Doing more with less

Every time you go through a budget defense in relation to your work plans, several words come to mind — sheer, lean, diminutive, slash, butcher, cut, and many other euphemisms for painful carving. How to thrive and grow on such increasingly scanty finances is one of the greatest challenges in organizations.

In the book Zilch: The Power of Zero in Business, Nancy Lublin lightly puts forward a number of easy-on-the-pocket solutions to a “no funds” problem that could teach for-profit businesses a thing or two. Zilch means nothing, zero, “nada.” Her tome was largely founded on what she picked up in her 17 years of managing a not-for-profit business and what she learned from colleagues. Lublin writes: “I realized that what we have to offer can be boiled down to one concept: the power of zilch.” The hardback book offers 11 chapters, each ending with 11 questions to get you started. It likewise summarizes each chapter and spells out a game plan you can follow for the execution of the ideas presented. Here are major takeaways from it that give you a window on how to make things happen with very little resources.

• Do more with less cash to throw at people. Conservative business thinking has dictated that the more you pay your employees, the more value you will generate from them. But salary doesn’t equal great performance or stellar productivity. “Show me 10 people who truly love what they’re doing and who understand why they’re doing it, I’d bet that they outwork, out-innovate, and outperform 10 other people who are paid twice as much but lack this love and understanding,” Lublin writes. Historically, money has been a bigger motivator, but other factors are acquiring equal or even greater status — belief in the product you love and respect, fulfillment in what you do, the desire to be part of something lofty, working in a stimulating and fun environment with equally stimulating and fun people. Managing volunteers and very poorly paid people — without hope of salary increase or bonus — is an art form. But people in the not-for-profit world inspire and fulfill employees with other incentives to compensate their time, energy, ideas, and accomplishments.

• Do more with your brand. Some of the most valuable and recognizable brands in the world are those of non-profit companies. Often, they’re not huge operations, especially when measured against typical corporations. But you don’t need millions to build a strong brand. To be a stronger, better and more authentic brand you need creativity, hard work, soul and smart strategies and executions that are simple, unique, consistent and relevant to your audience. You also have to review your brand position regularly and choose your partnerships according to brand guidelines.

• Do more with your external people. Companies often pay their brand endorsers big money, and if an endorser has a recognizable face and a show business career, the fee could run into millions. Athletes, for example, are thrown money to wear logos on their sleeves. In a small, relatively underfunded not-for-profit, you can easily have a sales force of millions who can serve as brand ambassadors. And it usually doesn’t cost a centavo. The trick is to consider everyone as a potential endorser, treat them as you’d like them to treat you, seek feedback from them, make it easy for outsiders to be insiders, align incentives, never break up with them, and to always remember that word of mouth is the single best form of marketing. “But before you begin to work out the details, make sure you’ve embraced this one fact — functionaries function, believers commit,” Lublin declares. You should acknowledge that believers could drive sales, build new coalitions, produce massive buzz, work for new business and reduce costs.

• Do more by asking smart. Everyone in a not-for-profit operation needs to refine the art of asking for materials, money, and all types of help — even on how to do fund-raising. They also have to leverage power in order to land a “yes.” It’s often the first instinct of someone who wonders: how can you make people do something for you? Find the shared interests, don’t confuse business and friendship, ask for something other than money like referrals, volunteers, product contributions and advice, make the work cool, offer options to potential donors, make clear the real-world effects of the donations you receive, be shameless, recognize the value of repetition and not to take “no” for an answer, and learn to show gratitude, the cheapest and easiest way to keep a donor happy.

• Do more for customers. They are more than just people to “acquire” — they’re the people who are going to drink your orange juice to grow strong, drive your car to the hospital to meet a baby grandchild, or use a loan from your bank to help pay for their first home. Not-for-profits see their customers as their allies. They see them as people first and buyers second, they recognize that they like to be part of something bigger, they celebrate local or community-based elements, and they believe that people give to causes that are important, not just causes that are nice.

