Speed Freaks There's e-commerce and e-mail and virtual this and virtual that and if you don't grab that third cup of espresso and kick yourself into overdrive to get your business up to speed, you can bet you'll get left in the dust.

It doesn't even take a second: the arm is airborne, pistol in hand, gunshot a memory. If the gunslinger of the Old West didn't have a fast draw, he was dead. Today, several thousand competitors pay tribute to those men of speed by joining the World Fast Draw Association (WFDA), a club whose members compete in events held around the globe. Every year, shootists fire at a target to see who has the quickest trigger finger. "Some of the fastest draws take only a quarter of a second," observes Howard Darby, one of the wfda's ranking members. "A typical fast draw is just one-tenth of a second slower." Nobody's timed the slowest draw. Nobody cares.

The world moves fast--and it's getting faster. E-mail. E-commerce. E-everything. The world moves so fast, in fact, it's enough to make you fall fast asleep from exhaustion.

But don't! You don't have the time, according to Kelsey Biggers, executive vice president of Micro Modeling Associates, a technological consulting firm in New York City. "Industries are changing so quickly," he says, that--at least in terms of keeping up with technology--companies "need to accomplish in 90 days what traditionally took a year. The landscape is changing so quickly that if you tried to stick to your five-year plan, you'd be obsolete in six months."

"Yes, the world of business has really sped up," agrees Jeff Shuman, the director of BIZ Experiencesial studies at Bentley College in Waltham, Massachusetts, "but one of the challenges BIZ Experiencess have to watch out for is not to get trapped operating at a speed of business that's out of sync with the natural rhythm of their particular company." This is the premise of Shuman's recent book, co-written with David Rottenberg, The Rhythm of Business: The Key to Building and Running Successful Companies (Butterworth-Heinemann).

"Speed for speed's sake is a problem, if you get stuck in that trap," says Shuman. "You've got to be very careful that you're dealing with the right pace [for] your business--as opposed to some arbitrary, outside mandate to move quickly."

A nice sentiment, but even Shuman concedes you'll need to move quickly if your customers demand you do so. Then the speed of business isn't so arbitrary, and you'd better rev up the Millennium Falcon--without crashing. "The reality," Shuman says, "is that customers are setting faster beats."

Geoff Williams is a freelance writer and a features reporter for The Cincinnati Post. He can fire off a water pistol in under a minute.

Warming Up

Running a business is one long race, and we're allcompetitors. Like Jeffrey Green, 29, one of three founders ofStamps.com, a 3-year-old Santa Monica, California, company thatallows consumers to buy postage online. And make no mistake: Greenis in a race, whether it's in establishing partnerships withQuicken.com and AOL so their customers will buy stamps from Greenand not his competitors, or whether he's racing to manage hisown growth, even as he tries to prepare for the further onslaughtof customers the company expects in the near future.

Just how quickly has his company grown? Stamps.com has addedmore than 100 employees in three years. And that's caused somesharp growing pains. For starters, it's wreaked havoc on thecompany's leasing options. Stamps.com began in an officedesigned for four, maybe five, people. Then they moved to an officefor 10. In August 1998, Green relocated to an office with 8,000square feet; three weeks later, it was filled to capacity. So theyleased the office next door--with the same amount of space--andfilled it right away. They've recently moved again and signed along-term lease for an office space of more than 40,000 squarefeet. (The secret to keeping your sanity in a similar situation?Find a real estate agent who specializes in short-term leases.)

You'd think Stamps.com's business plan has beenworthless, but Green says that's not the case."Strategically, we haven't left [the business plan] thatdramatically. Execution-wise, in terms of the number of people andthe amount of dollars needed, the dates we thought you were goingto do things--nowhere close," he says. "You can'timagine how big your company is going to be when you [start off]working with three guys in a room, and you don't even have yourown offices. The good news is [when you grow rapidly], you'restill succeeding because you're following the initial vision ofwhat the company needs to do or become."

But if your company is going to grow faster than you can fathom,Green advises: "You have to hire people who are willing tojump right in the middle and start sprinting. And you have to letthem know that upfront. It's not the most nurturingenvironment, [but] if you slow down to teach everyone everythingabout the company before they start working, you fallbehind."

