The Great Success Destroyer

March 2020

LEARNED HELPLESSNESS
FRUSTRATION HAS CONSEQUENCES
 

THE GREAT SUCCESS DESTROYER
Learned Helplessness is a condition in which a person suffers from a sense of powerlessness, arising from a traumatic event or persistent failure to succeed. It is thought to be one of the underlying causes of depression.

It’s sneaky. Many people don’t even realize that they live in learned helplessness. Learned helplessness is the feeling of “I can’t” that builds from past experiences or failures.

Common symptoms of learned helplessness include:

• Low self-esteem
• Passivity
• Poor motivation
• Giving up
• Lack of effort
• Frustration
• Procrastination
• Failure to ask for help

Learned Helplessness is far too rampant in one area of operating a small business – marketing.

THE FACTS
Only 40% of small business in the world are profitable. 30% only break even and the other 30% are failing because they are losing money. These numbers would be much different if marketing efforts were more successful across the board.

Marketing that drives profit generating sales - and makes it possible to deliver goods, products and services to people who want to buy them - is tough to master. If marketing were easy, a lot more small businesses would be profitable. If marketing were easy, a lot more small business owner operators would not be eternally frustrated. If marketing were easy, a lot fewer small business owner operator would succumb to life’s greatest temptation, which is to settle for less.

I submit that every small business owner operator has experienced some learned helplessness. And that the principle cause of learned helplessness for small business owners is on-going frustration with marketing.

How does this happen? Here’s an all too common story. Read on please.

First, we have to consider this question. How many small business owner operators do you think have a degree in marketing, either from a community college or a four-year school? I’ll tell you how many – none. That’s right, practically none, or less. In my 40 plus years of business consulting I’ve only met two or three business owners operators with a marketing degree. And I’ve met thousands of small business owners.

Second, we have this question. How many small business owner operators do you think have read a serious book or two on the subject of marketing? Well, probably more than none, but not a lot more. And by read, I mean really read it, studied it thoroughly, and used some of the principles in it. How many? Again, practically none.

So, is it any wonder why so many small business owner operators have problems marketing their goods, products and services? They don’t know what works and what does not. They are literally throwing gobs and gobs of spaghetti on the wall, hoping some of it will stick, only to see most of it fall on the floor. Resources: time and money squandered, again and again and again. That’s frustrating. There’s got to be a fix for this.

Now of course, we cannot expect all the small business owner operators in the world to suddenly take a sabbatical from work and go off to college for a few years to study marketing. Won’t happen. But clearly, we can reasonably expect many small business owner operators to take advantage of books and on-line short courses, seminars and input from experts. There are lots of them.

So why do you think most do not even to that? Two words: learned helplessness. Because of years of frustrating experiences, they don’t believe there are marketing solutions that they can find and use that will produce better sales results and greater business income. They have tried a lot of things, thrown a lot of spaghetti at the wall and - nada. After years of this, they have come to believe they can’t get better at getting good at marketing. That’s learned helplessness. That’s a tragedy.

It’s a subtle trap. It sneaks up on you. It’s hard to see it. And if it gets you, it’s hard to get out.

WHEN IT AIN’T GROWING, IT’S DYING
Successful marketing and efficient fulfillment after a sale has occurred, makes a business grow. It’s never random luck with the spaghetti. When it comes to marketing your business, you must know what works and be able to do enough of what works consistently. That will produce two things, profits and satisfaction. No more learned helplessness. No sir. Learned Success instead.  

It’s better and more nourishing to eat spaghetti than it is to pick it up off the floor. So, refocus your business to make it more profitable.

BE HONEST WITH YOURSELF
If you aren’t where you want to be in terms of sales income in your small business, and you don’t have a crystal-clear path to get there – what are you going to do about that? You think you could use some help?

Even when you know a lot about marketing, it’s the adapting of marketing strategies to an ever-changing world of needs and wants people have that makes marketing work for your business. That’s the tricky part. You might need some outside expert help.

When you know what needs to happen - business gotta grow - but you don’t know how to make that happen, that’s terrible. That needs to stop. And it can. If you are willing to learn about and to then use what is PROVEN TO WORK. And if you can adapt what is proven to work to the circumstances present in your small business operation.

