Be a Legacy Leader

The Costco Connection, January/February 2012, Volume 25, Number 1

People lament the lack of good leaders, but thousands of folks running small businesses are trying to be just that. Costco member Geneace Williams, known as Dr. G, is the founder of Higher Learning Enterprises Ltd (www.hleltd.com), a leadership development and consulting firm. She encourages people to strive for "legacy" leadership.

"Legacy leadership is possible when you operate outside of comfort ... Those who push themselves toward dreams that are bigger create the possibility for reaching what is extraordinary and what will impact others even after the leader is no longer physically present," she explains.

Williams proffers five essential elements for reaching that goal.

Intentionality. Approach leadership intending to achieve something great. When intention meets purpose it sets the stage for transformation, and authentic leadership.

Authenticity. Be true to the person you say you are. Practice "what you see is what you get" type leadership. Don't profess one lifestyle while living another. Immerse yourself in self-awareness and self-development. Admit wrong and embrace change.

Transparency. Operate from a place that allows your innermost self to be seen. Transparency is about self-disclosure or self-expression that allows others to see your true person.

Influence. Influential leaders realize they both influence and are influenced by others. Know and understand your power to influence or be influenced in an ethical manner.

Impact. Strive to make a difference in the lives of others. Be driven by the possibility of leaving behind for future leaders valuable lessons that will cause them to also become leaders with impact.

The Future of Customer Service

The Costco Connection, January/February 2012, Volume 25, Number 1

Jeff Mowatt is an award-winning speaker and the author of Becoming a Service Icon in 90 Minutes a Month. For more business-building ideas visit jeffmowatt.com.

You have no doubt noticed that technology is changing the face of customer service. Traditional ways businesses used to interact with customers, win their trust and keep them coming back are becoming irrelevant. Here are three of the most significant trends in customer service, and how you can position your business to capitalize rather than capsize in response.

Self-serve slavery
What apparently started with self-serve gas stations has now become the norm. Customers are now booking their own travel, doing their own banking and even scanning their own groceries at self-serve checkouts.

Your move? Shift from order taker to trusted adviser. Companies now need employees to assist with more complex purchases. The role of staff here is not to provide customers with lots of information. Information is free on the internet -- and free is perceived as worthless. When it comes to complex purchases, the role of staff is to analyze the options that are available. Then staff members interpret which options might be the most suited to that customer's needs and advise the customer on up to three options that will solve his or her unique problem.

Driven to distraction
It used to be that good customer service would generate positive word-of-mouth advertising. I believe that's no longer the case. Today's customers are too busy at work, in traffic, working out and chauffeuring kids to pay attention to service. What that means is that good customer service is no longer talked about -- it isn't even noticed. Good customer service has become wallpaper.

Your move? Become "remark-ably" different. Rather than trying to beat your competition, try to change your service so that you become "remark-able". In most cases, this means equipping employees with a few customer communication tips and strategies that get noticed. For example, when a customer asks an employee to do something, the average response might be "Sure" or "OK". Suggest that instead employees respond with "I'll take care of it." That response indicates that not only will the employee get it done, but they'll do it with care.

The amplification of anger
Now, through social media and sites dedicated to customer reviews, disgruntled customers have a public platform to amplify their outrage. Keep in mind that a comment that's spoken may be forgotten, but a remark written in cyberspace may last forever.

Your move? Become a recovery master. On top of an exchange or refund, give customers something for their inconvenience. Any gesture or token of appreciation that addresses a customer's hassle factor can transform an upset customer into a tweeting trumpeter of your virtues. That's the kind of viral marketing we'd all love.

Air Buns

I found this recipe on Mennonite Girls Can Cook dot com. The picture looks wonderful! This makes a fairly big batch.

