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May 12 2014
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Don’t Let Fear Hold Back Your Entrepreneurial Instincts

By Comments & Opinion, Success & Inspiration, Entrepreneurial, Business Insights, Business Health, Foundations of Success 2 Comments

Don’t-Let-Fear-Hold-Back-Your-Entrepreneurial-InstinctsIf you decide to leave your job and open your own business, there are a few things you assume you’ll leave behind as well. Job security, consistency and a personal life are what some people think they’ll leave behind – and sometimes this is true. The problem here is that when people really start to think about these things, they get worried, and that worrying more often than not leads to fear.

This fear can be used as motivation for some, but more often than not this fear will inevitably stop you from taking the plunge and stop you from creating your dream company. We’re all familiar with Franklin D. Roosevelt’s quote on fear: “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” While the quote may be used quite often, that’s simply because it rings true, and if you can overcome your fear you will head towards greatness. Here are a few things that you need to keep in mind to keep your fears in check.

Take That First Step – No matter what your instincts may be telling you, the hardest part is taking the first step. However, if you find that the results from this first step aren’t encouraging, don’t abandon hope so quickly. Much like with losing weight, the first step is difficult and most get discouraged when they don’t see any immediate results. Just have patience, and know that the road is long but well worth it. Creating a business plan, getting your financials in order or reaching out to other entrepreneurs are just a few things that you can do to get you started.

Keep The Big Picture In Mind, But Take It One Step At A Time – Tying in above, once you take that first step, make a list of other goals you want to attain. You should keep the big picture in mind, like wanting to become a multi-million dollar company for example, but also make sure to have smaller attainable goals first. Acquiring a certain number of new clients, finding an office space and other similar things are small goals you can start off with. Meeting these smaller goals will keep you motivated as well, since reaching them will let you know that you’re well on your way to the end game.

Drop The Negativity – One of the biggest side effects from fear is the non-stop negativity that comes with it. Your fear makes you believe that you’re incapable of meeting your goals, or worse, that you don’t deserve to reach your goals. There’s no one way to get over this, but it’s important to know that this will take time. Write down what is making you afraid and then list off realistically if your fear is based on facts, or simply something you’ve made up in your head.

Do you feel that you’re now over your fears, or are there still things that you feel are holding you back? I’d love to discuss this topic with you in more detail.

Apr 28 2014
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Using Videos to Augment Your Brand

By Comments & Opinion, Entrepreneurial, Business Insights, Business Growth, Foundations of Success 2 Comments

I was in a meeting this past week when I suddenly remembered an amusing old video from Ogilvy called “The Search For The World’s Greatest Salesperson.” The video series was part of a contest, and it really got the Ogilvy name out there. You can see my personal favorite below:

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uzAYGtZosGI&w=640&h=360] The campaign was funny, original, and succeeded in delivering Ogilvy’s message in a few short and succinct videos. It got me thinking of some of the video work we have planned for the Wish Group, so I thought I’d share how we decided that video was imperative for brand awareness, and why it needs to be part of your marketing plans this year.

No One Reads Anymore: While some people still prefer to read articles, a staggering amount of time online is spent watching videos. According to Domo, 72 hours of video is uploaded to YouTube every minute, and on top of that, 4 billion videos are watched online every day. These stats alone should be enough to motivate your company to produce some share worthy videos.

Viral Appeal: This is a bit of a double-edged sword, but great videos tend to be shared online at incredible speeds. There’s no doubt you’ve encountered Gangnam Style, the hit music video that has the most views online (more than one billion and counting). Brands have had success with viral videos as well, such as the “First Kiss” video for Wren Studio. I say at viral appeal is a double-edged sword because it creates the idea that every video you make needs to go viral, or it won’t be considered a success. This isn’t an further from the truth, and leads directly into my next point…

The Chance to Have Some Fun: At the end of the day, you need to remember to have fun while you’re making these videos. Maybe you’ll hit a home run and have a multimillion-view video, maybe you won’t. As long as you produce something original and creative on a regular basis, and are having fun while you’re making them, you’re guaranteed to at least get some people’s attention in the process.