Which mirrors the thoughts of Charles O'Reilly, a professorof human resources management and organizational behavior atStanford University. He believes the least rigid corporations willrule the day. "There's all this rhetoric about thelearning organization--frankly, the secret is how to unlearn. Ifyou really want to be fast, you have to unlearn," contendsO'Reilly. "When we say that an organization learns, whatwe really mean is it develops processes and systems, and that'sgreat. But if those systems stop you from moving in new directions,they're deadly."

Get There First

In the Old West, a faster draw saved your life. But nowadays,it's not so much who's the fastest, as who's firstthat's important, says Regis McKenna, author of Real Time:Preparing for the Age of the Never Satisfied Customer (HarvardBusiness School Press). If you're entering a new market,tackling new technology or trying to woo an untapped demographic,being the first one to cross the finish line is a tremendousadvantage because, says McKenna, you'll have "a learningmomentum and a cultural momentum."

Both McKenna and Biggers give the ubiquitous example ofAmazon.com. When the book-hawking Web site first appeared on thescene, everybody, says Biggers, thought they were going to be"Amazon.toast." But by the time the mammoth Barnes &Noble managed to get online, Amazon.com was already a householdname among online book buyers.

That said, Amazon.com knew what it was doing when it set upshop, and that's important. "Don't let the need tomove faster cause you to jeopardize the integrity of the processyou use to build the business," warns Shuman.

In other words, get your product or service right, but don'twait for the paint to dry. "The most successful company is onethat has gotten something up quickly and then refinedit," argues Lorne Olfman, director of the school ofinformation science at Claremont Graduate University in Claremont,California. "Microsoft has made all kinds of money byreleasing version after version of [Windows]."

Indeed, many laundry detergents and household goods arrive instores, triumphantly announcing "New and Improved!" Thesame plan is being utilized at Claremont Graduate University, saysOlfman. It is one of a growing number of universities offering amajor in e-commerce. Is the present major perfect? No. Will it getbetter? You bet.

During The Dash

If you're going to work fast, you don't have time tomake bad choices. A string of smart decisions is why Heather Bleaseis thriving. Blease, 36, is the president of EnvisioNet, a companythat provides Internet and technical support services for softwarecompanies. A former electrical engineer, she founded her firm in1995, when many other BIZ Experiencess were just discovering theInternet. Today, Blease's company has a staff of 500, and 1999sales should be around $8.5 million. All this, while raising threeboys (they were all under age 4 when she began her business) withher husband, Dwight.

Blease always assumed her industry would change quickly, but"because of the Internet, it's faster-paced than I thoughtit would be," Blease says. "It's not a question ofwhether or not I keep up--it's about how to most effectivelykeep up."

Blease considers outsourcing portions of her business one of thesmartest things she's done. She's outsourced everyone fromCFOs to staff in payroll, recruiting, market research and strategyformation. "Getting the best advice is absolutelycritical," says Blease. "There are so many times in a daywhen major decisions are made, and you need to make the rightdecisions all the time."

And what are some good decisions? Here are just a few:

• Put an "ottawara clause" in your contracts,especially if you're working with other newer, fast-pacedbusinesses. "It's a Japanese concept," explainsBlease, "and it's essentially an `economicharmonization' clause." An economic harma-what? "Weagree as companies that if one or the other is way off inprojections, and if it's materially hurting the other company,we'll sit down and renegotiate. It's very vague, butwe're agreeing that we want to ensure ourselves a successfulpartnership, and if things are going south for one company or theother, or if things are going too quickly, we agree to cometogether and sort things out."

• Work with fast-paced, new and possibly lucrative companies, butanchor your alliances with the stable, more stodgy ones. Thebigger, older firms may seem stuffy, but they'll pay you ontime.

• Establish a relationship with your suppliers so you're notjust a client, but more or less a partner. It's a smart move,according to McKenna, who says that having solid relationships withanother big company is the hallmark of two of the speediestcorporations in today's fast-paced, breakneck speed ofbusiness: Wal-Mart and Procter & Gamble.

