I could not have said it better myself… But then again his name is Mark <– with a K, which I can overlook!
Click here to read what Mark Bouris thinks of toxic staff.
Archive for the 'Business Mentoring' Category
As I previously blogged, coming up with a great business name is not easy. Especially now that we have to deal with other businesses from around the world that might be using the name. With the Internet, we need to think globally instead of locally.
I followed up my original blog article with a 9-point checklist of branding blunders you want to avoid when choosing a business name. It was published on the Internet’s #1 domain registrar, GoDaddy.com.
GoDaddy.com is a great resource for checking and buying domain names (URLs) for your company’s online presence. I’ll blog about that soon, how you need to protect your online corporate identity and branding, but for now, let’s stick to avoiding the most common mistakes to finding a great business name!
I can’t vouch for the authenticity of this photo – but the message remains vividly clear – there are no shortcuts to success.
Yet we see it every day – people who buy into the “get rich quick” schemes promoted by the spruikers… If it’s too good to be true… It is.
That doesn’t mean success can’t be achieved more quickly – it just means KNOWING what works versus what DOESN’T… To avoid the silliest, costliest of mistakes – the avoidable ones!
If you want to learn how to succeed with less effort, contact us and we’ll show you the way – safely and efficiently!
Thank you to Gavin Buckett of the Gourmet Guardian for this priceless photo!
If you are planning an event or activity this year, you’ll want to have a look at the 2016 Australian Public Holiday and School Holiday Calendar.
You often hear about value creation as a key to business (sales and marketing) success.
Creating something like this calendar for your clients, friends, suppliers, creates value – quite inexpensively. It also establishes sincere reciprocity with no strings attached (no email opt-ins!).
If you want to maximise your SEO, you’ll link back to the calendar instead of re-creating or copying it. There are half a dozen reasons you should do this, which I explain in detail in my Internet Marketing Toolkit.
If you are a subscriber or regular reader of this blog, you’ll have noticed that the frequency of my blog posts has been reduced quite substantially over the past few years. I have refocused my time, effort and attention on my most elite, high performance clients – my Platinum Program Members. Since these are private workshops, you wouldn’t be aware they are taking place. I thought I would share with you a few quotes that were captured over the two days of discussions – the discussion themes included:
- Determining the WHAT and WHY of difficult business decisions
- Creating Winning Proposals
- How to structure compensation plans, divisions and entities to achieve your corporate outcomes
- Determining what you want and don’t want from your business
- Business models – which one(s) should I choose?
- Determine the WHAT and HOW of important business decisions
- Preparing a business to be sold
- Stakeholders – How to deal with them effectively
- Project Management Principles – how to get them done on time and on budget
- Work-life Balance – is it achievable or even realistic?
- The Internet, the easiest thing that’s hard to do
- Automating Your Business – how to leverage limited resources while producing maximum results
Some of the quotes captured during the workshop:
- The only crisis you will have in your business life is when you stop caring.
- Your singularity of focus in all dimensions of your life should drive you especially when the waters around you are stormy
- When you get conflicted internally – it’s because you’re unclear or unsure of the outcome you want to achieve
- Successful people were where you are now BEFORE they were successful.
- If you focus on what you don’t want you will attract more of it.
- Your self motivation is directly related to the level of satisfaction you have with respect to the reward you expect – within your decision-making horizon.
- There is always a cost of making a decision just as much as there is always a cost of NOT making a decision.
- FOCUS on the WHAT – your Reticular Activation Systems (RAS) will come up with the HOW (solution).
- You don’t publish blog posts for humans to read them – They are for the search engine (robots).
- Your integrity, congruency and authenticity have to be in alignment with your ultimate (life’s) purpose.
- The more components you can identify, value and communicate to your clients/staff the more valuable the proposition becomes.
- You need to demonstrate all the components of the value proposition so you are able to “discount” from the top line and maintain your needed profit margin.
- Separating the “what” from the “how” is how great decisions are made. Always start with the what and the how will take care of itself.
- Don’t hope for things to happen – expect them to!
- How we are seen is how we are perceived.
- You must know what your outcome is, before you start to do anything, otherwise you are wasting time, money and/or effort.
- You must recognise who is supporting you (internally and externally) in your business to make sure they are justly rewarded and/or appreciated.
- Never oversell what you are providing, your belief and conviction will speak louder than you could ever scream.
