The Slow Slide into Shittiness

By now in your career you've probably been employed by, hired, partnered with, or competed against a company that was bought out by another company.

Think about what they were like. Roll it around on your tongue.

If you had any experience with that acquired company prior to its acquisition, no matter what your role was at the time and no matter whether that company employed you or was one of your vendors, partners, etc., chances are that you either worked for or with or against them because they were a pretty well-run company, with something that, if pressed, you might even say you really liked about them.

Until...

They were bought up or out by another (usually larger, often older, certainly more bottom-line-focused) company and run right into the ground.

It might have taken awhile, but the first signs appeared early - layoffs, management changes, mass defections, and release dates for new products and/or services either pushed back (often more than once) or shelved, with the PR folks spinning an endless cloud of vague language to try and downplay the fact that the company you liked better was now circling the drain.

The reason for this is because almost all acquisitions take place in order to grow the buyer's market share. They completely ignore what made the target company attractive enough to become a target in the first place: Customers. Loyal Customers.

When you buy a company, unless it's carved out in the legalese as a sop to the original owner(s), you get the whole thing: IP, products, employees, property, documentation, goodwill, history, and on and on. But if you only walk away with their Customer list (perhaps chopping up the rest to sell down-market) and somehow believe that those Customers are now yours, you haven't been paying attention to corporate acquisitions over the past century or so.

Something about the acquired company appealed to those Customers. It might have been their products, or how great their rep was, or their lower cost, ease of use, simple terms, terrific service, culture, inclusiveness, processes, or a hundred other things. Or (most often) a mash-up of all of those things.

The company doing the buying typically has a culture that is focused on acquisition. That's how they got so big in the first place. But as they acquire Customer lists and discard the rest, those Customers jump ship to the next company to come along that offers all of the things that were jettisoned in a race to instant gratification and the bottom line.

During due diligence, as you're looking over the books of the company that you want to acquire and figuring out how to make them part of you by forcing them to be you, with your people and methods and rules, why not do this:

• Have each of your department managers spend time with the managers and crews of the company that you are buying. Not an afternoon. A solid two weeks at least. Not to explain your company's way of doing things, but to specifically look for things that they do better than you do.
• Record everything you see and hear.
• Take all of that knowledge - that you are paying for, by the way, and now own - back to your own company. Map it against how you do things. Figure out how to adopt the things that they do better. Even if it means - horrors! - changing things in your company.
• Start doing things the new way, before the acquisition is complete, or it will never happen.
• Don't let everyone who isn't in sales leave. People are more often than not what made that company great - their knowledge, experience, ideas, attitudes, excitement. I understand that you can't and don't necessarily want to hire everyone. There are always redundancies. But what if their HR Manager or one of their line workers or IT people is better than one of yours? Trade up!

Most acquisitive companies tend to take a Darwinian view: We must be the better company, this line of thinking goes, because we're acquiring them. But this completely ignores the fact that acquisitions aren't why most companies exist. When you're a hammer, everything looks like a nail.

When you've paid all that money for another company, why leave so much of value on the table? Or, worse yet, there for the taking by a competitor with a wider view and a long-term vision?

Hey, it's your money; do what you want. I just (used to) work here.

The Culture of No

Today I want to talk about the Culture of No.

The Culture of No comes into play when we explain to a Customer why we can’t help them.

We are almost always polite when we tell a Customer no. We speak in calm, measured tones, with a sympathetic look on our faces, and sometimes a shrug that says “Whaddayagonnado?”

You know what? Customers don’t give a damn why we can’t do something. All they see is that we are an obstacle to getting what they need or want. And what do you do with an obstacle?

You go around it. If they have more aggressive personalities, they might ask to talk to your manager. If they think that you weren’t really listening, or you’re the second or third person that they’ve told their story to, they might even ask to talk to your department head... or, later, your corporate attorney.

Most people don’t have that kind of personality, though. Most people hang up. Then they go somewhere else. Forever. And they tell everyone on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and on and on to do the same.

The Culture of No is a trap – for a business, a fatal trap. There’s only one way out: Find a way to say yes.

The Culture of Yes takes more work. You have to offer alternatives – would you prefer this, or this?, Or teach yourself to say “We probably can’t do that, but we can do this – does this work for you?”

The Culture of Yes takes creativity, and flexibility. Which is a good thing, because an inflexible person is often a corpse, and an inflexible business almost always becomes one.

Manager or Supervisor?

Give some thought to this:

• Do you ever suggest-but-not-really-because-it's-more-like-you-insist that one of your direct reports hire someone?
• Do you ever tell them that you don't want them to hire someone?

If you have ever done either of these, no matter what your direct report's title is, you have turned them into a supervisor.

A supervisor supervises daily work that is defined by someone else. A manager decides what the work is. They also have the power to hire and fire. Take that away, and they're not a manager any more. And the moment their direct reports know that - whether you want to or not - you take on being that team's manager, because they won't bother to go to the supervisor for anything any more. Why should they? You've taken all of that former manager's power away.

If you don't trust a manager to hire or fire people, you have the wrong manager. Fire them. If you don't trust anyone else to hire and fire, you've created a hierarchy with just 2 levels: you, and everyone else. There are some profound ramifications to that:

• Your managers won't own the success or failure of their team members. Why should they? They didn't even get to decide who those team members are.
• Your managers' direct reports will come to you whenever they get a 'no' from their manager. Congratulations! Mom said no, so now they go to dad. You've turned your organization into a dysfunctional family, just like you always dreamed about.
• Turnover: If your managers' direct reports aren't owned by their manager, they won't get what they need. People who don't get what they need leave. And guess what? Managers who find out that they're not really managers leave, too, to go work for organizations where they can be managers. Which is most of them.

The solution: Let go! You hired managers to do what you are either bad at or don't have the bandwidth to do. Let them be managers, for Pete's sake. And if they fail, give them some encouragement and talk it through with them. If they don't improve, replace them. If they do, congratulations - you have an hierarchy that works.

To Move or to Motivate

... that is the question.

If you have an employee that appears to have reached the end of their usefulness or the limits of their abilities (and really, isn't that the same thing?), you have a choice: Do you replace them, or do you try to coach them beyond their existing limitations?

If there is a large labor pool available, as is the case at the time of this writing, the current trend is to 'trade up'. It sometimes takes less effort to find someone with a higher readiness/ability quotient than it does to grow an existing employee. My opinion is that that's part of why the labor pool is currently as large as it is: Many people without jobs don't have the willingness, readiness, or ability to get to the next rung. (I would love to be proved wrong.)

