Coach's Notes

Can I Breathe Now?

2007-03-08T16:55:00.000-08:00

We use a lot of long distance around here so when I got an offer from Skype for their unlimited US/Canada Internet phone service for $29.95 a year we decided to give it a try. We really like Skype's IM function: V and I, though our desks are just a few steps from each other, still often prefer to use IM to avoid inappropriate interruptions in each other's work.

That was two days ago. Although my charge was processed moments after clicking submit I am still Skype-phone-free.

V pointed out "The Skype logo on their homepage says 'take a deep breath.' How long am I supposed to hold this?"

I wandered into the Skype forum and found an insurrection in process. The closest thing I found to a calming voice was a post with a link to the following email:

"We have been experiencing longer than usual delays with payments made by credit cards. These payments stay listed as Pending in our system as we are processing them. Normally, credit card payments should be processed within 15 minutes but in some cases it has taken a lot longer.

You can view the status of your orders here:
https://secure.skype.com/store/myaccount/orders.html

We are working hard to process all the orders quickly and apologise for the inconvenience that this has caused

Kind regards,

Skype Customer Support"

Can't you just smell the condescension?

I have no idea where the person got this email, though she seems to keep reposting it time after time. (She apparently runs a "Skype Based Business" and calls herself a "skype hugger".) All I have received is an autoresponse saying, in effect, got your money, sit on your hands which is supposed to make it OK that the word "pending" on my account status page is starting take on a decidedly stale and moldy appearance.

Here was my response to the above post:

I signed up for Skype a couple of days ago and after experiencing the same mixture of aggravation, confusion, and finally anger people have been venting on this forum I started poking around in here.

Ma'am, I know you are a Skype based business. I am certain you have had wonderful experiences with them or you wouldn't be betting the farm on them. But what is going on here reminds me of the recent debacle with Jet Blue. You have terminals full of tired and hungry travelers and no one is really in control enough to manage the apparent melt-down Skype seems to be going through. But there is one BIG difference. Jet Blue's CEO Tom Neeleman had the backbone to go on the record in public that they had screwed up and he fell on his sword over the debacle.

The people behind Skype are conveniently hiding behind autoresponders. Seems pretty spineless to me. At the very least, stupid.

Wherever you are, stop cowering and show some cajones. Tell people straight up what is going on, what you are doing to fix it or offer immediate and unconditional refunds. You have screwed up so step up and take your medicine.

For me, I expect to treat the $29.95 as if I lost it on a ball game. I will also sniff around forums like this a bit in the future before I get involved.

OTOH, I've got some GREAT material for my blog - this has the potential of turning into one of the big customer service SNAFUs of 2007.

Now, I really do like Skype, But REALLY!

(Vicki, you can breath now.)

Some People Are Perfect for the Job

2007-02-19T06:48:00.000-08:00

A recent post in Marketing Profs asks:

"Does your front-line staff embody the image that you want to project to the world?"

I think we could all look in the mirror and ask that question on a daily basis. But let's ask another question first, i.e., "What is the image we want to project to the world?"

I've worked with companies that want to hire to fill a position and, typically after they have suffered through some disastrous decisions, finally agree to let me help them profile the JOB first. I am not surprised when I get the feedback from various people within the company to find marked differences among the perceptions of a job's requirements. The ensuing frank conversation typically leads us to a clearer and more honest description of what the job requires, and then they are more likely to fit the candidate to the position.

But back to the mirror. What are we really telling the world about us on our front line? And are we consistent with it?

There is a brew-pub in my area that I used to patronize on a regular basis. I loved their beer. It was always fresh, and they have some great variety. But they had two major weaknesses in their operation that eventually drove me away.

First was the wait staff. You never knew what you were going to get, and it would just drive you crazy anticipating (sometimes dreading) what you might have to endure to get your order. I learned who the pro's were and always asked to be seated in their section. But even that didn't work because they might not be on the shift or they had just moved on to another job. The inconsistency was unsettling.

The second problem was the inconsistent menu. You might order the same menu item, say a cheeseburger, and one time you would get curly fries, another regular fries, and maybe another time fries more like chips. One time when I was there for Sunday brunch they informed me the cook didn't know how to poach an egg (they had to find a manager to tell him what it was), the English Muffin was replaced with a white cupcake with colored sprinkles, and to make up for the fact that the order took a VERY LONG TIME to fill they piled my plate with four times the normal portions of home-fry potatoes. I have not been back there for several years. It just got too bizarre.

There is another restaurant in the neighborhood (OK, it's a bar) called J. Gilligan's that does not brew but has a good selection and where you always know what you are going to get. Even when there is staff turnover there is still consistency to the way they handle your order. And you know what you are gong to get when you order your "regular."

Likewise with my local coffee house, The Coffee Haus in Arlington. I once patronized a local competitor who followed a similar path as the pub described above. I finally threw up my hands and found this great place right around the corner with great staff, reliable ambiance and free WiFi. I always know what I am going to get. See that smiling face up above? That's the way it always feels.

Thus, I keep coming back.

These people know who they are, get the right people to represent that, and do it consistently.

What Entrepreneurs Do on a Snow Day

2007-02-02T17:54:00.000-08:00

I never had the privilege of participating in the undergrad high jinx of my alma mater’s annual Groundhog Day celebration. (Being a commuter student on a live-in campus is serious non-fun.) I’m told the festivities consisted largely of drinking beer on a wooded lot near the campus, but these days it seems to have turned into a full-fledged, capital ‘e’ Event. I remember with fondness and a little jealousy the enjoyment I saw my academic colleagues having every year on this date as they stumbled into class wearing watch caps and muddy shoes. There was little or no discussion of Punxsutawney Phil, but something unusual had definitely happened in that ever-so-serious environment.

Even then, though, holidays were something I tended to overlook in the task list. Holiday? Snow day? Time to catch up on the pre-reading and maybe log some overtime on the night job. Heck, there was never so much snow in Texas that you couldn’t work someway if you were committed to it.

The Groundhog Holiday (or “Observance,” if you prefer) also makes me think of the wonderful movie, “Groundhog Day” with Bill Murray. Now, this one is never going onto the classics lists with “Citizen Kane” or “Gone with the Wind,” but it does convey a message of doing and redoing what matters until you get it right to which a lot of us – especially the entrepreneurs – relate.

So, what do entrepreneurs do on a snowy Groundhog Day? We re-do things!

During the last few weeks of inclement weather, the Coach and I have been making hay while the sun fails to shine.When you work for yourself, you may run short on time but you never run short on potential improvements. Providing a better and better place for accomplishments to happen is key to the environment we want for our clients as well as for ourselves. It’s this relentless, fanatical commitment to and fascination with what you do that makes the risks of owning your own business plausible and, in the end, supremely rewarding. So, rain or shine, we do and re-do what we do, always striving to produce a place for excellence to happen.

