Archive for July, 2008

What If Products Were Licensed Like Software

To poke fun at how absurd the End User Licensing Agreements (EULA) are becoming on software and how silly they make us look as a society, I have decided to start a list of products I have at my home and show how you would be able to use them if they had the same type of agreements.

• Kitchen Table – The kitchen table you purchased may be used only in the kitchen by the parties that purchased the table. Other parties eating at the table that did not purchase the table are in violation of the Table User Agreement. The table may not be modified in any way including:

1. being moved to another room besides the kitchen
2. used for other purposes besides eating, like a homework desk, or craft area
3. modified or enhanced by adding addition features like a table cloth, place settings, or floral arrangements.
4. being transferred or sold to a third party
5. painting is a direct violation of the TUA and is punishable by 10,000 dollar fine and 10 years in prison
6. Adding no scuff pads to the feet of the table
7. using chairs from another manufacture that were not part of the original set

• Hair Brush – The Name Brand Hair Brush that you purchased is protected by a Hair Brush Users Agreement. This Agreement provides for the following uses and limitations:

1. The hair brush may only be used on the hair type marked on the handle in bold text. You may not use a straight brush on curly hair and vise versa.
2. You may not use the hair brush with any other products, or add-on unless packaged with the original unit. This includes unlicensed hair dryers, styling products, and scissors.
3. The hair brush may only be used until the user  license expires. You may not use the brush beyond this point unless you have an updated license or one of our gold products that carry a lifetime activation code.
4. Hair brushes include licensing for one individual and one hair type, if you have additional family members, or clients that will use the product contact 867-5309 (JENNY I GOT YOUR NUMBER)to inquire about an enterprise Hair Brush Agreement.

• Jaguar – Congratulations on your new purchase of a Jaguar luxury vehicle. Please note that your new car is covered by a NSG (National Snob Agreement) with the following provisions

1. Your new car carries a minimum income agreement that requires you to have a minimal yearly income of 500,000 dollars. If at anytime you fall below this income level you will be required to pay a penalty of 1,000 dollars a day until your income reaches the minimal level.
2. You car may only run super unleaded gasoline from an authorized Jaguar retail center. You may not use any unauthorized third party fuel or fueling stations. This is a direct violation of this agreement.
3. You may only use an authorized Jaguar shop to have your car serviced, and repaired.
4. you may only use tires and rims from an authorized Jaguar dealer.
5. Only the authorized purchaser is allowed to drive the car and or ride in the car. Any additional passengers will require you to buy an upgrade module that comes in 4 user packs. The seatbelts will not function for the additional seats in your car without the upgrade.
6. You may not sell, or transfer the vehicle to a third party.

I would love for folks to send me some of their ideas. I was just sitting here going oh my gosh I can’t believe what we allow to go on in this industry. Well I hope that I have taken a little time out of your day to make you laugh and  think a little next time you purchase your next software product.

Apple sues clone maker Psystar – The Top 5 Marketing Mistakes They are Making

Well unless you are a techie that is under a rock or for what ever reason don’t read the news, Apple is suing Psystar a maker of Apple clone computers. Now before we get into a EULA debate or how great Apple is I would like to talk a little about the marketing and business opportunities that Apple always leaves on the table. Since people like tops 5 lists etc. here you go.

The TOP 5 Business and Marketing mistakes Apple is making with Psystar

Short Sited – Again apple is failing to see the big picture and staying with the island unto it self motto. The main reason that Apple is always in trouble down the road is because they go it alone in their business and also in their vendor relationships. This is one reason they needed the cash infusion that Bill Gates gave them many years back. Yes it was to help Microsoft’s antitrust issue as well. I grew up with Macs in school but later switched to PC computers. Why? because I had many choices of computers to pick and I could EVEN BUILD IT MYSELF! If you really have a better product in your OS then flood the world with it. Open up your hands and set it free, for a fee of course. Imagine if 98% of the world had a choice to run OSX on their current system like they do Linux. HELLO

Tarnishing their Image – Yes it is happening. Even forums that I read who contain MAC lovers are starting to compare Apple to Microsoft. Starting to say it is time to open up your systems. I even saw an episode of Kathy Griffin Life on the D List where her new boyfriend Steve Wozniak unlocked her IPHONE. The canary in the coal mine is the new generation really does not like to be trapped in a box. I would hate to be seen as the outdated over bearing parent of the products they buy. They may decide to just leave home one day if they see something better.

