Today is 23 MAR 2007.  As the first quarter of the new year comes to a close you are probably monitoring pipeline progress as closely as we are.  When you examine the rest of the month do you know how many days you have left to sell?  Does your team?

A breakthrough moment occurred for us some years ago when we starting monitoring this number, and making sure our reps were too.  In case the number was not right in front of you here is some data that will help you maximize selling efforts day-by-day. 

There are 6 selling days left in this month AND in this quarter.

In Q2 there are 64 selling days; 21 in April, 22 in May, 21 in June.
In Q3 there are 63 selling days; 21 in July, 23 in August, only 19 in September.
In Q4 there are 62 selling days;  22 in October, 20 in November and 20 in December.  (if you can get prospects to buy in December)

We started 2007 with 251 selling days available to us.  We have burned through 56 … we have 195 left.  

They say sales is a numbers game; one of the most important may be the time left on the clock.
 
PS - we create a ’sales day’s sticker’ every year.  We post them on our monitors and phones.  We have a stack of extras; if you would like one shoot me an email with your contact info and I’ll happily send you one.

It seems like just about everything is ranked these days. Best dog park, best 10 all night diners, and best sweaty workouts seem to appear weekly in every news outlet. Of course there are also best and worst dressed at the Oscars, what is in and what is out listings, and all manner of ratings of food, song, movies, people, and ice creams that invariably get turned into a ranking by someone. Some rankings matter to those being ranked. Take the BCS in college football, for instance. This matters to the colleges whose post season depends on it. But does it really matter if Indian cuisine is ranked a notch below Thai cuisine by those stopping for gas in Levan?

Higher education used to operate in a world where potential students came to campus, met an advisor, met the professors, took a look at a dorm room, went on a campus tour, and looked at the catalog to see what courses were offered. Potential students weighed programs of study, talked to current students, and looked for a campus that was the right challenge and the right opportunity. There was a sense of prestige associated with each campus, but the rankings were high, good, and they will let me into the program. Mostly, students looked for a “good fit” and an engaging campus experience. The research showed individuals generally matriculated at a campus they had visited, and students were happy with their choices.

It is a totally different world when it comes to applying to college today. First, you can hire a consultant to help you manage the application process. Does this strike anyone who actually went to college as strange? Second, applicants need “a strategy” made up of aspiration schools, target schools, and fallback schools. Looking over the advice on application strategies is strangely reminiscent of the portfolio allocation advice that comes with retirement planning materials. And do not even get me started on the financial planning that needs to accompany the college application process. I hope you started before conception.

There are quality differences across educational institutions, but the differences that matter for students are the programs offered and the range of learning opportunities. But these are not what the rankings measure. Most rankings are devised to sell magazines, who are the great rankings proliferators, and the people doing the rankings have a story to write on deadline, which precludes any type of serious effort to evaluate the actual education offered. So instead of evaluating schools based on actual education offered, the rankings predominantly use “beauty contests” that are little more than asking a bunch of people who do not know the answer what they think. Ask enough people to pretend the results are “significant,” put the data into a statistical meat grinder to produce some variance, and you have yourself a ranking. But of what? And does it matter?

The other twist on this that never ceases to amaze me is when individuals talk about going to a school, taking a job, or pursuing a career based on “prestige.” We talk about these choices as if prestige is something an institution bestows on us. A few years ago I had an epiphany that continues to serve me well: prestige is something an institution gets from me. It is the work I do, my accomplishments, and my dedication that is the institution’s prestige, and I bestow it on the institution every day. The same is true for students who attend any university. “Prestige” is what alumni achieve based on the quality of programs and the educational experience, not something that comes with every sweatshirt sold at the bookstore.

The rankings game is reality for everyone in higher education, and we live with it. But being in the game does not require playing the game. If we focus on providing great programs and an exceptional learning experience, I figure the rankings will take care of themselves. Yes, it is possible to put funding into PR and marketing efforts to affect the rankings, but what does this accomplish in terms of the educational mission of a university? True quality is enduring, it is what matters, and it is what we do in the classroom, not what we put in the brochure.

