Get your fingers out

 of other people’s pies!

You may be the boss. But don’t stick your nose into the creative process that’s being strategized or implemented by the writer(s) and/or designer(s) YOU hire. When you’re paying an individual or team to create your branding message, advertising, packaging, promotion, public relations, website, or Internet marketing: Back Off The Process!

If you’ve done your job up front by hiring top talent to begin with, leave it be. You risk losing personal respect, leadership control (including the ability to motivate), sales, and even market and industry stature by interfering in his, her, or their work in progress.

I’m NOT suggesting you don’t VERY carefully explain the perspective and posture you want to see be used in representing your business at the very beginning of the creative process. You need also to insist on a “How Goes It?” review / inventory / status or progress report half-way through the creative process.

And you positively must review every word and every graphic treatment BEFORE it’s released or launched or distributed, and offer an honest critique … which, btw, is usually better accomplished with questions than with judgement statements.

It’s your company and YOU are ultimately responsible for every verbal and every visual message conveyed. [And ad agencies and marketing groups — even in-house — love to walk the thin line of public acceptability and appropriateness; it wins them awards!]

But just because you think you’re a “creative whiz” and know how to write a nice email or drum up some sizzling topic for your kid’s science fair entry, or can draw cute pictures that always amuse people, do NOT think that you can match those you’ve entrusted to do the job!

If you were that talented at design or writing, you’d be a designer or writer. It’s just another way of expressing the old management theorem: Stick To Your Knitting! Creative people are not likely to be able to match your entrepreneurial drive and management / organizational and financial know-how. Tech people are, incidentally, the least creative.

Get the best people you can find to do the job, give them your input, take their pulse at the fifty-yard line, double-check their final product, but let them do the job.

I have seen countless great marketing, sales, and advertising campaigns be ruthlessly and unwittingly aborted by well-intentioned top management who haven’t a clue about how to connect their messages to their target markets.

No time to do all that creative process management stuff? Lacking the sensitivity to deal with the writers and designers? Not sure how to best direct or coach them? Call me. If I can’t do it for you, in a consulting role, I’ll find someone who can. [302.933.0116]

# # #               

Leaders who fail to sell

fail as leaders.   

     No, not everyone is out there selling, every minute of every day … just those who are leaders!

     Leaders of the world, and of every nation, region, state, county, city, town, neighborhood, household, and business, department, institution, team, crew, organization, task force, office, store, studio, construction site, laboratory, factory floor, and professional practice are the ones who are out there selling with every waking breath. 

     Well, now, that certainly includes most everyone, doesn’t it? Not really, there are armies of followers (in the military and in Twitter, to name just two), and there are hermits. Okay, that’s being evasive for the sake of prompting a smile. Truth is we are ALL leaders of SOMEthing. It it’s not a rock group, classroom project, family, or community group, it’s SOMEthing. What are you a leader of? What do others think you’re a leader of?

     Most of us mix it up: leaders of some things, followers of others. The point is that whenever we are actively leading ANYthing, we are selling. And whenever we are NOT actively leading something, we are — at the least — a hair trigger away from selling, and will pounce into a sales mode at the mere mention of anything that even suggests the focus, issues, or activities of the thing(s) we lead, stand for, and believe in. 

     So, now that that’s all cleared up, let’s examine the flipside:

     Short of threats to perpetrate physical harm, how can anyone expect others to “buy into” ideas, directions, and recommendations that the leader has not enthusiastically endorsed and demonstrated value for? If we as followers see no benefits to the leader’s plans, do we suffer through the process or seek new horizons? Does it depend on circumstances?

     Without getting into all the side issues of parental control, HOW do we choose to provide inadequate leadership and expect others to follow? (Remember that selling is helping others solve problems, and it is 80% listening!)

     Unlike the tokenism we see in politics, truly effective salesmanship ushers in substance. It does that by proving performance, by instilling trust through demonstration, and by acting from a posture of authenticity.

     You are most certainly a leader of something, perhaps many things, and your effectiveness can only be measured in terms of results. Results only happen when others are motivated to prompt or get them.

     Others are only motivated when you have been effective in selling them the benefits they will realize by their efforts. And this applies to volunteer and charitable organizations as well as entrepreneurial ventures, “Mom and Pop” bricks and mortar stores,  virtual online enterprises, and global corporate entities.

