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And the Winner Is …

Image: Shutterstock.com

It has been said that business is a game. If so, how do you play?
Who is the winner at the end?
Who is the winner as you go?

The arts are a great place for competition. The true artists know that it is not about them or their production, it is all about the audience, their customer. By making their customer the winner, they become winners too.

As an example, I saw a fabulous piece of improv theatre last night by my favourite improv troupe, Impro Melbourne. It was team against team, both striving for points. Both teams had been magnificent making us laugh, ponder, pause, even cry (almost) and at the end of the final round, the scores were level.

Oh no!

The host then declared a best of three Hat Off to decide the winner. A Hat Off is where the two players act out a scene while wearing a hat. Each player has to try and get the hat off the other player in the context of the scene. If they get it, they win. But if they try for it and miss, then they lose.

The first two out of the best of three competed and played well. But again, at the end of those two rounds the scores were still level. The final round would be the decider.

Two fine players, Rik and Katherine stepped up to the mark and as they started Rik did the unthinkable. He did what no one expected. He took his hat off and threw it on the floor in front of Katherine. He then told her to not pick it up as it symbolised their love and if she did it was over. A bit of toing and froing and finally Katherine succumbed and picked it up making her team the winner.

The real winner was the audience. Rik knew that throwing the hat down had a huuuuge chance of their team losing the match. But what it meant was that the audience got something unexpected. It got a framework of temptation that they had not thought about. Their level of tension and enjoyment was kicked up a notch.

They left with an increased feeling of satisfaction and an increased likelihood of returning and bringing their friends with them.

In great customer service, the focus has to be on the customer. Only by making the experience fantastic and memorable for them will your business continue to thrive. When you start to compete against your customer, you will always lose.

What about your customer? What would they say if you asked, “And the winner is?”

PS Want to make 2017 a Winner of a year?
Be sure to register for the full day planning session to make it happen.
You can get all the details here and take advantage of the early bird pricing.

What If You Have Nothing To Say?

Have you ever been in a conversation with someone and all of a sudden you have nothing to say?

By the time you think of what you need to say it’s 30 minutes later in an elevator! In your head you have the conversation. “They would say …. and I would say … and they would respond ….”

With everything going on in your life today you know it is going to happen at some stage.

Maybe it’s on a stage? Maybe it is when you are introducing someone at an event and you suddenly forget their name or the location you are in. Maybe the sponsors name slips from your mind – so what do you do?

Personally, I just make stuff up and keep talking!

I don’t just make anything up. I make up something relevant, something about what is happening around me, hopefully something funny or so unfunny people think it’s a dad joke.
I work with what is in the room so that everyone can share the fun of what is happening.

This is the art of Improv.

The lovely Tanya (or as I call her Door Number 1) accompanied me to Theatre Sports recently, as performed by one of Australia’s premier improv companies, Impro Melbourne.

The stories we were beguiled with ranged included: the singing chickens at the country fair, the romantic version of Hansel and Gretel (with stalker room mate), the pivot table Shakespearean Halloween story, Euripides in the Wollongong Caravan park – plus many more.

The power of Improv is in the “Yes and.” It means you take what you have and then build on it with the intent of making your partner (or the audience) look great.

This concept is also powerful in every day conversation, showing that you listen or finding something to say when your brain suddenly stops and you have nothing to say.

So what will you say?

PS
If you are interested in Improv at all, I highly recommend you check out Impro Melbourne shows and Workshops. I have long been a student of theirs and it has really pushed my MC/Speaker work to the next level. If you are not based in Melbourne, an internet search will help find a company near you to visit.

PPS
Booking for the 2017 Success Session have started. If you want to make 2017 your best year ever, check out the details of the day to be held here in Melbourne and take advantage of the early bird special.

Ready for 2017?

“Whaaaat? But it’s only October?”

You are right. It is only October and already I am having discussions with people about next year.
Some of these discussions about holidays, some are about conference hosting and some are clients asking me to contact them next year as they “can’t even think about 2017 yet”.

So let’s talk about this year.

How is it going for you?
Have you achieved your goals?
Are you on track for budget?
What have you done differently?
What new skills have you achieved?
Would you call it a “successful year”?

Too often we waste time, energy and resources because we don’t set ourselves up for success. It may just be some high level considerations for next year.
Maybe it is defining how you will measure success for the year. It could even be a simple Bucketlist Brainstorm for 2017.

Whatever you do, it is time to start thinking about 2017.

You want to be ready for it.

PS Here is Help to Get Ready
Last year I ran a very successful 2 day retreat to help get ready for this year. I received some excellent feedback about it and wanted to act on that feedback. One of the comments was that it would be more accessible in a one day intensive. Others wanted the event in late December to get their brains started on it over the quiet time.