Leaving Money on the Table – I have been in business for a long time and call companies for my clients looking for mutually beneficial relationships. Here is an opportunity for Apple to have a ready made product that is most likely being sold to people who wouldn’t buy an Apple because of the price. What I would do in this situation is praise them for their work and help spreading a superior product to the market place. I would then work out a way for them license making the product for end users. That way you get your cut and most importantly the consumer gets what they want, YOUR SUPERIOR PRODUCT.

Innovation is so yesterday? – I am old enough to know details about how the computer industry started moving into a new era. I would hope that Steve remembers this as well. In stead of blocking innovation, go back to your roots. If you are seen in the market place as a cooperative innovator you will move ahead of the competition by leaps and bounds. I applaud your new store for the iphone. It is a move in the right direction. I also think it is funny how many of the IDEAS that Apple came up with came from Xerox including their GUI operating system. Go watch a show on PBS called Triumph of The Nerds or read the transcripts especially show 3 to see parts of the truth. Bring your business hat and pay attention.

Be careful what you wish for? - The worst thing that could happen is you get what you want and are seen as destroying a small business. This is also short sited because I could see lots of people wanting to help PSYSTAR if you did win on their appeal based on The first sale doctrine. Because I believe that many people believe they should be able to do what they want after they buy a product. People who have money to spend on more of your products. I couldn’t imaging someone saying you can only use your kitchen table in your house, as a kitchen table, not as a desk, you cannot modify the table like cut its legs and make it a coffee table, and you damn sure can’t sell it to your neighbor or give it to goodwill. Come ON!

Feel free to share your thoughts on some of my quick ideas.

168 Sales Hours In The Month

Written by Debbie Mrazek

Here we are at the end of the quarter? How did you end up? Close to the target, off target? Are you thinking, ‘What target?’ If so, realize that each day is a new start, a new beginning. The same is true for the quarters.

If the first quarter wasn’t all you expected, don’t fret, you still have three more quarters to work your magic. The key is to look at it not like one big step to get to the top of the mountain, but a series of steps that allow you to climb it with ease by staying focused each and every day.

Here are a few things you can do in the next week to amp up your sales success!

1. Track your time. Note, how many hours are you really actually selling? What can you give up to increase that time or the quality of that time?
2. Watch your habits. How often do you do something else when you really need to be selling? Determine your favorite ways to escape and decide to limit your inner escape artist just for the next month.
3. Focus on your goal. Lack of focus is the number one reason why sales pros derail their success. Be sure to review your numbers and focus on your goal each and every day.
4. Set the day for success. Each and every day there are steps to take that will add up to your results. Define your basic four or five ‘must complete today’ tasks and commit to them. Before you know it, you’ll be at your goal.
5. Be generous. One of my dear friends, Steve Straus, said, “To be lucky, be generous.” The more you help others, the more you share your current good fortune, the luckier you will become.

You can do exactly what you think you can. If you believe it is possible to book your business as usual, you’ll find that if you mind your time and actions, that’s exactly what you will get.

July 13th 2008

Over the weekend Mark and I decided to "finally" reupholster some dining chairs that have been through three moves, and Chance’s baby and toddler years. We headed over to Hancock Fabrics to select a new fabric that would replace the dull, worn out ivory.

Mark has great taste and pulled a fabric that would work well with these rich, chestnut colored pine and wrought iron chairs. As I looked at the massive bolt of upholstery fabric, I wondered out loud how much we needed to buy. A small woman behind an enormous cutting table answered my question… Looking over her cat-eye style glasses, she said, "You need a yard and a half for four chairs."

Mark also answered my question. Why don’t we get four yards. Again, but in a louder voice this time, "You need a yard and a half for four chairs." As I looked up at Mark who was saying, "Okay, let’s get two yards." I could hear scissors on the table. I asked the woman, "Are you cutting a yard and a half or two yards?"

She replied, "You need a yard and a half for four chairs" as she smiled and put the price sheet on top of the folded mass of fabric. I turned to Mark, and jokingly said, "I guess we are getting a yard and a half!"

As we covered each chair and cut excess fabric to fit, I was SO thankful we had just more than we needed. Two yards would have been harder to manage and four yards would have been a mess. It made me think about how often clients think they know what they need, but really don’t. Are you giving clients what they need or what they want?

