Professional Women Need the 3D’s of Leadership, Too

Today marked a milestone for me and Weisman Success Resources. I was asked to become a columnist for an internet website dedicated to professional women, w2wlink.com .

You can check out my debut article, “The 3D’s of Leadership for Professional Women,” that after the day it was featured on the w2wlink.com’s home page is now stored on my page at w2wlink.com .

Power of the Peer Group

Parents are always concerned about the friends their children hang around with becuase they know now powerful peer group influences can be. Yet, when it comes to themselves few are practicing what they are preaching to their children.

I am at a two day conference with some of the most successful independent business consultants in the world. I just returned from a 3 1/2 hour dinner during which five of us spent the evening reviewing our business successess, failures, challenges, business models and shared personal stories as well. It was a great night of commardarie and learning that topped off a phenomenal day of learning at the conference.

In the two years since I’ve been part of this business coaching and mentoring program the level of my peer group has risen no less than 1000%.  Last month I also participated in a similar program with many of the same colleagues and I’m sure next year we’ll see each other again at other learning events.  In between we ‘meet’ online through a discussion forum to exchange ideas and help each other breakthrough challenges to improve ourselves and our businesses.

What is your peer group like? In this peer group our coach/mentor selected his first five inductees into the “Million Dollar Consulting” Hall of Fame.  Those five consultants, who are operating their own million dollar consulting practice, were all in the room sitting next to me. Despite their status and their longevity in the field and in this coaching/mentoring program, they showed up here.  They didn’t have to, they just did.

You see, in the business coaching and consulting profession there is no requirement for continuing education, per se. There are no credits given to us for attending these programs, we attend these programs because we value ourselves, our businesses and our clients and want to learn, grow and get better.

I believe in the power of the peer group and I know that just being in the same room with these people will give me the competitive edge in my business when I return whether I take anything away from the presenter, what I took away from the discussion with my colleagues at dinner tonight was worth what I paid to come here.

What about you? Who are you hanging around with?  Are they challenging you to get better? Are you challenging them to get better? Or are you all just hanging out wishing, hoping and dreaming things will change for you.

If you are in one of those professional industries that requires you to do take Continuing Education courses for credit each year what else do you do for your professional development, or do you just do the minimum? Are you like 99% of your competition that just does what is required of you or do you set yourself apart with continuing learning?

The next time you judge the friends your kids are hanging out with, why not take a look at your own peer group and ask what they are doing for you and your business?
If you want to be a positive role model for your kids, you may want to start here!

You Could Be Taking for Granted Your Own Products & Their Most Obvious Benefits?

Just got back from lunch at one of the area’s best known restaurants, right on the Hudson River. I was meeting a colleague to catch up on our businesses and life in general and I got to the restuarant a few minutes before she did.

This restaurant has a spectacular view of one of the primary bridges commuters use to traverse the river from one county to the other.  With the fall foilage one week from its full glory on a sunny afternoon the hostess thagreeting me asked me if I would like a table upstairs or downstairs. The conversation went like this:

Skip - “Well, I don’t know what is the difference between upstairs and downstairs.”

Hostess - “One is upstairs and one is downstairs.”

Skip - “OK, I will take your recommendation on what you think would provide us with the best view.”

I received absolutely no response from the hostess after my comment and as you might imagine she also failed offer to take me to any table location, hers, mine, ours, upstairs, downstairs, nada.

My friend arrived and it was time to make a decision. Since I saw no tables open against the windows downstairs, I decided to roll the dice and ask for a table upstairs on the hope there would be an open window table.

As we got to the top of the stairs we were greeted by floor to ceiling windows featuring an absolutely magnificent view of the river, the bridge and the fall foilage from the trees on the river bank across the way. There were three of their seven window tables available.  From there it was an easy choice.

I was disappointed, though, that the hostess couldn’t make the same recommendation upon my asking for the “best view.” The upstairs view was so overwhelmingly superior to the downstairs, first floor view, that a two-year old could have made the recommendation.

Did the hostess take their restaurant’s most powerful benefit for granted?

It got me thinking, what products and services am I taking for granted and not sharing or recommending to my prospects and customers? Am I holding back on some F.O.C.U.S. strategy that I take for granted because I am unconsciously competent in applying it?

What about you? What are some important benefits you can offer your customers and prospects you may be taking for granted because they are so obvious to you? There may be some gold underneath the dust on those benefits if you choose to get out the swiffer.

Day 3 of Working From Home

I’m still in business after three days of working from home. It’s going well and not a lot has changed from an operational standpoint.  For the first three out of four days I will have been out of the house by 7am for either a business networking meeting or a client meeting and didn’t come back to the home office until late morning.

So far I haven’t had to do the transition from the bedroom to the office directly.  Not sure when that day will come but I really don’t think it is going to be the challenge I anticipated it to be all those years I was in my out of home office.

Best thing yet, is that today I received two quality referrals for prospects that are interested in learning more about what I do. So, it hasn’t hurt from a business development standpoint, yet.

