Just something to think about as you go through your day…

“Your greatest asset is your earning ability. Your greatest resource is your time.” — Brian Tracy

Are you using your 168 Hours Per Week wisely?
Are you focused on the Big Picture?
Are you protecting your most valuable resource?

Or are you taking it for granted?

Howdy,

Sorry for the long absence, I’ve been busy getting some important things done that you’ll see soon… Tonight, I wanted to bring to your attention…

My mentor and good friend Kevin Hogan has posted a great interview on his website titled…

Will You Succeed or Fail in 2009? (click to read)

I always read his two new articles each week and often find much that is of value there.  I think that the Success or Failure article hits the nail on the head in the current climate.

We all need to be very adaptable and willing to make changes to ensure our continued success.  Stagnation is a recipe for disaster.

Kevin also discusses the differences between short-term goal-setting (good) and long-term goal-setting (not so good).

And while you are at it you need to sign up for his weekly “Coffee with Kevin Hogan” e-zine which he publishes almost every Sunday night.  It is a great e-zine that gives you a glimpse of Kevin’s worldview. In addition, Coffee reminds you about the great new articles as well as frequent “Coffee-only” content that is very valuable.

You can sign up for “Coffee” here…

I am off to Vegas on Saturday morning for my good friend Steve Chamber’s wedding to his awesome fiancée Trisha (Elvis will preside!) followed by a Sunday all-day Mastermind meeting with Kevin’s Platinum Inner Circle, which I am proud to be a part of…

Everyone should be part of a Mastermind group…

Rob

And if you are looking for Part One of the Success or Failure interview by Kevin Hogan, it is here…

The Difference Between People Who Succeed and Those Who Don’t

How to Quickly Build Trust With Customers…

In yesterday’s post we discussed that most people don’t do what they say they will do. 

We also discussed that keeping your promises will put you ahead of 95% of your competition and build trust.

Lastly, we showed a simple 3-step system to ensure that you keep your word.

Now, we are going to turbo-charge that advice…

Since keeping your commitments is a proven way to build trust, it stands to reason that we would want to make and keep as many commitments as possible as early as we can in the relationship.  Of course, showing up on time is critical for the initial meetings and/or phone calls.

Right now you need to think of three or four “promises” that you can make when talking with a customer that will be easy for you to keep.  Depending on the conversation, you simply drop one or two of these commitments into the discussion, and then you fulfill on them after you are done with the conversation.

A few examples:

1.      You saw an article in the newspaper or trade journal that is on a topic of interest to your customers.  You get a good original copy of this article and make some copies.  When you are talking with a client ask them if they saw the article about “X” and briefly describe it to them. At the end of the discussion, tell them you will send them a copy… And do it.  (you have built some trust that you do what you say)

2.     You know an event is coming up that is of interest to your clients—say a trade show.  Ask if they are going and tell them you will send them information about the show… Then send it…

3.     As a plus to #2 above, if they aren’t going to attend tell them you will send them an after-action report on what you saw at the event that might be of interest to them. Then do it…

4.     Promise to put them in contact with someone you know that they might benefit from also knowing…

5.     Discuss a great book and send them a copy…

6.     Tell them you will send them a customized proposal and then do it.

7.   Say you will follow up at an exact date and time, write it down and do it.  When you call, if you get a answering machine leave the message that you are calling at the time you said you would call…

8.     You get the idea…think of some of your own.

The concept is to pro-actively look for ways to keep your commitments, and to do this as much as possible to build your credibility as someone who follows through.  At the same time, you are also building up a favor bank with the potential client which will invoke the Law of Reciprocity which is one of the fundamental tactics of Influence as taught by Kevin Hogan and other persuasion experts..

This may sound simple. It may sound like common sense.  But if you do it, you will be on your own level in most cases.  Because not very many people are willing to go the extra mile.  Always be thinking of ways that you can add value to your customers lives…

Tomorrow, I plan to shift gears and switch away from building your business and your assets to using your business as vehicle to protect your personal assets.

Stay tuned…

Rob

Most people don’t do what they say they will do.  This puts them in a huge hole credibility-wise with their customers and associates.

