The Impact of Change on You and Your Small Business – SBS 70

The Small business show episode 70 for Wednesday, June 8, 2016. Greetings, folks, and welcome to the Small business show at BusinessShow Co, the show for by and about small business here in Durham, New Hampshire.

I'm Dave Hamilton, and in Lafayette, California, I am Shannon Jean. How are things, Mr. Hamilton?

Things are good.

Good.

You know, we've been talking about. We talked about Facebook ads recently and I wanted to jump right in on this because I've had a little bit of success with a Facebook ad for promoting a podcast episode.

Nice.

Yeah. Something that's been sort of tough to nail down because, you know, when you do Facebook ad, most of the time they're targeted towards getting people to do something that basically keeps them on Facebook. Right. And liking or sharing or whatever. And there's some intrinsic value in that. But if people aren't actually going, especially with a podcast and listening to the episode, then it doesn't help, really. I mean, you might get some promotion for your show or whatever, but it's this very loose kind of thing. Well, we did with my giggab podcast. We did an interview on Monday with Jan Hammer. Oh, yeah, you know who Jan is? Yeah. Oh, yeah. Jan wrote Miami Vice theme song and.

Yeah.

And he was in Mahavishnu Orchestra. He and I have been friends for years. I used to work on his computers for him and I asked him if he'd come on the show and he said, of course. So. And we had. I mean, not only did he come on the show, but he told some killer stories. I mean, just great story after great story. So if you're into that, anybody, you should go listen. But I thought, you know, okay, this is a perfect excuse to use a Facebook ad because, yeah, if there ever.

Was an episode, that would be a good one too.

I know who I want to target this to. Right. Normally when you go use Facebook ads, by default, it's just like your friends and their friends is what it chooses to listen. It's like, I already am. I'm already pimping this to my friends. I don't need Facebook to do that. So I targeted it to people in English speaking countries who were into Jan Hammer, Mahavishnu Orchestra and Moog synthesizers, which is, you know, kind of that. That world that he lives in and nothing else. It was like hyper Target and it suggested all these other things. You should add this. Like. No, I don't want to add that. I just want.

Yeah. And was it, you know, I know that when you set those ads up, it. It gives you kind of this expected range of people that can hit. Was it a pretty large group or.

Yeah, it was. And. And nice. Yep. And so I did it, and it's only been running for a couple of days. I did a very low budget just to see if this target would work, and if it does, I'll increase the budget. So it's been running for maybe a day and a half. I gave it a $20 budget, which is obviously very, very low money.

Yeah, no, yeah.

And already the paid reach has hit 1400 people. There's been 200 people that have clicked on it, 18 shares, which is. Which I think is really good. And tons of comments coming in about the episode, meaning people actually listened and, you know, had something to say about it. And some people, including some people yelling at us. Oh, I can't believe you didn't ask about this. It's like, awesome. Great. You listen.

That's great.

That's great. Yeah, exactly. So that's great. Yeah, it's the. We've talked about it when we talked about Facebook ads, but it's. It's. The targeting is the key.

Yeah, that's right. And I think also to really know what you want to get out of it before you start. And one of the most powerful things, I think about the Facebook ads is that you can do it very inexpensively. It's very quick. You've already written the content, you've already created the post that you're sharing on the Git Gab page, and they're going to boost that out there. And to know that you can have a good result like that, I would say, you know, a stellar result for 20 bucks or less.

Oh, yeah, that's.

That's fantastic. And you can really tweak it versus a lot of other mediums where you got to go out and, like, I'm going to spend 500 bucks or, you know, this kind of thing, you know, you can really do lots of fine tuning and you could do, you know, 10 different versions of that post, you know, in different demographics and different things, and really learn a lot without spending a lot of money.

Yeah. And then once you. Once you know that it's working, then if I want, I could put 200 bucks behind this thing. And.

Yeah, and of course, you're the.

Go ahead.

Well, I was just going to say, you know, your comment is, oh, this is how we measured the success, because, you know, they're going to share your thing all the time, and I'm not a huge. Or they're going to show it, you know, to me, I'm like, well, that's okay. I don't know how valuable that is. But when you get, you know, the engagement, the comments of that, where, you know, people are listening, and those shares, because you're not paying for people for that, then they're sharing it with their friends. It could be thousands of other people that see that thing. That's a. That's a great measurement of success, I think.

