After55:

I was just listening to Rachel Maddow’s show.  Did you know she has a Ph.D. in political science?  Anyway, her opening was something worth commenting on in this challenging economy.  She recounted several potential similarities between Lincoln’s time and ours.  After connecting each similarity she said, “But Lincoln had it much worse.”  As we hear day after day of news that challenges our will to keep on keeping on, as we see CEO after CEO sitting before congressional committees not quite “getting” how things are out here in the real world, it is vital that we remember that we have been here before.  We have withstood challenges, perservered and even prospered.  We have done this individually and as a nation.  As entrepreneurs, we are the backbone of our economy.  We know that.  For that privilege we pay with taking the enormous personal and financial risks.  When you are sitting at your computer wondering what to do next–remember just how important you are and go back yet another time to solve your current dilemma.

Just because I am the only silver-haired columnist doesn’t mean I knew Abe personally, but I DO know that he would be proud of you.

I met Barbara Luther at a networking event last year. Remember how I keep urging you to get out of the office and talk to people?  Here is yet another example of why that is such good advice. Luther is an intellectual property attorney with a wide and deep knowledge of the pharmaceutical and medical industries. She’s also a wife and mother and has worked her entire adult life.  OK, you say, what’s so unique about Luther?  She has a unique way of looking at things.  She and her husband relocated to Scottsdale, Ariz., about four years ago from California.  Most attorneys would have looked for a new local connection and simply gone about their practice.  Not Luther.  She’s also a woman with a strong bias for helping women.  Luther redesigned her business, and there are lessons here for all of us in these challenging times.

Rather than set up a traditional brick-and-mortar business with all the attendant upfront costs, Luther opened a small office and got involved in several organizations in the Scottsdale/Phoenix area that include businesswomen and/or entrepreneurs. In so doing, she had added many clients to her existing global client base. Her practice has expanded from its original areas of expertise to include many other industries and services she can offer. Then Luther started networking for other female attorneys who would like to practice part-time and from their home. It’s very important to her that the growth of the practice reflects increased opportunities for other women.

Because of the unique structure of Luther Law Firm, Luther offers its services to other firms that need a strong IP department but don’t want to make the financial commitment to build one. Luther’s clients include manufacturers, entrepreneurs, corporations, as well as law firms and associations. Brilliant.

Here are the lessons we can learn from Luther (who is one of us!):

1. You’re never to old to redesign your existing business.
2. You can include your core values in your business.
3. Creatively look for different kinds of customers, e.g., law firms and corporations
4. Carefully managing overhead allows you to leverage your desirability to potential clients–costing less than in-house departments.
5. Make the most of technology to bring new people into your business.

Each lesson is a critical part of keeping your focus in this market.

Sorry for the delay in this post.  As you have been seeing in my sidebar, I spoke last Thursday at the 5th Annual Sacramento Conference of Professional BusinessWomen of California.  I am eager to share what I learned and the feeling I had coming away.

First, the conference was a huge success by the numbers: More than 3,000 women attended, and there were four outstanding keynote speakers–Naomi Tutu, Jackie Speier, Lucy Liu and Lynne Twist.  Each speaker spoke to us at our highest level as businesswomen and women.  I met women ranging from senior executives in huge multinational corporations to women involved in not-for-profits both large and small, a dairy farmer and a woman who has cleaned houses for 20 years and loves her business.

Second, watching the connections being made among women from all over the country, across areas of expertise, finding commonality through family and values was heartwarming.  One of my passionate delights is connecting–both people and ideas.  As I wrote to my daughter, it was Candyland for me.

Third, the prevailing attitude about the economy was realistic, but also tired of all the unremitting gloom and doom in the media.  Yes, things are challenging, but there was conversation about looking for the good news and tapping into our huge creativity to develop alternative programs and ways of meeting the challenges.

Fourth, the 250 women who attended my session, “We Don’t Retire, We Reinvent,” were a really thoughtful group.  They delighted in looking both forward and back and planning for a future that will bring them delight and fulfillment. It was a pleasure to help so many proactive women look at the next phase of their lives.

I was also delighted to see the wide age range–there were a lot of After 55s, and they were leading the pack in sharing, teaching, connecting and learning.  I was a proud respresentative.

Anyone who has been reading my blog for some length of time knows I am a reader. This week I would like to issue a challenge: Turn off your television (except, of course, to watch the election results on Tuesday–you are voting, right?) and stop reading the newspapers for two weeks. Use the time you would have spent in these activities to read. I am suggesting books about business–my current favorite, Thinkertoys, by Michael Michalko, Good to Great by Jim Collins, Execution by Larry Bossidy or–personal development–anything by Brian Tracy, Jeffrey Gitomer, Basic Black by Cathy Black or Martha Rules by Martha Stewart.

If you don’t like to read (horrors!), many are available at the library on CD or tape or can be downloaded so you can learn while driving or taking your daily walk to stay centered.  Fill your head with new ideas, possible solutions, fresh approaches.  Let me know how it goes–I really am interested.

VOTE!