If you think you could use some help with that, we’re ready to help. It’s what we do. 

45 QUESTIONS

Your Free Starter Kit For

Effective One On One Meetings

These questions will go a long way to creating

fierce loyalty and boosting productivity as well.

As a business owner is it vital that you have loyal and productive employees. Obviously and consistently demonstrating your involvement in the success and well-being of every employee is the key. And well run One On One meetings with your people are an essential element in making that happen.

There are 45 questions in the list below. Asking just a few in each One On One will keep things fresh, while ensuring you’re covering important subjects regularly. It will also give you ample time to dive into each question as they often will open up into greater detail as long as you follow up with questions like “What makes you say that?” and “Tell me more…”

Keep track of your conversations in a notebook so you can accurately assess the effectiveness of your conversations and agreements with your people and theirs with you over time. Make it obvious that you are taking notes of your conversations, so they know you are keeping track.

I’ve organized these questions, so you can quickly skim through the list for a question in a topic you want to cover that meeting.

ABOUT GOALS

             1.     What are your long-term goals? Have you thought about them?

             2.     Do you feel like you’re making progress on your big goals here? Why or why not?

             3.     Is there anything blocking you from getting your work done?

             4.     What can I do to help you be more successful with your goals?

ABOUT COMPANY IMPROVEMENT

             5.     In what parts of your work would you like to deepen your skills in or get additional training?

             6.     Do you feel we’re helping you advance your career at a pace you would like?

             7.     What are we not doing that we should be doing so you could be more successful?

             8.     How could we change our team meetings to be more useful to you?

             9.     If you were me, what’s the first thing you’d change?

           10.    Do you think we are loyal to our people? Why or why not?

           11.    Are there any aspects of our culture you wish you could change?

           12.    Which company values do you like the most? Which the least? Why?

           13.    What is the #1 Problem at our company? What do you suggest we do about that?

ABOUT SELF-IMPROVEMENT

           14.    How can I help you be more productive?

           15.    How do you prefer to receive feedback?

           16.    Do you feel you’re getting enough feedback?

           17.    What’s a recent situation you wish you handled differently? What would you change?

ABOUT MANAGEMENT IMPROVEMENT

           18.    What do you like about my management style? What do you dislike?

           19.    Would you like more or less direction from me on your work?

           20.    What could I do to make you enjoy your work more?

           21.    How can I better support you?

           22.    What would you like to know about me?

           23.    Is there a situation you’d like my help with?

           24.    Is there an aspect of your job about which you would like my help or coaching?

ABOUT HAPPINESS

           25.    What worries you?

           26.    What’s on your mind?

           27.    What’s not fun about working here? What do you enjoy most about working here?

           28.    Who are you friends with at work?

           29.    When was the time you enjoyed working here the most?

           30.    What do you feel is your greatest recent accomplishment here?

ABOUT PERSONAL LIFE

           31.    How are you? How is life outside of work?

           32.    How do you feel your work/life balance is right now?

           33.    How do you feel about your current compensation and benefits?

           34.    What’s one thing we could change about work for you that would improve your personal life?

           35.    How are your parents/grandparents? Where do they live?

           36.    If they have children: How is [name of child] doing? (Ask something related to their age like starting school, playing sports, or other interests.)

           37.    What do you like to do in your free time? What are your hobbies?

           38.    What did you do for fun in the past that you haven’t had as much time for lately?

ABOUT WORK HABITS

           39.    What drives you? What motivates you to come to work each day?

           40.    What’s an inexpensive thing we could do to improve our office environment?

           41.    What are the biggest time wasters for you each week?

           42.    What makes you excited and motivated to work here?

           43.    When you get stuck on something, what is your process for getting unstuck? Who do you turn to for help?

VERY IMPORTANT…

These next two questions you must ask in *every* One On One:

           44.    What can I hold you accountable for next time we talk?

           45.    What can I be accountable to you for the next time we talk

BIG TRUE FACT: None of the things you talk about in your One On Ones will matter if you don’t follow through and take action on what you discuss. The last two questions will ensure you always follow through with the important things you discuss in your One On Ones.