• Educate your employees. It sounds obvious, but too manyentrepreneurs aren't educated enough in the very businessthey're in, says Blease. Because so many people are jumpinginto businesses and learning as they go, they expect theiremployees to be able to operate as fast as they do. That's asign of BIZ Experiencesial inexperience, says Blease.

Go, Speed Racer

Fast food. Fastball. Fast lane. Fast track. The world movesfast. Ken Libman knows that.

Libman, 41, owns Libman Wolf Couples (LWC), an interiorarchitectural firm in New York City. Even with the economy boomingand new businesses popping up left and right, he's had noproblem keeping up. "We've doubled our growth everyyear," he says. And so in the five years since LWC'sfounding, he's built a company with an expected revenue of $50million for 1999.

Libman moves fast. He talks fast; he thinks fast; he works fast.His customers expect it. "They say `If you can move me in twomonths earlier, that's a lot of money to me,' "he says. Libman has architects, engineers and contractors allworking for him under one roof, which means his firm isself-contained, and that helps his speed. When the company'swork load is heavy, employees occasionally work in three eight-hourshifts that go around-the-clock. Saturdays and Sundays are notoff-limits if a deadline is fast approaching.

But Libman's speed goes beyond that. He uses his moneyliberally; he says he hires the best talent ("steal them andoverpay") and can often get his vendors to work more quicklyby promising to pay them half of their fee upfront. This way he canoften make the end cost less. (If a vendor wants $100,000, forinstance, offer to pay $80,000 but fork out half of that upfront.)But maybe his smartest decision has been to not feartechnology.

"Technology is moving very quickly," says Libman.(Yeah, tell us something we don't know.) So Libman encourageshis workers to attend seminars and classes, and to stay on top ofthings. But because even business owners can't dictate whatpeople do in their free time, Libman brings the seminars to hisworkers. "We're dealing with so many vendors here--whetherit's telecommunication vendors or furniture vendors--twice eachweek, we have seminars, and they come in and educate us."Since the vendors are eager for LWC's business, they do it forfree--and what's more, Libman has his vendors bring his stafflunch!

And should employees decide to pick up a job-related course ortwo after hours, Libman foots the bill. Score an "A" insuch a college course, and Libman picks up the entire tab."B" and "C" marks earn financial reimbursementof 75 and 50 percent coverage, respectively.

Don't forget to treat your workers right, Libman stresses."Treat your people like gold to get them motivated and to keepthe synergy high, so they all move in one direction."

The strategies have worked for Libman, who says a recentself-conducted study shows his company is 28 percent faster thanits competition. As McKenna says, "You don't have to bethe fastest business. You just have to be faster than yourcompetitors." Has Libman put any thought into how fast thebusiness world will move five years from now? "Ihaven't," he admits, "because if I did think about itright now, I just might fall out of my chair."

It's probably just as well that Libman hasn't consideredit. After all, flying too fast can burn even the best of us.O'Reilly notes that People's Express was once the model ofa firm that was fast on its feet. Between 1981 and 1986, thecommuter airline went from a staff of zero to 4,000, and had arevenue of almost $1 billion. But during the next two years, theytried to do too much, too fast. "They lost it all," saysO'Reilly. "They imploded."

Even Wyatt Earp knew a fast draw could be too fast, says Darby.Earp, the legendary lawman who blazed his way through the O.K.Corral, would routinely sacrifice some speed for accuracy. He musthave known what he was doing. He died in 1929, shortly before his81st birthday.

5 Ways To Be Faster

1. "If you want to be slow, develop a lot ofrules," warns Stanford professor Charles O'Reilly--sodon't have too many rules. O'Reilly gives the example ofPSS World Medical, which provides medical supplies tophysicians' offices (to the tune of more than $1 billion since1993). "Part of their success is that they've guaranteedsame-day delivery of supplies, so if a doctor needs tonguedepressors, he or she will get them that day." The competitorshaven't matched that, says O'Reilly, because PSS has lessbureaucracy. Each "store," or distribution center, hasenough autonomy to do whatever it has to do to get the job done.Meanwhile, the competitors' stores have to go throughheadquarters before filling their orders--wasting valuabletime.

