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Current communication technology allows us and our customers to use our tools from practically anywhere.. Using technology that didn’t exist a few years ago, it sets up joint auctions be

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(Continued)

employee receives an easy-to-interpret warning The employee

can see which node is giving the problem, suggestions on how it

might be solved, and a list of phone numbers to contact to

dis-cuss these potential solutions In many cases, the operator taking

your disgruntled service call can truthfully let you know the

problem has been identified, addressed, and solved

In a recent conversation I had with founder and president Tim

Bolden, he described for me what technology has meant for his

company:

Technology has been an enabler for us Without it, a company

our size could never attempt what we have accomplished.

Ten years ago, we would not have been able to build iGLASS.

The cost of the communication lines alone would have been

pro-hibitive to a company our size Now with low-cost cable modems

and virtual private network devices, we can build a nationwide

network very inexpensively Current communication technology

allows us and our customers to use our tools from practically

anywhere I can access our system in my pajamas at home.

Network operation centers have traditionally been the

do-main of large corporations with lots of money, lots of

equip-ment, and lots of people We have been able to use technology to

accomplish the same thing with a minimal investment, limited

equipment, and only a few people.

I love this story It clearly shows what is really happening out

there with technology A product that has been with us for only a

few years (digital cable) has quickly reached a point where service

levels have become an issue The really smart guys at iGLASS saw

the emerging need before any others and set about building a

so-lution Folks, I’ve seen the solution and while I’m no cutting-edge

engineer, I honestly believe I could work in a service role for the

company The easy-to-see, simple-to-understand interface makes

most problem resolution a snap That’s what technology offers:

not more complications but, instead, more elegant solutions

TLFeBOOK

exceed customer expectations is truly new I also know

com-panies that literally could not have existed until recently I have

worked with a company called iGLASS Networks This

seven-employee firm has managed to take a previously complicated

problem and, through technology, find a simpler, more

ele-gant solution (See A Finger on the Pulse—From Anywhere.)

Consider what the following Inc 500 companies were able

to do first:

• CourtSmart Digital Systems installs systems in

rooms that allow lawyers and judges to leave the

court-room carrying a DVD of the day’s proceedings They also

created a digital system to allow police to record

interro-gations and polygraphs With 18 employees, the

com-pany generated $4.4 million in revenue in its last

reported calendar year

• Microtek uses technology to set up a complete

out-sourced training center for companies, handling

registra-tions, printing of manuals, and other logistics through a

web interface With 60 employees, the company

gener-ated $14.5 million in its last fiscal year

• CityXpress is a Canadian company that has its main sales

office in Seattle Using technology that didn’t exist a few

years ago, it sets up joint auctions between 200

newspa-pers and local business owners The owners get

advertis-ing credit for selladvertis-ing extra inventory, the papers get a cut,

and CityXpress gets paid a fee Through technology,

everybody wins The company went from 12 to 45

em-ployees in two years, with several hundred percentage

points in revenue and profit growth

I’m not going to go into all the ways technology can help

you save money and do your job better Frankly, you can only

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do that yourself However, I do want to point out that you no