I’m excited to share the great videos that will come out of the Wish Group later this year, but in the meantime here are the rest of the videos from the Ogilvy campaign. What are your plans for video this year?

 

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wZSVLL2hxzY&w=640&h=360]

 

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EFXz8gi4Xyw&w=640&h=360]
Apr 21 2014
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Why you Need to be a Thought Leader

By Comments & Opinion, Entrepreneurial, Business Insights, Foundations of Success, Leadership, Personal Accountability No Comments

As I mentioned in my blog post last week, using social media is a great way to gain exposure and build your personal brand. One point that I briefly touched on was about sharing your unique industry experiences through social media channels, and how this will make you a thought leader. But what exactly is thought leadership, and why is it important?

The term itself is pretty self explanatory. It’s someone who has established authority in their work field and has become the “go to” person when you need to know about a specific topic. I’m not going to explain how to become a thought leader, as there are plenty of articles that do a great job of detailing how to create thought leading content. However, I do have three main reasons as to why you need to be a thought leader – and one cautionary piece of advice:

Kills Competition – The best thing about being a thought leader is that you’ll instantly kill your competition. Think about it, if you were a potential customer and had to choose between two different companies, which would you rather choose: the company that has a president who regularly produces content as an expert in their field, or just a regular company?

Lead Generation – Speaking to the point above, generating knockout content that provides your audience with great value isn’t just useful for building a following. There’s bound to be people who’ll take a look at your content and decide that your product or service is worth the price of admission, based only on the fact that you’re an expert at what you do.

Increased Exposure – Another benefit to thought leadership content is the amount of exposure it will get you and your company. This will bring many visitors to your website or blog, and with the proper linking techniques,it can be great for your SEO, PR and content marketing efforts.

However, be Prepared to be in the Spotlight – The piece of cautionary advice that I mentioned links directly to the point above, and most entrepreneurs don’t consider it. Love it or hate it, once you’ve become an established thought leader every piece of information that you publish will be under scrutiny, which can lead to some nasty dialogue between you and your newly expanded audience.

It takes a long time to position yourself as a thought leader, but the sooner you figure out why you should become one, the sooner you’ll begin the process of becoming one. Of course, I myself am still on this journey, but I’m glad I started sooner rather than later. Are you trying to become a thought leader? What pieces of advice would you offer anyone starting out?

Apr 14 2014
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Personal Brand Building with Social Media

By Comments & Opinion, Success & Inspiration, Entrepreneurial, Business Insights, Foundations of Success No Comments

One of the biggest challenges I’ve recently faced is jumping deeply into social media. That doesn’t mean that I didn’t understand the value of social media, I honestly just couldn’t dedicate an adequate amount of time to try and build a proper following. Fast forward to the present and I’m happy to say that I’ve not only been able to post consistently on my blog here, but also on my personal Twitter account.

But why even bother with a social media presence? Most entrepreneurs have been told time and time again that social media is important, but it’s rarely explained why it’s so important. Every user will define the importance in their own way, but for me, social media is a powerful tool to build your own personal brand. As an entrepreneur, you’ve probably started a business in the field of your choice, which means that you’ll be able to provide incredible value to your audience by sharing your unique insight, be it with short and succinct tweets or in-depth blog posts. Sharing these kinds of insights on your social media channels will eventually make you a thought leader in your field, but of course, this will take time.

When it comes to social media, another point that will take time and effort is growing your number of followers. For what seemed like the longest time, my Twitter account had only a handful of followers and refused to grow. After discussing strategies with a digital marketer, the two most valuable lessons I was able to learn was that (a) follow growth takes time and (b) I simply wasn’t being social enough.

These two items are very important to know for any of your social media efforts, be it for personal use or for your brand. The first point about follower growth is especially critical, as business owners become very disappointed with their lack of growth in a set period of time and abandon all of their social media channels. Using my own Twitter account as an example, after two months of consistent use, I now have 190 followers. This is following three months where I couldn’t break 40 followers. So what happened that made my follower number jump? It leads directly to the second point of being social.

