Nothing Happens ‘Till Someone Takes Action
June 30, 2010
We had our Swimming Boot Camp class on Monday this week, and it was a tough one. A 400-yard warm-up, 300 yards of the “pull buoy” (a small flotation device you put between your knees so you’re only using your arms), four 125-yard “snakes” (swimming to the other end of the pool, then going under the lane divider to swim back in the next lane – this simulates actual race conditions for a triathlon with a pool swim), eight 25-yard sprints, and then a 100-yard cool down.
I wasn’t the fastest person in the pool by any means, but I wasn’t the slowest either – and I was able to do the whole thing.
And that’s the most important thing about this story. Because, as some of you know, the first time I attempted to actually swim laps in a pool, I got to the other end of the pool, turned around, and about halfway back to the other side, I was gasping for breath. I don’t mean I had to stop for a second, I mean I was completely winded – after only 75 yards of swimming!
It certainly wasn’t a matter of fitness – I’m in pretty good shape. It wasn’t a matter of endurance – I can bike 100 miles. It was simply a matter of technique – I had to learn to swim properly.
Now visualization is a good tool, but you can’t “visualize” something and get the same results that come from deliberate and focused effort, any more than you can “visualize” a new car and one appears in your driveway without actually going out and earning the money it takes to buy the car.
The bottom line is that despite your best intentions and best-laid plans, nothing is going to happen until you take action on these plans.
Make sure you do something every day – no matter how small – that helps you achieve your goals. When it comes to achieving success, taking action really is a “sink-or-swim” decision.
Inner Circle Secrets Revealed
June 30, 2010
In This Month’s Business Self-Defense®Inner Circle Newsletter:
How Do I Get a Testimonial for a New Product?
We all know that testimonials are among the most powerful of all marketing tools. It’s tough enough to get current customers, clients, and members to give you a good testimonial, but what do you do when you have a new product or service that no one had seen yet? You’ll find out in this month’s Inner Circle Newsletter.
Plus, you’ll also discover:
• What you can learn about marketing from a wedding toast
• Why it’s so hard to hire good people – even in a bad economy
• Direct marketing so simple even a dog can understand it!
Not a member? Find out how to get your free gift – over $559.88 of recession-proof, money-making strategies at www.businessselfdefenseoffer.com!
Everything Is Dynamic
June 30, 2010
There’s an old saying that “the more things change, the more they stay the same. And while I understand the sentiment behind the saying, I have to take exception with it, because in reality, nothing ever stays the same.
Time marches on, and with it, we continue to see advances in technology, medicine, and social attitudes, although there’s a debate whether changes in social attitudes are truly “advances.”
We’ve gone from writing letters to each other in my parent’s generation to sending e-mails in my generation, and now our kids simply text everything to each other. I recently saw four middle-school-aged girls walking alongside each other at the mall, cell phones in hand, and it seemed as if they were actually texting each other!
Some advances, though, are clearly beneficial. For example, my 87-year-old uncle – still in reasonably good shape mentally and physically – is alive today because of a heart procedure that had been performed on him about eight years ago. When he asked his doctors why they hadn’t done this procedure ten years earlier when he was first diagnosed with heart problems, they said that the procedure they were going to perform on my uncle wasn’t even on the radar screen ten years before.
This was unfortunate, of course, because my father – this uncle’s fraternal twin – had already passed away from a heart attack at the relatively young age of 54.
Similarly, my own experience with state-of-the-art medicine occurred five years ago, when a karate injury made it necessary for me to have a nearly six-hour surgery to repair both a torn ACL and PCL.
The procedure involved removing the middle third of the patellar tendon from each knee and using these to replace the torn ligaments (ACL and PCL refer to the anterior and posterior cruciate ligaments.) In case you missed that, they were using tendons to replace ligaments.
And the amazing thing about it was that about three months after the surgery, the tendons actually transformed into ligaments – as if they’d been ligaments right from the start!
When I asked the doctor about how this worked, he said they weren’t actually sure, but that I was very lucky, because even five years prior to this, the procedure wasn’t even science fiction!
Everything around us changes at an incredibly fast pace. The people who survive and benefit from the changes are the ones who can see them coming and best anticipate how to utilize this knowledge to their best advantage.
What changes are waiting for you just over the horizon?
It’s the Little Things That Make a Difference
June 17, 2010
On our trip to Puerto Rico earlier this year, we had a great experience I wanted to share with you.
We had just arrived at our hotel in the Condado neighborhood after having gotten up very early to catch our flight. We arrived at the airport around 11:00 a.m., picked up our car, and got to the hotel around noon. We were very hungry by then, so we unpacked quickly and asked at the front desk for a good local place we could walk to for lunch.
The front-desk clerk pointed across the street and said that they all went to Cafe del Angel when they wanted to pick up some food. That was good enough for us!
We ordered a couple of bottles of Medalla (the local beer) and a few combination plates. The food was great, and we asked the waiter, Javier, to explain some of the traditional dishes we had on the plate.