2. Share data with everybody--realize your employees aresmarter than you think. O'Reilly says British Petroleum (BP)has been a huge hit around the world because if a gas station inBorneo has some pertinent information, it has the resources toquickly let everybody in BP know of its ideas, and suddenly the BPsin the North Sea are benefiting as well.

3. Understand that diversity in senior management teams isbad. O'Reilly isn't talking about ethnic or gender issues.He means people work better with others who've been in a groupequally as long as they have, whether that's 10 minutes or 10years, as opposed to a staff with mixed levels of seniority.

4. Be willing to make quick decisions at the risk of beingineffective. Implementing the second-best idea now is a betterstrategy than doing the best idea a week from now. It's abigger risk to delay making a decision than to make a marginalone.

5. Don't have a desk. What does a desk really do butcollect stuff?

Slow Drip: 3 Things Worth Doing Slowly

1. Creating your product or service. You can only build a bettermousetrap by taking your time. Once it's built, sell it asquickly as you like.

2. Building trust with your customers, partners and colleagues.It's difficult to speed up the development of trust.

3. Changing your core values. Your firm might change frommanufacturing to distribution, but if your entire foundation isbased on the former and you rush to do the latter, you may somedaybe on a park bench with a bottle of Ripple, telling people how youused to own a manufacturing firm.

The Fastest Hall Of Fame

If there were such a thing, these companies would surely belong,according to Regis McKenna, author of Real Time: Preparing for theAge of the Never Satisfied Customer (Harvard Business SchoolPress).

• Amazon.com. Part of the reason for their success wasthat unlike, say, Barnes & Noble, they had no legacy."There was nothing to hold them back," says McKenna."They had a blank path."

• FedEx. It's not just that they deliver quickly andon time--the customer is generally doing half the paperwork.

• Cisco Systems. High marks for online sales, support andservice.

• Intel. Great customer service and Internetprotocol.

• Wal-Mart and Procter & Gamble. "They'reclose alliance partners, and the alliance [works] because theyshare information with each other," says McKenna."Procter & Gamble knows exactly what happens at Wal-Martstores at the end of the day, and that's why other retailstores have trouble keeping up."

• AOL. "They didn't invent the Internet, theydidn't invent computers, and they didn't invent the propernetwork; they invented the idea of linking people to an existinginfrastructure. AOL got that idea before anyone else, and itenabled them to operate faster."

• Nasdaq. "They now handle billions of trades a dayon the Internet. They've built back-end systems to manage that.As that market continues to explode, they've managed to handlethe new companies that have come in, the volatility of themarketplace and the huge number of transactions that are goingon." Easily more impressive, Internet-wise, than the New YorkStock Exchange.

Fast Tips

• "To stay competitive in a market that changes by the hour,you need to plan. Plan for what you think might work, and whileyou're doing that, continue with what is currently working--andbe ready to make changes for what's not."

Michael Perez, Technologix Inc., Kirkland, WABIZ Experiences's No. 1 Hot 100 Business for 1999

• "When you see an opportunity, if you're confidentenough, take it!"

Miguel Suarez, MAS Melons & Grapes, Rio Rico, AZBIZ Experiences's Hot 100 Business No. 52 for 1999

• "Hire great people. You need people who are great at whatthey're doing this minute, and who, in six months, when yourcompany is five times its original size, will still be great. Hirepeople you know will grow with your company."

Rosemary M. Tator, Avalon Solutions Inc., Dover, NHBIZ Experiences's Hot 100 Business No. 62 for 1999

Contact Sources

Avalon Solutions, (603) 743-4500, http://www.avalonsolutions.com

Envisionet Computer Services, (207) 373-3201, http://www.envnet.com

Libman Wolf Couples, (212) 980-3113, http://www.lwc.com

MAS Melons & Grapes, (520) 377-2372, masmg@dakota.com

Micro Modeling Associates, (212) 233-9890, http://www.mmanet.com

Stamps.com, 3420 Ocean Park Blvd. #1040, Santa Monica, CA90405, http://www.stamps.com

Technologix Inc., (425)825-8775, http://www.technologixinc.com

World Fast Draw Association,fastdraw@gunfighter.com,http://www.gunfighter.com/fastdraw