Picking a college is a major life choice. It is a commitment of a significant chunk of lifetime and a major investment of financial resources. It is a choice that should be informed by an understanding of what the experience is going to be and what the student will learn. It should be about the program and the education, because this is what students take into careers and adult life. I fear for the young person who is picking 12 over 34 for the “prestige” as if the college choice was all about the logo apparel once wears to the gym.

Later.

The recent plane crash with a young couple, leaving behind two small children makes me think how important it is for any parent of minor children to have a Will.  A Will allows you to determine who will be the gaurdians of your children should something happen to you - the decision is yours!  If you die without a Will the court will deceide who will be raising your children and in many cases that decision is fraught with conflict between two sets of grandparents who both love the grandkids and want raise them.  Why let the court make such a decision.

 In Utah it is perfectly legal to hand write a will (a holographic will) if the signature and material portions of the document are in your own handwriting (doesn’t need to be witnessed or notorized).  So at very least, have a hand written document, signed by you that says who will be guardian of your minor children should you die.
 

Right now it’s March and that means my mind is wandering to the important questions of life: Does Florida have the talent to repeat? Can Villanova really go to the Sweet 16? Who will this year’s George Mason be? And since I have been invited to be a part of six different brackets, I’m obviously dedicating a few minutes of today to pondering these questions.
Fortunately, I work at a really cool place. My bosses happen to be huge sports freaks so they encourage us to participate in brackets, and actually have two separate games going on in the office. There’s no cost to enter, but there is a cash prize at the end. Starting Thursday, the conference room will have a game on the flat-screen consistently … until we need the conference room for real work.
The understood March Madness law is that no work gets neglected, no client gets ignored, and no job goes undone. But as long as we’re doing what we need to be doing, why not have a little fun?
The Salt Lake Tribune ran this fact in a recent article: “According to Chicago-based firm Challenger, Gray and Christmas Inc., companies stand to lose close to $3.8 billion in worker productivity during the tournament. The firm estimated companies would lose $4.05 for every 13.5 minutes employees viewed games online rather than tending to their duties.”
This could be a compelling argument for business owners to set strict rules about the tournament, but what my bosses understand is that they have employees who care about March Madness and are going to be paying attention to the games whether or not it’s allowed. They don’t want us sneaking around, calling in sick, taking long lunch breaks to watch the game, or constantly checking the Internet for scores. Plus, the bosses care about the games as much as the employees. So they use this common interest as a chance to connect with their employees, and an opportunity to build company morale. We love March around here. And the winner of the bracket REALLY loves March, and our bosses, who provide cash as a reward at the end of the tournament.
Work is just that: work. But I’m impressed with companies that truly recognize that its employees are its most valuable asset. The most important aspect of public relations – and unfortunately, the most overlooked aspect – is INTERNAL relations. You know, relationships with your employees.
I’m not saying you have to make every day a nonstop party. Obviously you’re in business and that means working hard. But encourage your employees to play hard too. Make sure they have lives outside of the office and you are supportive of those lives.
And at least for the next three weeks, let your employees linger a little longer in the break room to watch a close game, or a top seeded team get upset. Because, let’s face it, you know you want to know the score.

I presented to a community group Friday evening on technology/innovation and economic development, and during the Q&A someone asked a question that used to come up frequently but has fallen off the radar in the past couple of years: What are business schools doing about the terrible state of business ethics in America? During the Enron/WorldCom years, this question came up every time I addressed an group, and I suppose it is making a comeback now because of the options back dating scandals that are in the news.

While public interest seems to change with the latest news, I see a lot that gives me confidence in the future of American business in today’s students. First, they care. The students who are in business school today have a much greater sense of social responsibility than any group I have seen in my 30 years in higher education. There is a recognition of the public leadership role of business leaders, and our students are interested in programs that prepare them for community service. Our Board Fellows Program, which places students in internships with local non-profits, was created by students interested in getting more community experience and has 25 students placed this year. Our non-profit consulting group serves 5-8 non-profits in our community every year by providing business consulting designed to make these organizations more effective in the delivery of services, and we are currently working on a social ventures fund that will help develop sustainable non-profit organizations in our community through the provision of one-time investment capital. And the service learning programs at all the universities in the area are experiencing record student participation.

Second, I think we know a lot more about preparing students for the ethical challenges they are going to face in the course of their careers. Early ethics courses focused on the “rules,” but knowing the rules did not really prepare individuals for the conformity pressures and incremental “legal” activities that often lead to unethical practices in the real world of business.

