When I was a kid and my Mom took me to the butcher shop when we lived in Germany, I remember that the butcher would slice off a few pieces of deli meat and give them to me and my brothers. He would give samples. This is a smart business practice. As I get to know my clients around the world in all different industries, I notice that some of them give samples and some of them don’t. And a “sample” could be a meeting, a consultation, a product or anything of value to the potential client or customer. There was a time not too long ago, when people and businesses were very concerned about intellectual property. Intellectual property rights should be observed, but as we become more interconnected, I believe there’s good reason to loosen up a little bit. Being tight-fisted regarding your content and services will not serve …
You Just Popped In My Head So I Thought I’d Call
We all have times during the day when someone pops in our mind. These are great opportunities to build and strengthen relationships. Just for fun, the next time someone pops in your mind, pick up the phone and call them. You’re probably busy and don’t have much time, so start the conversation like this, “Hi Joan, this is Kevin. I only have a quick minute, but you just popped in my mind and I’ve learned that when someone pops in my mind, I should call and at least say hi. HI! Again, I only have a real quick minute, so maybe we can talk longer another time. Anything I can help you with real quick before I have to run?” People will be amazed that you took the quick minute or two to call them and they’ll be glad you did. With all the high-tech, many people are forgetting the …
People Are People Wherever You Go
I travel a lot. I get to see some amazing places and visit some incredible locations. I get to eat in fine restaurants and also at McDonald’s. I stay in five-star resorts and in fleabag motels. I experience a lot of contrast on a daily basis. And no matter where I go, there’s always one thing that’s consistent. People are people wherever you go. Regardless of whether they’re wearing a Rolex or a Timex, whether they’re picking me up at the airport in a Mercedes S500, or a rusted out Yugo, whether they’ve got a bunch of letters after their name or they can barely write, people are the same wherever you go. We all want to be appreciated, have fun, be loved and feel safe. We want to be happy. We want to make a difference. We want to have an impact. Remember this as you’re spending time on …
Remember the Phone?
As you’re connecting with everyone on Social Media platforms, don’t forget that people are more than their static profile pictures and postings. Part of adding value to people is getting to know them better. As busy as we all are, we choose how to spend our time. Some folks choose to invest their time instead of spending it. We all spend time in our cars. Invest a little bit of time every day calling your Social Media-mates on the phone while you’re cruising down the road. Holy crap – did I say call them on the phone?! Yup, I did. Start the conversation with, “Hi Mary! I only have a quick minute, but I was thinking of you and wanted to call and say hi.” By starting with letting them know that you only have a tiny bit of time, they’ll know that this isn’t going to be a “War …
No “yes.” Either “HELL YEAH!” or “no.”
Derek Sivers has written a short masterpiece in his book, “Anything You Want.” He unintentionally started a business and ended up becoming a multi-millionaire by serving people. That’s what successful business do, don’t they? Serving people, that is. One of the things he talks about is the concept of ‘No “yes.” Either “HELL YEAH!” or “no.” This is a great thing to learn especially if you’re over-committed or too scattered. If you’re deciding whether to do something, if you feel anything other than psyched, jazzed and fired up about doing it, don’t. By saying “no” to many things it opens up space for you to pursue the things you love. This may sound over-simplistic. It’s not. The book will take you less than an hour to read. If you’re a small business owner or thinking of starting your own business, or pursuing a passion, this is required reading. There will …
You Are A Creator
All kids love to make things. And very quickly we tend to start comparing what we’ve made to what other people have made and most folks determine that they’re not creative and that creativity is some magical ability that only special people are born with. What a crock. You are creating every day whether you realize it or not. If you’re not creating something physically, you’re creating experiences. Don’t poo-poo this. People who create experiences tend to do far better than people who create tangible items. When you get up in the morning, ask yourself, “Self….what shall I create today?” And then seek to make every human interaction with you magical. Pay it forward. Go out of your way to make people feel better about themselves. Under-promise and over-deliver. Show up early and stay late. Here’s the secret that few know: creativity is magical and only for special people. And …
Think Win-Win
Success is based on relationships. People who are truly succeeding know this intuitively. Nothing and no one operates in a vacuum. As you build your life, business, etc, focus on only participating in, building, and enhancing mutually beneficial, win-win relationships. The days of being a Rambo and leaving a bunch of bad relationships in your wake as you strive to “get ahead” are over. What goes around comes around and nowadays it comes around at the speed of light. Literally. If it’s not going to be a win-win situation, walk away. Run to win-win relationships and life is an exciting and profitable adventure.
