Author Archive
The only business shortcut that never comes back to bite you
Posted by: | CommentsMy friend and colleague Dov Gordon is sharing his $149 training video on “How to Win Your Hearts’ – by Reading Their Minds” for only a week or two. Below I explain why. If you’re in a rush, just go get it now: http://dovgordon.net/am/read-minds-free.php
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If you’re past the honeymoon stage in your business, you know that taking shortcuts have a nasty way of blowing up in your face. Eventually.
BUT there are always a few people who seem to effortlessly zero in on the key points in any meeting, negotiation, management crises or opportunity. They get more done, faster – both alone and through others.
Warren Buffett is an extreme example. In 1991, his multi-billion dollar investment in Salomon Brothers was at the edge of disaster. The government was *this close* to effectively shutting them down.
Buffett had to choose a new CEO, making what he considered the most important hire of his life. And he did. In 15 minutes. He met the guy for 15 minutes and decided to hire him. And it was a fantastic choice.
Astounding, no?
Was it luck? No. Nor was it a kind of reckless shortcut in which he “hoped” it would work out.
Buffett has systematically trained his mind to see subtle things in every day situations that almost everyone else misses. He can “see the unseen.”
Not in a mystical way. In a practical way.
The good news is that you and I can learn these skills. Maybe not to the level of Warren Buffett, but certainly to the level that you know in your heart you were meant to achieve.
My friend and colleague Dov Gordon has put together a free online video course for entrepreneurs and small business owners that teaches you just that. It’s only available for another week or so and I recommend you go get it now.
The course is called “The Simple Secrets of Gordian-Knot Management.”
You get it in four parts:
Chapter 1: ”How to Strike at the Root, While Everyone Hacks at the Leaves.” This is short, just 14 minutes. But it will change the way you think. (Available now. No registration required. http://dovgordon.net/am/read-minds-free.php.)
Chapter 2: “How to Win Your Customers’ Hearts – by Reading Their Minds.” (Available now at the same link. Free registration required because he usually sells this for $149. Naturally, Dov protects it behind digital walls. But this week you can walk in without paying.)
Chapter 3: ”Time Alchemy.” A big picture perspective you’ve never seen before. (Available in a few days.)
Chapter 4: ”The Critical 10% of Management Skills that Make You Look Brilliant 90% of the Time.” (Coming soon.)
I don’t often promote other people’s material. However, I’ve seen Dov’s work. I’ve known him for a long time and have always been impressed with his clear thinking and unique ability to teach it to others.
And it won’t cost you anything.
WHY is Dov giving this all away for free this week and next? Because he wants to introduce himself. He knows that some will want to continue with him in a paid program.
So do this:
1. Go register for the $149 training while it’s still free:
2. Watch your email so you know when chapters 3 and 4 will be released.
>>NOTE: This teleseminar happened a week ago, but now you can download the recording.
Conflicts between marketing and operations are legion, even
legendary. And you can spend hours mediating only to have the
conflict resurface the next week.
OR, you can resolve the issue at the STRUCTURAL level and resolve
it for GOOD.
When one CEO got tired of mediating between marketing and
operations, he realized how to resolve it PERMANENTLY: He
manipulated the underlying structure causing the problems.
The result? Marketing started selling products they previously
said couldn’t be sold. Operations now produced what marketing
wanted to sell and the CEO suddenly had FREE TIME to do what really
moved his company forward.
This IS NOT just about marketing and sales. Nor is it only for
large companies. These are just examples. It IS for all of us who
realize that “the best way to move ahead is to make myself better.”
Join me for a free teleseminar called:
“The Critical 10% of Management Skills that Make You Look
Brilliant 90% of the Time.”
Register here: http://www.dovgordon.biz/the-10-percent.htm
In this teleseminar, I’ll share this story and others to help
you understand how to see the STRUCTURES that lie beneath whatever
you’re doing so you can begin to MANIPULATE them.
When you change things on the structural level, they change FOR
GOOD. Which sure beats revisiting the same issues week after week, doesn’t it?
