Why? Improve Your Position

Improve your position.  This mantra for success is something people forget every day.  When you get up in the morning and keep doing the same thing, you end up in the same position at the end of every day.

Fear.  When you think about it, the real root cause of doing the same thing every day is the fear of the unknown.  Fear of leaving your comfort zone.  Fear of not making that next car payment.  Fear of missing time with your friends, fear of losing time with your co-workers.

There is always that one person though.  That one person that takes a little time away from the group.  There is always that one person that moves out and up.  That person that you watch and wonder why it wasn't you.

The secret?  Improve your position.

There is more to it though.  In order to improve your position, you need to define "improve".  How do you know what improvement is if you don't have a destination?  The key is to create a vision or destination that is a very clear vision of where you are going.  When you have that vision you can improve your position.

In simple terms, if you want to go to the park at the end of the block, and your neighbor asks you to watch the game, are you getting closer to the park?  If you want that new car, and your friend calls with tickets to the concert that cost $100, does the concert get you closer to the new car.

These are obvious examples.  The most difficult involve an overload of information.  The secret to speed in improving your position is filtering out the chaff or useless information.

Simple decisions can hold you back if you don't pay attention, or pay too much attention to the chaff instead of the important points.

Living life with a purpose means having a "mission" in everything you do.  Even on vacation you can have a "mission" or "purpose".  It might only be to "relax".   Everyone needs to recharge from time to time, and that means different things to different people.  For me it means turning off the office and work in the front of the brain and letting the back 90% do it's job.   For other people it is just to get the family "off their back".

How can you improve your position while on vacation?  The reality is that you can always practice cutting through the chaff, even while traveling.  Always listening will bombard you with a lot of useless information, and it might just get you that great idea or solve the problem you have been having at the office.

Every time you get a call, ask yourself, "Does this improve my position or put me into a position where I can improve my position?"  If it doesn't, learn to say "no" if you want to move ahead.

What Are The Real Keys To Success?

As you know, I have been trying to fine tune the "formula for success" so that more people can create a lifestyle that they want, not just one they settle for.

I want to help you find a better way to live your life that fits you.  You can't be me and I can't be you, but we are both human and so the rules must be similar.

Recently I found the book was worth adding to my reading list for my clients and sharing with you.

The book is Cal Newport's "Be So Good They Can't Ignore You".  Cal Newton argues that chasing your dreams is a waste of time.  I agree.  You can have all the passion in the world for something but if the world doesn't it want it that way from you, you will go broke.

Like many people there are several things that I am passionate about.  I accept that those passions will not provide me sufficient income to maintain the lifestyle I expect. Instead those passions are my hobbies.

What he says to do is act like Steve Jobs at Apple.  Steve created a bunch of products and saw what worked and what didn't and he kept fine tuning based on the feedback of the market.  Remember the Newton?  Even the original iPhone (or should we call it the "Classic" now?) wasn't really much to speak up.  The bugs weren't worked out until the iPhone 3G.

Do the same thing in life.  Pursue a bunch of things and when you find one you like and that the market keeps asking your for, become great at it.

One of the aspects I really enjoy about blogging is the feedback from the market. It doesn't matter how many people comment on my blog, Facebook page or Twitter feed. When they do, I always appreciate it and try to respond in kind.

The metric that I really like however for blogs are the number of reads, and the number of reposts. It's very easy to see what people want to hear about from me when I look at those metrics. When I write about flying airplanes the scores are dismal. When I write about building a business or real estate empire the graph shoots off the page. There is no question what people want me to write about.

If you are at a crossroads, or stuck on a plateu, keep visiting this blog, or check out our new jumpstart program opening in March.

Should You Quit And Follow Your Passion?

Quitting everything and going after your dream is the subject of dozens of books.  As a business owner and industry leader many other business owners wanted to duplicate my success and would ask me how to do it.  

To be truthful, I have told many people that they had to find their own dream and pursue it.  They couldn’t be me, my dreams, mission and goals are mine and mine alone.  Many people have paid me for advice, and until now, I was overlooking two pieces of key information in the formula.

I have to give credit where credit is due, because I have been taking this for granted instead of making sure everyone understood these keys to success. Cal Newport in his book “So Good They Can’t Ignore You”, pointed out something that was right there all along and I was glancing over it.  

There is a bit of irony here since I am taking a hosting and interviewing class right now from Marki Costello, and just about everyone in the class will glance right past the “bombshells” and go for the “safe” route.   This is exactly what happens in business.  As entrepreneurs we get caught up in our mission and forget to listen to the market.

Some time ago another entrepreneur friend told me “You have to keep a lot of irons in the fire, and go with the ones that get hot.”   At the time it didn’t make much sense, and it is still not advice I would give everyone, but Cal Newport puts it a better way that makes sense to me, and is worth passing on.

The First Key

The foundation of any endeavor that requires financial success as part of the grade has to first pass the test of the market.  Simply put, you must do something people will pay you for.  It doesn’t matter how good you are, if there isn’t a market need, and you can’t convince people that they have one, you can be the greatest, and still be broke.

Lets face it, money does matter.  In a way it should right?  Society rewards us with money for solving their problems, not ours.  When you solve your problems you relieve a little stress, when you solve societies problems you are rewarded with money and power.  That isn’t selling out, that is being real.

The Second Key

Cal Newport also points out that you might get lucky and find that your dream is also financially rewarding, but that is rarely the case.  When you explore the lives of people we call “successful” in both life and financial rewards, he noted that they did several different things, and went with one that worked and became the best at that "thing".

The two keys together provide and an interesting insight, that was sitting right in front of me.  I had been skipping right over it all along, and yet it is exactly why my residential technology business did well in California, and only average to boring in Texas.  The market wasn’t as willing to pay for the technology in Texas no matter how good I (an my company) was.  In California I had both the market and the skills, in Texas, it was mostly just idle skills.

Instead of looking at it as putting many irons in the fire at once, I think this is more like putting an iron in the fire, branding the cow, and seeing if anyone will buy the brand.  If not, get another iron and try again.  If they do, get really good at making that brand better. 

This is why truly successful people can have many successful ventures.  Richard Branson comes to mind here.  Once one Iron got hot and everyone liked the brand, he built it up and used that to buy the next iron.  While we all know the brands that stuck, records, airlines and cell phones, I am sure there are just as many or more that didn’t take and we never heard of.

Looking back over my successes and not so much successes, it is clear that success is much more a simple formula than I ever gave credit for.  Pilot? I got pretty good at it, and people pay for it. Both keys here.  Business developer and consultant? Yes people pay well for what I have learned and my knowledge in their business. Both keys here  Actor? people are starting to buy it, so I’ll probably do more, have a market that will pay, only have some skills and have a plan to improve them. Athlete?  Clearly a market, but I never got the skills to a salable level.  Musician? Ditto.  

