Monthly Archives: March 2009

3 Ways Validation Can Increase Your Profits

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Many people have watched this wonderful short-film on validation.  (If you haven’t taken the time before, it’s worth the 16 minutes.  If you have seen it before, it’s still work the reminder.)

It seems nice in theory and in the end, the guy does get the girl, but can this simple technique do anything to increase the profits of your business?

There are at least three ways in which your bottom line can benefit from this small yet extremely powerful gesture.

  1. Employees will give more of themselves – Most employers don’t get the full benefit of the employees talent, intellect or energy.  After all, it’s not their business, just their job.  As long as the company is doing reasonably well, they are going to get the same pay (okay, some may be bonuses, but stick with me here for a moment) regardless of whether they go above and beyond.  They don’t have to be passionate to be successful employees – only very competent.
    If, however, you began to validate your employees, you are much more likely to ignite their passion for your business.  When people are passionate, they think about ways to do things better, more efficiently, and more profitably.  They go the extra mile without being asked.  While it’s not their company, validation can cause them to begin to think, act, and care like owners of the business. Imagine the benefits of having a culture where everyone had total commitment to the success of the company.  Costs would certainly go down and revenue would have to increase.
  2. Customer loyalty will soar -The old adage “People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care” is applicable here.  Validation can be a significant product or service differentiator that will not only keep your customer coming back but have them skipping the process of shopping around.  Trusts increases when a person feels they are remembered, listened too, and engaged with in an authentic manner.  Not only will they be loyal, but your customers are more likely to make referrals.  Less customer turnover and more word-of-mouth advertising equals higher profits.
  3. Your commitment to business growth will increase - There is a well known poem, Our Deepest Fear, by Marianne Williamson, that suggest that our deepest fear is success. That could very well be true for business owners.  If you aren’t really enjoying the whole process of owning and running your own business (and who really enjoys every aspect) the thought of lot’s more of it could subconsciously be holding you back from phenomenal success.  Validation not only makes other people feel good about you, it makes you feel good about you and all of your relationships.  It’s much easier to have higher levels of passion when you enjoy your work environment.  More passion means you will have less hidden resistance to doing the hard work of continuously growing your business and increasing its profits.

While the Validation movie takes things to the extreme, the lines were longer in the parking garage where validation was happening than in the mall stores.  Too bad he didn’t have anything to sell.

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Book Highlight: The How of Wow

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Great speech-making skills are not only beneficial to those who must get in front of large audiences on a regular basis. The advice provided by communications expert Tony Carlson can benefit anyone who feels they have something important to communicate.

In the The How of WOW: A Guide to Giving a Speech That Will Positively Blow ‘Em Away, author Tony Carlson shares his tips on delivering effective speeches that get the attention, empathy, and respect from any audience. He covers techniques that allow one to build a bigger and better stage presence and make create a memorable experience. As a communication expert, his advice on body language, creating hooks, advancing the room, and getting media coverage are primarily directed toward those who have an opportunity to deliver public speeches to sizable audiences.

However, the benefits of being an effective speechmaker are more broadly applicable to anyone who wants to effectively communicate a message to another person. One of the primary benefits from developing effective presentation skills is that personal brands are build not only through your actions, but also through communication.

Effective communication can position you as an expert in your field or area of interest and it helps you establish a name for yourself that people will both know and respect. A worthy goal from most communication encounters is to have the person or people with whom you are speaking remember you in a positive way and remember your headline in a positive way.

This is true whether you are delivering a speech to hundreds of people, are making a presentation to your clients, are having a conversation with your boss, or have a chance meeting with a potential investor in your business. In a personal sense, conversations with friends, spouses, and children could also benefit from the advice shared by Carlson.

The focus on the audience is a tip shared that diverges from much of the traditional speechmaking advice. There are three elements required for communication:

  1. Information or data that needs to be communicated,
  2. A person to do the transmission of the information, and
  3. A person to receive the information. Often, the focus is primarily paid to just the first two elements – what needs to be said and how is it best shared.

