Jonathan Vaudreuil

In an hour, team USA will take the field in a match against Algeria at this year’s World Cup.

In their first two matches they gave up a goal right away, and in their second match they headed into halftime down 2-0 against Slovenia. They adjusted in the second half, tied the match up, and would have gone ahead 3-2 if a ref hadn’t made a bad call on a corner kick.

What adjustments did they make? Not much: the one thing they did was play in attack mode. They were aggressive. It made Slovenia uncomfortable and they took the match over.

Considering a win today almost guarantees they’ll advance to the round of 16, we all would think team USA will come out in attack mode.

We face this same scenario every day in our lives. Are we playing to our strengths as much as possible? When we do amazing things can happen. When we don’t we sit back and wonder what could have been.

Play to your strengths, USA. Attack and put pressure on Algeria. Keep it up and who knows how deep you could make it in this year’s Cup!

The recession has finally hit home.

As a manager at a direct marketing firm I've seen how economic changes have opened up new opportunities for our clients, and how these changes have made their jobs quite a bit harder. The downside is seeing how the bad changes are preventing them from going after the opportunities full throttle.

Even if you can see what you need to do, you still need the resources to do it.

One minute everything is chugging along with no reason to worry. The next minute it's all coming to a halt. Each time a new thing stops it either pushes something else forward or tugs at something to slow down and stop with it. It's been a series of slow downs and stops the past month.

With everything slowing down we have a chance to reflect. We do not have a lot of time to do this, and when change hits you this fast neither do you. It's given us a prime opportunity to look at what works, what stinks, and figure out our next moves.Read more

The focus of my next blog hit me while I was running last week, which will be related to what I've written about here.

I'm excited. Stoked.

As I flesh out the other blog's ideas I expect to somewhat change what I write about here. I'll keep you all posted.

I'm having a hard time narrowing down the number of blogs I read.

The hardest part is knowing I'm not going to make more time to read blogs, yet I keep coming across more and more great blogs to add. I add them to my reader. From there I either start reading them or I watch the number of unread posts grow until I go on a mass purge. Rinse. Repeat.

Then I go on twitter and see the blogs I dropped are getting retweeted. I wonder if I made a mistake. Then I realize no, I didn't - I had to sort through dozens of posts by some of them to get one I loved reading. Not the best ratio in my book.

Does any of this sound familiar with something in your life?

There's a line between getting your hands on as much as you can handle and having an overflowing pile you'll never wade through properly. The sooner you find that line and stick to it, the more you'll enjoy what you have. More is only better when you can handle more.

Did someone get you with an April Fools prank?

Every year I love to see what companies are doing for April Fools. I love hearing about the pranks and jokes. There's a lot of thought and effort which goes into this one wacky day every year.

What I ask myself: why don't people treat more days like April Fools?

Not the prank part, the thought and effort which goes into doing something people stop and say, "Amazing!" Coming up with a good joke is one thing. Trying to come up with one that people notice, talk about and spread? Isn't that what companies are always trying to do?

Heck, isn't that what you and I should be trying to do?

After 16 years, the EP "Jar of Flies" by Alice in Chains sounds as good as it ever has to me.

What makes something timeless? That's a tough question. What we each consider timeless is a matter of opinion. These timeless entities, they all have some common traits, whether or not we agree on what's timeless and what should have disappeared long ago.

The trait that stands out the most to me is that something timeless lays down fundamental ideas well. These ideas could be the foundation for something new, or they could be someone nailing many fundamental concepts so well it seems like no one could do it better. Barriers are defined or knocked down. Everyone talks about Miles Davis because he defined the fundamentals of jazz multiple times. At the same time he played and wrote so well that he could take another style of music and make it sound like he was better than anyone.Read more

"The customer is always right."

I bet you've heard it before.

If you've ever dealt with customers at some point you've probably said to yourself, "This one is wrong, wrong, totally wrong! How could this nut job ever think he's right?"

Here's another way of thinking about it: right and wrong are a matter of perspective. Correct and incorrect are based on facts. So yes, the customer is always right. Based on their perspective they are right. They just might not be correct.

(For the record: it's better to understand someone's perspective and try to explain to them a different side than to tell them they're wrong. Or incorrect. Those things just make them more upset AND stubborn. You've lost them at that point.)

Has anyone ever told you how much they appreciate your business?

Let me start off by saying I appreciate you stopping by to read this post today. I meant it - I love writing and sharing ideas, and I need you to make the sharing part happen. If you like this idea, please read some more and tell me what you think.

So back to my question. I mean it both literally and indirectly. There are different ways to say that to a customer.

The most obvious way is to tell someone. Which works sometimes. How much do those words mean if everything you do ticks off your customer? I bet you can figure that one out.

Now we have the important part: doing everything that would make the words "I appreciate your business" have an impact.

This may seem like a hard thing to do, yet if you were already doing it you'd realize it's a much easier way to keep a business going (and growing). It's a philosophy and an attitude, not a step-by-step program to keep your customers happy.Read more

In my previous post I laid out a system to define incentives. The question still needs to be asked: when should I offer incentives?

To answer that you'll have to ask more questions. The biggest: How will offering this incentive affect my employees and the business? Think of the positive and negative effects. Sometimes the negative outweighs any gains you might get.

Another big question: What do my employees want as an incentive? This does not get asked enough. Money is not always the answer! The most fun incentive I ever had was a competition I had with my first sales manager. Whichever one of us went farther above what was expected of us in terms of cold calls and appointments would get lunch at a restaurant compliments of that month's loser.

One last major question to answer: how will this affect anyone who doesn't have an incentive? Team Go For The Bonus might be surrounded by Coworkers Willing To Sabotage Everything. If you have to explain the bonuses and how people were chosen, do so. Let everyone know what's going on and why.Read more

In reply to my post on employees, management, and communication going up and down a company hierarchy, Mike asked me about compensation and incentives:

"It seems to me that if Management expects certain Actions from Employees, they should create a incentive structure that rewards Employees for doing the Actions. "

I've heard and been part of numerous debates on the good and bad of pure hourly/salary compensation and offering incentives and bonuses based on performance. Incentives make sense if you can have the following happen:

1) Make sure the incentives are tied to something measurable. If there is any doubt as to whether or not the goal was achieved, it's more likely to cause an argument than motivate employees.

2) Make sure the goal is clear. 20% increase in site traffic within 8 weeks. $50,000 in new business by the end of the month. Simple and clear works.Read more