Have fun with this and please call if you need any help.

TUNE UP YOUR HABITS
IMPROVE YOUR BUSINESS LIFE

Okay, here we go with another bit of musing for you to consider.

I found this list of 8 habits of highly productive people a while ago and rather like it. I especially like Habit 1 and Habit 6 and 7. 

HABIT 1 says Ruthlessly Cut Away The Unimportant. Here we are asked to get rid of all the unimportant stuff in our lives, stuff that is in no way connected to our goals or to anything that matters.

So if we have a bunch of useless stuff around, well, why? What for? To frustrate us, 'cause that's what it sort of does.

Unimportant stuff takes up space, physical space. But even worse, it takes up mental space and then our thinking is impaired. Who wants that? We need all the mental space we can get - so unclutter we must.

What if you tossed out at least half of the useless stuff you have in your life and in your business? Just get rid of half. That's very liberating. You no longer have to look at it that stuff, move that stuff out of the way, or ever think about that stuff again. It's good riddance.

Now, Habit 6 says Optimize Time Pockets. And Habit 7 says Set Timelines. These are similar to another concept I like called TIME BOXING. Think of it as putting a clock in a box.

In Time Boxing, before you start a task or assignment you decide how long you will work on that, the time when you will actually start and the time when you will finish. You set a timer to beep you when you’ve reached the end of the Time Box.

Then the beep sounds you can stop and move onto something else like you intended. Or if need be, you can reset the Time Box and work on the task some more.

The benefit is obvious. You don’t get lost and work on something, maybe struggle with something for hours – then suddenly realize how much time you were engaged in the activity, perhaps to the determent of other things you had planned to do that day.

And even better, you no longer drive home feeling angry at yourself for “wasting” the whole day on something stupid.

So give these habits a try and see what happens.

Feel free to try the others too if you like ‘cause they’re all good.

And finally please remember this Big Fat Truth:

Nobody can go back to the beginning and make a brand new start. But anybody can start today and make a brand new ending.

If you like this Insight & Strategy stuff - and happen to own a small business - perhaps you would enjoy attending one of our monthly Master-Mind Alliance® meetings.

We're all about planning how to make businesses work better.

And in truth, there is never a good reason to avoid talking about making your business work better.

To attend - if you are in or near Eureka in Humboldt County, CA just call me at 707-268-8691. Or if you are in or near Chico in Butte County, CA just call Graham Skinner at 530-343-4012.

We have active programs in both locations - and like it says below, we have space for you to come see what we do.

ASKING FOR HELP WORKS

NOW WHAT?

This is so very true. If you simply repeat doing what does not now give you what you want, you will only keep getting what you are getting already, more of the same, that result you don’t like. In order to get something different, something hopefully better, you must steer your ship into uncharted territory. Might be scary - but how do you do that even though it is scary and even though you don’t know where to go or how to get there? Well, now you have an interesting problem.

You want something you do not have, and you do not know how to get it. So what’s the strategy for that? It cannot be trial and error, shoot a big gun and hope you hit what you want, because that will probably take a lot of time, waste a lot of resources unnecessarily and perhaps never get you what you want.

Here’s what to do. ASK FOR HELP. That’s right. It’s like the guy who spends all afternoon driving around looking for a street he’s not been on before when if he’d just stopped to ask someone for directions he’d have arrived at his destination in a few minutes. But he doesn’t because he’s reluctant to ask for help. What’s wrong with him? What keeps him from asking for help? Is it fear of feeling embarrassed, admitting he’s lost, what?

The answer to this conundrum is irrelevant; it really does not matter why he does not ask. What matters is how long does the guy wish to stay lost? And what if he never gets to his destination, what are the consequences of that outcome? If he really wants to get to his destination, sooner or later he will have to suck it up and ask for help.

It’s the same for each of us. When we are well and truly stuck, do not know what to do, we must ask for help. And helpful input is always out there somewhere. No matter what the issue, someone has faced something like it before and resolved it. Thirty some years of facilitating the Master-Mind Alliance^® has proved over and over again to me the truth of this fact. There are very few completely unsolvable business problems.

