Be the change you wish to see in the world – Gandhi
Long ago I realized you can’t change the whole world at one
time. In fact, it is even difficult to impact a small part of the world.
However, there is one thing that we all have the power to change. That one
thing is ourselves.
This is probably why people make New Year resolutions. They
want to exercise their power to change. Yet they typically don’t put a lot of
thought into a resolution and they usually don’t think about how hard it is to
change. Yes we have the power to change. But change is difficult. It is a
process and it takes a commitment. The reality is that even if we have the will
power to change we will likely still fall and make mistakes. The key is to keep
working on change and keep moving forward realizing that it will be difficult
and that there will be those that are not cheering for us along the way.
Did you ever make a resolution to lose weight? Maybe you buy
a membership to the gym and you start out the year going to yoga and walking on
your in home treadmill. But the first couple of weeks go by and you miss a
class, and then you get knocked off schedule by a trip out of town. Soon you
are snacking at midnight and there is someone right there to point it out and
call you a hypocrite. Now the choice of change is really upon you. This is
where the rubber meets the road. Are you going to quit and let them be right?
Or are you going to persevere?
All goals require planning. Set yourself up for success. Put the patterns into place and then follow through. If
you are a salesperson and you have a goal to make more money this is not rocket
science. You simply must either make more appointments or increase the amount
that you are selling in the appointments that you have. So book the calendar
and make a plan. When you fall off the wagon, get back up and start again. Real
change takes real perseverance.
If you think the world needs to be a greener place then
focus on being greener. Be the example you want others to follow. If you think
people should be bigger givers, then you become a bigger giver. If you don’t
have anything to give, there is a nice Scripture to learn. It says to sell
something so you can give. That is a great lesson for those who think sales is
a bad vocation. J Make more money to give more away. That is
better than pointing the finger at those who make more money than you do and
demand that they give more. Be the example.
Whatever you think the world needs… become that…
I met a business coach recently who was bemoaning the fact
that many people do not realize they need her services. Really she is a mentor
looking for people who want to be mentored. So I asked her who was mentoring
her? She did not have a mentor and did not see the need for one.
Interesting…
She does not believe in her own vocation. Sad, she does not realize that if one
wants to be the best mentor they must have great mentors to learn from. That is
not something you are going to get from a book.
Whatever you think that the world needs… become that…
The drums are beating today across the country. The Mayans
may have got the end of the world thing wrong but something is certainly
happening of epic proportions. Have you checked out the websites? The blogs? The videos? The Tweets?
The Facebook pages? Synchronized effort is going into this and it is drawing
the attention of the world who are bored looking for their next “Occupy Wall
Street” movement. Here it is only four days before Christmas and much of our
nation is fixated on a woman in a teepee on a hunger strike instead of Santa
Claus. That is pretty remarkable.
It is being said that nothing this big has happened with our
First Nations People since Oka 22 years ago, but I think this has an even
larger potential. Back then there was no social media to give any group a
voice. The internet did not have the power to give flight to an idea or carry a
cause. Today is a different day. One Tweet can change the world. One blog can
shout if enough people engage in it. The American elections and the NDP gaining
seats in Quebec are both proof that social media has a huge impact on popular
opinion. Who is most trained in viral communication? Youth. Young Adults. And
guess who else? Women. Especially moms. Mommy bloggers are gaining ground
perhaps larger than any other group. So here we have it.
A movement born out of a handful of women in Saskatchewan.
Suddenly there is a website coordinating events not just across the country but
from around the world. People protesting in multiple locations across the
country. Dances. Flash mobs. Youth have been engaged. Twitter is abuzz. It is
brilliant really. You have to admire the gusto. And you have to admire the
spirit behind it.
Unity of tribes. Nice. Just when you thought this would
never and could never happen. Something is happening. Women leading the way.
They are after all, still the biggest social media users. I am blown away. The First Canadians taking a stand on things they believe in. Wow.
So far it is peaceful and it may even be productive. We will
see. Hopefully it goes well. There are a lot of issues and it could take years
to see any difference. Sticking to the thoughts of water and land may allow
them to make an impact. The water could get muddied though if too much more
gets into the mix. There is sooooo much that could get into that mix…
But good on them for doing it. I have two Meti children of
my own. As a Pastor years ago I spent many hours on reserves at funerals when
things were not productive at all. I held more than one broken and crying old woman trying
to make a difference in the youth. Anything that unites people with a positive
cause is good in my books.