Here is what I have done. I am now running a one day Success Planning session in late December and another in early February. There are limited to 20 people each and I would love for you to be there. Click this link to discover some of the powerful tools and methods we will be learning about to plan your successful 2017. If you could do me a favour and share it with your friends, that would be awesome too.

Let me know if you have any questions.

October Book Deal

flower-book

This month I was supposed to be exhibiting at the Australian Book Expo. Due to factors beyond their control, it unfortunately had to be cancelled.

So I thought, why not have my own little book expo exhibiting a book of one – Get More Inspiration.

So here it is, only for the month of October get 30% off the retail price of $34.95 and I will pay for delivery.

That’s right, only $25 inc taxes and it gets delivered to your door.

The best thing about this book is that it is specifically designed NOT to be read. It is a “flicker”.

Flick to a page, get a burst of inspiration, take some short actions and then get back to the task at hand. Easy!

Loaded with quirky observations and simple truths, it will have a massive impact on business and on life. It is the resource you will turn to time and again to move you forward when you want and need to.

So take advantage of the October Book Expo Deal and order your copy today.

Small is Big

It’s Upside Down

I’m not sure about you, but we seem to have it backwards sometimes. The BIG things seem to be small and the LITTLE things seem to be big.

I spent the day with my gorgeous wife yesterday visiting family and friends. Just the act of spending time with her means so much to me. I really enjoy her company and the many conversations we have. Some are deep and meaningful and others are ridiculous and nonsensical.

I have some friends that we catch up with every now and again. Nothing spectacular. Just to get together and share what is happening in our lives. How work is, what we are thinking about and what entertainment we may have seen lately.

Don’t get me wrong. It is not that the BIG things don’t count, but the consistent little things truly make my heart sing.

So what little thing will you do today for someone in your life?

No Image Available

img: wikicommons

How was your week? Did you do some amazing things?

I did. I did some cool things with cool people. I went to some amazing places. I even did some simple things as well as some things I didn’t really want to do.

At no stage did I take a photo of any of it.

We seem to have become the more self focussed than ever. It seems that if there is no photo of it, it didn’t happen. But not only a photo of it, but that photo has to be shared on multiple different social media outlets and then we wait and see how many likes we got.

Eleanor Roosevelt famously said, “What other people think of me is none of my business.”

Now more than ever, we seem to give our power to other people and their opinons. We even go looking for their opinions.

It seems that we have discounted quality in favour of quantity. We want many random strangers to give us approval by clicking a button rather than getting personalised feedback from someone who truly counts in our life.

Maybe it is time we put the phone down, enjoyed the moment for what it is and truly enjoy being there, regardless of who knows we are there or not.

Quite simply, for much of what we do, there should be “No Image Available.”

There Has To Be More

Many of us have a job, some of us work for ourselves and others are business caring for others (kids, family and so on).
As some stage, most people have the thought, “There has to be more than this.”

The answer is, of course there is.

The world is full of fun things that you can do just for yourself, just for pleasure, just for the challenge, just for the contribution, just for the feelings you have as you do it.

What is your MORE?

What is the thing that you do just to charge your batteries, the thing that gives you energy?
Long time readers will know that one of my things is to sing with a choir.
This weekend we had our sold out concert. Click here or on the video below to get a sample of the kind of things we sang.

What will you do to meet your need and desire for MORE?

Same, Same but Different

Humans don’t like change. We love our routine and the sense of control that “same” brings.
Many people have challenged me on that statement. Upon further discussion, the person challenging me has “their spot” on the couch, “their side” of the bed and even “their seat” at the dining table.

Yet in a world of constant change, how can we deal with all the change thrust upon us and the changes we need to make?

The answer is Same, Same but Different.

Let me explain

The image above is of Post Modern Jukebox. I was fortunate enough to be taken to see them perform by a good friend.

If you are not familiar with them, they perform modern songs in a 30’s to 50’s kind of style. Click the image and you will see Guns and Roses Sweet Child of Mine in a way you may never have considered. Google will show you a whole lot more.

The familiarity of the song means we are comfortable with it, but the new and interesting arrangement becomes an enjoyable experience within a known framework.

How much change is happening in your life or workplace? If you can make it Same, Same but Different you will find the change easier to embrace and easier to implement. It is simply Evolution rather than Revolution.

Are You Beside Yourself?

This is my gorgeous wife, beside herself during a dusk walk at Cardinia Reservoir.

Yes, it’s a sneaky little trick you can do when shooting in panorama mode.
Yes, it would be good to be able to clone yourself to get more done.
Yes, it’s not like this in real life … or is it?

Long time readers will know that I am a huge fan of systemising your activities.
Let your processes and systems run the business and your people run the systems.

Now, with some of the newer technologies and apps available, not only do the systems run your business, but you can also automate them so that they run by themselves.