Yeah, I think so. And now, of course, we dealt. We had to deal with. When you do a Facebook ad, you can only have, what, 20% of the image? Uh, it's not 20, but it's somewhere around 20. Can be text, right?

Yeah. And it can be very challenging how you set that up. So recently went through that.

Yeah, we have our. Our gig gab logo, which is just the normal thing that's put on every post if we don't go out of our way to put a different image out there. And I didn't. I just posted it and I, you know, said, promote the ad. And it did. And it was like, great. Your ads approved. Awesome. Great. I don't have to mess with the image. Just let it ride and things are going great. 24 hours in, your post is denied with no. Like, didn't tell me anything about what it was, but I knew, and this was the frustrating part. If it was my first Facebook ad, I would have had no idea why they declined the ad, especially after it ran and succeeded for 24 hours. But I assumed it was because we have the words GIGG in the middle of the, you know, the image there. And so I thought, well, really, I should be sharing an image of Jan. And so I went and asked Jan and his manager if, you know, they had an image that we could use. And they were like, sure, here's, you know, pick from all of these. And I picked the one that I thought worked, and I put it out there, and it was like, hey, guess what? Your ad's approved again. It's like, yeah, okay, thanks for letting me know. But, you know, so that's just one of the things to bear in mind with Facebook. I think I'm going to pause the episode here, folks, because I think I lost Shannon.

Tell me when.

Yeah, you're back. It's all good.

Okay, great. Awesome. Yep.

There we are.

Fantastic. Great. Hey. Yeah, so we had that same problem where, you know, the ad ad is originally approved, and then you get a message 24 hours, and you got to kind of dig through and see what happened, and we just could not figure it out. We kept taking Text out here, trying this and that. And this was just a few weeks ago, and we finally got on the chat support line with Facebook and asking questions, and it turned out we had a picture of an iPhone. And this was an ad for Tech Restore. And they count the. The text that's on the clock of the phone, and it was like, okay, so bizarre. So we had to cover this up and get it. So you really have to sometimes really manipulate that to get under that, which is around 20% number.

Yeah, we've noticed that at Mac observer, where if we're doing a picture of an iPhone and it's an article we want to promote, we have to blur the screen of the phone.

Yeah. Yeah, that's interesting.

Yeah.

And I guess they just don't want people, you know, I guess, like image spam, I guess.

Right.

You know, where they're just blasting you with too much and stuff. So.

Yeah, I get it. But it's too aggressive.

I think it is pretty aggressive. I agree. And obviously it takes a while to catch it, right?

Well, it depends.

Your ad will run.

Yeah. And somebody figured out their algorithm. There's a website out there. If I can find it, I'll put a link in the show notes where it's not just 20. Let's say it's 25%. I don't know the exact number, but it's not just 25% total. It's. They break your image down into nine quad or nine segments. And if you have text in more than two of them or, you know, something like that, that counts. So it could be one line of text that just happens to be sitting, you know, on the border between two and now it counts as two or three or whatever it is. So there's actually, like I said, there's a website where you can upload your image and it'll analyze it the way that they think Facebook analyzes it and tell you. Or you can. You can look and see. No, it's not going to work. But if I make even. Sometimes you make your text bigger and move it down or up or something, and now it all fits in there nice. Yes. But it's, you know, that's where the insanity comes in.

Yeah. So we, you know, if. If you've messed around, you know, for your business at home here and working with Facebook ads, we'd love some, you know, here are your stories and what worked for you, what hasn't. If you've had issues with the, you know, the image, you can send an email to feedbackusinessshow.co. or you can send us a text at 401-472-4249. We would love to hear from you.

After another Skype hiccup. Here we are. But, but I think you had wrapped that up and you just told them how to contact us, so that was good.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So people, we love to hear their stories and stuff and, but you know, this week we're talking about, we're gonna talk about change, right?

Yeah, yeah. Not the kind that we find in our pockets.

That's true. I hate change in my pockets. I don't know if it's because I wear shorts all the time, but I've always had this thing and my mom recently reminded me, like, oh, you're the same way as a kid. You always dumped your change and never picked it up. But, you know, it came to me. You made a comment, I think it was a couple shows ago, about a way to implement change that someone had showed you.