Over the last several weeks, we have been busily at work revamping the JUMProductions website. Clients have always known there was good stuff there, but if you go there, you’ll see that the look has changed a lot. More visual thanks again to our contributors and a little better layout. We’d been told we weren’t making what we actually do for people obvious enough, so we’ve re-worked it. We hope this is better.

So what about the Groundhog?

The bigger Groundhog message, for me, is that if you find yourself reworking and revising and tweaking stuff, if people who aren't of the same mindset as you wonder why you don’t just “give it a rest,” don’t argue with them, but don’t give yourself any grief over your personal desire to produce something astonishing either. You’re not alone. That burning desire for the best from ourselves can make the work a reward in itself and our achievements confirmations of time well spent. We know many people like that, and we like them a lot.

As to the site, if it’s not just right, we’ll just do it again!

(By the way, in case you missed it, this was the soft rollout of the new site.)

When the World is Not Flat: Attitude vs. Altitude

2006-12-23T06:25:00.000-08:00

I just got a well-thought out and insightful email from my good friend, Richard at the ~~Minker Company~~ Richard D. Minker Company. It referenced The World is Flat by Tom Friedman and the story therein of Jet Blue Airlines. Here's a snip from his note to me:

Anyway it spoke to the fact that all airlines pretty much fly at the same altitude. Jet Blue's philosophy is that it is "Not the Altitude, but the Attitude" that is the reason for their success.

This is the kind of Top Down thinking I believe is the tipping point in becoming a great company.

It begins with who you are, what you stand for (i.e., your values) and the vision you have for the world and your place in it. My recent reading and thinking has lead me to the conclusion that the idea of "brand" is passe, maybe even irrelevant. Why? Because it speaks to a superficial rendering of the core of a company; the mere manifestation if you will - the perception. What really matters is the Vision/Mission/Values.

When I think of the great business leaders I always have an experience of someone defining how things are or should be, i.e., A Vision. It is usually huge, outrageous, and amazingly appealing and attractive. It pulls you into it. And it also has a special magical effect - it compels action. Because of the energy that it provides (to those who are drawn to it anyway) putting legs on the mission (the how, the action plan) becomes compelling, even an obsession.

You get the right people on that bus (sharing the values and drawn to the vision) and they will do anything humanly possible to get it to its destination. And along they way they may just redefine what "humanly possible" means.

The End of an Experiment

2006-12-20T23:08:00.000-08:00

Early last year we undertook a project to put our personal events and networking calendar onto the web for anybody to use. By "personal" I mean that it was something that we had been doing internally for a while in order to make it easier to get me out of the office and into the world. Having a holding bin in an Outlook calendar helped us to plan ahead. It seemed like a worthwhile project to see if we could go ahead and share the resources with the rest of the world through what we called out "Social Capital Calendar".

We even invited others to submit their events.

But somewhere along the way it stopped working for us. We found ourselves investing time into something that wasn't fun, nor was it really helping our business as far as we could tell. So, today, after much deliberation, we are pulling the switch. We'll leave the calendar up here for a while but the domain is expiring soon. Until it does expire it will be redirected to this post.

We will still be putting out there the stuff that we think is cool and important - especially if it's something I will be attending myself. But it's going to be much simpler and more in tune with what we are really about rather than a bulletin board for people to promote "whatever".

Watch this space for future details.

The View Back and Forward

2006-12-14T15:31:00.000-08:00

For several days we have been working diligently planning the next year of our life. This type of planning used to be a solitary undertaking in which I would lock myself away to try to figure out the meaning of life and how I am supposed to manage my part in it for the next trip around the sun but this time I have my partner working it with me.

This is a mixed blessing.

We are two very different people, The Muse and I. She fastidious, patient, detail-oriented versus my impulsive, controlling,I'm-the-center-of-the-universe-so-c'mon-let's-get-on-with-it style. Which is probably more information that you wanted, but I am committed to candor in this blog.

Which brings up an interesting point.

In a recent blog post Jennifer Rice at mantrabrand.com questions the very idea of purpose and passion in business and branding. In a beautifully written article she examines some great companies with great "brands" that are really just passionate visions of what someone knows the world is supposed to be. The article instigated several comments challenging the concept of passion in business. Perhaps the word has been so over-used it seems hackneyed. Passion is not a term I think of often, let alone use. But candor - now that really rings with me.

Candor is the fire in the belly, the vision for the future, married with undaunting commitment to what is true and right.

Rice states:

"I believe that over-commercialization is leading to the demise of our society, and yet I’m in a profession of helping companies sell stuff that people don’t really need."

Yep, I get where she's coming from. Frankly, as we have reviewed many of the relationships we've worked with over the last year we were struck by the number of people whose leitmotif was "I'm not sure I really want this job." They were questioning the basic underpinnings of why they were doing what they did. We never talked about passion, but we have had many, many conversations in which there was unbridled candor. It seems to make the difference.

What do YOU think?

Have a Politically Correct Christmas

2006-12-19T05:20:00.000-08:00

I found this at Laurie Weiss's Business Communication Blog:

Please accept with no obligation, implied or implicit, my best wishes for an environmentally conscious, socially responsible, low stress, non-addictive, gender neutral celebration of the winter solstice holiday, practiced within the most enjoyable traditions of the religious persuasion of your choice, or the secular practices of your choice, with respect for the religious or secular persuasions and/or traditions of others, or their choice not to practice religious or secular traditions at all.

May you have a fiscally successful, personally fulfilling and medically uncomplicated recognition of the onset of the generally accepted calendar year 2007, but not without due respect for the calendars of choice of other cultures whose contributions to society have helped to make our country the uniquely wonderful place that it is (not to imply that our country is necessarily greater than any other country, including yours, should yours be different from mine, but nonetheless including and recognizing the distinctiveness of our country) and without regard to the race, creed, color, age, physical ability, religious faith, political belief, choice of computer platform or sexual preference of the wishee.

By accepting this greeting, you are accepting these terms. This greeting is subject to clarification or withdrawal. It is freely transferable with no alteration to the original greeting. It implies no promise by the wisher to actually implement any of the wishes for herself or himself or others, is void where prohibited by law and is revocable at the sole discretion of the wisher.

This wish is warranted to perform as expected within the usual application of good tidings for a period of one year, or until the issuance of a subsequent holiday greeting, whichever comes first, and the warranty is limited to replacement of this wish or issuance of a new wish at the sole discretion of the wisher.

In other words…. A MERRY CHRISTMAS AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Original source attribution is Dan Poynter.

What Did I Learn This Year?