Here are some examples:
Accounting packages – Xero, MYOB, QuickBooks, Sassuu and others all now link directly to your bank to download your statements and based on past activity, will partially reconcile these statements saving you a lot of time.
Social media – Hootsuite, Buffer and some social media channels themselves, allow you to post your news across multiple social media streams at once. MeetEdgar will store your social media entries by category and continue to publish them according to the schedule you set, ad infinitum.
Education – Online learning via video, audio and other modalities allows you to present new knowledge at your speed and convenience while the student absorbs it at THEIR speed and convenience (and level or repetitiveness required).
Your relationship – Just so you know, you have to do this yourself. Once you automate or outsource it, you are in big, BIG trouble! I thought it was important to state this!

It is now possible, even preferred, that you be beside yourself and be able to leverage your skills, knowledge and earning capacity.

So how can you be beside yourself today?

PS For those of you who will be in Melbourne on Sunday 18th September, I am beside myself with excitement as the choir I sing in Mood Swing will be performing.
If you love A Cappella music and want a relaxed and family friendly Sunday afternoon of enjoyment, check out the details here. I would love to see you there.

Stop Wasting Money

2016-08-31 flyers

So many businesses are haemorrhaging money and they don’t even know it. One of the key places they waste money is in their advertising.

Each week businesses spend thousands on letterbox drops, local paper advertising, posters and even local sport sponsorship. Each week, these same businesses refuse to track or even service the business that comes in from this advertising. So save yourself the money and stop advertising!

For example, recently we needed some gutter work done on an investment property. Serendipitously we received in the letterbox an A5 sized coloured flyer promoting a local gutter specialist. Let’s just work out the cost of that.

A quick Google shows that 5,000 flyers cost about $500 to distribute and about $500 to design and print. So that’s a $1,000 for the minimum run of 5,000 flyers to print and distribute. To pay for that, the business needs to bring in a new customer and a new job that pays $1,000 in PROFIT not just revenue.

Our gutter specialist not only did a letter box drop, they did an advert in the local paper “Trade” section. But it wasn’t a normal sized advert, theirs was a double advert so it was twice as big as everyone else’s. Now they service multiple areas so it is possible that they have this advert in multiple local papers. Their advertising spend continues to grow.

The reality is a little different. We called and let them know what we wanted. Putting aside the rough and ready way they answered the phone (“Hullo?”), we said we would be on site for the next three days. The guy said that “I will try to get there and if not I will be in touch.”

It has now been three weeks and we are yet to hear from them. (But their advert was in the paper again this week). So not only is it a waste of money, it is really poor customer service.

Stop wasting your money. If you don’t have the systems and processes in place to deal with the new business your advertising is generating, you are doing yourself more harm than good.

Your systems MUST be ready to accept new customers, discover where they are from (so you can track the effectiveness of your marketing) and then be able to service them. With the number of supporting products and services available in the market place today, there is no excuse for poor systems and poor service.

Here is how this experience could have gone.

The number on the advertising could have been for a virtual service. The person answering the phone could have asked for basic job and contact details, how the caller found out about them and then advised that the tradie would be back in touch within 48 hours (unless it was urgent), typically after 4pm when they finished hands on work.

If they tradie called within 24 hours, the customer would feel good simply because they called within 24 and not 48 hours. The tradie could advise that all quotes are done on Fridays and the next available quote slot is this Friday at 2pm (or whenever). They book a quote time and then start the process.

This whole process not only makes it easy for the customer, it also helps set their expectation for the service they will be receiving. Their customer service experience has not been left to chance.

Michael Gerber said, “The systems run the business and the team run the systems.” This is particularly important for solo business operators like tradies and entrepreneurs.

So look at what you are doing. Are you wasting money on advertising because you are not set up to actually take on the new business? Are you annoying people with bad service that you can easily avoid? Put your systems in place and make your success happen.

Whatever you do, stop wasting money!

Check One Two

If you have ever been to a “gig” you will have heard roadies and sound teams up on the microphone, “check one two, check check, one two onnnne two two t t t two”.

Make all the jokes you want about roadies not being able to count above two or some of them struggling to get above one, they actually do this for a reason.

My sound engineer buddy told me that in the phrase “Check one two” you get the main sounds you are tuning your sound system for.

Think about that.

In the “check” you get “ch”, “eh” and “k”.
You get the “w, “u” and “n” in “one” and in “two” you get the hard “t” and the “ooo”.
It also can test across a vocal range and some of the popping you can get on T and P words.

About now you are probably thinking, “who cares, I am not an audio engineer!”

Think about what you do. What do you do to test that everything works as it should? Do you have a standard way to cross check your output for quality?

