Month: July 2022

Crippled CEO Blog #145:

Dr. Robert Lyons invented and sold the only pool alarm that I’ve ever been a fan of — the Safety Turtle. It features a wrist band the child wears that sets off an alarm inside the house if it gets wet. 

My company, Life Saver Pool Fence, offers these alarms. 

When Dr. Lyons sold his company to its new owner, he suggested to them that they continue to give us favorable pricing even though we didn’t purchase a lot of units. 

The reasoning he gave was such a genius concept, worded so succinctly, that I’ve never forgotten it. 

He told them: “They sell more than they buy.”

At first glance, this makes no sense. How could we possibly sell more of their products than we buy?

And then I got it. 

We love Safety Turtle, so we push it — hard. We rave about it on our website and our social media channels. When I am on the news getting interviewed about drowning prevention, I recommend it by the brand name. We give out Safety Turtle literature at trade shows and events. 

My company isn’t a big customer for them, but we do a ton to promote the brand. We sell more than we buy. 

I think about this with my own business all the time. We, too, have customers who sell more than they buy — customers who don’t purchase a lot of pool fence, but promote and support us at every opportunity. 

It’s a lesson that sometimes you need to look beyond the numbers on the P&L or the balance sheet to see the true value of something. 

Employees work this way, also. Maybe she isn’t your best performer, and her numbers aren’t that great, but she uplifts the mood of everyone she works with and is a huge supporter of the company and everything you’re doing. You can’t see that on a report, but it’s just as important — maybe even more important — than the numbers on the page. 

The analytics are important, and nobody loves tracking the figures as much as I do, but it’s also crucial to look at the big picture. Don’t dismiss your biggest cheerleader just because of their ones and zeroes. If they really do sell more than they buy, give them the VIP treatment they deserve.

(I was buying everything your mom was selling last night. Your mom also gets a text from me every Sunday with a link to the latest blog post. Send a text to 561-726-1567 with the word CRIP as the message to get a link to the blog as soon as it’s up.

Did you know that I have a YouTube channel now? I do! I am putting up two videos every single week. Go search for Crippled CEO and you’ll find me. I would appreciate it if you subscribed.)

Leave a Comment

Crippled CEO Blog #144:

Who is happier: Lucky Lou who won the $10 million lottery, or his twin sister, Bad Driver Debra, who was permanently injured in a car accident? 

That seems like a crazy question, right? 

But check this out. 

Lou and Debra take one of the tests that psychologists have designed to determine how happy you are. They both get identical scores. Then, on the way home, Lucky Lou gets the call that he has won the lottery. At the same time, Bad Driver Debra smashes into a telephone pole. She survives, but she’s permanently injured, acquiring a limp for the rest of her life. 

This scenario was highlighted in the book Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari and it turns out, according to science, that if Lou and Debra take the same quiz two years later, as long as Debra’s injury is stable and she’s not in pain, they will score exactly the same — they will both be equally happy to each other, and just as happy as they were two years prior, even though Lou now lives in a mansion and Debra has a bad limp. 

So, a debilitating car accident will make you just as happy as winning the lottery.

I can sense that you’re skeptical. I get it.

The reason for this is that happiness isn’t determined by our circumstances. I mean, technically, at the base level, happiness is exclusively determined by chemicals in our brain. But what makes your brain give you the chemicals that make you happy?

As long as your base needs are met, it’s not money. It’s not even health. 

It’s the meeting of our expectations. Lou and Debra are equally happy because Lou expects to live in a mansion and drive a Bentley now — and he does — while Debra expects to live in her 3 bedroom home, drive a Toyota, and take a long time walking through the grocery store — and she does. 

This is why your wife is thrilled if you give her a single red rose on a random Tuesday, but she is far less enthusiastic if you only give her that same rose on her 40th birthday — when she asked you for a car. 

It is why you would be appalled at waiting 15 minutes to receive food for five people at McDonald’s, but you are perfectly happy with this wait at Ruth Chris. Likewise, the food you’d be just fine with at McDonald’s would make you very, very upset at the gourmet steakhouse. 

It’s why my dad was amazed by Pong when it came out, but today’s gamers are disappointed by the latest Call of Duty. It’s why I’m overjoyed to be flashed by a moderately attractive lady at Publix, but I’m unfazed by a gaggle of naked performers at a strip club. 