Yeah. Lee Robin, my, my partner with Computer Nerds.

Yeah. And why don't you talk about that for a minute?

Yeah. Just to remind everybody. Yeah. No, his, his whole thing was, and sometimes he would tell people that he was doing this, and sometimes he wouldn't, but his whole thing was try it for two weeks. And in his mind, everything was a two week experiment. Any, any change. Sometimes he would tell the employees, yeah, we're just going to try this for two weeks. Even though he knew if it worked, we're not going to go back. You know, that's crazy. But other times he would just say, we're doing this. And that was the, the difference there, as I pointed out when we discussed it the first time, was whether or not he wanted feedback about the change.

Yes.

You know, because it, because if you say we're doing it, the only feedback you're going to hear is from someone who has a really strong opinion on it. But either way, it was try it for two weeks. And as I said, I've adopted that and used it in many different ways. And it's so helpful because thinking, wow, this has changed forever is a much harder thing for all of us, myself included, to wrap our heads around. Whereas we're just trying this temporarily. We can go back. And I think that's the big message to send is if it doesn't work, we can go back. Which to us as business owners is obvious, of course. Right, right. But that's not necessarily the case.

Well, and that kind of leads you into one of the, one of the big lessons I learned about change is that, you know, most entrepreneurs and business owners, you know, like ourselves, we like change. I mean, it's exciting. It can, you know, it's challenging, but, but it, it's something that we, we embrace. But don't expect the people around you, whether it's your employees, whether it's your family members and even some of your business partners, to all enjoy change as much as you might.

Right.

And I learned that, you know, the hard way, where, you know, I was years ago and I was pitching this new, you know, thing we were ro at work and I can remember being so excited and I don't remember specifically what it was, but what sticks with me is the sheer look of horror on a group of employees, as I explained. And I was so excited and I was like, wait, this is not going the right way.

It's not what I thought.

Yeah, I'm excited about it. But really what happens often is that you may love it, but, and you may be excited about it, but it's. There's also a lot of fear and uncertainty when it comes to change. And there's a huge portion of the population and some of those folks may work for you that don't embrace it like that. So I love the concept of that two week experiment because it gives you that wiggle room. It's kind of like, you know, the, the primrose path comment. You know, you're leading them where you want to go, but you're kind of easing them in and they're not realizing, you know, where they're going to go. So I think it's a great way and that's why I want bring it up again. And we just rolled something out yesterday and I said, hey, do this, try this way. I told our general manager, I said, you know, tell them that we're going to try this for two weeks and see how it goes. And it, I know they're like, you know, because it kind of increases a sense of urgency with some of our employees that they have to react a little different. But the reality is this certain business niche that it addresses, we have to change, to take it or to be relevant right in that business market. So I know that, but I've learned, and probably from that horror conversation that I had years ago, is that if I sit down and just say, hey, we either change or this isn't going to work anymore, that's usually, that's not taken in a positive manner. But if we roll this thing out, say, hey, let's try this new and see how it works, and then we can all talk about it. Yeah, I think it's.

Then we can all talk about it. Yeah, yeah. You know, it, the, the thing about it that took me a while to embrace and this is, I think if you've listened to the show for, for any length of time, you've heard me mention this before, is treating my employees differently than I would want to be treated. Right. You know, by doing this two week thing, there's some element of pulling the wool over people's eyes. Right. You know, and, and, and I don't like doing that. I wouldn't want to be treated that way. But, you know, but I, I think differently about things.

That's great. You're not, you're not working for you.

No, I'm not. No. And I don't think I would.

That's right. But that's really unemployable, right? That's right.

Patently unemployable. But that's the thing, right, is, is, you know, embracing that we are different. And, and there's, like you said, it's the primrose path. I mean, you know, the, the goal is, is to get everyone to a better place. And you're telling people where you're going. It's not, I mean, you're pulling a little bit of the wool over their.

Eyes a little bit.

Terrible.

Right, Right.

Yeah.

A lot of times I think that it, well, that kind of exercise, if you will, gives, you know, everyone has the opportunity to make comments about it and it's not a do or die. It's not a oh, em. Or get left behind.

Right.

I think a lot of people think of change like that. It's like, wow, if I don't do it, I'm not going to make it.

It's over.