He had been working in the restaurant industry for 20 years, and was quick to recommend some of his favorite restaurants in Old San Juan, including some he had worked at personally.
When we got the bill and gave him our credit card, he went to process the payment, and then came back to ask for our ID. Fearing that Citibank, with all good intentions, had frozen the account because of charges made outside the mainland US, we asked if there was a problem.
There wasn’t; he had just forgotten about a new policy the banks in Puerto Rico had just initiated that required an ID with all credit-card transactions. He mentioned a time when he saw another waiter in a different restaurant announce loudly that the guest’s credit card had been declined, causing major embarrassment to the cardholder.
In contrast, he told us that he preferred to lean in and whisper news like that so that only the cardholder could hear the bad news.
We chatted a bit more with Javier about things to do and places to see. He was a wealth of knowledge, and an absolute delight to talk to.
Needless to say, he got a very good tip.
In most businesses and interactions, it’s the little things that make a difference, and that people remember. A shuttle driver who’s upbeat and pleasant. A customer-service representative who really seems to care about your problem. A waiter who shares his knowledge of the area with enthusiasm.
Does your team pay attention to the little things?
Bundle Up!
June 17, 2010
It’s tough to stand out when everyone else sells what you do. You need to have something that sets you apart from your competition, and if it can’t be the actual products you sell, then maybe it can be the way you offer those products.
For example, some self-storage facilities offer climate-controlled units, and pickup and delivery of items for businesses. So how about bundling these services, adding something extra, and positioning it as something other than the sum of the parts. Something like this to a restaurant with outdoor seating…
At Bob’s Self Storage, we’re the outdoor dining storage specialists! When it gets too cold for your customers to take advantage of your outdoor seating, just let us know a week in advance. We’ll show up with our 24′ truck, pack up your outdoor tables and chairs, and bring them to our facility for storage.
Then we’ll unload them, wash them top to bottom, and store them for the winter in our custom climate-controlled units. When Spring comes, just give us a heads-up, and we’ll pull the tables and chairs out of storage, give them another cleaning, bring them to your restaurant, and even set them up for you!
It’s all part of our “White-Glove Restaurant Storage Program,” and it’s only available at Bob’s Self Storage!
In reality, the storage facility is not offering anything more than a competitor could offer, but by identifying a specific market niche, identifying the services they might need, and bundling them into a package specifically targeted to that audience, they’ll get a much better response when they offer the package.
As a bonus, because this appears to be something designed especially for that industry, they’ll also be able to justify a higher rate for the main component – the self-storage unit itself – than they would have otherwise.
What can you bundle in your business that can add value to your customers, members, or clients? This is truly a case of the “whole being more than the sum of the parts!”
For Every Headwind…
June 10, 2010
I love cycling, especially when the weather is beautiful and you get out on the country roads we have north of Raleigh. If you go out in mid May, the smell of honeysuckle and jasmine is overpowering – almost intoxicating.
That’s the good part. The more challenging part of riding on those roads is that they’re, well, hilly. And I’m not talking about pleasant rolling hills, I mean hills – long stretches that go up and up and then up some more.
Generally speaking, though, the rule that “what goes up must come down” applies on the road, and when you get to the top of the hill, there’s usually a downhill stretch you can use to recover: for every uphill, there’s a downhill…
But there is another challenge on the road that can be just as bad as a big hill: the wind. Depending on the weather conditions, you can be facing winds of over 15 mph sometimes, and despite being in an aerodynamic position, or riding in a group, the wind does take its toll.
But, you’d think that if you have a headwind in one direction, then you’d have a tailwind in the other direction: for every headwind, there’s a tailwind…
Unfortunately, as often as not, just when you get to the point on the ride where you’re going to change directions, the wind seems to shift – now coming from the opposite direction, giving you a headwind all over again for the ride back home!
The expression all cyclists know is actually this one:
For every uphill, there’s a downhill; for every headwind, there’s a…headwind!
The road itself doesn’t vary – if it increases in altitude today, it’s the same tomorrow, and the next day. The wind is another story altogether. It can be strong or weak. It can be constant or gusty. It can be consistent, or it can change direction on a moment’s notice.
In business and life, there are constants, and there are variables. The success you have depends not so much on the road you take, but rather on the way you anticipate, plan for, and adapt to the unpredictable, unforeseen, and often invisible obstacles that crop up on the way.
It’s your response to these conditions that determines whether your ride will be a good one.
I Can’t Walk By a Piano
June 10, 2010
Life goes in cycles. There are ups and downs, periods of prosperity and scarcity, and events that end up becoming defining moments in your life.
So with all that uncertainty and constant change, wouldn’t it be great to have something you do that continually charges your batteries?
I found an example of this last week when I was listening to Pandora on my computer at work. (Pandora is a very cool music program that constructs custom “radio stations” based on the music you tell it you like – it’s free and worth a look at www.pandora.com.)