At the end of the day, Cal Newport is right.  Trying to become a Rockstar just ended in misery, I was in love with the dream, not the product and process so I never attained the skill level needed for my brand to sell.   Practicing chords and notes made me nuts.   In business, flying and acting, for whatever reason I don’t have any problem pushing to new limits every time I go to work.  I like building the skills and thus obtained the second key.

If you have been chasing your passion and it feels like you are chasing your tail, Cal’s book might help you get on the right track.  

Farming One Crop, or Multiple Crops For success which is better?

Have you ever felt that school was a waste of time?  Have you ever been lost in a subject to the point you didn't know the time or even the day?  How can it be that you absorb some things very well, and others topics of education can be so uninteresting that you have to work just to stay awake?

The reality is simple, and the truth isn't easy.  As humans we are hard wired to have an interest in certain things.  Those interests create the desire to learn more.  No interest, no desire.  Great teachers create interest first, lessons second.  Boring lecturers spew out lessons and hope you can force or fake interest.

Technical schools and apprentice programs used to be the way of life, but corporations found these a bit too risky and pushed the responsibility to the government, which by the way gladly accepted.  The problem was instead of allowing people to find an interesting path and become great at it, we were all lined up on boring roads and received somewhat generic educations.  This is why the greatest technical companies like Hewlett-Packard, Bell Telephone (AT&T), Edison Electric and Apple were created by those that stepped out of the system and created their own learning path.  They stayed interested.

So what does this have to do with Farming and Success?  Much like school, life and business offer us a variety of ways to grow and succeed.   The two Steve's of Apple, Mr. Hewlett and Mr. Packard, along with Mr. Bell and even Mr. Edison all showed us a different way to build success outside of the halls of education.

Ironically, farmers figured this out long before industrialization, and the lesson is one worth looking at.

In my coaching life, focus is a major element of my work.  I spend a lot of hours with clients getting them to simplify and focus on a small number of important tasks and goals instead of giant, endless to do lists that are really just busy work to avoid the hard work that needs to be done.

Lately I have been called a hypocrite more than once.  Besides coaching, I still fly, train our internet marketing staff, and am involved in real estate as an investor, trainer and agent.  So the question I get is "How can you claim focus is so important when you have so many irons in the fire?"

To start with, I don't look at these like irons in the fire.  I look at them like a farm.  You can build one giant farm with one crop.  As long as that crop does good, you will do great.  The better you do the more land you can buy and the better you get at knowing how to get the most money from that crop per acre.  You get the best prices on seeds, pesticides and labor because of the economy of scale and your ability to buy in quantity.

You can also build a farm that has several smaller crops of higher margin.  By learning how to grow crops that help each other in pest prevention, soil conservation and nutrient usage, you can also create a great farm.  You can never compete against the single crop neighbor on a price basis, and when the economy turns south, you might be in a riskier position. However, the single crop master farmer has to worry about a single shift ending his business.  What if he grows sugar cane, and the government decides to tax sugar 100% because it causes health problems.  He could be out of business overnight because you can't just change to tobacco in a day or even a month.

Starting a multi crop farm takes a different kind of focus.  You must have a big picture of what you are trying to do overall, for instance create an organic farm, or a farm store.  You must also focus on each crop one at a time until you learn them so each are a small success.  Your sugar might only yield 80% as much per acre, but your higher quality can yield equal or higher profits per acre.  Think Tiffany's.

When I sit down to write, I am a writer.  When I go to the studio to act, I am an actor.  I don't bring Real Estate to the studio, and I don't practice acting during open houses or when I am flying jets.  When I fly jets, I look and act like a pilot.  When I am in the Real Estate office working, training or attending a meeting, I look like a professional full time Realtor.

As I built my life, I did it in stages.  I worked at flying jets until I was highly proficient and only need a few hours each month to maintain my skills.  Then I could start classes for Real Estate.  I worked at that as an investor for years and know have my methods down to simple checklists.  I can evaluate an investment in less than 15 minutes.

Finally I could start acting classes and work at adding acting to my skill and income sets.  Writing is really just an extension of my experience just like coaching is, but I still take classes to be better at both of them as well.

I would probably make a little more money if I just picked on, and did it all of the time.  I am very fortunate to have started on my first path very early, and having stuck with it, was able to move on to the next with plenty of time on my life clock left.

In Flying will I ever be Bob Hoover?  Nope.
In Real Estate Investing will I be Donald Trump? Nope.
In Acting will I be Tom Cruise or John Travolta or even Scott Baio? Nope.
In Writing will I be Steven King? Nope.

Can I do quite well at all of them individually so that the income and lifestyle add up to something like they live?  Yes, and that is the life I designed for myself.

Because I built my life this way on purpose, I don't work at any one job.  In fact I don't work at any of my jobs.  They are all fun.  I am doing now almost exactly what I want to do when I am "retired".  It doesn't get any better than that.

So it doesn't matter which type of business or life you want to build, a single faceted super sized business/life or a multifaceted business/life.  As long as you pick one, do it with purpose and take the time to develop each facet or perfect the single face of your business, success can be achieved either way.  As long as there is a destination or goal to focus on you can do it.  No destination, no focus, no achieving the goal.

As you head into the weekend, really take a look at what you want.  A single mission business or do you want to do something more?  I like getting small and medium checks daily from all kinds of sources.  Some people need steady checks on the first and fifteenth, and others can do with one or two really big checks a year.  What do you want?

You can start with a single business like real estate investing and turn it into a 100 Million Dollar empire like Dean Graziosi did and then the checks don't matter as much.  Success really is that simple, it just isn't easy.

The Carrot and Stick For Higher Personal Performance and Success

I've been bouncing around the ideas of Activity - Reward and Carrot - Stick for business and personal success.  This will be about personal success, because your business can't succeed if you aren't a success yourself.

To start I want to talk about "being" for a moment.  In the Zen sense of it all "being" is just that.  Basically meditating or doing something without effort or thought.  When you do that you are just "being".

The problem is that most people don't have any ingrained survival skills any more when they are just "being".  When a cat is "being" and it runs across a mouse, it will catch the mouse, and if it is hungry it will eat everything but the head.  It saves the head as a gift for it's master.  The cat is simply "being" a cat.

A buddhist monk can just be walking the monastery, growing food, preparing meals and meditating because they have trained to exist in this mode of being.  Most of the rest of us haven't trained to survive and therefore succeed in any mode of being.

Socialization and industrialization has conditioned our ability to survive out of our "being".  When we are hungry, we don't kill the next bird that fly's by and eat it do we?  Leave a former Navy Seal alone on the street hungry, and he will.  Why?  Because he was conditioned back to a different level of survival and to him, being hungry simply means time to gather food.  The bird is just food.