Hugs-

Tina

P.S. In virtually every encounter you have with a client there is a chance to choose between what the client says s/he wants and what you, as the expert, believes s/he needs. Where are you giving people what they want when you could give them what they need? What keeps you from delivering what you believe they need? What area of your business has areas where you want one thing but need another?

Client Wants Versus Needs – A Winning Formula to Connect The Two

It’s a tricky and slippery slope to talk client wants and supply what the client actually needs. And while it is tricky, it is, by far, the best formula I know for creating iron-clad customer loyalty.

Many service professionals experience a dialogue like this…

Customer: Hi, I would like a [insert your service here website, marketing plan, tax return].

Service Pro: Great, did you have a budget in mind?

Customer: Yes or No.

Service Pro: Tell me a bit about what you had in mind about [product/service].

Customer: I wanted the [thing] to be like this or like that or like this.

Service Pro: Oh, I see. Great. I’ll send you a proposal

Customer: Sounds great.

In this dialogue, the focus is on the ‘thing’ the client believes s/he needs to get what s/he actually wants. This may be true or not true. Usually, the client has no idea if it is true or not, and often don’t even know why s/he believes this is what s/he thinks s/he needs.

However, service pros who are in the needs uncovering business possess one quality that is the holy grail of identifying true needs. This is the magic behind serving customers for life. That quality is curiosity.

A dialogue might go something like this…

Customer: Hi, I would like a [insert your service here website, marketing plan, tax return].

Service Pro: Great, what is it that you are hoping this product will give you?

Customer: Well, I didn’t think of it like that. Let me think for a minute.

Service Pro: Great, we’ve got plenty of time. What are you hoping will happen as a result of investing in this?

Customer: Well, what I really want is X.

Service Pro: Let’s talk about X and what is going on around this, then we can come back to see if [thing] is what you need.

In this dialogue, the want (X) is the focus, not the thing. Wants lead to people buying. If you focus on X, then people will buy because that is what they really want. When you combine X with your expertise to determine the best way to help people get X, then you can bypass selling the buyer something they think they need, but will not deliver what they really want (X).

The key idea is to never take your eye off of X. Identify what the prospect really wants and then help them get it. If you do this, you’ll have more business than you know what to do with!

Make Selling Easier By Planning For the Trip Ahead

Written by Debbie Mrazek

In selling, it’s all about doing what you know each and every day. Rome wasn’t built in a day and neither will your sales quota.

Whether you are a veteran climber in the sales field or a newbie traveler, the same steps that make one person successful work for others too. Just realize that it comes down to this: You just have to do more of what you know works and do less of what you know doesn’t work. When you begin doing more of the things that work, it will become easier and easier to do those things. And, no matter what your situation, when you begin moving, things will seem much easier than they feel when you are thinking about doing it.

Here are five tools that will make the whole trip easier:

1. Sales Forecast – This is your road map that will allow you to navigate with ease. Unlike other sales professionals who try to manage all the client data in your head, when you take a sales forecast with you, you’ll begin to see new opportunities and new paths emerging from your efforts. Visit www.the-sales-company.com to get your FREE forecast.
2. Sales Itinerary – You get 168 hours per week. What are you doing with yours? How long does it take for you to meet with a client? How many clients can you meet with each week? Are there ways you can improve the way you spend your time? How can you do more with less? Manage this, and you not only increase sales, but you increase freedom as well.
3. Sales Backpack – What’s in your backpack? A good attitude? A can-do spirit? A list of sales techniques that really work? Be sure that when you pack, you bring the very best tools that work for you. We all have our ways of selling – be sure to do what works best for you.
4. The Landscape – If you went on a trip, you wouldn’t charge out without doing a little research would you? The sales landscape is all about knowing who you are, who your customers are, what they expect, what they want and what you can do to give them what they want. The landscape is the world of expectations and is a surefire way to increase sales!
5. Traveling Companions – When you realize that you don’t have to do everything alone, the journey will be a whole lot more fun. Who can you network with or ‘buddy’ with to help them while they also help you? What complementary services could you combine your service or product with for bigger results?

When you plan for the sales trip, selling becomes much, much easier. The top 1% of sales pros know that it’s not about taking fancy compasses and the latest gizmo, it’s about knowing the lay of the land so that no matter what situation you may find yourself in, you know you can not only survive, but you can thrive!

