“The Julien Smith Model” & Business Change

Jeff Yablon
Business Change and Business Process
3 min readJan 11, 2011

Let’s continue the Julien Smith love-fest. Today’s “Julien Smith is brilliant” angle? Business Change.

Last week I told you about Julien Smith’s common-sense diet plan. It’s based on a few very simple ideas, and if you need to lose a few pounds I think you want to take a look. I said it then and I’ll repeat it now: Julien Smith Rocks.

I promised then to apply what I’ve coined “The Julien Smith Model” to Business Change, Customer Service, and Search Engine Optimization. We’ve already covered Search Engine Optimization, and today at Answer Guy Central, we’ll move on to how The Julien Smith Model applies to Business Change.

Let’s repeat the steps in The Julien Smith Model:

  • Cut pollutants
  • Be consistent
  • Break up that consistency (and the accompanying monotony) — not for the sake of breaking it but because it’s how you shock your body into alertness
  • Keep looking for new information, because he with the best information wins

In dieting, Julien’s pollutants are sugar and flour. In Business Change, the biggest “pollutant” is obvious, yes? When you continue to insist on doing things the way you always have done the, making business change happen is impossible. The pollutant getting in the way of business change is a closed mind.

Being consistent in business change is a bit trickier, since by nature “change” and “consistency” are opposites. In a way, that’s good news. The consistency in business change is business change. Make a habit of asking yourself (often!) “how can I change this?”, and you’ll find that seeing the change becomes easier, and change will seem less scary.

Breaking up the consistency is actually the most difficult part of business change. Once you get yourself in that “change is good and I’m always going to be looking for where I can make business change happen” mindset the only practical way to break the cycle is literally to focus on something else. I could get all touchy-feely here and suggest that you take off one afternoon every week to focus on something other than business (and that’s great business coaching advice, by the way), but I’ll stop a step short of that. Instead, focus on an internal process every now and then.

Here’s an example: For years after Microsoft became . . . well, Microsoft . . . Bill Gates would take the occasional turn answering technical support questions on the telephone. I don’t know whether Bill ever found anything earth-shattering when he did customer service that way, but I can say conclusively that getting inside a process is a great way to block out everything else for a little while.

As for that “keep looking for new information” part: when it comes to business change, I don’t even need to go further, do I? When you make business change part of your mindset you’ll be looking for new information. All the time. Simple, right?

As with SEO, Julien Smith, intending to be or not, is a business change expert. And you can be, too. If you want help, let the Answer Guy help with your Business Change.

You knew I would plug our Business Change and Coaching Services, right? Well, that’s a business change, too: Don’t ever be afraid to remind people what you do.

Give the Julien Smith Model a chance . . . it can be your business change BFF.

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