They create every excuse imaginable, often fabricating an excuse takes more effort than just doing what we say we’ll do.

This is very simple behavior to correct…

Step One. Only make commitments you plan to keep.

Step Two. Write down all commitments in a place where you will not lose them, and where you can cross them off when done.

Step Three. Spend time each day clearing the list.

Having a system to ensure that promises don’t get broken will put you ahead of 95% of your competition.  And you’ll have to work less hard to build trust.

Have a great day…

Rob

Did you ever notice that when two people have the same idea at the same time, often the phrase “Great Minds think alike” is uttered by one of the two idea originators?

Well, couldn’t it just as well be “Poor Minds think alike”?  

Let’s skip school and steal a car… Great minds think alike?

Let’s drop our prices to where we don’t make a profit any more and hope to make it up in volume… Great minds think alike?

In many situations the correct answer and the right course of action is to do the opposite of what the others with “Poor minds” are doing.  And that is the sign of a “Great mind”…

Have a great Sunday…

Rob

Hi All,

A very short post today that was spurred by something Frank Kern said last night as we were finishing the first day of Mass Control 2.0 event. 

Frank’s point was that most people are stuck in a loop of Wrong Actions, that is filled with Escape and resentment and feelings of inadequacy and it all feeds on itself.  The majority of people are stuck in some variation of this loop.

Instead, try to get stuck in a Grateful loop, where you wake up Grateful that you live in perhaps the easiest time in human history to get ahead and to do so without back-breaking work.  Count your blessings that other people have built the infrastructure that allows us to do business anywhere in the world from our cell phones and laptops without the need to invest in expensive brick-and-mortar businesses that we are then chained to.  Be grateful that we live into our 70’s, 80’s and higher with great health in many cases…

By starting out grateful, this feeds positive emotions and reactions which leads us to take the “Right Actions” that will propel us forward creating more gratefulness and more positive feelings in an awesome feedback loop.

So, spend ten minutes the first thing in the morning counting your blessings and being grateful. And “blessings” are those things given to you without any action on your part, there are a lot of them for most people…

Now I’m off for Day 2.

Seize the Day,

Rob

Very short post today, one of my favorite quotes comes from the late Jamaican reggae singer (and dope-smoking Rastafarian) Bob Marley…

“Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery…
None but ourselves can free our minds.”

I leave it to your mind to determine what this means to you…

Rob

This is from lyrics for “Redemption Song”. Marley’s album Legend – The Best Of Bob Marley And The Wailers is my #1 all-time album. Highly recommended…

I had a meeting over lunch with an old friend and colleague and we got into a discussion of putting the proper value on our time.  For a business person who makes their own decisions on what to spend their time working on, this is a hugely important question…

The first step is coming up with a ballpark of what you need to earn each month in order to maintain your preferred lifestyle.   For our example, let’s say that you need to earn $10,000 (before taxes) per month and that is your target.    

Write your Monthly Income Target here:   $ ________________

Most people are not productive with every single hour they spend working, so you need to establish a number of “core” maximum productivity hours that you are going to diligently protect.  These “core” hours you will devote completely to earning the income to support the lifestyle you want.  You can take care of some of the other less valuable, yet necessary, stuff in the other “non-core” hours of the day.  For example, let’s say you are going to work 5 hours x 20 days a month as your “core” hours, this would be 100 “core” hours a month.

Write your Monthly “Core” Hours Target here:   _________________ hours  

Note: Your long-term goal is to pay other people to do the lower value things for you.  (Bill Gates doesn’t take his own car in for oil changes or service visits.)  This will free up more “core” hours or more free time depending on your lifestyle preferences.

Once you have the Income Target and the Core Hours Target you can divide the $ by the hours to get a target $/hour value for your time.  In the example of $10,000 per month and 100 “core” hours a month, the value of your core hours needs to average $100 per hour to meet your income target.  If you strive to make each of the hours be worth at least this amount then you will exceed your goals and this will allow you to pay people to do more things for you- starting with low-value things you dislike or are not good at.