Oh, and if you need some help with these, they are all covered in my book.

The Business Plan That Always Works

Written by Michael E. Gerber,
Chairman and Founder E-Myth Worldwide

Yes, believe it or not, there is such a plan.

A business plan that always works.

And believe it or not, you’re going to learn how to create such a plan, your plan, in the next few moments.

Now for those of you who believe deep down in the recesses of your cynically- disposed hearts that there can’t possibly be anything that always works–- especially a plan–the following is going to be a bit of a stretch for you. But hang in with me here. The Business Plan That Always Works is so devilishly simple and straightforward, you’ll wonder why you didn’t see it before.

You see, that’s the beauty of it, this Business Plan That Always Works. It’s so very simple. And that’s probably the primary reason it always works. The Business Plan That Always Works is so simple that anyone who understands it can do it…which is to say, that if you can’t do a plan easily, there’s no point in planning. Despite what you’ve learned over the years, planning is only hard when it’s done the wrong way. And to do a plan easily requires that you approach the whole subject of planning in a completely different way than you’re accustomed to. But I’m getting ahead of my story.

The Business Plan That Always Works is built upon one Fundamental Principle that all the plans that never work fail to understand.

(When I say "all the plans that never work," I’m referring to the kind of planning you’re accustomed to doing–if you do any planning at all– the kind of planning that doesn’t work, has never worked, will never work, the kind of planning every single professional you know who’s trying to plan is attempting to do even as we speak despite the little-discussed-and-depressing fact that not one of their best laid plans will ever make one difference in their lives at all other than to unnecessarily frustrate, infuriate and intimidate them, while keeping them busy– uselessly and unproductively– for hours upon end!) You know the kind of plans I’m talking about here. The kind of plans that create gobs of guilt because you don’t keep them? The kind of plans that create enormous bouts of self-loathing because you never fulfill them? The kind of plans you make with great effort and tedium, only to find yourself later on doing something completely different than you had planned to do and wondering how you got there from where you began?

But let’s get back to that one Fundamental Principle I’m talking about that differentiates The Business Plan That Always Works from every other plan that doesn’t.

I call this Fundamental Principle, the Heart-Centered Principle of Planning.

(Now, bear with me here. I know this could begin to test your hidebound impatience. You’re an entrepreneur after all. World-wise and world-weary. You’ve seen everything, done everything, been beaten up by everything. You know with every close-to-cynical breath you breathe that language used capriciously can be a dangerous thing. After all, don’t you do that for a living: use language to produce results? Well, of course you do. Don’t we all? And it can get us all into serious trouble. But despite that, bear with me anyway. This path I’m leading us down is a path no one has ever taken you down before. And it’s not capricious. It’s deadly earnest. And because of that it can get a little sticky in moments. It can test your patience in moments. It can put me into question in your mind in moments. Despite all that, and despite your natural reservations, let’s proceed a few steps further and I believe you’ll truly begin to relish this thing we’re going to do together, this thing I call The Business Plan That Always Works.)

The Heart-Centered Plan is so distinctly different from its opposite, The Head- Centered Plan, that it’s important to define the distinctions carefully.

There are Seven Essential Rules of Heart-Centered Planning, of creating The Business Plan That Always Works for you.

These seven rules are:

Rule One

The first rule says that Heart-Centered Planning begins and ends with a feeling, while Head-Centered Planning begins and ends with a thought. To understand this rule, it is critical that you know the difference between a thought and a feeling. Most people don’t. (Don’t laugh, they really don’t.) Most people often confuse their thoughts with their feelings and their feelings with their thoughts. How do you know the difference between a thought and a feeling? A feeling resides inside your body; a thought resides inside your head. Let me say that again so that it sinks in. A feeling resides inside your body, while a thought resides inside your head. Most of what you’re doing right now as you read this article is a thought which is going to turn into a feeling, rather than a feeling which is going to turn into a thought. Heart-Centered Planning starts with a feeling, turns into a thought, and ends with a feeling. Head-Centered Planning begins with a thought, turns into a feeling, and ends with a thought. The rule here is that any plan that ends up in your head is a thought, and, because of that, won’t work. The Business Plan That Always Works is dominated by your feelings, not by your thoughts. And because of that, it is propelled forward because you want it to work, as the expression says, with all your heart. The point I’m making here is that despite everything you’ve been taught to the contrary, cerebral motivation has no momentum of its own. Thoughts die cold and lonely. A plan which describes the future, with no heart, is a plan destined to fail. The Business Plan That Always Works therefore, is a plan which begins and ends in your heart…which means it’s a living plan, not a dead one. Which means that it possesses an enormous amount of energy, which people describe as passion. And we all know what passion can do when it’s poured into a personal cause. That’s what The Business Plan That Always Works is, after all, a personal cause filled with passion.