In order to succeed while you are just "being", you must first have a vision of who you want to be, where that person is going, what it took to get there, and then "become" the person who makes the journey from where you are today to the person you are "being" and therefore become.

Imagine a woman, broke, lonely and working at a dead end job barely able to make her rent.  After going to a big self help conference she decides to set some huge goals and shoot for the stars.  She decides that she is going to make $5 Million dollars this year.  She goes home reads the books, thinks about making $5 Million a year, maybe even prays to make $5 Million a year.  At the end of the day she keeps her same job, and at the end of the year, she gives up feeling that she failed because she wasn't making $5 Million for the year.

What went wrong?  Aren't we supposed to "Think and Grow Rich"?  The answer is a little more than just thinking about making $5 Million a year.  Before you can be someone who makes $5 Million per year, you have to be that person who made $24,000 per year who then made $5 Million per year.  "Being" a lottery winner or trust fund baby only works if you get lucky, and this isn't about luck or are born into a wealthy family, and this isn't about that either.

You can't pick your parents and you can't fix the lotto.

What I mean is this.  If you want to make $5 Million per year, you have to find out about people who make $5 Million per year.  They all did something to get where our woman wants to go.  One of those people made the money in a way that she would find tolerable.  Now she must "be" that person until it becomes part of her "being".

Before you can make the decision of who you will be, you need to know the sacrifices they made to get there.  You have to be ready to make similar sacrifices.  There are stories of many famous actors who finished great colleges or theater programs only to end up sleeping in their cars before their big break.  If you want to be the next Brad Pitt, are you willing to sleep in your car?  I know that "being" Brad Pitt isn't for me, and likewise this is where most people just walk away from big goals.  They aren't willing to take the sticks and thorns of the path less traveled.

You will need to know what sacrifices they endured, what sticks they were hit with, which ones they respected and avoided.   You should also know the little rewards they gave themselves on their own journey to the goal to keep moving when the journey appeared hopeless.

When you accept the sticks and carrots of the journey as your own life, then you can become someone on the journey.  Only then are you "being" the person who WILL make $5 Million per year instead of the failure who didn't make $5 Million per year.

Setting goals that you don't reach is a downward spin you need to stay out of.  You can only do that by understanding and accepting the real costs of your goals and "being" the person that pays the price to make the journey and achieve the goals.

"Being" is easier when you know what the carrots and sticks are and are willing to take them both anytime they happen.

Do You Need An Acting Class To Advance Your Career?

Some time ago I was given the opportunity to work on The Newsroom, and in rare form, I showed up without doing my homework.  I was so glad to get the opportunity, I focused on the wrong thing.  I spent more time looking at how to get there, what time I needed to leave and didn't look at what the show was about or how I would fit in or who my character was, his backstory, nothing.

I also didn't read anything about the show other than Jeff Daniels was the lead character Will McAvoy.  Imagine that, the Dumb and Dumber guy as the lead in a drama.  I figured it would be a great deal, and I would get to work with some cool people.  I was right about that and nothing else.  I just showed up, with no idea what I was doing or going to do.

Everything went very smooth after I arrived.  Wardrobe, hair, makeup were all quick and easy.  I had a few minutes to meet the other person who would be on set with me, Andray Johnson.   Andray is a working actor, and has since helped me to become involved with the Veterans in Film and Television group.

As we got on set, they placed me next to Sloan played by Olivia Munn, the co-anchor on the show, and we start.  After three quick camera checks, we are rolling and about three beats in, Jeff Daniels looks right at me and says "What do you think?".  My brain just went to freeze-fright-flight mode and froze.  All I could think was "That isn't on the script!" but what came out was "Uh Well You know uh".  I didn't do my homework, and as John Boyd would say, I got hosed for it.

The director yelled cut, I was out, and the next guy was in.  Ouch.  Everyone was very nice and professional but I knew what had just happened.

Have you ever seen this happen in a sales presentation, company briefing or speech?

I bring this up because I have seen this happen in more business and sales presentations than I care to mention.  Just like being on set, it is normally preparation and homework. I didn't do my homework and let the crew down and the casting director who trusted me to do a great job.  Lesson learned, I won't let it happen again.

Being the true professional she is, Olivia tried to save me and slid some notes over in case I got another take.  It didn't happen, and I was politely escorted off the set.  Showing the level he was at, Jeff Daniels later took a moment and offered some advice.  He let me know not to sweat it, and that I should get some improv training, he mentioned "The Groundlings" in Hollywood might help.

The timing hasn't worked out for The Groundlings yet, although I do intend to go if they will let me in sometime soon.

For now I am taking an acting class with Harli Ames.  At last nights class we spent most of the time on improv.  It is scary how much you can learn in three hours when you push yourself.  It is no wonder people that do to schools like The Groundlings are so good at it.

The class has about 15 people, and only five have any acting aspirations.  The rest are there to get better at public speaking, business presentations or sales presentations.  Having a business degree and being an experienced public speaker, I would have never considered an acting class.  If I knew then what I know now....

It was amazing to see the transition as we did an exercise called "Space Jump".  If felt like being on stage with Wayne Brady.  Things came out of people you would never expect.  One of the most shy people in class jumped up and jumped right in, becoming a completely different person.  If the class were just this one night, I would already call it money well spent.

So, DO YOU need an acting class?

Picking The Right Rewards

The activity - reward system isn't perfected by any means, but I have a few ideas to share with you.

Picking the rewards has to fit the principle of the activity.  In an earlier post I talked about burning 400 calories and then getting an 1100 calorie shake.  Just a little counter productive.

Finding self punishment is another difficult task as adults.  We are taught to think "we deserve it."

One of the reasons I have a very difficult time working in a 9-5 lifestyle is the reward system.  Work one year, take a two week vacation doesn't work for me.

A contractor I met some years ago taught me the "Do the deal, get a check, take a vacation" philosophy.  The problem is that most people like to plan their vacations and know where they are going.  You can't do that if you don't get the reward until you get the check.

More than once I have cancelled trips with my wife and lost money because a project wasn't finished.  It was my form of punishment for missing a deadline.  The good news is I am much better at time planning these days.

I like the whole attitude that surrounds the "Do the deal, get a check, take a vacation" process as the core of the reward process.

Yesterday, I wanted to go play for a few hours.  I made that activity my "reward".  I then looked at my "to do" list and picked a half dozen items.  When they were done I could go play.  I ended up doing three more "while I was at it", and still made it out where I wanted to go and had a great afternoon.