If you believe in the 90-10 Law, (or 80-20) the Pareto Principle, which says
that 90% of your results flow from 10% of your activities, then you
understand that 10% of your management know-how will be responsible
for 90% of your results.
And in my experience working with CEOs and owners of small and mid-sized
companies there are a small number of STRUCTURES, that when you
learn and master them, directly bump up your results as a business
owner or executive.
Join me. You’ll see IMMEDIATE RESULTS. Dina did:
“I have a details-oriented client who knows what she wants but not
how to articulate it to others (i.e. me). On hearing about the
management structures in Dov’s 10-90 seminar, I realized the
invaluable information he gave was immediately applicable to my
situation.
“Since I knew the management structures thanks to Dov’s seminar, I
knew to ask leading questions, keep us from getting sidetracked,
and to determine what she wanted done. We are both happier with our
working relationship now.”
Dina Gaines, Business to business and fundraising copywriter
—
And listen to Dan Barak:
“I would like to take a moment and recommend that you listen in on
this teleseminar with Dov.
“Dov delivers high quality sessions, filled with great insights and
fascinating examples. I’ve listened to his talks before and got great value out of them.
“I think that if you choose to devote the time (and only time since
it’s free) to this session, you’ll see Dov is really set out to deliver
value to his audience and will make sure you have the chance to start
improving yourselves immediately.”
Best regards,
-Dan Barak, CEO Bloggersbase.com
Register now: “The Critical 10% of Management Skills that Make You
Look Brilliant 90% of the Time.”
Register here now: http://www.dovgordon.biz/the-10-percent.htm
Questions?
Email or call.
Dov Gordon
+972-2-992-0396
+972-54-790-2740
dovgordon@gmail.com
http://www.GordonGroupEC.com
PS: Anyone who joins the live call will ALSO receive a free GIFT copy
of a seminar I did recently on “How to Strengthen Your Negotiating
Position.” It’s about practical things you can do to substantially
strengthen your position in your market.
How We Defy Common Sense and Overcomplicate Our Business Lives
Posted by: | CommentsSee if you recognize this treacherous
thought pattern because like ants in the summer,
it finds a tiny opening, squeezes in and takes over.
This is the first in a series in which we’ll
look at the many ways we unwittingly
over-complicate our businesses – and how to stop
and SIMPLIFY.
—
AND – since you registered for the 10-90 teleseminar recently,
there’s a special offer for you below.
—
“The medicine doesn’t work in our house.”
My 3 year old daughter complained that her ear hurt.
My wife dripped some drops into her ear and gave
her some Tylenol. “It still hurts,” she said
after swallowing the medicine.
“Give it some time,” said my wife.
An hour later, while at a neighbor’s house, my
wife asked how her ear was feeling. “Now it’s
better,” she said. “The medicine doesn’t
work in our house.”
One of those precious “from the mouth of babes” moments.
And yet that’s a mistake we often make in our
own businesses: We draw conclusions that REALITY
will refuse to support.
—
Here are some random examples:
An important prospect doesn’t reply to your
email and you worry he’s not interested.
Maybe. Maybe not. All we know is that we
didn’t RECEIVE a reply. We can’t even be sure
he didn’t reply. Perhaps his reply was snatched
as a tithe by the great cyber email-eater. Or,
thanks to the email program’s autocomplete
feature, it sped off to someone else who shares
your first name without your prospect realizing.
When we look at the EVIDENCE – the cold, hard
facts – all we see is that we expected a reply
and it hasn’t come. If we start ADDING MEANING
to the evidence, we abandon common sense and
distort reality.
—
Consider this scenario: Did you ever hire
someone you HOPED would do the job? You knew they
could to part of the job, and you HOPED they’d
do it all. But you really didn’t have a good
reason to believe it.
This is just another example of over-complicating
what really is simple. We don’t have evidence to
support what we want to believe and yet we march
forward in hopes that we can defy a natural law.
—
But WHY do we do this?
The first reason is we’re under a LOT of
pressure. Stress and pressure dumbs-down your
innate intelligence. We have an urgent need to
add an employee to our team. And so we let the
ants march right in…
The second reason lies at the STRUCTURAL level.
