Rich Christiansen – Parallel Entrepreneur, Entrepreneurial Expert

The Five-minute Whiteboard

One of the powerful tools I use in my business is The Five-minute Whiteboard.  This is designed to ensure that everyone on the team knows which of our tasks are the 20 percent that will result in 80 percent of the results.  It works for a team of up to seven or eight members. 

I’ve installed a huge white board in our office.  We write each team member’s name across the top with a different color of marker.  In our staff meetings, each person then brain dumps everything they have to do during the coming week.  It doesn’t matter whether it is a small little thing or a really big thing—we list everything.  After everyone has listed their tasks, they then put an “A” “B” or “C” next to each task to give it a priority (“A” for vital, “C” not so much). 

We then all stand back and look over the board.  We’re then able to see that if this person doesn’t get something done, this other person won’t be able to get her highest priority done. We also discuss if items need a higher priority or if they are not really that important.

As the week goes on, each team member crosses off completed tasks.  They also have the ability to write on someone else’s list.  If there is a task anywhere on the board that is critical to you, you can increase its priority.  I have even put big red circles around someone’s task, letting them know that it is getting to be a hot potato in the business and that they need to deal with it.  When one team member’s list is getting shorter, they’re expected to help someone else with their list and cross off items.

There are three very powerful functions this Five-minute Whiteboard fills:

1. Instantly, everyone on the team knows what the critical tasks are for the week.
2. The team knows when someone is overburdened, and they can help him or her out.  If John has 15 “A” items on his list, the rest of the team knows not to dump more onto him.  If Matt only has a few smaller items, he knows he must help John.
3. It provides accountability and transparency in the organization, which ensures that everyone is actually producing and being effective.

I have found that the Five-minute Whiteboard is the most powerful when we do it on a Friday afternoon rather than first thing Monday morning.  This allows everyone to subconsciously begin thinking through their task lists so that on Monday morning they are geared up and ready to attack.

Recently, I witnessed yet one more example of how effective our five minute white board is.  We had a situation where we had a large shipment that had been stalled due to some shipping infrastructure issues.  As a result we had $150,000 worth of merchandise just sitting in our warehouse waiting to be shipped—and holding up our cash flow.  The day finally came when the truck was able to come, but he showed up two-and-a-half hours earlier than scheduled.  Loading this truck and getting this shipment off was an “A+” item on our warehouse manager’s list.  When the truck showed up early, not one word was said.  Everyone on the team just got up, put on their coats and gloves, and went out into the cold parking lot to help Cameron load the truck.  Everyone knew this shipment was critical to our business and essential to the cash flow.  Everyone understood and was in tune with the environment of the company.  That is the power of the Five-minute Whiteboard.

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Now that you’ve started bringing in some cash and adding resources, your organization is going to need more structure and discipline.  As you add more flesh to the bones of your infrastructure, you’ll need to work on making consistent progression.  This will require that you build on what you have learned so far as you have been driving to profitability.  In some cases, those will be lessons you haven’t even realized you’ve learned.

Building processes for your organization is vital to your short-term and long-term viability.  It’s a step that often gets left out as you head toward your beacon in the fog, but I’ve been convinced of its importance since I was a little kid mowing lawns.  After I had acquired a few lawn mowers and convinced my brothers and friends to mow lawns for me, I had to teach them the processes that had made me successful in the first place.  Here are the steps I took each and every time I mowed a customer’s lawn:

