Custom Clubs—Why Should I Care

So, assuming you (like most folks) have read my initial blog post about the “Key to Happiness” (a reminder: happiness is based on your reasonable expectations), you may be wondering about whether there are ways to improve your golf game to meet your now appropriately placed expectations. It may not be obvious (because it sounds like something for scratch golfers or golf geeks—which it is), but you may want to consider custom golf clubs.

Okay, you ask, don’t pros use the same name-brand clubs that I can buy? Well, yes and no. Pros do use “name-brand” clubs, but they are generally custom-fitted to each pro. That is, they use shafts that are custom cut to fit, with shaft weights chosen based on individual swing speeds and tempos, with club heads custom weighted and lofted to fit their swing and physique.

But aren’t custom golf clubs expensive? They can be, but they don’t need to be. There are many “big box” golf stores that are starting to offer very reasonable custom club fitting services and there are many independent custom club makers.

Then why should I, regardless of my handicap or skill level, have custom clubs? Well, for the same reason that you don’t wear shoes that don’t fit or that were made for a person with different physical attributes. If you’re most comfortable running shoe is a 7 Narrow Nike, would you go to a 5K race in a 10 Wide Eddie Bauer Hiking boot? Probably not. You’d use the perfect size shoe for your intended purpose.

When it comes to golf clubs, they come in all sizes, shapes, and weights. They can easily be made to fit you, your physique, your conditioning, and, likely, your budget. A future post will cover some of the myths that large club manufacturers perpetuate in order to sell the public more clubs. Some of those myths lead many of us to purchase clubs that don’t fit us and certainly don’t help us reach our golfing goals or potential. Some branded clubs might actually be a detriment to our golf—especially if they aren’t a good fit.

But the good news is that reasonably priced custom clubs are becoming more available and the makers of major branded clubs are starting to understand what independent custom club makers have know for a long time—custom clubs can improve your game and maybe even your level of happiness.

Stay tuned.

The World in Six Songs: How the Musical Brain Created Human Nature

What: The World in Six Songs: How the Musical Brain Created Human Nature, by Daniel J. Levitin (Dutton, 2008).

Why: Want someone to remember something? Set it to music.

It’s happened to all of us. You’re watching TV or listening to the radio—or maybe you’ve just got something on in the background. Days later you realize that, thanks to a catchy jingle to which you were repeatedly exposed (consciously or not), you can now recite in perfect order all the ingredients used in making a particular franchise’s hamburger. (For those of you who are of my generation, I know this tune is now playing inside your head.)

How does this happen, almost against your will? That’s what The World in Six Songs is all about, in painstaking—and sometimes painful—detail. The basic idea here is that “music is a highly efficient memory and information transmission system.”

If you want people to learn something and not forget it, set it to music. The blending of music and words ensures that a message will be remembered, even if it’s not particularly memorable. Levitin notes that patients with Alzheimer’s Disease “remember songs and song lyrics long after they’ve forgotten everything else.”

This is because music taps into both actual memory and facilitates constructive memory. It turns out “we don’t actually remember all the details we think we do, we fill in many of them subconsciously by making plausible inferences.” Music provides an excellent context for inferential thinking, in part because of the emotional punch it can pack.

I suppose an enterprising entrepreneur might want to consider setting his/her executive summary to music to give it more emotional punch and make it more memorable. Of course, being memorable doesn’t guarantee that people will like it more (or be more likely to get out their checkbooks). Warning to all heavy metal fans: You’ll remember all the words to that Mötley Crüe song, but studies show that listening to heavy metal decreases the production of hormones associated with feeling good. If something’s set to music, you’ll remember it, but you might not be happy about it.

New Orleans…Alive with (or Because of) Music

For the last 41 years, the City of New Orleans has hosted the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival in late April and early May; my husband and I have attended every year since 1996 and just returned from this year’s event. During the festival, the race track at the New Orleans fair grounds is alive with the sounds of traditional and contemporary jazz, Cajun, zydeco, blues, R&B, folk, Latin, country, bluegrass, rock and roll and gospel. There are ten venues throughout the grounds where music is presented from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. each day of the festival. Some stages are in the open while others are in huge tents equipped with overhead misting hoses to combat the often blistering heat. In addition, there are cooking and craft demonstrations, regional and contemporary craft sales, food to die for (no hamburgers and hot dogs but every kind of shrimp, crawfish and oyster concoction that you can imagine), and the best people-watching anywhere. But it’s the music that brings tens of thousands of us back year after year.