Increasingly, as the education level of American high school and college graduates declines, we find ourselves off-shoring jobs simply because overseas employees have higher skill levels. (English grammar is my pet peeve. How many cover letters and resumes have you read lately that were misspelled, had poor punctuation, and sentence structure that made you cringe?) There is no sign that this downward trend is going to change, at least any time soon and, as a responsible manager, part of your job is to find the best person you can for each position.

But...

If an employee has been with you any length of time, they have acquired knowledge. Often, and especially in key roles where no one else performs the same task, this knowledge exists nowhere else in your organization. Moving that employee out means starting from scratch, and usually at some expense.

Have you ever felt like a given issue or project comes up over and over again, yet never seems to get resolved? Brain drain is likely the culprit - some key cog that had the knowledge necessary to resolve that issue or complete that project is no longer part of the organization, and you are taking two steps back for every step forward as a result.

Is that good corporate stewardship? If not, how do you solve the puzzle - especially when you have so little time to perform your own tasks, let alone mentor someone who may or may not take that next, vital step?

It helps to understand where that employee's limitations come from in the first place. It could be simply a matter of training - something you don't even have to do yourself. But as often as not, there is a deeper root that stands squarely in the employee's way - one that has dogged them their entire life. And to help them climb out of that box, you need to understand the Lifeboat Scenario.

Much smarter people than me have discovered that our reactions to potentially lethal situations (and if losing one's job over and over in this economy isn't lethal, what is?) fall into one of three camps. The scenario is a lifeboat that has sprung a leak and is going down fast, and the passengers self-divide as follows:

• 30% panic, flail wildly, and either die quickly or accidentally find a way to live
• 50% do nothing, and drown
• 20% take stock, rationally determine a course of action, and live, often rescuing others on the way

It's easy to see where this behavior came from, and even why it makes sense from a 'survival of the species' perspective: If a leopard attacks a tribe of early hominids, the ones who panic either draw the leopard's attention and die instantly (leaving the rest to live another day), or accidentally escape and eventually reproduce. The ones who do nothing either die (easy pickings), or fail to draw the leopard's attention and live to reproduce. The ones who are rational pick up a good, heavy stick or a rock, and may succeed in driving the leopard away (resulting in minimal losses, leaving more potential reproductive partners).

In essence, the lifeboat scenario is nature throwing dice in the hope that at least one of the three strategies works. But for modern humans, this genetic predisposition often gets in the way of our rational minds, resulting in a box that is difficult to escape.

It takes time and effort to assess willingness, readiness, and ability. But if at least one of those two traits exist, it may be less costly (in terms of time and money) to help the employee improve and prevent yet another loss/hiring/backtrack cycle.

For more information about readiness, I suggest this article: http://www.projectconnections.com/articles/050905-glory.html.

What Goes Up Can't Come Down

There is a truism about incentives that applies equally to Customers and Employees: What goes up can't come down.

When you consider an incentive program for employees, regardless of whether it's a spiff program for Customer Service, a bonus structure for Salespeople, or a shared pool for people within your organization who find ways to save money, it's always best to start conservatively, with the smallest incentive that you believe actually is still an incentive. If it turns out that the incentive is too low (depending on whether or not your business is seasonal, it can take anywhere from 90 days to a year to figure this out accurately), it's easy to lift it a notch or two down the line.

But what happens if you start too high, and have to trim back?

Even if none of your employees hit the incentive minimum, scaling it back will immediately be seen as a negative - as you 'taking away' something (even if no one ever received it). And it will be grumbled about behind your back for months and months to come. Who needs that kind of grief? Especially grief that you caused for yourself?

There's nothing wrong with incentivizing behavior; there's no doubt that, when done correctly, it works. But the 'when done correctly' part is key. Consider carefully what you are incentivizing, and start slow and small.

The same applies to Customers. The author Terry Pratchett tells a story about a bounty that was placed on rats in his fictional city of Ankh-Morpork. To curb the city's rat population, citizens were given a fixed amount for each rat tail that they brought in. The result? The rat population increased, because the citizens were farming the rats to earn extra money.

If your incentive has a loophole or a flaw, I personally guarantee that one of your Customers will find it. In fact, many of them consider it their job to do so. And you know what? They're right, and shame on you if you missed something, because getting it right the first time is your job.

It's important not to create incentives in a void; don't ever let Marketing do it alone. Run it by every Salesperson and Customer Service rep you have; they are terrific at finding holes and faulty logic. Plus, by having them take part, they will also take ownership. How can that be a bad thing? Marketing, Sales, and Customer Service all talking to each other? Fantastic!

And, again, until you know what response rates are going to be, start slow and small. It's no good ordering 500 free iPads to give away for every new Customer signed if 5,000 show up. They will blog, Twitter, and Facebook your reputation back to the Stone Age, turning a campaign that you planned as a big plus into a potentially lethal minus.

Look. Listen. Learn.

Ass Kisser of the Month

You know what's wrong with Employee of the Month awards? Their existence. In nearly every organization on the planet, it's an excuse for management to perk someone they like. The problem with this sort of popularity contest is that it does nothing but cause resentment among employees, who see it for exactly what it is: Another way for management to reward their buddies for being their buddies. Bear in mind, this comes from a guy who's won these types of awards many time before, and who's been in management for a long time.

If you have any illusions that your organization is a business and not a club, don't ever utter the words "employee of the month".

Okay, having said that, I'm going to say exactly the opposite, and you're going to agree with me that both answers can coexist in the same space-time continuum without causing the annihilation of this universe, okay? Here's how it works if you really want to do Employee of the Month properly:

• Management has no say in who is nominated or who wins. Let's face it, management gets to choose winners and losers in everything else; they have no business here. Every nomination must come from someone who is not a manager, and only non-managers get to vote. 
• As part of the process, each person who nominates a colleague must explain in their nomination why they believe the other employee is a lifesaver. None of this, "So-and-so is always so nice" or "Treats Customers well". They should be doing that all the time. Never reward someone for fulfilling their job description; it sends the wrong message. The nomination must be for something that was above and beyond the call of duty. 
• If no one nominates anyone in a given month, there is no Employee of the Month. Period. The moment you jigger this, you're back to belonging to a club, and not running a business. 
• Make the prize something of value to the recipient. And by value I don't mean something that costs the company a bundle. You know what most non-managers want? More time off. So award the winner an additional paid day off of their choice. Screw what HR says; the winner will truly appreciate it - it feels just like playing hooky - and their friends will want it, too, which generates more above and beyond behavior. 
• Record it in some lasting way. A plaque that you add names to, if you're old school, or a permanent page on your blog, intranet, and / or FaceBook page. Something that the recipient can look at when they're having a bad day. Something that others can see is part of your organization's commitment to recognizing and rewarding extra effort (not popularity). 