- Everyone is begging to be led in at least one aspect of their life. Be that mentor, leader or inspiration for your clients, friends and family.
- Don’t think about failing, always see yourself succeeding.
- You must be able to substantiate a claim or value proposition to amplify the benefits.
- Never forget who you are doing this for. There has to be a purpose to your business investments (sacrifices). Otherwise you will lose faith, belief and motivation to stay the course.
- Inflection points are produced by a catalytic moment. To take advantage of them you have to get the catalyst under your control
- When you get conflicted, where something isn’t right; the conflict is within you because you don’t know what you (really) want.
- We erode our destiny moment by moment through the decisions we take and the decisions we defer.
- The more components of the value proposition you can identify and quantify, the more compelling the case becomes.
- Each component of your value proposition has a cost and value, the more accurate you are in calculating (estimating) these, the more profitable and defensible your position becomes.
- Disintermediation means you have to become the glue that makes it work better than it did before.
- Your client or supplier’s calculator is different to yours. Their evaluation of the value proposition will be based on their calculator, not yours.
- The value proposition you are presenting might be too complicated for the person you are presenting it to. If they can’t work it out, you have to explain it, step-by-step.
- The more stakeholders you involve in your decision making, the more genuine and authentic you are, the more effective you can be in negotiating win-win-win outcomes.
- Considering all stakeholders’ vested interests should be an integral part of your process, not by letting them make the decision, but ensuring their vested interests are fully addressed in the final solution.
- The burden of the future should not prevent you from enjoying the present.
- The future should never be a burden, if it is – change it, now!
- The basis of your (current) thoughts is the result of your (previous) thinking.
- If you knew you could NOT fail what would you do?
- You should know the cross-road before you get there.
- Reconcile what you WANT versus what you NEED.
- It¹s not the client’s role to tell you what they want; it’s yours!
- You should NEVER complete your to-do-list. Only do the top 20% items because they give you 80% of your results and conversely the remaining 80% is a waste of valuable time because it only produces 20% of your results!
- Be decisive, don’t use tentative words like: but, or, maybe, might, could, should, hopefully, possibly, probably.
- If the reward is too far, you will probably give up on your dream. Create smaller goals to achieve that are closer in time, easier to achieve.
- Don’t hope, expect.
- There is no word for fortunate in French, only lucky. We are not lucky, we are fortunate to have the opportunities and choices – that we create.
- Prepare for the worst, but expect the best.
- Think different, not differently.
- Be authentic and genuine, never manipulative.
- When you come to the fork in the road you need to take it.
- If you believe, it will happen.
- If you’re not trying to do something out of the ordinary how do you know it’s not just ordinary?
- Vested interest is always how the other person sees it. If you can’t see it you need to take yourself outside of your way of thinking, think like they do.
- The more appreciation you have for outside-the-box thinking the better off you will be.
- When you are spiraling “stop it!”. You need to come back to the “what” not the “how”.
- Entrenchment is how wedded you are to the current way you’re doing things.
- As you second guess yourself, it lowers the value of your service or product.
- In sales, hunters are needed just as much as farmers.
- Singular focus is the key, but this doesn’t equal one thing for life!
- You’ve got to own who you are.
- Think through the complete set of scenarios before you start implementation.
- Prepare your business for sale 2-5 years before you want to sell it.
- The intimacy of the relationship with the stakeholders in your business
will vary on their degree of involvement. - The more stakeholders you have, the more leverage you can have.
- Figure out your timeline …. and start the clock.
If you read the lists and thought to yourself – WOW! That’s a lot of content! You’re right. All our workshops are value-packed, outcome-driven, results-focused. Platinum Program Members have no time to waste and want to get to the bottom line – YESTERDAY!
The Platinum Program is based on my unique coaching philosophy and mentoring methodology. It’s not for everyone, in fact it’s only for the most committed business people who “measure up” to an exceptionally high level of commitment and desire to achieve.
If you think you’re up to it and want a challenging environment that will hold you accountable to your goals (and dreams), contact us.
As you (should) know, I am a huge advocate for more women in business and a proponent of female entrepreneurs. If you would like to know how much progress has been made and what still needs to improve, have a look at this valuable up-to-date infographic on women in business….
Today’s topic is the example of a good idea that could have been great. First, have a look at this IT workshop Money Back Guarantee proposition… Don’t get me wrong, it’s different and will probably resonate quite well with the target audience, but can you pick up the sub-optimal presupposition?
