Well…where do I begin

3 months move pretty fast when your nose is to the grinder.  I started my biz about three months ago and it has been a task.  I made a valuable purchase and that was half the battle.  Now I must get licensed as well as form partnerships to make this investment pay for itself.  What biz is this you might be asking.  I small niche in the transporting biz.

I see things are steadily changing over at the school I was at…same thing different people.  Trying to get a biz going is quite a task.  It is even more interesting when you have a family and are working a full time job (gotta love the rat race lol).  Patience is a virtue and is the hardest thing to deal with when you want (need) everything to happen instantly.  This is where I use the term of a beloved sports announcer…:You have to have Sticktuitiveness.”

Until the next time…

Flight of this Phoenix…

Wow…it has been 4 months since being in the school based on WSU campus and I must say things are looking very good.  After having the rug snatched from under my feet I quickly got my bearings and saw that I had to succeed.  “The sweetest revenge is success”…that is my new adopted saying.  Having a saying and living by that saying (making success a reality) I found can be a challenge in itself.

I am back and ready to roll…my business is coming together and success is within my grasp.

Quicken Tour…Day 1

Today and next Tuesday our Bizdom U class will assemble over at Quicken Loans. We are going on a company tour put together by Chris McCallum of Envision U at the Livonia Corporate Head Quarters. The purpose of this trip is to see how the company works while also applying those principles to our future businesses. We will get a snapshot of the company from the beginning to the end of the loan process. We will also gain an understanding of their support mechanisms and departments.

I have a few friends that are in the mortgage broker business. As you can imagine times are very tough in the lending industry. The sub-prime market has collapsed and just last week a major residential mortgage company had to close it’s doors leaving over 7000 unemployed. So I had asked myself a few questions as to how Quicken remains competitive and continues to grow. When we began this program Quicken had just over 3600 employees, now they are well over 5000.

That is amazing growth in the matter of 7 months. So while everyone is downsizing or being forced to close their doors Quicken continues to stride along. As I have come to see first hand it all starts with the culture. It is all based around a set of what I would call common sense principles. However what I have seen when comparing them to the competition is that what you would think is standard practices are not.

Doing the little things, or raising the level of awareness as the ism states, is what separates Quicken. Returning all phone calls within a 24 hour period is standard policy. I have been through the mortgage process before and you would be surprised how long some of these brokers and banks respond. I sometimes feel as if I am chasing people just to give them money. How absurd is that.

We had a “tour guide” by the name of Melanie Roy who is a trainer in recruiting. She was in charge of facilitating our interaction with the different departments we would encounter. Our first stop was in HR where we met James McCloskey. He gave us an overview of the hiring process, how they interview and select employees. This information proved useful in understanding what type questions to ask potential employees. Most importantly you most watch out for professional interviewers.

When the time comes for us to begin our companies it will be vital that we put the right people in place. Good to Great phrased it as “putting the right people in the right seat on the bus.” Just as it is important to ask the right questions you must be very upfront with candidates on how things operate on a daily basis. This is important so that people will not feel overwhelmed when they are performing their job function.

Next we met Dan Majewski who is the VP of recruiting (Melanie’s boss). He expanded on what James had told us by explaining where one might look for candidates. I agree with Dan that the best source to get candidates is through referrals of current performing employees. I gather they rely on the laws of attraction, good workers attract other good workers.

Eric Stoddard who is the VP of Banker Training stressed the importance of having proper training in place. One should strive to make the training as close to real as possible. This instills confidence in employees so that they can “hit the ground running.” Eric stressed that employees are in most cases the first contact your company has with the customer. So when an employee does something incorrectly make sure you address it immediately.

Once a Banker graduates from banker training they will always have someone to help guide them. Kristan Hamilton who is a banker coach allowed us to listen to incoming and outgoing calls. The reason that they listen in is for quality assurance purposes. If they feel the banker is missing vital steps in the sales they can coach them to correct their mistakes. This concludes day one of our tour.

Fair Food Foundation

Oran Hesterman is the CEO of Fair Food Foundation visited our class last week.  He talked to us about his humble beginnings.  He explained how he became a part of the effort to take on food desserts in major cities like Detroit and Chicago. Oran is a native Californian and attended University of California in Santa Cruz.  He was undecided as to what major he wanted to pursue. Then early in his college career he had a class learning how to farm organic foods. He researched and found that it was not a big field. He instantly recounts his thoughts of that it could be the basis of a business.

 

He soon started to research the local restaurants to get a feel for what foods that they may need and what they (the school) could supply them with.  Restaurants wanted alfalfa sprouts and no one grew it in the area. He started a sprout farm out of mayonnaise jars. The business soon grew to selling 9 tons a month.  He then developed a system to grow, to market and ship these sprouts. After realizing that there was no infrastructure in place to make and sell food locally he then saw a bigger opportunity. So he decided to sell the business in pursuit of something greater.