Yeah. Yeah. And so it gives them, hey, you know, let's, let's talk about it. And you know, I think that that uncertainty and also, you know, change brings around with some folks a lack of control because, you know, someone else is telling me, hey, here's what's going to happen. We're going to do it this way from now on. And they're worried that, well, you know, it's kind of wrapped maybe around a fear of. And you know, change isn't, isn't most of the time it's not failure, it's adapt, Adaptation.

Right? That's right. Yeah.

Yeah. And you're adapting to whatever, you know, different environment that your business is in or, you know, or whatever it is. So I think a couple of things that you can do to absolve people, as if you will, from some of that fear is, you know, I always try to make myself the sponge. And what I mean by that is, I will take the hit, I'll take the blame. I'll do whatever it takes to get people on board. Even if I know that, hey, you know, whatever the failure happened anywhere else, it comes down to this. There's a philosophy or statement that a guy made that an author by the name of Wally Lamb, and his thing was, you know, when you want to compliment, look out the window. And when you want to criticize, look in the mirror. You know, it really works because, you know, we want to look and say, I mean, you got to be critical at some point. But if you can step in and be. In essence, you're saying, hey, if it doesn't work, it's my fault. Yeah, it's not your fault. As long as you are on board and you implement what we're going to try, if it falls flat and is terrible, you're not going to take the hit for it. I'm going to take the hit.

It's not you. That's right. Yeah. And I think there's a lot to be said for that. And I will couch this by saying I am nowhere near perfect with this because I'm a perfectionist. And so, you know, when something goes wrong, I want to know exactly where it went wrong and I want to talk about who did something wrong. And sometimes, yes, that's me, but I, I have a hard time accepting blame for someone for something I know someone else did wrong, you know, and. Yeah, yeah. And so, but in the, in the case that you're talking about, I'm the one pushing this change out. We're all going to implement it. And if it backfires, well, guess who's the one that made the decision? It's me. That's right, yeah.

Now if they don't implement it, then I think that what you have to do is meet one on one with the people that are having a hard time implementing it. Right. Not in a group, because then everybody just really gets, gets very defensive. And then after you've met with them and given them the opportunity to get on board, you know, then you could have the meeting and you could say, look, it was, we were having issues with this area, but then we made some changes and now it's working. Or, or, you know, maybe the whole thing went belly up. But, you know, you do have to address those folks that won't do it or won't make the Change or they continue to do it the old way. Yeah. And I often would ask, I mean we, I've had this happen a lot. He's like, well, why are we doing that? You know what, we don't do that anymore. And if, you know, sometimes you'll get a very relevant answer and it could be like, well, that other way we did now takes extra time or extra steps. And, and you want to hear that, you know, you don't want just yeses because you, they're on your payroll and you want your team to tell you if you're wrong. But I, I guess it's, you got to create that environment to where they feel comfortable doing that, you know.

Yeah.

And I don't certainly have all the answers how to do it, but that communicating and not doing in front of the big group, giving them the opportunity, that's what, you know, that one on one time.

Yeah.

I think that's really important.

Yeah, no, you're right. You got to have that, that one on one time. Yeah. It's the only way because otherwise it doesn't.

Yeah. Getting in front of a group is they're not going to give them the opportunity, the comfort level to speak out or they don't want to be targeted, you know, that kind of thing.

That's right. You know, along these lines we talked about one of my favorite tests which, when interviewing someone, which is to bring them out to eat. And, and my reason for doing that is to see how they treat the wait staff in general, you know, at a restaurant. And if they're not treating them well, well, then that tells me you're not going to treat my customers well and I don't want you around.

That's brilliant.

And I forget who this was, but my, my son showed up at school as he's, as he want to do because he's 14 and his, one of his teachers has, you know, lateral thinking puzzles they call him every day. And so one of the questions recently, just the last couple of weeks was so and so. And I, I want to say it was, I don't know, I don't think it was Thomas Edison or something, but it was, it was someone that employed a lot of people, always brings his, when, when bringing on a, you know, a, someone at the executive level always takes them out to eat. Why. And, and of course, you know, my son raises his hand, he knows the answer.

Right.

And the teacher's like, actually that's a really good idea, but that's not the one I'm looking for. And, and it Went around the class a little bit and somebody else came up with the answer, which was he watches to see if they put salt and or pepper on their food before they taste it. Because someone that does that, whoever this was, and I'll get the name, but in his mind, someone who does that is set in their ways and not willing to test something to see if it's good.