It will be interesting to see how Prime Minister Harper
responds. Unlike some of his critics I expect that he will give this real
thought. I don’t think he is an unreasonable leader at all. History has shown
him as someone who steps up to the plate. Did we ever have a national leader who has addressed more uncomfortable issues than he has? Consider that he has stood up for
Israel in a very hostile environment and he was the PM who made a public apology to the First Nations People in 2008. He also made apology with some restitution involved to Chinese Canadians in 2006. I think the coming days are going to be
very interesting indeed.
The drums are definitely beating. Hearts are being ignited.
Let’s see where this goes…
A few months ago I realized that I needed to have some
mentorship in my life. I became suddenly aware that I was not surrounding
myself with people who were further ahead of where I was and that I needed that.
I wanted to have someone I could bounce ideas off of and get some insight. I
wanted to be stimulated and be challenged. I decided that I may even benefit
from someone asking some hard questions.
It is good for a business owner to be around other business
owners who are moving forward. If you hang around people who are always
struggling you start to feel that life should be a struggle. If you spend time
with debaters and those who are looking for conflict you will waste time fighting
and arguing. If you hang out with people who are in lack, you will always think
there is not enough and have a scarcity mentality. But when you are around
those that are always looking for solutions you start to become a solution
finder, and when you intentionally spend time with creative people you will
become more creative. So I set out to find some good role models.
It is an amazing thing that when you make room for something
new in your life and start thinking about that it just seems to find you. When
the student is ready the teacher appears.
So new mentors are finding their way into my life. A really
great couple began investing time into me. Nice, sharp business people whom I
respect and admire. And then I realized I had another opportunity in an old
friend I had not considered. He is very successful and busy so I did not think to
bother him. Yet he seems to really enjoy investing time in me. This man is a
real entrepreneur. Hard core. He started with nothing. He worked real hard and
took some risks. He made mistakes, he recovered and learned. He got good in his
market. He built relationships along the way. He was buying and selling hotels
long before it was popular to do so. He has seen people come and go. His wisdom
is staggering.
This week I had a tremendous opportunity to just sit at his
feet and listen. He shared a few thoughts on what it means to be an
entrepreneur. He said, “Kerry there is probably only 5% of the population who
are entrepreneurs or even less. Expect to be misunderstood. They are not going
to get it. You have taken the hard road, but it is a worthwhile road. You are
going to make it.” That conversation made my week, and I had a pretty good week…
But that is the stuff that matters.
When you are out doing something different and wondering if
you are going about it right, or if you are making the right choices. There is
no road map out there for the entrepreneur. Pioneering something is not often profitable
at first. Only when you perfect your offering and establish your self-worth do
you begin to get paid. Each step seems hard, yet looking back it was so
precious. Remembering where you came from to stay humble and yet looking
forward to where you are going to stay focused. Good friends who encourage you
along the way are really important.
Wherever you are in life, think about where you want to be.
Now who do you know that is closer to that place? Go find a new friend and
learn some new things. You will be glad that you did.
I was sitting in an office listening to a colleague take a
call that seemed to go in a rather brisk direction. A salesman was also there
and we were having our own discussion while we waited for my colleague to get
off the phone. As the conversation got more intense we stopped talking because
it was just too interesting to politely ignore. Finally my colleague gets off
the phone and says, “sometime it is just difficult dealing with stupid
#&*%@&!!! people!” The tradesman and I both burst out laughing because
it really was funny to hear a professional man of such integrity to come undone
like that. We were both surprised at his outburst. He looked at us both
incredulously and then said, “Why do we have to candy coat it? When someone is
stupid, they are stupid!”
He then went on to describe without naming any names the
needy client that all business owners, entrepreneurs, and sales people dread. You
know the one I mean. The one that you bent over backwards to get everything
right for and they just refused to be satisfied. The one that calls you after
hours and on weekends to ask about little details that are already being
covered. The one that agrees that it is just what they want before they have
it, but once it is done to their specifications it is slightly the wrong shade
of color. The one that always wants more than what they paid for. The fact is
that they are plain needy and now that they have given you money for a job they
feel that you are the one that should fill that need. This is the one that you
want to be sure signed a contract so there is no dispute about what you need to
do and what they need to do and where the boundaries are, nice and plain. You
may need that later…
The thing is when you work a job and you have an employer
you need to learn to get along with these people. You often have no choice.