This is the reasoning behind my recent video (which you can watch here: https://youtu.be/WpKu1-TxQK4), where I explain how a good day for me, in my wheelchair with cerebral palsy, might be the worst day of your life, and a bad day for you might be the best day of mine. You wake up expecting to walk and dress yourself. I don’t. That’s why I’m not devastated by it every day. 

If getting what we think we want is truly the only measure of happiness, having a happy life becomes much simpler. You can stop running around trying to make yourself happy by buying this thing, redecorating that thing, and achieving this other thing. You just need to want less. That’s it. If you can lower your expectations, you will increase your happiness. It’s easy to say, but hard to do. But it’s impossible to do if you don’t realize that it’s the secret. Now, you at least have a chance. Give it a shot. Just don’t expect too much.

(Do you know who got more than she expected last night? Your mom. Your mom also gets a text from me every Sunday with a link to the latest blog post. Send a text to 561-726-1567 with the word CRIP as the message to get a link to the blog as soon as it’s up.

Did you know that I have a YouTube channel now? I do! I am putting up two videos every single week. Go search for Crippled CEO and you’ll find me. I would appreciate it if you subscribed.)

Leave a Comment

Crippled CEO Blog #143:

There is undoubtedly a recession coming. The economy is getting worse, and it’s going to continue to get worse. The signs are everywhere, including my companies’ annual revenues.

And yet, I am investing in “unnecessary“ things for my business. I am improving the products, researching new product lines, exploring additional markets, hiring new people for roles that previously did not exist (which means we could certainly live without them), redesigning our websites, making new videos, and putting a lot of money into new things to support our dealer network. 

If the overall economy is worsening, and about to get much worse, most would say that this is the WRONG time for needless spending or unnecessary risks. This is the time for saving, for being careful, and for making sure that you can survive the impending doom. I’m a Floridian, so I’m going to use a hurricane metaphor. The storm is coming, so now is the time to button down the hatches and board up the windows, not to build a second story on your house. 

But I’ve decided, just like in 2008, that I’m not going to let THE economy dictate MY economy. Not everyone loses during recessions — there are plenty of stories of people who got rich during the Great Depression — and I’m very rarely like “everyone else” in every other way. Why would I be for this?

And yes, the reality very well might be that people will have less money to buy what I’m selling, which is a very real problem. But if it’s going to be HARDER to sell stuff, then why on Earth would I cut back on marketing, R&D, customer support, etc. — the very things that make people want to buy?! This is the exact time when you want to do more, not less. Plus, if everyone else is going defensive, and pulling back into their shells like turtles to avoid the danger, then this is a great opportunity to take the ground that they are retreating from. I think I’m using too many metaphors here. 

The point is, you get to decide what your reality looks like. You don’t have to be a victim because the news tells you that everything is bad. How about this? I don’t think gas is expensive. I think gasoline is a magical wonder liquid that does incredible things, and we are grossly under paying for it. If they charged us $20 per gallon, we would still pay it, and it would still be worth it. Outside of the United States, it is common for people to pay over $10 a gallon. We should just be thankful that they aren’t charging us double or triple what we pay now, because they could, and we would all pay it. That’s the reality that I choose to live in when I fill up by gas guzzling SUV that takes premium fuel — “I love what a steal this is!” The price doesn’t change whether or not I’m happy about it, and this perspective makes me happy about it, so why not choose that one?

(Your mom had me fill up her tank last night — with extra premium. Your mom also gets a text from me every Sunday with a link to the latest blog post. Send a text to 561-726-1567 with the word CRIP as the message to get a link to the blog as soon as it’s up.

Did you know that I have a YouTube channel now? I do! I am putting up two videos every single week. Go search for Crippled CEO and you’ll find me. I would appreciate it if you subscribed.)

Leave a Comment

Crippled CEO Blog #142:

For a long time, I have considered taking on students and teaching the ways of small business in a more one on one fashion than I do in these blogs.

One of the best things I ever did for myself and my business was employing “habit stacking“ in order to start listening to educational audiobooks. Habit stacking is when you connect something you want to do with something that you already do so that you start doing the new thing consistently. For instance, if you started doing sit ups in the morning while waiting for your coffee or eggs or whatever to finish, that would be habit stacking. 

