Last week I asked a friend of mine about his business. He told me that he’d had a pretty good year so far but felt frustrated. For the third year in a row, he’s falling short of his annual goals but feels complacent since he’s still doing okay financially.  That complacency has led to him making fewer calls, having fewer meetings and doing less business than he’d like.

What’s the biggest killer of business growth? It’s not lack of skills or talent; it’s not a poor business plan or even the economy.

The biggest killer of business growth is COMPLACENCY.

How do you know complacency is killing your business growth?

• You know what to do to grow your business but, for some reason, you’re just not doing it.
• You’ve lost the excitement you used to have for your business
• You seem to constantly hit a plateau in your business but can’t get to that next level of growth
• You set the same goals every month or every year without challenging yourself to get your business to the next level

The antidote for complacency is PASSION. Here are some steps that will help you to get passionate about your business again:

1. Create a 3-year vision for your life in the 6 areas of the life wheel below:

   
   

   

   Don’t get too detailed. Spend about 90 minutes and create a compelling future by writing a paragraph or two for each area.

   
   

2. Rate yourself in each area. Where are you compared to your vision on a scale of 0% to 100%? If you’re at 80% or above in each area, it’s time to create a new, more compelling vision.
3. Define 1-2 goals in each area that would get you closer to your vision. Goals should be SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistically high and Time targeted).
4. Document your emotional “why” for the highest priority 2-3 goals on this list. Your “why” should include how your life will change if you accomplish the goal. What are the rewards of achieving the goal? What are the consequences of not achieving the goal?
5. Create a detailed plan for the top 2-3 goals. This plan should include specific action steps and target dates.
6. Read your 3-year vision daily to keep your excitement about the new, compelling future. Find other ways to keep the vision in front of you.
7. Update this vision annually.
8. Update your goals as needed.

Have you been complacent and found some ways to regain your passion? If so, I’d love to hear how you did it.

Are you complacent now? I’d love to hear how it’s impacting your business and/or what you plan on doing about it.

They say what you don’t know won’t hurt you, but nothing could be further from the truth when you run a small business. If you operate based on “gut instinct,” or you make assumptions on how your business is performing without knowing the facts, you can run into problems quickly. Fortunately, there is a simple solution. By monitoring a few key business metrics, you can quickly gain a handle on your business and start on the path to improving your profitability.

Business Metrics

Business metrics, or measurements of business activity, have long been seen as the exclusive tool of the pure number cruncher, the bookkeeper, and the statistician. That’s no longer the case. In today’s increasingly flooded marketplace, the mantra must be: “You can’t manage it if you can’t measure it.” By defining the metrics that are important to your business and monitoring them closely, you gain three key benefits:

• Focus. Defining the metrics that are most important to your business allows you to tune out everything that isn’t related to those key measurements. As a result, you’ll find that you and your business are much more efficient.

• Better Vision. Companies that monitor metrics can spot threats and opportunities faster than companies that don’t. Your metrics will give you keen insights into what’s happening within the four walls of your business as well as overall trends in your industry.

• Better Decisions. Metrics provide a framework for making business decisions. With the numbers in black and white, you can make well-reasoned decisions on how to proceed. If it improves your key metrics, consider it. If not, move on.

Implementing Metrics

Getting started with metrics is easier than you might think. Many small business owners don’t understand how simple it can be to collect and analyze these important numbers. A simple seven-step process gets you started.

1. Define Your Goals. Make a list of business goals. Goals might include sales objectives, target profit margins, or success at signing up new customers.
2. Define the Metrics. For each business goal on your list, write down a metric that will help you track your progress to success. For example, if your goal is signing up new customers, your metric might involve stating the number of meetings you will have per week with perspective customers.
3. Benchmark Current Status. Now that you established your metrics, you need to measure them. You must determine exactly how your business is doing, even if the truth is hard to swallow. By establishing the current value of each metric, you will be able to track your improvements in the future.
4. Put in Place a System to Monitor and Report Metrics. You may need to add new business processes that will help you calculate and report your metrics. For example, is the number of your customers who view your customer service as being “excellent,” then you may want to survey your customers every month and ask them how you are doing.
5. Communicate Metrics with Employees. Once you’ve defined the key metrics that are important to your business, be sure to let your staff know. Then, everyone can make decisions that help improve the metrics.
6. Review the Metrics and Make Decisions. With your metrics in place, you have greater insight into which strategies work and which don’t. Review the metrics and take steps to improve your results. Promote Successes. When your metrics improve, let your staff know and reward everybody that helped make things better.

Effective use of business metrics can have a profound impact on your business. As you gain a better understanding of your business and move closer to achieving important goals, your day-to-day work will become easier and your staff will be more accountable to the metrics that matter. You’ll make better decisions, based on data, and you will have a powerful new tool for managing your business.

Four Frequent Business Problems Expressed by Many Small Business Owners that Business Coaches Help You Address

As you’re reading through the following problems, think about how help with strategy, tactics, accountability and results could mitigate these problems.

The ‘I Don’t Know What I Don’t Know’ Problem
The ‘I Don’t Know Where to Start’ Problem
The ‘I Can’t Seem To Get Anything Finished’ Problem
The ‘Comfort Zone Upper Limit’ Problem

It doesn’t matter if it appears to be marketing, sales, management, leadership, innovation, or getting your product or service created and into the hands of your clients. It’s basically these 4 problems.