I throw these pearls out there so you can add them to your strands and shine. But it's up to you to pick them up, and to share what you've found on that beach with us, too. Got anything shiny?

U Shore Do Talk Fun-E

Every industry and organization have their own terms and even their own language that are completely inscrutable to anyone from outside. It can take years for newbies to learn the lingo. Meanwhile, a lot of knowledge is flying over their heads at the speed of sound simply because they don't grok.

Solution: Create a company dictionary of industry and organization-specific terms, including their usage and which departments they tend to be associated with. Post this dictionary in your new hire folio, on your company intranet, your FaceBook page, your wiki, your cloud - anywhere that newbies are likely to look.

A major component of new hire on-boarding is figuring out who to go to for what. How about an internal contact directory that shows not only name, phone number and title, but also what each person actually does, so that you don't have to ask everyone else in the building.

You see? It's the seemingly minor and easily corrected things that waste a large percentage of your man-hours and productivity.

Here's another one: Once you've created these two animals, turn them loose and let employees update them. Heck, if it's a wiki, you might even just start with the title and let them take everything from there. After all, they know everything that should go on both far better than you do. Plus it frees you up to actually get some work done between all those meetings.

Hmmm.. empowerment, buy-in, plus less work for you. What the hell are you sitting there for? Go make this happen right now!

Hiring, Part 2

When you hire someone, make sure that they're smarter than you are. If they're not, why not just do it all yourself? If you want your company to be the best, you have to hire the best. At the very least, even if they're not smarter than you are, at least make sure they know more about their chosen field than you do. And if you worry that one of those shiny pennies might replace you one day, maybe you'd better get busy polishing your skills.

When you lose an employee - especially for disciplinary or performance reasons - replace them with someone better. If not, your organization will stagnate.

I simply can't say enough about cross-training at every level of your organization. Every company that I have been with that had a cross-training program for new hires had far fewer communication issues than companies that didn't - not least because it puts you on a first name basis with the people in each department, plus their pet peeves and the issues associated with doing their jobs, and the impact that you will have on them on a firsthand basis. It's a lot easier to create a good process if you already know firsthand what bad ones look like from every level of the organization.

When you hire someone, there's typically sag (stagnation & lag) time between their training period and the time that they actually begin to do real work. Why pay someone to sit around and forget everything you've just spent time and money teaching them? The moment training is over, have them sit with everyone who already does the job that they're going to do.

Notice that I said 'everyone' and not 'someone'. This is key. Every person is going to know something different about the job and each performs the job their own way. By having your new hire sit with each person, they can learn all that's good about each team member's process and knowledge, and leave out the poor processes that veteran employees no longer even see.

After your new hire has shadowed every member of their team and taken notes (this shouldn't take long - perhaps 1 to 4 hours per person they sit with, depending upon the complexity of the job), it's time for them to be mentored by each member of the team as they perform the job themselves. Again, the idea is that each member of the team will spot different things that your new hire needs to improve. It's also a terrific way to help employees bond and to create buy-in for the new hire with the other members of the team. (This phase takes longer - likely at least a day with each existing member of the team.)

By the time this training period is over, your employee has the benefit of knowing everything that the other members of the team know, plus a fair bit of practice under their watchful eyes. This also increases buy-in and retention on the part of new hires, who now feel not only part of the team, but also that the company values them enough to put a considerable investment into their on-boarding and success.

Plugging the Damned Dam

How many times have you seen or been a part of organizations that spend all of their time plugging holes in the dam instead of taking the hammer away from the kid who keeps making the holes?

One of the biggest holes for B2C (that is, businesses that sell directly to consumers) is this: Employees who forget who the Customer is. (Hint: It's NOT THEM!)

You're seen it. You go to a restaurant and no one greets you. You show up at a doctor's office and there is no one to take your information. You want to ask a question about a bathroom faucet or a dress, but the sales floor is a ghost town. You call a local business in an effort to support your community, but no one picks up.

These are business killers.

If you own or manage a small business, do this: Have one of your relatives go in to your business on your day off, and have them film or make notes of the whole experience (it's certainly cheaper than hiring a Secret Shopper). If you're at home, call your business using your spouse's phone, or your kid's. You may not like what you hear... or don't hear.

You must build your corporate culture in such a way that employees act like you want them to even when you're not there. If you don't, you'll never be able to take a day off, and your spouse will kill you. The best way to get employees to do what you want even when you're not there is to hire the best employees you can afford, even if it takes a long time to find them. Never, ever hire someone just to have a warm body in the position; you'll only have to fire them later, or live with your mistake for years.

Second, make sure that you have communicated your corporate culture - mostly by making sure that you and all of your managers are living examples of it. If you always treat Customers like who they are - the people who buy your groceries - and impress on your employees that perfection is the only behavior that is acceptable, and why, things will begin to move in the right direction.

Bear in mind, when I say Customers buy your groceries, I mean Internal Customers as well as External Customers. If you don't treat your employees perfectly, nothing else you do will encourage them to treat External Customers well. In fact, they are much more likely to do the opposite. Wouldn't you, if your boss was a jerk?

Kick Your Company Out of the Nest

I've talked about hiring friends & family, pocketing & knowledge retention, deciding whether your organization is a club or a business, generational businesses, and chain of command, all of which are difficult changes for the established, non-business-school-graduate. But the difficulty factor doubles if you're an entrepreneur, because of an added element: The business is your baby.

You started your business in your garage, spare room , or attic, but it really began as a dream. Your spouse and kids probably helped you, at first, and then maybe a friend or a neighbor, because you couldn't afford anyone else. As time went on, your growing infant organization ate up more and more of your time. Eventually, things got to the point that you slept only when you fell over, sweated the books (you're still sweating the books), never took a day off or a vacation, and made every sale yourself because there wasn't anyone else. And finally, after all of that work, you join the ranks of the less than 1 in 10: A start-up business that lasts for more than a year.

