Interesting People
March 10, 2010
There’s a finite amount of time in a given day, and as I enter my 50s, I’m becoming acutely aware that the “end of the line” is not some distant destination, but something that has more and more effect on the decisions I make.
And that means I have to be very deliberate in deciding where to spend every waking minute, and with whom. So let me offer you a suggestion on one characteristic you may want to consider.
We have very close friends we’ve known for about 20 years. We’ve traded stories and strategies about raising our kids as they’ve grown up, enjoyed many great home-cooked meals together, and been successful in getting together despite both moving from the “old neighborhood” to new homes nearly an hour apart.
Whenever we meet for dinner now, alternating between their house and ours, we spend hours getting caught up on what’s happened since the last time we were together. And it’s not like we haven’t seen them for years or even months - on average, we see them every seven or eight weeks.
So how is it we have so much to talk about? I think it all comes down to a comment our friend Dale made over one of these dinners: “I like hanging out with interesting people.”
He went on to say that interesting people visit different places, try different things, and interact with other interesting people, and that these experiences make for great stories.
Think about the people you hang out with - are they interesting to be around? Do they have stories to share about their adventures and experiences?
Do they have a positive upbeat outlook on life? Or do they just bitch and moan about how horrible everything is and how miserable their lives are?
The people you surround yourself with have an influence on your attitudes, on your disposition, and on your life in general. Why not surround yourself with interesting people?
The 24-Hour Rule
March 2, 2010
I get angry sometimes. I try not to get angry over the little stuff; but some days it just seems like there’s a global conspiracy of stupidity that somehow finds its way to my doorstep, complicating my business life and spilling over into my personal life.
If you’re looking for a specific example, I don’t have one in particular this week - but I’m sure if you think back over the last few days, you’ll almost certainly come up with an experience of your own that fits the bill.
And that’s actually sufficient for our purposes, since what I really want to talk about is not the frustrating situations themselves, but rather our reactions to these experiences. Our tendency is to respond with a knee-jerk reaction, lashing out at the source of the irritation with the full force of our disappointment, dismay, and outrage, and doing so immediately.
I’d like to suggest an alternate approach that has proven successful - if not always in resolving the situation, then at least in helping me relax a bit in the face of the problem, and, as often as not, get a better resolution.
It’s a simple strategy I call “The 24-Hour Rule” and it’s as simple as the name implies: when something has you so angry and upset that you feel the need to do something about it right now, stop, take a deep breath, and wait 24 hours. Here are a few examples:
A friend reveals to others something you told her in confidence? Wait 24 hours.
A client completely rewrites an agreement you sent for approval? Wait 24 hours.
Lines at the airport security checkpoint almost make you miss your flight? Wait 24 hours.
Sometimes it’s difficult to allow yourself that cooling-down period, but there are three reasons you should at least try:
1. You’ll be thinking more clearly when you’re not in a blind rage
2. The time will let your brain come up with more creative solutions to the problem
3. You won’t get yourself so wound up with consuming rage that you damage your health
Of course, not all situations need this kind of deliberate approach, and, in fact, some situations do require immediate action. But in most cases you’ll find this a good strategy that delivers surprisingly positive results.
Let’s Give it to the Agency
February 24, 2010
It’s important to seek out and utilize resources that have more experience in a particular field than you do. But what happens when their expertise is…well, wrong?
Yesterday, I was on a consulting webinar call with one of our Business Self-Defense Gold Coaching members. He had sent in some of the various marketing pieces he was working on so I could make some suggestions that would help improve their effectiveness and response.
While we were both viewing one of the samples on our respective screens, I pointed to an entire section at the bottom of the page where there were logos of the various organizations and associations his company belonged to.
I suggested that these were not necessary, since they added nothing to the message that would encourage the desired response from the reader.
I heard laughter on the other end of the call, followed by, “Yeah, I didn’t even put them there. I had someone helping out with the design, and he actually tracked down the logos and added to the page without checking with me first.”
The person helping him was, by all accounts, a “design professional,” trained to produce attractive, pleasing ads. Here’s the problem: nowhere in that description did I use the words, “Trained to produce ads that will get people to jump out of their seats, visit a web site to request information; pick up the phone to call; or pull out their credit cards to buy something.”