Your paycheck may depend upon it. If you are unlucky enough to have a boss who
behaves this way you are really hooped. The micromanaging may even cause your
blood pressure to rise and make you sick. I had a friend who ended up in the
hospital due to a “needy” boss.
If you have a significant other in your personal life like
this that is a whole other challenge. How can you get around this? It can be a
noose around your neck making it horribly hard to function. I would recommend
getting and applying the book “Boundaries.”
The neat thing as an entrepreneur and business owner though,
is that we do not have to keep working with these people. We actually can “fire
a client.” It is not a bad thing to do so. We want to maintain clients and
satisfy clients as much as possible, but if the relationship is becoming so
expensive in our time, our emotional energy, or our resources we need to
examine it carefully. It is the end of the year and it is time to do a little
housecleaning in our businesses. Remember when we scrape things off our plate
it leaves empty space that can be filled with fresh and wonderful things. So
don’t be afraid to let a few things go.
Maybe you have a client that needs things you can’t offer.
So give them away. Find someone who can easily and willingly meet those needs.
Maybe you have a client who needs a therapist, or even just
a friend who they can unload on. Hook them up with someone else who can fill
that void.
Don’t get hung up on what they pay you. Do the work you were
paid to do and then give them away or just let them go. Be gentle if you can,
but some needy people need to be told very plainly. “No. We are done here.” Thank
them for their business and move on. It is a harsh reality but it is one of the
lessons a business owner needs to learn to succeed. You need to make space for
clients you can really please. You need to look after your own mental health so
you can create. You have to keep your own oxygen mask on when you are in a
crisis because every employee is like a child that you have care of. They need
you to stay alive and stay moving so they can get paid. Don’t feel bad about
hard choices that you must make for the greater good. Look after yourself.
My son bet his friend a significant sum of money that the
world would not end. The friend is convinced that it will end and was willing
to take on the bet. He apparently does not realize that my son cannot lose. If
the world ends he does not have to pay. If the world does not end my son wins
the bet. I am not sure if I should chastise my son for taking advantage of a
mentally incapacitated individual, or congratulate him on his ability to
capitalize on a market trend…
I am not seeing much evidence of a world preparing for
doomsday. Y2K got way more action than this Mayan Calendar thing. Remember
that? My best friend is still eating the rice from her storage bins 12 years
later!
What if we all acted like Chicken Little and ran around saying "The sky is falling?" If we
believed the end was nigh there would be no point to planning the business
calendar for January. We should definitely open Christmas gifts early on the 20th
. I should have planned for this months ago because I could have had a
website set up to collect donations to a “Save the world fund” and really
cashed in on that. Now I may as well eat all of those shortbread cookies because
the extra pounds won’t matter, and why not get a bucket of tiger tiger ice
cream to go with that? In fact, we should have turkey tomorrow just in case and
after that I will get out my bucket list and make sure that we get in at least
the top 3 things before it is too late.
1.Have a romantic dinner with Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Well maybe due to the time constraints and his current relationship issues, I
may have to settle to watching True Lies while drinking beer...
2.Go bungy jumping naked. Although it may be a bit
cold for that…
3.Play the “Sweet Transvestite” from the Rocky
Horror Picture Show in a live production. Oh, I already did that. Just forgot
to mark it off the list…
So what would be your top three things to do if the sky was
indeed falling? Would it be something crazy or would you rather spend it with
the people you love? Is there someone you would want to be with? Is there
something that you would want to say? Those are the really important things.
And really why should we wait until the sky is falling anyway?
Today is a great day to do something awesome with someone
that I care about. I don’t need to wait for the end of the world.
How about you?
I think I am going to curl up on the couch with my daughter and watch something on TV. Maybe we can find the Rocky Horror Picture Show and laugh and sing for a while.
Recently I had someone tell me that they liked the fact that
I was honest with them about projections for the success of a marketing
campaign that they were inquiring about. Social media and online marketing
companies have been becoming more and more prevalent these last few years.