Make People Happy
I appreciate the Harvard Business Review, The Wall Street Journal and the other 900 lb gorillas in the world of business credibility. They have a lot of valuable content that can help people with their businesses. But sometimes we get too technical in terms of trying to succeed. An interesting thing happens when you’re in business for a while and you ponder from time to time on what makes people and their companies successful. I sometimes have an annoying habit of reducing things to the absurd. So here’s one of my absurd reductions: successful people and businesses make people happy. At first glance this may sound obvious…but it’s not. Think of some of your recent interactions in stores, online and with people in a position to serve you in some way. Everything they do should be focused on making you as happy as possible. Did they? Making people happy isn’t …
Offer to Help Those Looking at Your LinkedIn Profile
One of the neat features of LinkedIn is the ability to see who’s looking at your profile. There are some limitations to this, but it can be a valuable tool if you use it correctly. It will serve you well to take a minute every morning to see who has been checking you out. How about sending them a message like, “Hi Mary, I noticed that you were looking at my profile. Thanks for taking a few minutes out of your busy day to check me out. How may I serve you in some way? I always seek to add value to all my personal and professional relationships. I’d love to help you in some way. Make me prove it. Kev :)” Now, you may be thinking, “Really? You would type something like that?” Word for friggin word, my friend. And “friggin” isn’t a cuss word, it’s a New Jersey …
Speak Their Language
Remember that everyone has “WIIFM” written on their forehead in invisible ink. WIIFM stand for “What’s in it for me?” I just returned from a speaking engagement for a multi-billion dollar financial services firm. They’re one of my favorite clients and I’ve been blessed to meet some amazing people there and they’ve introduced me to many other amazing people. I was speaking on using Social Media as a tool to add value to client and potential client relationships. There was a very savvy businessman there who said that he’s not active on any SM platforms and that he’s had many people try to get him on SM platforms. He and I shared a limo ride to the airport after my presentation. He very kindly said to me that no one had ever presented this content in a way that compelled him to participate, but that he was going to now. …
KISS: Keep It Simple Sweetie
Most people are super busy and don’t have the time to try to read minds. As you’re conveying information and value to your prospects, clients, and referral sources, remember that people want content in an easily digestible format. Many people try to impress others by attempting to look smart when they’re sharing information. Don’t do this. Keep it simple. Don’t worry about how they perceive you. Their opinion of you is none of your business. What does KISS stand for? Most folks will say, “Keep it simple stupid.” I disagree. It stands for “Keep it simple sweetie.” Oh, the difference one word makes. Always take the high road. Keep it positive. Convey information and value in simple ways. Ironically, the easier it is for people to understand you the more likely you will develop more “Know-Like-Trust” relationships. And that is sweet. Sweetie.
Professionals Promote Others; Amateurs Don’t
In a world full of “buy my product, buy my product” kind of messages, it’s nice to hear someone promoting somebody else. This is not common and differentiates the great networker from the amateur. It also says a lot about the character of the promoter. When someone is only thinking about themselves and their business, they tend to see every human interaction as an opportunity to promote themselves and their business. When someone is interested in others’ success in addition to their own, they find opportunities to spread the wealth. In keeping with Bob Burg’s maxim: “All things being equal, people do business with and refer business to those people they know, like, and trust”, it serves us well to promote others who we feel are worthy of promotion. But don’t do it from the perspective of the promoted person then “owing you”. That would be insincere and manipulative and what …
Giving versus Getting
I’m rereading “The Go-Giver” by Bob Burg and John David Mann. I read this book when it came out a few years ago and wrote a review of it in one of my newsletters a few years back. What a gem of a book. I can’t recommend this masterpiece enough. The premise of the book is that shifting your focus from getting to giving is not only a nice way to live life and conduct business, but a very profitable way as well. This flies straight in the face of what modern society often tells us. Modern society is wrong. I once heard a very wise and wealthy man say “Watch what 95% of the people are doing and do just the opposite.” I believe he was spot on. Isn’t it funny how the most important things in life are paradoxes? The paradox is that the more you give the …
The “Three Foot Rule”
Many people think they have to have letters like “M.B.A” or “Ph.D” after their name in order to succeed. Now, I’m not putting down higher education, but there are some very simple things that we can do to increase our chances of success. One of them is developing a “Three Foot Rule”. This is probably the easiest and most profitable habit you’ll ever start. And by profitable, I don’t just mean financial profit, although that’s certainly there. I mean happiness profit. I mean piece of mind profit. I mean joy profit. Starting right now, whenever someone comes within three feet of you, smile at them. That’s it. Seminar over. You may have been expecting something more complicated than that. If you were, you, like me, were taught that life is complicated. We were duped. Life is easy. Taxes are complicated. Trigonometry is complicated. Dealing with a jackass boss who has …