That's interesting. Yeah, I mean, I get the concept, but you know, that, yeah, that's, that's pretty wild. I think I like yours better. Yeah, I just say.

But it's interesting, right? I mean, if you've got someone who's resistant, you know, to changing any, anything that they think, you certainly don't want them in an executive position.

No, that's true.

You know, and, and so I thought that was interesting.

It is, it is. You know, and one thing too, I think about that change is important to know as somebody who kind of likes it with. You know, I like extremes. I love it. You know, I drive a Jeep and I, when it's covered with mud and then when I get to go get it all cleaned up, it looks totally different. I mean, I love those kind of extremes and things. But I think you have to be careful not to change just for the sake of making changes. Thinking that you're going to always improve things.

That's for sure.

And I've made that mistake before and lots of people, I mean, just the example I always bring up is, you know, old Coke versus New Coke, right?

Yeah, but I think that was a marketing thing.

Maybe, maybe. But I guess it's. Do you need to like right now, you know, I'll tell you, one of my offices we're looking at, we have this kind of older foam system. It paid a lot of money for it. It was back in the day when, you know, we paid a set up a, you know, location. We bought a PBX and all this stuff. It was a significant amount of money. It was like $25,000. Right. For this AV phone system and everything. And you know, we're making some changes and I'm thinking, you know, everybody's running around. Rarely are people sitting at desks at this facility, but when the phone rings, they have to go kind of run it. And we have some portables and headsets and that kind of thing. But I start to think, you know, what if we used really set up one of these online phone services like, you know, Ringcentral or Grasshopper or whatever and just push all these calls to their mobile phones And I'll pay their bill or whatever. Not only would it be less expensive than we pay now for these Lansing, but it might even be more convenient. But the more I've looked into it and maybe looked into the eyes of some of my employees and talked about it, I started to think today it's like, well, maybe I'm just chasing this because it sounds cool. And I talked to another company owner who said they had tried this and it turned into kind of a headache. I think I'm just going to leave it alone. But I think you have to analyze why are you doing it? Are you going to save money? Is it a new opportunity for you? But if you can't justify the value, and especially on something where you can't do that two week experiment. Right. I can't unplug the phones, get them all the lines switched. I mean, I guess you can, but it's kind of expensive and can be very disruptive.

Yeah, that's one of those where you've just got to commit to it.

Yeah. One way or another. And so I guess you have to maybe ask yourself too along the way is okay, if we make the change or we don't make the change, what's the worst that can happen?

Yeah.

And I guess maybe part of the process when you're asking yourself is it valuable to do this or when you're talking to your people, your team, well, hey, if we try this, what's the worst that can happen? We just go right back to where we were doing it before, that kind of thing.

You bring up an interesting scenario because the two week experiment buys, not only does it buy your employees a lot, it buys you a lot. Right. If, if you have one of these things where it's really easy to revert, well, you know, no harm, no foul, let's try it, no problem. But that's right, if you're, if you're talking about something where you know, either maybe you're buying, you know, you're buying something and it's like, well, there's no return on this, you know, I'm either going to buy it or I'm not. Or like you said, you know, you're making a wholesale change to the way something works that would be really difficult to, to undo. That's, that's the hardest for me. Those are the hardest decisions to make because you can hem and haw about it and defer the decision, but that doesn't get you anywhere. You know, you gotta do your research, but at some point you need to decide and sometimes that's a no, and that's okay. And sometimes it's a yes. But when it's a no for me, I find I have to, like, tell myself it's a no. You're not allowed to consider this again for a year or however long it is, whatever it is, and I have to just put it off my list. And even if two weeks later, something comes up where it's like, oh, that, you know, maybe we should do that. I mean, if there's something obvious, then I'll do it. You know, I'm not that hard and fast, but I can't just keep going around and around and around. It's like, nope, put it off for a year. I'll even put it on my calendar so that I know I won't forget. And then I stopped thinking about it.

Yeah.

You know.

