Today, I drove to my office, parked, took this picture, and then sat there for a few minutes to reflect. I couldn't help but think how great an opportunity this represents. It's not because I plan to buy a pickup truck with a plow and hit the roads. It's because when it is cold and snowy I always think of shutting myself up in a warm, comfortable room and knocking out some important tasks that don't always get noticed during the normal hustle and bustle.

I don't spend a lot of time out by this lake in the first place - most of my time is inside. Yet, with the possibility of doing anything outdoors cut off, I am forced to stay inside. In my mind, this is an opportunity to ignore the distractions the outside world offers and hunker down inside with a hot cup of coffee, a computer, and a list of things I want to get accomplished.

I realize this is mostly psychological. But what if I'm not alone. What if all our customers think the same way? What if the world slows down a bit for them too and gives them a clearer view of their goals - for example, working on new and enticing content for their website? So I did a test. I grouped the total number of users in the system each day (excluding weekends) and overlayed the amount of precipitation. I was curious to see if our users logged in more on rainy or snowy days than dry days. Here's the chart:

Total daily user sessions and precipitation (green is above normal, brown is below normal, blue line is total users).

As you can see, nothing. There doesn't seem to be any correlation to users of our system and the amount of precipitation. Completely random. It was a fun little test, though.

So perhaps others don't think quite like me. Or maybe they do but their first thought isn't to add new content to their website. I would be interested, however, to see if other systems do have a correlation - like Facebook, Twitter, Amazon, etc.

Well, now it's 11 AM and I haven't done anything but write this post. I guess the thought of hunkering down and getting a bunch done is more theory than practice. Time to catch up.

CONFESSION #1: I have cut my own hair for the last ten years.
CONFESSION #2: In 2000, I spent $15 on a hair trimmer kit at WalMart.
CONFESSION #3: If fashion sense was worth a million bucks I would be in a great amount of debt.

And so begins my tale. I travelled to three different hair joints. I call them joints because I don't like admitting that I visited a salon and none of the places I visited are traditional barbers. So here are three joints that vary widely in the quality and level of service offered and the lessons I learned as a result.

Joint #1 - At Home

In a tiny bathroom in a sleepy little village named Broad Ripple the first hairs were cut with a new hair trimming kit from WalMart. A decade of solace had begun.

My hair was as easy as a hair cut could get, aside from just trimming it with a single cut length. I used a size 6 for the top and a size 3 for the sides. Then I trimmed the edges.

Time: about 15-30 minutes
Price: For all purposes - $0 per hair cut. I could factor in the $15 trimmers and divide by use but seriously? That' ridiculous.
Quality: Just ok. The tops and sides were fine but I was never satisfied with the back.
Service: Attention to detail was never an issue but the conversation was often very boring and trivial.

OverallExperienceMeter: 6 out of 10. The cost was right but the outcome was never great.

Joint #2 - Great Clips

http://www.greatclips.com/
This was my "dipping-the-toe"  into paid hair cuts. I set no expectations, other than a decent outcome. My stylist's name was Ebony, a very nice woman who made me feel welcome. We tried carrying conversation but I can only talk so much about the Kardashians and Jerseylicious (and that's very little). Not really my bag.

Time: 10 minutes (including wait)
Price: $18 = $13 cut + $5 tip
Quality: Good. Ebony cut my hair just like I asked and fixed the problem area I always had trouble with.
Service: Not bad. Just a normal hair cut. She threw on some talcum power without asking and then I smelled like that for the rest of the day. There was also very little cleanup so I had hair bits everywhere.

OverallExperienceMeeter: 5 out of 10. I'm giving this a lower grade for several reasons. I basically paid $18 for someone to fix the one area I couldn't do well myself. Ebony did a great job within her boundaries so this is not a knock against her at all.

Joint #3 - i.d.entity hair design

http://idhairdesign.com/

I was referred to i.d.entity by Adam Brand, our VP of Creative and Client Services. This is the place he goes. The only difference is that Adam has a lot of hair that you can do something with. I have pre-balding, "salvage what you can" hair. Nonetheless, I took him up on his referral and made an appointment with Laura.

I'll admit, I was a little nervous because I knew Laura was going to ask what I wanted. It's probably the same feeling I had when my wife drug me to Joann Fabrics and asked me what I thought about different fabrics. If there is a word for me it is "nonfashionable" or the phrase "unable to consider, qualify, create, analyze, comment, or otherwise provide any valuable input on anything related to fashion."

So, Laura asked, "What are you looking for?" Oh, boy. There it is. My response was simply, "This is what I've done for 10 years and I need you to tell me what to do to make it better." And then Laura took command. She explained a lot of different things to me that likely resulted in many blank stares. "Ok", I said.

Time: 45 minutes (including my 3.5 minute drive)
Price: $56 = $26 cut + $10 tip + $20 hair stuff (I guess she was a good salesperson)
Quality: Very good. Better hair style that resulted in at least a few comments of "That is much better"
Service: Excellent. It's hard to beat two shampoos, a scalp massage, and a straight razor shave. Plus she talked about baldness prevention (which in my family is a good thing). Great conversation and the fact she was able to quickly and easily take control and make recommendations was what I needed.