2006-12-18T18:21:00.000-08:00

Thanks to The Muse and The GoodBlogs (see the sidebar) I have been invited to bare myself in a post of what I learned this year. The invitation originated at Instigator Blog. Ben Yoskovitz has instigated this writing project to close out the year and, besides looking like it might be fun, he's offering some cool prizes so I'm throwing my hat into the ring.

I'm not sure whether to do this in narrative or list form so I'll just get started and see what happens... soooo.... this is what I learned in 2006.

The time to make my friends is before I need them.

I actually learned this lesson a couple of years ago and took it to heart then but this year I saw it in action close up when a significant business opportunity came my way. I was fortunate to be connected to several key people who were able to help me kick it off in a big way. I have learned that it is important to surround yourself with the best quality positive thinking people you can, even if you have no particular reason in mind at the time. Also, I have learned the importance of staying in touch. When circumstances are right you will need access to those quality people - don't let them fade away.

Set bigger boundaries than I imagine I need.

Even though I need those special people for success, I still need to be able to pull up the drawbridge and get my "away" time. As successes continue to grow I am finding this is increasingly important.

Great habits are easily broken.

It is so friggin' easy to let things slide. Just stop paying attention for a little while and before you know it you are gaining weight, your blog entries are behind, and ...well, you get the idea. The sooner you get back on the wagon though, the better you feel.

Never work alone if I can help it.

It's just too hard to get things done solo. Meet with your partners, brainstorm, collaborate.

Technology can really bite.

It really blew me away when my ISP decided that any emails coming through my own web site could not be delivered to me. I was particularly impressed with their instruction that to fix the problem I had to call a special unlisted number that they would not give me. Lesson - always have a backup email system and a 2nd ISP and hosting company waiting in the wings.

A Prepositional Distinction

2006-12-07T09:56:00.000-08:00

We are fully engaged in completing our 2007 planning around here. I expect we will have things pretty well laid out within the next two days.

Over breakfast this morning I mentioned to The Muse how excited I am about it and caught myself in mid-sentence about to say "I'm glad to have this behind me"... I changed it to "I'm glad to have this beneath me."

A working action plan is something that gives us the balance and support we need to keep in action. It is not something that we would leave behind. Knowing where we are headed in 2007 makes the next few weeks of 2006 even more exciting. They are connected to the grander scheme of things.

If you are putting off doing your next year action plan, don't. Get it into action NOW - life will be a lot more fun, I promise.

200 Calories (lower nutritional value with insult)

2006-12-12T12:49:00.000-08:00

My darling husband is standing in front of a pastry counter late at night in the Neighborhood Wallyworld and side-glances at the equally exasperated guy next to him.

"Weren't you just behind me at the Krispy Kreme?" the guy says to him.

"Yea, quite an experience, wasn't it?"

"Yep."

Silence while both resume forlorn contemplation of the depleted array of 18-hour-old donuts.

I heard about this exchange after Michael returned to the car with what we had to settle for as our treat after several hours of sanding away at the 50+ years of paint on the kitchen cabinets in my late parents’ house. It's a miracle that the walls there never met since additional coats of paint were regularly reapplied to these cabinets but none were ever removed. (The fact that we've struck wood after a couple of weeks' work is a surprise and relief to us both.) We're renovating now, and when you go through that many layers of white-yellow-white-cream-orange-white-etc., it doesn't matter how evolved you are, you need treats.

So Michael offered me Krispy Kreme. My hero.

I can remember when Krispy Kreme first opened in Arlington, and there were lines blocking traffic on South Cooper. The donuts were hot. The personnel delivered service with a smile and a retro flair true to their calorific roots. Families stood in line to watch the donuts sizzle and glide through the deep fat and the white curtain of sugar glaze. The whole thing was an EXPERIENCE.

While we'd gotten over the newness, the treat quotient to the donut itself hadn't faded, so we headed there in spite of the hour to recapture that experience of friendly service and the self-indulgent sugar rush. We were putting down our money to buy that pat on the head that said we'd done well. We pulled up to the window and smiled at one another. Nothing. We waited, wiping the paint dust off our faces in anticipation. Nothing. Michael tapped gingerly on the take-out window. There was a pause, then a young woman walked to the window, opened it, and said the following:

"We got nothing. NOTHING."

Window slams shut.

Could you just weep?

You may remember along with me the little fiasco of publicity surrounding the Krispy Kreme expansion and stock price droop in the face of Atkins diet mania awhile back. The company rallied to defend their brand, but surely, nobody thinks there's a lot of positive to be said about donuts in terms of nutritional value, in spite of the fact that they publish it these days (http://www.krispykreme.com/nutri.html), so what do they think they're selling here?

It's the experience, guys, and nobody's looking to have more doors slammed in their faces these days!

I wish that I could report that this is an unusual occurrence, but it would not be true. Too often, companies spend gazillons on advertising then populate their prime advertising space - the people on the front lines of their businesses - with surly, under qualified (and thus unhappy), unsupervised people who don't even know they're in the business of selling. In an economy where you can get your cellphone in any flavor and your clothes from any continent with the click of a mouse, where services of every type come and go faster than their business cards can be printed, it's important to remember that everybody's selling and that it's the experience that brings the customer back to you or convinces them to seek abroad. It won't be hard for them to find an alternative.

I lay this more at the feet of management than anywhere else. After all, they're paid to be the official smart people. As a revered former acquaintance would have said, "If you're going to run the company, then run it."

That means paying attention, day by day, to the experience you're responsible for providing. Whether you're a large operation or a solopreneur, your customer needs to be able to rely on the fact that interacting with you is going to be a great thing. They need to have a consistent sense that they can go to you to get the smile back on their face.

Or they'll look elsewhere.

Catch and Release

2006-12-04T15:32:00.000-08:00

I've never fished, but I have watched with some attention to the Saturday afternoon shows during which people go to great effort and investment of time, money, and inconvenience to catch a fish and then to release it.

Now, don't get me wrong: I understand that the passion some people feel for this fish-capturing process is doubtless as great as what I experience at a book fair or yarn sale, and also that I'm a chicken-hearted hypocrite to order the planked salmon when, looking the fish straight in the eye, I personally could no more execute said fish than do the tango with it. It's just that the process of catching and releasing things has gotten a bright light shone upon it recently for me.

You may know that we recently had our first garage sale (see Coach's Notes: Does That Vacuum Work? ), and yet we are still in the process of emptying out the stored miscellanea of several generations of my family. Paint rags and heirloom watches, broken flashlights and oak furniture, everything was packed together willy nilly with no pattern of discernment. All kinds of objects were shoved together with such ferocity that even prying open doors and extracting a single object is heavy and dangerous labor. The big and small, the precious and the useless, everything had been packed down into a solidified mass of incomprehensibility and uselessness.

