Paddi Lund, Christie Scott and Michael Gerber do this. Do you?

Paddi Lund (www.PaddiLund.com) has some great advice today in his newsletter. He is a dentist gone entrepreneur, but is most known for changing his reality by firing D clients, only accepting new clients upon referral, and insisting that he receive a certain number of referrals from each client! Here are some payoffs he experienced when he first fired D clients:

Simply “firing” his D customers immediately freed up 30% or more of your time … time which then is used to focus more attention on A and B customers with an instant increase in sales results as a consequence. Fewer hassles, more money – all good, right!

This has had a dramatic effect that is virtually responsible for every great innovation that followed in Paddi’s business.

Here’s why. Here’s the secret: S P A C E !!!

You read that right. Space. Time. Freedom from pressures.

Quite often when we start out in business we struggle to find the model that pays off. That’s just business. It’s hard. Very few people jag it and produce massively profitable businesses right from the get go. But even for those people, a similar process occurs. We get so busy, so caught up in the frantic pace of getting everything working that we get completely lost in the day to day pressures of it all.

Bills to pay, customers to see, people to hire, people to train, people to fire (because we never got around to training them!), marketing to write, advertising to try to forget (because it’s not working and you don’t know why), family to please, fatigue to fight … in business it just goes on and on and on and on and on and on and on …… and on and on and on and on!!!

Before you know it, you have absolutely no S P A C E to think, let alone work on the business.

But that’s exactly what Paddi found when he “fired” his D’s. He was making just as much money, or more, and now he had S P A C E to truly start thinking clearly about his business.

Michael Gerber, author of the famous E-Myth, later called this vital discovery “Working ON the business, not IN it.”

———— A Fundamental Difference ————

Now, this isn’t the same as having lots of time on your hands when you’re young and starting out and don’t have any customers yet. Not the same at all.

There’s a fundamental difference between the time that the ABCD’s buys you and the time you have on your hands when there’s not much business on.

1) Ongoing Cashflow gives you room to breath

Say no more. Free time alone just won’t get you fed.

2) Experience gives you lots of information to work with

If you’re to this point, you have tried lots of things and failed with most of them. This experience is invaluable in helping you hone in on what’s really most important. You’ve also probably learned a thing or two about managing people – there’s nothing like being pushed around by an employee or two to galvanize the skill of leading from the front!

3) The Pain of being trapped motivates you to use your time wisely

… It’s only when you learn how valuable and scarce that S P A C E is that you really begin to use it wisely when it appears. Parkinson’s Law: “Work expands to fill the available time.” Well not when you have the motivation of great PAIN focusing you on making the most of this very valuable resource!

The 2nd Major Hidden Benefit:

* Making S P A C E for Key Results Producing Activities.

So, how could this idea help you?

One client of mine is facing this right now! She is SO overwhelmed by the everyday, that she cannot “see” or focus, prioritize, or even  enjoy life.  She is BRILLIANT! Simply amazing, yet this is overshadowed and hidden by the murkiness. Has she changed? No, but when you are overwhelmed, you cannot create or orchestrate your best work! Plain and simple.

So, my recommendation? Find space.

For this client, a getaway is in order, a getaway from emails, phones, and any work or responsibility. This will enable her to clearly see what she needs to do, how to overcome obstacles and have fun.

You may have experienced this when trying to come up with a name or fix a problem. When I was trying to title my book, I struggled for months. Then, when daydreaming while driving a car, it came to me.

Or sometimes the more you try to determine a solution, the more convoluted your opinion becomes.

So, what do YOU need to do to create S P A C E for what will allow you to reach the next level?

C

A different take on Seth Godin’s post today.

Here is what Seth has to say:

The power of buttons and being normal

Taxi drivers in New York were worried about adding credit cards to their cabs. The fee (5% of so) would cost them too much, they said.

It turns out that tips are up, way up. They’re actually making far more money now.

Why? Because most of the machines offer a shortcut for the tip: $2, $3 or $4.