     It applies to households, classrooms, scouting groups, and sports teams. Notre Dame University’s most famous football coach, Knute Rockne, was a worldclass professional salesman.

How and what are YOU selling? The answer defines your leadership skills.

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You’re going to work for a

living SOME where, right?

Recommended: Print & pass to a business hopeful attending or considering college

     So you’ve earned a PhD, an MBA, LLB, MD, MS, MA, and all kinds of bachelor and associate degrees. You are Mr. or Mrs. (maybe “Dr.” ?) Joe (Josephine?) College, in the flesh. And the academic credentials got you a decent job. Now what? Do you seriously believe your 4.0 grade average means you’ve got what it takes to thrive … even survive?

     After your punishing (and expensive!) labs, coursework, exams, thesis papers and consulting with so-called “Academic Advisors,” if you have learned anything less than HOW to put ALL of the following to work, you’re in big-time trouble, and college put you there.

     Can you honestly say you have learned how to practice (and hopefully excel at) ALL of these attributes?:

• Making Decisions
• Managing Stress
• Managing Time
• Managing Customers
• Communicating Clearly
• Being a Leader
• SELLING
• Delegating
• Innovating
• Being a Team Player
• Listening and Giving Feedback
• Organizing
• Empathizing
• Respecting Others
• Being Genuine, Honest and Transparent
• Valuing Experience
• Accepting Criticism
• Setting and Pursuing Goals
• Being Accountable and Cultivating Trust
• Avoiding Political and Psychological “Games”

     Give or take perhaps a couple of the above items, these are the attributes that add up to being effective in business or professional practice (ANY business or professional practice) and without which, your road to success will be a long one indeed, especially if you aspire to a forward-moving or productive management position.

     Good leaders do all of these things well. So do good salespeople. All good leaders are also, not incidentally, good salespeople [SEE TOMORROW’S POST ON THIS SUBJECT!]  

     What’s sad about all this is that institutions of higher learning (other than a very small handful that do in fact address a number of these subjects as part of academic platforms on, for example, nursing and entrepreneurship and some behavioral sciences like human development) not only scoot around these issues; they outright reject them.

     Colleges and universities (again with rare exception) fail to value reality. They are invested in fantasizing on the past which will never come again, or the future which hasn’t yet arrived, and may never. They refuse to acknowledge their hands in front of their faces.

     So YOU end up losing out to an arcane system of learning that fails to deal with preparing students for life in the real world. It’s true.

How do I know? I’ve worked extensively in creative roles with Fortune 500 companies, as a consultant with entrepreneurial businesses and professional practices, as a management trainer for over 20,000 business and healthcare executives, and as “Professor of the Year” at a major university and two colleges. I’ve been in the thick of it.

     You DO have a way out. There IS hope. You need to first accept that you’ve been taught subject matter, not real life applications, not how to succeed. Second, you must commit to yourself to learn as much as you possibly can about yourself as possible.

The more you know about what makes you “tick,”

the more skilled and successful a leader you will be.

# # #               

Imagine This. Imagine That.

(Then Do It!)

     Sorry, but great ideas you fail to act on are not great. In fact, they’re actually lousy because they clog up your brain and prevent you from getting and acting on the truly great ideas you have. Am I saying that you’re holding yourself back? Yes. Aren’t you?

     I know, you’re overwhelmed right now…sucky economy, family holiday obligations, and you want to just slow down your business push (like past years), just sit back and relax with a nice glass of something warming…and relegate the whole “dreaming up new business ideas” thing to some back burner agenda.

     But guess what? (Yes, you knew this was coming, right?) There couldn’t be a better time to get your brain focused on making more of your imagination. While others are racing around trying to jam in end-of-year sales orders, and still others take vacation time, ACT BOLDLY!

DO AN “O.I.S.T.T.T.”

(Now! This Week!)

     Take 2 or 3 or 5 or 10 of your top people on an “Overnight Imagination Stimulation Think Tank Trip.” Build in a side visit or two for some gift-shopping along the way.

     Here, Try This:

1) Take your Team to breakfast and give them a pep talk. Then give them each some spending allowance or discount deals you work out for special shopping spots along the way to a special meeting destination (Cheap, good dollar-value deals are available everywhere right now!). Maybe offer an extra “Family Day” off to each for Christmas or New Year’s use? 