It’s called social media for a reason: if you don’t join in on the conversation, then you can’t expect to see any kind of growth or engagement. Admittedly, one of the things I want to improve on is the engagement of my audience. While I do interact with my followers, I want to specifically try and reach out to more of them and get a regular dialogue going. You need to interact with your followers regularly, otherwise no matter what kind of information you share on your accounts, it’ll quickly become irrelevant.

What has your experience with social media been like? I’d love to discuss this topic more in depth in the comments below.

Apr 07 2014
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How do you become a Successful Sales Manager? (Infographic)

By Comments & Opinion, Business Insights, Sales Advice, Foundations of Success No Comments

successful-sales-teamIt’s unfortunate, but there are sales managers who think that if their sales team is meeting all of their quotas, then there’s no possible way they can get any better. This, of course, couldn’t be any further from the truth. There are always steps that a sales manager can take to become more successful.

I found a great infographic (which you can find at the bottom of this post) from Level Eleven that looks at the secrets of a successful sales manager. The infographic offers valuable insights, and I was able to take three key lessons from it:

Train Your Sales Team to Manage Their Time Wisely – A large majority of sales people can dramatically increase their results with just a bit of direction on their time management skills.  Making sure that your sales team is focusing on important tasks and contacting prospects at the best times are just a few methods that you can instill within your team.

Take the Time to Mentor your Sales Team – Numerous stats on the internet show that it can take a sales person 9 to 12 months to become fully effective at their job. This means that you can’t give up on a member of your team just because they’re not as efficient as you expected they would be. If you take the time to nurture your sales team and ensure that they’re growing in the right direction, the long term pay off will be worth it.

Implement Incentive Programs – As Level Eleven shows, only 20% of sales people are organically motivated and engaged, meaning the other 80% need some kind of incentive to get them to reach their sales quota. Running an incentive program can bring out your team’s inner competitive spirit while boosting your company’s sales in the process. Keep in mind that the prizes of these programs don’t have to be anything completely over the top. Just like the infographic mentions, cash isn’t always the best option either. Tickets to an event, a special delivery of a fresh breakfast or even something as silly as an outdoor working station during nice weather are just a few ideas you could use.

Take a look at the infographic and let me know what you key lessons you took from it in the comments below.

Mar 31 2014
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What did you Learn from the NCAA Sweet Sixteen Match-Ups?

By Comments & Opinion, Entrepreneurial, Business Insights, Foundations of Success No Comments

march-madness-for-businessThe Final Four have been chosen and next Monday the Championship Game will wrap up March Madness. Brackets have been broken, heartbreaks have been plentiful, and overall the dedication has been impressive. Throughout all of my years of running a business, I’m always surprised by the lessons you can learn from watching athletes who have dedicated their lives to becoming the best at their sport. Even if you’re not a fan of basketball, you can still learn numerous lessons from March Madness that you can bring back to your business:

Don’t Dismiss the Underdog – The staggering amount of upsets this year just goes to show that the underdog always has a chance. Just because your business is smaller than some of the better known brands in your industry, that doesn’t mean you don’t stand a chance. Innovative marketing strategies, outstanding public relations and stellar customer service are just some of the ways that your business can compete against larger brands.

Understand your Teammate’s Strengths – When you see a great team play in unison, it looks like they instinctively know where their other teammates will be ahead of time. This isn’t an accident; the players just make it look natural. After months and months of practice, every team member knows each other’s strengths and weaknesses, and they analyze their situation and make their decisions accordingly. This, of course, translates well to a business setting, but your team may be hesitant to admit that they have weaknesses. It’s imperative that you discuss this with your team, because if someone doesn’t understand their weaknesses, they’ll never be able to improve them.