Anyone with a Facebook account can call themselves a marketing guru. “Real
marketing experts” that were trained in schools more than two years ago are
floundering trying to figure out how the newest tools are working. There are so
many methods that include Google Adwords, blogging, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn,
webinars, YouTube and more. How they were working last year is different than how it
is working today. B2B and B2C techniques are totally different. Some industries
are capitalizing on it well, others have not even tried so there is not a real
great trail marked out. So now I just tell the truth. If I have done a campaign
similar to the one you are asking about I can say so. If not, I have only guess
work and theory unless we do some research before we begin. I can also say that research is in your best interest. Costly yes, but better than just shooting in the dark hoping to hit something...
I didn't start out that way in marketing. In the beginning
we wanted the client so bad and we believed our own crap. So we made lavish
promises and then worked like crazy to try to make them a reality for our
client. Sometimes it worked and the client was really happy. Sometimes though
the client wanted to reach a market that we were really not that skilled in
reaching and it took so many resources to get any action happening that we lost
money trying to perform to their expectations. Eventually we got smart enough
to charge extra for some of that work and we got really good at certain markets
and we could confidently make measured projections.
These days I just tell the truth. I don’t actually need a
client that bad anyway. We are not looking for new clients because the process
of looking is costly and time consuming and my other business interests are
lucrative so it has not been the best timing to pursue. Strangely though that
attracts more clients. Tell them you are too busy for them and they want you.
Odd people we are…
So there I was talking to a gentleman about the CalgaryBusiness Network and he was saying he wanted Loyal2U to take him on as a
client, and why? Because I told him I could not promise him lavish results. He
informed me that he had been sold marketing packages of exorbitant prices and
got nothing from the experience but the “turn off” was not the result. The “turn
off” was the fact that they lied to him. They had said that it would bring him
new clients. He did not get new clients.
I like being honest as a selling feature. Why not just be
truthful? It is easier to sell the truth. It feels good. Just say, “I can’t
make that promise. I feel it should work this way based on these experiences
but honestly your industry is tough. It may take planning and time and some consistency
to see any results. I feel that a long term plan would bring the best results
but I am not making any guarantees.”
I know that if you are in sales you are thinking I am nuts
about now. How could one land the sale with that attitude? Recently I was
listening to Kevin Trudeau who was quoting a mentor in his life. The man said, “You
need to care, but not that much.” It is good advice.
We do need to care about the sale. We need to care about the
client. We need to care about getting the contract or the sign up or whatever
we are trying to get. We need to care that we can deliver what we say we can
deliver. We need to care about being true to ourselves and being an honest and
authentic person. Some will like that, but if they say “no” it shouldn't ruin
our day anyway. There are other sales. There are those that are not impressed
with bragging. There are smart clients that realize that just because we have
had great success with Velda’s Grower Direct we may not know anything about the
financial industry. So why fake it? It is like a marriage relationship. If you
lie about little things or expectations and then your partner finds out, they
are angry. They feel they can’t trust you. If you care, then care enough to
tell the truth. Isn't that what happens in healthy relationships?
So why not tell the truth and then the ones who actually say
“yes” we can go forward with and we don’t have to pretend at every meeting that
we are achieving things that we are not. We don’t have to try to act like we
understand things that we don’t. We can instead explore options together as a
team asking questions and seeking real answers with all of our cards out on the
table. Together we can be open looking for answers and bringing in other
professionals when we need more information. We can say I don’t know the
numbers on that. I believe that it may be this, but that is a gut feeling not
an accurate market report or a study. Let’s find some of those and get them
onto the table before we make our next move here. We can then brainstorm more
effectively and real results are more likely.
If a potential client comes to me and says, “I am trying to
achieve X,” I now say, “I know nothing
about X.” I have full confidence to say so. If I have a competitor that
specializes in X I refer them immediately, as I realize that the learning process is going to be expensive for both me and my client. If I know that my competitors know
nothing about X then I simply tell this potential client that really nobody is
having much luck with X (that I am aware of.) I can offer to brainstorm with
them on ways to achieve X and possibly we can come up with a workable plan but
then they are paying for work effort, planning, research and content building
based on the findings - not results. Together with some hard work we may hit on
something profitable and if they are willing to take the chance with somebody
who admittedly knows nothing about their challenge then we can start an honest
relationship and move forward. In many cases I would be their best hope anyway
in this market because others don’t know either, although they may not have the moxy
to say so…