In the early years of the festival, there were fewer stages filled primarily with musicians of local origin or regional connections, including Pete Fountain, Al Hirt, the Marsalis Family, the Neville Brothers, Dr. John and the great Dixieland bands that populated Bourbon Street, as well as other regional Cajun, blues, gospel, rock, and zydeco artists. In recent years, big name acts like Bruce Springsteen, Paul Simon, James Taylor, Van Morrison, and Tony Bennett have been added to the mix, but to many—including me—the most fun is still provided by the local musicians. Not necessarily the ones who have attained national fame, but those who have spent their entire careers on the streets and in the clubs of New Orleans, or are just beginning that career.

I’ve attended a lot of concerts and musical performances in a variety of places, but nothing compares to the magical connection between performer and audience in New Orleans, whether it’s among tens of thousands at the festival, hundreds at Wednesday Music in the Park, 50 people in a club the size of a two-car garage, or a dozen people standing on the sidewalk on Royal Street. It makes strangers dance together in the aisles, the streets, or between tables.

While glued to the cable news channels during Katrina, I remember hearing words to the song American Pie in my head—“the day the music died.” Watching the devastation on TV, I wondered if New Orleans would ever be the same. We visited only four months after Katrina. Most of the city was still inaccessible and we were confined largely to the French Quarter. Although this area did not flood, it was nevertheless the victim of wind, loss of utilities (water and electricity were off for at least two weeks), and the loss of people. Business owners manned their own shops, restaurants served limited menus and there was no public transportation. The streets were lined with debris including hundreds of dead refrigerators and freezers. Tired owners of businesses and residences fought with city inspectors, claims adjusters, and FEMA. There were no conventions. No tourists. But there was music.

Musicians were some of the first to come back to the city and were active in rescue, clean-up and rebuilding efforts. And they played music. They kept the music alive and have had a huge impact in bringing New Orleans back to life. Sure, things have changed. Some things are better, some are worse, and some are just different. But the music continues to enchant. And although I am too buttoned-up to dance, I can’t help but tap my toe and bop my head. I can forget for a brief time that I can’t solve every legal problem, my basement floor needs to be torn up, my friend has cancer and one of my dogs is dying. I can listen to the music and enjoy the moment.

Dumb Idea…Serial Entrepreneur? How Do I Invest?

As an ardent fan of the now-defunct Lala Web site (may it rest in peace), I was really interested in this recent article in Forbes Magazine about the latest technology venture started by Lala’s founder, Bill Nguyen.

For those who didn’t know Lala, its original business model was to broker trading of used CDs among music lovers. Of course, this was way back in 2006-07 when people still actually bought physical copies of music some of the time. When the model didn’t work (for reasons that now seem obvious), the site changed its course to allow registered users to do the following

• Stream songs or albums in their entirety once at no cost—a feature I particularly liked because I enjoy exploring new music but wouldn’t likely buy a song without hearing it once all the way through



• Purchase MP3s for $0.89 (or 10 cents less than the prevailing price at iTunes)



• For $0.10, members could purchase the right to stream a song from the Web site as many times as desired (referred to as a "web song"). You could also upload MP3s for personal web access from any computer in what we now call the “cloud.”

The most important thing to know about Lala is that a failed business model was scrapped before it was too late. A new model was created that made Apple take notice—enough to buy Lala for more than $80 million. After the purchase in late 2009, Apple shut down the site and sent Lala’s members to iTunes.

Nguyen’s latest venture, color.com, markets Color, a photo-sharing app which allows you to share images, videos, and text with people nearby. No need for a login or password. Through the app you get access to photos from anyone nearby, including coworkers, neighbors, or the guy sitting across the coffee shop from you.

My initial reaction: Why would I want to look at the photos of strangers or have them look at mine? Sounds a little creepy, right? That said, I have great faith in the serial entrepreneur and the probability that prior success (or failure) will help breed future success. The new venture of a guy who almost made Apple wet their pants is certainly worth a closer look.

