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I trust you had a fabulous Easter break. Some may still be having time off with the school holidays.
I just wanted to remind you that the year is 1/4 gone. That’s right, it’s only nine months until the new year.
So are you on track with your goals? If so, AWESOME. If not, do you need a bit of catch up work or to adjust them?
Whatever the case, I just wanted to check you were on track.
I love Henry Ford’s Quote,
“Whether you
think you can or think you can’t, you’re right!”
Sometimes I find I know I can but some doubts sneak in around the edges. Things are not happening the way I planned, I am not getting the results I want or I have lost my serenity about my place in the world and self doubt comes in. When this happens I turn on loud, up tempo music, look at the lovely client comments in my “happy file” and keep putting one foot forward and taking some kind of action.
What do you do? What is your strategy to keep your head on straight and your confidence high?
When it comes to Henry’s quote, what do you think?
Don’t you hate it when you are giving a presentation or MC of a group of presentations and the AV fails!
What should you do?
What CAN you do?
Here are a couple of tips to get you through a challenging event and come out smelling of success.
Enjoy!
I learnt a long time ago that you never move FROM a place, you move TO a place.
What I mean by that is that when you move always consider what you need in the new place. Too many people pack everything in boxes, get to the new location and find out that they don’t need everything they have moved or boxes sit unpacked for years and you don’t miss what is in the box.
It could be a change of office, house or even position in the company. Decide what you will need in the new place and only take what you need with you. The rest can be recycled, handed on or thrown away.
So how do you move?
Time to practice what I preach.
I am moving office. As such, I have some old products that I don’t want to take with me. Some will no longer be available and others I just don’t want to transport! So I thought I would have a moving sale and give you the chance at some bargains.
Here is what’s available:
| TITLE | FORMAT | RETAIL PRICE |
SALE PRICE |
YOU SAVE |
QTY AVAIL |
| Agents of Action – the everyday diaries of the new age entrepreneur | Book | $29 | $12 | $17 | 35 |
| Get More From Choice CD – Tips on how to choose the right path for you | CD | $39 | $15 | $24 | 10 |
| Get More From Change CDs – How to embrace change. Wanted or not! | 2 CDs | $69 | $22 | $47 | 28 |
| Get More Power Pack – 8 CDs motivating you to success | 8 CDs | $395 | $195 | $200 | 3 |
| Get More Business Success – 12 CD pack with Expert Tips | 12 CDs | $597 | $297 | $300 | 16 |
PS Let me make it easier for you. I will even pay the postage!
Now that we are in the fifth week of the New Year, I need to ask, do your systems support you? I am not just talking about computer systems, but your manual systems and processes as well.
Michael Gerber is the king of business systems. His book “The E-Myth Revisited” has some simple yet masterful comments and ideas on how you let your systems run the business and your people run the systems.
So how can you systemise more? From the simple addition of check lists on order forms, to a weekly structure for your time or simply having custom lead cards when you next exhibit or are sponsoring an event. The systems make your job easier and free you up for more strategic work (or holidays!)
So do your systems support you?
Are You Trained?
I spent three days last week locked in a room with other similar minded entrepreneurs. Well maybe not locked but you get what I mean. We were looking at how to transform our businesses and take them to the next level (or even the one beyond that). The final day was planning and commitments for 2013 with an action plan to help get us there
.
As a business owner it can be hard to dedicate this kind of time for additional training and development.
As an employee as well, there is always too much to do to spend time off getting training and development.
I have heard it said by many business gurus, “Too many managers say What if I train my employees and they leave, but what if you don’t train them and they stay!”
By the way, don’t wait for others to pay for or approve your training either. If you really want it or need it, be prepared to finance it yourself, after all, you get to keep it!
So what training do you need? What skills do you need to develop? What will you do TODAY to make that happen?
Are You Protecting Your Assets?
In business and life it is important to protect your assets. Sometimes our most important assets are not “things” but “skills.”
For example, as a Master of Ceremonies and Event Strategist, my most important asset is my ability to talk. Unfortunately I did not protect that asset and I have lost my voice! (The good news is that for the first time in a long time, my wife can finish her own sentences without me interrupting!)