There’s Nothing To Fear
Have you ever thought about fear? I’ve always been someone who listens closely to people (although my wife may sometimes argue this isn’t accurate) and lately I have been listening very closely to people as they discuss the economy, the job market, the difficulty of current selling and a number of other topics. I’ve believed for many years that most people communicate from a position of fear most the time and don’t even know that they’re doing it. It’s the whole “the fish doesn’t know that it’s wet” thing. If you could go underwater and ask a fish what’s water like, the fish would look at you and say “what’s water?” They’re born in it, they live in it and they die in it. They don’t know any different. Probably the only time that a fish even knows that water exists is when you take it out of the water. …
Our Parents Were Right
Remember the things we used to hear from our parents when we were kids, “Say please. Say thank you. If you don’t have anything nice to say don’t say anything at all. If you keep making that face it’ll get stuck like that.” Well. maybe you didn’t hear that last one in your house. Our folks were right. Common courtesy ain’t so common any more. Matter of fact, it’s often as rare as a Kardashian sister using her library card. Common courtesy makes human interaction go so much more smoothly. It’s amazing to see what happens in conversations when we actually say please, thank you and apologize when we need to. I bring this up because on Social Media platforms like LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter it’s very common to see people telling you that you should “Like” their Fan Page, or retweet their tweets on Twitter. Maybe it’s just me, …
Pick Up The Phone And Call Your Social Media Connections
When you’re new to learning about Social Media, the tendency is to focus on huge numbers of Connections, Friends and Followers. This is normal. We all like things that look impressive and big numbers look impressive. Prior to Facebook, where else could you have thousands of “friends”? It feeds our ego. Once the new car smell of Social Media wears off, we realize that building relationships is far more powerful than just adding more connections. Yes, adding connections is important. But you already have a phone book with tens of thousands of connections. If it was just about connections, you already have more than enough in your Yellow and White Pages. Are you “connecting” with your Social Media connections? Really connecting? For one week, schedule 20 minutes into your day to pick up the phone and call two of your new connections per day. If their phone number isn’t on …
Social Media Reveals Your Character
As I’ve spoken on stages all over for years on Social Media, there is something that I’ve observed countless times. Many people seem to think that if they can just gather a bajillion connections on Social Media sites, then the clouds will part and the money will fall out of the heavens. This thought actually reveals far more about these people than they probably even realize about themselves. It reveals that they think of people as commodities and they have a lottery mentality regarding wealth. How naive. However we are offline, we are probably the same way online, because we can’t outrun our character. No matter where we go, there we are. You can tell a heck of a lot about someone by looking at their Social Media profiles, just like you can tell a lot about them if you chat with them at a networking event. If all they …
Lighten Up
Have you noticed that with all these new communication technologies that some people are being very serious? Communication technologies such as a pencil, two cans with a string, a cell phone or the internet always reveal the person who is using them. Our thoughts, ideas and feelings pass through them, but we are not the technology. Many people are constantly talking about the tools. Yes, they are amazing. But what is transmitted through them is the message. And I’m finding that people’s messages are often quite heavy. I propose that folks lighten up a bit. Being professional and having a personality are not mutually exclusive. When you’re professional and aren’t afraid to inject your personality into business conversations, things become much more fun for everyone involved. Adults are kids with long, hairy legs. If you’re disagreeing with me, you’ve really lost touch with who you are. One of the beautiful …
Three Things We’ve Learned About Social Media From The Middle East
I was going to write this post two weeks ago, but decided to wait. As I am writing this, Gaddafi has fled Libya and his whereabouts are still unknown. These are amazing times we’re living in. For years, I have been telling my audiences that in a more and more interconnected world, Social Media is forcing transparency. This is being proven out right in front of our eyes. If you’re good at what you do and seek to add value to your employer, clients, co-workers or whoever, there have never been easier ways for that message to get out. If you’re a horrible manager, boss, team leader, dictator, or whatever, there have never been easier ways for that message to get out either. So here are three things we’ve learned from Social Media in the Middle East: 1. It’s Getting Harder To Hide From The Truth There was a time …