Most of the nine folks at Forbes were initially skeptical about Color as well. As detailed in the article, after trying out the app, most came away thinking they had seen something significant. An app that may change the way we interact with those around us. The venture community also seems to like Nguyen’s Color app, to the tune of $41 million of capital already raised. Of course, it’s possible that, like me, they just like serial entrepreneurs, too.

Bottom line: Like most new technology, the only thing I can be more certain of than the lack of utility for me in engaging in location-based photo sharing with random strangers is that, somehow, in a matter of months, I’ll wonder how I ever lived my life without this capability. This seems even more likely when the guy trying to convince me I can’t live without his technology is a successful serial entrepreneur.

Catching the Buzz at MinneBar

I travel several times each year to the San Francisco Bay Area. When I’m there I often talk to Bay Area entrepreneurs, start-ups, investors, and other lawyers who work with start-ups. Each time I sense a tremendous amount of entrepreneurial energy. Techies are cranking out code from dawn ‘til dusk in local hangouts, entrepreneurs are pitching the next billion-dollar deal on every street corner, angel investors are pulling cash from their wallets and giving it to any startup with a sweet deck, and venture capitalists are elbowing each other to fund the next cool social commerce deal.

Well, maybe things in Silicon Valley aren’t quite the start-up nirvana that I’ve portrayed, but that’s the sense you get when you walk the streets of Palo Alto and Mountain View and talk to start-ups who have spent time in Silicon Valley. In fact, things have gotten so good in Silicon Valley lately that there are concerns about another tech bubble. Software developers and engineers are becoming difficult to find and very expensive, and office space is at a premium.

Recently, I caught a Silicon Valley-type buzz in the Twin Cities. I attended MinneBar. Attendance had more than doubled since I last attended a couple of years ago. In one of the day’s sessions, Jamie Thingelstad, local tech executive and uberpromoter of the local Minnesota tech scene, showed a simple bar graph of the event’s attendance rising from around 100 five years ago to more than 1,000 this year. That’s impressive.

MinneBar is an annual “(un)convention” of Minnesota techies. The goal of the annual event is to get members of Minnesota’s tech community together to share information and experience, meet each other, and even collaborate on projects. Participation and networking are the keys to the event. Throughout the day there were more than 60 sessions about software design and development, social media, hardware, start-ups, raising capital, and improving the Minnesota tech landscape. I caught the buzz.

Turning Minnesota into Silicon Valley North has been chattered about for years, but success has been slow. The reality is that Minnesota has a large and growing community of highly skilled techies ready and willing to innovate. The challenge to creating the buzz in Minnesota is to the rest of us. To me it comes down to leadership, success, and money. Members of the tech community and tech entrepreneurs need to promote tech and launch their start-ups here in Minnesota. This will generate a more robust and sustainable tech community and oodles of profitable tech companies. This success will lead to more money in the hands of technopreneurs, angels, and VCs, which will be used to fund the next batch of tech leaders. This circle of tech success needed a catalyst. Thanks MinneBar for providing the spark.

Prenuptial Agreements: Why Jessica Simpson Might Actually Be Smarter Than The Rest of Us

Jessica Simpson is currently planning her second marriage with former NFL player, Eric Johnson. This time around Simpson plans to do some things a little differently. Not only has she managed to figure out that televising her wedding, and spending the first two years of marriage on a reality show, are not good ways to solidify the success of a marriage, but she plans to start with the ultimate asset protection device for every business owner—a prenuptial agreement.

The first time Simpson was married she thought Nick Lachey of the mega-band 98 Degrees (read my sarcasm) was her ticket to the good life. At that moment in time, maybe he was. The two of them had no idea she was bound for more than cheesy pop singles, a tagline about buffalo wings, or even a role as Daisy Duke. Today Jessica Simpson’s shoe and handbag empire is generating annual sales of around $1 billion. So what if she can’t sell albums to save her life, she has figured out how to provide for her family for generations. And this time around, she is smart enough to protect that. Or at least she was smart enough to listen to someone who told her to protect that.

Prenuptial agreements are not just for Jessica Simpson and other celebrities; they are really useful tools to provide for what happens to business assets at death or divorce. Without a prenuptial agreement, you face the possibility of running the business with your ex-spouse, your daughter’s ex-spouse, or the ex-spouse of your business partner. Even if you own the business completely in your name, and have owned the business since long before you were married, any increase in value due to your own efforts is likely subject to division at divorce. If you do not create the plan in what we lawyers call an “antenuptial agreement,” the laws of the state you live in will do it for you.