• 4 1/2 cups warm water
• 2 tbsp. quick rise yeast
• 1 cup oil
• 1 tbsp.vinegar
• 2 tsp.salt
• 1/2 cup sugar ( I use 1/4 cup)
• 10 cups flour/ a little more if needed

1. start with about 6 cups flour, add the yeast salt and sugar and stir together.
2. add the warm water, oil and vinegar.
3. stir together with a wooden spoon adding more flour till it is hard to stir.
4. add remaining flour a bit at a time till you have a soft, smooth and elastic dough that is no longer very sticky when kneading.
5. knead for a few minutes by hand on a floured surface.
6. let rest in greased and covered bowl in a warm place for about 40 minutes. I use my oven with the light on.
7. Make into buns and let rise for another 40 minutes.
8. Bake for about 20 minutes at 375 degrees. Watch your oven, temperatures vary.
9. Share and enjoy!!!!!

Notes:

I read the notes for the recipe on the MGCC blog and it says the vinegar is used to preserve the buns so they last longer, not to change the taste or texture. Interesting!

Mackintosh Toffee Marshmallows

Once again, a gem from the white recipe book. This one is from Martha Brandt. Her note: It is helpful for two people to do this; one to dip the marshmallows and the other to roll them.

1 large bag marshmallows
5 boxes Mackintosh toffee (I have used more than this, Martha noted)
1 can sweetened condensed milk
1/4 cup butter
1/2 cup crushed cornflakes (or more)
1/2 cup toasted coconut (or more)

Melt butter, condensed milk, and toffee together. Dip marshmallows in mixture (using a fork) and coat evenly. Next, roll marshmallow in the cornflake crumbs and then in the coconut.

Notes:
The first time I made this, I wrote in my recipe book:
2 x 250g marshmallows
2 x 170g Mac. toffee pieces
Rice Krispies, no coconut
used skewer instead of fork
makes approx 7 doz.

Today:
Used skewer to hold marshmallows, but I first stuck the skewer into butter so the marshmallow doesn't stick. Probably put butter on it every two or three marshmallows.

used 3 x 170g toffee pieces, and 1/3 cup butter

When the toffee mixture got low, I poured it into a mug, warmed it up and was able to dip the marshmallows more easily.

Made another batch and added one ounce (one square) of semi-sweet baking chocolate and a small handful of dark chocolate chips that I had leftover from my Brownie Fudge Puddles recipe. It's good with the toffee and chocolate!

Butter Tart Squares

I think Mennonite Girls Can Cook is my new favorite recipe site. The name alone is enough to make it awesome! I didn't realize Butter Tarts were a Canadian thing! For this recipe, they've made a note: If you can't finish off the whole pan at once...they freeze well and even taste great partially frozen!

Base:

• 2 cups flour
• 1 cup butter
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar

Topping:

• 1/2 cup butter, softened
• 2 cups brown sugar
• 4 eggs
• 4 tablespoons flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• pinch of salt
• 1 1/2 cup raisins
• 3/4 cup coarsely chopped pecans

Base:

Combine flour and sugar. With pastry blender, cut in butter until crumbly. Press into cookie sheet (10" x 15"). Bake at 350° F for 15 minutes.

Topping:

1. Mix together butter and sugar.
2. Blend in eggs.
3. Add flour, baking powder, salt and vanilla.
4. Stir in raisins and pecans.
5. Pour over base.
6. Bake at 350° F for 20 to 25 minutes or until top springs back when lightly touched.
7. Allow to cool...then cut into squares.

Notes:

It's still in the oven, but I'll let you know how it turns out!

Päpanät

Mennonitegirlscancook.ca has loads of great recipes, Mennonite and not-Mennonite foods. Here's a recipe they posted recently. If you're not familiar with it, it's a small, hard bite-sized cookie that's packed with Christmas spices. There are pictures on the site. Here's what they wrote:

I think when it comes to Mennonite food there are as many recipes for each dish as there are Grandmothers. My recipe for Pfeffernuesse is quite different than the ones posted previously. These tiny cookies are quite hard and are meant to be sucked or dunked. I was told that in years past, the grandmothers would bring them to church for the children to suck on - ensuring they would keep quiet during the sermon.

I like to bake them around this time of year so that the flavours have a chance to mellow before serving them in December. However, once my family knows I've made them, they disappear by the handfuls. The original recipe is a very large one - I think it usually makes about 3 ice cream buckets full. I've halved the recipe to make it easier for smaller families.

