The Business Brickyard

This was the first post I ever wrote for this blog back in 2005.  Given all that is going on in the economy and in your business world I thought it was appropriate to publish it again.  Now is the time to challenge your thinking, embrace a different approach and get back to the basics that give you and your business purpose and passion. Find your basics and... rock them!

In a former life, I was running my own logistics company. It nearly killed me. Tears, fear and stress.

To read the papers, blogs and listen to TV news is to get lost in a sea of contradictions. "Now is the time to double down!" some will say as they name the great businesses that were born in past turbulent times.  "Batten down the hatches!" others say as they insist you must cut costs anywhere and everywhere to survive the doom and despair that is in front of us. 

A quick reminder of the main concepts of The Business Brickyard as covered in my book (available as a free download):

Brick #1: Reconnect with your purpose.
Your purpose lives at the intersection of what you truly do better than anyone else and what your clients truly care about.

Brick #2: All truth is in the cash account.
The best way to stay in control of your business is to start by spending less than you take in. Only count what is in the bank, not what may be coming in.

My friend and mentor Kevin Carrol has launched his latest book: The Red Rubber Ball At Work. If you are a fan of his first book or yearn to find passion in your work, you owe it to yourself to buy and read this book. Kevin profiles people who have captured the important but illusive goal of making their work their play.

When the New York Yankees were in a neck and neck battle as they tried to win their division against their long time rival the Boston Red Sox, way too many years ago now to remember, catcher Jorge Posada gave out T-shirts to his teammates that said ..

"Grind It" on the front and "There is no trying, there is only doing or not doing" on the back.

For Twitter to make its next leap up, it needs to tell its story and state its purpose so that it is meaningful to people outside the inside crowd.

From where I sit, Twitter remains an "echo chamber" that is very hard to explain to anyone outside of the early adopters.(Sound familiar "blogs" and "RSS"?)

The current economic situation sees a lot of people talking about the power of returning to the basics. ( Hooo....rayyy!) Get inspired to do it yourself by reading the posts linked below and then set aside a few hours (or a day) and figure out what YOUR basics actually are.

A while ago I wrote about the impact an organization can make when they take the time to show the audience how something is made. We often forget all the work and thinking that goes into the products that we take for granted. (Original article is here).

I am re-posting the below chapter from my book.  I get that everyone is worried about being able to borrow from a bank.  But if the survivial of your business counts on relying on the bahavior or stability of a bank then it is time to make a fundamental change.  I have been there and will never go back again.  Attacking how clients paid me was a big step in getting there. I plan to go deeper into this topic this month as this is one of those basics that does not get the attention it deserves.

UPS has over 94,000 delivery vehicles, 282 airplanes (the 8th largest fleet in the world) and over 425,000 employees across the globe. Over the years they have developed one of the most sophisticated hand held devices ever devised. By the end of 2008 they will have over 70,000 of them deployed worldwide. They call it the Delivery Information Acquisition Device, DIAD for short. The latest iteration has 3 different radio types and is the instant entry point for a tracking system that averages over 10 million tracking requests a day.