The ‘I Don’t Know What I Don’t Know’ Problem

If you ask better questions, you get better answers. But what if you don’t know the questions to ask? For instance: How can you make emails easier if you don’t know that autoresponders exist? How do you know how you can be part of a more appropriate networking group, if nobody has told you who to ask or even if one exists? How can you create a great proposal template if you haven’t had the benefit of seeing some options in use elsewhere?

If you look at all knowledge as an ever expanding universe, you know about a pinprick of it. You know that you don’t know about a thimbleful. (You know that Chinese exists, even though you don’t know how to speak it.) But that leaves the rest of the universe of knowledge that you don’t know that you don’t know. We need someone outside ourselves to share what they know that we didn’t even know to ask about.

The ‘I Don’t Know Where To Start’ Problem

Sometimes I’ll have a client who says I have to do this and I have to do that and then she adds about a dozen more things, gets totally overwhelmed with the work, the choices, the mounting dollars she imagines it’s all going to cost, and then says ‘I want to escape and do nothing’. She doesn’t know where to start, how to take things in small pieces in sequential order (even though it’s not clearly sequential), put one foot in front of the other until more and more gets done. She doesn’t remember to keep the long term goal out in front of her, remember her purpose and passion and why it’s all worthwhile.

This client needs a coach to ask ‘what is the next step? Let’s just do the next step.’ For instance, get a focus group together and ask questions about your marketing or your service, then write it up in language the prospect uses, then use that wording to write the website, then create a video using the same wording, and then build it into a seminar. Often the chicken and egg syndrome can throw some people for a loop until they just get started. A coach gets the process started and nurtures you along the way.

The ‘I Can’t Seem To Get Anything Finished’ Problem

Accountability is a big word in most people’s vocabulary. We all get distracted. There is so much to pay attention to, emails, customer requests, website updates, banking, deadlines for this and for that. Do you start a project, get distracted by a client emergency and then never get back to it? So something is half done and never really sees the light of day. All the effort you’ve put into it so far is wasted if you never roll it out. How often do you put a lesser priority on strategy, growth and proactive initiatives? That’s what will propel your business forward. If you’re working with a business coach, you’ll be held accountable for what will really get you to the next level.

The Comfort Zone Upper Limit Problem

Why is it that people who win large amounts of money in the lottery blow it all in 3 years or less? Why is it that Donald Trump can go into bankruptcy and then get it all back in just a few years? Why do small business owners hit a ceiling no matter how hard they try to get to the next level? Why do highly paid pro basketball players seem to have everything and then blow it with drugs and crime? We all have comfort zones, levels of success that we’re used to, levels of abundance that we think we deserve before we start feeling guilty or undeserving (and then psychologically self-sabotage). Often these are set in childhood. Sometimes we can handle just so much positivity in our lives and then we start to worry what will go wrong, or start arguing or start blaming? We’ve identified an upper limit (most often unconsciously) above which good thoughts turn to bad thoughts and bad thoughts lead to negative behavior. Sometimes deep inside we don’t feel we deserve too much success because we’re fundamentally flawed, or because we would be disloyal to the less successful people in our lives, or we believe more success would mean a bigger burden, or we can’t outshine a sibling, friend or parent. Whatever the barrier, we set an upper limit. We need someone outside ourselves to understand us, question us and look at us objectively. (Read more about this in ‘The Big Leap’ by Gay Hendricks)

I mentioned Strategy, Tactics, Accountability and Results because these are the pillars of the STAR Burst program that I’m currently rolling out. Now is a good time to start planning for 2011. It’s a good time to get help with the Four Frequent Business Problems. Please look at the program description on the side column to read the stories of people who have achieved great things using me as their business coach. Send me an email for a conversation or give me a call to find out if this is right for you.

I talk with business owners and professional people all the time. I’m a great networker and meet people throughout New York at their offices, at networking events, and at the professional club where I’m a member. I see that people are at certain points in their business or career choices and they fall into one of five categories. These five categories are self selected because of the choices they make everyday. They are also results because we reap what we sow. In many ways these categories reflect the world view of the people that hold them. And our world view reflects how we see ourselves as well as the world outside ourselves. If inner attitude yields behavior that yields results, then results reflects behavior that reflects attitudes. It works both ways. So what are the stages that reflect our self images? Which one do you identify with?

Inspired

The inspired business owner or professional is always thinking: What I did yesterday is yesterday’s news. I can achieve more. I have more potential. I think bigger. I’m capable of more. What do I need to do to get to the next level? Invest in myself. Invest in my people. I believe they have more potential, too. Let’s empower them (and me) to be more creative, more committed, think smarter, get more aligned to important meaningful goals that are inspirational and motivating.

Just like an elite athlete, the inspired person knows that an edge may be all that’s required to excel and realizes if he could think of it by himself, he would have already done it. He wants help from someone else with an objective view and more experience. He wants suggestions from outside his world and his comfort zone. He’s willing to bring in specialists. He realizes the return on investment will be huge because he takes responsibility to be fully engaged. He’s more afraid of the risk of losing growth opportunities because he and his team are not ready, than he is of investment in the coaching/consulting not bringing the expected ROI. He takes proactive responsibility for continuously moving the company or his career forward.

Complacent

The complacent business owner or professional is happy about where his company or career has grown to and is satisfied with staying at that level or with small incremental changes that don’t involve any extra risk or effort. They are in a holding pattern and are satisfied if they are not going backwards. They have achieved a level of comfort and are happy to be stable. Their employees do things the way they’ve always done them and are reasonably happy but not creative. They handle problems as fires with standard types of responses. They have a reasonable margin of success both financially and with their clients as long as nothing changes. As long as the economy is stable, their critical staff  don’t get the itch to move on, no important client wants to take their business elsewhere, no big competitor comes into their market, they’ll be fine. Of course, when something changes (and it will sooner or later), they’ll be up a creek without a paddle. They are aware of coaching/consulting and are sophisticated enough to see how it helps others but they are not motivated because they are happy just the way they are. They are blind to how much risk they face when things change.