I could have sat at my desk for hours doing busy work, but instead I assigned a reward, picked the work that mattered, got it done and then headed out for reward.  You can't do this in an hourly job in an office.  Interestingly, the  "Reward Challenge" is the only thing I like about the show "Survivor".

My entire staff is set up on a similar program.  All projects pay a set bonus, so if they can get it done quicker, bonus.  If they rush it, and have to do it twice, punishment, they did it twice.  

No rewards until there is accomplishment.  Want a soda, clean the kitchen, want to sit on your patio with a beverage, weed the beds.  Make it a little game if you have too.  It will help you self start, get more done and be the person everybody wants around because you get things done.

Finish One Thing At A Time To Succeed

This week has proven quite interesting in all areas of my work.  Like most entrepreneurs, I am a little ADD or ADHD or something like that.  My mind is always spinning at all hours of the day and night.  I got up at 3am this morning with ideas just pouring out.

I met two different business owners who had the exact same problem.  They had major projects somewhere between 70 and 80% complete and we already looking to the next project.  The problem was they weren't finishing the ones they already started.  Do you know anyone who has trouble finishing a project?

If this is you or someone you know, you might like to know why this happens.  To begin with we start projects for a couple of reasons.  One of them is to prove we can do it.  The problem here is that you don't actually need to finish the project to see that you can.  When this happens, you get bored, realizing that there is no question that you can finish, and you start looking elsewhere.

The problem I have with this is that you can't win until you finish.  This is true in life, racing and projects.  Imagine if you got on my flight to Dallas and we went 80% of the way and got on the PA and said "OK folks, you have seen that we made it this far, and we are sure you all believe we can make it the rest of the way so we are stopping in Austin so we can go do something else."  Crazy right?  And yet we do it every day.

Following through on a project or task until it is completed isn't easy. Anyone can enter the race, and many can run a lot of laps.  Only a few will finish, and only one will win.  

When these business owners come to me short on patience, money, time and focus while looking at the next project, it is easy to see why they are right where they are.

Imagine if I were a real estate investor and I kept buying property.  First I bought a condo, cleaned it up, got it ready to rent, and said "See, I can be a condo landlord" without ever actually renting it.  Then I went and bought a house, cleaned it up, got it ready to flip and said "See I can flip a house" without ever selling it.  I would go broke doing this, and this is exactly what I see business owner after business owner do over and over.

I must admit, I have done it too.

So what is the solution?  The simple solution is not to start a new project until the old project is truly complete.  Simple yes, obvious yes, easy, no.  If it were easy, everyone would do it.  

One of the keys to success is knowing what you want to do before you start, and then finishing it before you start something else.  I can't fly a jet while I am still racing a car.  Why do we try to start one business when the first one still isn't complete?

If you start, commit to finishing before moving on, and you will see your success sooner than you think possible.

The Power of Direction aka Getting More Done In Less Time

With the right direction you can get a lot more done in a lot less time.  At least that is what I have been saying and writing about for many years.  So yesterday as I was running off to one of my four "jobs", and a neighbor stopped me.  I could see the question before he asked it.  "Isn't it a little hypocritical that you have four jobs and call yourself a focus coach?"

Without question on the surface it looks a little odd, but I have a couple of secrets that I will share from my current book project, and a little perspective to boot.

My four jobs aren't the only things that I do. I also have written books, edit websites and write articles outside of my blog.  Also, my house is a giant toy store for big boys.  Classic rag top car, surfboard, paddle board, four beach bikes (everyone that visits likes to ride the beach path), skateboards and a radio controlled helicopter.  I like toys, and yes they are for many people a distraction to getting focused.  That is because they use them wrong.

Focused Doesn't Mean No Life.

Being focused simply means that you can see where you are going, you have a "destination" as I like to call it, and you are making progress.  It doesn't mean you are stuck in front of a computer for thirty hours at a time.  Writers block is famously cured by leaving the writing office.  

As a former military competitive marksman, I used to say you could see your target clearly.   When I moved back to the west coast, I realized two problems with that metaphor.  First, any competitive shooter knows that you don't focus on your target.  The front site right in front of you is the focus.  Second, not enough people on the west coast have guns, and if they do, not enough are technically proficient at shooting to understand the metaphor.

The truth is, shooting is still a great metaphor for life.  Looking at the front site is like looking at what you have right in front of you.  The tools you have today, here and now are what you have, nothing more.  Seeing a blurry target is also a great metaphor, because life is a little blurry.  Those who get things done know exactly what they want to do, just like a shooter knows exactly what he is shooting at.  At least that is true for a successful shooter, just ask Dick Cheney about now knowing what you are shooting at.  

So now I use my second life to teach focus.  As a military and airline pilot, we never start the jet without a mission or a destination.  Hopefully in the military you accomplish both.  Starting out, I don't always know what the place I am going to looks like.  Every place I have ever been is new at least once.  Some change making them new again.  I know enough to get there, and have a plan.  I also have a backup plan in case there are obstacles that are too big for my current plan.

The first time a pilot goes to an airport, he has no idea what it looks like, yet thousands of times every day pilots land safely at new airports hundreds or thousands of miles from where they started.

So how does all of this relate to the power of direction and getting more done in less time?

When you have a direction, or a destination, you have a reason, a purpose, an intention or a burning desire to get there.  If you want to get there bad enough you will.  

The problem for most people is distraction.  Those little daily fires that pop up.   My two dogs are sitting here staring at me waiting for a morning walk.  Because of my burning desire to move my business forward and help more people, the dogs have to wait, and I keep typing.

See if this sounds familiar in any way.  

Saturday morning you are going to sit down and re-write your resume so you can get a big promotion or move to another company.  You get up, and the kids want to have breakfast.  You tell yourself, just after breakfast, you'll sit down and fix your resume.

After breakfast, your spouse reminds you that Jonny has baseball and Janie has ballet and you promised Janie you would take her.  Not wanting to let your child down, you take her to ballet.  You can do the Resume when you get back.  After all it is just a couple of pages and the old one isn't that bad is it?

After ballet the other parents are going to have lunch at that new girls store across town, and Janie is screaming to go.  So you do.

At 3 pm you finally walk in the door dog tired of running all over town when you are told, the Jones want to get together for dinner, the sitter arrives at 5 and the dog needs a walk and the dishes need to get done, which would you like?

At 9:30 you get home from dinner, tuck the kids in, sit down and realize it is 10:30.  Tomorrow you'll get to your resume.

Sound Familiar?  Even without kids this has happened to me more than once.  

Building a business isn't any different, you can map out a business and plan it down to the exact color blue on your business cards, and wake up a month later with a great plan and no business, or a business with no income.