It’s not obvious… Re-read it again.
As you have undoubtedly seen, the financial markets are in a correction and there is considerable concern about what’s coming next.
I have, over the past year, been preparing our Platinum Members to “weather the storm” and I felt I owed you at least one personal reminder (warning) about what’s coming.
I have blogged about this several times:
- I first introduced Harry Dent’s book – The Demographic Cliff – as one of the best books I read in 2014.
- I then highlighted what’s coming, preparing people with an advance warning and addressing the concept of prescient knowledge or what I call 20/20 Foresight.
- In another blog post I discussed market volatility…
- And reiterated what the current Financial Market Turmoil was all about.
So I think I’ve done more than my fair share.
Today’s blog post is just one last friendly “warning” so you have a chance to consider preparing and protecting yourself, your family and your business.
As an optimist, I hope the “cliff” doesn’t happen,
but as a realist, I know it’s inevitable.
The cliff won’t be the end of the world – just very, very hard for those unprepared and unprotected. I hope you take this warning seriously and do what you can so you can continue to move…
Onward and upward!
Marc
P.S.
This is not a call for clients to come work with me. This is strictly an “absolution email”.
I want to be able to sleep at night knowing I did what you would expect me to have done… Tell you what’s coming.
Now I can sleep well at night knowing I have done what I needed to do and the rest, well that’s up to you. We all live with the consequences of our decisions and this will be no different, other than the level of hardship that many will face, which is why I have made this extra effort.
This is the last blog post I will publish regarding this. I am not a fear monger, nor a conspiracy theorist.
I have fully researched the basis of the prediction AND what to do about it, before, during and after the “crisis”. This phenomenon has been fully and thoroughly documented, explained and analysed by really smart people who have made millions (in some cases billions) from previous corrections and crashes.
All the guesswork in knowing what to do and not do has been completely removed. Amazingly, none of the protective prescriptions prohibit growth should it not occur, which is why I think it antimimeticisomorphically exponential!
What would you pay NOW to have seen ‘this coming’?
Hmmm…. Interesting.
Even though I blogged about recent market volatility just last week and published a warning a year ago…
I venture to guess most people discounted those “predictions” as fear mongering, contrarian thinking or even “conspiracy theory advocacy”… because that’s what the herd does, that’s why bubbles exist and why they pop.
My clients are a calm lot today and will sleep well tonight knowing they’re totally covered. They saw this coming and got prepared. But it’s not yet over, this is just the beginning…
No, no, no… Not the end of the world…
But the beginning of the setup to the single most incredible opportunity we will have to make a fortune. But I am getting ahead of myself.
The point is – imagine if you saw this coming,
- What would you have done to protect yourself and your business?
- Would you have taken advantage of it?
- How would you have taken advantage of a market downturn?
That’s what it’s like to be a client of mine – I call it 20/20 Foresight: Knowing what’s going to happen BEFORE it happens.
If you want to make the most of what’s going to happen next…
Contact us and we’ll let you know if you qualify to become a client.
Entrepreneurship Defined: Living a few years of your life like most people won’t so that you can spend the rest of your life like most people can’t.
Without Killer Kopywriting, Your Sales May Be Dying A Slow Death
Headlines like the ones shown are creative, attention-grabbing introductions to articles. Without them, most articles go unread.
How good are you at writing headlines and sales copy that sells?
Copywriting is one of the most valuable skills to have as a small business person, otherwise your message gets lost in the noise and ends up ignored.
I am NOT advocating you be sensationalistic to an extreme, but then again you should be so lucky to get THAT MUCH attention!
The point is, provocative headlines work as long as they don’t offend.
They get our attention and make us want to read the article, even if it’s just because we want to reward the author for the creativity in the headline.
I used to publish a list of my top books, but then decided to keep that list confidential for my paying clients only.
As a speed reader, I consume over 100 books in a year and thought I could share ten of the best books I’ve read in the past 12 months with you.
Here it is – I am not advocating you read them all, just that I think they are worth considering the next time you want to read a good book.
- The Family Business Suicide Prevention Guide. Published in late 2014, written by yours truly. This is a MUST READ!
- Gone Girl by Jillian Flynn. You probably know about it because of the movie – I recommend reading the book first – the asynchronous style of writing is captivating, original and refreshing. Business people could learn from this book’s outstanding story telling and innovative approach to writing a novel.