Yeah. No, I think that's great. And, you know, one of the things I really. I wanted to mention as well, when we were talking about changes, and we've talked about it here before, about having your. Your support group at home, you know, your spouse, your significant other being behind you when you're. When you're jumping out to, you know, start your company, or when you have the highs and the lows, you know, when your company's up and running and growing, those kinds of things. And. And that's a critical thing. We've come back to that time and time again. And change. Just like your employees may not embrace it as much, it's equally important, maybe more so, to discuss what's going on and how it may impact your personal life and make sure your significant other is on board. And when I was a senior in college, there was a guy that came. We had this class we had to take. It was called Senior Seminar, something like that. And he was an industry guy, and he came and started talking about his business. And he has. Running multiple companies. He drew this big diagram, kind of. I realized after what he was a while, what he was doing on the chalkboard at the time, they were chalkboards, not smart boards or, you know, race boards.

Yeah, right.

And so he was drawing this cliff, and he put himself right out on the edge, and he says, you know, I'm really comfortable right here. And the whole time thinking, man, this guy's had a great life. I'm going to do this. He's doing all these crazy things. So awesome, awesome. Starting these new companies. And then he drew a picture of his wife, and he's like, this is where my wife's comfort level was. And he kind of Kept coming back to that, coming back that. Until he finally came back and say, this is where. When she left me, you know, because I didn't work on it with her, and bring her on board and explain everything. So I think you have to, you know, it's not like, you know, we made this comment pulling.

Oh, I think we've lost Shannon again. He was just about to say something good. We'll get him back. All right, I got him back. So finish, please, because you were right there.

Sorry, folks. Yeah. And the comment that this. This guy made this, you know, business owner was that you need to put as much effort into bringing your support system along with you during these changes as you are with employees or whoever. You know, they're part of your. You know, we call it your board of directors, if you will. And they need to kind of know what's going on, especially on dramatic changes or, you know, this isn't working, or we're doing this way. And, you know, surprises are not often welcome, especially if their comfort level's not. If you're not out on the edge of the cliff with you.

Right.

You know, you need to make sure. And it's really important, maybe more important even than how your employees take on or, you know, and how you present it to them, is that you have somebody on board that's, you know, supporting in the back end.

Yeah, that. No, that's very important. You know, my. My wife's father owned his own business and still does to this day. He's actually very successful, and I. I feel like that has made it easier for. For us because she. She understood what that meant, but perhaps even more than I did at the time.

Yeah.

You know, she knew, like, oh, yeah, it's going to be a little crazy, but.

Yeah, that's great. Yeah, that's very good.

No, it's good, but you're right. Yeah. You've got to have that support group coming along with you.

It's real important. Real important, because they're gonna. You know, you don't want to go home and have to not have these discussions. And you don't want to be seen as a flake. You know, too much change too quickly, people start thinking you're a flake. You know, I have a note here to talk about. Don't talk about change to people that it doesn't impact. Don't talk. You know, don't talk to the naysayers, to the doubters. Just don't mention it if it doesn't impact and you don't have to pitch to them, and you're not getting them on board the change. Don't. Don't talk about it, because people start to look at you like, oh, that flaky Shannon guy, you know, this, that, and the other and that. That can easily happen, and I've just found that's better to keep quiet.

No, that's. That's easier said than done. But very, very good advice. Yeah. Yeah. Because sometimes you want to prove. You want to tell the naysayers I'm making, you know, you want to prove them wrong, but there's no actual benefit of. Of doing. Of. Of letting them know you're proving them wrong. You just do it and do it for your It.

Yeah. And talk about what you've done, not what you're going to do.

Nope. No, it's true.

Yep.

Yep.

And on that note, I'm done. All right.

So I. I did. I heard back from my son. It was Henry Ford.

Oh, nice.

Who would do that interview test.

Yeah. Powerful.

Yeah.

Yeah. Nice.

Yeah, it's interesting. You know, I always love. I always love little things like that, so.

Yeah, for sure, man. For sure.

All right, folks. Feedbackusinessshow.co is one way to find us. What's the other way? Shannon? What's one other way?

Yeah, you can find us on our website@businessshow.co or facebook.com businessshow co. We would love to hear from you.

And. And you can call us. 401-472-4249. You can call or text us to that number. 401-472-4249. That's all I got.

Yep, me too. Come tell us what we're doing wrong and what wrong advice. We'd love to hear from you. Engage. Thanks, everybody.

Have a good week.