Oblivious

The oblivious business owner or professional is not tuned into what is available in terms of how to grow his business or career. He believes he has to do everything himself, the independent pioneer. Conversation about getting help to grow his business falls on deaf ears because it doesn’t register. He doesn’t have any picture of himself where outside help is part of the picture. Career individuals can’t picture themselves getting suggestions on personal branding, becoming a better leader or communicator, or the value of increased self-knowledge.

Both the oblivious business owner and professional are focused on themselves, sometimes running around in circles and complaining about all they have to do and how there’s no time. They just keep on doing what they’re doing without a thought that someone else could help them work smarter, not harder. Their world just includes themselves and their immediate employees, not professionals who could help them get out of the rut. Deep down they don’t feel they deserve to be out of the rut. They’ve been in it so long it’s become comfortable. They talk about growth but have no realistic plans to make it happen because they think so small and are unaware of the power of investing in the owner’s and employees’ growth. Same for the career professional. He doesn’t even consider how his career would be changed by getting outside help. Most business owners and professionals are in this category. They are living in an old world where resources weren’t available.

Stuck

These business owners and career professionals have been going around in circles for years. Every year they say: we’re going to do better, make changes, get to the next level. It doesn’t happen. They are starting to realize that they can’t do it by themselves. They’ve been on a gerbil wheel being very active but not making any progress. They are aware of coaching/consulting, but are still considering because they are scared to spend the money. Money is available but in short supply. It has to be spent well because the return on investment has to be there. They don’t realize that by their very commitment to spend the money, they are taking the first step to becoming fully engaged in change. It’s their skin in the game. They don’t yet get it that the ROI comes ultimately from themselves, from their efforts and commitment to be open to a new way, even though the coach/consultant may be a catalyst. These people stand on a crossroads. They can invest and see great rewards or they can act small and scared and stay stuck. If they invest, they move to the Inspired. If they don’t invest, they become Desperate.

Desperate

The desperate business owner or professional is losing money and is in survival mode. He is thinking only about how to take care of basic needs for his business or job or personal life. It’s hard for him to think beyond the next customer payment, vendor invoice or rent check. This person is not ready for coaching/consulting because he is too worried about present emergencies and cash flow to concentrate on planning changes, investing in coaching/consulting or the big picture. Too many businesses or professionals in transition are at this stage because of the recession. They used to be Stuck, or Oblivious or Complacent, and through inaction became Desperate. It’s a shame they didn’t make a move sooner because now they have many fewer choices.

So how about you? Where do you fit? What risks are you facing based on the category you fit in? If you are reading this article, you are no longer Oblivious. Are the owners of your company Oblivious? Are you working for the right company if you feel your company is Complacent, Oblivious or Desperate? If you work in a Stuck company, are you helping to choose a new way?  If you work in a company led by an Inspired leader, you might belong to a high performance team. Leaders of Inspired companies often win awards and their companies are voted ‘Top place to work in …’.  Stuck companies that choose to move forward instead of staying stuck can become Inspired. Complacent companies can easily become Stuck companies when change happens. Then they face the same crossroad, to become Inspired or Desperate.

As a coach/consultant I work with small business owners and professionals who are either Inspired or Stuck. Those are the ones that see the value in the work I do. The results are truly amazing. If that’s where you are, let’s talk. Please contact me for a complimentary strategy session.

Please leave a comment on your view of the five categories of business owners and professionals.

Here we are at the beginning of August in the home stretch of 2010. I’m sure you started out the year with some goals. Are you on track to achieve them? Perhaps you’re more than 7/12’s of the way to your goals. If so, congratulations. Maybe you’ve surpassed your goals. You’re having a great year.

But what if you’re not on track? What are you going to do about it? Now is a good time to stop, reevaluate and do something different. We create our futures. If we sit back and let circumstances have their way, then we are really saying we are victims of the world around us and not co-creators of the world with control and influence. You can turn around the rest of 2010 so the last 5 months is better than the first 7 months. Here’s how. Give yourself a couple of hours. Get out your computer or paper and pen and get to work.