Seventeen years ago, the David Eccles School of Business took on the challenge of preparing students for business leadership by starting their training with a course that challenges each student to translate personal values into a credo of business conduct that will define their business career. I did a short piece for an alumni magazine that details this approach, and I think it remains timely. Take a look.

Business news was seldom carried on the front page in the past. This has changed dramatically in recent years with one corporate scandal after another. The amounts involved are staggering, and the resulting impact on stock markets and pension accounts has made most Americans innocent bystanders.

The impact of these crimes on how business is conducted is wide ranging. Recent federal laws demand a much greater level of business accountability in financial reporting, and appropriately so. The change in attitudes towards business was captured in a recent movie mini review in Entertainment Weekly: “The Perfect Score. A movie about high school students trying to steal SAT answers. So they can go to business school and learn how to steal millions.” (pg 16, February 6, 2004)

As a business educator, it is bewildering to see business education included among the presumed rotten apples. Still, we do not want to dodge questions about ethics and business education, they are valid and challenge our assumptions about the effectiveness of what we are doing to prepare our graduates for business careers.

“Ethics” in Business Schools

My experience teaching in a number of business schools has convinced me most are getting business ethics wrong. I think the elite business schools might be even worse at teaching this subject than others. One recruiter recently characterized a visit to a prestigious Ivy League business school as a “walk in the Land of the Velociraptors.” It was not a compliment. Students can walk out of an ethics class and not see a connection their next class, even when the organizational behavior case is about corporate fraud.

The core problem is business schools tend to teach business ethics as a set of rules, typically the law. Students too often conclude it is okay to walk the boundary of the law as long as the do no stumble into illegal behavior. This is the opposite of what we want our students to learn, because the boundary of ethical behavior is typically crossed well before one gets to the boundary of illegal behavior.

There has to be a better way.

David Eccles School of Business faculty started struggling with the problem of teaching business ethics about fourteen years ago. As we better understood the failure of traditional approaches to preparing people for ethical leadership, we started to understand two issues we needed to address:

1. In cases of illegal behavior, individuals cross the boundary of unethical behavior long before they start engaging in illegal acts. The difficulty is ethical dilemmas are subtle shades of gray, and the boundaries are hard to see. What our students seemed to need was a much better grounding of their business behavior in personal values and “gut instincts.” This approach is not about externally defined rules, it is about understanding core personal values and how they relate to business decisions.
2. The second feature of ethical business dilemmas is they occur in complex social systems with concentrated authority, distributed responsibility, and diffuse accountability. In many instances of illegal activity, hundreds of people are involved, yet no one raises an alarm. It is in understanding the complexities of “being ethical” when one lacks authority that we found personal attributes like courage, skills like effective dissent, and the importance of career preparation matter, leading to the quip, “Six months salary in the bank is the key to integrity.” There is no textbook on courage. We do not have easy answers when it comes to teaching our students how to act with integrity, but we are asking the right questions.

The David Eccles School did something extraordinary twelve years ago, replacing introductory business with Foundations of Business Thought, a course examining personal values and business practice. David Eccles School students begin their business studies with questions about the community responsibilities of business, the moral obligations of leadership, and market economy values. More than 2,000 students a year take the class, and just 60% are business majors.

The Foundations of Business Thought course now enrolls over 2,500 students a year and 50% are pursuing majors other than business. We were ten years ahead of everyone else on this, and we will be here with the same focus year after year because we know this is the right kind of education for every student who will eventually work in large organizations with a concentration of economic, social, and political power. And as I said in the beginning, I am confident because today’s students care.

Later.

Any business owner should think about doing a cafateria plan, it saves the employer money by reducing their share of payroll taxes (less wages paid out) and it allows employees to pay all their medical expenses (the IRS list of authorized expenses continues to grow and expand) on a pre-tax basis.  These plans are easy to set up, easy to run and definatly worth it for both employer and employee.

I absolutely hated middle school. I was surrounded by beautiful blond girls named Staci and Tiffani and other 80s “i” names. But I was too skinny, wore huge plastic framed glasses, had braces, and didn’t really ever learn how to do make up or hair. I was ugly. And the girls at Herndon Middle School let me know it.