Rule Two

Because Heart-Centered Planning begins and ends in your heart, rule number two says that The Business Plan That Always Works must be your plan and no one else’s. It must begin with you and end with you. It must be your plan. Any plan created by someone else on your behalf will absolutely never work because it simply isn’t your plan. And no matter how hard you try to implement someone else’s plan, no matter how hard you work at it, even if you succeed at fulfilling its objectives, you will ultimately feel like you failed. Winning with someone else’s plan is always "felt" as losing. In short, The Business Plan That Always Works is always the product of the person who is following the plan, original to him or her, personal to the max, born in the heart, and because of that, very, very private. Rule Number Two says, "Don’t go outside of yourself for your plan because you can’t find it there."

Rule Three

The way to know what your heart wants is stop thinking about it. To discover your plan, stop thinking about it. Pursue something else. Spend a day, two days, a week, it doesn’t matter how long, only that it accomplishes this objective, that you spend free time doing something you truly love to do, that you don’t ordinarily do because you can’t afford the time or the money to do it. Skiing. Boating. Fishing. Dreaming. Hiking. Running. It doesn’t matter what it is; for every one of us it’s different, but it does matter that you know what it is. The truth is we, all of us, spend very little time truly loving what we do or doing what we love. We spend most of our time instead wishing that what we are doing could be more fulfilling. The reason for this is that we are mostly disconnected from our hearts, and spend the preponderance of our time instead actively pursuing thoughts about what we would be doing if we were happy, than experiencing what it means to be joyful in our hearts in the moment. So, to create The Business Plan That Always Works calls for us to experience, as fully as possible, the end product of an exciting plan which is the experience of joy which your plan must create for you in order for it to work for you. And to experience that joy requires that we spend more time before we create our plan, tasting the emotional fruits of it.

Rule Four

Most people think of a business plan as a series of benchmarks, or objectives. There is that kind of plan, but that’s not what I’m talking about here. A series of benchmarks or objectives delineate actions to be taken in a progressively completed process, but they fail to provide the inner motivation essential for a plan to become a realization. While the steps must be identified before anything can be done purposively, the essence of The Business Plan That Always Works is always able to be summarized in a brief, declarative statement which always beings with "I Want…," and always ends with an experience of having moved forward from where you are…and can be demonstrated by your new ability to do something you love to do more often than you’re able to do it now. For example, "I want to be able to spend eight days white water rafting in Montana on the…, etc., etc." Note that the objective here is not something to have, but something to experience. To feel yourself experiencing something you love before you actually experience it is tantamount to experiencing it. Experiencing the experience is core to the successful realization of The Business Plan That Always Works because it distracts you from your head where thoughts reside and puts you squarely in your body where feelings reside. Put another way, the experience at the beginning of the plan, tied to the experience at the end of the plan creates an emotional bridge for you to cross. Without that emotional bridge, most of us find ourselves sweating around among the stones, boulders and mud beneath the bridge, completely oblivious to the fact that the bridge even exists!

Rule Five

Having created an emotionally exciting picture of what you want, it is critical that you create a series of Frames of Reference within which you achieve it over a specific amount of time. A Frame of Reference is like a landing reached on your way up a mountain. It enables you to taste the climb, while resting with a look back and a look forward. Anyone who has ever done this (and we all have to some degree or another) knows the personal inner joy that comes from resting on the way forward, while getting a clear sense of where we’ve come from and a new picture of where we’re going. As a boy, I used to go to Yosemite with my parents, and we would climb for a few hours at a time up the long, sloping trail of one mountain or another, where we would stop from time to time and sit on granite boulders by the side of the trail, look out over the valley, taste the cool fresh air, and listen to the waterfalls off in the distance. There has been very little I’ve experienced in my life that is permeated by such sweetness as those experiences…those climbs and stops. Those moments of looking back and looking forward. Those sweet, lazy moments in which our plan was in the process of being realized while being realized, all at the very same moment. The Business Plan That Always Works must allow for those precious, sweet moments, those continuous Frames of Reference, because without them there is just the incessant climbing, the reaching for the top, the obsession that comes from an impatient thought, the drive to reach a conclusion. Most plans are like that. They drive us, but they don’t renew us. They compel us, but they don’t reward us. Such plans may move us forward, but every part of our body ends up resisting the movement even while obeying its dictate. This is the planning of "you should," and "you’d better," rather than the planning which comes from an inner desire, a taste of freedom, a wish for renewal.