1. Present yourself well. I would tuck in my shirt and wipe the sweat and dirt off my hands and face before knocking on the customer’s door with a big smile on my face and saying, “Hello, I am here to mow your lawn today.  It will take me about an hour and a half. Is now an okay time?”
2. Clear the lawn. Before mowing a lawn, I looked it over carefully and removed all the balls and junk.  I picked up any dog mess, trash or anything else that may be on the lawn.
3. Trim the lawn. I used the trimmer to trim around the entire edge of the lawn before I began mowing.
4. Check the oil in the lawn mower
5. Check the gas in the lawn mower and make sure the tank is full.  I only put gas in the lawn mower while it was on the sidewalk so that I didn’t kill any grass if I spilled.
6. I went to the center of the lawn and picked a point straight across the lawn.  Then I shot for a straight line.  Everyone likes nice straight lines better than random tire marks across their lawns.
7. I followed the wheel patterns through the entire lawn to keep all of the lines straight.  If the lines got off, I corrected them.
8. I emptied the grass bag before it got full so that clumps of grass would not spill out on the lawn.
9. After mowing, I cleaned up the lawn and yard.  I raked any grass or debris that was left on the lawn and blew or sweep the sidewalks off.  Everyone likes their yard to look neat and clean after the grass is mowed.
10. I respectfully invoiced the customer.  I wiped the sweat off my face and the dirt off my hands and knocked on the customer’s door.  I then handed them the invoice for mowing the lawn and put a piece of candy or a package of seeds with it as I thanked them for the opportunity of mowing their lawn.

This process example may seem rather elementary, but I had to mow a lot of lawns before I learned that it took a lot less time and the lawn looked much neater if I trimmed the edges before I mowed.  I also learned that when I was having other people mow lawns for me, they all wanted to do it their own way.  But I knew that my customers had hired me to mow their lawns because they knew they would have straight lines and they would like the way their lawn looked after it was mowed.  They also loved that I gave them a packet of seeds or a piece of candy as my signature when I finished.  So, I had to document the processes and teach these things to my employees so they would know what my customers expected. 

My wife worked for Kentucky Fried Chicken while she was a teenager.  They have a list posted to the wall above the biscuit machine detailing the exact steps for making their delicious, fluffy biscuits as well as other lists detailing each step in making their chicken and every other menu item.  This keeps the consistency and quality that is expected each time a customer goes to eat at any KFC.

I used to love to eat at a regional fast-food restaurant that sells delicious chicken and rice bowls.  But one time when I went there, the dish I was served did not taste the same.  I commented to the person at the counter, “Something tastes really weird in my chicken.”  He said, “Oh, yeah, our normal supplier was out of the chicken we normally use, so we had to use different chicken today.”  I thought this was just a fluke, so I went back the following week.  This time the chicken tasted much spicier than usual, and it was even worse than the previous week.  I mentioned it to the guy at the front again and he said, “Yes, we had to try an even different supplier this week.”  I went back a few more times, but each time the chicken was different.  Not surprisingly, this franchise went out of business not long after, and now I have to drive thirty miles to get the chicken and rice that I love.  Whatever the size or complexity of your business, processes matter!

In zag number 2, you have to document the processes that led to your initial success.  You need to put these into bite-sized processes that other people can follow.  That is why I instructed my employees to trim the grass before they mowed the lawn and to put the gas into the mower while it was on cement so as to not kill the grass.  I had made all these mistakes and had learned from them, so I institutionalized what I had learned.

As you document your processes, remember to learn from the mistakes you made driving to profitability.  Documenting what not to do is as important as documenting what to do.  You want to have something in place that makes people think twice about making the same mistakes, and it will help if you have already proven what doesn’t work. 

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I have to share an interview I did with an incredibly smart and entertaining entrepreneur, Andrew Lock. When he started the interview by asking me questions about which types of hamburgers I preferred, I knew I was in for some fun. After all, on Lock’s site it says his show, Help My Business Sucks “…has become more popular than a supermodel at a Catholic boarding school.”

But don’t let all these jokes fool you–Andrew is a brilliant entrepreneur who has been at it since he was a kid. Anyone can watch his free, weekly Web TV show. Learn about starting a business, running a business, marketing, and more. Or as Lock says learn to “get more done and have more fun.”

I’d love for you to watch this interview where Andrew Lock and I discuss business, being an entrepreneur, bootstrapping, and of course–The Zig Zag Principle. We even talked a bit about which cookie reigns supreme. Please enjoy the interview and come back again to for the next episode of this wildly popular show, Help My Business Sucks.

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Tomorrow is the big day.