You can decide to be a cheapskate and hit the $2 button. Except…

Except that if you had paid cash, you probably would have tipped 75 cents for that $4.25 ride. It takes a few more clicks to type in 75 cents, and hey, $2 is the lowest and it’s a more ‘normal’ amount.

It’s a three second decision that happens over and over. People really like cues.

And of course, I agree with this.

However, I began thinking about how this can also be applied to employees and management.

“People really like cues.” including employees…

Employees sometimes, or very often actually, fall into ruts. Ruts like office gossip at the coffee pot or ruts of complaining about overwork or the boss. Often a new client will talk about this problem and often they believe it is the people who are the problem. And sometimes they are!

But, MOST of the time, the problem is the environment. The environment allows and even encourages these ruts to form and continue.

So, thinking about your office, how does this affect the employees productivity? How does this deteriorate the customer service?

Once, I entered a  doctor’s office and rang the little bell at the window. The receptionists were in the back, having lunch and they were complaining LOUDLY about a patient. I said “hellooooo?” to politely let them know I was there, since they had not heard the bell. However, they continued to go on, so engrossed in the story and the animated retelling of the account, they did not hear me. On and on, the voice described the argument the doctor had with the patient. FINALLY, I opened the door and walked into the back a bit to let them know I was there. They went on like nothing had happened and the doctor had no idea the possible damage that was happening, o doubt often in his office.

Imagine if I had been a patient! Imagine if this was happening in your office/store/location!

Is it the people? The employees? Possibly, but more likely the problem is much bigger than that.

When there is an environment that teaches people to act this way, it allows people to act this way, then it will BE this way, always, no matter the people in it.

Instead going back to what Seth wrote above, people like cues. If you give no cue for the tip, you get 75 cents. Give a cue and quickly triple that! What kinds of cues are your employees getting from you.

Once I got told by an employer, “the “stars” among you will do SO well with this”.Well, that’s great, but the cue I got was some of you are losers! And none of us knew which ones where which, so we all felt scolded.Did it inspire us to be even better? NO. It made us feel like, “nobody is noticing our hard work, why try so hard?”.

Instead, if you give the cue that people are special, unique and you care about them, if you believe in the best in people and actually appreciate each and their contribution, you get more of that best.

If a culture is created that feeds and grows a set of values far above and beyond your average business, THEN, people in it are responsible and caring about their impact on the business and the world, the customer service is stellar and the future of that company is bright because the consumers LOVE to experience the difference.

Of course, Zappos is a fantastic example of this. If you have doubts that company culture pays off, look at their track record to over a billion in sales!

So, where should you begin?

How do you get started?

That’s what I am here for my friend. I am creating an entire course to teach this and as I do, I will post ideas and rants here for you to enjoy, learn from and transform your company culture!

But, until then, WHAT CUES ARE YOU GIVING TO YOUR EMPLOYEES?

C

These ruts of

How Apple evolves and develops it’s Brand!

They do as Seth Godin says, they take a cliché and do the opposite. THIS is one way we can INNOVATE, like I have been encouraging you to do. As Tony Robbins has pointed out for the duration of this “recession”, you must innovate during this time or you will suffer, because some of your competitors WILL!

To quote Seth:

The effective way to use a cliché is to point to it and then do precisely the opposite. Juxtapose the cliché with the unexpected truth of what you have to offer. Apple does this all the time. They point out the cliché of a laptop or a desktop or an MP3 player and then they turn it upside down.

Richard Branson takes the expected boredom of a CEO and turns it upside down by doing things you don’t expect.

There is power in opposites like this, very often, in that, you can turn a negative into a positive. If your product competitors are very similar to yours (or at least seems that way to prospects), with time, there is a commoditization, that will squeeze any profit out of the venture.If you don’t change the game, it will change and you will pay the consequences.