Oh, the ad looked nice, but the logos and several other “design elements” took up valuable space that could have been much better utilized with testimonials, descriptions of value, and calls to action.
Unfortunately, most staffers at ad agencies are nothing more than artists pretending to be business people. Who do you want handling your marketing materials? Make sure anyone you entrust with even the smallest piece of your budget can deliver tangible, measurable results.
Federer’s Record
February 18, 2010
My wife and I enjoy watching tennis, so when the Australian Open was on a few weeks ago, we taped a lot of the matches and watched the men’s final with some friends.
It was going to be an exciting match, with Andy Murray from Scotland going for his first Grand Slam win. Unfortunately, he was playing Roger Federer who is arguably the best ever to play the game on the men’s side - and he’s not done yet.
At one point in the match, when Murray was in danger of losing the second set in the best-of-five match, the statisticians fed this bit of information to the on-air announcers:
Roger Federer’s record when leading 2-0 in Grand Slam matches is 151-0.
That’s right, when he’s up two sets to none, he’s won 151 of those matches and never lost a single one. And this is just one of the amazing statistics he’s racked up over the years.
So what does this mean to Andy Murray on the other side of the net? It means that if he doesn’t hold on and win that second set, his chances of coming from behind to win the match are virtually nonexistent.
In fact, he lost both the second and the following set to lose the match. To listen to Federer, the outcome was never in doubt after the second set. His confidence borders on cockiness, but he does back it up.
What this means for you is that you have to do everything you can to amass a collection of successes - small ones at first, and then bigger and more significant ones. It will help give you a level of confidence that will inspire trust to help you get and keep new customers, clients, and members.
Backup Recording
February 11, 2010
There’s a lot to keep track of when you run a business or manage one. Details upon details upon details. Being organized can help. Having processes can help. Having a backup plan is essential. Let me explain…
As part of our Business Self-Defense™ Inner Circle Gold Coaching Program , we include a monthly live webinar on a specific marketing or business growth topic. We record these interviews and then have them edited so we can make them available on our web site.
The process involves making a recording of the screen, a separate recording of the audio portion of the call, and then merging them together.
Normally, we use a Skype add-on called “Pamela” to record, but just to be sure, I also use the recording feature of our conference-call provider to make a second recording. And good thing: a few weeks ago, my A/V guy e-mailed me to let me know that the audio I had sent was actually from a different month’s program.
At first, I got a little scared. Then I remembered the backup recordings. With just a little apprehension, I went to the conference-call web site and… there it was - a clean copy of the webinar audio.
Crisis averted!
It’s not possible to have built-in redundancy for every single thing you do, but it’s a really good idea to have backups for your important processes.
“Gut Feeling”
February 3, 2010
We pay a lot of attention here to making decisions based on facts and data - not on feeling and conjecture. There’s a lot to be said for that, as it forces you to pay close attention to tangible outcomes and results instead of investing thousands of dollars because you think it might be the right thing to do.
But there are times when “feelings” can - and should - have a significant impact on your decision-making process.
I read a story a number of years ago about a New York City fire captain, who, upon arriving at the scene of a building and walking into an apartment, immediately ordered all of the other firefighters out of the apartment - NOW.
Seconds later, the floor they had all been standing on just seconds before gave way…and fell into the burning apartment just one story below.
When they interviewed the fire captain afterward, and tried to understand what had led to the immediate action that quite likely saved several lives and many injuries, he said that he didn’t know exactly what it was, but something told him there was something terribly wrong with the situation.
Later on, he was able to piece together exactly what it was: the floor was hotter than it should have been, and yet there was no smoke in the apartment. That told him, unconsciously, and as a result of years of experience, that the fire must have been burning directly below.
The “gut feeling” was just his body compiling this information and feeding it to him in the quickest and most efficient way possible under the circumstances.
Similarly, our brains collect and process information continuously, and feed the results back to us in a variety of ways - including kinesthetically - through intuition, hunches, and gut feelings.
And you can probably think of a time when you had something like this occur, ignored the feeling, and paid a price for it.
Gut feelings aren’t a substitute for measuring key areas of your business and acting on tangible results. But they can be an additional factor - one that can give you an edge over the competition if used properly.