Year two, you maybe hire a high school kid or two to work part time. You miss your kids' school plays, concerts, and games because you have to work. You always have to work; you no longer even seriously think about doing anything else. But you start to see a little success, so you reinvest that and go to a trade show or a networking event where word of mouth grows. You eventually have enough money for your very first ad, which does nothing, but that's okay because you learned from it, and your next ad gets some attention and pretty soon, you can actually hire a couple of real employees and learn to sweat over payroll.

Another year or 2 or 3 go by, and you have a full-time work force. Each person wears 10 hats because there are no hat stands. Everyone works late (but never quite as late as you); no one claims overtime. You have shared your dream and these people believe it, fearless because they don't know any better, and clueless enough to do everything wrong over and over again until they eventually find a method that works.

And now, 5 or 6 years in, you can finally afford to hire someone who can actually tell you what you're doing wrong: Your very first consultant. It's almost like a first kiss, what we used to call 1st base, in that it promises bigger and better things to come. And then, day of days, you hire your very first employee who has actually done this before, and maybe even many times before, which is the entrepreneur's equivalent to 2nd base, and then another and another pro join up, 3rd base and now the bases are loaded with people who know what they're doing, and...

... you jump out of the back seat and say, "Take me home!"

I understand. Like any new, extremely emotional experience, letting your company go is like sending your son or daughter off to prom or spring break. You had control, and now a bunch of pencil pushers are trying to tell you how to run your own company. Things used to be so much easier, back when you didn't have to get approval or document or assess readiness. And the thing that sends you over the edge is this: The very first dip in revenue.

Panic! Someone is groping your child! All of these people are going to kill your kid!

Stop. STOP! Take a deep breath. You hired these people because they know what they're doing, right? And they've managed not to destroy previous employers. And you agreed that, to make this whole thing work, you have to get the hell out of the way and let them do their jobs. And you know that - you know it - but you don't feel it.

This is the glass ceiling where the 10% who made it through year 1 fail: They can't let go. And while their business doesn't die right away, they begin to lose people by the truckload, because they see it even if you can't: The company has stopped growing because you are standing in the way. That's right: You have become an obstacle for your company to overcome, and there are only 2 ways that things can go from here: You can fight to regain control over your teenage company and lose its respect, loyalty, and love, or you can do what all good parents do:

Trust that you brought it up right, and finally take that vacation you promised your spouse so long ago that you can't even recall doing it. Tell no one where you go. Take no phone. Watch no news. Stay gone at least a week, but preferably a month. If your business really can't live without you that long, you've already failed. But when it does, it will thrive and blossom into a strong, functional adult, stepping right out of its diapers and into its first acquisition, merger, or IPO.

And isn't that what every corporate parent really dreams of?

Too Many Tools

Have you ever worked for or with a company that gave you too many tools? It's obvious that they mean well, and that they're enthusiastic and creative and want to help you. The trouble is, you no sooner begin to understand one tool before another shows up, and another, and another... reinventing the wheel in an effort to help you succeed.

To keep from being that company, and to help any vendors that you may deal with that already are that company, may I humbly suggest this post as a pass-along?

Here is how to do tools right:

• You have competitors. They have tools. Look at them all.
• Ask your Customers - as many Customers as possible - which tools they actually use, and why. Write this down.
• Create NOTHING - yet. (I know it's hard. You want to make something today - yesterday, if possible. But you know what? Sending 5 tools, one right after another as another brilliant idea hits you is going to get your tools sent to the circular file without even being opened, because your Customer knows another, better version is just weeks away. Always.)
• Remember: People don't want to learn anything new. You can't change that. Don't try - you will only waste all of your money, time, and sanity. People don't want a cam-retractable, variable speed, percussive impact device. People want a hammer. 
• Simple, simple, simple. A tool can do as many as 3 things, provided they are simple things. If you try to make it do more than 3 things, your Customer's faces will melt and they will become brain-devouring zombies. This has been proven by science.
• Put your name on the tool. You want them to remember who made that wonderful hammer that they use every day to kill zombies, don't you? Damn straight.
• Make the tool as durable and as cheaply as possible. Expensive tools either get lost or don't get used. This has also been proven by science. Unseen University did the field work. Really.
• Before you make your tool, go watch people use tools. I know they told you what they use and why, but remember: people lie.
• Think. Think some more. Think again. 9 times out of 10, speed is the enemy of successful execution. You're just going to have to trust me on this one.
• When you are finally sure you have invented a hammer, have not reinvented the wheel, made it to last, made it cheap and, above all, made it useful, create your tool.
• Go home. Sleep. You done good!

Last but not least: If you have to explain how your tool works, it's not a tool. It's an obstacle.

Fear of Flaying

If you want your organization to be a place that you, let alone anyone else, actually want to go to each day, a key component is this:
Ensure that all stress comes from outside, and never from within.

There are plenty of competitors out there who are even now plotting the death of your company. Plotting, and acting on those plots. Why in the world would you actually destroy it for them? If it's going to die, it's going to die, but make them fight for it, dammit! Make your work environment cohesive and supportive, so that everyone mans the ramparts together, instead of complaining about who got more arrows.

Human beings are interesting creatures, with certain behavior patterns built in. One of these is the herding instinct: When you identify a competitor as the enemy (and actually use that word; I dare you), you create a natural tendency for your employees to focus outward and rally together. If you also provide an environment where a single mistake does not have a punishment but a single success has a reward, and where people are allowed to learn by making mistakes (obviously, not the same mistake over and over again, for those of us who are a little puzzled by the idea of not flogging failure), your employees will feel empowered and actually begin to take risks.

Risks are where growth happens.

This is just as true for an organization as it is for a human being. And you know an easy and cost-effective way to mitigate even those mistakes? Assign a mentor - even from another department or division - who is a neutral 3rd party for your employee to chat with, bounce ideas off of, and commiserate with. Encourage them to participate in networking groups so that they can hear how other people in their role have approached issues. Praise them when they get it right, and force them to break down the error when they get it wrong, so that they are better prepared the next time.

If your grass doesn't grow fast enough, do you yell at it? Of course not! You add fertilizer and you water it. Fear of the lightning bolt from on high is how management worked in the 1950's (unless you worked at Apple during Steve Jobs' tenure, ba-dump-bum). It has been proven time and again to produce more waste than headway, and encourages chaos when you aren't around, because your employees can finally breathe.

Don't be that kind of company. Don't be that kind of manager. Or the people plotting your death may be your own.

