Fat-Ass Jeans- Think of it As Another Business Benchmark

These Could be My Fat-Ass Jeans

(Warning: this is about 10% business, the rest is self-indulgent.)

I’m wearing my Fat-Ass jeans. Again.

I think I’m on week 3. Week 2 of “The Diet” (enough said.) I can’t fit into anything else. Refuse to buy a bigger size. I am the walking fashion damned.

All women have them. These Fat-Ass Jeans. I think the male version is the elasticized  shorts or sweats. They’re the Maginot Line for your weight. The last line. The final stand. They are the warning of unacceptable hugeness on the horizon, and with Summer Bikini Season it’s time for action.

Oh, and God forbid we can’t fit in the Fat-Ass Jeans (for brevity will herein be known as F.A. Jeans.) Def-Con 5, Red Alert People. Desperate measures will have to be taken.

So chatting with my friend Suzy about my F.A. Jeans, (Day 27 of wearing them, I have two pairs I interchange so I am at least… clean) I found an amusing parallel between my predicament and business.

No, really. This is what I think about.

We all have limits. In business there are endless ways to quantify our position, cash-flow, balance sheet. Same goes for personal vanity. The F.A. Jeans is my personal limit (I could have it be BMI, weight, how much fast I can run a mile, but the F.A. Jean it is) just as ROI, P/E, Debt/Asset, EBITDA is to business. Unacceptably high (or low) and you’re in the Fat-Ass Jeans. Time to re-evaluate, re-commit, re-engineer, reorganize and get back on track to profitability and your skinny jeans.

How did I find myself in the F.A. Jeans? Not paying attention. Just as in business, an attitude of “Just this time” or “One time Only” and not paying mind to the game at hand. It is a slippery slope into the land of delusion and being in the red (F.A. Jeans.)

So, like with rehabbing a business I am rehabbing myself- one day at a time. Watching my cash-flow, In-flow and expenditures (boot camp helps at bit.) Lately I’ve been having a glass of wine and not running, time to re-commit again.

Think I’ll write a blog post about it.

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(And HUGE credit goes to Rochelle Karina for the photo above, and for being my butt-double. She has more cajones than yours truly. You can see the original posted HERE at Rochelle’s blog .)

Marketing- Delivered Milkman FRESH!

I get milk delivery. From a real milkman. Like the 50′s “I like Ike” nuclear-family era.

Really.

Love me. Make fun (insert joke HERE.) Be utterly, desperately jealous of me- it’s ok… you should be. It’s a pretty great service that has saved my bacon (an item which they deliver) quite a few times.

You're average every-day Milkman of yesteryear.

My milk service is a lesson in marketing best-practices. In this day and age of Super Markets, the image of the friendly milk-man delivering milk is often relegated to “Leave to Beaver” or “Happy Days.”

But they exist. My milk delivery service, Hornstra Farms, doesn’t just exist, they thrive. They take a Seth Godin approach, the littlest things, an every “touch” matters customer experience.

For example. They recently lowered prices. No biggie, but they made sure to tell me about it. Alongside my hormone-free locally-raised freshly bottled milk, was a nice little note explaining that “due to a small decrease in energy costs, both at the dairy and at the fuel pump, we are able to decrease the price of your milk as well as your delivery charge.”

Now in reality, they were offering a $0.10 off per half gallon, $.20 of a gallon, and perhaps $0.50 off delivery. No big whoop, but I had to check it. This was after I mentally shuttlecocked them into the “truly awesome” company bracket. Why? They were looking out for me. In one small customer letter , they had communicated that they CARED. ABOUT ME. Rather than just walking off with the extra 10 cents or so (again, I had to do the research on my actual savings), they decided to pass it on and write a letter singing it to high heaven.

So freakin’ smart.

They make this old-fashion “high-quality touch” customer experience flows right through to the cars they drive (1950′s looking milk vans retro paintjobs,) my sweet little milk box, and to the information they pass on to customers– say when someone’s favorite Oatmeal-molasses bread isn’t available.

Once my bread (umm a certain Oatmeal-Molasses) wasn’t delivered. Not only did I get an apology but information to the effect that no one received bread that day. I was told that upon delivery to Hornstra from the bakery, it was deemed stale. “The owner is a stickler for fresh, not fresh… not delivered” was my driver’s reply. Stop. You had me a fresh.

Every touch is about quality, honest value, customer-centric convenience. With every touch they pass on their brand, story and message consistently.

Got to run, need to fill out my order, the milkman comes tomorrow!

The art of folding, running and walking away.

Kenny Rogers, the original Gambler

Sometimes, as Kenny Rogers says, “You got to know when to hold em, know when to fold em, know when to walk away and know when to run.”

Often the hardest is to learn to walk away. Being stubborn, too smart for my own good, I have had to learn this the hard way, several times, both in business and in life.  There is a fine balence of what you can push and make happen or what can only unfold or evolve on its own. And sometimes there’s the third, where try as you might, putting as much dedication and perserverence it goes no where, or only gets worse.

Some call the force that shapes the direction destiny, others call it fate.

In my own way I believe there is a current that shapes our lives. Times you just flow into new experiences and achieve new things almost effortlessly, others you’re swimming against stream and can achieve nothing no matter what. I’ve come to find that when you’ve tried everything, and nothing is working, perhaps it’s time to say sayanara and move on. Perhaps it was a life-lesson you needed to learn, or an opportunity to learn new things that will help you in the path your meant to be on.

When you’re with the current, things are beautiful. When you’re swimming against it, it can incredibly frustrating and disheartening. You try and try and try and keep hitting a wall. That can’t be fun.

So stop.  I’m all for the Jeffery Katzenberg “If a door closes, find an open window” approach but it you’ve tried every window, the basement, the doggy door, the chimney– perhaps it’s time to burn the house down? Or at least walk away and perhaps revisit later? When the price is less? Or the sellers are more wiling to sell?  (Can I take this house metaphor any farther? No? Ok…)

I believe everything has a reason for being and happening. If it is meant to be ,  it is meant to be. Tenacity is an awesome trait– but also is wisdom. What is that AA prayer?  ”May I have the courage to change, accept what I can not, and wisdom to know difference.” 

Not a bad prayer.