The Secrets

My first secret to keeping sane with four jobs is that I don't have children.  Just two dogs.  It isn't by choice, it just is my life.  Any parent will tell you that having kids is a job on it's own.  Many parents are overwhelmed by the kids and make excuses to get out of the house that make things worse not better.  This isn't really a secret, but it is something you need to understand as you set out on your journey if you want to stay sane.

My second secret comes from the ability to harness that internal desire.  It takes a lot of practice, and a litte discipline.  Each of my four jobs only gets one major item for the day.  The reality is, if I focused on just one job*, I would make a lot more money at it.  I have made the decision based on my white board to create dozens of small streams of income rather than one large one.  You have to make that decision based on your own "wants" and "don't wants"

The flying job at the airline often gets none.  The advantage of that job, for the most part is when I am not flying I don't have to think about it.  With over 25 years of flying in the military and the airline, flying is now second nature.  All jets are basically the same after a while.

Even if you have kids and a day job, you can pick one major goal and make a destination out of it.  If your family understands where you are going, why it is important to you and how it helps them, they will understand the next part.  I suggest the white board method for this.  

The next part is setting priorities every day.  Each day at the end of the day I look at the small white board in my office.  Not the big one in the garage that has my "Wants" and "Don't Wants" on it.  Here too are three columns.  The first is the daily task list.  One major item for each of my four main "jobs".  The second is my Open or Follow up list.  Sort of my brainstorm of things that should become something on the daily task list.  These are things I haven't done, and haven't put a deadline on but are important enough not to "dump".  Some will get delegated when I find the right person.

The third column is my notes and big picture items to work on when I have completed my daily tasks or hit a road block and need to let my subconscious do some work.

Here is the big secret that takes a little practice.  When I get stuck on a task in column one like "Write a New Chapter for Book Project", I focus on it for just 5 or 10 minutes.  If I don't see a solution, I tell my subconscious to work on it, and then I either go to the far right column and work on something like "Solar Panels for the roof" or I go grab a toy and play or exercise for 45 minutes.  I find that almost every time I do this,  a solution will just "pop in my head".  Oddly solutions for the other three items on the list show up as well.  

Using this method, I work three to four hours a day on three of my four jobs.  I believe if you use this method, you can easily start a profitable second career or business in just a few hours each week.

*Because the airline job is union and a straight trade of time for money, none of these rules apply.  I can't work any smarter to get paid more and work less than the contract will allow.  As much fun as flying is, I do plan to leave commercial flying and purchase a private aircraft in the next 24 months.  I will be too young to retire just in case you are thinking that is the reason for 24 months.

Living the Up Life, Jawbone Up That Is.

The Jawbone Up is the nerds jewelry.  It doesn’t tell time, and it doesn’t even have a display like a Nike Fuel.  Techies like me spot them across the room, and non-techies stop me to ask regularly.

I received a Nike Fuel as a birthday gift, and as cool as it was, the privacy policy was totally unacceptable to me.  I clicked “do not accept” and a window popped up to return the Nike Fuel.

After reading the Jawbone privacy policy, I decided to get the Jawbone Up instead.  The idea of tracking activity smarter just makes sense when you are trying to get in better shape or lose weight.  

The Nike Fuel is a more comfortable design and is less bulky, but after living with a Jawbone Up on my wrist nearly 24x7 for a week, I guess I am getting used to it.  I have also learned a lot of cool tricks and found a few annoyances.

On the annoyance side, you have to tell it what you are doing all the time.  Nike Fuel owners feel free to chime in here if it is the same or smarter.  For instance, I really like the idea that the Jawbone Up monitors my sleep patterns and makes sure I wake from a light sleep rather than a deep sleep.  The problem is I forgot to tell it I went to sleep last night, somehow it should know.

I also have been watching how activities are logged.  If I ride my bike for an hour and forget to set it into “stopwatch” mode, I’ll get some crazy number of steps added to my day which I haven’t figured out how to edit and change into bike riding.  Even flying airplanes, I get credit for some steps.  I plugged in the Up to sync before the flight moved and again when we landed.  I did 456 steps according to the Jawbone Up.  The reality was I didn't move my butt out of the seat at all for over three hours.  I expected the "idle" alert to go off.

If I put the Jawbone Up in stopwatch mode by pushing the button once and then holding it in on a second push until it buzzes allows me to log all kinds of land based activity.  It would be nice if I could swim with it.

My favorite feature on the Jawbone Up is “power nap”.  I had about a  two hour break today, and only slept four hours last night due to my crazy life.  I found a nice reclining chair, put in earplugs, and 23 minutes later my power nap was over.  I didn’t feel like I got all of my sleep but I did feel notably better.  Normally I would have been afraid to wear earplugs because I have been known to crash so hard that I don’t hear dogs barking or the alarm going off and have missed important appointments due to it.

Fully reclined and totally unaware of the world around me, I felt a gentle buzz on my arm and just woke up nice and easy.  The power nap feature is reason enough to own a Jawbone Up for me with my crazy life.

The only other real annoyance, and it could be that I have a bad one, is the battery life.  My Jawbone Up, never turns green after charging for well over two hours.  The manual online says a full charge should take about 80 minutes.  My wife’s Jawbone Up turned green after just 60 minutes on the initial charge and 70 minutes the second time and her battery has also lasted the advertised 10 days.  My Jawbone Up is only going about five days between charges.  Maybe I’ll call Jawbone about a replacement, but not until after I take another little power nap.

The Price Of Instant Gratification - Letting Your Goals Slip Away

As a business owner and coach, I have heard one saying over and over.  "Anything that doesn't move your towards your goals moves you away from them."

This week I spent some time thinking about that exact phrase and how to use it for my customers.  How can I illustrate this point.  At the end of the day I can't.  The saying over simplifies the truth, and ignores another truth.

Success is simple, doing it is hard.

The saying "Anything that doesn't move your towards your goals moves you away from them" is on the "doing" side of the success formula, not the simple side.

Why am I saying this?  What is the bigger truth?  I am glad you asked.

To expand the thought, I posted this on Facebook:

We spent last night grilling on the beach at Lake Tahoe talking about goals and achievements. I realized that the saying "Anything that doesn't move your towards your goals moves you away from them" isn't quite right.

I think that anything that doesn't move you towards your goals allows one of several things to happen:

1. You lose focus on the goals and lose sight of them, you might forget they ever existed- what happened to your childhood dreams.
2. Another obstacle is placed in the way - you might be trying to get a license and the government adds new rules.
3. Your action really does do something that moves you farther from your goal - You buy a new car when you are trying to buy a house and now you can't get the home loan.

The next day off you have, look at your goals, and how you are achieving them, and then take a real break. Things become more clear when you take a break and let your mind do the heavy lifting.

After posting this on Facebook, I realized that the cost of instant gratification was built right into number three.  When you buy or do something now, you give up or delay the ability to do something bigger later.  Buying that car now might prevent you from getting the house.  If home prices rise faster than your income, the car might be the reason you never get a house.