The Perfect Employee Manual

A brilliant and newly minted HR Manager just gave me the most beautiful employee manual I've ever seen, one so good that I can't not share it. I've also added a couple of things I like to include. If you don't have employee manuals for your new hires (and your old hires), or if you have one that doesn't include the following, print this post right now:

1. A checklist of what the new employee should receive on their first day of employment
2. A list of all of the applications that the new hire needs access to, what they do, and where they are (as much for IT as for your new hire)
3. All of the passwords and logins the new employee needs to know
4. W4
5. I9
6. Explanation of pay plan and time off; whom to call if you'll be late or out
7. Direct deposit form
8. Phone/contact list of all employees (or at least key department leads) and what they do (not just their title)
9. System failure guide: who to contact (and in what order) if phones, key apps, website, email, electricity, internet access, etc,. are down. You need 2 contacts per system.
10. Policy regarding discrimination, sexual harassment, bullying, etc.
11. Smoking policy
12. Policy regarding use of technology
13. Policy regarding use of social media
14. How to get in and out of the building, hours of operation, main phone/fax/web address/key email addresses
15. Nondisclosure and non-compete contracts
16. List of local restaurants, banks, health clubs, and bus stops
17. Training schedule
18. Training booklet(s)

What am I missing?

One Trick Ponies

When was the last time you used a standalone camera? I don't mean your phone or PC or tablet - I mean a camera that only takes pictures. With film. A still image camera.

In 1976, Kodak owned 90% of the film market. It's name was so much a part of our culture that the phrase "Kodak moment" became synonymous with photography. Everyone knew what a "Kodak moment" was. The company was founded in 1889, so they understood how to successfully manage a profitable business. In fact, for decades, Kodak was considered a must-have blue chip stock that no portfolio was complete without. Yet 2007 was the last year that Kodak turned a profit. On 1/19/12, Kodak finally filed for bankruptcy, and no longer makes cameras, digital photo frames, or pocket video cameras.

Lest you think that Kodak didn't try to change with the times, the company actually invented the first digital camera in 1975, and sued to protect its patents. And, even if they had dived into digital cameras full throttle and right from the start, bear in mind that, as I write these words, you can't give digital cameras away.

The real problem wasn't that Kodak changed too slowly. The problem was and is that Kodak is a one-trick pony in a world that demands that gasoline - as "old economy" a product as you can get - serves more than one function (cleaning your engine while powering your vehicle). We live in a time when even toilet paper manufacturers better come up with a few more ideas if they don't want to go down the drain.

The days of the single purpose product are over. Do you really believe that books will still be printed on paper 20 years from now? (Maybe 10.) Cars are another product ripe for a paradigm shift; even the manufacturers ran out of anything new to say decades ago. If it doesn't fly or teleport, a car is essentially a car, and sliding brand loyalties show that Customers know that. (Tupperware, I'm talking to you, too.) Even multipurpose products like Blackberries are falling by the wayside because they aren't multipurpose or intuitive enough.

It's no longer enough to simply buy a smaller, sexier company on the edge of technology to drive your share value. Shareholders understand that it's a ploy, and that you're only going to ignore the acquisition to death while you conduct business in the same old legacy organization way. Even the old mantra "Adopt, adapt, improve," will only keep your doors open for so long.

Spread out to reduce risk caused by downturns in one segment of the economy. That includes spreading out so that you cover more Customer demographics. Don't underfund or overfocus on particular segments, divisions, or departments. And, perhaps most important, don't share revenue.

To be successful, every segment must support itself from day one.

Give each segment the autonomy to make its own decisions and build its own infrastructure. All you should care about is whether or not the segment is profitable. Once you have one or two that are, listen and watch how they do things to see if their way of doing business can be applied to less successful segments. And do your best to make sure that the people who run each segment are new people, not your cronies, and that they come from outside your core industry. (Why in the world would you want to create a line of unsuccessful clones?)

Sooner or later, every market and every product goes away.

Making your products perform multiple functions that increase Customer convenience and that don't require an owners manual because they are instinctive to use as a hammer will increase your company's lifespan, but they won't make you immortal. To do that, you have to keep creating, finding, and funding wildly creative answers to problems that consumers don't even know they have.

And just so you don't think that this concept only applies to the GM's of the world, even if you build funky wooden shelves that you sell at art fairs, how many other out-of-work guys do you think go into that business every year, or women who think they can make jewelry for a living, or couples who think they can make a go of a restaurant? Almost all of these businesses fail. They have no POD's. They are all one trick ponies. But how about some earrings with built-in wireless ear buds or a bluetooth headset, a shelf with a built-in iPad charger/stand you can watch a movie while cooking, or a restaurant that has treadmills instead of chairs?

Take a look at Kickstarter.com to see what John Doe thinks is worth funding. There's a lot of noise, but there are some gems there (not least the whole idea of crowdsourcing venture capitalism). Many of the ideas are already out there.

The secret is not to be first. The secret is to be best.

Chopping Up Customers

In a prior article or two, I talked about different behavioral styles and a little bit about social media. Today, we're going to tie those together and convince you to abandon ads on TV, radio, and newspapers.

First, let's talk about what those three mediums really are: shotgun marketing. You have one message, and you shoot it at the crowd that each medium's salesperson tells you they have a lock on, and then you sit back and hope that your buckshot hits enough people to at least cover the cost of the ad (you do measure that, right?).

It's easy, right? They probably even put the ad together for you, or your agency does, and everyone tells you that that's where you need to spend your money because that's where the people are. And they're right - there are people there. The problem is, those people aren't Customers. They're media salespeople and ad agencies who make a lot of money every time you produce a shotgun ad.

The problem with shotgun ads is that they're not very measurable. This is to the advantage of everyone but you. If you can't measure the results, all you have to go by is how many people buy from you in general following a campaign. How do you know that it had anything to do with your ad? And even if you have a coupon code or something similar, and your reps don't let Customers have the special even if they don't have the coupon or the code (they never do that, right?), your typical response rate is probably somewhere between 1% and 3%, and you marketing people will tell you that's good.

Missing 97% (or more) of the people we aim at is good? Since when?

The core issue is, you're trying to hit several different kinds of slippery fish with buckshot. You don't use buckshot on fish; you use bait. And each type of fish has different tastes when it comes to bait. And some like bait that floats on the surface, some like bait that moves around or has a particular scent or color or feathers or or or...