Stay tuned. I’ll continue to update my home office experience next week.

How Do You Choose to Develop Your Business?

I’m writing this from my last day in San Diego, California a professional mentor summit which was attended by approximately 50 solo-practitioners in the consulting profession.

We spent two days focusing on ways we can provide even more value to our clients so that we can create an even better lifestyle for ourselves as solo-entreprenuers. 

The level of success and sophistication in the consulting business ranged from those struggling to find their next client so that they can pay the next mortgage payment to those earning 7 figures (that means over $1 million a year for the uninitiated).

We all had one thing in common we were there to develop our business to the next level. We shared best practices in marketing and in delivery of services and offered our assistance to colleagues who may or may not serve the same clientele as us. It was a wonderful two days that has me energized and focused on doing the things I need to do to make 2008 even better than 2007.

I bring this us because so many business owners, especially those in the professional services field, failed to recognize the value of working ‘on’ their business.  They refuse to take that step back and invest the time, energy and financial resources to look at what they are doing, how they are doing it and how they can do it even better so that they can raise the bar on the results the achieve for their clients and residually themselves.

Today marks the seventh day I’ve invested this year to work ‘on’ my business in a total immersion setting with other like minded colleagues.  How many have you taken?  And those courses you have to take for continuing education credits to maintain your licenses or certifications do not count!

How has this type of focus helped my business? In June I signed the largest contract for a consulting project in the six year history of my business and I can point directly to the skills, techniques, strategies, insights and growth I’ve received from hanging around in a learning community that provides honest feedback and support.

As you plan for 2008 make it a point to include in your budget and in your schedule at least five days of business development work. The members of my coaching program the Business Achievement Gym have an opportunity for six such days as we have a 1/2-day workshop every month.

Time to go pack for my flight home.

New Voice Mail for New Times

Having call my share of financial institutions over the years I’ve listened to many different voice mail trees, as I’m sure you have.  Often we become automatically shut down and hit “0″ to get to a live voice after hearing “please listen carefully because our options have changed.”

However, today when I called a colleague today at HSBC Mortgage Corp. I was treated with the normal voice mail options but did not hear the ‘our options have changed’ message but should have because here were the options for me to select from:

Press
1 if you know your party’s extension
2 if you want information on interest rates
3 if you want to apply for a new mortgage or to refinance
4 if you are checking on a current mortgage application
5 if you have questions on an existing mortgage

nothing magical or surprising in that list but what followed those were:
Press
7 for the bankruptcy department
8 for the foreclosure department

Given the relatively recent significant challenges being faced by the mortgage industry I asked the person whom eventually answered the phone how recently those two options had been added. He couldn’t give me an answer, primarilly because he never listens to that message.

My bet is that those two options were added within the last six months? Any takers?

A Powerful Business Networking Lesson Every Business Owner Must Learn

I belong to a business networking organization many of you may be familiar with, BNI, which stands for Business Networking International. I’ve been a member for more than five years.  It never ceases to amaze me how so many small business owners and supposed solo-entreprenuers just don’t get it when it comes to business networking.

We recently had a member decide not to renew his membership due to what he said was a lack of business generation from the chapter.  I was appalled by his claim as he spent most of his year in the chapter proclaiming he was too busy and had too much work and didn’t want or need any referrals.  I was not upset at losing him as a member as in addition to him receiving few referrals from other chapter members, he provided even fewer. He just didn’t know how to play the game.

A couple of weeks later I heard another member of our chapter stand up and proclaim the same thing, that he was too busy and didn’t need any referrals this week.

As a fellow business owner, who just happens to coach other business owners to more effectively run their business, I just don’t understand this approach to business.
I can understand being too busy to take on another client in the short term, but I absolutely can not understand not wanting to meet someone who may have a need for what you do. It may be an immediate need, but more likely the business which is going to come from that referral today is going to generate business revenue in, at best, sixty to ninety days, and at worst, never.

I’ve had referrals given to me in my BNI that have taken eighteen months to generate real business. But that business only was able to generate business because in those eighteen months I was working on building a relationship with that other business owner who was referred to me.

The business lesson of the day is to never, never, never, never, never, ever turn down the opportunity to meet someone new who may, at some point in the future, be able to use your product or service, or whom if they get to know, like and trust you and what you do, may be able to refer you to someone they know.

 

 

Some Sales People Will Take Whatever They Can Get - Where’s the Real Value?

This is another in the UGLY category:

Was at a client today observing their operation on the first day of a new consulting project and I learned a lot.

When I got there they company principal and his partner were flipping through a new yellow page directory that had just arrived for a territory they do not cover. I asked them about the diretory and if they were in it.

They told me they are in a number of yellow page directories and just had a recent experience where they decided they were not going to renew their annual package for which they paid in the last year a total of $67,000.