A song came on I really liked by a man named Jon Dahlander. Wanting to learn more about this artist, I did a quick Google search, and found this biographical sketch:
Jon Dahlander can’t walk by a piano. He has to play it. It’s why he’s been kicked out of countless hotel lobbies, bars, and restaurants throughout his life.
This was followed by a quote from Jon himself:
“To me, every piano has a story where it was made, who made it, the kind of shape it’s in, who played it before and what it sounds like now, particularly with one of my songs. So, if I see a lonely piano, I have to play it. It’s like finding a new friend with a common interest.”
Wouldn’t it be great to have something you do – a hobby, an activity, even something at work that gets you this motivated and excited?
Thoreau said, “The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.” Make this summer the time you find something new to be passionate about.
Have You Ever Seen This Before?
June 1, 2010
Back in April we took a mini-vacation to Washington, DC, to celebrate Lorie’s birthday, and to get together with some very close friends – two couples we’ve known for over 25 years.
It was the week of the Cherry Blossom Festival; the weather was perfect, and the trees were in full bloom. Wanting to explore and get some exercise at the same time, we went to a bike-rental shop near the Old Post Office, and rented some “hybrid” bikes for the day.
Since Cherry Blossom Week is one of the busiest tourist weeks in DC, there was a line to rent the bikes, but nothing really inconvenient. That’s because people were starting their rides at different times in the morning, depending on when they got up and made their way out of their respective hotel rooms.
Dropping off the bikes was a different story altogether, because with the exception of a few people who returned them early, everyone else was bringing them back at the same time.
Being a “process hound,” I couldn’t help but be puzzled at the very long line of people waiting to return their bikes, take care of the paperwork, and finalize the payments.
First, you handed your bike to one of the employees who took it from you into the building. There was no receipt, no checklist to make sure you returned your helmet or lock, and no way to prove that you had actually returned the bike. An unscrupulous person could have given the bike to a friend, gone on to the long return line, and later claimed that, “I gave the bike to the guy in the shorts.” There would be no way to prove otherwise.
Okay, now on to the line. When you finally got to the counter, you gave the person your name; they went rifling through a plastic file box until they found your receipt, and then processed your payment manually; whether by cash, check, or credit card.
As I watched this, all I could think was how inefficient this was – both in terms of their staff utilization, and, more importantly, the time they were making their customers waste standing in line.
They could have completely streamlined the whole process by asking themselves the simple question, “Have I ever seen this before?” In other words, is there any other situation like this where they might have a process I could borrow, adapt, or emulate?
Think about it for a minute yourself – can you think of a business that’s similar to this? Where you rent a vehicle for a period of time, and then return it and settle your payment? Of course! The car-rental business.
The process is very simple there: you pick up the vehicle; use it; and then bring it back to the lot. But instead of making everyone stand in line (a dicey thing to ask people to do when they have flights to catch) they have an attendant with a barcode scanner who logs in the vehicle, confirms that you’d like to pay for it with the card already on file, and then prints you the receipt…all in the span of about 30 seconds.
As an aside, when I suggested this to the manager on duty, she mumbled something about how much something like that would cost, and said to send her some information.
I didn’t bother to follow up with her, because (1) she was going to be more concerned with what it cost instead of total return on investment, (2) she didn’t seem to understand that the current situation was problematic, and (3) she lacked the imagination to see something that was working in a “parallel” industry could be adapted to her own.
When faced with a problem, the first thing you should ask yourself is “Where have I seen this before?” There’s rarely a need to start from scratch and “reinvent the wheel” – someone has been there before you, faced a similar issue, and discovered a solution you can use.
A little research, a little initiative, and a little imagination can go a long way towards getting you the results you want!
The Check’s in the Mail
June 1, 2010
There are a lot of ways to present an offer to make it appealing to your prospects. The best and most effective of these focus on the benefits you’ll bring to the customer and the reasons they should select you as the provider.
The insurance business is cutthroat, with virtual “price wars” raging on TV ads between, among others, Geico, Progressive, Allstate, State Farm, and Nationwide, with each one discounting the others’ low-cost claims, and boasting that you’ll save the most with their company.
So in this overcrowded “he said, she said” environment, I was interested in an ad I saw for Nationwide. They claimed that not only would they give you a discount for being accident-free, but they would actually send you a check every six months.
I know, it’s essentially the same thing as offering a discount, but they recognized that people like receiving checks in the mail; it’s the same reason people overpay their income taxes (passively or deliberately) so they can get a big tax-return check the next year.
Think about it – renewal time presents an opportunity to reevaluate your coverage, your carrier, and your agent. What better way to put a quick end to that internal discussion than to send the customer a check for several hundred dollars?
Customer: Do we switch companies? Nah, they just sent me a check!
Try to identify the points where you are most likely to lose customers, and see what strategies you can develop to provide them with something extra – something special – when they’re approaching that point.
Remember, it does no good to keep adding new customers, clients, or members if you’re not keeping the ones you already have.