Your job is now to find enough tasks and projects to work on that are worth at least this amount of money…  Ask yourself “What can I work on next that is worth at least $X per hour?”  This is a different question than asking “What should I work on next?”…

And once a week, spend an hour planning out what new ideas you can come up with for tasks and projects that will deliver more than $X per hour.  This planning/brainstorming time is likely to be worth more than $10X per hour in the grand scheme of things.

Your thoughts are welcome in the comments below…  

Fasten your seatbelts and raise your tray tables and seatbacks to their locked position…

The Bold Call Guys have just released our Selling in Turbulence audio system designed to help Sales Pros and Business Owners to take the right actions during turbulent times. We are “In the Trenches” and we are reporting back on what we are seeing at the front lines of sales…

The first three tracks concentrate on “Building Your Defenses” and the final thress tracks discuss “Going on Offense”.  Please go to our website www.theboldcallguys.com  for more information on this awesome program which is available for immediate digital download.  

Everyone who relies on sales to make their living needs to hear what we have to say in this program.  It will pay you back many times over in the months ahead.   If you enter the promo code “LUCKY17” for the next three days, we’ll take an additional 17% off..

That brings it under $40 for over two hours of hard-hitting ideas and actionable strategies…

We can help you evaluate your present situation honestly and accurately, take steps to get you’re A Game back, and take powerful actions to prosper during this turbulence…

“The accurate thinker deals with facts, regardless of how they affect his own interests, for he knows that ultimately this policy will bring him out on top, in full possession of the object of his definite chief aim in life…”

If we choose to keep blinders on and not act on real facts, then we are giving up a very precious commodity—time.  Some situations will “come out ok” and others will not.  By basing decisions and actions on reality rather than wishes and desires, we maximize our chances for success.

How safe is your job? How safe is your business?

Have you eliminated all the waste and bad habits that accumulate during “easy times” and which will sink you in turbulent times?

Our 2-cd set “Selling In Turbulence” will be available this weekend just in time to JUMPSTART your New Year.  The first CD concentrates on “Building Your Defenses” and the second CD discusses “Going on Offense”.  Please sign up at www.boldcalls.com and you will receive a special offer as soon as it is available…

Went to see “Slumdog Millionaire” yesterday afternoon and it was packed.

This movie is one that can educate on so many levels and it was one of the best movies that I have seen in a long time, and I believe it has some lessons to teach entrepreneurs…

I know that it is NOT even close to seeing this squalor and filth in real life.  Watching the movie we don’t smell the sewage, feel the burning heat and cold rain, experience the bites of the flies and bugs, or withstand the terror that these millions of people experience every day.  The attack on the slum at the beginning that changed the lives of the main characters was brutal, random and senseless.

Yet they were able to roll with the punches and find ways to make enough money to live, by finding opportunities…

We are blessed to live in a world with abundant opportunity.  Everyone reading this has access to a computer and thus to the combined knowledge of the world.  Today we can communicate at the speed of light with people around the globe and the infrastructure is in place to deliver products to almost anyplace on the globe.

There is no excuse that any of us can make to feel sorry for ourselves.  I saw another movie years ago that hit me in the same way, “Life Is Beautiful”, and it involves a young boy and his father stuck in a Nazi concentration camp and the incredible strength of the father to help his son cope.

Some movies, like these two, make me feel so blessed to have been born at this time, in this place.  Of course it is not perfect, but 99.99% of all human beings who have ever lived would welcome the conditions that we complain about. 

If you haven’t seen Slumdog Millionaire, go see it before it leaves the big screen.  And stay to watch the end credits…

Happy New Year to all of you reading, and I wish you a Prosperous and Opportunity-filled 2009!

Seize the Day,

Rob Northrup

Is Your Corporation Protecting You?

First off, December is upon us.  Did you remember our Alphabet Strategy post yesterday? 

Have you organized all your “A” files today?   Make sure to get this done before you go to bed tonight… Paper files, email folders, and any account management software entries…

In keeping with this alphabet theme, for the next 26 days I am going to write briefly about a topic related to business and I am going to organize these alphabetically.  We’ll start with A and move through to Z…

Dec 1.  “A” is for Attitude

Of all the things in the world, your attitude is the #1 thing that you directly control that can have the greatest impact on your life.  We all know sad people with sour attitudes.