 

His next move was going back to school. He eventually received his Ph D from MSU in plant and soil science. After working in the program thereafter he began to work with Miguel from Kellogg Foundation to pursue grants. Fair Foods Foundation was created as a trust for philanthropic funding of localized food businesses. The mission is to encourage local business development in the food industry.  By either supporting local farmers to sell existing businesses.  Also supporting the creation of new businesses is the aim as well.

 

The foundation has a very sound idea. I feel that education about organic food should be an area of concentration for them. Organic food consumers make a very small percentage of the food market. It is increasing in popularity but the cost associated with organic foods is very high compared to food you could purchase at your local grocer. Oran did point out that stores like Whole Foods charge a lot more just because there are no true competitors. The cost of non-organic and organic is closer than one would be lead to believe.

Which obviously means there is money to be made.

Baby iPhone…aka Mini-me

 

 

According to a report on CNN Apple is bringing out a cheaper version of the iPhone in the fourth quarter. Probably around the holiday season I would suspect. It is said that the phone might be based off the iPod Nano architecture, which is a smaller thinner form of the iPod. The iPhone began sales on June 29. There were long lines and waits for many first movers trying to get their hand on this new contraption. It was estimated that about 700,000 iPhones were sold the weekend of their release.

The iPhone, a mobile phone with iTunes (music player), camera, gps and Web browser. It seems that Apple has created a product that has a few of the characteristics of a PDA phone. However it provides it’s user with a lot more usability for the common person. The iPhone sells for $500 (4gb) and $600 (8gb). It has been found that Apple filed a patent application document dated July 5 that refers to a multi -functional handheld device with a circular touch pad control, similar to the Nano’s scroll wheel.

This proposed Nano phone would priced probably around $300 which would meet a demand for a iPhone that is more obtainable price-wise. I personally would love an iPhone. Although I find it hard to pay for a phone that does not have a new contract discount like other competing PDA phones. I don’t know whether this is Apple or AT&T’s doing. Whoever it may be, both firms are seeming to do well with this partnership.

www.cnnmoney.com

What are the Pistons doing

I wonder sometimes if Joe Dumars really knows what he’s doing. I watched the draft, which pretty much went according to plan. That is until the trades started to happen. J Rich is now a Bobcat courtesy of MJ and Ray Allen is back on the east coast where he played his college years at.

The Pistons didn’t appear to do anything dramatic to help themselves get better in the draft. It seems the entire eastern conference got better over night…maybe not good enough to better an increasingly better west, we shall see. We have some weaknesses that need to be addressed. The coaching sucks and I now see why Flip Saunder never won with the T-wolves. The Pistons were a defensive juggernaut who would hold teams with machine-like ease. We were never a scoring team, however our scoring margin was always pretty decent.

I know the team is based on the extreme team philosophy but that worked when the east was a lot weaker and the Pistons had the ability to shutdown any team they wanted. I watched Lebron look like the second coming of MJ, but if you took a closer look it revealed that their was a high dependency on Big Ben. One could easily see that they were not on the same page. Chauncey Billups rarely let anyone go by him, now he worries about saving energy for offense. Tayshaun looks like an average defender, so I guess that means Paul Pierce and a host of other superstars were right. Rip never was a defensive factor unless he was chasing Allen Iverson around. And Rasheed can’t stay in the game (and he is by far the best defender on the team).

Joe D had been luck (more like bailed out) to have player drop in his lap because he has totally dropped the ball in drafting talent. Could you imagine if we got Chris Bosh, D. Wade, or better yet Mello who wanted to be here. I guess we shall see what might happen.

Bill Emerson: President of Quicken Loan

In the book Good to Great Collins described a type of leader that was synonymous making these businesses great. Bill Emerson fits this persona to a T. Culture is critical as he was quick to point out to our class. The average tenure of leadership of at Quicken is 11 yrs. To be a leader in quicken you must know isms and walk and talk it. Bill has such a commitment and passion to grow quicken that he doesn’t see himself leaving for a while.

How might one grow as an individual who aspires to lead? First the question you must ask yourself is “am I willing to grow.” It is all about seeking personal greatness and pursuing greatness. An individual must be willing to change as a person to grow. Otherwise you fall under the Definition of Insanity (by Einstein)…doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.

When making the choice of being a leader one must understand certain factors involved. It is different from being on your own (following leadership). When you become a leader you must transition. As an individual your efforts are all focused on reaching personal goals and performance. One must know how to switch from individual goals to team performance. When you become a leader you are responsible to help people go grow.