I was speaking at a gig on Thursday last week – it was pretty warm and I was drinking ice water before I spoke. At the end my voice was a little strained but I thought it would recover. I was then MC at a wedding on Saturday night. I had spent the day chatting with a friend who had come down from Queensland and then the wedding venue was noisy so you had to shout to talk. The PA was poor quality so I strained the strain. As you may expect, the best thing to do is to not talk and let it recover. But Wifey and I had lunch and dinner planned with two sets of friends on Sunday. I tried not to talk but I can’t help myself.
This morning I have a very sore throat and minimal voice.
This all started with the Ice Water. If you are a performer, you must only drink room temperature water as it keeps your vocal chords flexible and ready to work. I know this but still I did not protect my assets.
What about you? What assets do you need to protect? How will you do that?
If one of your assets is to Sell or Generate leads, then let me help you look after your asset. On Tuesday 4th December in Melbourne we are running a 2 1/2 hr workshop on 5 Keys to Successful Exhibiting and Event Sponsorship. I would love you to be my guest. Simply use the Code EASCOMP when you register here and there will be no charge for you to attend. See you there!
OMG! Can you believe it? I stuffed up.
I live in Melbourne and didn’t realise that I had scheduled my How to Create and Deliver a Great Introduction webinar smack bang in the middle of Melbourne Cup Day. Naturally I only found out about this just after I had sent the newsletter to over 1,500 people!
So a few quick tinkerings of the system and voila, it is now on this Wednesday at 1pm Melbourne time. If you want to be part of it, the webinar detail and registration is here
What about you? When you find out about a problem can you let go of control enough to be flexible? Can you release the idea of what you wanted to happen and come up with a solution that will suit? From a cancelled meeting to a cancelled contract, anything can happen. As has been said so many times, it is not what happens to you but how you deal with it that counts. So are you flexible enough to deal with what happens to you?
One of the most common questions around the work place is “So what are you up to?”It’s usually the boss, a colleague or a friend just asking what is happening.
When it comes to work, there would be 4 key answers I would be looking for:
Anything else is just busy work.
If what you are doing does not related to one of these four things I would have to ask why are you doing it.
So what are you up to?
Negotiation is such a core part of what we do, but I am not a guru on Negotiation. Luckily I have a very good friend that is. I asked her to give me the secrets to mastering negotiation and she was happy to oblige.
Tanya Edlington has negotiated everything from wages deals worth millions of dollars to car parking arrangements where she lives because she knows EVERYTHING is negotiable. She has learnt everything she knows by doing it and learning from her mistakes. Tanya believes the art of conversation is important to all kinds of relationships. She’s a mediator accredited through LEADR, and is a sought after facilitator. Tanya uses her skills as an actress to help everyone from doctors to corporate managers develop their face to face communication skills.
Here are Tanya’s Top Tips to Negotiate Anything!
If you follow these every time, regardless of what you’re negotiating or who you are representing, you are bound to have a successful outcome.
Putting it all together, approach your negotiations with your creative problem solving muscles flexed and view the other team as useful collaborators with expertise to contribute to the solving of the problem. I find that this approach means the relationships with the people remain intact – sometimes even grow – and people are more willing to keep going when it’s tough.
Lastly, I make sure that my thoughts, words and deeds are in alignment so that I am operating with integrity, regardless of who I’m working with and what we’re trying to achieve.
If you need help with your negotiations, please contact Tanya. She is sure to help you achieve the outcome you want.
I had a big weekend. 2 1/2 day as MC of the Super Conference in Melbourne (from Thursday to Saturday), a 1 year old party, MC another function on the Saturday night and then 6 hours reviewing the upcoming video product I am creating.
Phew!
The recurring theme seemed to be “Are You Ready”. At the Super Conference, one of the speakers arrived late, was foofing and fluffing around with AV, running back to his room, forgetting something else and had no introduction. We delayed the start but it got to the point that I had to fill in for about 10 minutes while he got ready. For some a 10 minute fill
is not easy (lucky I like the sound of my own voice!) Other speakers arrived the day before to check the room, had their AV all tested and loaded on our machines two presentations prior. True professionals that were a delight to deal with.
On the Saturday night, there was a little more stuffing around trying to get the hotels projector working. Luckily the client was patient because it took the hotel awhile to find the person who knew what was going on (apparently the projector always goes to sleep automatically – that would have been nice to know up front!)
