High-Speed Internet?
February 24, 2010
Perseverance and focus are good and admirable traits. But sometimes, the odds are just stacked too much against you.
I was at my hotel in Atlanta preparing for a great program the next day. Since I got in early the day before the program, as I usually do, I had some time on my hands that I had planned to use to get some videos edited and uploaded. Of course, this was going to require a fast internet connection, so I “bit the bullet” and signed up for the hotel’s internet at $9.95 for the day.
I had a few calls to make, so rather than burn my cell-phone minutes, I used my Skype account to make the calls with my headset on the computer. Immediately, I noticed that the quality of the calls was poor. I mean really bad. So I checked the speed of the connection (usually the culprit) and found that my “high-speed” internet was actually slower than a dial-up connection.
A quick call to the front desk, and they said I had to talk to the provider’s technical support line, and they would be glad to transfer me. I did get transferred, but to a recording that said, “I’m sorry, your call can not be completed as dialed; please try again later.”
Assuming that the front-desk clerk had somehow keyed in the wrong number, I called down there again; got transferred again; and got the same message. I asked for the number so I could try it myself, and got the same message.
If you’re like most people, you get annoyed about things like this happening. But at some point, it becomes comical and you just have to take a deep breath, let out a big sigh, and find something else to do instead.
There’s an old saying that the only good thing about banging your head against the wall is that it feels so good when you stop.
If you find yourself in that kind of situation, it may just be the universe telling you to take a step back and rethink what you’re doing. I didn’t complete my video projects that night, but I did get some other important work done. And the program the next day – the reason I was there in the first place – was very successful, so all in all, the trip was great.
Sometimes it’s important to work through a challenge, and make sure you know when it’s time to “regroup” when life seems to be throwing too many roadblocks your way.
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.
You Made Me End a Relationship!
February 18, 2010
We just got back from an unexpected and unpleasant trip to New York. Three months after my mother passed away, we had to attend my aunt’s funeral, held at the same chapel and cemetery.
Many friends and family members got up to share their memories of my Aunt Flora. Common themes were her intelligence, phenomenal cooking abilities, and love of family, especially her 54-year marriage to my Uncle Lou.
They were truly in love, and it showed every time I saw them.
One of the last people to speak at the service was their aide, Nicki. Towards the end, my aunt’s health was failing, and they had a full-time aide to assist them in the daily chores.
Nicki told the group how she had never known a couple like Lou and Flora, and didn’t know until then what a relationship was supposed to look like. She then offered a personal note, that she had been in a bad relationship when she started working with my aunt and uncle, and that, upon seeing and appreciating their relationship, immediately ended her own, knowing that she shouldn’t have to settle for less.
Her exposure to their relationship influenced her in profound ways, just as the people you surround yourself with affect and influence you.
They may not save you from a bad personal situation, but they will affect your mindset, your outlook on life, and, ultimately, the results and outcomes you achieve.
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.
Hills Make Me Happy!
February 11, 2010
I like to get my workouts done in the morning. That way, I have no excuses at the end of the day – “I’m too tired…” “I have too much to do…” You get the idea.
So there I was, early on Saturday morning in a “spinning” class – a high-intensity workout on a stationary bike with a heavy metal flywheel to simulate the feeling of actually being on the road.
Our instructor that day, Becky, was teaching an outstanding class, the central theme of which was hills and more hills.
“Increase the tension!” she screamed above the music. “Now increase it again!” When she saw the pained expressions on the faces of the class, she smiled and shouted, “Hills make me happy to be alive!”
It was funny enough to distract the class, but as is the case with most seemingly mundane things, it also has profound implications for us in our business and personal lives.
Yes, hills on a bicycle are no fun – they drain you of your energy; they have an effect on your mental outlook; and, well, they hurt!
But they also make you a stronger rider. And that’s the important point: anything that comes easily contributes very little to personal development. Real growth comes from facing and overcoming adversity, whether that adversity takes the form of a difficult boss, a challenging personal situation, or something as simple as climbing a hill on a bike.
So if you want to get better – at whatever it is you do, you should get used to some hills along the way…and maybe even learn to like them.
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.
Watch Out for Moving Parts
February 3, 2010
I was talking to an old “office neighbor” – the guy who had the next office from us where we used to be located. He owns the master franchise for North Carolina for the “Anytime Fitness” chain, and we were talking about the complexity of operating all the units he has throughout the state, in addition to the new locations he’s constantly opening.
The key, he said, was to try and avoid “moving parts.” Puzzled, and wondering if perhaps he was suffering from oxygen deprivation as a result of working out too hard himself, I pointed out that virtually every piece of equipment in every one of his locations was chock full of moving parts.
He smiled, and pointed out that the key to managing an enterprise of this scope is to have as much of it on “autopilot” as possible. Yes, there are a lot moving parts in the machines themselves, but he isn’t personally responsible for maintaining them – there was an outside group he hired to do that. There is a person (sometimes more than one) at each location who is the on-site person for registration of new members, personal training, etc., but he didn’t do that either.
What he did was to create systems and processes which could be duplicated and deployed as he opened each new unit, effectively reducing the number of “moving parts” he had to deal with on a day-to-day basis.
By creating a set of well defined processes, you can also free yourself from the overwhelming burden of having too many small details to take care of. It can make your life at work a whole lot easier, and give you enough free time to do something fun…like visit Anytime Fitness!
“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.