It's a good time to invite someone to help - there are a lot of very small cookies to put on the pans.

Speaking from experience, it's good to read the whole recipe through once before starting.

• 2 cups golden cane syrup (in Canada it is made by Rogers) this has a unique flavour somewhat different than regular corn syrup.
• 2 cups sugar
• 1 cup margarine
• 1 cup milk

1. Place above ingredients in a large pot and bring to a boil.
2. Cool to room temperature.

• 1 beaten egg
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1 1/2 teaspoons peppermint extract
• 1/2 teaspoon black pepper (yes that's right)
• 3/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
• 1/4 teaspoon ground star anise
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 7-8 cups flour

1. Add egg and extracts to sugar syrup mixture, mixing well.
2. Into a large mixing bowl, sift together 4 cups of the flour with the spices and baking powder.
3. Pour liquid mixture over and mix thoroughly.
4. Continue adding flour - dough will be sticky and still somewhat soft.
5. Cover bowl with lid or plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight or up to 5 days.
6. Spoon out about 1 - 2 cups dough, leaving remainder in fridge.
7. On a floured board or pastry sheet, roll into long logs about the thickness of your index finger.
8. Cut into 1/2 inch pieces and place on parchment paper covered cookie sheets. (this makes it much easier to remove the cookies after baking.)

• Bake at 350º for 15 minutes or until set. (if you have a convection oven, the baking goes much faster as you can bake 3 cookie sheets at a time)
• Repeat with remaining cookie dough.
• When cookies are baked, remove from cookie sheets and allow to cool completely before storing in ice cream pails.
• These store best in a cool place like a garage. They do not need to be in the freezer. They will keep for months.
• If you bake them early in November, the flavours have a chance to mellow.
• Warning - these can become addictive.

Notes:
The first half of the dough, we made the pieces too large. The second half I made them much smaller. I'd say... maybe the size of a nickel.

Also with the first half of the dough, the pieces ended up being square. I grew up with round ones, so square just wasn't going to cut it for me. So, for the second half, I rounded the corners, each piece individually, with well-floured fingers.

I was surprised to find they were still soft when I took them out of the oven, but they harden as they cool.

Worth noting as well, once you've mixed the dough, before you put the ingredients or coffee grinder (which you'll need to grind the anise) away, fill your coffee grinder with cloves and the syrup. Just for fun. Well, not so much fun for me, but it was for Ella.

Update, December 11, 2017:
After having added 8 cups of flour, I thought the dough was still too sticky; almost like a thick cake batter. I squeezed in nearly another full cup of flour, but as I'm working with the dough, I think I shouldn't have added that last cup.

The first day after baking the cookies, they tasted bland, but by the second day, the flavour really showed up.

Brownie Fudge Puddles

Another treasure from the white recipe book! This one was submitted by Daphne Thiessen.

Brownies:
4 oz semisweet or bittersweet chocolate
1 cup butter
3/4 tsp black pepper

4 eggs
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 1/2 tsp vanilla
1/3 cup Kahlua (strong coffee or other liqueur would work equally well)

1 1/2 cups sifted flour
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp baking powder

Fudge:
2 cups dark chocolate chips (or combination of milk and dark)
14 oz sweetened condensed milk
1 tsp vanilla

For Brownies:
Grease and flour mini-muffin pans thoroughly. Set aside. Melt butter, chocolate and pepper over low heat or in microwave. In another bowl, beat eggs, sugar and vanilla until blended. Stir in cooled chocolate mixture. Then stir in Kahlua. Sift dry ingredients into chocolate and stir until blended. Fill muffin tins about 1/2 to 2/3 full. Bake in 350 degree oven just until set, about 8 - 12 minutes (depending on the size of your muffin tins). Do not overbake. Immediately upon removing brownie cups from oven, make a deep dent in each brownie with the back of a melon baller. Remove from pan and cool.