Like I talked about yesterday in my post, a negative objection from a prospect can be a positive. You can use it to create more success in the future: If competitors chose someone with more “experience”, saying you are younger than your competitors, then build a plan to show that as an advantage. This won’t help for this prospect in particular, but for future prospects, you can be ready. Brand messages for your youth could be:  “Uses the latest breakthrough technology.” “In it for the long haul” (for 30 years instead of the competitor is already 60 so he will retire soon).

What negatives do you see that could be positives?

What we believe shapes our thoughts, our thoughts shape our actions, our actions shape our experience/lives.

What do you believe that could be shaping your life into what you do not want in your future?

C

www.christiescott.com

Find your business is just another J-O-B? The ONE thing you need:

The number ONE difference between the successful business and one that is simply mediocre or failing, is the FOCUS of the leader(s)!

If the leader’s focus is mediocre, then the business will follow suit. What do I mean by mediocre? You are probably thinking, “I AM NOT mediocre, I am excited and active in my business, popping at the seams with ideas!” Ah, my friend, let start at the very beginning, a very good place to start, when you read you begin with A,B,C when your in business begin with too many things, projects, ideas, goals. With time, you either destroy the profitability of a business or learn to focus on what’s truly important.

The largest gap between the very successful person and the miserable one who has a J-O-B disguised as a business, is (da da da DUM): FOCUS!

And more importantly, FOCUS on the RIGHT things at the RIGHT time.

So, how do you know what to focus on? Well, a GREAT coach, mentor, or book can help you see what these RIGHT things are, but, truthfully, are you FOCUS – Able?

Are you able to take that direction and really gain control over your schedule, your employees, your business? OR do you ALLOW yourself to get wrapped up in REACTING to business? Do you ALLOW yourself to get emotionally connected to treating employees the way you always have? Do you ALLOW your rut to keep you sucked in to the old way of selling or marketing? Do you define yourself by how you have always done things or the services you offer?

Honestly? Do you?

Have others tried to help you focus, but you have stuck with “your gut” and in “your rut”?

“How’s that workin for ya?”

Do you LOVE your results?

Have you achieved your dream life?

If not, ask yourself again, REALLY, are you focus -able?If you haven’t proven yourself to be, then now is the best time to start! AND it’s okay, YOU CAN DO THIS!

Go back, read this again, tell me, in what ways could you be more FOCUS -able? What advice, leadership, guidance would have served you, had you been able or willing to sacrifice enough to apply it?

I WANT to hear from you!

Of course, my absolute best to you, as always,

C

P.S. This post was inspired by Scott Ginsberg’s newest book, soon-to-be-released: “-able” (Pronounced a bull) Read more about it or Buy it here! You can read about this fascinating guy here.

I wish I could LIVE in a Ballard Designs catalog! REALLY!

Yes, yes, I love their furnishings, just love them, yet that isn’t my focus for YOU!

The creators of the catalog really stepped into some brilliance with something they did this month in their catalog, bravo!
This is probably how the idea came about: A Ballard Design team was sitting in a meeting and someone says “Why does our prospect most often NOT make a purchase? What’s stopping them?”
Someone else replies “Maybe indecision?”
Everyone chimes in that this is a likely reason. Hence, they decide to create a tool for prospective buyers to use in choosing items for their homes. Ah, and here, my friend, is the result!!!

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They took a photo of a fantabulous living space and then they broke down the main components and gave you the price, description and item number. It causes you to very quickly see those items, in your mind’s eye, in your space. I would bet this has been a successful addition to what was previously beautiful catalog with an average success rate.

So, how can you use this? You are thinking, “I don’t sell furniture, have a catalog or a team of people to brainstorm like this. What does this have to do with me?”

Ok, lesson 1. Know thy customer and why they DO AND DO NOT purchase. If you are a retailer, this could be that you don’t have an attractive store front or your store is not well-known. OR it could be that your store clerks have been rude or the store isn’t merchandised well.
Lesson 2. Build a smoooooth chute for your prospects to slide through on the way to the purchase (make it very easy to go from being a prospect to a buyer/client/customer). Make it clear how to interact with you or your company, don’t allow indecision to be a factor because of your indecision in creating a package or other offer choice. Question what the sticking point is… ALWAYS. Where are your prospects getting stuck in the funnel?

