I had an interesting meeting this week with Nancy Napier, a business school professor from Boise State University. We discussed “aha” moments, an area of interest in Nancy’s studies. Many businesses seem to have aha’s – like when Lowe’s came to the realization that women made 80% of the buying decisions for home improvements, but home improvement stores didn’t cater to women. So, they changed store formats accordingly. Or when Starbucks realized it’s not just about the coffee, but about the customer connection. Thus, they invest disproportionately in training and service that makes the customer connection so strong.

Those were pretty major aha’s that come about only every so often. There are certainly smaller aha’s companies have on a more regular basis. My talk with Nancy made me realize I haven’t been stopping to capture the little aha’s I’ve had along the way in building Balihoo. None of these will win me a Nobel or even get me published, but hopefully they can offer you some new ways to think about things in your business, or simply corroborate what you already know.

1. Core Values should be aspirational – last year we, as a business, took a lot of time to establish and articulate our core values. We have done a good job living by them but honestly, there have been times we’ve noticed we’ve fallen short.  After those times, I was personally very frustrated and felt upset over this. I questioned the work we put in and whether we should continue to spend the time and energy to reinforce them. But, I soon realized that the Values are what guide the company and they should be a beacon toward which the company aspires; they should make people and the company stretch. If they don’t make us stretch, they’re not good enough. My take now is we shouldn’t be upset when we fall short of values, but at the same time we should never be satisfied and always stretch ourselves to get closer to the vision.

2. Hire slowly, fire quickly. I actually read this mantra in a newspaper column recently – while the words aren’t my own, I’ve realized this quip is so very true. Both actions are very hard to do in practice, especially when you’re trying to grow in a tight labor market. And, as in the previous paragraph, this mantra is something to which you should aspire. It’s not easy to just fire people and it’s very hard to walk away from a good candidate who you think might perform well but doesn’t give you that good gut feel. So, trust your instinct when hiring and only hire if you are completely excited to bring the person on board. Conversely, once you identify an under-performer, or especially someone who doesn’t live up to the core values, address the issue immediately. Of course, you have to work within laws and performance management best practices, but you should always move quickly to address when someone is not performing up to expectations.

3. He who focuses on everything, focuses on nothing. I knew this before coming to Balihoo, but I’ve never witnessed this so tangibly as I have in this small company. We are in the opportunity-laden advertising industry – it’s an industry in flux, which usually means opportunities abound. Thus, it’s easy to get misdirected by opportunities that aren’t within our strategy. At times, we have chased opportunities, but we’ve done a good job reorienting ourselves to ensure we stay on course, on target. Given the industry dynamics, this will be a continual challenge for us, but as long as we have clear goals and good direction, we will succeed.  And, as long as we as a management team realize that with such a turbulent market comes changing opportunities, we need to continually ensure our focus is right and our resources are properly allocated and not spread too thin.

The final mantra I’ve always believed is a profitable business is a successful business. Everything else we do is really just an underpinning to a profitable business, but if we do those things right – have a great culture, retain passionate employees, stay focused, be market-driven and provide true value to our customers – we will have a long-term profitable enterprise, which is what we are all committed to at Balihoo. A ha.