realize it or not).
2. Individualization - (Read: I help you progress one on one better than in a group, and I help people who dislike each other cooperate just for the fun of the challenge).
3. Achiever - (Read: obsessed with results and doing whatever it takes to meet the objective).
4. Competition - (Read: Magna Cum Laude is so disappointing when you realize that it was that one hard class that someone persuaded you into that kept you away from Suma Cum Laude) - No hard feelings Bro. M
5. Responsibility - (Read: I tackle big things and want everything to always come out perfect or I go out of my way to apologize for not accomplishing the impossible)

So then I am chatting with a coworker who also just took the test who happens to have as a couple of her strengths:
1. WOO - Win others over - (Read: Makes fast connections and people like her because she brings out the best in them.)
2. Activator - (Read: Get going, get it done, make it happen, and do it now).

And I have the audacity to comment that I like her blog, but would not be a good blogger myself.

Well here I am blogging. I guess it is that whole achiever, competition crashing against an activator that finally pushed me over the edge. I really have been thinking about sharing my ideas for some time now.... I was just really good at coming up with excuses not to, till I crashed into a WOO Activator. So here I am.

Jumping back to my comment about the business model. Their success and status as a #1 bestseller is dependent on their relevant content. Relevant content means automatic generation of word of mouth ---> leads to automatic relevance because of the word of mouth ---> leads to more business ---> and more word of mouth etc.

So if your business could always be relevant, you would always be profitable. So how do you stay relevant? That is a question to answer in another post.

So for now thanks to the Woo Activators out there who get us Strategic / Achiever / Competetive types to get past our paralysis of analysis and start contributing the the world conversation.