You need to train your mind to SEPARATE ISSUES.
Yes, you may have a desperate need for a new
employee. But that is one issue. Whether or not
you should hire THIS employee, is a decision of
its own.
—
The bottom line is that when you permit yourself
to only worry and fear things supported by the
cold hard facts, your business life will simplify.
That’s just REALITY.
—
DO THIS NOW because it’ll save you at least an
hour today. Think of a worrying situation and ask
yourself:
- “What conclusions am I tempted to draw?”
“What am I afraid will happen, or has
happened?” List them.
- For each item listed, ask: “Do I have
OBSERVABLE EVIDENCE to support this conclusion?”
- If the answer is “yes,” plan appropriate
preventive and contingent steps. If the answer is
“no,” then REFUSE to worry about it and
continue as before.
This five minute exercise will probably save you
days or weeks of worry and indecision.
And the medicine will work – also in your house.
—
As always, I invite you to reply with your
reactions.
Dov Gordon
dovgordon@gmail.com
+972-2-992-0396
www.DovGordon.biz/the-10-percent.htm
How to Speed Up Your Company’s Progress
Posted by: | CommentsSales take longer expected. New employees, software and equipment all take too long to get up to speed. Isn’t that your experience?
To speed up your progress, install more systems.
One client followed this advice when he hired his last two employees. He had the old and new employees write down everything you need to know to do the jobs well. Checklist, systems, schedules and so on. One of the new employees suddenly needs to leave, but their documented systems will help his next hire get up and running in days – not weeks or months.
Your company’s systems are like a railroad track. Make them solid, clear and straight and your business will speed along.
Here are five steps for developing solid systems:
1. Write your outcomes. What will be different once this system is up and running? Focus on results, not activities.
2. Write out the steps. What must be done to move from A to B? WHO will be responsible for doing WHAT by WHEN?
3. Where’s the danger? Look at each step and ask yourself “What could go wrong here?” Think ahead and identify all the possible problems.
4. Add preventives; things you can do to prevent those problems. Add contingencies in case the problem crops up anyway.
5. Monitor your progress. Who will be making sure things are “on track?” How often? I what manner?
The biggest reason companies don’t do this is because they fool themselves into believing they don’t have time. A second reason is they don’t have a process like this to follow. So here’s a gift in the form of a more detailed template you can use for systematizing, and speeding up, almost any area of your business. Go to www.DovGordon.biz/systems.html to get it.
Frustrated with how long it takes to delegate sometimes? Tired of meetings that go in circles to nowhere? Wondering how some people can walk into a conversation, divine what’s going on in minutes and effortlessly cut through to make the real, salient point?
Then you’ll want to watch this new – free – 35 minute video where I teach you advanced management skills that are literally like night vision for the savvy CEO.
Here are excerpts from the training:
Click now to get the full advanced management training.
No-Risk Leverage for All Your Marketing Activities
Posted by: | CommentsOne simple way to gain quick leverage in your marketing is to focus the right message to the right customer. Consistently.
I know that sounds very obvious, but look around you and at your own company: Is it done?
A useful tactic is to create a handful of customer profiles, or ‘sketches’ of different types of customers. You can then articulate the right messages to the right people in the right way at the right time.
How do you create customer profiles? Use the following three questions as your guide:
- What are the REASONS that people buy your type of product or service? What are their desired results? Make sure you understand the logical reasons as well as the emotional and psychological satisfactions people want.
- When people think about your products and services, what are some common CONCERNS they have? Assumptions they make? Misconceptions? Fears? Worries? Questions?
- The third question helps you add dimension to your answers to the first two.
Think of factors such as geography, age, past experience, price range, how they found you, marital status and so on. Which of these or similar factors may influence either the REASONS someone would want to buy from you and or the CONCERNS they are likely to have (beliefs, worldview) about buying your products and services?
Once you’ve answered these questions, you should be able to create four or five common customer profiles.
Now that you have the profiles:
- It’s likely that one or two of them represent more value for your company than the others. The old 80-20 rule. Separate those out for special attention.