- Scarcity – How having so little means so much. This is my “Business Book Of The year” selection.
- Curiosity – Another great contribution to our understanding of what makes us human.
- Talk Like Ted. Ted.com is YouTube for smart people. Ideas Worth Spreading. This is a book worth reading about speaking.
- Gold Rush – By Olympian and World Champion Michael Johnson. I am biased having spent a few hours at his facility. He’s the real deal and the book is worth every penny.
- How To Be Interesting – by Jessica Hagy. Who doesn’t want to be interesting?!?!?
- Blind Spot: Why We Fail to See the Solution Right in Front of Us – Gordon Rugg. Self-explanatory wisdom we all need to hear.
- The Demographic Cliff – Harry S Dent. If you haven’t read this yet, I hope it’s not too late!
- Wait – The Art And Science Of Delay – Frank Partnoy – No it’s not a justification for procrastination. You need to read it to get the nuances that are priceless and timeless.
There you have it – 10% of the book I’ve read this year. If you’d like to learn to Speed Read, get my program by clicking on the hyperlink.
Imagine read TEN TIMES MORE THAN THE LIST ABOVE – EVERY YEAR?!?!?
Does running your own business payoff? The answer is yes, and no.
In a recent BRW Magazine article, University Of Western Sydney researchers revealed that even though small business owners still don’t earn as much as the typical wage earner, they’re becoming richer and smarter with their money as they tend to accumulate more assets.
Australian business owners report a lower level of weekly income. In 2010, they took home an average weekly income of $1975 compared with those on a wage who took home $2173.
But a new University of Western Sydney study shows business owners outstripped their more secure counterparts by accumulating assets worth more than $1 million ($1.095 million in 2010), whereas wage earners accumulated only two-thirds ($673,000) of this amount.
“As a small business owner, you sometimes sacrifice some income in favour of reinvesting that,” Mark Sargent from Newcastle University said. “There’s evidence the typical model, where you take the risk and get greater returns, actually is the case.”
Using data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics and HILDA (Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia), the study found there are more than 2.1 million owner-operators of small businesses in Australia and the proportion of superannuation investment by both wage earners and small business owners has increased markedly.
The value of superannuation holdings in the sample group shows contributions from salary and wage earnings households between 2003 and 2010 rose 60 per cent whereas the contributions from unincorporated small businesses nearly doubled to 112 per cent.
“The magnitude of the change was quite surprising,” Dr Sargent said.
“Traditionally, people have started their own businesses with a view of one day selling their business and using the proceeds to fund their retirement.
“What we have now begun to detect is that more business people are dramatically building up their superannuation funds. This is a far more protected and secure environment for wealth creation.”
This is both good and bad news for small business owners.
First the good news: At least business owners are rewarded with capital appreciation of their assets. It is assumed the capital growth difference with their salaried peers actually compensates for the lower income and would the greater access to business deductions.
The bad news: The risk borne by small business owners is usually very high, with many primary residences collateralised for business bank loans and the on-going risk of default and bankruptcy especially in times of economic and geopolitical turmoil. An employee might lose a job, a business owner his/her job AND his/her house!
The great news: Some small business owners succeed at making a higher income and create greater capital appreciation than their peers. This small, elite group of business owners learns powerful strategies that are tried and tested. If you would like to join them, contact us. We’ll let you know if you qualify to join them.
I have a special vocabulary I have created to define Exponential Mindset Thinking principles and concepts. One of the most powerful is 20/20 Foresight – the ability to create the ultimate future (destiny) you desire.
Admittedly it’s easier said than done, but not because the future is hard to predict, but because of the inertia you have that PREVENTS you from adapting to that (new) future which is why smart business people fail.
Please re-read that last sentence again…
I have been teaching this principle for some time and even blogged about it. In one blog post I explained the 20/20 Foresight – Strategic Planning Framework and in another I revealed how our clients are adapting to the impending “future forces”. In my personal coaching and mentoring blog I was much more direct in my prediction for the future.
There is no secret about what I expect to happen – Harry Dent has been promoting his views for some time and even published them in a bestselling book – The Demographic Cliff. After reading several of his books, I attended one of his information workshops in Los Angeles in May 2014 and was convinced that (1) I have to take this seriously and (2) I need to prepare my clients accordingly.