1. Take the bull by the horns and commit to it. Don’t just say ‘I’ll try’. Actually say ‘I will’. This is a mindset game. When you commit to it, you will. Ask yourself, ‘if not now, when?’ Next year, the year after? Why not now? Why would you want to tread water for another year? It’s amazing how things start to happen when you demonstrate your commitment by taking action.
2. Decide what goal you will achieve by 12/31/2010. Is it a revenue or profitability goal? A number of new clients? A specific task? A statement to the marketplace like a book? Is it the same goal(s) that you had for the first 7 months? Maybe the goal isn’t working and you need a new goal.
3. List all the rewards you would obtain if you were to achieve your selected goal. Yes, you’ll have more income, for instance. But what will that additional income mean to you? What will you do with it? What will it mean to others like your family? Maybe it’s not income, maybe its recognition or health or love. Drill down. Keep asking yourself, ‘and so?’ until you’ve gotten to the point that it really motivates you. Make yourself see the rewards as so powerful that you’d be stupid not to go for it. If it’s not that important, maybe you need to change the goal or change the business. How can you be committed to achieving a goal with all your heart, mind and strength if you don’t want it badly enough?
4. List all the consequences that would happen if you don’t achieve the goal. What are the bad things that would happen if you fail? What will happen to your family? Keep asking ‘and so?’ until you have motivated yourself to realize the ‘do or die’ importance of achieving this goal. Most people are more moved to avoid pain rather than to realize rewards.
5. Start journaling. Write an extensive story about yourself and your business next January. Envision the details of what a day in your life will be like. How will ordinary things happen after this goal is achieved? Write pages and pages of who said what when, how things in your environment looked, smelled, sounded like, felt when you touched them. Put it in the terms of your five senses so it’s real to your brain.  Describe how you feel when business flows, when there’s plenty of clients and cash. Or whatever the rewards are that you detailed in #3 above. If you write these things down, whether or not they actually come true, you are setting up a comfort zone in your neo-cortex, an expectation that this is normal. Before you can move there, you have to feel you belong there and deserve to be there and it’s easy for you to function there. The more you write, the more you’re convincing your brain that this is normal and comfortable. Imagine all kinds of scenarios of success. Aim higher but not unrealistically high. Of course, that depends on how big your comfort zone is already. I can’t stress enough how important a step this is. And you might catch yourself letting bits of your expanded detailed vision slip into your conversations with peers, or family members or employees. This is the best sign that you’re accepting, feeling comfortable at a new level, internalizing the inevitability of success. It truly is a mind game. Don’t let your journaling end. Keep adding to it and expanding your comfort zone. It will be amazing after a year to go back and see that you’ve accomplished the very things you led yourself to expect.
6. After you’ve given yourself at least five pages of visioning, then it’s time to start brainstorming. How are you going to get that goal done and move into that level of success? Think of as many solutions as possible, silly methods, outlandish methods, far fetched methods, concrete methods, ways that require resources that you don’t see yourself having. This gets your mind thinking creatively and sets the bar higher for a set of solutions created from a new mindset. Write down at least 20 different ways to accomplish that goal, the sillier the better.
7. Take a break from brainstorming to analyze your obstacles. Come up with 4-10 obstacles that you perceive get in you and your business’s way of achieving your goal. If it was easy, you would have accomplished it already, so take a minute to list and describe the relevant obstacles. Make sure you include your own limited thinking and blind spots.
8. Go back to brainstorming. But now make your brainstorming focused on each obstacle. Let yourself get super creative. Not everything has to be practical. Thinking silly stuff can lead to other things which might be very doable, but never dawned on you before. Get some other people involved in doing this brainstorming. You egg each other on to be more and more creative and focused. You bring different skills and awareness of various solutions.
9. Now look over all the written brainstorming ideas you came up with. Hopefully there’s 40-100 there. Choose the ones that will be the best to implement. Create an action plan to get each step done along a time line with individual people taking responsibility for each step. Then hold your employees or yourself accountable. It will be easy to slip backwards into old habits. That’s why you need to continually reread your extensive list of rewards and consequences. That’s why you’ll need to constantly add to the fabulous future you envision and describe in your journal.

If you and others in your company really engage in this process, you can lead yourself and your business out of the mediocre and into expanded capability and success. If you start now, the last 5 months of 2010 can have real possibilities of turning around and exceeding your goals. If you wait too long, you’ll have less and less chance to make 2010 the year that you want it to be. Your choice, do the 9 steps above or tread water.

Will you give it a try?

Share your story of a mindset expanding experience that’s been helpful to you.

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Have you ever watch somebody dancing on the stage or on TV? If it’s done well, the movements flow easily into each other. Each movement is performed with maximum energy, maximum stretch, maximum power, maximum concentration. Each segment leads to another which builds on the one before. There’s economy of movement meaning that there are no stray movements that distract or waste energy or don’t contribute to the value presented to the viewer.  There’s a planned use of all the space on the stage or within the viewing angle of the camera. If there are multiple dancers, they don’t run into each other or trip over each other. They sometimes move as a unit, and when they don’t, they complement each other. The purpose of the dance is to present a theme, picture or story, to communicate to the audience an experience portrayed through dance. Often the movements are done in conjunction with music.

Is all this random? Hardly.

Behind all this movement is a choreographer who has created a concept, orchestrated the players, selected the music, laid out each performer’s path through the space, coordinated their efforts, demonstrated the power and intensity and shape of each of the movements to convey the theme, determined the rhythm and timing to maximize the audience’s perception and enjoyment, selected the right performers for the right roles, determined the deadlines so that the performance would be ready for opening night.

Here are 10 business planning parallels between the world of dance and the world of business?

1. A business without a plan is like a dance without a choreographer. Movements are haphazard. The purpose is fuzzy. It’s a mish mash of what everybody (every body) thinks might work, but it most likely doesn’t work together.

2. Employees like dancers create more value (a better dance) when they work together toward a common purpose or theme.

3. When everybody knows the path (direction) and what they are supposed to do, they can dance (execute company goals) more freely with greater concentration, conviction, energy, strength and stretch (of their comfort zones). It’s very freeing to have indecision removed and know precisely what will lead us to complete our purpose.

4. Better use of resources and less waste. When the choreographer (like the business leader) determines a progression toward a destination, resources such as space on a stage or dollars in a budget can be better leveraged for highest and best use.

5. When a dance is well choreographed, or a business is well planned, it is highly sustainable. Just like legendary ballets such as ‘Swan Lake’, well planned businesses such as Southwest Airlines have long standing reputations and legacies for their ability to delight the audience.