A common misconception about prenuptial agreements is that they are always in contemplation of a divorce and not a great way to start a marriage. More often than not, prenuptial agreements are done in contemplation of the division of assets upon the death of a spouse, not divorce. Even on death there are very good reasons to segregate business assets in a trust, pass them on to the child that currently manages the business, or to ensure the division and control is spread equally among a number of beneficiaries. Often the prenuptial agreement has nothing to do with restricting the spouse from enjoying the value of the business assets, but rather is about ensuring the assets stay with the family and are properly managed after the death of the business owner.

Signing a prenuptial agreement does not mean that you can never share the success of your business with your spouse. You can always provide more for a spouse at death in a will or trust, and most people do. A prenuptial agreement will simply keep the business assets safe and provide the only mandatory division of property at divorce or death. In addition, by law, prenuptial agreements must be fair to both parties when they are drafted and must be fair to both parties when they are implemented. This often means that even the non-business owner spouse, or the non-moneyed spouse, will be provided for fairly given the parties’ circumstances before the marriage, changes of circumstances during the marriage, and the length of the marriage.

What I commonly tell clients when they are thinking about whether or not to complete a prenuptial agreement is that this is not about hurting each other or pre-planning a divorce, but really this agreement is just another piece of your overall asset protection and business succession plan.

For Love or Miles

Did you know off the top of your head that seat E on a Delta MD-90 airplane is a window seat, but seat E on a Delta A320 is a middle seat? I did. I am a flyer. More specifically, a loyal Delta Airlines flyer. My elite or “medallion” status on Delta means I am frequently upgraded to the first class cabin at no cost, earn double miles for all of my flights and am able to utilize priority boarding and security privileges at most major airports. To be honest, it’s nice, but it’s not all that great. I have serious doubts that these privileges are worth the cost of allowing Delta to monopolize my frequent air travel. Yet year after year, I monitor my mileage balance and travel plans and work my way towards re-qualifying for medallion status. I’m certain our lasting relationship is better for Delta than it is for me, but somehow they’ve hooked me.

Entire Web sites such as WebFlyer are devoted to the analysis and strategic exploitation of frequent flyer programs. I am not aware of anything similar relating to any other industry and have often wondered why the travel industry’s loyalty programs (particularly airlines, hotels and rental cars) are different.

Businesses in many, if not most, industries do things to reward their best customers; they just approach it differently. Some wait for specific customers to demand special treatment—be it a discount on the products/services being purchased or some other incentive to keep the customers loyal to that particular business. Why does Delta tell me up front that if I fly 50,000 miles in a year I will achieve gold medallion status and be entitled to its specific benefits, but my local grocery store doesn’t say “if you buy $X of groceries in a year, you are entitled to a discount next year and special checkout line?” The travel industry is unique in its willingness to publicize precisely what it takes to become “special” and exactly which benefits “special” customers receive. For me, having that specific goal to reach each year probably adds one or two more roundtrips to my schedule than I might otherwise take, which means an extra several hundred dollars to Delta each year. Multiply those incremental extra dollars times tens of thousands of medallion status customers, and we’re talking about meaningful money to Delta.

If I were an entrepreneur in a business that relied upon loyal, repeat customers for a large portion of its profits, I would think hard about how some of the characteristics of the travel industry loyalty programs might work in my business. Of course, many aspects of these programs are not easily transferable to other businesses, but here are some notable common principles:

• Levels of loyalty/spending/use by the customer and resulting benefits to which the customer is entitled from the company are clearly communicated to the customer up front



• Loyalty benefits are not discretionary and are distributed fairly and equally to every customer falling within certain specific parameters



• Benefits are given by the company without being asked for by the customer (helpful for the Midwesterners among us who are afraid of being called “pushy”)



• Loyal customers receive some meaningful benefit(s) at a minimal cost to the company

In addition to these principles (and maybe the most important point of all), the most successful loyalty programs never forget that they are dealing with people. People who want to feel important and special. Smart businesses remember that a simple note or comment of appreciation for a customer’s loyalty goes far and doesn’t cost a thing.