Trust your Mentors – The advice offered by a mentor (or coach) can sometimes sound incredibly risky. They’re not the ones playing the game or running the business, so why should you listen to them? Well, a good mentor has years and years of expertise under their belt, and has experienced both the good and bad in their respected fields. Their triumphs and failures have given them a unique point of view. Don’t ever brush off advice that a mentor is willing to give you, but don’t blindly accept advice either.

You Can’t Predict The Future – This point has less to do with the athletes, but I still feel that entrepreneurs can learn from it. Warren Buffet had offered a $1 Billion to anyone who delivered a perfect bracket. Roughly 8.7 million entered the contest, even though Yahoo Sports said that there was a 1 in 128 billion chance of making a perfect bracket. And while all of the brackets had been called “un-perfect” by the Sweet Sixteen stage, it shows that no matter how astronomically impossible the odds may be, you have to at least try.

What lessons have you picked up while watching the tournament this year? More importantly, is your team still in the tourney? I look forward to chatting with you in the comments.

Mar 24 2014
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Don’t Neglect Your Existing Customers

By Business Insights, Sales Advice, Business Growth, Business Health, Foundations of Success One Comment

There’s no doubt that your sales team is always calling, sending
e-mails, following up and doing whatever they can to capture new customers, but during this process there is one critical point that gets lost in the shuffle – your existing clients. There’s a danger of your sales team putting so much focus on attracting new customers that your existing customers will start to feel neglected.

Initially you may think that new customers should be your primary focus as you’re trying to grow your business, but there are numerous statistics that show why keeping your current customers happy is important. Bain and Co.’s research shows that a 5% increase in customer retention can increase a company’s profitability by 75%, and Gartner Group statistics reveal that 80% of your company’s future revenue will come from just 20% of your existing customers.

The numbers sound nice, but what exactly does this mean for business owners? At the end of the day, you need to take a look at how you’re currently servicing your customers and see if there are ways you can improve the existing relationship. Here are a few tricks that I’ve learned over the years that will help make your current customers happy.

Go Above and Beyond – This first point goes without saying, but over time it’s easy to let your customer service levels drop. A lot of the time this drop is so gradual that you don’t notice it until it’s too late – which is when your customer decides to move on. Make sure that you reinforce the importance of top notch customer service to your team by sharing success stories or great examples that you’ve heard or experienced firsthand.

Appreciate Them When They Don’t Expect it – If I was to take a guess, I’d say that a majority of you send some form of appreciation to your customers during Christmas time. While that’s fine, what people don’t realize is that everyone expects something during the holidays, so in reality your gift that was supposed to make an emotional impact probably won’t be remembered for too long. Instead, why not take the gifts that you were supposed to send during the Christmas season and send them on March 24th, meaning no specific holiday or reason behind them. The gesture is sure to turn some heads, and will definitely leave a longer lasting impression.

Implement a Loyalty Program – A loyalty program is one of the best ways that you can keep your existing customers. An interesting article from Help Scout shows that if you want to get a customer heavily involved with a customer loyalty program, you should automatically get them started. Pick a relevant date (birthday, anniversary of contract, etc) and simply send them an e-mail telling them how much you appreciate their business and that you’ve enrolled them in your “VIP” program. There’s no doubt that they’ll appreciate the gesture and stay loyal to your brand.

The takeaway you should communicate to your team is that at the end of the day, keeping your current customers happy is equally as important as finding new customers, so make sure not to lack in either category. How are you currently making your current customers happy? I’d love to discuss some techniques in the comments.

Mar 03 2014
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Don’t Halt Creativity in Your Office – Let it Grow

By Comments & Opinion, Success & Inspiration, Entrepreneurial, Business Insights, Foundations of Success One Comment

fostering-creativityNo matter what type of industry you’re working in, creativity is the foundation of exceptional work. If you’re not fostering that creativity in your workplace, your team won’t produce the best work that they’re capable of. I touched this point briefly in one of my previous blog posts, but I decided that I should expand on this issue because of how important it is. Making sure that your work environment is a transparent and accessible space for ideas to flow will let your team reach new creative heights, allowing them to produce stimulating work at the same time.