It might be that your clients look into what you offer, but then stop. Ok, then figure out how to make the decision easier and faster.

OR maybe they are purchasing the first time, but not ever again (this is a problem if you make little margin on the first purchase, your customer acquisition cost is high, or the like). This has been one of my client’s problems and it has been quite an evolution to transform, ah but I regress…

So, check out how Ballard Designs has done this in these photos of the catalog pages.

Let me know if you figure out how to apply these lessons to your business. AND let me know if you don’t.

My best as always to you,

C

Waiting for your fairy godmother (venture capitalist/ investor) to save you?

There are no EASY ways to do business. When talking with a client today, I realized something I had never really admitted before, BUSINESS IS TOUGH!

There is no magic bullet, no get-rich-quick. It’s about something much more.

Now, that’s not to say SOME people may find success by being in the right place with the right thing at the right time, but those times are far and few rather than the norm.

Expecting that fairy godmother to come and make all of your dreams come true is a great way to feel like a failure!

THE SMARTER AND MORE SURE WAY TO SUCCESS? FOCUS! Focus on the right things at the right time. Focus on serving your current clients/customers/patients better! Focus on making loyal followers, die-hard fans. (See my post earlier today about Facebook fans and their worth, if you are using social networking as part of your plan.)

Here’s another way to think about it, to quote our man, Seth Godin, “Delight the audience you already have, amaze the customers you can already reach, dazzle the small investors who already trust you enough to listen to you. Take the permission you have and work your way up. Leaps look good in the movies, but in fact, success is mostly about finding a path and walking it one step at a time.”

SOOOOOOOOOOO? How will this change your day, your month, your year?

C

Why having NO Money or Budget when you start your business can be an ADVANTAGE! A Seth Godin case study.

So, Seth Godin tells about this company that did not have the money to spend on a sign that truly describes the product type, and amazingly this probably contributed to MORE success!!

“When Blythe and her partners started Lula’s Apothecary, the best vegan ice cream stand in this hemisphere, they didn’t have enough money to afford the letters to put “Dairy free” on the sign in their window. They couldn’t even afford “vegan.” So the signage says nothing about what they don’t put in their ice cream.

What they discovered was that word among the tribe of vegans in the East Village of New York City (an even bigger group than you might imagine) spread fast. The product was remarkable enough that just a few happy customers were enough to spread the word.

The other thing they discovered is that non-vegans were willing to walk on in if the place looked cool enough. In fact, the lack of ingredient-declaration on their window actually helped them reach out to people who might have been scared away at the lack of milk.”

So, allow the LIMITATIONS of your budget or time or employees, to work FOR your benefit! Allow this limitation to equate to a WIN! See how this can work for you rather than limit you!

If you don’t have money for a sign, then how can that actually be a benefit?

If you don’t have the money to redecorate your retail store, how can you make this an opportunity?

When you don’t have an advertising budget, how can you use that to inspire improvement?

Change, improve, make this work for you!

I want to hear about it!

C

How to charge thousands and be absolutely worth it!

Be a linchpin!
Seth Godin relays this story to illustrate: I had a college professor who did engineering consulting. A brand new office tower in Boston had a serious problem–there was a brown stain coming through the drywall, (all of the drywall) no matter how much stain killer they used. In a forty story building, if you have to rip out all the drywall, this is a multi-million dollar disaster. They had exhausted all possibilities and were a day away from tearing out everything and taking a loss. They hired Henry in a last-ditch effort to solve the problem. He looked at the walls and said, “I think I can work out a solution, but it will cost you $45,000 if I succeed.” They instantly signed on, because if he succeeded, the project would be saved.

Henry asked for a pencil and paper and wrote the name of a common hardware store chemical and handed it to them. “Here, this will work.” And then he billed them $45,000. That’s quite an hourly wage. It’s also quite a bargain.