Rule Six

Rule number six says that the plans we create reflect the life we live rather than the life we want to live. This may seem like the opposite of everything I’ve been saying up to now, but in fact it is not. The truth is that one cannot plan to be someone one isn’t. One cannot create a plan one is unable to implement. One cannot imagine becoming someone one isn’t. One cannot love what one cannot experience loving. And so rule number six states that in order to create The Business Plan That Always Works, we must be passionately interested in who we really are and what it is that really moves us. To do this then, we must every day ask ourselves this question, "Who am I?–and then answer it! The fascinating thing about creating The Business Plan That Always Works is that it calls for us to go inside more deeply than outside as we would imagine. This planning has to do more with who we are than who we are going to become. The fact is that anyone who has done this work, that is, pursued their inner reality with a passion, has discovered that in the process of becoming more who we truly are, we discover what we want. And in that discovery, our plan becomes self-evident. "Oh, so that’s what I want," this experience says. Or, put another way, "Oh, so that’s who I really am." Rule number six says that we must do this thing over and over and over again until it’s a permanent fixture in our lives. Only then will the Business Plan That Always Works become self-evident.

Rule Seven

Rule number seven says that until we are able to do rules number one through six with ease, anything we do which closely resembles them is better than anything which doesn’t. In short, rule number seven is a mantra which says, "Follow your heart, or your head will destroy you." The most productive business planning is not thinking about ends; it’s about experiencing means. It’s not about the objective; it’s about the process. It’s not about getting things; it’s about becoming more human. It’s not about winning or losing; it’s about sitting on the edge of the mountain on the way up, neither going forward nor going backward, to savor the intensely sweet joy of the moment. It’s not about pushing yourself, but about experiencing yourself. And, as a business owner, this is as true for your clients as it is for you. Which is to say that if you are unable to understand this truth I’m sharing with you, you will be equally unable to differentiate yourself in the heart of your clients from all those other pushing, striving, dying-to-get-there competitors all around you. And isn’t that what The Business Plan That Always Works for an entrepreneur is essentially all about? To put you into a truer, more meaningful relationship with your clients? And to do that, can you see that you must first be in a true relationship with yourself? The Business Plan That Always Works will put you there every single time. Who could ask for anything else?

Michael Gerber is chairman and founder of E-Myth Worldwide. He reminds you that the opportunity is to go to work ON your life not IN it, and in the process to experience the sweet, radiant, extraordinary joy of the fully-lived moment. His Web site is www.emyth.com.

11 Quick Profit Generating Ideas

Here at the one80 group we receive hundreds of emails a week asking for quick tips on how to increase profits. In an effort to help all of the business owners out there we have compiled a quick list of 11 Profit Generating ideas that you can start implementing today. If you have any questions or are ready for the next step in your business strategy give us a call or email.

• Reduce the amount of discounts you give. Depending on profit margins, you may have to generate $15 of sales to recover $1 of discounts.
• Better control inventory. Inventory isn’t an asset. It’s a liability. You can’t stop the cost from running.
• Develop compensation programs that reward your people for the right things.
• Offer specials on higher priced, high value items.
• Avoid last minute crisis with proper planning.
• Accelerate sales by announcing price increases way in advance.
• Ask your vendors for ideas on how to control expenses.
• Establish safety programs and provide bonuses for people who don’t have accidents. How big a bonus? Somewhat less than the workers comp savings you get by avoiding them.
• Improve your hiring by establishing employee referral bonuses.
• Develop a profit playbook. Sports teams have playbooks, why not all businesses. What if you have saved every profit-growth idea you’ve ever had?
• Start measuring. The way you improve profitability is to measure. What should you measure? Revenues, costs, quality, quantity and time.