• Do more with your board. Your board and the people in it are only as good as you make them. If they’re not being utilized, it’s your fault for not tapping them. If they’re not interacting with the brand, most likely it’s because you’re not creating opportunities for them to do so. And if they’re the wrong people — or the wrong mix of people — you have to remix and compose a good and balanced board. Bring in board members with complementary skills with a service mindset, don’t compensate them since they are expected to “pay back” the not-for-profits that brought them on board through donations, fund raising and counsel, create explicit guidelines for them, and require them to thoroughly embrace your purpose.

• Do more with your staff. A passionate employee is the one who keeps a meeting going because she refuses to accept the good-but-not great idea that has achieved consensus; the one who risks irritating others because he’s convinced, absolutely convinced, that unless they work harder to find the right solution, the project will fail; the one who is so committed to finding that idea that she keeps a notepad next to her bed so she can jot down ideas if they occur to her in the middle of the night; the one who will skip meals and break dinner dates if he thinks he’s close to figuring out the next new thing. You have to nurture these types of individuals, ensure that high performers rise to the top and low performers exit, find ways to constantly measure their passion.

• Do more with your story. People love to tell stories. It’s the way they’ve connected, not just with each other but also with their ancestors. Modern storytelling has certain characteristics. You tend to like victorious endings. You appreciate a good arc. You root for the underdog. You enjoy being surprised. You like clever phrasing and innovative methods. Not-for-profits realize all these elements. The challenge is to wisely select stories and tell them loudly, artfully and repeatedly. Create a culture of storytelling and honor your genesis story as you share post genesis stories too. Remember that an image is everything — a starving kid, a bald mountain, or an oil slick on a pristine body of water. The power of words is not being discounted here, but the inclusion of compelling visual elements can bring a lot of help. And to make your stories connect better, use terrific, credible and moving spokespeople, and use a multi-platform strategy to reach your targeted stakeholders.

• Do more with your finances. Not-for-profit isn’t the same as nonprofit, which are companies in the red. A not-for-profit is an organization that exists for some other purpose than making money. Still, you love to have a good year — to lower your expenses, increase your revenue, diversify your sources, and achieve fund-raising goals. Because the goal isn’t profit, you have a different perspective on money, a perspective that is eye-opening if you reflect on it. You apply strict discipline to budgeting, and given the fear of overhead and the existence of restricted funding, you employ multiyear budgeting in order to prioritize expenditures over the long term. And as you strive for diversified sources of revenues, you also behave as if you live in a glass house, where transparency is a way of life.

• Do more by bartering with zero. At a not-for-profit you start with zero. The first assumption is that you’ve got nothing — no people, money, agency support, not even equipment or supplies. And yet, you have to solve some business dilemma or, worse, some global problem. You have to engage in free exchange — barter — all the time. You do it out of necessity, since it’s a great way to stretch your limited funds. The concept of starting with “nothing” may be the wildest idea in Zilch, but instead of “zero” you might think of this strategy as doing more with everything you’ve got. Not-for-profits know that money be thrown around to make the organization hum, and every problem and opportunity from that point of view.

• Do more with innovation. By necessity, not-for-profits are continuously forced to be creative. There’s no choice there. But the ingredients for innovation are all around, and there’s an abundance of smarts, and a wealth of creativity. It’s up to you and your group to take fullest advantage of all the assets that are sitting right in your office. Many organizations are suffering from lack of imagination; not-for-profits offer fresh ways to be innovative. Innovation is looking to do better. And for it to work consistently, it must be a part of the corporate culture and mission statement.

Final takeaway: “For-profits” should learn how to operate their business like “not-for-profit” operations, which have the distinct power to do more with less, and always manage to make ends meet.

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Email bongosorio@yahoo.com or bong_osorio@abs-cbn.com for comments, questions or suggestions. Thank you for communicating.