longer have a financial excuse for not using information

tech-nology to your advantage Off the shelf, for a few hundred

dollars or less, you can buy top-tier software programs to

manage your accounting, web page design, documents, and

other day-to-day tasks You can subscribe to online services

that do a great job of salesforce management, supply chain

management, auctioning of unsold inventory, payroll,

tar-geted mailings, or most any other function the big guys are

doing You can buy a box the size of a briefcase that uses

so-phisticated voice recognition to route your phone calls—even

sending them to a designated cell phone

Technology allows you to innovate There are literally

thou-sands of private enterprises out there using technology to

cre-ate businesses that couldn’t have existed a few years ago I’m no

psychic, but I can promise you the same thing will be

happen-ing a decade from now, only faster Fast-growhappen-ing companies are

now offering customized services or products They’re drilling

down into data to find the perfect customer fits for their tiny

niche They’re creating new partnerships to meet customer

de-mands In short, they’re using new technology to do what they

have always done even better Perhaps most importantly,

lead-ing companies are sendlead-ing the right message to the right

prospects at the right time Technology enables growth

The key is figuring out what your real business is and then

riding those waves of creative destruction wherever they lead

Figure out what your solution is—not what your product or

service is Then offer that solution, whatever the means of

de-livery turns out to be

BECOME AN EXPERT, OR HIRE ONE RIGHT NOW

To take advantage of all this, however, you need to be an

ex-pert You need to know what’s out there, what works, and

TLFeBOOK

what can help your business You need to know what is on the

way and how it is going to create obstacles or opportunities in

the future No matter what business you are in, you have to

become a technology expert

The best way I know to become an expert is to fully

im-merse yourself in technology as it relates to your business and

industry Really talk to the technology vendors at the next

trade show—not just the salespeople but also the

behind-the-scenes product developers who build the solutions or

applica-tions Find out who writes the technology columns in your

trade publications and become their friend Offer them

valu-able insights into how your business is looking at technology,

and then, perhaps, they can offer a unique perspective on

other areas that might warrant your attention Journalists like

this are dying for someone like you to call You can even invite

a professor from the local community college to use your

company as a case study for a business, computer science, or

engineering class

If you truly can’t get your hands around it and understand

it, hire someone who can be that expert and can explain it to

you regularly in terms that make sense Your company needs

to be on top of the tech trends that are shaping your industry

In Chapter 4, when talking about superior market

intelli-gence, one of the things you are going to be looking for is

dis-ruptive technologies affecting other industries, geographies,

and even individuals

This doesn’t mean you adopt every new gadget that comes

along or that you are always on the bleeding edge of what’s

being pushed into the marketplace Plenty of companies spent

millions on things such as fancy CRM software, only to find

they didn’t have the internal processes or people in place to

re-ally use it Or even worse, they didn’t have the internal

exper-tise to interpret the data the software produces The money

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Who Won? Who Lost?

The history books love to talk about winners and losers Let’s look

at the ripple effect some past disruptive technologies created

THEAUTOMOBILE

As the automobile reached critical mass, it literally transformed

America It led to highways, suburbs, travel destinations,

shop-ping malls, and a general spreading out of cities and towns

• Who won? Homebuilders, road builders, steel makers,

rub-ber companies, the lawn care industry, oil refiners, tourist

attractions, big box retailers, convenience stores, and states

such as Florida and California

• Who lost? Trolley car makers, railroads, corner grocery

stores, downtown department stores and movie theaters,

milk and potato chip deliverymen, and much of the

North-east and Midwest

REFRIGERATION

When commercial and then consumer refrigeration technology

came along, the whole food industry was transformed

• Who won? Industrial food processors, fishermen, fruit

im-porters, packaging companies, and appliance makers

• Who lost? Local farmers, retail butchers, ice delivery

com-panies, icebox makers, and anyone else who lost their share

of the local stomach

THEWORLDWIDEWEB

In just 10 years, the Web went from a novelty to something

that pervades our lives Its impact hits a wide swath: research,

shopping, supply chains, marketing, customer relations, financial

(Continued)

TLFeBOOK

management, communication, media, entertainment, and manymore.

• Who won? Anyone who saw the potential, but the big ner so far has been the consumer

win-• Who lost? Old-guard middlemen, anyone who reacted tooslowly, and anyone whose business was based on sole access

to information: travel agents, insurance agents, car dealers,newspapers (especially classified ads), and encyclopediapublishers

You could run this little exercise in your head for a long list ofdevelopments Imagine what happened when steel, fuel oil, elec-tricity, plastic, or air conditioning came along For the businessyou are in, look for what could rock your cozy world and beready to adapt

would have been better spent on hiring the right people and

training them well By being an expert, however, or having a

talented one at your disposal, you will know what your

busi-ness can take advantage of and what is just a distraction

SEE THE SIGNS

In the new millennium, your future depends on your

recogni-tion of disruptive technologies You’re not going to have 10 or

20 years to change course You might have 2 years, 10 months,

or 20 days Information circles the globe in a nanosecond, so

competitive innovations of any kind will enjoy a shorter and

shorter time frame

As I mentioned before, the Web has been in our lives for only

10 years or less, depending on when we each first logged on

Look at how radically some industries have been transformed

during that time I mentioned a few industries before, but here

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Low-Tech Innovation

Henry Ford, Thomas Edison, Steven Jobs: All of these names are

synonymous with the advancement of modern technology But

technology alone never would have made these people

success-ful It was their uncanny knack for innovation that really led to

their unprecedented success and icon status Ben Franklin

fa-mously harnessed the power of electricity, but it took more than

a century before anyone found an innovative way to make a buck

from it I submit to you that these American icons should be

re-membered as innovators, not technologists When evaluating any

technology, the prudent growth-oriented small business owner

should have marketable innovation as his or her goal

To me, no one better personifies innovation than a Chicago

baker named Jimmy Dewar In the fall of 1930, Dewar noticed

that the stack of shortcake pans resting in a corner of his bakery

was used only a couple of months a year But on that day, Dewar

didn’t see just a stack of pans He saw an opportunity

Dewar mixed together a pan full of sponge cake and sent it

through the oven He mixed up some crème and stuffed the cake

with a core of the fresh filling On a fall day in 1930, Jimmy

Dewar took a pile of idle assets and created an American icon

If you don’t think that’s innovative, ask one of the people who

ate one of the half billion Twinkies produced last year

To start thinking like a Jimmy Dewar, ask yourself the

follow-ing questions:

• What are my current assets?