6. The performers often help the choreographer plan the dance. The choreographer has an idea (sometimes the performers, also) and she tries it out with the dancers. The performers help her to know if it works, if it fits, if what’s in her mind plays out well in reality. Isn’t this true in your organization? If an idea really doesn’t work, there is push back and the plan is modified or better communicated. The performers (employees) create reality checks for the business owner (choreographer).

7. When the performers (employees) buy into the choreography (business plan) because they perceive it works, and when it furthers their own personal and professional goals, they will support it and execute it with engagement and commitment. They will become better dancers and better employees because they want to, not because you want them to.

8. Great choreographers (and great business leaders) attract great dancers (and great employees.) Everyone wants to work for the best because they want to maximize their potential and be part of something wonderful and significant. Well planned businesses don’t have trouble recruiting or retaining top talent.

9. Choreographers know the talent they need for each role and select dancers for their strengths. Business leaders do the same.

10, Great leaders (and choreographers) mobilize and motivate, set deadlines, handle obstacles and help the employees (performers) accomplish the strategic business plan (dance performance).

Whether on the dance stage or the theater of business, a famous line from Yogi Bera puts it into perspective, “If you don’t know where you are going, you will probably end up somewhere else.”

Are you waiting for a stimulus package that will really have an effect on your small business? Maybe it will come and maybe it will touch you. Maybe you’ll be out of business by then. You can’t control a lot of what happens in the macro-economic world, but you can control what happens in your own environment. You can stimulate your own economy. You are the master of your own future. What you believe to be true, you will make happen by what you do and don’t do. Here are two ways to make money in this economy:

Capitalizing on new opportunities.
Being so positive that you attract what you need.

Capitalizing On New Opportunities

In this economy, what do businesses want more than anything else, need more now than this time last year when things were better? More sales, more cash, right? So how can you be a player in getting them what they want while you take a small piece of every transaction? Find businesses with extra inventory, extra staff capacity, extra space, extra trucking capacity, a mailing list, or any under utilized asset; then match each of them up with another business that needs those exact things. Both benefit and you take a piece of the new sales or savings that result.

Put yourself in the middle of a profit making/saving exchange. What is your area of expertise? Do you know the players in your field, the vendors, the trade association, the customers? What can you do to get the players together that benefits them all? A bigger joint buying contract from a supplier who is happy to have the business and offer the discount? A hurting advertising media source who appreciates that you’re negotiated a buying contract with several advertisers all at once, when he wasn’t sure he’d be getting any? A reciprocal endorsement campaign that wouldn’t have happened without your engineering it? Businesses that have complementary but different products who can market together to the same audience?

People are still buying, they’re just buying more carefully. Do a good match that provides benefits to both parties and creates value for the buyer and you’ve got a winner.

If you know of businesses with extra capacity, space, staff time, client lists please email me. I’ll match them up to businesses with whom they can make a deal and both generate more cash flow.

Being So Positive That You Attract What You Need

I was at a meeting today where the fill-in facilitator was describing the regular facilitator. “She is just so warm and welcoming that she seems to have an aura. You can’t help but want to be around her.” Has anybody ever described you that way? If you were that positive and magnetic, wouldn’t more people be attracted to doing business with you? Watch this video about ‘Validation’. It’s fun and also has a message. By validating others, people want to be around you. How can you build your positive attitude?

I recently went to hear Dr. Barbara Frederickson be interviewed about her research and new book called Positivity. She found that a 3 to 1 ratio of positive to negative feelings each day creates a flourishing life. When people are positive, they are open and they gather and attract more resources. Therefore, they are presented with more opportunities for growth and success. You can go to her website each day and take an emotional assessment that will calculate and track your positivity ratio so you can grow it over time.

Appreciative inquiry is a solution creation strategy used often in organizations to ask the right questions that will help grow appreciation of the individuals as well as glass-half-full thinking. Because it helps participants focus on and discuss times of appreciation, it heals wounds, builds consensus and gets buy-in for win-win solutions. Imagine this in contrast: Studying and analyzing poor morale in order to ‘fix’ it. The more we focus on it and get mired in it, the less likely we are to grow positive morale. We’ll get further by just focusing on the image we’re trying to bring into being. Learn more here.

In the ’70′s I was using the creative force of dance/movement therapy to build positive parts of the personality to replace negative parts. Now combined with my business experience, I’m developing the “Dance of Business” concepts. I will be getting a group together shortly to try out some of my experiential exercises. Please respond to this newsletter if you’d like to be included.

You’ve received some tools to create your own stimulus package. Take back your power and control your own destiny. Be creative and take advantage of the economic situation to help people who need help. Keep yourself positive and validate others with plenty of appreciation.

I’m looking forward to achieving new goals with fresh energy. This is a time for new beginnings and creative thinking.

When the winds of change blow, some people build walls and others build windmills. –Chinese proverb.

The picture above is an acroyoga (acrobatics and yoga) pose and was taken by Tyler Blank, a good friend of my daughter’s.  How appropriate for this year’s business environment. Have you turned yourself and your business into a ‘wall’ or a ‘windmill?’ Are you fighting the ‘wind’ or harnessing it and turning it into your own advantage? (Keep reading to learn about the Magnified Marketing program that can help you harness the ‘winds of change’ and two success stories of people who’ve used it. Also, a free teleconference on January 8th to learn more. Register here)

After all, you have a choice.
You are creating your destiny by the choices you make now. If you build a ‘wall’ (scale back, layoffs, reduced marketing, no innovation), then you’re giving in to your fear of uncertainty. If you’re building a ‘windmill’, you’re:
-thinking creatively and strategically about how to make lemonade from any lemons in your path, -using your time to become better at what you do and develop yourself and your staff,
-going after new markets,
-developing new products,
-taking advantage of the opportunities opened up by the ‘wall builders,
-marketing to grab as much market share as possible,
-hiring the best in the industry that the ‘wall builders’ have laid off (after they’ve trained them for you)

Do you know what this symbol is?