You don't need a shotgun. You need a tackle box!

The first step in fly fishing, before you ever tie a fly, is to know what kinds of fish you want to catch, and then what those fish like. That means gathering information about your Target Customers - as much as you possibly and legally can. (At this stage, not necessarily information tied to a specific person; we'll talk about that in another post.) This is the bare minimum (bearing in mind that the needs of your business may require additions):

• Age 
• Sex 
• Household Income 
• Dependents 
• Interests 
• Ethnicity 
• Sexual Orientation* 
• Sources of Information (what used to be called 'news') 
• Behavioral Style

Once you know what your Target Customer's answers are to each of these questions - and remembering that you may have more than one target Customer - you can begin to break down their demographics. (Note: The old media that I mentioned before - radio, TV, and newspapers - will try to tell you that they have demographics, too, already all broken down for you. This is a lie. At best, they have guesses and hopes, none of which are something that you should risk your revenue on.)

Now look at as much information as you have on your actual Customers. How closely do they match your Target Customer? If it's not a close match, you just learned a bunch about whoever decided what your Target Customer looks like (hope their resume is up to date). Adjust your Target Customer to more closely match your actual Customers.

Now, how many Target Customers did you come up with? If you only have one, you'd better be a military contractor, or you're in trouble. You want a minimum of three or four to sustain your business if interest in your product or service wanes in any one group (or, in the case of B2B companies, in case one of your Target Industries has a financial downturn). As a general rule, more is better.

Once you have your target Customers finalized, you can begin to break out where your marketing money should go, and how you need to rewrite your message so that it speaks in the language that each Target Customer wants to hear and how it addresses the needs that each one has.

This is called Segment Marketing, among many other names. And while it definitely takes more work and time on your part, it doesn't need to cost more than what you already waste (I can't say "spend", because I only spend money on things that benefit me) on old media marketing - and your conversion rate will show a drastic improvement. It's hard not to like something that earns more for the same investment.

And, lest you think I forgot my promise to tie in social media, check out Mashable's lovely infographic. If your brain isn't buzzing with new marketing ideas by the time you get to the bottom, it may be a good time to take a nap.


* You are not asking Customers to come out of the closet. But knowing if a gay person is a potential Target Customer for your product or service - because they tend to have more disposable income, for example - may help you decide whether or not to spend money with a gay-focused publication or event. You could just as easily add religious or political orientation, too, depending on whether or not these factors are related to your core business.

Social Media Suckage

Social media is the number one marketing topic of the day. You can't turn on your PC without a PR pundit telling you how social media will totally change your business, help you sell more, turn your customers into content co-creators, and make your life perfect.

This is bunk, of course. Social media is just one more thing that someone will pretend to know more about than you do in order to make money from your lack of knowledge. Social media is not so readily pinned down; it's fluid, and moves with the crowd. Companies that have tried to use FaceBook to sell product (other than games) have wasted their money.

So what is social media good for?

Communication. Social media can be one of the best ways to communicate with Customers, because it is perceived as more direct and honest than plain old PR. But there is a price to pay: To be effective and not come off as out-of-touch or, worse, evil, you must do the following:

• To cover your backside, write specific rules regarding who is allowed to write about what happens at work, and what they are allowed to say. Make certain that everyone in your organization signs it, and fire anyone that violates it.
• Have a plan. Since when has anything gone well for your business when you just let things happen? Social media is no different. You need to know what you want to get out of it, the steps to get there, the metrics you want to see and the timeline by which they must be accomplished. See? You already know how to do this.
• Manage the conversation. Have Customer Service read all posts every day and immediately respond to the ones that need responding to. Some companies make the mistake of having the PR department respond to posts. PR is not a conversation; Customer Service has always been one. Social media is just a continuation of that conversation.
• Unless you are a game developer, don't believe anyone who says that they can help you make money on FaceBook. They're lying.
• Don't settle on one platform. Social media blows with the wind. To be part of the conversation, you have to be where your Customers are. New social media platforms arise seemingly out of nowhere and get hot fast (witness Pinterest). They disappear just as quickly (MySpace much?).
• Never, ever remove a post. You will instantly lose all credibility. Forever.
• Never pretend to be a customer. You will be found out, and you will burn for it.

One of the benefits of the social media conversation is that your fans and your enemies tend to congregate in one spot. If you respond quickly and positively to the latter, you grow the former. And that is where the real value comes in: as always, anything that a Customer says about you has infinitely more weight than anything that you say. No one believes your TV and radio ads; no one is seduced by your mailers or your stuffers or your email blasts. But one fan saying nice things about you on the platform of the moment resonates. (They also don't cost you a dime.) But bear in mind that it resonates just as loudly when an unauthorized employee says how much work blows on FaceBook, Twitter, or your company blog.

If you want to know what the current hot platform is, ask your kids. If you don't have any of your own, ask your neighbor's kids. They'll know. They can also tell you far more than you want to know about how each works. And at most, you'll have to buy some Girl Scout cookies that you were going to buy, anyway.

See? Social media isn't scary. Now go paste some pictures of food and kittens on Pinterest.

Hiring

Just as directing a film is largely about choosing the correct cast and crew, hiring is the single most important step to ensure that your organization surpasses its goals and thrives over the long term. Nonetheless, many hiring managers treat the interview process and its all-important prep as a chore. Some even put it off until forced, and then often make poor choices that only have to be replaced a short while later.

Employees are your most important asset. If you don't believe that with all of your heart and soul, you will fail. Employees do all of the real work in any organization. They are the public face of your business, day in and day out. They are the lifeblood of every organization. Without them, there is just you, and you can't do what needs to be done alone.

If you hate interviewing and prepping for interviews, imagine what it's like for the person on the other side of your desk. They have a limited amount of time to guess what you want to see and hear and to dazzle you - and that's after they've made it past resume-screening software (which turns away better than 95% of applicants), any headhunters you may work with, and your HR department.

Of course prep for the interview; you should have a set of questions sitting in a file folder at all times, so that you are ready whenever you need to hire someone. And you know the best place to get those questions?

From the people who already do the job.

Let's face it: They probably know the requirements better than you do. You can ask the basics, too, if you want, all of the "What did you do there?" and "What is your greatest strength?" stuff, but know that any applicant that's gotten as far as your desk has already rehearsed the answers to those tired words a hundred times before. You will learn exactly nothing that isn't already the story they've told on their resume.