Feel free to try the ideas in this checklist. They represent just a few of the many ideas we can help you develop and initiate in your organization to improve your bottom line.

I Care About My Employees

Well today is the day I start sharing my short thoughts on business and the world.

I have always had a heart as an executive business owner and believe if you use your heart you will get more out of your employees than you ever thought possible. I am sad to hear all the news around me about early gen-x and late boomers getting bumped out of the market place because like their parents they have started to be too expensive (at least that is what the corporations would have you believe).  Their jobs have been outsourced overseas and in-sourced to cheaper foreign labor. The main issue I have with this new trend, is it is an issue of our own making.

The generation before for some reason woke up and decided that being part of a team, using respect, and heart were not what was needed to get more out of workers. It was numbers, charts, time management, and performance management. Well, I am here to say,"that trend drove the heart out of the US worker." No wonder in technology I have seen corporations take 10 times more people to do simple work. Mainly because no one asks questions, listens, or cares about the people around them. I am here to say from my own experience I have managed teams with my heart and as a team my group was able to do 10-20 times more projects in less time with higher customer satisfaction and didn’t even need fancy project plans, managers, analyst, and reports.

It was simple, my team was treated like adults and with heart. We helped each other and treated our clients the same way! So the next time you are trying to figure out how to get more performance out of your group, get out of your spreadsheet, have flexible work environments, kick out the performance management only people (no people skills), and become a real executive and speak to your employees with your heart. Let them know that you value the work they do and how it matters. Listen to them when you need performance help because they are the ones that do the job everyday. And for gosh sakes take joy when they get married or have children. Let them off if they have a loss in their life, whether they have PTO left or not. If you do this I believe that you will no longer need to let go the most experienced people in your organization to save money.

Work is what you do not who you are, but you can be who you are in your work.

Mark – The Kind Hearted Executive

If you would like career advice or just need someone to talk to you can reach the Kind Hearted Executive at mark@one80group.com

Delivering the Goods, Keeping Your Promise… An Exercise in Client Fulfillment

Written by Michael E. Gerber
Chairman and Founder, E-Myth Worldwide

At the heart of the success or failure of every business is the connection it creates with a customer. Visually. Emotionally. Functionally. Financially.

At the heart of that connection is your Client Fulfillment System.

What is Client Fulfillment?

It’s the way you do what you do. It’s the way you differentiate yourself from everyone else. It’s the way you stand out, both in the mind and the heart of your customer that turns that customer–somebody who buys from you once–into a client–someone who buys from you again and again.

The truth is, none of us can afford a customer. They’re just too expensive to get.

Every single one of us is looking for clients. Because the return on investment increases each and every time they buy another ‘thing’ from you – provided of course you’re selling that ‘thing’ at a profit. But that’s another conversation we’ll have at another time.

Client Fulfillment is something very simple to understand, and very, very difficult to do with any consistency. And yet, when done well, it is very obvious why it works.

Consider Federal Express’ offer to track your package. To let you know exactly where it is at any time. Do you really need to know where it is at any time? Of course not. But isn’t it great to know that because Federal Express is committed to the integrity of their promise to you, you can? Isn’t it reassuring to know that they know where your package is? And that they absolutely-positively will deliver it exactly when and where they promised? And doesn’t it make you feel just great to see the Federal Express Guy on the job, in his predictable uniform, in his predictable truck, ready and eager to keep his company’s promise?

• What’s your version of the Federal Express Experience?
• What are you going to do that will turn your every customer into a loving and faithful client?
• What spin are you going to put on the words you use, the process you employ, the way your people look, act, communicate, deliver?

What’s your turnkey innovation that will stun your customer’s sensibilities, that will say Whoa! to your customer’s habitual way of responding, that will astonish even the most cynical customer into coming back to see if you can reproduce that original experience, to discover whether or not that first experience was just a fluke?

Where’s the magic? Where’s the mystery? Where’s the ‘profound’ in what you do?

Find it, my friend, and let me know when you do. I’m all ears.

Michael Gerber is chairman and founder of E-Myth Worldwide. He reminds you that the opportunity is to go to work ON your life not IN it, and in the process to experience the sweet, radiant, extraordinary joy of the fully-lived moment. His Web site is www.emyth.com.