Be a Mentor: I know I’ve discussed this point to no end in other blog posts, but I come back to it so often because I can’t stress how important it is to provide an avenue for creative growth. You simply can’t bring someone onto your team without providing constructive criticism and constant mentorship. However, you can’t micro-manage people either; you need to find a balance where you can give them a space to devise their ideas, and then see how you can help these ideas grow.

Have an Open Door Policy – and Mean it: Tying in with my last point, a phrase that is often tossed around by leaders when a new team member is brought in is “my door is always open”, yet this isn’t always the case. When you tell your team that your door is always open – mean it. Be available to them when they have ideas, suggestions or even just banter. Not only does this make you more human from your staff’s point of view, it also makes them more comfortable with you. This means that they’ll feel at ease when they suggest outlandish (and often creative) ideas.

Encourage Open Discussion: When you come together with your team for a brainstorming session, you should ask everyone present to throw an idea on the table, no matter how “bad” they feel the idea is. This open exchange of creativity often leads to some great ideas created from a thought that could have been discarded. A great idea is simply a bad idea that has been refined.

Reward Great Ideas: One of the simplest and most effective ways to foster creativity in your workplace is to reward great ideas. Of course, this doesn’t mean punish bad ones, but when there is a fantastic idea brought to the table you need to praise and reward these efforts. Don’t go overboard and give every admirable thought a new car – it can be something as simple as a cup of coffee or showing them praise in a companywide e-mail.

Do you feel like you’re doing enough to encourage creativity in your workplace? What methods do you use at your office? Do you feel like your team is comfortable sharing all of their creative thoughts? I would enjoy discussing this topic with everyone in the comments. 

Jan 20 2014
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Success is Revenge!

By Success & Inspiration, Business Insights, Leadership No Comments

Based on the popularity of my recent hockey blogs I’ve decided to write about another on ice experience.  Due to some travel I missed a couple of games in a row and hadn’t been on the ice for a while, because of my improved play of late it was actually flattering and uplifting when my line mate Tommy Siskos was eager to have me back.  In a very nice albeit odd choice by team captain Grobo, he actually called on our line to start (almost never happens as we are usually the second or third line).  Coaches usually do this at time to fire up a line or reward a line that has been performing well of late so we did not disappoint, I scored a goal on our second shift and added another assist on one of Tommy’s goals in the second period.  We went deep into the third period with a 2-1 lead in what was a very tight game without a single penalty called on each team, yet at that point something very odd happened.  In the offensive zone, with only a minute to play Tommy had a very questionable penalty called on him, there is an unwritten rule in hockey code that says tight games where no penalties have been called you don’t call one with one minute left in the game especially on a marginal call in the offensive zone to boot!  Well needless to say Tommy was furious and venting in frustration (happens after almost any penalty) and the referees knowing this was such a debatable call should have understood but to add insult to injury gave him an extra two minutes for unsportsmanlike conduct!  They had crossed the line, even I burst out yelling and I’m the soft spoken one on the team, how could the referees not only make such a silly call late in the game as opposed to letting it play out, but actually now be factoring into the decision?  It was ludicrous.

Well as luck would have it we were scored on almost immediately which forced overtime but because it was a double minor we would also went into the overtime period shorthanded 4-3 which given the momentum blow we just took almost meant a sure defeat.  As any hockey player reading this will relate too as it’s happened to us all, Tommy just felt awful that his mishap would cost us the game, he wished he could just disappear yet there he sat alone in the glass penalty box for everybody to see.  What happened next in this game as what often happens in life when we are faced with challenges was awesome.  As we were a few seconds away from killing off the penalty Grobo yelled out my name to go on the ice next when Tommy’s penalty had expired.  I don’t blame Grobo for the choice, I had played a great game scoring a gorgeous near perfect goal on a very good goalie to break the 0-0 tie late in the second period which gave us the belief that we could finally beat this stingy goalie.  I had then made a perfect pass to Tommy to give us the go ahead goal.  However, I had a gut feel, call it intuition or my belief in the powerful motivating force of redemption or sweet serendipity but as I was about to take the ice, I was standing right beside Tommy who was in the penalty box eagerly waiting for his penalty to expire when I looked at him right in the eye and said, “Tommy, you go out there AND score!”  What was a fraction of a second I saw a mix of emotions of surprise of the selfless act, excitement at the possibility of redeeming himself and what looked like a jolt of energy in his eyes as he yelled “ok!” with sheer glee and enthusiasm.  He skated directly into the offensive zone and scored in under six seconds flat and we won the game!  Sweet poetic justice.