So: Get 5 - 10 questions from employees that already do the job that you're hiring for. Next, ask the things that matter long-term:

• What kind of corporate culture are you looking for? 
• What do you find is the best way to network? 
• What do you do to relieve stress? 
• Would you rather stay in one position for a long period of time with regular raises, or move up quickly with no change in compensation? 
• Are you interviewing with a competitor? What made you come to us? 

These are questions that help define whether or not the candidate is a match for your culture (or at least the culture of the team that they will likely join). Listen carefully to the responses and think not just about what the candidate says, but how they say it.

There are two questions that you will want to ask at the end of every interview, unless you're already sure that the candidate is a "no":

• You win the lottery tomorrow - $164 million after taxes. What do you do? 
• Tomorrow morning, you find out that you have 6 months to live. What do you do? 

There are, of course, no right or wrong answers to either question, but the applicant's answers and how they answer are revealing. Let's take question one and break it down:

• If the candidate hesitates for an extended period, doesn't answer, or sounds like they are saying what you want to hear, don't hire them. If you hire them and something goes wrong, they will either fail to tell you until you find out on your own, hide it from you, or blame someone else. Trust me on this one. 
• If the applicant says they want to take care of their family and/or friends or give money to charity, and they are applying for a customer service or tech support role, they will likely be a good fit for that role, even if they add other things to the list. 
• If they say that they will quit working and travel, they will likely be a short-term employee. This in and of itself is not always a bad thing, but it depends on whether or not that is your plan for the position. 
• If they say that they would likely start their own company doing X, they may be a potential team lead or manager. 
• Anyone who says lots of different things is likely never to be satisfied in any role. For them, the grass will always be greener elsewhere. 

You can probably figure out the rest.

Question 2 is a different circumstance. Rather than fulfillment of a dream, it presents an opportunity to see what your applicant's priorities are when faced with the grimmest of all realities: Death. Most if not all of your applicants will not have given this question any thought, ever. In fact, some may actively resist answering. If they do, or have a great deal of difficulty answering, they will likely never rise to a higher position. If, however, they are able to accept the question at face value, think it through, and present a cogent answer, they will likely be good planners who are capable of acting on their own without as much supervision as candidates who have no answer. They may even explain their answers to you as they figure them out. Bear in mind that they are probably explaining these answers to themselves, as well as to you.

Any candidate that asks why you asked either question is dead in the water. If they're that suspicious of your motives before they've even had a chance to see how devious you really are, you'll only have to replace them at some point, anyway. Why not choose someone better from the start?

Second Interview
For the second interview - if the applicant is good enough to earn one - invite employees in the department to which the candidate will be assigned to ask the questions. You should do this whether the person that you hire will be their co-worker or their manager. Do not tell them in advance what you think of an applicant; let them make up their own minds. Give each person who volunteers a copy of the applicant's resume.

After they are done speaking with the applicant, sit with them alone somewhere quiet and ask them what they think. Then listen. Then thank them for their input. Do not at any point try to persuade them to think differently or lead them to think what you think.

This process serves several important functions:

• Knowledge. Remember, these employees do this job every day. Who better to kick the applicant's tires? 
• Rapport. Your applicant will ask questions of potential team members that they might hesitate to ask you. This way, they can get a clear picture of what your corporate culture really is - rather than what you'd like to think it is - and whether or not they are likely to be happy there. 
• Ownership. Whether co-worker or manager, each employee has a stake in every new hire, since they will depend on the new person for some kind of support. 
• Buy-in. Because they were an active part of the decision-making process, your employees will more readily accept any potential hire - even if it's not the one they picked. (You, of course, always make the final choice. Never present your employees' thoughts, to them or to anyone else, as anything more than recommendations.)

Special Offers and Slippage

From time to time, you may offer your Customers some kind of discount or other special offer by means of some type of coupon, etc. Here are a couple of rules regarding offers of this type that no one seems to follow, and which end up costing you more than the coupon is worth:
The whole point of this type of offer is to make sure that as many Customers as possible know about it. Make certain that you send it out on a day that it will be seen (if via email, Tuesday or Thursday are best; if via social media, try Wednesday just before lunch in your target markets; snail mail, use an unusual envelope or arresting graphic on postcards).

Especially today, when Customers are barraged by marketing messages in literally hundreds of mediums, the best way to keep your message from getting lost in the howl is to send it to your Customers more than once, and in a variety of mediums. Post it ahead of time on your company's website, send snail mail the week before, do an email or newsletter blast the day of, have your reps call key Customers the next day to make sure they got the flyer/email/etc... The squeaky wheel really does get the best results and, if you do it in several mediums instead of hitting Customers multiple times using just one, your opt out rate is far less likely to spike.
Make sure that your employees - especially support and sales - know about the offer before it goes out. Nothing is more unprofessional than a Customer who knows more about your marketing efforts than your employees.

You have enough competition, right? So make certain that other departments don't have competing offers going out at the same time. (How dumb is it to compete against yourself? Yet I can't count the number of times that I've seen this happen, simply due to a lack of communication between departments and/or managers.)

Now let's talk about a key component of any special offer: slippage.

Let's say that you send your special offer out to 1,000 Customers. The offer should require that Customers validate the offer in some way - bringing in a coupon, entering a code into a web form, etc. This serves two purposes:

• It allows you to count the number of conversions so that you know the response rate. Without this, you have no idea whether or not the offer was successful. Remember: This is a business, not a club; guesstimating is for hobbyists. 
• It allows us to exclude Customers who did not actually respond to the offer - a practice known as 'slippage'. The worst thing that you can do is allow employees to push your offer to Customers who have never heard of it (and they will, believe me, unless you order them not to). 

There are two reasons for this:

• Your metrics regarding the actual response rate go out the window. 
• Your employee is offering a discount to a Customer that was willing to pay full price! Don't get me wrong - you want as many Customers to respond to your offer as possible. But you don't want to offer a discount to a Customer that was willing to pay full price, or you'll go broke, because it becomes habit and then 'the way we do things' overnight.

I can already hear you: "But Dave, if our Customers find out afterward that we had a discount and they didn't get it, they'll be mad at us!"

Bullshit. They may take it out on you, but they'll actually be mad at themselves for missing your offer. And we even have a way around that: Have a second offer available for exactly these Customers, not quite as good as the first offer, and let them know that you are doing this one time only and only because they are such a good Customer. (This will only work if everyone in your chain of command holds the line.)