For Fudge:
Meanwhile, melt chocolate chips and sweetened condensed milk over low heat or in microwave, stirring often, until smooth. Stir in vanilla. Cool slightly and pour into cake decorating bag with any kind of small -- medium tip (or Ziploc bag with a small corner cut off). Pipe filling into each brownie cup. Let fudge set before packing away.

Makes about 72 mini brownies.

Notes:
The first time I made these, I used a Ziploc bag for the fudge, but cut too small a hole. The bag exploded. Oops.

I used muffin papers instead of greasing the pans. The papers remove easily because the brownies are very buttery. But, it also does soak the papers and they aren't as cute soaked in grease as they are when they were in the package. Oh well. Chocolate trumps the need for cute papers.

Interestingly enough, I made exactly 72 brownies. But, I overfilled them just a bit, so I didn't have enough fudge. However, I melted a small amount of dark chocolate chips, mixed them with some crunchy peanut butter and filled the remaining brownies with that. It's gonna be goooooood! I'd suggest only adding enough fudge so it's level with the top of the brownie, not till there's a little chocolate mountain on top.

The True Value of Customer Service

Another great article from the November/December 2011 issue of Costco Connection magazine.

Most business owners feel it's mission accomplished when they make a sale or close a deal. Not so for Costco member Christ Zane, owner of Zane's Cycles in Branford, Connecticut.

"At Zane's, we've failed if all we've done is complete a transaction with a customer," he writes in Reinventing the Wheel: The Science of Creating Lifetime Customers (BenBella Books, 2011; www.chriszane.com). That's because success lies not in a single sale, but in establishing a connection with a customer that can last a lifetime.

It sounds odd to pooh-pooh a sale, but here's why: Zane, who has run his bike shop since 1980, has figured out that an average customer will spend $12,500 on bike products and services over his or her lifetime. Thus, Zane's philosophy is to go far beyond expectations to create customers for life.

Some of his offers are pretty extreme:

• A lifetime service guarantee for every bike, covering parts, labour, and even tune-ups
• Flat-tire insurance -- for a one-time fee, Zane's fixes flats forever.
• A trade-in program for kids' bikes, lasting 10 years (or more)

These measures, Zane concedes, don't come free. But in terms of their long-term payoff, they add up to smart business expenses.

Is it working? Zane's Cycles is experiencing annual sales growth of 23 per cent, with sales of $15 million from retail and corporate customers.

For any business, Zane says, strong connections with customers are at the heart of long-term success. Of course, the specific ways of making those connections change from business to business.

He says, "No matter what kind of business you run, you should be in the relationship-building business, because that is how you will find the greatest success."

Making Passion Your Business

I love the business articles in the Costco Connections magazine! This one is from the November/December 2011 issue. You can find more articles at costco.ca.

The New Retirement
Eric Gilboord

We now have a generation of entrepreneurs who, if they had been told a few years ago they would still be working in their 50s, 60s, or even 70s, would have responded with ridicule and their visions of a glorious, stress-free retirement. For baby boomers with businesses, thinking about selling when they were ready to retire was too far in the future to worry about.

The past few years have been a rude awakening for many of them. Somehow life hasn't worked out the way they thought it would. The cost of living keeps rising, retirement funds have been decimated, children have gone their own way and businesses are not easy to sell for what the owners know they are really worth.

It's a new world, and significant change is required to survive. The last thing you want to do is sell the business you have nurtured for decades and get a fraction of its real worth. Good luck in proving its value, though, without sufficient sales.

To boos sales and growth, you may be thinking about the direction of your business and considering a change. Part of that change could involve getting back to your passion.

Here are seven questions to help:

1. What are you passionate about?
2. When you wake up what do you wish you could be doing?
3. How do you want to spend your time?
4. What really turns you on?
5. What is fun for you and not work?
6. What activities do you like to do?
7. What gives you a sense of fulfillment?

Fun is great, but don't forget to ask question 7. Everyone desires a sense of accomplishment and success. What makes you feel great deep down inside your soul?

If you have an established business, consider returning to your original passion. Get in touch with what drove you and get back to doing the things you can't wait to do every day. Who knows -- maybe you won't want to sell your business after all.