This is the Chinese symbol for crisis.
The character on the left means danger. The character on the right means opportunity.

Let’s take some lessons from the Great Depression of the 1930′s. At that time Lawrence Gelb wrangled a free write up on the Chicago American, which sold out his first batch of product. Then he wrangled credit from a bottle manufacturer. Gave credit to wholesalers so they could put product in beauty stores on credit… Sold the resulting company, Clairol (ever heard of them?) for $22.5 million in 1959. That’s over $100 million in today’s dollars.

Chock Full ‘O Nuts founder sold candy on street corner, switched to coffee when a nearby drug store complained, and grew to become major coffee brand.

Good Humor was founded as an attempt to expand ice cream sales by delivering the product to neighborhoods. In the Great Depression, most people fell behind, but others prospered enormously. It always works that way, you know. Vast fields of opportunity lie before you, and some people do take advantage.

It would be a shame to inspire you without giving you tools to actually accomplish becoming a ‘windmill’ to harness the ‘winds of change.’

We offer various group and individual coaching packages, all to help you build your own windmills. Give us a call.

People have been saying this for a couple of months and I was at a business holiday party this week where this was the theme. Some people say it’s silly, but is it really? So what does it actually mean?

Sure we recognize that The National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) has confirmed that the nation has been in a recession since December 2007.

But here’s the heart of the message.

I Refuse to Let Fear and the Macro-Economy Control My Destiny.

The weakened economy, poor consumer confidence, the uncertainty of the stock market and the lack of available financing will not affect my ability or desire to provide a tremendous value to my clients. It will not influence my Vision or diminish the vital role I play in the businesses and lives of my clients.

The reasons I refuse to participate in the recession are simple: First, I choose to take immediate and consistent action steps that are aligned with my goals and my Vision! The recession has no power over any of these things. Second, I provide an important service that meets a basic need of mankind – guidance and coaching services that help people and organizations create hope, change direction, and prosper when times are good as well as when times are tough.  (I am happy to provide you the names of numerous clients who are stronger and more successful now than ever before!)

So let me ask you two questions:

1) “Are you ready for a new direction and/or improved results?”

2) “Do you also provide a valuable service or product that helps others in the community or around the world?”

If you answered “yes” to both of these questions, then we share a common bond and I am eager to give you these timely instructions:

- Now is the time to plan for 2009 and the future

- Now is the time for creative and inspirational thinking

- Now is the time to expand and find new opportunities

- Now is the time for renewed hope in yourself and your family, community and country

- Now is the time to focus (on your success)

- Now is the time to increase knowledge and skills

- Now is the time to be responsible for your actions

- Now is the time to market and advertise

- Now is the time to give to others

- Now is the time to have fun (and smile more)

- Now is the time to invest in yourself and in your business (or non-profit)

- Now is the time to put fear behind you

- Now is the time for Positive Attitude and Purposeful Action!

You cannot simply wait for answers to come – or for a bailout to rescue you (especially if you’re not a car manufacturer or a bank). If you want results tomorrow and in 2009, you need to follow these instructions and act now!  The first step is always the hardest because it requires a humble gesture of faith. It requires that you pick up your phone and call (or send an email to) a mentor or advisor or a coach – and ask for help and guidance.

I guarantee you that there is no better time to act and start an incredible process of abundance, redemption and renewed hope with Driving IR. Only through hope, can we believe; and only through belief, can we take enthused action!  Truly inspired planning and action inevitably and ultimately always leads to confidence and improved results.

If you now refuse to participate in fear (the recession), and instead choose to follow a path of progression, then you need to take some immediate action and call us right away! Here are two things you can do with us to shape your own destiny, Strategic Business Planning and Magnified Marketing. As always we can provide custom solutions as well.

Business Planning Is Strategic and Proactive

If you’re not doing it, you’re falling prey to the whims of your customers, your vendors and the economy. There are plenty of people and businesses doing well because they’ve taken their futures into their own hands and are steering their own courses through turbulent times being nimble to adjust as obstacles appear. If you’re not, you’re shooting yourself in the foot.

Having clearly defined vision, values, mission, goals and action steps is important. What’s your path and your end game? What will you accomplish this year? Create a new product or service? Do more internet marketing? Target a new niche? Open a new branch? Get x number of new clients? Cut your overhead costs by y%? A lot of thought goes into a good business plan. This yields several goals that are to be accomplished each month of the year in order to achieve your overall desired results. The goals are consistent with a “necessary and sufficient’ filter. They must be ‘necessary’ because you don’t need distractions wasting your resources (time and money). They must be ‘sufficient’ to do the job. Make sure you have goals in all the critical goal categories. Most businesses will need to focus on 1) Marketing, 2) Sales, 3) Product or service fulfillment, 4) Training and development, 5) Business administration. You may have additional goal categories depending on your industry or market.

Do you have a well thought out plan to accomplish what you want? No excuses. Don’t blame anybody but yourself if the company you’re leading isn’t getting ahead. You’ve got to adjust with the times, roll with the punches and dance with your challenges. Where are the new opportunities? Who is buying? Adjust and modify yourself, your target, how you perform your service or fulfill your product, get leaner. Even if you have a plan, has someone else looked at it? I’m facilitating more business plans this year than in prior years  because really progressive people realize it’s the way to leapfrog forward and eat everyone else’s lunch. I offer two different ways to help owners with business plans and it doesn’t have to be expensive. Call me if you want to be an eater and not be the lunch.