- For each profile, but especially for the one or two that represent significant opportunity, ask: How can we optimize our marketing and sales processes to better appeal to the hearts and minds of customers within this profile?
Let me know your results.
Reply if you have any questions.
Finally, answer a short survey and get a free 15 minute consultation as a thank you: http://www.dovgordon.biz/more-customers.html
Dov Gordon
+972-2-992-0396
Making Better Business Decisions: A Simple Tool
Posted by: | Comments
“How should I grow my business?” “How should I compensate my new employee who is taking over a significant and important part of the business?” “How should I…?”
Here is a simple process that always helps: Develop options.
When planning a building, architects will develop several schematics. Each is a complete option for using the space and each will help the owner meet his critical needs and all or most of his wants.
In other words when the architect asks “How should we build this building?” they answer with several distinct possibilities. One option may be five large floors with a small garden area. Another may be ten smaller floors with a large garden area and a parking lot. A third may use the lot for two buildings with underground parking and roof-top gardens. They won’t try to draw one picture that incorporates aspects of each. That would be a mess, not a plan.
Yet in business we often do just that. We ask, for example, “How should I market my business?” What we should do is work out three, four or five options, each a full picture in its own right. Instead we seek out the “perfect” solution and desperately try to force together pieces that just don’t fit. The result is a mess.
Next time you are unsure as to how to move ahead:
- Write out your objectives. What are the results you aim to achieve?
- Develop some options – each a full possible way forward. None will be perfect; there’s no such thing as a perfect option. Generating options helps you spot hidden assumptions.
- Eliminate the relatively weak ones and improve the remaining ones until you have one option left.
© Dov Gordon, 2009. All rights reserved.
DOV GORDON coaches small company owners who are at a crossroads and need to make difficult choices. His Small Company Coaching Clubs meet in Jerusalem and Beit Shemesh. Subscribe to Dov’s The CEO Thought-Provoker™ at www.IsraeliCEO.com. Contact by email: dovgordon@gmail.com or phone: +972-(0)2-992-0396.
How to Be Super-Valuable to Your Customers. My wife taught me this…
Posted by: | Comments
- Image by Getty Images via Daylife
My wife taught me this lesson a few years ago: “If you want to help me, ask me what would be most helpful!”
Uh, oh. It was no longer up to me to choose dishes, bedtime or picking up a floor full of toys. But you know what, we’re both happier since!
The same simple truth applies to business.
If you want to be valuable to your customers, don’t tell them what their favorite color should be. Equally important: Don’t decide for your employees how they can best help your customers! As obvious as this sounds, we mess this one up all the time.
My friend and colleague Dr. Guido Quelle, member of the Million Dollar Consultant® Hall of Fame recently discovered something interesting. Research conducted by his Dortmund, Germany based firm, Mandat Managementberatung GmbH, showed that this behavior is way too common.
When you design and institute a process, it obviously makes sense to get input from those who will be affected by it. Yet nearly 60% of survey respondents reported that internal or external customers of new processes provided little (50%) or no (8%) input! They simply weren’t asked. Only 12% of respondents reported that “Desired outcomes of processes are coordinated fully with internal and external customers.”
We all know this. So why do we do it?
We do it to avoid discomfort, conflict or some other feared problem. Or we “don’t have time” and want to move fast.
Almost always we’re trading away a small delay or discomfort today for a bigger problem tomorrow.
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Here’s a useful exercise for your next staff meeting. Ask everyone to write down three areas where, individually or collectively, you are creating problems that can be avoided and / or are laying the foundation for big problems in the future by taking the easy road today.
Own Worst Enemy # 1: Wanting ‘A’ When You’re Needing ‘B.’
Posted by: | CommentsA while back someone we’ll call Evan called and asked me to become involved in his new business as the CEO. It wasn’t Evan’s first company. His last one did very nicely for a number of years. Proximity and reliance on a piece of the crippled financial markets forced him to move on.