A Post by Alyssa Hirschfeld, Guest Blogger

Wisconsin Basketball Coach’s Success Offers Lessons for Other Leaders

As a University of Wisconsin alum, and basketball fan, I have enjoyed watching the Badgers’ basketball success during the past several years. The Badgers have been to the NCAA men’s basketball tournament every year for the past 12 years, which is a nice achievement for a school not widely known for its basketball prowess. For the past 9 of those 12 years, the Badgers have been led by head coach Bo Ryan.

Under coach Ryan’s leadership, the Badgers have won or shared the Big Ten Conference title in 3 different seasons, and have not finished worse than fourth in the Big Ten standings in any year that he has coached the team (despite its name, the Big Ten is a conference consisting of 11 teams…and soon to be 12, when the University of Nebraska joins the Big Ten later this year). Prior to coach Ryan’s arrival, the Badgers had not won or shared the Big Ten title since 1947. Since coming to the Badgers in 2001, Ryan’s teams have compiled a record of 107-43 in conference games, making him the most successful coach by winning percentage in Big Ten history.

While the Badgers’ success and consistency under coach Ryan have been fun to watch (at least for this Badger fan), what’s been more impressive is that he has been able to win without recruiting NBA-level talent. Most of the elite college basketball programs (Kansas, Kentucky, UCLA, North Carolina, Duke, etc.) are loaded with players who are refining their skills for future employment in the NBA. Not so for the Badgers. Only six of coach Ryan’s players have played in the NBA. That’s not to say that he hasn’t had or developed good college basketball players, but it’s also not the typical recipe for success in college basketball today, where the elite programs bring in stars who play for a year or two, then move on to the NBA. After all, basketball is a game played by the players on the court, not the coaches. So, how has coach Ryan been able to maintain consistent success without the usual cadre of NBA-level talent, and why does anyone reading a blog about entrepreneurism care?

I think coach Ryan’s success provides a good lesson for any leader of any organization, including entrepreneurs, particularly as it relates to creating a vision for an organization and recognizing limitations. Coach Ryan has instilled a vision for his program that is consistent and sustainable:

• His teams are known for playing hard and intelligently.


• They work hard on defense (not an area that all players enjoy), and are efficient offensively.


• They take fewer shots than most teams, but make a high percentage of those shots, and they tend to play at a slower, more deliberate pace than their competitors.

Consequently, some of the most athletic players in the country tend not to be great fits for Wisconsin, in part because Wisconsin’s slow pace of play does not accentuate their skills and is not as effective at showcasing their talents to NBA scouts. Similarly, players who are only interested in displaying their athletic talent, at the expense of the team, would not work well in coach Ryan’s program. For coach Ryan’s teams, the team is usually greater than the sum of its parts.

One important lesson for entrepreneurs is to understand your limitations. Typically, coach Ryan does not recruit players who do not fit well into his system, even if they are more athletic or more talented than other players who are better suited for his system, because he recognizes that would detract from the overall success of the team. For other leaders, including entrepreneurs, recognizing limitations can also be critical to success. By understanding your own limitations, you can take actions to strengthen your organization by supplementing areas that are not strong suits. You may be a great visionary leader for your organization, identifying new opportunities for growth, but are not well suited to executing the day-to-day tasks that are necessary for success. If that is the case, then focus your efforts where you can be most effective (identifying new opportunities), and bring in external or internal sources to assist in executing your plans.

At the early stages of development, this can often be accomplished through use of an advisory board. Good advisory boards will provide meaningful strategic advice to entrepreneurs, and use their networks to provide valuable connections that allow entrepreneurs to grow their businesses. As well stated in a Business Week article, advisory board members should have experiences that will add value to your organization in areas that are not currently being served. Advisory board members may require nominal cash compensation, or equity compensation, for the use of their time and advice. This is often a small price, and a great investment, for an entrepreneur’s business.

The most successful entrepreneurs that I work with are developing great teams, with complementary skill sets, including financial, legal, sales, and operational expertise, to name a few, to strengthen areas of weakness. That makes their organizations more effective and more focused. This only happens, though, when the visionary leader understands his or her strengths and limitations, and focuses accordingly. Having that focus, and understanding of limitations, has helped coach Ryan’s Badgers achieve great success.