2) Then bus or limo the whole group to some mountain cabin hideaway, or some fantastic meeting center/resort kind of place. My personal recommendation for those in the Northeast… NY / NJ / PA / DE / CT / MA:  www.InterlakenInn.com because I’ve run dozens of “Escape” meetings there and can vouch for what a super place it is (and I just called them to check, and they assure me they’ll work with your budget).

Bottom Line: You won’t believe how much good the overnight “brainstorming” trip will do for your business (AND your Team!).

3) Imagination will flow from the first cup of coffee to the last, then you have some time left over to evaluate and assess the ideas, and determine the directions and steps to take.

4) POOF! You will start out the new year on the run, ahead of the pack, and with increased commitment and loyalty from your top Team, because they will be part of the action from the git-go.  

Assuming now that you might be serious about wanting to put some truly creative leadership to work, and you’re willing to test your mettle (and your braintrust) as to how spontaneous you can all be (because you realize that SOMETHING powerful has to happen with your business SOON), then check each of these quick blog posts on related subjects:

http://bit.ly/6VFJHL  ~~~ INNOVATING AND PROBLEM-SOLVING (“Has Your Brain Been Thunder-Struck?”)

http://bit.ly/85FlLC  ~~~ 5 WAYS TO BREED INNOVATION (“It Doesn’t Fall From The Sky … Innovation Needs Ignition!”)

http://bit.ly/5358lq ~~~ BEAT THE RECESSION WITH IMAGINATION (“Entrepreneurs Are Imagination Junkies”) 

 MY PROMISE:

THIS (PERHAPS RISKY-FEELING) SUGGESTION WILL POSITIVELY PRODUCE THE MISSING INGREDIENTS YOU NEED TO SKY-ROCKET YOUR BUSINESS INTO THE NEW YEAR!

(Or, if doubts and excuses get in the way, call me at 302.933.0116 to arrange a free how-to, same or next-day consulting session!)

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Think Big But Act Small!

     As small business owners and managers, we unfortunately have not much of a role model for success anywhere within the avalanche of daily government’s much ado about nothing, or the poor misguided mainstream media’s efforts to distort, opinionate and manipulate in order to sell advertising time and space.

     How could we expect, for example, to learn anything about decision-making from an Armed Forces Commander in Chief who takes three months to conclude what his own paid, experienced experts have told him from the outset the steps that needed to be taken with respect to troop deployment?

     And, to top it off, in addition to having put those who serve — and who are clearly committed — in harms way for that entire three months, the agonizingly slow decision and extent of unnecessarily prolonged delay now threatens to undermine the very determination that was finally and reluctantly made. This decision should have been made in one day.

     Odds are that if any of us practiced such poor (and critical) decision-making and failed to rely on those we chose to surround and advise ourselves with in our own businesses, we’d be out (or well on our way to being out) of business!

     Oh, and just imagine what kind of customer loyalty we might generate if our marketing programs and public messages were as intentionally contentious and provocative as the sensationalist “journalism” that flows from the fork-tongued mouths of mainstream media’s loose cannons. You know who and what make up this list. 

     Something about this desperate media pproach to doing business smacks of ramming a healthcare program down the throats of 63% of the population who do not want it. Could you do that with your business prospects and survive?

     We could forget about repeat sales. We could also give up our customer service pursuits (Who would ever believe in the dollar value and performance quality of our products and services when we’re fully preoccupied with putting down our competition or trying to produce sales by mental water-boarding instead of simply demonstrating the benefits of our business, our integrity, trust and authenticity?)

     And what have we in our poor excuse for a national leadership to follow? A hypocritical multimillionaire holding our feet to the fire to keep us honest while abusing tax-dollar-paid privileges? People with less business experience than your 2 year-old nephew, dictating business policy? People so entrenched in their own sense of political self-importance that they’ve lost sight of what they’re supposed to be doing and whom they’re supposed to be representing?

     You couldn’t count fast enough to guess the numbers of customers leaving your business if you started price-gouging while delivering inadequate products and services in the name of global warming scams designed to divert tax dollars to political causes, and self-aggrandizing delusional thinking about spreading wealth to those who haven’t earned it (because handouts work just fine).