As I listened to Evan talk about his new company and all he had accomplished in just the last few months, I was struck by his passion and by the tremendous amount he had achieved in such a short time – and by his touch of naivety. His projections and the speed by which he planned to hit them would place his new company comfortably on the list of the fastest growing companies of all time
But his product wasn’t a breakthrough. Questionable if it was even distinct, although it was clearly high quality. I did see how it could be built into a business, but probably no more than several million dollars for the foreseeable future. And it wouldn’t be half as easy as he thought.
Evan listened but didn’t allow my words to dampen his excitement. That’s good, because he showed a clear willingness to learn and adjust.
The figures on a spreadsheet he sent me would make any newbie drool. A quick look revealed a simple error, overstating projected sales by at least three times. Good I caught that because he was about to send it off to some potential partners.
We met. I wasn’t looking for a position, but I’m open to ideas. He shared his plans and his passion. I asked questions. I pointed out how he was putting the cart before the horse over here and spending on what isn’t needed over there and how he was spreading himself too thin everywhere and how he should test this and that before committing irreversibly to agreements he may not be able to keep.
To Evan’s credit, he listened and adapted his plans significantly. In a thank you email he wrote “You’ll be happy to know that I’ve toned it down and am not rushing and not even looking at XYZ right now. The first few months will no doubt be slower because of that but I feel it’s the right decision…” He also saved a significant chunk of money by cutting out some major planned expenses that simply weren’t needed.
He acknowledged that he was the hare, running way too fast; more than a little bit rash and impulsive. “I need a tortoise like you to balance me out,” he said.
The only catch was Evan’s claim to have no money. I should do it because one day this will be big, he explained to me.
Well, under the circumstances that didn’t really make sense for me, so I proposed a limited involvement with a limited fee. “My problem is capital,” Evan insisted.
In a final effort to help him, I suggested he simply enroll in my coaching program. He had already made dramatic changes based on a few simple coaching conversations. The program is easily affordable to any small company and he had already seen what a tremendous and speedy ROI he could expect.
After thinking about it for a day, he turned this down as well. “…The thing I would want isn’t coaching, it’s help running the business to take some of the burden off me. Right now all I’m doing is focusing on production… We already have a plan and it’s quite easy…
“…What I would want isn’t just advice. I have plenty of solid people I can get great advice from, Dov, I actually have a cousin who does the same thing you do. He goes all over the country training CEOs. I email him all the time… The value I see in you is having someone on staff who can take some of the load off of me…”
If only Evan could hear his own words as an outsider hears them he would instantly understand that his real problem isn’t capital; it’s that he knows what he WANTS, but not what he NEEDS.
He originally called looking for someone to work with him hands on, to reduce his workload. I quickly helped him see holes in his thinking, assumptions and plans. To Evan’s enduring credit, he turned his plans upside down.
He wanted to offload work. What he needed and received was a dose of perspective. Umm, valuable advice.
Even worse, he failed to see that perspective is a vitamin, not an immunization. It needs to be taken regularly. As I write this, he’s no doubt due for another dose, but there’s no one there to dispense it.
———
We are all our own worst enemies. We all have blind spots and we all need to look to others for perspective, for help, for ideas, skills and support. Let’s face it, though: it requires courage, and usually a little money.
For the past eight years I’ve been fortunate to work with many courageous business owners and CEOs. They’ve led one-person businesses and companies with hundreds of employees and tens of millions of dollars in sales. No two were the same.
Yet, something critical they did all shared: The understanding that it is vital to have someone they trust, an objective outsider, to whom they can turn for perspective.
Perspective makes you better, stronger, faster, more influential, more profitable and more fulfilled.
How to Make Your Products and Services Stand Out – Part 2
Posted by: | CommentsCLICK HERE FOR THE FIRST PART IN THIS SERIES
In Part 1 we pointed out that your customers will flock to your products and services only if they feel that you really get it; you understand them better than anyone else.
We noticed that many companies never create such a passionate following because they rely on surveys and focus groups which, even when well designed, are limited. There is a distinction, we observed, between Market Research and Market Understanding.
Today, we share some more insights for you to consider.