Although nobody likes to face challenges, we tend to embrace the comfort zone or clear sailing so to speak, but in life we learn most when we struggle and face challenges.  We tend to find another gear, we dig deeper into our souls and further into our inner core for the strength to pull us through.  Whenever the storms or injustices of life hit me, I always find some solace in the fact that I’m about to learn a life or business lesson, gain yet another amazing experience or battle scare to mold me into a better human being capable of doing more to make this world a better place.  This attitude is always harder when we get dealt a blow that doesn’t seem fair, crap happens in life out of happenstance or coincidence but when we are clearly wronged by another intentionally to do us harm, it’s at those times that we question whether there is a force or God out there or whether there is even meaning in this life, so it’s not a comfortable feeling to say the least.  I’m a firm believer in the laws of compensation and when you sow good seeds, good things come back at you in different ways that you can’t even imagine.  When it comes to bringing justice to the world when unjustifiable acts happen, I urge you to immediately say to yourself “success will be my revenge”.  It’s what I do every time life or somebody knocks me down and I focus all my energy into what it takes to succeed in the circumstances and visualize what I want the end result to be, exactly what I did when I put the team first ahead of myself and put Tommy in knowing with all my heart that he was going to redeem himself.

Dec 09 2013
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New Year’s Resolutions

By Comments & Opinion, Entrepreneurial, Business Insights, Planning for the future No Comments

With 2014 fast approaching, many of us are already starting to look back on the year that was. Was 2013 the year you had hoped it would be? Did you make the lasting changes you had wanted to this time last year?

I must admit, in general I’m not a fan of New Year’s resolutions. I have never made any in my lifetime and it seems to me that people who do use the date as a chance to justify putting off much needed change, such as quitting smoking, going to the gym or eating healthier. The crowded health clubs from the first week of January simmer down to the usual traffic by February 1st, and most of the people who claim to quit smoking for the new year are still puffing away come February.  In fact, I highly recommend turning many of your resolutions into goals that you can focus on during the entire year. Goal setting is much more focused, deliberate and success-driven, and that’s why I find it more effective.

But, having said that, for some strange reason I find myself much more focused this time of year, and upon further reflection I feel that resolutions do have their place. While I consider goals to be measurable accomplishments that are frequently complex and made up of many different mini-goals, resolutions are simpler, behavior-driven activities that typically do not require advanced planning. Resolutions are almost mantra-like, in that they are meant to give you motivation and encouragement as you work at bettering yourself.

For example, a business goal may be to increase profit by 5%, and includes a number of actions from attending more networking events, asking for client referrals, and launching a new marketing campaign. A resolution may be something as simple as: I will respond to all client emails within 12 hours. See the difference?

So in that vein, here are some of the top business resolutions you can make for 2014.

  1. I will think and speak positively each and every day.
  2. I will stop procrastinating and hold myself accountable.
  3. I will do something each day that will force me to get out of my comfort zone.
  4. I will focus on what’s important as opposed to what’s urgent.
  5. I will work harder AND smarter.
  6. I will visit each one of my clients at least once this calendar year.
  7. I will remember why I love what I do.

While these resolutions are meant to give you focus and motivate you for the New Year, they are too simplified to include measures for your success. But you can create goals out of any of these resolutions that truly resonate with you. It’s simply about staying focused and excited about all you’re able to achieve.

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