No matter how weird or strange an issue or how pesky and seemingly unresolvable a problem, when a member presents it to the group for input - input flows - most of it helpful. Why does this work? Simple, the one thing you can never give yourself is clear perspective. That must come from outside the inner loop from people who see things you cannot see. That's how asking for help - and getting it - works.

And embarrassment, I’ve never have a seen a business owner crushed with embarrassment for asking what he or she thought was a silly question.

Everyone gets stuck sometimes. Asking for help from helpful people helps. Offering fresh perspective from outside - this is what the Master-Mind Alliance^® is all about.

SHOCKING NEWS

In 11 studies conducted at Harvard University and other places - researchers found that most people would rather electrocute themselves than spend 15 minutes alone in a room with nothing to do but think.

Now the research subjects were not strapped to a death producing electric chair. But all they had in the room with them – in addition to their minds – was a machine for administrating small electrical shocks – which were indeed painful.

In the 15 minute time period, almost two thirds of the subjects gave themselves three or more electric shocks out of sheer boredom – seemingly unable or unwilling to spend a short amount of time exploring their own minds. One man administered 190 shocks to himself rather than just sit quietly with nothing to do.

So what does this mean?

Some would argue that this means that the attention span of the general population is slowly eroding away to non-existence. Why? It seems our addiction to electronic devices like smart phones and television and the allure of computerized media tools such as Facebook and Twitter is causing our attention to dwindle. Simultaneously the non-in-person interaction all these digital options provide makes us crave more stimulation so much – that electric shocks are better than the boredom of silent thought.

Most people seem to prefer to be doing something rather than nothing, even if that something is negative and painful. And sit quietly alone and meditate even for 15 minutes, forget about it.

How far does this go? I know people and you probably do too, who just cannot be still. They are always plugged into their smart phone, constantly interacting with their email, Facebook, Twitter and all the rest. They do this all day long, even during meals. Heaven forbid they miss something. If they check their Facebook and nothing new has been posted since the last time they looked, they feel disappointed and even sad.

The Harvard researchers duly noted that analytical and critical thinking is what defines us as human beings and is an essential skill when deliberating the future or recalling the past. The notion that a startlingly high number of individuals – perhaps the majority of under the age of 40 or so, seemingly now cannot or will not engage in analytical and critical thinking is highly disturbing and does not bode well for the continuation of the human species.

The French scientist and philosopher Blaise Pascal nailed it when he said, “All human evil comes from a single cause, man’s inability to sit still in a room.”

And none other than Albert Einstein wrote, “I fear the day that technology will surpass our human interaction. The world will have a generation of IDIOTS.”

CHALLENGE

See how long you can go without checking your email? How long can you stand having your cell phone switched off? Can you last through one day, a week end? How long can you go without logging onto Facebook, a couple of hours? How addicted are you?

And the acid test, can you sit alone in a room without the television or radio on for 15 minutes and do nothing but think? And if you can do this, do you like it or hate it. How uncomfortable are you without the usual bombardment of electronic stimulation? Would you ever consider sitting quietly alone for 15 minutes once a day as part of the routine of taking care of your analytical and critical thinking skill? Yes or no.

Napoleon Hill wrote the following about thinking. “Every one of us is self-made. The habits that we select and internalize are the component parts of our success composition. Our habits of thought are the most important ones to cultivate first since once control is gained over these, it will be simple to follow the marching orders that we assign to ourselves. By first controlling our thoughts and balancing our emotions, we then can select the most expedient road to our goal in life. In disciplining ourselves to take proper action, we are notifying our ego that we mean business in achieving what we want in life. You cannot take possession of your own mind or direct it to definite ends without a practical system – a system of self-discipline.

So electric shocks or quiet analytical critical thinking, what will it be for you for me and for our society as a whole? Maybe we should learn about this in school. Although by the time kids reach school age these days it might already be too late. They may already be addicted to electronic stimulation. Certainly they have already consumed thousands of hours of television and they probably already have cell phones and a Facebook page. We’re probably doomed.