What about you? Are you ready?
Are you ready to start your meetings on time? Do your minutes get done promptly after the meeting? Do people have all of your requirements, introductions and contact details when you are on site? Have you practiced the difficult meeting with your staff member? Do you have the correct documentation when you get on the phone to talk to a service provider? When you are running an event, are you ready to stall for five minutes if you need to (because you know it will happen!)
When you know you have something significant happening, make sure you are ready. It makes a massive difference!
Too often people treat the Symptoms and not the Root Cause.
A case in point is the current issue with Alan Jones, the Australian shock jock who made some questionable comments about our Prime Minister and her father.
There is a lot of talk and social media chatter about boycotting the advertisers. So much so that the advertisers are no longer playing any adverts on his show.
Let me predict the future – The radio station will continue to receive money from advertisers, they will just be played at different times meaning more adverts on other shows.
Alan Jones’ show will probably be advertised as “3 hrs of Ad Free breakfast” or some such thing. In a couple of weeks when the next thing gets our interest, the radio will start playing adverts again and life will go back to normal.
People are focusing on the Symptom, and not the root cause. If they truly want to get Alan off the air they need a different cause of action. The advertisers love Alan Jones because lots of people listen to him. It means they get great exposure and the radio station charges them a significant amount of money for this exposure. So to get the advertisers off Alan’s show permanently, the focus needs to be to get people to stop listening to his show and that radio station at all. Will decrease revenues, the radio station will be forced to make permanent changes, such as fire Alan Jones.
The bigger issue is that the people listening to Alan Jones are of the demographic that love his vitriol and diatribe. The people complaining about him typically do not listen to him anyway. So how do go get people who like listening to a person, who probably are not offended by his comments to completely stop listening to the radio station? I can’t answer that one.
Again, are you treating the Cause or the Symptom?
Managers in attempts to cut costs will typically cut costs that don’t matter. For example, no more Tim Tams, cheaper coffee, less staff, or cheaper decorations. That just treats the symptoms of a lack of sales. Successful managers will look at the root of the problem. Basically, what does the customer want (both now and in the future), how do they want it and when do they want it. Lets look at ways to provide this. In Australia, Myer and David Jones are playing catchup with online sales because rather that thinking how do we go down that path (when customers started heading that way) they chose not to, and have suffered!
Small business have a lull in sales and think “Better make more sales calls” rather than considering alternate ways to bring continual prospects in. Too often we fall for doing more of the same action rather than looking at whether it is the right action to take. It is not just a matter of doing things Right but also about doing the Right things.
In a relationship, I have seen people buy their partner a gift or flowers to make them happy rather than considering why they were upset in the first place. What is the root cause. Is it a bad habit, was it a conflicting belief or simply a mistake. Too often the same mistake keeps recurring and it has significant impacts on the relationship.
What about you? In all areas of your life, are you addressing the Cause or just the Syptom?
Doh! I had to learn this AGAIN!
Too often I let my email and my phone drive me. I get into a reactive role of responding to whatever lands on my desk.
That is NOT how a successful business operates.
As I teach those in my sessions, there are three key things that need to be focussed on that can easily magnify sales.
1) Number of Prospects
2) Percentage of Prospects who convert to sales
3) The value of the sale
You don’t grow these factors by being driven by your email. They are increased by a strategy with actions in your calendar.
Don’t get me wrong, you can’t ignore your email and phone calls, but you can choose when it suits you best to respond to them and let your focus be on business building activities as per your strategy.
What’s driving you? Is it your email or your strategy?
I have been running my computer system in the office with two monitors for quite some time. After prolonged periods at the computer I struggled to stand up comfortably. I was in a hunched lack of comfort zone – so to speak!
I had read before that monitors are better off the desk and higher up. (To find out some ergonomic guidelines for your desk, check out what Swinburne University says.) Like all good geeks, I went to eBay to find a flash, sexy and cheap monitor stand for two monitors. Unfortunately I have non-standard monitors and they are different to each other, so that was not going to work. Also, these stands were about $120 and got way
more expensive from there.
In a flash of brilliance, I have raided my paper reserves and created these two monitor stands for less than $30.
How is your monitor and desk set up? Do you need a bit of creative application of ergonomics to make it work better for you? I am feeling better about my set up already! Check it out