     A helluva way to run a business. Any business. 

When you want to be big,

act small enough to make it clear

that your growth is not more important

than your customer.    

# # #               

“If you think education’s

expensive, try ignorance!”

     Besides that this bumper sticker passed me today in the rain going at least 60 in a 40, I found it hard to stop laughing at the stupidity of the message from the standpoint of business. Education (at least as we know it in the U.S.) is hardly the opposite of ignorance. In fact, education (as we know it in the U.S.) is often the CAUSE of ignorance in business!

     Okay, let’s first take a look at whether education is expensive. Yes indeed, it is. Is it worth the expense? No indeed, it’s not. And why is that the case? Because — except for rocket scientists, neuro and cardiovascular surgeons, astronauts, statistical analysts, and tax attorneys (none of whom have the slightest clue about business), it doesn’t much matter.

     Formal education in America is a complete failure. Primary and secondary education systems fail to prepare students for the real world and college prep programs fail to prepare students for college.

     Advanced education systems fail to prepare students for the real world and career prep programs fail to prepare students for careers. Those who would own and run businesses are better off getting real first-hand experience than suffering through meaningless formal education coursework that’s out of touch with reality!

     Having had over 20,000 students (in business, career psychology, human development, and elementary education) I can attest that maybe (maybe!) one in 100 students actually gets the point of it all, and recognizes that formal education coursework is all about learning the PROCESS.

     You would be surprised (or perhaps not) to find out how few students recognize that what they need to be learning is HOW TO THINK, not what idiotic events took place that led to market segmentation media planning or what magic formulas exist for setting retail mark-ups or what impact socio-economic factors have on target market strategy development.

     We are all businesspeople reading this, right? So perhaps it’s preaching to the choir, but when we look carefully at the business people and business success stories that have made a difference on earth — from Henry Ford to Bill Gates — what’s seems striking is that formal education never played an important role.

     Our neurotic societal values dictate that MBAs and PhDs are such enviable and important degrees for business success, that they must be encouraged at all costs. Baloney! They are meaningless tools for entrepreneurs. They cost huge amounts of time, money, and energy, and get in the way of the real learning that takes place on the job.

     A more realistic bumper sticker might read:  

“IF YOU THINK BUSINESS SUCCESS DEPENDS ON EDUCATION, YOU’RE IGNORANT!”

# # #               

Prepare to get your

socks knocked off!

     Great leadership is not always a product of war, sports, and business. Prepare to get your socks knocked off by taking 3 minutes out of your life to watch this video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HqbVbPvlDoM

     I guarantee it will make you smile. Many will laugh out loud. Some will cry. Because great leadership does that. And this, my dear entrepreneurial business owner, operator, and manager friends, is a fantastic example of great leadership. [If you’ve seen it before, watch it now from a business perspective!]

     Don’t shrug off this request if you’re serious about wanting to be a more effective leader. This is NOT your typical classroom or textbook approach to the subject. Take a quick visit to the link above, then jump back here for some insight and thought-provokers that you’ll never get from your ex-boss or your corporate gorilla brother-in-law.

     Go. Then come back…  

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

     Welcome back! Now, that you’ve seen it [I was right, right?], think about what it is exactly that makes this performance such an outstanding example of perfect leadership. Skip the temptation to 0ffer wisecracks for a minute, and concentrate on what it is that you just saw happen. What connection did you see with the values and concepts that are suggested by the  following words? 

• SHARED MISSION
• CONFIDENCE
• TRUST
• CONCENTRATED ENERGY
• TEAMWORK
• FUN
• MUTUAL RESPECT
• POSITIVE ATTITUDE
• HIGH SPIRITS
• COMMUNICATION AND FEEDBACK
• LOYALTY
• PRACTICE
• “HERE AND NOW” FOCUS

     Have you ever experienced a leader of any kind who hasn’t exemplified a good handful of the attributes listed above? What do YOU need to do to cultivate more of these attributes for your SELF? How can you encourage and stimulate more of these practices in your own organization? 

     And curiously worth noting, no tangible rewards were offered. Did you notice any INtangible rewards? How big a role did nonverbal communication play in achieving success?  Are you sitting there on your hands, laughing smugly to yourself that this analogy is ridiculous because you are dealing with real, live, human beings, not a golden retriever … and you are the boss, not an animal trainer? Are you thinking that? I hope not.