· The hands-down most powerful way to develop a deep understanding of your customers is to get out there to listen and observe. As often as not, the customer will say one thing, but their behavior will show something else. This isn’t malicious; they probably aren’t even aware of the discrepancy.
· Psychology speaks of the difference between our Espoused Theory of Action and our Theory In Use.* We often talk about what we want, and do something else. So both listening and observing give you a full picture. Ask open questions and then watch their behavior.
Sam Walton, founder of Wal-Mart, was known for his non-stop visits to retail stores; his own and competitors. He would get down on the floor and measure the width of aisles, take note of the lighting and so on and try to understand how that affected the shoppers.
When Google was developing the now ubiquitous Gmail, they would sit and watch how different people used their email, taking notes.
The CEO of a local company that was going to soon be offering software for call centers, took a part time job at a call center so he could understand what the lowly rep really needed to do a better job.
Proctor & Gamble has learned that they will gain a deeper understanding by just following and watching a handful of typical customers over several weeks than they can by surveying thousands of people.
Does your company do anything comparable?
· Peter Drucker observed that knowledge is the “one and only distinct resource of any business. Other resources, money or physical equipment, for instance, do not confer any distinction. What does make a business distinct and what is its peculiar resource is its ability to use knowledge of all kinds – from scientific and technical knowledge to social, economic, and managerial knowledge…”
Your knowledge, or understanding, of your customer will give you a distinct advantage.
· What is it that you want to understand, anyway? You want to be able to write a page in their diary. It isn’t enough to say that you are looking for women between 40 and 65 or teenagers who like clothes or companies looking to save money on their operations. If you really want to be able to speak their language, to get them to sit up, take notice and say “That’s interesting. Tell me more!” You need to understand much more than how they use your product – or your competitor’s.
· In my own consulting business I’ve come to understand that the client whose business I can really help is not just the CEO of a growing company. I’ve come to see that I can be far more valuable when the owner or CEO:
-
- Has their attention focused on one business at a time.
- Has a track record of both successes and failures.
- Has the maturity to appreciate that the wise thing is not to pinch pennies and do everything in-house, but to focus on results. And where those results can be achieved faster and more reliably with outside expertise, that’s a wise investment.
- Loves what they are doing and deeply believes that their company is a vehicle to improving lives.
- Has a healthy ego, not a big ego.
- Isn’t obsessed with growth for growth’s sake. Understands that if the company makes a bigger positive impact, the customers will reward them financially.
- Understands that it isn’t about big hits and big wins, but about small steps, consistently and persistently, over a prolonged period of time.
- Isn’t looking for a free lunch. Honestly and deeply believes in setting up win-win relationships with everyone they deal with.
· At the end of the day, the degree that your company stands out will be in direct proportion to how deeply your market feels you “get it.” Everything else can be copied rather easily. Acquire a deeper understanding, continually deepen it and you’ll always be a step ahead.
Is your market understanding deep and nuanced enough? What are you doing to continuously deepen it? To stay current with changes? Is it enough?
What questions do you have on this subject? Reply and I’ll do my best to answer them immediately or in a future article.
Are your customers excited about your products and services? Have you been surprised and perplexed by a low level of interest? We’ve found that the answers lie in taking bold small steps, again and again and again.
Be in touch,
Dov Gordon
+972-2-992-0396
PS – If you are involved in Pay-Per-Click marketing, Google Adwords and the like, you should check out Glenn Livingstone’s 17 FREE AdWords Cheat Sheets, Videos, and MP3s. I’ve learned a lot from Glenn and sent some of his free materials to grateful clients.
Glenn has a very strong business background consulting for dozens of companies like AT&T, Lipton, Novartis, Whirlpool,and many, many more. And, also unlike many of the Internet marketing “gurus,” Glenn successfully built 17 of his own AdWords projects in markets having NOTHING TO DO with internet
marketing. Glenn’s emails are one of the few I always read. http://www.PayPerClickSearchMarketing.com/r/a.php?MzYyj
* These terms were coined by Chris Argyris of Harvard Business School in the context of his decades of research into “learning organizations” and “action learning.”