A Big Secret Of Success

One of the biggest secrets of success I have learned from personal experience and working with a host of very successful people is keeping the big goals in your sights.  That means that you 

Again Success is Simple, Doing It is Hard.

If you want a book to read about the high cost of success, I recommend the book BOYD.  Not because I am a retired military pilot, but because John Boyd chose success, and the book is a well written story of both his success and the cost of it.  For Col John Boyd, doing "it" was just what he did, it was hard on him because of the price he paid.

It is far easier to do the things that "pop up" or "need to get done" than it is to do what is really needed to move towards your goals.  Gary Keller in his new book The ONE Thing,  illustrated the difficulty of achieving team goals, and his trials of success.  At the end he figured out if you just set one goal, it was far easier for the team to achieve the one goal than it was to achieve two or more.

The same is true for you, especially in the beginning.  Set ONE goal for the day, get it done, then do the little things and the pop ups.  Over time you will learn to set a much bigger goal and then do ONE thing for the day that moves you towards the goal.  

Success doesn't require that you are always focused on the goal and doing nothing but moving towards the goal.  While that might help, the price might be too high for most mortals. I agree with Gary Keller if you could just do one big thing every day that moves you towards your one big goal, you will move ahead far faster than you ever imagined.

Doing it is Hard because it means you have to say "no" to a lot of other little things that you might not want to say no too.  That trip to the ice cream shop with your kids, a night at the ball park, the list of things you learn to say no too is never ending.

When you make a decision to reach a goal, look at other people who got there before your, or did something similar.  You will find they are great at saying "no".  When other people describe their early years you will read things like "he was driven" or "she was always working".  

When you are doing your one thing in life, nothing else matters simply because you know what you are doing matters more.  If not, maybe you aren't doing the right thing to begin with.

Find something worth doing and it will be easier to say "no" more often.  Find something worth doing that solves a problem for the world and they will eagerly wait with money in hand.

How to Be A Success? Start At The Beginning

Success is a funny thing, we all talk about success, successful people, successful projects and successful businesses, yet we all define it a little differently don’t we.  Ask any three people to define success, and you will probably get three different answers.  This month, Inc. Magazine’s cover proclaims there are “11 Rules for Success”.

I probably have a different perception and therefore definition of success than you do.  Because I realize we are all unique, I usually suggest three different books to help people decide what their definition is.  When I am hired as a business coach, or if my company is hired as a marketing agency, our first mission is to understand what our customers call successful.  I overlooked this thought process in my first book and am now re-writing the book because of it.

In business, “more business” isn’t truly successful except maybe to financial “analysts” on Wall Street who have never run a business.  Each business and business owner will define success differently.  The IRS simply defines it as more profitable, which isn't a bad start, but how profitable is successful to you?

As a person, you can’t be something you can’t clearly define for yourself.  Therefore it is important for you to have your own clear definition of success.  Only then can you be “successful” in the eyes of the most important person in your life, you.

Success can even have different breakdowns in your life.  For example, you can have family success, financial success and athletic success.  For me athletic success might be an 8 minute mile.  You might want to run a 5 minute mile.  Maybe success is skiing at Northstar 110 days in one year.

We might both say financial success is being a millionaire or a billionaire.  What then defines a millionaire?  Is it one million in assets?  Gary Keller, a founding partner in the Keller Williams Real Estate empire, defines a millionaire as a person making a million dollars per year in income.  He is a little vague on net or gross, but he defines it as income.  So must a billionaire have a billion in income?

Success is like a puzzle, there are a lot of pieces that have to come together just right to complete the picture.  Each of us has a unique picture of success.

Defining success isn't easy.

In the 1930’s, Napolean Hill, the author of Think and Grow Rich, had one of the first “Success Academies” in the United States and likely the world.  He taught a program based on his intimidatingly thick book, the Laws of Success in 16 Lessons.  The book is 1600 plus pages of wisdom.   I highly recommend it if you want to build a business that you can one day call “successful”.

Mr. Hill used the Rockefellers, Fords, Bells and Edisons as the examples of success.  His definition focused on the being the biggest in whatever field you chose.  Many people don’t equate success this way and have a hard time reading 1600 pages and remembering all of the lessons.  Since we can’t all be the richest man in the world, and might not even want to, many people who read the book only end with a view of success they don’t want.

Is The Greatest Salesman a Success?

A little later, a guy named Og Mandino wrote a series of short and easy to read books, with the most famous being “The Greatest Salesman In The World”.  He narrowed the rules of success down from 16 to just 10, and published a book of just under 150 pages.  A size just about anyone would be able to read.  

Mr. Manadino’s approach is along the lines of a fable.  A story about how the greatest salesman came to be and how we can all be great at something.  The greatest salesman teaches us that success isn’t necessarily money and things.  Something that many people believe today.  

The Humanetics Approach

Another great series of books that are little known for some reason are by Richard Wetherhill. Mr. Wetherhill was the founder of a business and wrote books for his employees to help them and his business succeed.  Today those employees own the business and give away the books at alphapub.com.  

Humanetics is the name Mr. Wetherhill gave to his approach to life and success.  Tower of Babel is probably the best book to start with in this series.  Since the books are all free, short and easy reads, I recommend them all.  If you don’t have a tablet, here is a way to save $100.  Buy the tablet, and download all the books for free.

In fact, the “Laws of Success in 16 Lessons” is also available as a free download if you do some digging.

So Now What is Success?

At the end of the day Success really is a two step process.  First you must define it, so you’ll know it for yourself when you get there.  Second you have to get there.

All of these books and articles offer some great ideas on how to get there, but until you know where you are going, getting there is nearly impossible.  Columbus was a success because he proved the earth was round, not because he missed his goal of sailing west to India.  Finding an entirely new continent was simply a bonus for being right.

Success starts at the beginning because that is where you define it.  

Follow the Rules or Make the Rules, What Do You Do?

Rules and structure are a funny thing in business. On any given day you can pick up a business magazine and read about someone who is successful by creating rules and processes like Henry Ford invented the assembly line.  The same magazine will have an article about some guy who is successful who didn't follow any of the rules.  So which is it?  What is an up a coming business owner to do?

The great thing about business is you can do either.  The important trick is to look in the mirror and really understand who you are.  If you are a risk taker that never follows the rules like Steve Jobs and Wozniak, you might build the next Apple.  If you understand the rules of the game like a young Bill Gates did, you might create the next Microsoft.  I don't think any of those three will ever be labeled as "unsuccessful" or worried about money.

Most people have been conditioned to be the worker bees.  They show up, learn the rules, do the job and leave.  If that is all you want out of life, stop reading.