Mine is a little weird, but you could do something similar. I put an Alexa on my nightstand next to my bed, just outside my bathroom. Whenever I enter my room to tinkle, I tell her to start playing my current audiobook. Due to the whole wheelchair and cerebral palsy and what not, it takes me about five minutes to go through the whole process, but you would be surprised how quickly you can get through a book just doing five minutes at a time, a few times a day. Maybe you could do the same thing, but connect it to brushing your teeth or styling your hair.

In any case, these books that really helped me a lot, and if I was going to teach my personal small business course, I would make a few of them required reading, and I think they could really help you, also.

So, which books? I’m glad you asked. 

E-Myth Revisited by Michael E. Gerber 

For a long time, I thought that the letter E in this book title had something to do with technology or the Internet, but apparently the E actually stands for entrepreneurship. Revered with sacred reverence in certain circles of small business owners, this is the step-by-step guide book on turning your business into a well oiled machine of systems and processes, allowing your business to be successful without you burning out, or without you working at all. Some of the references are a bit dated, but the logic is still totally sound. This is a book that has to be done, not just understood or internalized, but doing it pays off. I would take this book over an MBA any day. 

Ultimate Sales Machine by Chet Holmes

This one actually has quite a bit of overlap with E-Myth, and has lots of similar suggestions, but it does focus a lot more on sales (shocking), and has several alternative methods for peeling the same kitten. I recommend reading both, and picking which parts of each work best for you and combining them Bruce Lee style. 

Extreme Ownership by Jocko Willink & Leif Babin 

If you’re going to be implementing the systems as described in the last two books, then you’re going to have to be a leader, and this is the best leadership book that I am aware of. Written by two Navy SEALs that fought in the deadliest battles in Iraq, the mix of war stories and real world leadership advice expertly gets the point across and makes you reevaluate how you view the world. Everything is your fault, and that’s a good thing.

Crushing It! by Gary Vaynerchuk

A follow up to Gary Vaynerchuk’s initial hit, Crush It, has different lessons for different people, depending upon where you’re at. Personally, I didn’t need the inspirational stuff in the beginning or the testimonial stories, but the platform by platform guide to succeeding on social media in the latter half is tremendous. From YouTube to Facebook to Twitter, he gives you a list of steps to follow like a recipe on Pinterest, except this recipe makes your business famous on social media. The book is a few years old, so some of the stuff might be getting dated, but I still recommend it 100%.

Never Split the Difference by Chris Voss

Even if you’re not in business, knowing how to negotiate is essential, but if you are, it becomes even more mandatory. This is, by far, my favorite “self improvement“ book of all time, with every single sentence giving you pragmatic, actionable advice that you can start doing the moment you put it down. Incredible read, and in my opinion, a prerequisite to being in business.

And that’s it. With those five books in your brain, you will have the necessary core essentials. HOWEVER, if you want some extra credit at Cripple University, here are a few bonus ones that will add jet fuel to your fire.

The 4 Hour Work Week by Tim Ferriss

I always thought that the title made this book sound like a gimmick, but it’s actually really good. It will make you look at work and money in a whole new light, but the part I want you to focus on for your business is the section about hiring executive assistants in India that can do a ton of your work for you. We use the service that he recommends in the book, and it’s been a game changer.

Good to Great + Turning the Flywheel by Jim Collins

Collins and his team took a scientific approach to determine why some businesses are great instead of just good. While the focus is on bigger companies, the lessons are useful for businesses of all sizes.

Small Giants by Bo Burlingham 

The author set out to make Good to Great, but for businesses that choose to remain “small” (less than 100 employees), but are still very successful while also contributing positively to their communities. Really excellent. 

This is Marketing by Seth Godin 

Seth Godin is one of my heroes and this might be my favorite by him. You’re not going to get a lot of, if any, specific pragmatic advice, but you will get ideas that will help you shape the way you design your business and your products.

There are so many more, but I truly feel like this set of books is as good as any college business education you might get. Let me know if you read any, and what your results are, or if you have read any of these before. I want to know. 

(Do you know who was reading me like a book last night? Your mom. Your mom also gets a text from me every Sunday with a link to the latest blog post. Send a text to 561-726-1567 with the word CRIP as the message to get a link to the blog as soon as it’s up.

Did you know that I have a YouTube channel now? I do! I am putting up two videos every single week. Go search for Crippled CEO and you’ll find me. I would appreciate it if you subscribed.)

Leave a Comment