So I anxiously waited to finish middle school so I could get to the stage of life where people don’t write notes about people they don’t really know, don’t push the ugly girls into lockers, and don’t pick on smaller kids. I survived by thinking, if I can only endure school and get to adulthood where people use common sense, and live by the golden rule… Or karma… Or some other philosophy that all adults seemed to understand that made them nicer than teenagers. Yes, adulthood. That would be better.

But here I am, all grown up, and it still feels like middle school. I recently heard a story from a client who had gotten an anonymous e-mail (I’m not making this up, someone actually created a fake e-mail name like somethingyoushouldknow@hotmail.com). In the e-mail, there was a link to a negative web site article about a person this client works with regularly. As he told me about this, my mind wandered back to the time Staci slipped a note into my best friend’s locker telling her that she shouldn’t be friends with me. Staci didn’t sign it, but we knew it was her.

In this situation, my client already knew the fact provided by the anonymous tipster and it had the reverse effect – the client had a good idea of who the sender was and thought it looked pathetic and desperate. But it did get me thinking … where are the adults? I hear all the time that it’s a “dog eat dog” world, but I disagree. Dogs seem more honorable than a lot of business people these days. I think the honest truth is that some of us never grew up and we’ve maintained middle school attitudes.

Don’t get me wrong, I strongly support a competitive marketplace because healthy competition is good for the consumer, and it forces companies to create and offer better products and services. But I’m also an advocate of fair play. Anonymous e-mails? Seriously? Again, where are the adults? What ever happened to “good goes round,” “do unto others,” and qualities such as share, respect, honor? Is adulthood going to be one huge disappointment?

Another notable component of this story is that e-mails are easily tracked. The same way we could tell the note given to my best friend was from Staci by the way she dotted her I’s with hearts, here in 2007 it’s VERY easy to track IP addresses. Who comes out looking worse — the subject of the e-mail or the person who sent it and reverted to juvenile habits, even creating a silly e-mail address?

This story emphasizes that public relations is much broader than media relations alone. Today, anything you say can be used against you. Every memo, every e-mail, every conversation over lunch or in an elevator or behind closed office doors… it’s all public relations. You are defining your own brand by what you tell others and how you treat others. Do you want to be the company or executive who is always verbally attacking and criticizing competition, making enemies with everyone else on the playground? Or shouldn’t you be the company who is involved in the community, has healthy relationships with competition, and uses the industry as a gauge to improve your own product or service offering? The company that people respect.

I think it will be fun to see Staci at our ten-year reunion. I plan on putting on a smile and letting things from the past remain in the past. I’m an adult now. (Besides, I landed a hot husband and will enjoy showing him off … again, I’m a fan of healthy competition!)

A lot of us get so emotionally involved in our jobs that we often don’t step back and look at the big picture. We say negative things about others to help ourselves in the moment, but often end up hurting ourselves in the long run. When we’re tempted to criticize or burn the competition, we need to remember that Salt Lake is a very small market. Word gets around in a small town, and our reputation is our most valuable asset. Unless you’re in the business of making enemies, it’s best to think positively, speak positively and act like adults.

To me, this title essentially sums up everything I want to say in this blog. Yesteday I had a client approach me about possibly helping with online branding efforts, but he was incredibly hesitant because it didn’t deal with newspapers or magazines. I conducted a two minute crash course in PR 101, explaining to him that our agency was equipped to handle any number of projects outside the realm of media relations.

Today on my list of things to do, I am working on developing Web site coby, editing radio ad copy, working on a technical writing project that will be a resource guide for a new software program, and trying to get a client on Oprah. And as of yesterday, I’m working on an online branding project.

Public Relations has endured countless definitions since first being introduced. Here at The Intrepid Group, a huge amount of time is dedicated to media relations (essentially, working to get our clients mentioned in the media in a positive light). But beyond that, we can get involved anytime a company is communicating with a public, whether it’s the media, employees, stakeholders, etc.

If your current public relations strategy is limited to media relations alone, I recommend reevaluating your strategy. PR is MUCH MORE than media relations and your PR person will be thrilled to hear you say it.