• How can I use them in new and better ways?

• Is there anywhere my existing assets can streamline my

are more: book publishing, consumer retail, employment

ad-vertising, software, direct marketing, dating services,

advertis-ing, the recorded music industry, movie rentals, and package

delivery Within companies, the Web is influencing inventory

control, shipping practices, employment screening, financial

reporting, and a dozen other factors

Most observers, even in the small business world, have been

predicting this for years A study titled The Future of Small

Business, authored in 1999 by Dr Richard W Oliver, had the

following quote in the executive summary:

While new opportunities created by technology seem limitless,

some small firms, particularly those resistant to innovation, are

threatened by these changes The rapid pace of change associated

with computerization and the Internet will force smaller firms to

Jimmy Dewar innovated with technology available to mostany other baker at that time There was nothing special about hisparticular oven or his brand of pastry gun It was a new way oflooking at his existing technology that led to this revolutionarynew product

When considering your existing assets, leave no stone turned because nothing is too sacred, too special, or too perfectthat it can’t be improved on—even the Twinkie

un-Just ask Chris Sell, a Brooklyn, New York, restaurateur who afew years back decided to batter-coat one of Dewar’s creationsand deep fry it His result: hour-long lines of people wanting topay $3 a pop for a deep-fried Twinkie Terrible for our arteries,perhaps, but a great innovation for Mr Sell

So keep your eyes open With a little ingenuity, innovation can

be a piece of cake

THE 7 IRREFUTABLE RULES OF SMALL BUSINESS GROWTH

164

change even more effectively in the next 10 to 15 years

Adapt-ability, willingness to change, and the ability to execute are the

mantra for the Internet era.

Looking back now, it seems unbelievable that anyone

run-ning a business didn’t see this coming It was like a big, fat,

hairy monster stomping through Main Street, U.S.A., crushing

buildings in its wake, shouting, “Look at me! Look at me!”

Watch for the signs, so you’re not the guy taking a nap on a park

bench, about to be stomped on, who says, “What monster?”

At the beginning of this chapter, I tried to discourage any

preconceived notions of what this technology chapter was

going to be about I hope that I provided you with at least a

slightly new and broader perspective on a topic that has been

discussed ad nauseam in the past few years Much of this has

more or less been said before, perhaps more directly by some

and even more eloquently by others My goal was to plainly

outline a macroview of what technology means for you, in my

humble opinion, from one small businessperson to another

My big point is this: The role of technology in the human

condition cannot be overstated It has been with us since the

dawn of civilization, and it will be even more pervasive in our

near future Don’t allow the endless cycle of hype and

disillu-sionment, boom and bust, and trial and error dissuade you

from fully immersing yourself in technology for the growth of

your business, growth of your employees, service of your

cus-tomers, and, ultimately, growth of you as an innovative leader

If you take one thing away from this chapter, it is this:

Watch for the coming waves of technological innovation, and

learn how to ride them Over the next 10 years, regardless of

your chosen field of endeavor, technological advancements

will be more pervasive and impactful than ever before Learn

how to evaluate and implement these opportunities quickly,

and assume that these tools are only temporary

TLFeBOOK

SU G G E S T E D NE X T ST E P S

1 Review the opening henequen story Determine how this

les-son per tains to your business Be sure to use the words status quo and changing technology.

2 Invite a number of hardware, software, and telecom firms tovisit your business, and ask them to propose a way to save youmoney In par ticular, ask them to look for mundane tasks thatshould be automated but currently are not

3 Identify one or more exper ts who can assist you in your nology education

tech-4 Become the exper t on how wireless technology will impact abusiness like yours

5 Look at your existing tools and technology (not just tion technology) Consider innovating in those areas in whichyour existing technology is underutilized

RULE 6:

A TTRACT AND K EEP

THE B EST AND

THE B RIGHTEST

You’re only as good as the people you hire.

—Ray Kroc

Since I have become a business growth expert, one question

always comes up in media interviews: “What is the number

one issue facing small business today?” When I first declared

myself a growth expert, my answer was simply “money.” It was

accurate because that was small business’s perception in the

go-go days of the mid-1990s The economy was really

begin-ning to boom, opportunities abounded, and small business

owners felt that the number one barrier to growth was access

to capital to fuel expansion

Now we are all a little wiser Like most small business

own-ers today, I now realize that the number one issue facing small