Now that you have made this decision to lead a group you must demonstrate these traits that will help you to become an effective leader. First and foremost many new leaders make a critical mistake. Like is what most leaders want when they become new leaders. You should never try to be liked first as Bill told us. Trust and respect must be earned first then they may like you. The easier way to start is to lead by example. An individual must be willing to put in a lot of time at the beginning of becoming a leader.

You have to have genuine interest in your team members. Find about them and their goals and what trying to accomplish. Allow their goals to be what they are aiming to accomplish for easy to buy into). Many times people set goals that are not theirs. They have zero connection to these goals and often they may be too lofty. Remember every person is different in their goals.

What is leadership? Bill had expressed what to him makes a leader in the following statements. A leader needs to have followers (employers); because a leader can only lead when someone is willing a follow. It’s all about knowing how to lead people to accomplish a task/goal. A leader is responsible for developing and helping people achieve their potential. A leader must articulate a vision. Bill summed it up best, the foundation of it all….understanding service. Leaders serve the people that work with them. You work for those that serve under you. Not about the leader, only about serving and accomplishing goals.

How do you make leadership work? Leadership is an Art not a science. It’s a belief system; you must buy in to for it to work. You have to be real with yourself and others. When you take these ingredients and add them together this is will help. What you are trying to ascertain as a leader is building report and credibility. Credibility give you the ability to win trust among your team.

Biz Buzz

Last week was a subject that hit close to home.  It was more discussions of Chrysler being up for sale.  What once was quote by the former CEO of DCX as a match made in heaven has turned out for the worse.  The current CEO announced that anything is possible concerning the future of Chrysler.  The company has posted loses and think the time is right drop excess baggage.

The economic climate in the automotive industry is pretty dismal.  The big 3 are all have a hard time maintaining marketshare.  Toyota is steadily marching towards being the number 1 auto manufacturer.

Then here a thought or monkey wrench.  GM wants to come to the rescue…more like the trojan horse.  My feeling toward that is it will be a disaster for Chrysler and it’s employees.  I know I am not any authority of business however I feel that they will destroy and dismember the Company.  They may even look to move to Auburn Hills possibly leaving downtown Detroit.  Not only will they destroy the company the 1000’s of suppliers that heavily depend on there biz to keep them in business.

The biggest impact will be felt by the UAW who could possibly lose a 1/4 of there membership which would be catastrophic.  They would lose bargaining power at the negotiations table and the cost of benefits will rise significantly.  In turn this would be a huge blow to the middleclass of the US.  Its impact would be felt through many industries in the country.

Well we will see what happens…my dad use to joke with me that GM may own everything when it’s all said and done.  We’ll see, but hopefully not.

The design of Pangborn

The words of Bizdom came from our first non-quicken presenter.  They did a great job of not missing a beat.  Dominic Pangborn came to the US via South Korea by adoption and was raised in Jackson, MI.  Growing up from the age of 10 in a family of siblings of 11, his story is one of finding your niche, taking chances, and taking the higher road.  He went to art school in Chicago and in the act of avoiding a weakness in English drove him to success in facing adversity.

His story was ripe for a great autobiography or movie.  I could vividly display his plight from childhood and through the beginnings of his career.  What stuck out in my mind is that on few occasions when he was promoted and was his former bosses superior he did not fire them but left the company.  That told me that he pursued taking the higher road and thought about how he would have destroyed their lives but realized the bigger picture.

I think in all, it all came back abundantly and has been a walking success story.  He has a knack for meeting the right people and gaining success through others knowledge.  He has had professional relationships that have paid of huge dividends. I can only imagine that is due to doing right by people. As if it was an art form (or gift) of some sort.

Gotta love Karma…

The world and businesses arena would be a much better place with more Pangborns!!!

The sum of 2 Geeks

I figured I would kill 2 birds with one stone or blog that is…

In gizmos and gadgets class we covered the history of the internet and email by Bill Parker and Jason Shaw respectively.  Althought the info was a bit dry they did attempt to make it as easy on us as possible.  It is amazing that just less that 40 years ago it took a room sized computer to do basic functions.  Technology has grown so exponentially with the aide of the computer that you would just how likely that the movie Terminator could become a reality.

In the movie the Matrix it seems that man and machine have formed a bond that both have become interdependent for now.  The web and email has made a big world seem very small and that anyone is only a few keystrokes away from each other.  I remember when the email boom took place when I was in college.  It was basic DOS and simple typing.  Now you can cut and paste pics and documents.  You can even see what the other person looks like that you are sending a note to….ala myspace and facebook. 

I often wonder what is the next step for computing and messaging.  The idea of communicating via video is something that is happening now and may be the next standard of talking.  I guess I can’t tell people I am studying with a room full of people partying and dancing huh…lol.

Technology can have it’s pros and cons however it is what you make it….

 Beam me up Scotty, there is no intelligent life down here.