Now here's the critical point that has really come home to the two of us: the purpose and pleasure for which all these things were initially gotten had long since been lost and destroyed. Many were even deliberately put into circumstances in which they would (note the passive) "get damaged." The sad truth is that all that was left of them was the holding onto them itself (regardless of the consequences).

I've tried to convey the overwhelming nature of this situation repeatedly to a variety of people who've asked about it, but I can never quite get them to see the horror of it. What I've begun to realize is that this is not a reality that most of us want to look square in the eye any more than I want to get to know that salmon too well. Confronting our possessions and possessiveness confronts our own mortality. It makes us ask terribly hard questions about what we are spending our time, spending our cash, and spending our mortality to obtain and retain. It makes us look at what we own and what owns us. When you know that someday everything you have will be examined outside of our own personal frame of reference, and that you won't be there to rationalize around it, then you look at it differently yourself.

This way of seeing is very disorienting, but it's also full of potential for personal growth. At our garage sale, we met a wonderful woman of about our age who bought a single china Christmas tree from us. She had recently moved to Texas from out of state and had, before leaving her previous home, liquidated almost everything she owned. This was not a loss she suffered but a "liberation" (her word) she chose. This single decorative object was to be "her Christmas." She considered it carefully for a long time and only brought it into her world once she had achieved complete confidence that this was the correct decision. She was content with her catch, just as she remained exhilarated by her release of most of the rest of the years' accumulation.

What this lady realized was that the possessions she previously had owned had grown to own her, controlling where and how she lived. Without them she was free to make new decisions that fit who she now is. This stood in stark contrast for us to the situation we are putting to rights - one in which when the house became full then a garage was built, and when the garage became full a storage building was built, and when that was filled to capacity then another was storage building was built, and then even another garage. (No, I'm truly not making that up. That's how far the process of indecision can go!)

There's another inspirational woman in our sphere of acquaintance who also "gets it" and who has decided that a home she owned has begun to own her. Being the brave and insightful person that she is, she's decided to move ahead to a change of residence that actually fits who she's come to feel she is. The earlier meaning of the house no longer resonates for her, so she's picking "a new Christmas" so to speak.

Don't deceive yourself that this will be easy, regardless of how many how-to experts tell you to just suck up your courage and be decisive. It was simple to toss out the dried up paint cans, but I'll admit to you it was a bit of a wrench to throw out my own baby teeth.

So even though I'm sure I put a lot of effort into getting those tiny teeth into position in the first place, after three or four passes in which I chickened out finally I did dispose of them. After all, I haven't used them in a very long time, and I'm hoping that whatever measure of growth I gained from that personal release will help me to make other releases I will doubtless face in the future.

(By the way, expect more on this topic. Wherever we go, we keep hearing from others about it. The pain and process of release seems to be abroad in the world right now, so we'll revisit it whenever we have more to offer. We also welcome your stories if you wish to share them with us.)

The Power of Subtraction

2006-11-30T19:22:00.000-08:00

Years ago a sales mentor told me to hook up a recorder to my phone to capture conversations I was having with prospects. I took his advice and my learning took off like a rocket. I was amazed at what I learned in a relatively short time by paying very close attention to the "replay" of my performances.

Sometimes I was shocked at how dumb I was - subtle clues that practically jumped off the recording on playback, I had totally missed during the original call. But some of the greatest learnings were when I captured something brilliant coming.... out of MY mouth. I swear, I didn't know at the time where it came from. But there is was - a gem, a moment of WOW that just seemed to appear from the context of the conversation.

Well, it happened today during a webinar.

We were talking about the incredible Rule of 250, the one that states most everyone knows some 250 or more people. The implications of this rule for networking are immense. It means that every time you add a person to your personal network, you are actually adding a virtual 250 people because you are now connected to that person's network. This principle is what systems like LinkedIn, BNI, etc. are really founded on. You meet a new person, you get to know each other, develop some trust and hopefully become a conduit to tons of business for each other.

It makes sense.

But here is the big AHA.

What happens to that virtual 250 and its potential when one person leaves?

What it means is that every single relationship lost represents 250 people you can't talk to anymore. 250 people who probably won't know you, grow to like you or learn to trust you. 250 people who wont tell their 250 people about you or recommend you to them. 250 possible connections that may never occur because you have lost that critical connecting link.

When you lose 10 people it means 2,500 connections are lost.

Two Thousand Five Hundred!!

This is the opposite of attraction - it's SUBTRACTION.

Now I know that no one reading this is intentionally putting the Power of Subtraction into action in their life but it is nonetheless happening all the time. And the reason is typically nothing more complicated that neglect, overwhelm or distraction.

This is why I preach - over and over and over - that you must have systems to keep those people connected to you. Systems that give you leverage. Systems that will work on autopilot. Systems that save you energy and time and money.

Yes, they take some time and effort to design and implement. Maybe they require an investment of money. But it you DON'T make the investment to keep in touch with the people in your network, it is pretty much guaranteed that you are slowing your growth at best. At worst you are letting it slowly die and wither away along with all the opportunities it represents.

Does That Vacuum Work?

2006-11-28T10:20:00.000-08:00

Life has an interesting way of teaching the lessons you need whenever you are ready for them. Recently I was reminded of how much I really enjoy selling in the most unlikely of places, my first ever yard sale. (It's hard to believe it's the first one I've ever done after over 5 decades on this planet!)

Vicki and I laughed for a week at what we were willing to do to get people to get stuff we didn't want into their cars and to pay for the privilege. We were cross-selling, up-selling, asking questions, holding back in silence as the customer pondered. We displayed old irons and chipped pottery like they were classic Lalique vases, taking care to put them at the most appealing angle. Everyone was greeted with a smile and a "howdy" to encourage them to stay! (My friend Ross reminds me that if you want to sell someone a car from your lot, you've gotta keep them on the lot.) Same for yard sales - the longer they stay, the more likely they are to leave with your unwanted stuff in the trunk of their car.

Since we didn't really know anything about the whole yard sale process, we did some research before we "opened shop." One of the best pieces of advice we found - and one that moved a lot of items into those trunks and a few into the trash - was to have an extension cord hooked up and ready so that when people wondered if something worked they could put it to the test right then and there. There was no possibility of disappointment. We encouraged everyone to "plug it in first - we want you to be happy."

Today V forwarded the following little gem to me from Kovel's Komments:

The Jazz Bowl Designer's Secret

Viktor Schreckengost, who designed the famous Jazz Bowl for Cowan Pottery, told us that when he was asked to design a folding metal chair for Murray Ohio Manufacturing Co., he had difficulty creating a comfortable seat. He turned a barrel over to make a stool, “padded” it with soft clay, and covered it with plastic. Then he put it near the cafeteria and offered a free cup of coffee to anyone who sat on it. Four hundred twenty-eight “sittings” later he had a contoured clay shape curved to be comfortable for the average bottom. He used it as a mold for the metal chair that became a best seller.