Some of us haven't bought into the whole "be happy with what you've got" philosophy and are always looking for a way to improve our own lives. Simply put that happens one of two ways.  The first way is the Apple way, don't follow anyone, blaze new trails and do things differently.  These people and companies are the high risk high flyers that change the world and how we see things every day.

The second method is the structured approach.   Follow the rules and make incremental improvements.  Test the changes and move forward with those that work.  There are a few Microsoft fans out there rolling their eyes wondering how they got into this category.  After all hasn't Microsoft changed our world too.

The answer is yes and there in lies the answer.  You can be successful by managing and owning very low risk businesses like the family that owns In-N-Out.  They didn't change the burger business, they just made it clean and simple.  No chicken, no fish, no frozen foods ever, well except the milk shakes.

Microsoft was created after Bill Gates acquired the rights to an operating system and then smartly followed the rules laid down by IBM.  His competitor was "busy" and didn't follow IBM's rules.  Bill got in the door and got the deal.  DOS likely became a household word because of that one event.  If the other guy had answered the call, we might all be using CP/M or whatever the other guy had.  Microsoft has been making incremental changes to DOS ever since.  Windows was an add on to DOS.

Apple on the other hand changes everything from the inside out, every time they change something.  Check out the article in Fast Company about Steve Jobs this month, and read about how the iMac almost never existed.  While you are there read about Homeboy Industries too.

Figure out where your strength is, structure, tweaking structure or breaking structure then set your sites on a target that is just out of reach today and go for it.  Never stop, never give up, never quit, just keep moving towards the target whatever it may be.

Secrets to Getting and Staying Rich

I am going to try something new here, once each month I will post a "Secret to Getting and Staying Rich".  Some little nugget that not everyone knows or that everyone knows exists but they don't know how to use.  For instance, in the book "How Come That idiot's Rich and I am not", one of the secrets Rich Shemin shared was about buying used cars.  "Rich Idiot's" buy used, broke people lease or buy new.

I agree with this secret and have used it more than once.  The best deal was a one year old "Certified Pre-Owned" BMW 325i Wagon.  It had just 7501 miles on it, and instead of a 50,000 mile bumper to bumper warranty, it had a 5 year 100,000 mile warranty and maintenance.  I got the car for $10,000 less than the sticker price of the new model and my price included the tax, license and registration.  Over $13,000 saved up front, and several hundred in maintenance saved over the 8 years I owned the car.  Buying a used car isn't what this is about today.

For those of you that don't know, I am also a Real Estate Agent.  I don't do much selling personally, my wife is a full time agent.  I got the license to be able to access better information as an investor.  Once in a while I get to help someone fulfill the dream of owning a home, or owning their first investment.  If you are in Orange County California, look me up, I am always glad to help.

Today, I am going to be counter intuitive and talk about timeshares.  I can hear you saying, "What is a real estate agent doing talking about timeshares and getting rich, they are a rip-off!"  Like all things in life, it is how you buy it, how you use it and how you get rid of it that matters.  Timeshares can be good if you buy right and use them right.

Right off the bat I will say that having access to a second home at your schedule is a great thing.  One week a month I am in the Truckee-Tahoe area, and the other three I try to be at my home in Huntington Beach, CA.  Admittedly not a bad life, but I still like to go other places.   Like Maui for instance.  I am planning to go the first week of May, and rented a condo from Jim Casper at mauitownhouse.com.  I'll talk about renting condo's in the future for those of you that don't think you want a timeshare ever.

I would have used my timeshare to go to Maui, but it is one of the few places on the planet where I couldn't find a unit I could trade for that I liked.  I am planning to go to Nashville or Orlando or both this summer using my timeshare.

Most people think of timeshares as the pressure cooker sales presentation followed by a bottle of champagne and the hangover when you realize you just bought a hotel room for life.  Yes this happens.

Wyndham does a good job to make the owners who buy their timeshare second hand, second class citizens.  If you have lots of points and paid full price in the pressure cooker, you are in the "VIP" club.  If you didn't, well you aren't.  I am not.  If I want to pay $10,000 or more to feel like a "VIP", I'll join a country club again.

This all started several years ago when I wanted to go to San Antonio Texas for the weekend.  After talking it over with my wife,  just like parking spots in the movie The Secret, an invitation to go to a Wyndham timeshare presentation and get a free weekend in San Antonio appeared in my mail.  We went with the intention of just taking the free weekend.  If you are planning to do this, don't wear decent clothes to the presentation.  I noticed that people looking like they were auditioning for the "people of Wal-Mart" emails got out quickly and painlessly.

My wife and I sat in the pressure cooker for 3 hours of our "45 minute presentation".  That salesman knew I had cash available and wasn't letting go.  I finally broke down and bought a "trial" package with just one years worth of usage.  The idea being I would like to the program so much that I would come back and buy in.  They were half right.

At first I was a little put off by the slightly longer lines for the non-VIP people, but I eventually got over it.  My wife being the master at finding a deal treated the Wyndham points like catalog shopping.  She managed to stretch the points into three one week adventures.  One for the entire family in Myrtle Beach South Carolina where we got a three bedroom unit and had everyone there.  Another to Nashville (where I have since bought) and Kona Hawaii.

Once you get used to the Wyndham points system, it is pretty cool.  It is a little harder to deal with than the reserved week system from what people have told me.  If you are like me, the benefit of flexibility offsets any loss of "guaranteed" time.

The only thing that bugs me about Wyndham as a big timeshare company, is they still look like they are out for themselves and not their owners.  You can go online and rent a unit at just about any Wyndham timeshare.  I think the owners should get a rebate check for that time, or be able to put their unused time into the pool of open rooms to get paid, but that isn't the case.

That said, Wyndham does have a really nice over all product and the locations might look bad on paper but they turn out to be pretty good.  At least where I have stayed so far.  Nashville looks like it is in the sticks on Google earth, yet it is right next to the Opreyland area, and an easy drive into town if you rent a car.  The location was just out of traffic, and close to everything.

So, now to the secret of buying a timeshare that Wyndham and even other timeshare owners don't want you to know about.  eBay.  Buying a timeshare on eBay is very easy, however there are some things to know if you want to make it painless.  For instance to make the annual fees look less expensive, Wyndham bills every month even if you only get points every other year.

Buying on eBay will consist of several different fees on top of your final bid price.  A $1 auction could cost you $4,000 so read the fine print.  Luckily with timeshares there is a 10 day right to cancel called a right of rescission.  It is better to read the fine print first and not have to cancel.  I cancelled two because the fine print and the escrow didn't match.  Both companies were very good about it and I believe they were honest mistakes.  Either way though, your money is still held up for at least several days.