OverallExperienceMeter: 9 out of 10. I would give it a 10 but I'm still in shock on the price tag. Average cost going forward, though, will be about $36 (which includes free maintenance trims).

Insight Gained from Experiences

So, here's the lesson learned that you might be able to project into your own customer adventures. In my case, I already did an ok job with the hair cut myself. Great Clips was never going to win because I couldn't justify spending $18 on fixing only one problem area with a mediocre level of service. I was ok dealing with it for free. If I was going to make a change my experience had better improve dramatically. That is exactly what i.d.entity provided. I will adjust to the new budget over time and will probably grow accustomed to the service and not want to return to the days of do-it-yourself.

Solving big problems is easy but if you think about your own prospects and customers they might be in the same position as I was. They might have a few small problems and be doing something themselves that is good enough. Whatever service or product you are pitching to them must exceed their needs by not only solving the small problems but drastically improving their experience overall.

Convincing do-it-yourselfers to use your service or product requires a leap of faith. If you make the promise of exceptional quality and results you had better deliver.

1. Once it is built, sell it. This is fairly obvious but there are some OCD aspects to me that lead me to improvement after improvement. The problem is, those minor improvements won't sell any better than the first revision. They may improve the user experience and keep them from calling all the time for support but there has to be a stopping point and that has to be early. Once you get a few new accounts then make your tweaks and sell some more. Once you get a few more accounts, make some more tweaks and then get back to selling. Wash, rinse, repeat.
   
   Don't make my mistakes of washing.... then washing again..... and, oh crap, there's a little dirt still there so wash again.... rinse a little... wash some more.... rinse a little bit more. You get the point. In late 2008, I presented to a group of investors and the number one comment was "I'm sure you can build great software but I just don't feel you have the sales and marketing leadership." Wash... then rinse.... rinse... rinse.... rinse....
    
2. Don't reinvent the wheel. Several years back, rather than spending several hundred dollars per month on a CRM, we decided to build our own. Why not? We're fast, efficient developers and could build the core functionality within a week. The problem came once we started needing more. We got to a point where everyone hated the system and we were too busy to make necessary changes.We failed. I was told once by a man wiser than me that you shouldn't build an application or tool if one exists that is good enough. It doesn't have to be perfect. That advice made me ditch the tool and start using Salesforce.com.
3. Hire a bookkeeper. I am guilty of this until today because until today I managed all receivables myself. I just couldn't separate with this because I didn't want to pay someone something that I feel needs intimate knowledge of our customers and processes. But then again, needing intimate knowledge of customers and processes isn't very scalable. We did use a firm for all of our accounts payable and balancing but that didn't happen until I was in business for 8 years. Think of all the time I could get back had I simply paid someone to do the bookkeeping. My sole number one job is to figure out how to feed the funnel - not so much how to sort it out once its in there. Feed that funnel!
4. Always nurture your clients. This seems incredibly obvious - give your clients the love and attention they deserve. You'd be surprised, though, how quickly you can take this for granted. Clients can be demanding and you become less and less available (especially if you're doing your own books and building software that already exists). If you can't adequately give your clients the attention they need then you need to establish a system that helps accomplish that.
   
   As you grow your business, though, it will be impossible to be right there, a phone call away, for all their immediate needs. They will still expect that and will very likely complain a bit that you're not as available as you used to be. Don't fret, though. This is the time to have a quick conversation with them explaining how you desperately want to provide them the same level of personalized service - but because your business is growing and doing so well (much thanks to their early business) you have a slightly modified way of getting the immediate help they need. A simple phone call will help alleviate their frustration and establish a new acceptable path for them to get what they need.
5. Bring on the right partners. This is interesting because tomorrow I'm attending an Executive Roundtable put on by Katz, Sappler & Miller titled "The Art of Convicing Brilliant People to Jump Off a Cliff." Building your company requires you to hire brilliant people - probably much smarter than yourself. In early 2006, I brought on two fantastic partners to help get Marketpath's CMS initiative off the ground. These two provided all the expertise and skill needed to build a killer application. The problems started happening later, though, when our own networks were exhausted of sales leads and business life became a bit stagnant.
   
   Our very first sale went something like this, "This is great! We'll take it for all of our websites and we'll need a 5 year contract term." We did the math and that would have been nearly $200,000 for our first sale ($40,000 per year)! We were on cloud nine. Unfortunately, it wasn't quite that simple. We did end up with about $20,000/yr for that first sale, though and they are still a great client.
   
   We kept it up after that for about 6 months. Then we began the downward trend. We still brought on new accounts but not a rate quick enough to cover all the time we spent developing the application. And we all spent way too much time developing and not enough time selling (notice the recurring theme?).
   
   The point is this. Partners come in all different flavors. I've had several and I'm still happy with my choices. You have to be prepared, though, for the time when those partners have exhausted their capabilities and you need new talent to bridge the gaps. When you bring on partners to help you build your company make sure they fit your needs now but can also grow into whatever future needs may arise. But they won't be a one size fits all and you shouldn't expect them to be.