Simply stated, what I am advocating to my clients is that they prepare themselves professionally and personally – this is a lot easier than you would think. If the crash happens, they will be the “last man standing”, if the crash does not happen, they won’t lose anything, they’ll end up with a stronger, more robust business and bullet-proof portfolio. It’s all upside.
To learn what to do, you need to become a client. Contact us and we’ll let you know what to do to protect yourself and your business. If you choose not to become a client, good luck and please let me know how it all works out for you.
_____________________________
Note for future reference: Please look at the date this was published… which can also be confirmed as published on Twitter, Facebook and Linked In.
I know, don’t you wish you had (1) read this before it happened? and (2) if you did read it, that you had taken it more seriously?
All I can say is – WOW – what an awesome video.
I teach Killer Kopywriting and I will make this a must-watch component of the Pre Program Preparation for the workshop. So many lessons with captivating graphics.
I am not into buzzwords and business jargon even though I have my own list of definitions for what I do…
This video shows how you can talk a lot without saying anything… Courtesy of Weird Al Yancovic – the master of this art of parody.
We all want to avoid mistakes, which is easier said than done.
That’s why this collection of Project Planning Pitfalls and Management Mistakes sponsored by Nebo Engineering is so funny and so true!
Click on the image to download the collection from Nebo Engineering‘s website.
This document is just another Exponential Marketing Strategy aimed at having fun as we help you grow your business or advance your career.
What were they (not) thinking?!?
Unfortunately most of the marketing mistakes people make are not this blatantly obvious.
I say unfortunately because if they are not obvious, then they are not recognised for the true blunders they are. These are silent killers that erode a company’s profits often to the complete ignorance of the business owner.
Ignorance is simply NOT KNOWING.
NOT KNOWING is no longer an excuse in this day and age of “Exponential Mindset Thinking” – It’s why MasterMind Groups were invented, work so well and are used by all super successful business people and the ultra wealthy.
You can’t be smarter than a group of your peers and you can’t outperform a group of your peers who are focused on your success…
It always baffles me when I hear and see people “going it alone” in business…
I just came back from a trip to North America where I met some very smart and ambitious business people.
In contrast, upon my return to Australia, I came across a 19-year old squash player who wants to make it on to the professional tour who said “I don’t have a coach, I prefer to do things on my own, see what’s out there and do it my way.”
I was gobsmacked. His fate is sealed – he is already YEARS behind his peers. We have local players here in Sydney who at the national level are already YEARS ahead of him.
So what does this have to do with business?
In as much as today’s example is squash related, the same is true in business. I see it all the time. Business people who have dug themselves into a hole and want to get out. In many cases, the hole is too deep and as a mentor, I simply walk away. The reason I do that is because as Einstein said “The thinking that created the problem is not the thinking that will solve it.”
As The Exponential Growth Strategist, I decided a long time ago to work with the elite in business, those who know what they want and are willing to invest in themselves to get it.
One of the key principles is the quote above. AVOIDING problems and MINIMISING mistakes is a necessary part of success.
One of the most valuable aspects of what I do for my clients is help them AVOID mistakes – prevent them from picking up that shovel in the first place.
A common and all-too-popular hole people are digging themselves into is with social media, another is poor quality copywriting.
The next time you get yourself into a hole – ask yourself this simple question: “How could I have avoided picking up the shovel in the first place?”
If you can do that, you will reduce the number of holes you dig for yourself moving forward.
Exponential Mindset Thinking takes balls – moneyballs… Watch this clip from the hit movie starring Brad Pitt.
Enough said. If you want to get a lot more done with a lot less time, money and effort, contact us and we’ll show you the EXPONENTIAL way to run your business that will have your competitors scrambling – literally.
This is a must watch movie (even though the book is much better) for anyone who wants to learn the principles of what I call Management By Metrics. Billy Beane changed major league baseball by overcoming more than a century of tradition and the wrong approach to building a “winning” team.
I won’t give way the key distinction, only to say that your business, industry or profession might very well be in the same situation, in need of a discontinuous innovation that puts you in the leadership position.
Antimimeticisomorphism is definitely required, but without Management By Metrics, it’s all theory and no practice. Games are won on the field, in the real world – not in someone’s head.
Making things happen and STICKING to it until it plays itself out is the underlying message that without that level of conviction, belief and discipline, it’s just another incomplete experiment.
You don’t want to dabble – you want to COMMIT when you know it’s right.
Easier said than done, that’s why a great book was written and an enjoyable movie was made.