When times are tough many of us, me included, tend to hunker down or go under a rock until either we get a grip on what’s going on or things get better. Wrong. Get out of the office or home office and be around people. This is the time to network and talk with positive people–and they are definitely out there. Remember the post about a MasterMind Alliance?  If you don’t have one, this could be the perfect time to put one together. You don’t have money for a coach? It’s probably a good indication that you need one. I predict bartering will be back big time.  What can you offer in return?

Did you notice that there were three important questions in the last paragraph?  This is the perfect time to think out of the box, question everything, read widely. Remember the post on Thinkertoys? I am also a new devotee of Harvard Business Review. Many times I look at the cover and think the topic doesn’t have anything to do with me or my business. Each issue has really gottent the wheels turning.  What are you reading?

Breathe, Think, Question . . .

Yup. All the news is even worse than last week. Gloom and doom. You’ve tried breathing but, to tell the truth, you’re bored by the negative drone of the talking heads.

What to do? How about taking some time to put yourself in your customers’ shoes? What do they need that you can provide? How can you provide it in a customer-centered, profitable manner (though perhaps not the previous profit margins)? Can you change your pricing to be more customer-centered? Let me give you an example.

A friend was telling me about her established handyman business. Her assumption was that because of the economy, people might put off major projects but would always need a handyman to fix things as they broke. The business is in a very affluent area with a decent percentage of people over 55. My friends require a minimum of two hours’ work to book an appointment because the cost of gas was hovering at $4 a gallon.  No marketing plan except word of mouth from satisfied customers and a witty “Honey Do” line on a cute business card.  This is pretty standard thought–need>respond>completion>referrals>success.  Hopefully a 50-50 chance of making it through the next two years.  But, what if:

1. Rather than require a two-hour minimum, they change it to half an hour with a charge included to cover transportation costs, and subsequent half-hour increments were lower-priced?
2. When booking the appointment, asking if any of neighbors have mentioned needing handyman services?  If so, and if my friends can book an appointment the same day, customer No. 1 will receive a reduction in the first-half-hour fee.
3. Using the reverse directory, my friends call the neighbors within three houses in all directions and tell them the day they will be working in the neighborhood and ask if there is anything the new prospect needs help with–of course, listing three or four possibilities to jog the potential customer’s memory?
4. They register or put up a well-done, informative flier (listing qualifications and insurance coverage, for comfort) in all the local senior centers and places seniors gather in the area?
5. They use the same flyer and put it up in health club?
6. They come up with a list of 10 new places they could contact?

And on and on. Get the idea? At a time like this, there is comfort in motion–just make sure it’s forward.

Easy for me to say because I am not in your shoes. Let’s cut to the chase–I don’t have any brilliant insights into how to weather this unbelievable time of economic upheaval. If that is what you were hoping for, you can skip to the next thing you want to read. If you are experiencing fallout from the credit freeze and it is affecting your ability to pay your employees or your payables, my heart goes out to you.

Now that we have commiserated, are there any opportunities here? Is this the time to think about reorganizing your business? Is there an employee you have been thinking about cutting or redeploying? This is a good time to review all of your products and make sure each one has a place in your lineup. Can you produce any of your products more efficiently or at a lower cost? If not, can you enhance their value?

If your bank account is in good condition, is there an opportunity to acquire another business at an attractive price? Can you negotiate a better price for supplies?

Those who are able to look beyond the huge message of doom will frequently weather the storm in even better shape. I hope you are among them!

In a word–awesome! OK, true confessions time . . . I did check my e-mails twice and I opened one e-mail. I just knew that if I were totally out of the loop, I would hear about a speaking engagement that hadn’t settled. Sure enough, the first time I checked my e-mails, there it was. After that I did not open any emails for eight days. So what did I do?

I read the July/August issue of the Harvard Business Review from cover to cover. I finished Plan B by Anne Lamott. I read several chapters of Thinkertoys. I started a scarf with that yarn I mentioned–something is wrong with that pattern! I picked up my youngest grandson from kindergarten twice, I went out for coffee twice with my son-in-law and once with my daughter (this was due to varying work schedules), I built with Legos, I taught the boys to play Uno, I shopped, cooked and did dishes with my daughter, and kissed my three grands goodnight every night. Did I have a super time–you bet!

Enough about me–did it have any effect on my business? Well, I came home with 22 to-do items on my iPhone. Included was the solution to two bothersome chores (find a research assistant), the name for a book series I have had in the back of my head for three years, a new introduction for my workshop, three new marketing ideas, a concept for a Silver Vixens event and next month’s article for WomenEntrepreneur.com. Not only all this, but I felt almost electric with creativity and excitement.

There were definitely times I would have loved to explore and play on the computer, but that simply reminds me that I really do need to set some sort of boundaries on computer time. Time spent away is too productive to give in to the allure of e-mails and surfing (oops! I mean research) and playing.

Bill Gates hasn’t accomplished all that he has so far by being dumb or unfocused. Shorten your learning curve and copy his practice of getting away from it all. It was amazing how much I gained.