The first fee is the escrow fee.  Some sellers pay this for you, others run $499 to $750 per transaction.

The second fee is the resort transfer fee.  Normally $299 for Wyndham, sometimes paid by the seller.  keep in mind on eBay you don't negotiate these things.  There are several websites where you can make offers, so keep this fee list handy.

The third fee is the prepaid maintenance.  If the seller didn't use the points, you will likely pay them for the annual maintenance fee they paid so you get the points.  You have to watch this closely.  Escrow and transfer at the resort can take 45 days, and the points anniversary might only be 60 days away.  You'll have as little as 15 days to make a reservation, get there and burn the points if you can't carry them over.

A fourth possible fee is a "convenience fee".  This one is made up for smaller points sales that have prepaid the annual fee and know that you won't pay the entire amount.

Finally add your bid.  Add all of that up and you get your final cost.  We all know there are shills on eBay and eBay doesn't present it.  I don't know if it was the sellers or who, but several times a buyer with zero transactions would snipe me and run the price up, or get the deal.  Don't let it bother you, another auction will be open soon for the same number of points at the same resort.  Don't pay extra unless the seller is paying a lot of the fees.

As an example,  when I bought my 156,000 points at Nashville.  The points weren't used so I paid $25.50, (after a zero buyer ran it up with just a few hours to go) for the timeshare instead of the $14,000 the seller paid, $299 escrow (partly paid by seller), $370 in prepaid fees and $299 resort transfer for a total of $993.50.  My fees are $138 per month which isn't bad.  Even though I paid 25.50 I would have paid $50 since the seller was paying $200 of the escrow fees.  Know your price first.

Since I can travel off season, my wife uses the Wyndham website like a shopping challenge and finds great deals for us to see new places.  We picked Nashville as our base since it is one nonstop flight for everyone in our family and we can have an annual get together there.  It doesn't hurt that we had a great trip out there before.

Lots of user groups talk about getting the best points per maintenance fees deals when shopping.  If you are looking at the $1.00 eBay auctions, you are getting such a bargain that the fees aren't that big of a deal.  Also I think it is worth it to own at a place you might want to go at least every other year.  You can reserve earlier if you own there.  I suggest sticking to the 100,000 and higher points ownership. The fees do go up quickly for the smaller points owners.travel

There are two other caveats to Wyndham.  Some of the resorts were purchased from another company and were primarily sold as "weeks" not points.  In that case points owners can be at a disadvantage when making reservations since not all the rooms are open to points members.  The Westwinds in South Carolina is one such resort.  Just down the road are two others which aren't limited, and that isn't shown on eBay.  If anyone knows where that list is published please share it here.

The final caveat is to read about the points anniversary and usage.  Biennial usage can be odd or even years, and the anniversary can make a difference in your first year costs.  You might pay for a year you can't use.  My anniversary is July 1st.  Some are January 1st.  That means any points I haven't used by June 30th go into the ether and just like a second home that sits empty, I paid for not using those points.

If you like to travel, a  timeshare can be half the cost of a hotel room or less and the added benefits of having a kitchen can save even more.  If you don't want to buy on eBay you can go direct to places like discounttimeshares.com.  So there is your Secret to Getting and Staying Rich this month, buy a timeshare on the cheap and use it instead of using a hotel.

Is A Business Strategy Important to Building a Business?

Recently I have been working with a couple of business owners who are stuck on the whole strategy thing. These owners want me and my company to take over their internet marketing, you know SEO, pay per click and all of that kind of stuff. The problems is they can't clarify their strategy for us. My rules are pretty simple, no strategy, no marketing. The simple reason is I want to keep clients for a long time.

What I have learned in 20 years of owning and building businesses is that anyone can grab an opportunity, throw money at it and fail. I don't want these clients because I am lazy. Not lazy because their business is too hard to market, but lazy because I don't like chasing down new clients if I lose one.

Before we had the strategy requirement in place, clients would last anywhere from six months to about a year and a half. The few that have been with us over five years all have two things in common. First they have a strategy. While the strategy has changed a little over time, we have been involved with the changes so we could change the marketing to meet the needs of the client and their market.

The clients that we took on who were opportunists and didn't have a strategy would not see the progress they expected and jump on the next opportunity. Every six months we had to completely revamp their marketing. In the world of the internet, consistency is a critical component of success. The first month of any campaign is the most expensive, and we usually lose money getting a client set up. In fact most of the time, you don't see real progress for two or three months.

When a client jumped from opportunity to opportunity it was like getting an entirely new client. None of them would pay the higher fees of the first month, so each time they "re-invented" their business we lost money. The clients with a strategy are all still in business, still clients and still profitable.

Todays Internet Marketing Tip - Are You Yelping?

This is going to be short and sweet.  If you own a business, you need to be on Yelp!.  Why?  The simple fact is you need to stay in touch with what your customers are saying about you and your competition.  While there are at least a dozen similar websites with mobile apps that we watch for our customers.

For a small business owner, the most important is probably Yelp!.  If you have time, look at the others to see if you have more ratings and reviews somewhere else.  If not, get on Yelp! and stay in touch with your business and your customers.

There are two sides to Yelp!.  One for customers and one for business owners.  You need to be on both as an owner.  As the customer, you can see what your customers are saying about the competition and what you can do to improve your relationship with them.  Improving your relationship will improve the business automatically.  If you have a smart phone, the Yelp! app is free.

The business owners side of Yelp! will allow you to post correct information about what you do, where you are, what your hours are and other information that potential new customers need to know.  When this information is wrong because you didn't sign up and you made Yelp! guess, then your potential new customers start off with the wrong expectations.

Get on Yelp!, set the right expectations from the start and see new customers every day.

A Focused Business Strategy should Lead to a Focused Marketing Strategy.

Yesterday I was putting around Orange County in my favorite little car, a 1966 Mercedes 230SL.  There is something mystical about this car that creates an immediate love or hate response just like Beetles and Mini Coopers do.  The people that own them are more often than not smiling while they are driving around.  There is just something fun about it.  The controversial Pagoda Top of the late 60’s model Mercedes SL’s  has been the butt of jokes by many great automotive writers.

For me however, there is nothing cooler than putting up PCH in my little convertible.  The only thing missing is a cup holder.  As a Porsche engineer once told me “We make cars to drive, not to enjoy a Coca-Cola.”  Since I still have an addiction to Diet Coke, I am pretty familiar with every McDonalds in the Reno-Lake Tahoe area and Orange County, my two major hangouts.

As long as I can remember I have been going to McDonalds and In-n-Out.  My dad liked the chocolate milkshake and coffee at McDonalds better so we went there more often, at least that was his story.  I think it was because the owner of the McDonalds franchise next door to his office was a patient and we were getting free food.