I am delighted to see Utah Business announce Jim Sorenson, alumnus of the David Eccles School of Business, as their CEO of the Year. I knew he had been selected and was waiting for the official announcement to comment. Many know Jim’s business accomplishments, and he deserves the recognition based on these alone. But Jim is also active as a supporter of higher education, and higher education for every student in Utah has benefited from his many contributions.

Jim was the founding donor who helped us jump start the University Venture Fund (UVF), surely one of the boldest initiatives in business higher education in this decade. It is easy to see the vision now. Things looked different in 2001 when UVF was a vision staffed with five undergraduate students who did not know how they were going to raise the funds, let alone invest them. Jim immediately caught the vision for a sustainable education program that would provide an extraordinary experience for the students involved, and this is exactly what UVF has become. With $18.3 million in the Fund, our students are partnering with over 40 national venture capital funds, doing some of the best due diligence in Utah, which is what keeps our partners coming back, and achieving extraordinary returns for students and investors. Jim serves on the Board of UVF along with several other community members, and he continues in the role of “holder of the vision.” The success of UVF is a challenge in its own right, and all the Board members, including me, look to Jim as the person who keeps us focused on what the purpose of the fund is: to educate students while making money for our investors.

Jim serves on the advisory board for the Lassonde New Venture Development Center, a program at the University of Utah that brings together science, engineering, and business students to work with university researchers on the commercialization of new technologies. This is tough work, because it is technology looking for markets, and it is not easy to find the right markets and understand how new technologies can create commercial value. This is what business innovation is all about, and very few are good at it. The contributions of an astute businessman like Jim Sorenson are hugely valuable to the student teams associated with the Lassonde Center, both in giving them direction and helping them ask the right questions of the technology and the business.

Given the experience with the Lassonde New Venture Development Center, Jim is partnering with the David Eccles School on a new program that will be announced this spring. This is an exciting development for the University and the Utah business community, but what is most exciting is the innovative concept for providing an educational experience that will benefit students across the universities in the entire state. Jim Sorenson understands the value for business that comes from investing in Utah’s most precious natural resource: our children. Once again, he is providing the risk capital to make a vision of what is possible a reality. We will be announcing this program soon, and I hope to provide details in a future blog.

Jim also serves on the David Eccles School of Business National Advisory Board along with about 60 other friends and alumni. The Board’s focus is providing strategic insight and working to ensure the David Eccles School continues to be one of the world’s best business schools. While the School has a record of achievement and recognition that places it consistently in the ranks of the World’s Best Business Schools as evaluated by publications like the Wall Street Journal and Financial Times, it takes constant innovation and attention to delivery to sustain this ranking. The School’s National Advisory Board makes sure we keep our edge and keep striving to improve our programs every day.

Jim Sorenson is a MVP for the David Eccles School of Business and for higher education in Utah. He dedicates a great deal of time to serving Utah’s students and has served as a visionary investor in supporting new programs that are establishing Utah as an innovator in higher education. Does this matter? Think about national centers of excellence in higher education, which include Boston, New York, Chicago, San Francisco Bay Area, LA, and San Diego. Exciting things happening in these economies? The answer is obvious. Jim Sorenson is a MVP in my book because he is investing in Utah’s future, and he understands innovative higher education is the secret to his success and Utah’s success.

On a day like today (February 27, 2007) when the markets drop about four percent, one wonders what the impact on private companies will be.

First off, I don't want to sound dire because one rational answer to the question is "nothing."  That said, a four percent drop in the stock market is remarkable.  It matters.  I don't know the number, but we are talking many billions of dollars in value lost.  The market value decline of Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) was over $10 billion today.  The Wall Street Journal noted this morning that the sell of in China earlier in the day caused a drop in value of more than $100 billion there; the drop here today was much larger.

With that as context, let me set out a few thoughts that arise on a day like today:

1)  Value:  The value of public stocks has a direct impact on the value of private companies because public companies are the benchmark against which private companies are measured.  Today's drop arguably pushes private company values back about two months.

2)  Access to Capital:  The public markets have not been viewed by many as providing great access to capital for some time.  I've certainly argued that for middle market companies, remaining or going private may represent a better strategy.  The economic news, inlcuding Alan Greenspan's comments that a recession could be in the offiing this year, are more relevant to private companies' access to capital.  While no one should panic, today is a good day to remember that the time to raise money is when you can get it--not necessarily when you need it!