     If you own or run a business or part of one, the reality is — whether you like it or not — that you are seen every day of the week by those who report to you, as a surrogate parent. You are a maternal or paternal figure to your employees. That makes you a trainer.

     They will do as you tell them, to a fault, if they respect you. And you will gain and hold their respect by practicing as many of the above-itemized attributes as possible as often as possible — in person, on the phone, in emails, in meetings.

     Why does it matter? Because the sum total of what you do, or have already been doing, with what’s presented here in this blog post will determine the branding of your organization. Branding is all about conduct, credibility, integrity, trust, and authenticity.

     Is that what YOUR branding is all about? What can you cherry-pick from here (and the video) that will move your branding — through your leadership — closer to where you want it to be?        

# # #               

Product/Service Knowledge

Does Not A Sales Star Make!

     What makes entrepreneurs and sales professionals successful is having the ability to go waaay beyond the point of just knowing about the products and services they represent.

     It takes a very rare “geek,” for example (e.g., Bill Gates, Steve Jobs), to be able to come up out of the techie hole and have a clear vision of everything else that surrounds her or him.

     I’m not suggesting the need to be an expert at everything, but to instead appreciate and value what’s there (in your market, in your industry, in your universe), and know when to call on (and how to manage) others’ skills.  

     This “failure shortcoming” is unfortunately not something that’s easily adjustable because it’s more a product of the system than of the individual. It is the single greatest failing of academia that students are rarely if ever taught how to use what they’ve been taught to know.

     While touching on our misguided educational system, I should add that the best college for successful business career preparation (besides the proverbial “school of hard knocks”) is the one that fosters student internship and cooperative education programs and/or real-life experience opportunities. A taste of reality always beats none.

It is the single greatest failing of academia that students are rarely if ever taught how to use what they’ve been taught to know.”

     Why should this matter? Having a single purpose and collective goals is one thing, but no business is successful that is run with closed-minded fantasy-land controls. Product / service knowledge is just one part of the success equation. Having the vision and organization skills to apply that knowledge is what counts.

     No sales professional has ever made it on having total command alone of her or his company product or service features. No one “buys” features. Buyers may justify their purchases by itemizing features, but what makes the sale are emotional triggers to benefits. Product and service knowledge can only serve as the launchpad for those triggers. 

     What are the answers? I believe they vary with each set of circumstances, and I don’t pretend to have all the answers … BUT:

     I CAN tell you that if you and your sales message have been heavily focused on what goes into a product or service and how it’s made, and you see all the guys down in the trenches (the scientist /technician / analyst types) smiling up at you and nodding agreement, you need to adjust what you’re communicating to the rest of the world!

     Like the dentist ads promoting mucosal blade inserts, which would only have a recognition factor and be a point of interest among other dentists, many businesses go down the tubes grasping for receptivity to jargon that only they and a handful of staff (and competitive!) “experts” understand.

     Real Business “Power”— the Power of entrepreneurial and sales success, comes not from merely knowing — comes from knowing who, how, when, and where to put the knowledge that you have to work.    

# # #               

Politically Correct Crap

Has Gone Over The Top!

     It’s really time for small businesses to rebel.

     It’s time to show the corporate giants standing in line waiting for another surge of taxpayer dollar bailouts that their small-minded insistence on following small-minded government politicians (and even smaller-minded, major-media wimps) is wrong because Christmas is Christmas is Christmas. Period.

     It is what it is: a Christian celebration of the birth of Christ.

     It is NOT a generic convoluted cluster of “holidays.” It is NOT Hanukkah, Ramadan and 39 other special celebrations all thrown together in one big New York City melting pot. This is the CHRISTMAS Season!

     You’re not likely to toss all your meat. fish, vegetables, bread, and dessert into one big bowl and call it dinner, right? So why should anyone insist on combining all religious celebrations into one and calling Christmas and the Christmas Season “Holidays” as indistinguishable from the others?

     The answer: Big business and government and the media have become so superficially multi-cultural and culturally-diverse conscious (and more sensitive to unfounded anti-discrimination lawsuits than to the Christian religious ideals and annual celebration of the birth of Baby Jesus) that they are petrified at the idea of calling Christmas by its name for fear of offending those who provide handouts and political favors.