Upon hearing that rejection, the sales person immediately dropped the price because they were on deadline to an unbelievable rate of $37,500.  My client blew a gasket and threw him out of the office for ripping him off the past few years at the higher rate.

In business its all about the perceived value from the customers perspective. If you’ve been charging a certain price and they are happy with the value they receive in exchange, there should be no question about moving forward in a continuing relationship. 

Sometimes businesses change and different decisions have to be made. The reason for the non-renewal in this instance had nothing to do with the previously perceived value but a changing business model that no longer required that level and type of advertising. So, the rate was a moot point because the medium no longer had any value to the customer due to the changing business model.

However, the sales rep in this instance, in not truly knowing, understanding or caring about his client’s business and strategy immediately did what most sales people do when faced with objections, they cave-in and immediately reduce their pricing, when that is rarely if ever the determining factor. Its always about value.

Now, this sales person has destroyed the advertising rate credibility and reputation for his entire company. What are your sales people doing? How are they responding to objectives?

They should always focus on value, never on price!

Customer Service is Getting Worse Instead of Better

It doesn’t happen often but its begining to happen more freguently these days. Today I experienced a small business customer service abomination.

Went to lunch with a colleague at a seasonal restaurant on the Hudson River across from Poughkeepsie, NY. I arrived today at 11:35am, 10 minutes prior to our 11:45am meeting time.

In the parking lot was another middle-aged couple meandering around the outside of the restuarant trying to figure out if they’re open for lunch. They asked me, and I said “I assume they’re open, I would think a seasonal restaurant on the river would want to take advantage of every day they could.”

After 10-minutes of waiting around, the couple leaves.  Five minutes later at 11:50am I notice a young gentleman emerge from the back sweeping the deck. I approach him and ask if they’re open for lunch. He gives me a blank stare and says in broken english, “ask her” pointing to a young woman just getting out of a vehicle.

I ask her at 11:50am what time they open for lunch and she says 12noon, I’ll be ready for you in about 20 minutes (which is going to be 10 minutes after they’re supposed to be ‘open’ for lunch).

My colleague arrives a few minutes later and we sit at tables outside the designated lunch area being set by this young lady.  Forty-minutes go by and at 12:25pm, s this young lady is posting the “Specials of the Day” on the white board, we get up figuring we need to change our location to get noticed and amble into the recently set table area.

She takes our drink order and when my colleague asks for some bread she says, “well, I’ll have to check, its Monday and we don’t usually have bread on Mondays because its right after the weekend, it depends on what last night was like. And besides, most people just use our bread to feed the ducks.”

We did get bread and in a prime example of the power of suggestion, promptly ate half of the bread served and feed the other half to the ducks.

Final note, we sat there talking ’til 2pm…only one other pair of people showed up for their lunch. So, effectually, they lost 33% of their lunch crowd today.

This place used to be one of the hottest summer time seafood restaurants in our area, and now with the waterfronts on both sides of the river being revitalized with newer, hipper and more proactive restuarants, this one is in trouble, obviously!

What is the owner of this business focusing on? Certainly not his business!

 

The Good: Customer Service is Always About Serving the Best Interest of the Customer

My wife came home from shopping tonight and told me the tale of two businesses.

One business had such outstanding customer service she is committed to going back to as a consumer and purchasing from them. The other she will never go back to because she was totally ignored upon browsing their store when actually looking for help.

The sad fact in this story is that we’re not talking about the big box stores like Home Depot, Lowe’s or Wal-Mart, we’re talking about local, privately owned business in a downtown business district that is starving for business.

Now I know it can be uncomfortable for both the customer and the store representative when someone is browsing. Nine times out of ten the store representative will hear “no thanks, I’m just looking,” if they ask if the customer needs any help.  This time, when my wife was actually looking for someone to ask questions of, they looked her way and then looked away seeming to ignore her purposely.

In the other store the store proprietor engaged my wife in a conversation as to what she was looking for.  Upon delving deeper the proprietor learned what type of product my wife was looking for and admitted they probably couldn’t provide what she was looking for.  But, in a very unassuming manner gave her a catalog to take home and peruse at her leisure to see if anything struck her fancy.  At the same time, when my wife suggested a product line she liked but they didn’t carry the store proprietor said, “if that’s what you want you should buy it because we can’t match their quality and I want you to be happy with your purchase.”

My wife, who was searching for a special style of chandelier for the dining room in our new home, was amazed at the frankness and the openness of ensuring their customer received the value and quality they were searching for regardless of whether their business could provide it.  Upon relaying that story to me, my wife said, “you know, I’m going to go back there when we are looking to buy those ceiling fans.”

So, altough this store is not getting the immediate sale, they are inline to get our business when we are looking for a product in the style and quality this store can provide.  An opportunity that came about because someone had the foresight not to sell something but just to build a relationship and get to know the needs of a customer at a very deep level.

Customer service is not about selling but about getting to know the needs and desires of your prospects and building relationships that always serve the best interests of the customer.  A lesson all of us should alwasy remember.

 

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