Why Strategy Matters

Yesterday I had the pleasure of watching somebody have an epiphany and understand completely what I do for a living. I had been out house shopping with my wife. We looked at a couple of homes with the exact same floor plan, and with very different selling conditions. The first house was a short sale where the people had already moved out. The second home was priced 22% higher and the homeowner was very clear that she was not going to budge on price. She also said she was going to stay for quite some time if necessary.

We decided to discuss the two houses with the real estate agent at the local Starbucks. In doing so the agent asked what I did for a living. When I told her that I was a Business Strategy and Marketing Coach the puzzled look on her face gave me the opening to continue. I said "I help people narrow their niche and find their business strategy so they can become better at what they do, make more money and work less."

Determination

This is been a very cool week for me, I was able to do something I never expected to do. Well I shouldn't say I never expected do it, I should say that nobody else expected that I could do it, or really no one expected that I would do it.  Up until a few years ago I was one of those people who was always letting myself down.  I would say that I would to something big, and never get to it.  I just made excuses.

Now that it's been over a year since the book So Now What?  has been on the market, I was starting to get a little frustrated. I have been grinding and pushing to get anybody of any value to look at the book. Finally, a couple of months ago, Jim Pawlak agreed that he would look at it clearly stating that it only had a 1 in 40 chance of him even reading it and much less of it getting reviewed.  After Mr. Pawlak, two more people agreed to "consider it".

Almost one year to the day after the book was published, the San Jose Business Journal online was the first to publish Jim Pawlak's review. I had no idea that he read it and wrote a review, so getting the google alert was very exiting.  If you don't know what a google alert is, stay tuned.  I will tell you how to use them and why they are so important.

The Success Practice of Giving Thanks

I want to start by saying happy Thanksgiving and safe travels anyone reading this on Thanksgiving day, and I hope you had a happy Thanksgiving for those who are reading it later.

This month my wife tried a new technique, really a new angle on a technique that we learned a long time ago. Every day she posted something she was thankful for on Facebook, something that she could share with all of her friends. Being thankful for what you have is strangely one of the keys to getting more and living a better life. I can't tell you why it works, but it does.  At least no one has ever said it doesn't.

Maybe this is why most religions have you give thanks at meals or before going to bed. It simply works. Personally I try to think of the things that I am thankful for each day before I start my day. Sitting on the deck getting ready to write or walking the dogs in the forest, is a great way for me to give thanks and let the appreciation really set in.

Jeff Walker posted an interesting angle in his blog this morning, he suggested that we each say out loud what we are thankful for today. I think this is a great idea since it lets everyone around us hear  what we are thankful for, and helps them to gain a better appreciation of what today is all about. So why not give it a try.

Happy Thanksgiving

The 366 Method of Daily Planning

Today is one of those days where I really enjoy being in a business that helps other people. The entire reason that I went into business was to help other people avoid the mistakes in business I made. The more businesses that I can help and the more people that I can help, the better we all do. The mistakes I made are way too common in business and way too expensive to ignore.

I got an e-mail this morning with a great question. It was from a guy that I met in Scottsdale Arizona at a marketing conference. His question was this: "I have a problem staying focused on my daily tasks and I'm wondering if you have any tips to help me get work on things done."

How can thinking like a marksman help your business?

The entrepreneur’s paradox affects all of us. Have you ever said yes to doing something you probably shouldn't have and regretted it later? I've never met a business owner that had not, so just nod your head yes, then we can move on. We all see it in every business every day. Even the best businesses venture outside of their zone on occasion. If you are doing it to save a customer, that may be acceptable however you should try to avoid it because it isn't going to be cheap.

I like to pick on attorneys a little bit because I have a lot of great friends that are attorneys. If you crack open the Yellow Pages to the attorney section I bet you can find at least one attorney's office that has more than 10 fields or specialties of law listed. And yet all of them can tell you that the attorneys that make the most money practice one specialty. I have a friend that has a personal injury law firm, and at one time they ventured out of the bubble and brought in an attorney who was a specialist in a different area. That relationship lasted through one major case and the outside specialist moved on.

Resrtict Bandwidth To Be More Productive?

Yesterday I was reading the paper, and there was an article about Lockheed Corp in Dallas having to restrict social networking sites because they used too much bandwidth. The comment from a senior manager was almost funny. He said “unlike other countries, bandwidth in the US isn’t cheap.” That’s funny because cheap bandwidth should have nothing to do with the decision.

What if everyone is using Facebook as a group work tool to post ideas? What if they are using YouTube to post training videos? I know I do, so why can’t Lockheed employees. If the manager was being completely honest he would have said something like “We are restricting the websites because we think the employees are engaged in non-work related activities on company time.”

In a previous life I worked for Apple Computer when they had Friday keg parties, pinball machines, pool tables and ping pong tables. All of these “non work related activities” were meant to keep people at work longer and to stimulate creativity. Apple realized that the most successful people would not ever separate work and play. When you have the right people in the right jobs, work and play become one.

Are You Focused And Still Not Getting There? A Lesson From Grandma.

My grandmother was a committed lady. I don't mean committed as in institutionalized,  I mean  committed as someone that has achieved success. The reason I'm talking about this is because today is a bittersweet day.   I bring up my Grandmother, because today is my grandmother's funeral. Maybe it's really a memorial because her body won't be there. I don't really know and I don't think it is important. Whatever it is, the family is getting together to pay respects, remember and celebrate a rather long and well lived life of the family matriarch. As a kid I think about my grandmother's house growing up.  Her home was the central focus for the entire family. Whenever anything happened good or bad, we went to my grandmother's house.  She is the last of her generation in my family, and we could learn a little from that generation.

My grandmothers house wasn't a very big house,  but it was big enough for everyone to have a seat and a smile. Most holidays were spent at my grandmother's house with the entire family there. When fireworks were still legal in Los Angeles, we would have 20 people or more in a very small backyard running around with fireworks. Oddly enough no one ever got hurt. It was always safe, nobody could insult you or hurt you while you were there. If someone started picking on you, my grandmother could always fix it with chocolate milk. If a fight broke out, it could be ended with  cake. She had so many activities for every kid you never really had time to bicker or fight anyway. TV was out, my granddad only allowed golf on TV.  If you said something negative about another family member or someone outside the house she would just laugh it off and say "don't be ridiculous." She would say it with a smile that somehow let you know what you were doing or saying was wrong.