Kovels Komments November 23, 2006
http://www.kovels.com/issues/newsflash/1_16/

Here is one of those wonderful success clues we hear about!

Schreckengost didn't know how to make the chair work so he went to the "end" users for literal "input." This is such a great example of practical research.

Remember this the next time you are about to complain that something isn't quite right. This designer invested in 428 cups of coffee to get the right input.

You can use the same approach to just about anything. Do you wonder if you "audio logo" is effective; do you want to know how to improve it? Just try it out four hundred times. Want to find out how well your tag line works? Yep, you gotta take it to the marketplace and find out.

Too often we try to do things in a vacuum and hope we can get it all perfectly right the first time. Most often the real world simply does not work that way. We have to test and tweak. Then test and tweak some more.

The closing point is really simple this week:

Stop Trying To Work In A Vacuum!

No matter how brilliant you are, the faster you can get real input from your marketplace the more likely you will have a real winner (or know you are backing the wrong horse).

Special Sales That Aren't - And Make You Feel So UN-Special

2006-11-23T10:31:00.000-08:00

Something troubling is happening this holiday season. I don't know that it's totally new but it is alarming me in the degree to which it is showing up. As we all pause for a few moments in the US to give thanks there is a gathering darkness impending in the form of what I am hearing called "Black Friday".

Black Friday?

I'm informed that this is the term being used to identify the Friday after Thanksgiving Day when we pull out all the shopping stops for the mad rush to the gift-giving season. I really find this troubling. It calls to mind a 1977 movie starring Bruce Dern (Black Sunday) as an unhinged veteran set on a mission of mayhem and murder at the Super Bowl. Maybe that's the image they intend I have.

Major department stores are promoting "one day only" specials that start at 5 AM on Friday morning. (Maybe the "black" refers to the mood of the shopper or the hour of the day.)

Do those retailers really believe that this hyper-stressed, early morning, one-day-only shopping madness is going to massively increase sales or (shudder) customer loyalty?

This is making me re-think any plans I might have for offering premiums for early purchase. It is just wrong-thinking in my opinion to make the buying process into an hysterical, pressured, feeding frenzy.

Parenthetically:
Black Tuesday - Oct. 29, 1929, notorious date of the stock market crash which heralded the onset of the Great Depression.

For more "Black" days of the week, reference WikiPedia. (N.B.: while you will find the references entertaining, please check other resources besides WikiPedia before using it as a reference for you masters thesis or term paper.)

Popcorn

2006-11-18T08:52:00.000-08:00

I like popped corn. Not the kind that comes from air poppers or that greasy stuff you buy at the movie theatre but the stuff I fix on my own stove top in a heavy pot with a little bit of oil. Man, that's good!

Making popcorn, while a simple process, can be a disaster. Too much heat, and you scorch it - tastes really bad. Air puffed - tastes pretty much like straw to me. Wrong lid - soggy and tough corn. Too little heat - masses of unpopped kernels.

Like so many things, when you just get the simple steps down, follow them consistently, time after time, you get the perfect result.

Here's my perfect popcorn guaranteed recipe:

Use a heavy 3 quart metal pot - cast iron enamel coated is my favorite.
Heat about 1 Tbs of canola oil at medium heat with ONE kernel of fresh popcorn in the pot. When that single kernel pops, your oil is ready.
Add 1/3 cup of kernels. (I keep mine in the freezer so they stay fresh.)
Cover the pot with a spatter screen instead of a lid. This lets the moisture escape, keeps the popcorn from steaming and assures crisp, fluffy, and tender results.
As soon as the additional kernels start popping busily, turn the heat down to low. Jiggle the pot a bit to bring any unpopped kernels into contact with the heated pot bottom.
When the popping begins to slow a bit (typically when about 1/2 of the kernels are popped) turn the heat OFF. Jiggle the pot again. The residual heat from the heavy pot will finish the popping. Turning off the heat at this point will keep the popcorn from burning.
When the popping stops - IT'S DONE!

Now just pour it out, salt lightly (I prefer super-fine popcorn salt) and enjoy.

It took me many trials to figure how to make the perfect pot of popcorn. Now, I just follow the steps, and confidently get perfect popcorn every time.

Trial and error. Learn from your mistakes. Keep what works (means paying attention and keeping notes). Perfect the process.

Just like life.

Just like business.

Just like popcorn.

ciao.

"Say what?"

2006-10-30T17:47:00.000-08:00

This last weekend I was an exhibitor at the 2006 Wichita Falls Chamber of Commerce Showcase. This time the focus of our product offering took a backseat to a desire to put our technical resources to work to share a message of gratitude.

Some of you may know that Wichita Falls is closely associated with and economically enriched by the presence of Sheppard Air Force Base, and one of the keep-in-touch systems that JUMProductions offers seemed like an ideal way for the people visiting the Showcase to send a personal "thank you" to service personnel in the field right from the convention center floor. So, with the help of a business colleague and of a dedicated gentleman by the name of Marty Horn at http://www.anysoldier.com, we were able to set up our booth to send individual greeting cards personally written by the people of Wichita Falls to service personnel in harm's way.

It was seriously moving.

One of the things that I noticed is that in spite of the fact that we weren't charging attendees anything to send a card, we still had a little trouble getting people to slow down and write a message. I finally asked a few people why the hesitation. I got the same answer repeatedly: "I just don't know what to say."

It seems that in this multiple choice world a lot of us have grown up in, we're uncomfortable with the essay portion. Maybe we're just not teaching letter writing anymore - it's been a long time since elementary school for me - and there's just no trained facility to put a few sentences together. Or maybe the capacity for heartfelt expression is something we protect ourselves from these days.

I just read an article by John Carlton today exploring the same topic (see his excellent blog at http://www.john-carlton.com/?p=143).

"Most of us wait until crisis hits to say "I love you". For those seemingly long periods when everything's fine, we neglect to connect with those sometimes-embarrassing emotions. We let the important stuff slide... because we can always catch up later.

"Or so we like to believe."

So, I'd just like to remind you that if you're taking the time to read this you perhaps ought to take a moment longer at the end of these 500 or so words and either drop a card or letter to someone who means something to you or pick up the phone for no reason but to tell them, "I thought about you."

It doesn't have to be Shakespeare, but it can't come from anyone other than us - all of us - one at a time.

One woman who visited the booth made a special impression on me. She studied over the message that she was writing for a very long time. She typed with quiet concentration, and when she looked up, there were tears in her eyes. I don't know what she wrote or to whom she wrote it. I have no idea what personal loss or patriotic impulse moved her. I do know that for her and for the service man or woman who will receive her message, life will be a little bit different for her effort.