The Kardashians: Then and Now
January 27, 2010
I listen to people complain constantly about all sorts of things, and then watch them act in a way that actually perpetuates the exact thing they’re complaining about.
They complain about not having enough money, but spend way too much on things they really don’t need. They complain about not having enough energy, but don’t do activities that will energize themselves. And they complain about not having enough time to get everything done, but squander their free time on mindless distractions.
In all fairness, I’ve been guilty of all three of these from time to time, with the entrepreneur’s fascination with “bright shiny objects” being one of my biggest problems. And yet, people seem to have such a fascination with other people’s lives that entire publishing empires exist just to serve this market.
On my two most recent trips to the supermarket, I’ve glanced at the magazines displayed at the checkout aisles. Us Weekly featured the headline:
The Kardashians: Then and Wow!
USA Today featured an article about Kate (from “Jon & Kate Plus 8″) and her 20-hour hair makeover with this headline:
Kate Gosselin Puts Some Curl in Her New Hair
Articles about people who are famous for, well… being famous . And we haven’t even gotten into Brad and Angelina, Tiger’s “rehab,” or whole magazines dedicated to television soap operas.
There’s nothing wrong with taking some time for yourself to just relax and do something mindless like read a trashy novel or watch something on TV (”Modern Family” is our current favorite), but too much of anything can be dangerous, and spending too much time worrying about the lives of celebrities - or even fictional characters - robs you of valuable time you could be spending on more important things.
Take a few minutes and think carefully about what’s commanding your attention. Focus on what’s truly important, and maybe you’ll become so successful that someone will write a magazine article about you!
What Do You Know?
January 13, 2010
As I talk to our clients and members, I find that a lot of them are anxious about making 2010 a better year than 2009 was - in some cases, a much better year. They’re trying to take full advantage of everything we provide them in our various coaching groups, from our Business Self-Defense™ Program, and from our Inner Circle Newsletters and CDs.
If you find yourself in the position of looking for some resources to help you navigate your way through this recession, then there’s one thing you must be aware of:
There’s a profound difference between knowing and memorizing.
As an example, many years ago when I worked for a large telecommunications company, a group of us was sent to a leadership training class. The instructor was a professor from a college in the area.
About 20 minutes into the program, I started to get a little uncomfortable with what he was teaching - not because it was inappropriate, but it just didn’t sound right. Oh, it made sense on the surface, but there was just something about what he was saying that made me think it wouldn’t work in our group
So when we got to a break, I wanted to find out what was causing this uneasy feeling. We had this conversation in the hallway:
Me: I was just curious - where have you personally applied these management strategies in a high-tech software development environment?
Him: Well, I’m a professor of behavioral psychology at NC State University.
Me: I’m sorry; I may not have stated that question quite right - where have you personally applied these management strategies in a high-tech software development environment?
Him: Well, we’ve done years of research on what works and what doesn’t work in a variety of settings.
Me: I’m still interested in where you have personally applied these management strategies in a high-tech software development environment?
Him: Me personally? I guess I really haven’t.
Me: Then why is it appropriate to stand in front a group of very stressed out, overloaded managers and tell us this is the way we should run our groups?
Him: Because I’m a professor of behavioral psychology at NC State University!
There’s a huge difference between theory and practice - between memorizing and knowing. Whenever you seek advice - on any subject - make sure you’re dealing with someone with practical experience and not just a passing interest in the subject.
The Flash Pass
December 2, 2009
The Flash Pass
Whenever I speak to groups about marketing their products or services, I always stress that, ultimately, it’s about the experience people have when interacting with the company as much as it’s about what they’re actually buying.
And it’s equally important to note that customers are often willing to pay more for a better experience, whether buying something in a store, planning a trip, or retaining professional services. Hey, even my kids - college students both on very limited budgets - hate Walmart so much they’re willing to pay a bit more to shop at other stores with better service.
Ignoring this basic fact of human nature can cost you a small fortune in lost business. So with that in mind, here’s an example of one company that understands this: the Six Flags theme park company.
Six Flags owns and operates 20 locations in the US, Canada, and Mexico, and is working to establish an international presence over the next few years. And one of the keys to their success is recognizing and meeting the needs of guests willing to pay more for a better experience.