On May 20 I had the extreme pleasure of having lunch with Michael Gerber. I also attended his evening presentation and a pre-event phone conference call. He said many things and here is a summary for those of you who missed him. Much of what he spoke about is covered in his new book. Enjoy and learn. It could make a big difference in your business and, therefore, your life.

Michael is a legend in the world of small business. He’s written 7 books in the last 30 years about small businesses, why 80% of them fail within 5 years, and how they can succeed. His thoughts center on the ‘E-Myth’, that an entrepreneur who has a particular skill is ill equipped to start his/her own business with just that skill. He coined the phrase, ‘work on your business rather than in your business.”

Michael’s current focus is on entrepreneurial dreaming. His new book, Awakening the Entrepreneur Within, is all about how ordinary people can create extraordinary companies, how to dream big and use different roles or people to design a business from that dream. He speaks with passion. He understands the entrepreneurial creative spirit and considers it a tragedy when he sees a creative business inventor trapped inside his own struggling business.

Sitting around the lunch table with Michael and several others I talked to people who had attended Michael’s 2.5 day seminar called “In the Dreaming Room”. At least one had attended several times. He said that when he attended and had his business and dream discussed, challenged, pulled apart and put back together by Michael, his business doubled. The second time he went his business doubled again. And now he’s not tied to working his business all the time. He’s free to start a new business. This gentleman described the ‘hot seat’ experience at the seminar, “certainly the most life and business transforming experience you may ever have.” There are also POV seats which stands for ‘Pumpkin on Vine’. As an observer you get to be present and take in the genius of what occurs in the Hot Seat to help you go through your process on your own. There will be two NY seminars led by Michael this summer. July 9 – 11 and July 25 – 27.

You can learn more and register here.

He promises to:
-Show you how to turn your single biggest problem into your single biggest opportunity.
-Completely transform the way you think about problem solving – so you stop doing it altogether.
-Demonstrate the true genius of entrepreneurial dreaming and how you can use it, too.
-Reveal the 5 essential truths of entrepreneurship. (Prepare to have some myths broken!) 
-Prove that you are your single biggest barrier to growth, and what to do about it.
-Demonstrate the extreme dreaming® technique used by the most successful entrepreneurs in the world.
-Share the 4 dimensions of entrepreneurial personalities and how you can use them to invent a stunningly unique business. As a business coach working with my clients’ paradigm shifts, I can’t recommend highly enough this process that forces you to dream bigger and evaluate everything.

Benjamin Franklin says if you do the same things over and over again and expect different results, that’s the definition of insanity. If you work too hard, don’t have enough time with your family, if you’re not enjoying what you do every day, if you don’t look forward to getting out of bed in the morning to get started on what you love doing, then you need a paradigm shift, not a small incremental improvement. Participate in the ‘Dreaming Room’, and give yourself that paradigm shift.

If you click here, you’ll be able to read what other participants have to say and hear Michael in his own words explain what the Dreaming Room can accomplish for you.

One of my clients has built a dashboard that measures the important indicators in his business and will help him manage growth and cash flow, his pipeline, lead sources, accounts receivable and work in progress.

One has mastered the goal achieving process so well in his business that he has transferred it to his personal life as well and he’s now much more physically fit.

One has come to understand the full importance of creating a company culture of accountability, vision, values and customer loyalty.

Another is now enjoying a great deal of success because they are targeting a specific narrow market instead of trying to be all things to all people.

One has accomplished a huge manual, had it published and is now selling it on-line because she dealt with her own issues about time management and followed her plan.

Another has landed the sales job she wanted because she upped her sales skills, prepared her sales presentation and sold herself.

Another has arrived at a new level of clarity about the way he wants to grow his business and now has two sources of new work.

Another young woman has evolved from being an entrepreneur with a fun hobby to a serious CEO with a well developed business plan.

Another has developed a plan to turn a local business into a national business and now has a detailed business plan in hand while shopping for a venture capitalist.

We’re getting to the time of the year when businesses are starting to think about their business plans and budgets for next year. It’s a good time to establish the difference between ‘strategy’ and ‘next year’s budget’. Strategic thinking is all about how to change your business to take advantage of changes in the marketplace or to lead change. For instance, a business owner might spot an area where competitors are weak, a new market that needs a new product/service that’s close to something s/he’s already offering, or an imminent change in the industry. Another concept is ‘value denial.’ This is where there’s demand for a product/service but no one is offering a solution. In UCLA Professor Dick Rumelt’s interview with The McKinsey Quarterly, he says, “Value denials are simply products or services that are not offered but that readily could be, and for which clients would clearly pay.” He gives the example of “an airline ticket that guarantees your luggage won’t be lost.  Not for sale.  But some people would clearly pay for it.” Here’s another, “In the music industry, a clear value denial was the inability to buy the two or three good tracks on a 15-track CD.  iTunes squared that circle.” Can you expand your strategic thinking by brainstorming some value denials that your business could take advantage of? Brainstorm with your customers. They’ll let you know what they want that you could arrange to offer.

So your company is doing OK (or maybe not so OK). But you’d really like it to take off.You have your eye set on 500% growth in the next year or two, maybe a little more, maybe a little less. That’s an aggressive goal but highly doable if you really want it. You have to be committed, be committed to the process and be committed to change. You will have to invest time and money, but the most difficult part will be taking you out of your comfort zone.