No matter what the situation, there are obstacles in the way.  People with the right attitude of confidence are going to assume that there are answers to the challenges and push through to find these answers. 

People with the wrong attitude will give up without trying, and blame it on conditions.

Ayn Rand was asked what her favorite book was, and one of her answers was “Calumet K”

Because of this, he was able to build the world’s largest grain elevator in the face of many obstacles.  I recommend this book for anyone in business, it is dated, and it is not a deep book, but it is an awesome portrait of the can-do spirit.

Having the right attitude has many facets, including having realistic expectations and striving to achieve them.. Dreaming the impossible dream is not what it is about.  It is about deciding what long-term outcomes we want to achieve, and taking the actions each day to bring us closer to that goal.

As a business person, there are many things every day that you need to just let roll off and keep moving.  Concentrate on the big picture and keep your attitude positive and you will be amazed at what you can accomplish…

Tomorrow, we will move to “B” and we will be discussing “Backup”…

Rob

There was a job opening for a new lumberjack and there were two candidates for the position…

Both men had almost identical resumes, with identical experience, and identical references…

The lumberjack boss didn’t know what to do, so he hatched a plan…

The boss said, “Both of you report to the woods at 6am tomorrow morning and we’ll have a contest, the one of you that fells the most trees and splits it into cord wood will win the job”…

The day arrived and the two lumberjacks—one all muscle and brawn, the other a bit smaller were set to work in adjacent parts of the forest.  At 6am the boss fired a starting shot and both men started to work, and work and work…

The contest was set to run for eight hours and give each man a fair chance to show his strength and endurance.  At the end of the eight hours the size of the wood piles would be measured and a winner given the coveted job…

All day long the men cut and cut and cut at a furious pace until the clock struck 2pm and the ending shot was fired to signify that the contest was over.

The boss went to the first pile and measured out “25 and a half cords!”, an amazing production for one man in only eight hours…

They went together to the second smaller man’s pile and the boss measured it and found it was an amazing “27 cords! You are the winner!”. 

The first lumberjack went ballistic and accused the man of cheating, and getting help.  “I was in the forest next to him and I didn’t stop a single time for all eight hours, and this guy took a break every hour or so for five minutes or more.  There is no way he beat me taking all those breaks”…

The winning lumberjack said, “I don’t know what breaks you are talking about, but I did stop every hour or so when my axe got dull, and I sharpened my axe”…

I am in St Louis for a four day weekend to sharpen my axe and immerse myself into the world of Sales and Marketing at the Dan Kennedy summit.  As I said previously, this next four years I am choosing to vote for myself.  I can make more difference in my life than any politician.  And I recommend that all business owners should take some time to “sharpen the axe”—its not all about brute force and hours, effectiveness and productivity are critical too…

Find time to sharpen your axe, even if it is just reading a good non-fiction book or listening to a tape set on personal development…

Today is Election Day in the US.  I didn’t want to wait in a long line so I headed out at 6am thinking that there would be maybe a dozen of us sitting around in our folding chairs waiting for the polls to open at 7am. 

When I got there at 610am, there was a bunch of people there already, snaked back and forth through the building.  (I found out later that there were 155 people in front of me).  When the polls opened at 7am, the line behind me was two or three times as long as the one in front of me.  Talking with friends around the country, they are reporting similar huge turnouts from PA to VA to FL. 

We’ll have to wait till tonight to see how this all turns out, but this is one of the things that is great about America- our ability to vote and choose our government.

As business people and citizens, we need to reflect today on the fact that the most important thing that we can ever vote on is how we choose to live our own lives.  The decisions we make every day to finish a task, or put it off, or to invest energy and time in a new venture, or not, is much more important than who is elected President or Senator.

 

We can do much more to enrich our lives, or screw it up, than any politician can possibly do.

I am glad this Election cycle is almost over, I waste too much time thinking and reading about all of this (I can’t hardly ever watch it on TV), so I am glad to have this distraction almost over for a year or so before the 2012 primaries begin in early 2010 (or at least it feels that way).

