Making Ripples: post-corporate adventures in Floyd County Virginia

The hidden pitfalls of adopting technology - part 1

We all know the bright and shiny face of skillfully crafted consumer technology and for the most part as consumers, we enjoy a relatively painless relationship with a wide range of exotic new technology.

Our cell phones connect us to faraway places while we careen madly about on the highway. We zap our toast or pop tarts and they come up just like we want almost all of the time. We receive music and news from satellites, our cars tell us more about our environment than we can safely absorb, and voices from our dashboards tell us to turn left in 200 feet.

When it comes to automating a business however, technology is a two-edged sword. It takes a high degree of skill to master the technology sufficiently to actually make money using it. It also displaces long-established manual procedures which are part of the DNA of the organization and have never been fully documented because they are understandings, not procedures.

When technology works for me as in the image shown here, life is fine and my days are productive. I am happy and make the people around me happy. When technology eludes my grasp, my days are filled with frustration and suppressed rage, mostly at myself for falling into a self-made trap.

I have been an early adopter for many years, but that was because I was one of the people who were creating and selling technical solutions. I had very little real understanding of the needs of the business owner who has to keep things running for years on end and absolutely HATES upgrades and new models of anything!

Now that I am a business owner myself, I find myself caught on the horns of a dilemma.

As a newcomer to the field of custom picture framing, I was able to embrace the latest computer technology for designing framing solutions and cutting mats because I didn't have anything to unlearn. I could go for whatever solution made the most sense today without having to regret the loss of traditional skills.

On the other hand, I wrote my own software for a simple Point of Sale system that was based on how I was doing business. Since I crafted it to handle my business model exactly, there was nothing extra and nothing that had to be "worked around". It worked fine, but it had a major limitation, a hand-built supplier database.

Now I am trying to upgrade to a one-size-fits-all retail Management System with all sorts of bells and whistles and I am struggling!

Working and blogging - a precarious balance...

When I am working on something challenging, it's not always easy to find time to write about it and writing about it more than a few times just might bore my audience.

When we were building our house here in the country and getting acclimatized to life in a small rural community, life moved at a pace that encouraged contemplation and blogging.

Writing still continued when starting up Floyd Custom Framing  because there was time in which I could collect my thoughts and share what seemed interesting.

But recently this custom framing business has taken on a life of its own and I feel like a rodeo rider who is trying to stay on top and not get trampled underfoot.

I have one hand on the business and the other free hand reaching for information to keep me ahead of the new technical challenges I encounter every week. There is no other hand that I can use to write all of this down for posterity.

The few moments I have free get spent visiting online forums for members of the custom picture framing community.

I feel that this may be the wave of the future where self-employed business owners work in home-based shops but mingle daily on the Internet with practitioners of the same art to share problems and solutions that friends and family can may not appreciate or be able to contribute to.

When it is time to deliver completed products, I finally get to leave the shop and visit customers and share a quick coffee break at the Cafe Del Sol with other self-employed business owners.

But there is hope for change. I have found someone competent who has been helping me organize the framing business and with luck, we will bring it to the next level where we have a retail location in downtown Floyd, here in Floyd County, Virginia.

That will open whole new areas of opportunities and problems to solve, so I will have no end of things to write about. I just hope that I will be able to find the time...

Are any of you experiencing this same challenge? Plenty to write about, but no time to write?

Consider the benefits of creating an outstanding customer experience...

When you are able to create an outstanding customer experience, your customers return for more of the same and tell their friends about you.

When you adopt this attitude about your products and services, your biggest problem becomes figuring out how to keep on doing it in a way that lets you prosper. It can represent a revolutionary change in your business model and makes life far more enjoyable.

This approach eliminates most of the effort that normally goes into cold calling, upselling, and convincing customers that your pre-packaged solution is right for them.

It encourages you to find out what customer expectations are before you invest a lot of effort and fail to meet them.

To create an outstanding customer experience, your focus must be on the customer and what that customer needs and wants. Once you know his or her expectations, then you can discuss raising of the expectations and what that might entail.

This is a natural and almost effortless process if the customer's expectations are discussed and understood before going on to discuss solutions. It might have profound effects on your life as a business owner.

Most of the transactions that annoy you as a customer involve people who are proposing solutions to problems you don't have or providing solutions you did not ask for. The transactions that customers remember fondly and share with others are the ones where they got more than they expected.

On the other side of the coin, most of the transactions that annoy you as a business person involve doing a lot of work for an unhappy customer. When you exceed customer expectations, everybody wins.

What changes in your business model would it take to provide an outstanding customer experience on a routine basis?

Nepotism again...

A reader asks about the positives and negatives of nepotism in a school setting.

His comment read:

Regarding nepotism and ethics, what about a situation where a teaching staff where the principal has a practice of hiring married couples? Approximately 25% of our staff is comprised of married couples. He is very open about the practice saying it's like a family, but I argue that it could turn into a dysfunctional family. .... What are the positive and negatives of such a practice in a school setting?

I'm not sure I would consider hiring married couples nepotism. I have worked for many companies where several members of a family were employed. Usually, the company did not allow these people to work in the same department or for each other.

I consider nepotism to be the favoring of a relative or a friend over other employees. When family or personal connections interfere with the orderly management of a company, it is a recipe for disaster.

When workers or managers are productive and do the job that people expect of them, nobody cares who they are related to.

When employees or managers are incompetent and are protected because they are friends with or related to someone else in the company, the company has a hidden chain of command and hard working people resent it. Good people will leave as soon as they spot this occurring because it is unfair and unprofessional. Timid employees will remain and moan about their lot.

Are the incompetent people in your company being protected by someone?

Floyd Community Health Center, excellent home town health care

We welcome the recent opening of the community-owned Floyd Community Health Center on the Jacksonville Center campus, because it is a long drive to the Tri-Area Health Clinic in Laurel Fork, VA.

The team at this new center provides excellent service under the direction of Dr. Lorrie French. I have already used them for my periodic lab procedure and for minor surgery. Lorrie and her staff make you feel well cared for and they treat you more like family than as a patient. It was one of the best patient experiences I have had in years.

This is one of three federally qualified community health centers operated by the Laurel Fork Health Commission. It provides affordable comprehensive primary healthcare to the residents of Floyd and Patrick Counties. Discounts are available based on income through their sliding fee program.

They will be operating at the Jacksonville Center campus location while they construct a permanent Health Center in the area.

If you currently do not have healthcare, this is definitely worth checking out.

I feel we are fortunate to have such choices in this remote community.