Tomorrow is Tuesday, October 4th and it’s the day the books, my books, hit the shelves.

This is the day I wondered about before I decided to write the book. This is the day I dreamed about back at the beginning of the project. This is the day I longed for a few months ago when we were in the thick of things. This is the day that marks an important zig in my path. And now…this is the day I’m going to enjoy and celebrate. I will enjoy this day knowing that this book, The Zig Zag Principle, is the best I have to offer.

Over the past several months, via my blog, I have published excerpts from the book. I have shared zigzagging examples from my businesses. I have highlighted some of my favorite zigzaggers both public and private. Today I’d like to share The Zig Zag Principle book trailer.

I’d also like to invite everyone to participate in the events we have lined up in conjunction with the book launch. We’ve planned Webinars, speaking events, and we’re holding a big launch party in a couple weeks. I’d love for you to join our celebration. Releasing a book is a crazy and fun experience. Wish me luck, and let’s have a blast.

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The name Zig Ziglar may sound like one I made up for a Zigzag Principle mascot, but it’s actually the name of a man who took 16 years of zigzagging to steadily reach his goal of becoming a motivational speaker.

Ziglar started out working as a salesman before he even realized he wanted to become a motivational speaker. However, when he heard his first professional speaker give a speech, he was instantly hooked and knew that was what he wanted to do for work. He identified his beacon in the fog.

Ziglar was wise! He knew that he could not quit his job and put his family at risk so he could pursue his dream. He knew it would be unacceptable for him to make it to his beacon in the fog without his family, and he understood that he had some big barriers to overcome before even achieving that goal was possible.

Instead, Ziglar worked for 16 years, zigzagging back and forth to get the experience he needed to reach his goal. He persistently maintained financial profitability by working in sales while gaining skills so he could reach his beacon in the fog. I don’t doubt that he faced many great trials in this long series of zigs and zags.

Yet in the end, it indeed paid off. Now Ziglar is not a solitary speaker trying to keep cash flow steady in his business, but instead he is a very successful motivational speaker with a thriving business. That expanded business may not have been part of his original beacon in the fog; however, he kept moving once he achieved his original goal.

Though I admit I’m a little sad someone else has a claim on such a great zigzagger name, I have to respect the constant determination it must have taken Ziglar to keep steadily building his skills and reputation to become what he is today. It’s an amazing accomplishment to build not just a business and see it become everything you hoped it would, but to build yourself into what you’ve wanted to be for 16 years.

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One of the key elements in a business is recognizing trends and then knowing how to ride the wave to help your business succeed. Indeed, many businesses fail because they do not adapt quickly or intelligently enough to the changes in an industry. Zigzagging helps keep you take advantage of trends. It also helps you learn to recognize when to jump on a trend and let it take your business to new and exciting places. The book industry has learned to ride the technology wave and adapt like few others have.

Though books have been around for centuries, the advancement of consumer technology posed both a threat and opportunity to the industry. Instead of insisting that people would prefer to hold physical copies of books, Amazon in particular (one of the largest book retailers in the world) jumped on the wave with the Kindle in 2007. And now Amazon sells more ebooks via the Kindle than it does paperbacks on its original website!

What would have happened if Amazon kept driving to its goal of selling books as defined by a limited view of what makes a book? It would still be fighting an ongoing trend that has impacted the world, especially with the advent of the iPad. Instead, Amazon is not only able to keep selling Kindles, but it sells ebooks through Kindle apps on iPads, iPhones, Androids and other competitors.

This continual drive to ebook profitability has enabled Amazon to try something new with the Kindle Fire. Though I prefer my iPad, the Kindle Fire tries something new for tablets by being both comparatively very inexpensive and focused.

Only time will tell how successful this new zigzag will be for Amazon, but think of how you can use the trends in your industry to boost your own business. Then, before that trend dies away, make sure you find another trend to harness, like the Kindle jumping onto the tablet trend. By making strategic, intelligent zigs and zags, you can dance among the trends to keep your business thriving. 

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