Read Linchpin to get ideas on how to be a linchpin, but the bottom line is: WHAT VALUE do YOU bring to your buyers?

The problem with us humans is that we over value what we do. You may fight to admit it, but it is a REAL problem.

If you don’t believe me, read Harry Beckwith’s book, Selling the Invisible.

So, IF you want to grow your hourly wage? OR just continue to justify it in a poor economy, then get honest, how much VALUE do you bring? And then concentrate on how to bring even more value. Under-promise, over-deliver! Thre was never a time where this was more important.

Ok, so here we are again, at the point where I ask you, what will this change, improve, alter, in what you do today, tomorrow, next week, month and year.

As you know, if you change nothing, you have gained nothing and you have lost the time you have spent reading (sigh), once again. SOOOOOO, get to it.

My absolute best,

C

How To Create Something So Fascinating That People Can’t Help But Be Drawn In

Read this book with me, let me know how you will use these 7 triggers for your business benefit.

Or take the f score test, see which you use naturally and how to do that better! AND find out which you do not use by nature, and determine how to infuse a bit of that so as to grow the potential from that.
See a new video interview from mixergy, here, fascinating!

C

How great and successful businesses FAIL when markets change… and what to do about it!

I was working with a client last fall. The client has a successful business that has taken a serious dip, more like a freefall with the changes in this economy. It was a MAJOR struggle to get this client back to running in the black. I had to break the seemingly harsh news to this client “You are basically a start up business at this point. You have to treat the business as if you are just getting it going. You must rebuild your clientele, your product line, your service offerings, retrain your employees.” The client was SHOCKED, upset, letdown and did NOT want to view things in this way. Why was it so difficult? Why can’t we, once we are successful, continue to perpetuate that success in times of flux or market change?

Well, for this client in particular, 6 months was all it took to get profitable again, but the journey is ongoing to get employees to a trained level of expertise and get my client extracted enough so that the business is not all consuming.

But, what happens? When there is change in the market, there is a shift that generally business owners do not change or innovate with. Why not?

WE FORGET WHAT GOT US TO WHERE WE ARE.

Running a business is like having a long term relationship. You get stagnant, bored, lose ground, possibly lose it altogether, because you do NOT continue doing what gave you the success in the first place.

You might have tried to be nice and buy little gifts for that person, make them dinner, help them feel better when they were sick, DVR thier favorite shows, send them nice little notes to surprise them… and on and on.

But, with time, we get sidetracked and we stop doing those things. AND we replace those activities with something else that might actually deteriorate the relationship. We start putting whatever WE want on record in the DVR, we decorate how we want to, we make ourselves food, without regard for the other person. We complain whenever they are sick, gain weight and stop working out as much or simply just become calloused to the relationship and take it for granted.

THIS creates rifts, tears us apart, causes us to lose sight of the GOOD that came from that relationship.

So, IF we get ourselves straightened out, understand what we want and work hard for it again, MAYBE we can save that relationship and be more balanced in how we treat it for some time. Then, we will lapse into other ways of not appreciating that relationship and we have to go back to center again.

HOW DOES THIS RELATE TO BUSINESS? Well, it is the same, we stop doing what made it so successful. We stop marketing regualrly, we stop networking, we don’t work nights and weekends on building it, we don’t talk about it to everyone we know, (it won’t be all of these of course, but what ever you did before, you generally stop doing with time).

IF you go back and evaluate, you will find there is a function or an activity that you could RE-deploy that would bring you more success and quick. IF you evaluate the things that really worked for you, you will see things you should have never stopped doing, but you got sidetracked, calloused or simply too busy to do well anymore. GO BACK! IT’S NOT TOO LATE, YET!

So, what will you change? Add? DO differently? Go back to?

IF YOU DON’T CHANGE SOMETHING, YOU HAVE WASTED YOUR TIME HERE, get to work!

My absolute best, as always!

C