You get back from the world what you send out into it. Send the message just to send the message. Change the world one word at a time.

"But of course..."

2006-10-23T19:05:00.000-07:00

I have a favorite line from a movie some of you may have seen called "Le Divorce."* One of the leading ladies observes that regardless of what feeble and fantastical excuses her philandering husband offers to his family for his absence from their every-weekend gatherings, her French mother-in-law (wonderfully played by Leslie Caron) merely replies with a calm "But of course."

This line is one we have come to use often around our house to dismiss the absurd or the inevitable: One of the cats tosses up a fur ball on your favorite chair? "But of course." A shoelace breaks or a stocking runs one step from the front door? "But of course." A favorite television show is cancelled and a cheaply-produced reality program takes its place? "But of course!"

An alternative application of this phrase, however, is what struck me most forcefully this morning. There is an old sales saw, you all know it, about the process of "Know-Like-Trust." I don't take issue with this idea of the relationship process, but the "Trust" element seems to me to fall just short of what we would all like to have in our client relationships. When we trust someone, we are still deciding that "Yes, I trust you to...", "I give you my trust about..." There is a very situation-specific meaning to the relationship. Wonderful to have, but is there more we can establish?

There was a time when I would say I was going to the bookstore and anyone in my immediate circle knew that of course I meant King's Bookshop on Jefferson Boulevard. Now I might say the same phrase and mean any one of a number of Barnes and Nobles or Borders or any other book retailers. Do I "trust" these merchants? Certainly, within the confines of what one can expect from a bookseller. But, and this is important, they are not mine.

There was a time when business relationships were more circumscribed by location and time zones. Say "the tailor" or "the grocer" or "the accountant" and anyone in a community knew, but of course, to whom you were referring. The fact that our options are no longer limited in this way is a good thing, in my opinion: competition spurs innovation and excellence, and the power of choice may grant merit to the human condition.

Still, as people who sell things (yes, I am getting back from the philosophical) would we not prefer to be "THE tailor" or "THE grocer" or "THE accountant" in our clients' minds? Would we not prefer them to say "But of course" about us?

How do we make ourselves such a natural part of our clients' environments that alternatives go unconsidered? I'm sure there are a lot of elements required (including diligent excellence of service), but at least one factor is a persistent and pleasing presence undiluted by any request for purchase. In short, they need to see us and hear from us often enough for it to become part of their norm, not just when we want something from them.

Do we stop by to say "hello" when we truly are right in the neighborhood? Do we pick up the phone when we hear an interesting story that we think will make them laugh or think? Do we drop them a line on their birthday or on their favorite holiday?** (And do we know when those are?)

If we can do those things, hard as they seem in this time-pressured world, without pitching a product every time, then we gradually approach a real relationship in which we may become "my..." over time.

I have cooked since I was a child and collected its tools just as long, so I have a wide variety of knives and cleavers. (This picture? My goodness, just a few from the collection - not the lot!) Still, there is a cheap little cleaver that I use and use and use. It's my knife, the one at the front, and it's no sooner used and washed than it's used again. When I reach for "my knife" in the kitchen, in spite of the variety of shapes, sizes, and purchase prices at my disposal, that's what I inevitably pick up. It's my knife, THE knife. "But of course."

The next time you grumble about the difficulty of prospecting, consider whether you are going about making yourself a comfortable and unrequesting presence in the lives of those wth whom you in due course wish to transact. If you can accomplish that, when the right time comes they will say, "But of course!"

*Note to the reader who wrote objecting to a recent post that included the direct quotation of a public figure during a network broadcast program using the more usual term for male bovine feces. Please do not rent this movie. Much of it will offend you. Many thanks in advance.

**If you do not know of any easy way to do this, ask us. We have some ideas. Promotion ends here.

Maybe it's a Decathlon instead....

2006-10-19T09:19:00.000-07:00

I've often heard people comparing life to running, stating that it's not a sprint, it's a marathon.

I don't think I would agree with that, especially when I'm talking to entrepreneurs.

A more accurate comparison would be the decathlon. Here is a collection of events in which an athlete's performance must range from adequate in the weak areas to good or better in the others. They are running, jumping, and throwing. Interestingly this is the one Olympic sport in which it does not matter if the athlete places first, second or third in an individual event because it is all about accumulating points.

We just have to find ways to make our businesses a little bit better overall in all of the things we have to do to accumulate enough points to win. Some things we're good at. In some areas, maybe not so good. But, it's the overall score that determines the win.

My late friend Phil Bando used to say that success in business is just doing the same (right) things every day, just a little better than the day before.

Letting Stuff Go

2006-10-16T12:38:00.000-07:00

There's a town southeast of Dallas called Waxahachie where we are preparing to move our home and our business. A few people close to us know the story of our progress in that direction - the house was built around 1900 (Victorian Vernacular style) and is slowly becoming a base for "clean-up" operations. Vicki, researching tips on garage sales, found the advice that it's better to have two sales a year than one big blow-out every ten years. How about one every century? We're sorting things from three centuries (19th, 20th and 21st) and a multiple of households into one space. It's a profound lesson on the importance of making decisions.

These pieces have come into our possession through inheritance. The people who owned them before just kept them because they were there. They bought them and never let go of them, in spite of breakage, obsolescence or being out of style. Some pieces were from failed businesses that were never gotten over. Letters, cards, pictures, furniture, bolts, tools, fabric, quilts, boxes of crayons, childrens underwear, even an 1959 Ford Custom. All just kind of wadded up and stuffed away, never used, just kept because someone owned them once and wouldn't release them.

My attorney, after handling a recent probate for us, made the comment that he'd never really thought about all the pieces that people leave unfinished. Someday, someone has to make a decision about all the stuff. And here we are, making decisions on things that have been abandoned, uncompleted, for years. Some of it is unfinished business from the 19th century.

Vicki commented recently with some irony how television mysteries always seem to wind up so nicely once the mystery is solved. Culprit caught, cut to family sitting around hearing the reading of the will next day. It doesn't work like that. Clearing this stuff up takes a lot of time and energy.

My task, my goal this year, is to remove and complete all these messes. Every last unclosed loop that was never closed, I want it closed. Every piece of unfinished business, I want it done.

It's a huge goal which frankly sometimes leaves both of us staring blankly into space. But we are committed that the madness stops here.

Craig Ferguson (late nite TV host) said a few months ago that one of the big changes in him since his father passed away is he's just not willing to put up with people's bullshit the way he used to. The last few years have brought me to a similar place. V shares the mindset too.