And they do this with two different programs. I’ll explain them both in a minute, but first, let’s have a brief review of what happens when you go to a theme park - any theme park.
You get up early, drag the family out of bed so you can be there right when the gates open. You pay more for parking than you thought the park tickets were going to cost, and then you buy the tickets themselves.
As soon as the clock strikes eight, and they let everyone in, there’s a mad dash - kids in tow, their feet barely touching the ground, as you try to get in line for the “premium” rides - the ones everyone wants to get on. And - good for you - you get a good place in line! But what happens next? You go on to the next great ride, where you’re greeted by a line that will eat up at least 45 minutes of your day. And you have five other big rides to go on. Plus you have to get lunch at some point. Sounds like a fun vacation, doesn’t it?
So recognizing this, Six Flags introduced the Flash Pass. When you get to the ride you want to go on, the Flash Pass holds your place in line electronically so you can go on other rides instead of waiting on line. When it’s almost your turn, the Flash Pass device notifies you. The process doesn’t put you at the front of the line, but it lets you go on other rides instead of waiting in line.
The cost? $34.99 per person for the regular Flash Pass, or $64.99 for the Gold Flash Pass that cuts your wait time by approximately 75%. And that’s on top of the $44.99 per person admission price ($29.99 each for children).
But if that’s not enough, they also have VIP Tours that include front-of-the-line ride privileges, valet parking, reserved show seating, meals and snacks, and a private autograph session with some of the characters.
The cost? $249.00 per person. At least this one includes the park admission fee. Still, for a family of four, that’s $1,000.00 of revenue to attach a minimum-wage teenager to your group for the day.
Not a bad return on investment, and certainly a fantastic illustration of offering premium products and services for people willing to pay for a premium experience.
The question on your mind right now shouldn’t be, “Who in their right mind would pay that much money?!” It should be, “What can I offer that would deliver superior value at a higher price?” Answering that question can be as much fun as a trip to a theme park!
Growing Strong Brands
November 25, 2009
People seem to be almost obsessed with the concept of “branding” - the idea that an identity and a logo are somehow all you need to achieve massive business success. And while new entrepreneurs with grand ideas might be forgiven for drinking this Kool-Aid, certainly large companies would understand the place of branding in the grand scheme of things. Wouldn’t they?
At least I assumed they would. That is, of course, until I heard an interview last week on NPR. It seems that General Motors has been making some progress in their efforts to emerge from Chapter 11 bankruptcy, and to get some insight into this development, they were interviewing an executive, Susan Docherty, VP of Sales for GM.
When asked about the current state of affairs, Docherty said, “We’re not declaring victory yet but we’re certainly making progress towards growing strong brands and driving positive business results.”
I thought the order in which she listed the two goals was interesting: “growing strong brands” and “positive business results.”
Because if I’m a GM employee, a stockholder, or the owner of a GM vehicle, I could care less about the “strong brand.”
Oldsmobile used to be a strong brand, around for over 100 years. At one time, the Olds Cutlass, a car I proudly owned in my younger days, was the top-selling car in the world, an honor long since held by the Toyota Camry. The last Oldsmobile rolled off the assembly line on April 29, 2004.
Ironically, almost five years to the day later (April 27, 2009) GM announced that it would be phasing out Pontiac, another strong brand, by the end of 2010. Pontiac has been building cars since 1926, and was responsible for the famous Firebird Trans Am model, featured prominently in the movie “Smokey and the Bandit” and on the 1980s TV series, “Knight Rider.”
Two strong brands with long and amazing histories of innovation and popularity, both gone in the blink of an eye.
Now if they had been paying attention to changing consumer preferences; if they had taken more seriously the mass exodus of their loyal customers to foreign competitors; if they had focused on numbers instead of brands, then maybe GM wouldn’t find itself in the situation it does now.
And remember, this is a very large company that actually has the luxury (and the budget) to spend the huge amounts necessary to even attempt brand advertising. You do not. And that’s why it’s important that you measure, analyze, and make business decisions based on the direct return on investment of every marketing dollar you spend.
Because I’d hate to read in the paper that your brand was being discontinued.