I will watch to election coverage tonight and pray for good news, but then it is over. 

Remember, vote for YOURSELF and you can never go wrong….

Rob Northrup

I’m assuming that we don’t want to be considered “used car salesman”? 

Instead we want to be considered one of the “good guys”.  And the good guys are the ones judged by their customers to have the customer’s best interest at heart when we sell them a product or service.

As “good” salepeople, the end result is that we must learn enough about the prospect’s situation to make a diagnosis that some product or service will improve their condition in some measurable way.  And in the end, this item or service must be worth more than the money that they pay us. 

“It’s win-win- I sell you a thing, you give me money, we both come out better from the exchange”.   — Rob Northrup

Note: If this is done with only written copy, in a sales letter or on a website, then you need to know your target audience well enough in advance to already know the problem…

You start your copy by agitating the problem, and proceed to offer you already determined solution, and those prospects who identify with your pre-calculated problem and solution will self-select themselves to become your customers. Along the way in your copy you need to have already thought through and demolished all of the typical objections to making the purchase…

After you have “sold” yourself on the solution, then sales becomes a task of convincing the prospect that what you are saying is true AND APPLICABLE TO HIS SITUATION. So, I see a good salesperson as being someone who can analyze things and develop justifiable solutions, and then to convince the prospect that he/she is telling the truth.  This last part is often the toughest, and one misstep along the way can destroy your chances…

The persuasion part of sales comes in when you are trying to make the prospect believe you are looking out for his/her interests and telling the truth about the solution. This starts at the first meeting and continues throughout. Skipping one step along the way, or dropping the ball by not doing some small thing you promised can set you back a long way.

It is better to setup and achieve many small things along the way that you promise to do and then DO THEM on time, as promised.  Each one of these sets you up in the prospects mind as that rarest of people– someone who can be trusted to do what they say they will do.  And that is very rare indeed…

Rob

Hi All,

When I first met Kevin Hogan, (way back in 2007) I would often start projects in a blaze of energy and excitement.  I would work long days and long nights getting things done and planning out each step in detail.

And then, as the project started to get closer to completion, I would lose the passion just a little at first, and then a little more, and before I got to the finish line, I would find another project to get all excited about and begin the process anew.

This behavior leads to a lot of very long days, a lot of hard work, and a large pile of unfinished “projects”.  And do you know how much value is generated from unfinished idle projects?

Zip.  Zero. Nada.

This wasn’t the case for me with everything.  I have ran my own successful business with a co-owner and we have done well.  I have a great family with three kids and we have been able to do  many great things as a family that have required focus and effort.  But in some areas of my life and some types of projects, I seemed doomed to remain incomplete.

Then I met Kevin Hogan through a teleseminar he did on “The Secret”.  This hugely successful book really ticked me off, and I searched for kindred spirits to discuss this abominable concept with, and why it so dangerous, and I found Kevin.  And then I started to buy his programs, starting with “The Three Disciplines” and progressing through “Lifestorms”,  and then everything he has recorded and written.  It’s all great stuff and being a Midwestern kid myself it brings back a lot of memories of snow shovelling and door-to-door selling. (I grew up in the Frozen Tundra that is Minnesota).

And for the first time I understood the concept of Self-Sabotage.  And how our brain actually works against us to shut down our dreams.  And understanding what I was up against changed everything.

I have for a long time played around with the idea of creating a product to help small corporation owners to keep track of all the record keeping they need to be doing.  Once I identified the self-sabotage, I was able to dust off my abandoned project file and start working on it again.  And six months later I had finished the product (Phase 1) which I call CorporateVeil Pro and in July/August of this year I had 33 people in all sorts of businesses take a “Test Flight” with me and we went through the system together…

I got rave reviews about how easy-to-understand it was, and it has inspired me to do more of the same type of products to help small business owners cut through the garbage and get to the clear, concise, step-by-step truth of business matters…

I’m not working any harder, I’m just getting things “finished”.   And that, my friend, makes all the difference…  Thanks for the insights, Kevin Hogan!

by Rob Northrup
www.AssetDefenses.com