You want everyone to hear about your offer, but you only want a certain number of people to cash in. That's how offers work: They drive additional business your way without you having to give up revenue. Of course, you honor the offer for everyone who complies with your terms, but for no one else. And from then on, your Customers will watch for your offers, and make sure they save them.

Out of the 1,000 Customers that you sent your offer to, you'll likely get 20 to 30 who convert and comply - 2% to 3%. But your traffic should bump at least 10%. That's a 7% to 8% uptick in business without any discount beyond what you would normally give a Customer without a special offer.

Ain't slippage grand?

YG5FWXED2V2D

The Power of Belief

The problem with trying to win people over regarding anything - issue, product, service, cause, etc. - is this:

No amount of information changes a belief.

It does not matter if you have the most prominent climate scientists in the world, or how many; if someone believes that climate change is fabricated, they will continue to believe that. If you believe that black is white and white is black, no matter how many flash cards you are shown, you will never see what anyone who does not share your conviction sees. Belief is that powerful.

Why? Because belief feeds pleasure- and comfort-inducing centers in the brain, even for those who tend to be thinkers rather than believers.

Basically, humans who believe something that is not based on fact are those whose cognitive mind is based more on intuition than on reflection. That is, they are more apt to 'skip ahead' to answers that require less conscious thought. For reflective minds, a series of easily confirmed facts presented by a source whom the observer recognizes as an authority is often enough... it's just a matter of getting your message out there. But for 'believers', even recanted statements and authoritative proof are not enough (witness Toyota's debacle with unintended acceleration). And because most people tend to congregate with others who think as they do, this confirmation of belief is constantly reinforced.

One of the positives of social media is that it is easier to directly interact with Customers than ever before. But one of the negatives is that, if a proportion of your Customer base is intuitive rather than reflective (and they are), a comment by someone who is not a fan of your organization on a blog, Twitter, or Facebook has the potential to drive away large numbers of other Customers - even if what they say has no facts to support it.

So what can influence belief in a positive way?

A better, 'hookier' story (that is, one that is more 'intuitively true') and a peer group whose ratio tips at least 70% in favor of the new belief, so that the believer feels that they are part of an easily recognizable majority. (This does not mean the majority of humans - just the majority of the people with whom they spend the bulk of their 'voluntary' time - that is, time away from work.)

The first part is relatively easy, but how do you encourage people to regularly interact outside their usual (like-minded) peer group? Especially when social media applications - for purposes of marketing demographics - keep herding us into ever-smaller, more narrowly defined 'communities'?

The first step is to identify which of your Customers are reflective and which are intuitive. This is easily accomplished with surveys, monitoring of Twitter, Facebook, industry-oriented blogs, etc. The next step is to state the facts in language that is appropriate to each group (the days of "one message fits all" are gone), and in forums that identify your organization as part of or affiliated with the group in question (obviously, not if they are a hate group or part of some other objectionable organization). This is most easily accomplished by explaining how your organization has supported Customers like the Customer whom you wish to reach, using examples that have value to that particular Customer segment.

Bear in mind, if your Customer base has a wide demographic variation, you may have to craft several different versions of your story to communicate it most effectively to each group. It also never hurts to enlist the help of prominent members of each group to help explain your position and to learn more about the concerns of each Customer segment.

At the end of the day, it is always better to build your base of support before something negative is said, so that your Customers already communicate with you regularly, consider you 'one of them', and are more apt to listen to your side than to someone who has no facts to support them. The most important thing, if something negative is said, is to answer instantly, invite the speaker to discuss the issue off-line, listen carefully to their issue without interruption, respond in a way that actually addresses their concern, and then ask for feedback.

Miserable SOB's & the (Self) Entitled

I have run a few call centers, now, and one of the things that you learn early on in that business is that customers come in a few basic buckets. Each bucket has its own needs and requires its own approach. Today, we're going to talk about two of the hardest buckets to tote.

MISERABLE SOB’S
Let’s start with the group that everyone really wants to talk about, anyway: Miserable SOB’s. Don’t you hate those? They have a shitty attitude and a shitty life, they’re having a shitty day, and all they want to do is spread that shit around. Whether complaining about something that was actually their fault, a change that actually makes things better for everyone but them, or some perceived bit of tomfuckery that was actually an honest mistake, Miserable SOB’s are the bane of customer service and support teams everywhere.

I know that you or your call center manager(s) and staff have probably been to more seminars and classes regarding this class of customer than you can count. How can so few people (roughly 3% of customers - less, if you’re lucky) inspire so much attention and dread?

And, of course, the big one: How do you handle them?

That’s not really what you’re asking, though, is it? If you’ve been to even one webinar on the topic, you already know what to say. The real question is, how do you successfully rebound from an MSOB call so that it doesn’t make you feel shitty for the rest of your day?

Simple: Pity them.

They have a shitty attitude, a shitty day and a shitty life for a reason. You’ll probably never know what it is. You don’t need to know. Maybe their parents were just like them, or worse. Maybe their spouse, boyfriend, or girlfriend treats them badly, or just left. Maybe they just found out that they got passed over for a job or a raise that they deserved, or found out that they’ll be laid off right after the holidays.

Maybe their son or daughter died.

The thing is, no one thinks of themselves as a Miserable SOB, but all of us have been one. The secret to not letting that call shit on the rest of your day is to ignore your natural instinct to bitch back or talk down. Instead, feel sorry for the miserable SOB. They have a shitty life, and you (hopefully) don’t. Why not be the little bit of sunshine in their otherwise shitty day? Whether or not they reciprocate, you’ll feel better, and isn’t that what you wanted to hear, anyway?

THE (SELF) ENTITLED
Who died and made them king (or, more likely, queen), anyway? No one, that’s who! You don’t give a rat’s ass that they’re doctor so-and-so’s wife, or that your company or another employee has ‘always done’ this or that for them, even when you know damned well that they didn’t, or they shouldn’t have, or that you’ll get in trouble if you do.

These royal-pains-in-the-ass constitute about 5% of customers, but consume roughly 20% of your resources, including your time and the time of your employees. And in return, they wheedle for every discount (whether entitled to them or not), freebie, and exception that you’re dumb enough to give them.

And there’s the issue in a nutshell: It’s not them, it’s you. They wouldn’t act like this if you didn’t encourage it by letting them have what they want. In the end, they are no different than spoiled children (hell, we both know that’s exactly what they’ve been since conception), and should be treated exactly the same way that you cure a spoiled child:

Say no.