Carlson suggests that by considering the end goal at the beginning, communication will be much more effective. The starting question should be less around what you want to share and more focused on what you want the audience to believe or do. This shift in focus automatically works to improve the effectiveness of your communication because all of the delivery tactics you select will be geared towards your understanding of the audience and your desired outcome.

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How to Get Done What You Don’t Want to Do

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110.366 | pft. argh.

There are always going to be a list of things that we decide to do even though we don’t want to. We decide that we will pay our taxes so we don’t get in trouble with the IRS. We decide to follow up on outstanding invoices with our clients/customers so we can get paid. We decide to update the registration on our car so we don’t get a ticket or fine. We make decisions to do things on a regular basis that we would prefer not to be bothered with. Getting them done is another story.

Some of these things are not really that difficult to accomplish, they are just not how we would choose to spend our time (or we have some emotional baggage associated with them – but that’s another story.) So we procrastinate.

If you want to make an easy job seem mighty hard, just keep putting off doing it. ~Olin Miller

The longer we procrastinate, the harder the task seems. In fact, procrastination often does make the job more difficult in reality. Putting off paying taxes can lead to interest on back taxes, garnished wages, or the need to explain past tax problems during Senate confirmations. The longer a customer goes without paying, the less likely they are to pay. This could then lead to the need to use collection agencies or law suits to attempt to get paid. You may also need to find short term financing sources to allow you to manage your cash flow. Not registering your car on time in many states eliminates the option of handling it through the mail or on line and requires you to go to the DMV and stand in lines. Not too efficient a use of time.

There are some very effective tactics to getting tasks done that you really don’t want to do:

  • Delegate – Now a days, there is very little that cannot be delegated. If you don’t have employees to whom you can delegate tasks, there are business professionals – accountants, bookkeepers, computer specialists, copywriters, web site developers, trainers, etc. – that specialize to doing the tasks that others don’t have the inclination or the skill to do. Additionally, VAs, virtual assistants, can support you in completing both your business and personal tasks.
  • Automate – Some tasks that we don’t like doing require doing regularly. Use technology to get those things done. Auto-responders, electronic billing, recurring task reminders, and other such tools help minimize the amount of time you need to spend doing the tasks. You do have to make the initial investment of time to set things up though.
  • Eliminate – Many of the things we choose to do – not necessarily the examples I used above – could, with minimal pain, just never get done. It never hurts to careful evaluate exactly why you chose to do a certain thing in the first place and weight it against the “cost” of not doing it. Some things just need to be taken off your plate.
  • Just do it – When all else fails, just do it. Do it as soon as you can, as quickly as you can, and with the highest level of quality it requires (no need to re-do something you didn’t want to do in the first place because of shoddy work.)

Have a powerful day!

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Is It Possible to Avoid the School of Hard Knocks?

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Avoiding the School of Hard Knocks should be much easier today than it has been in the past. In all likelihood, someone else has already figured out how to do so or all of what you are trying accomplish. Why not learn from them. With the level of access we know have to information through the Internet, researching is getting easier. But to avoid learning from the wrong people, or learning the wrong lessons, here are some suggestions:

  • Be clear about what you are trying to accomplish. The old saying that if you don’t know where you are headed any road will lead you there rings true here. Make sure you can not only articulate what you want to do but also what you are trying to accomplish.

I have an affiliate program for my coaching services and membership program and was recently researching the best tools to use to execute it. During my research, I found out that many of the affiliate marketing tools are for people who are looking for products created by other to sell on their sites. For these people, sites like ClickBank are a great resource. I wanted a way to track referrals and support people in selling my products. Same name, very different set of tools and/or different ways to use the same tools.