Many spreadsheets I have worked on over the years have had erroneous formulas in them that I only picked up by doing some simple cross checks of totals. From my auditing days (a long time back) I picked up the 10% sample test. Rigorously testing 10% of my data to be sure it was accurate. Some at the beginning, some at the end, as well as random middle samples.

At the very least a spell check, grammar check and reading important correspondence out aloud helps me test the flow and effectiveness of the piece.

What about you [First Name]? How to you test your work? Even if “Check one two” doesn’t do it, something else will.

PS Click the image above to see a 70 second video from my recent Gala Dinner hosting for Master Plumbers with more on this.

PPS If you want to see a real gig in action, the choir I sing in “Mood Swing”, has a performance in Melbourne on Sun Sept 18. Click here for details and tickets.

Do You Hear The Voice?

Aren’t these lovely horses? Such majestic creatures. Except that last night, I was swearing at them!
It was late at night, I was tired, it was dark, it was raining and five of them got out and I could not get them back in the paddock!!

Truth be told, it was all my fault.

We had a colossal weekend splitting 25 cubic metres of wood (about 15 tonnes) and I was delivering some to the farm. The horse’s owner always leaves the gate open, visits them and then leaves closing the gate behind her.
I thought I’d do the same. I will never do that again!

This voice said, “Shut the gate. It will be better. You don’t know where the horses are and you would hate to have to chase them.”

Did I listen? Nooooooo. I overruled my common sense, sub conscious, gut reaction, guiding thoughts (what ever you may call it) with my wilful self. I was so tired and I knew I couldn’t be trusted but I did it anyway.

(The story has a happy ending. The owner finally checked her phone that was on silent, and after me trying for 90 minutes, within 5 minutes she had the horses all back in the paddock!)

Do you ever ignore that voice? Maybe it’s an email you want to send, a comment you think about saying, a phone call you could have made or some kind of action that the voice is telling you to do or not do and you over rode the voice to your detriment.

The secret is, trust yourself. You really do know what you are doing it’s just that sometimes you have to get out of your own way. Listen to the voice or you may be wasting a lot of time fixing a situation you have caused.

Upgrading Your Problems

It’s fantastic when your problems get upgraded.

We had a large gumtree that had been diagnosed with internal rot. It was in danger of dropping a limb on the house or the house next door.
As you would expect, this was a problem for us.

We asked the lumberjacks (and yes, there were ok) to leave some of the wood for firewood. So now we have a better problem.
We have almost 40 cubic metres of huge sized firewood. Click on the image above to see a short video of the firewood. (It’s worth watching!)

The pieces are too big to lift so we need to get a big truck and a front end loader but that is a better problem than the possibility of a falling limb.

So how are your problems? Can you upgrade them?

UPDATE

So my gorgeous wife and a couple of friends and relatives went crazy on the wood pile and here is the outcome. The tree pieces are now split and stored. There is over 20 cubic metres of firewood (about 12 tonne). Oh, and there are some very sore bodies too as it took a lot of effort. Now for the toasty warm fires!

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2016-08-20 20.20.07

Who’s Your Customer?

It can be confusing in business today to truly understand who your customer is:

Is it the person buying something from you?
Is it the person supplying you something to sell?
Is it the person who services what you are selling?
Is it your team mates who enable you to service your end customer?

In truth, your customer is all of these people but the key customer or the primary customer who you need to look after is the one you earn your money from.

The person who gives you money needs that little bit extra attention because if they are not happy and go elsewhere, all of your other customers suffer.

The agent managing our rental property has had a few issues of late. Their communication has been poor, they have not acted on instructions, their change over of property managers has had a significant impact and their overall service level has been far below what was promised.

When I raised this situation with the property manager and their direct manager, I received excuses, blame, extended descriptions of what had happened but no apology and no sign of what was to happen next to correct the situation.

As you can imagine, I am less than enamoured with this agent and I will most likely take my business elsewhere.

No doubt I have contributed to the mistakes and need to shoulder some of the responsibility. Having said that, it is important to note that while the customer is not always right, they are always your customer and should be treated as such.

So who is your customer and what can you do for them today?

It’s Not About You

I was at a funeral recently and it was sad. It was sad that my friends husband had died and even sadder that the priest shifted the attention off the man who had died and on to himself.

I have seen this happen on several occasions. The host, celebrant or religious leader turns the spotlight on themselves, their message or their beliefs rather than focussing on the needs of the audience.

A good GREAT host knows that it is not about them. It is ALL about the audience. Be it a conference, funeral, some other ceremony or even a simple networking event, how can you make it about the audience or the other person?

How can you shift the focus to be about them and their needs?

Get out of the road and make the event more memorable for others and you will make a bigger name for yourself than you would turning the spotlight on yourself in the first place.

Plain and simple, it’s not about you!

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