There's just so much that people hold onto that, when you really get down to it, it bogs you down and keeps you from moving on. To keep on growing we just have to learn to let it go - let other people have the stuff you don't need. Give it away. Trade for it. Leave it on the curb with a sign that says "please take me". Just let it go. Your life will be better for it and your heirs will be blessed (and they will bless you in return).

Coach's Notes: 5 1/2 Networking Principles

2006-09-19T18:13:00.000-07:00

In a recent networking workshop these were the primary issues presented by the group:

I know my business really well but I am uncomfortable sharing it when I'm outside the office.
How do I move on, i.e., how do I bring closure to one conversation and get on to the a next person?
How do I network when I am looking for a job?
Most people don't need my services; they are not immediate prospects.
Most people who need my services don't know they need them.

Ok, so how to deal with each of these situations? I'll do so here by outlining some networking principles then weave the solutions around them. The principles are based on 5 C's:

Context
Content
Conscious Concentration
Caring
Curiosity and Confusion

1. CONTEXT

This includes discussing what you do in a way that matters from within the circumstances and perspectives of your conversation partner. I see a lot of work done around developing 30 second commercials or elevator speeches that try to tell everything about a person's business. The problem is that you just can't do that. Frankly, you don't WANT to do that. What you need to do is to show people that you understand them and that you can help them, which is all most people really care about.

Showing this begins with understanding the context within which the other person lives, thinks, and feels. It is as simple as saying, "Let me ask you a question - what kind of work do you do?"

When they tell you your next question is, "Can you tell me the biggest problem that you deal with on a day to day basis?"

Here you will find out what they think about and what worries them. Entrepreneurs don't wake up at 2 AM thinking "life coaching" for example. They wake up thinking: "cash flow.... now... please!" They wake up thinking: "employees... good ones... now... please!" And so on.

So start by understanding the context of the conversation and let that guide the information you deliver.

2) CONCENTRATED/CONSCIOUS

Be WITH the one you're with.

Some people have a troubling habit of looking past the person they are with, always trying to find the next person. When you are with someone give them your full attention.

Be interestED in other people. It will make you more interestING.

You be the judge of the appropriate length for a conversation. Just recognize that the immediate context of a conversation tends to be more appropriate for making a quick acquaintance than for deep conversation. Eventually it comes time to move on.

If you are in a roomful of people the easiest way to do this is to help the other person meet someone new. All you have to do is say, "You want to meet a few more people don't you? Let me introduce you around."

You can then either pass them along to someone else or just lead them around as you talk to new people. Trust me, they will appreciate the new introductions.

Even if you don't know anyone in the room - look for someone in the room who seems even more lost than you do. Introduce yourself and invite them to meet some more people. Take them around the room and introduce them to people you don't know either (aren't name tags great?).

3) CARING

This cannot be faked. Either you do or you don't. When people know that you really care about them and what they do, they will be comfortable in sharing information with you.

4) CONNECTIONS

It's not just about who you know. It's about who knows you and how they know you.

So stay in touch. Send a thank you note. Follow up with a phone call.

Miss Manners has told us to do this since we were little ones, simply because it is the civil thing to do. From a practical business point of view it is important because people tend to do more business with people they REMEMBER and people they feel good about. Get in the habit of letting people know that you sincerely appreciate them and they will respond accordingly.

Also, don't lose site of the fact that opportunities sometimes take a while to develop.

A good friend was at a wedding one Friday night and overheard that the bride's passport was not current and their planned honeymoon in Paris, France was in jeopardy. He made a few calls on Saturday morning and found a way to get her a current passport before her flight left on Monday morning.

Later the same day my friend found that his assistant had been diagnosed with a large tumor and needed some top-notch diagnostic work. The groom's father happened to be the top specialist in the city. My friend made a call, saying "This isn't why I helped your daughter-in-law, but I do need a favor." He got her the care she needed.

The point is that the time to make friends is before you need them.

You want to get quality people into your rolodex. Those people also have rolodexes - filled with quality people. The people who you know may not be the ones will hire you but they know those people. You never know where you connections are going to happen. Just keep making them and looking for ways to spread the success and it will come back to you.

5) CURIOUS & CONFUSED

If you are curious and confused you will keep asking questions and look for greater understanding. Honest curiosity, coupled with caring, will bring you more information than you ever imagined. And people will appreciate the interest. The better you understand the person you are speaking to the easier it is to put things in their terms, i.e., in a way to which they will best understand and relate.

5 1/2) A Final "Bonus" Point

This one doesn't start with a C but it's vitally important. Be SPECIFIC about what you want and what you do. General requests beget general results. General descriptions beget lukewarm responses.

There is likely to be a huge difference in the response you get by saying "I am thirsty" versus "Can you get me a glass of water?" Likewise you are going to get a far better result by saying something like "I work with female entrepreneurs in the 30 to 55 year age bracket who are in the financial service industry in Denver" than "I'm a business consultant."

Coach's Notes: Five Essential Points When Making Your Introductions

2006-08-10T05:47:00.000-07:00

There are five key points that you need to communicate in any introduction of yourself and your business to someone when networking:

Who you work with
The problems they have and the impact of those problems
What they have tried to do to fix the problem that does not work, meaning, they still have the problem
Your unique solution and why it works
What people experience when that problem is removed

You can cover all five points in under one minute.

A mistake that people frequently make is that their introduction is too broad and general. The thinking is that if you paint a broad enough picture people will be able to see the huge universe of people you could work with and the myriad benefits you provide.

It just doesn't work that way.

People respond to specificity, not generalities. Imagine sending someone to the pantry to "get something good" versus "get the glass jar on the 2nd shelf with the blue and yellow label that is full of red spaghetti sauce".

Which do you think is likely to get you what you want?

When you give people the whole universe to look at they zone out. They can't do anything with it. When you give them something very specific they will be able to help you.

Question on this post? Email me or just comment below.

Networking Your Networks

2006-05-09T15:47:00.000-07:00

Gadzooks! Has it really been a full month since I posted here? I must have been busy.... hope I had fun!!

Today I am posting the notes for the North Dallas Workshop I did this week. We had a great group of people - some "regulars" and quite a few new faces.

Our work was around expanding our influence by networking our networks. Just like computer networks create even more power when networked together, when we can connect more people and more networks the power grows exponentially.

We covered three key principles.

PRINCIPLE NUMBER ONE

ALL THE BUSINESS AND MONEY YOU WILL EVER NEED IS WITH THE PEOPLE YOU ALREADY KNOW AND THE PEOPLE THEY KNOW.

Each person you know has networks that can be shared.