So what’s the methodology? There are four parts,
1)sales development, 2)customer loyalty development, 3) strategic business planning and 4)executive coaching.

1) Sales development. Certainly sales is the way to acquire new customers. Are your sales people effective? Do they bring in revenue and new accounts? Are their goals aligned with the company’s plan? Please don’t confuse sales training with sales development. Training is to pick up some skills which may or may not be used effectively or remembered. Development is to gain dedication, learn what motivates, be fully in the process, in addition to the skills.

2) Customer Loyalty Development. What good is all that sales effort if your customers only buy from you once? That’s money thrown away if your whole organization isn’t focused on delighting your customers and making personal connections with them. Gallup research shows that’s what it takes to get people to buy from you and refer you to others for a lifetime: personal emotional connections. This has a huge impact in reducing your sales and marketing costs.

3) Strategic Business Planning. Weaving customer loyalty throughout the organization, managing growth so you don’t grow erratically or grow yourself out of business, planning your cash flow requirements, supporting your sales team with effective marketing, taking advantage of industry developments, fine tuning your product or service, developing your organization’s competitive advantage are all necessary parts of the planning and strategic process.

4) Executive Coaching. The organization can not grow any larger than the vision, expertise and management capability of the CEO/President/Owner. So it pays to realize if you want to grow a organization, you have to first grow the leader of the organization. That’s sometimes the hardest part, getting the leader to challenge his/her own assumptions, develop an empowering management style, and get out of the way.

1. Determine Your Goals – are you there to find prospects (how many, be specific), partners, centers of influence, resources or suppliers, check out the organization, etc.

2. Network for Life – everyone you meet now has the potential to be a great contact in your next career and for others in your growing sphere of influence.

3. Quality not quantity – It’s better to spend time with one valuable contact than collect a dozen business cards of people who will never remember you.

4. Partner up with others to create networking events where you and your contacts can meet your partner and his/her contacts.

5. Be Strategic – Only go to events where your target market will likely show up. Find out who is attending and check them out before going. Then zero in on your targets at the event.

6. Create a brief one sentence framing statement that you can say when people ask what you do. Make it all about results they get from using your product or service. Phrase it so they need to ask, “How do you do that?”

7. Follow up, follow up, follow up.

8. Be unique! How can you be different from all the others they met or already know? Make your framing statement unique, the stories you tell, the things you send, what you wear, how you introduce yourself, your follow-up,.

9. Be a host, not a guest. Greet people, introduce them to others, You make two friends that way.

10. Connect new contacts to other people in your sphere of influence. Ask ‘Who is good referral for you?” Ask “Would you like to meet xx?” It’s all about giving. What goes around, comes around.

Last week we started understanding concepts from Jim Collins’ book Good to Great. After analyzing companies that had met his criteria for explosive and sustained growth, he discovered that each had what he calls “Level 5 Executives”. While levels 1-4 include competent people, Level 5 Executives distinguish themselves by a “paradoxical mix of personal humility and professional will.” They are “fanatically driven to produce sustained results”. They make hard decisions and do whatever it takes to make the company great. They are not ambitious for themselves. He believes that many people have the potential to develop into Level 5 Executives. Level 5 leaders got started on the quest for turning a good company into a great company by bringing on the right people first before developing a vision and strategic plans. They got the best people in the right positions (eliminating people who were not appropriate) and then worked on vision and strategy.

The Hedgehog Concept’ comes from Jim Collins’ book Good to Great. After analyzing companies that had met his criteria for explosive and sustained growth, he discovered that they had achieved an understanding of their sweet spot of impenetrable strength and great success (like a hedgehog). You can find this for your business also. It is where these three components intersect.

• what you are passionate about,
• what you can be best in the world at,
• what drives your economic engine.

It may take a while to refine your concepts, understand your strengths and analyze the market to find this spot. But when you do, it will lead to breakthroughs and sustained success.

Action Step for This Week

Ask yourself these questions to find your hedgehog:

1. What are you deeply passionate about? What do you love? What motivates you? What do you love the process of doing in your business so much that you look forward to getting up every morning?
2. What can you be the best in the world at (or your corner of the world)? What do you have a natural talent for? Where are you strong? How can you tweak your company’s purpose to make it unique, simple, understandable and the best?

What drives your economic engine? What can you make money at by focusing on? What indicator or denominator will you use to measure your success that will, when multiplied, drive your success?

Ask yourself these questions to find your hedgehog:

1. What are you deeply passionate about? What do you love? What motivates you? What do you love the process of doing in your business so much that you look forward to getting up every morning?
2. What can you be the best in the world at (or your corner of the world)? What do you have a natural talent for? Where are you strong? How can you tweak your company’s purpose to make it unique, simple, understandable and the best?

What drives your economic engine? What can you make money at by focusing on? What indicator or denominator will you use to measure your success that will, when multiplied, drive your success?

Last week I gave reasons why written goals are so much more effective than no goals or unwritten goals. This week I’d like to introduce you to ‘WHY SMART” goals. Apply these parameters to your goals and you’ll be much more likely to achieve them..

W – write your goals

H – harmonious with your overall plan

Y – yours and yours alone

S – specific so you can achieve them

M – measurable so you know when they’ve been achieved

A – attainable, realistic coming from your starting point

R – realistically high, let’s make it a stretch or what’s the point

T – target dated and time trackable

If you’d like a sure fire way to gain victory over the goal achievement process, give me a call. I’ll help you lay out a format to accomplish one of your goals at no charge.