  • Find people you believe are doing the same thing you are and see what they use. I selected my auto-responder by checking out the services used by people who have tens of thousand – or even hundreds of thousands of people on their lists. If it works for them, it will likely work for me. I made the services used by those who appear to be successful high priorities on my research list.
  • Don’t over-react to negative feedback. Some people provide negative feedback on processes, services, and products because they do not work for them. Maybe there was nothing wrong with the product but the person was not in the target market. Use some discernment before you through out an approach because of one person’s bad experience.
  • Be curious. I found out about Ning, which is the platform I use for the Partners InPower social media site, by clicking on a “learn more” button on someone else’s Ning site. There are so many clues available on the web for you to find out about just about everything – if you are curious enough to dig deeper when you spot something interesting.
  • Get references from real people. Just because we have access to people on the web doesn’t mean we need to stop speaking to each other. People still have lots of value to add. After you’ve done a little research, talk to someone directly. Most people will be happy to share if you express a genuine interest in something they are doing. You may even have an opportunity to enter into a mentor relationship if you are a receptive apprentice.
  • Get help from a coach. Coaches are there to guide you through the journey of accomplishing your goals. Find a coach who is experienced in what you are trying to do and use them. Good coaches don’t have their own agenda, just a dogged commitment to your success unlike anyone else you will encounter.

Follow these tips and graduate from the School of Hard Knocks.

Have a powerful day!

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When’s There’s Nothing You Can Do About It, Dont Worry …

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… But when you can do something, ACT and don’t complain.

There are few power busters greater than worrying about the things over which we have no control. This is especially true for, and probably the real definition of, people who have control issues. We spend time trying, in vain, to gain control over situations and people where it is not our place or within our capability to be successful.

If being a “control freak” does not describe you, how about being a “worry wart?” Once we are resigned to the fact that we have no control in a given situation, we often spend needless time worrying about it. The weather is a great example of this. We have a big day planned of outdoor activities and the weather forecast shows a probability of rain. We hope that our plans aren’t ruined and then complain bitterly when the showers come as predicted.

Instead of obsessing about the weather, we can focused on the things over which we have control. There are several decisions that can be made:

  • Determine that it is okay to proceed in the rain
  • Figure out a way to hold our activities indoors, away from the rain
  • Cancel the plans and wait for another clear day

When we acknowledge that we have choices and exercise our power to make those choices, their is no need to then complain. Complaining puts us in victim mode, while exercising choices keeps us powerful.

I used weather to illustrate this, but the same holds true in business. Today, our nation is facing one of the greatest economic storms any but the most senior of us has ever experienced. What are you going to do about it? Should you just sit back and worry? Hope that your plans don’t get ruined? Well, hope is not a strategy. Instead you can review your choices and exercise some options:

  • Is your business’ economic position healthy enough to sustain itself through a credit crunch and depressed sales?
  • Do you need to change your strategy and find ways to operate in either a new market or with a different business model?
  • Is it time to realize that continuing with the current plan is a losing proposition and that it is best to halt operations and relaunch at another time?

These are all decision that you can make regarding your business. They may be easier said than done, but, unlike worrying, hoping, and complaining, making a choice and taking the difficult steps is what will lead you to achieve your desired results.

Have a powerful day!

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Innovative Time Saving Tip

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I just saw a Tweet (for those of you unfamiliar with Twitter, this is what their micro-blogging posts are called) with a great time saving tip. If you listened to this month’s Forward the Action Call on personal productivity, you heard me discuss the increased demands technology has placed on all of us. People now expect answers to their emails in minutes, not days or even hours. With a crowded email box, the effort of answering emails could take hours daily. This time in not spent forwarding your agenda, so what can you do?

The Tweet I read recommends leveraging another current trend/expectation. If you are responding to an email from your Blackberry or iPhone, people expect much shorter answers. In fact, they are honored that you took the time to respond to them at all since you are clearly away from your office and engaged in some other activity of importance. They know that you sent the message from your phone because the signature line tells them.

So here is the recommendation, change the reply line (you can do this just temporarily) on your desktop to read “Sent from iPhone” or “Sent from Blackberry”. Then you can send much shorter responses – like one sentence or phrase – to all of those emails.

Kind of innovative. What do you think?

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