     It’s not just time to put Christ back in Christmas, it’s time to SAY “Merry Christmas!” without being afraid of offending someone. Anyone who IS offended by that is as ignorant, insensitive, misguided, and self-righteous as those who would have us take “In God We Trust” out of our nation’s pledges, proclamations, and currency.

     Bottom line: Stand up to those who try to make you feel guilty (or who are simply too dumb to know better) by wishing your customers and suppliers “MERRY CHRISTMAS!”

     If those you do business with want to wish you Happy Hanukkah or whatever it is that one wishes for Ramadan, accept it and thank them and wish it back to them. But let’s not encourage any more “PC” thinking about something so sacred, and so much a part of American tradition … for even those who are NON-Christians!

     Be reminded that “MERRY CHRISTMAS!” carries with it implications of commitment to goodwill and to loving and respecting one another. Jews and responsible Muslims share that thinking. There’s no need to feel apologetic for wishing someone “Merry Christmas!” no matter what his or her religion. 

     I have had a great many Jewish friends (including quite a few who are orthodox) and never knew even one who took offense at being wished Merry Christmas. Most, in fact, have always replied in kind, or with a cheerful: “And Happy Hanukkah to you!” 

     Big business and politics have no place in dictating change in objects of religious respect, and need to butt out! Small business owners and managers can help make a difference by simply honoring the Christmas Season as they have since childhood in wishing one and all a “MERRY CHRISTMAS!” and by suggesting those employees who agree, to do the same. 

     It is the joyful spirit of what the message represents that counts.    

# # #

Money money everywhere,

and not a cent to start with!

     Sure there are all kinds of venture capital dollars and small business loans out there. There are also slot machine, blackjack, horse race, football pool and lottery winnings to be had.

     Forget ’em all! REAL entrepreneurs don’t gamble. They’ve also probably learned the hard way to not trust outside funding sources.

     Don’t believe — for even one minute — that you can waltz into a small business loan package deal, government SBA, bank or credit union, and waltz back out of it.

     First off, unless you really enjoy building productive partner-type relationships with the IRS or motor vehicle bureau (and those examples are just for openers), reality is any government -affiliated loan arrangement will leave you so tangled up in your underwear that your business will probably fold while you’re struggling to get through the mumbo-jumbo paperwork, acronyms and legalities.

     And don’t you just love that the daily lineup of eager-to-please loan officers require only that you put up enough collateral to cover the amount of the loan … like your home, your sister and your oldest child? Duh, if you had all that net worth in your closet, why would you need a loan?

     If you think it doesn’t seem fair, it’s because it’s not. Business is not fair. Neither is life, so say those who have failed because they couldn’t get the loans they needed to avoid bankruptcy and foreclosure.

“Yeah, but I’ve got a great, earth-shattering

idea that will make millions, billions even!”

     Good luck!     

     Of course there’s always the mafia. Can’t find any around? Drive to New Jersey (apologies to my former neighbors) and just ask. You could maybe even Mapquest it. Then, you need only be willing to give up your life in return. Hmmm, not a bad deal: business survives; you die. Oh well.

     Venture capitalists want 45-60% control ownership and immediate return on their investment. You’ll be amazed how fast 180 days go by, and wait to see how much fun it can be having to get approval for a printer cartridge purchase.

     Uncle Charlie? Maybe, but probably not a good thing unless everyone else in your family is already dead.

     So, what’s a bright up-an-coming entrepreneur to do?

     Sweat. Work hard long hours. Believe in yourself and your ideas. Be passionate about them. Have a burning desire to achieve them and be willing to pursue your goals at all costs. Keep your head down and charge.

     Never give up. And when you stumble, get up! Be the posterboy or girl for TRUST and AUTHENTICITY and INTEGRITY, and don’t let anything or anybody get in the way of that! 

     Be single-minded enough to not be side-tracked, but stay flexible and resilient enough to make adjustments along the way. Surround yourself with positive people and cultivate positive thoughts and attitudes. Take lots of deep breaths. Don’t take anything for granted. Work it yourself. Sell yourself, and earn enough to fund yourself!

# # #