One of the mental shifts that allows us to make this happen is to move away from a linear connectivity model to a three dimensional one. Imagine for a moment that you are in a soap bubble. It is somewhat small, and it contains all your knowledge and experience and skills, etc. You are peering out of this bubble into other people's bubbles, and every now and then your bubble connects with someone else's. As the bubbles maintain contact something interesting happens - the barrier between the bubbles disappears, and there is now a larger bubble that contains your combined knowledge, experience, skills, etc. Imagine that this connecting process continues and more and more bubbles keep connecting. Each time the barrier breaks down you have, in a sense, integrated the other bubble's network into yours. Imagine this process goes on and on, and you learn how to do it intentionally, seeking out the relationships that you need and that need you.

PRINCIPLE NUMBER TWO

YOU MUST BE PROACTIVE IN FINDING THE RESOURCES YOU SEEK.

You cannot wait around for people to figure you out, understand what you do or what it is that you need.

You need to let people know:

WHO YOU ARE - this is what you stand for, your character, you as a person, your uniqueness.
WHAT YOU DELIVER - what your clients and customers get as a result of working with you.
WHAT YOU NEED - who you need to know, the resources you are seeking, the relationships you want to develop.

People sometimes buy into the idea that if they just work only on themselves, envision what they want, and wait for it to manifest then the power of attraction will mystically bring it to them. Now I'm a strong believer in visualization and getting our own house in order, but folks you have ACT if you want things to happen.

Identify the most influential people in each of your natural spheres of influence and get very intentional about enlisting their help. Brainstorm with someone else - your peers, your coach, your mentor or manager - to devise creative ways to approach them and enroll them in the process of knowing the quality people in their universe. Remember those bubbles - you need to establish the contact in order to become part of them.

PRINCIPLE NUMBER THREE

YOU MUST KEEP AT THE TOP OF PEOPLE'S MINDS.

This is important and requires a system that is both automatic and contains a PERSONAL TOUCH.

Joe Girard was named "Worlds Greatest Salesman" by Guiness Book of World Records 12 times. One of the ways that he did it was to send everyone who ever did business with him a card in the mail 12 times a year. EVERY MONTH. To everyone.

It can be so simple - we just have to be consistent.

Shameless Commercial: To learn about an inexpensive and amazingly effective "stay in touch" system click here.

As you work to stay at the top of people's minds you also want your follow-up to be APPROPRIATE.

EXAMPLE OF WHAT NOT TO DO:

I responded to an email offer a couple of months ago. The original offer intrigued me so I invited someone to put me on his list. What happened since has become grimly fascinating. The only reason I continued to open his messages after his first barrage is I'm fascinated by the consistency with which he so often repeats the same message again and again, as he tries to convert me into his program.

A STAY-IN-TOUCH STRATEGY THAT WORKED

About a week ago I found a service online that looked like something I could use. I contacted the salesman and talked about it. A couple of days later I got a card from him. Two days later I got another, different card with a different message and some useful information. Two days after that I got another, different card, with a new and useful message. The next day I got a phone call. Within a week I was sold. (I called him and asked him to please sell it to me!)

The difference between these two campaigns is that the latter person showed me a PERSON behind the campaign and took the trouble to find out where I was in the process. The former, partly because sending the emails was "free" I suspect, just kept hammering me until I totally tuned him out. The latter person invested some time and money and carefully qualified me each step of the way.

He also used what I call the "Lost Wallet" approach. When someone calls you up to tell you that they have found your lost wallet, you welcome the call. Why? Because they are bringing you something of obvious value.

Be sure every contact provides something of value so it is welcomed.

Networking Workshop Notes

2006-04-11T13:32:00.000-07:00

I do a workshop every 2nd Tuesday in North Dallas. Here are the notes from the short program I did today. Hope they are of value to you.

One of the challenges that people keep bringing up to me is that of getting the most out of the time and money that they invest in networking.

People complain that the hard dollar costs are killing them. Frankly, with gasoline prices hovering in the $3 range, I'm in sympathy with them. Add to that the wear and tear to vehicles, the cost of some association's memberships, and meals.

Then there is the issue of time. None of us has unlimited time at our disposal and it is not a renewable resource. It cannot be banked and once time is gone it cannot be replaced; so we have to invest it wisely.

So, how do you get the best ROI from your networking investment? It comes from targeting and managing your appearances. In order to do this effectively you need to answer three essential questions.

The first question is, "Who do I need to meet?"

You need have a very clear description for yourself of the following:

Your Target Prospect.
This is the first category you must describe. These are the people who are most likely to have the problem that you solve plus the wherewithal and authority to use your solution.
Those Who Influence Your Prospects.
These are the centers of influence who have significant sway over your market. (Think Oprah.)
Referral Sources.
These are the people who know and can give you immediate access to your market.
Strategic Partners.
These are the people who can partner with you to enhance the value you bring to your market.

The second question is, "Where am I most likely to find each of them?"

You need to know what locations and events are most likely to provide a "prospect rich" environment. Don't waste your time going places where you are unlikely to meet the networks you need.

Example:

Andrew was in the business of financing mergers and acquisitions. It was generally a waste of his time to go to groups that were populated mainly by sales people and very small entrepreneurs. Although those groups might provide some access to his market due to the Rule of 250, he really needed to focus his networking time with people who were involved with companies that did 10 to 50 million dollar deals.

The third question is, "How do they need to know me?"

It is not enough that you merely show up. It is essential that they get to know you in the best way. Steve Taylor, the president of the North Dallas Chamber, frequently points out that people get to know what you can do in your business by seeing what you can do outside of it. Serving on a committee, as ambassador, volunteering in an organization and showing people what you are capable of makes a favorable impression. That can easily turn into interest in the value you bring through your business.

Example:

A Merrill Lynch broker in Arizona (who incidentally was acknowledge as "not being the sharpest knife in the drawer") was the number one producer in his office for one reason: he spent the least time in the office of any of the brokers. But where he spent it was attending the council meetings of municipalities throughout the region. There he was able to meet and get to know the retirement plan administrators. Eventually he became the go-to guy for municipality plan investments - because he knew them, they knew him, and THEY TALK TO EACH OTHER!! Other brokers in his office tried to break into the business but were universal failures because they tried to do it the "easy" way, i.e., by making sales calls.

An Edward Jones rep I know made up his mind that he was going to "own" a certain part of North Texas. He proceeded to participate in every chamber and municipal function that he could. He eventually became the chairman of the local chamber and spearheaded the drive to build the new chamber building. Within a few short years he owned his own building and is on his way to partnership.

RECAP

The First Question is "Who do I need to meet?".

The Second Question is, "Where am I most likely to find each of them?"

The Third Question is, "How do they need to know me?"

The Memorization of Emily [Audio Post]

2006-04-11T06:28:00.000-07:00

[This article was published in the Coach's Notes eZine]

Fire It Up and Let's See If It Blows [Audio Post]

2006-03-28T10:24:00.000-08:00

[This article was published in the Coach's Notes eZine]