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Spring Cleaning!

By Entrepreneurial, Personal Accountability No Comments

I hope you’re staying warm! It’s a new week and it’s pretty frigid in Toronto. So cold that it is 30 degrees below zero. That doesn’t mean that work cannot get done! As we’re close to the end of the first quarter one question I have for you is are you on your way to reaching your goals this year? One thing for me that’s always been essential to attaining my goals was to maintain a high level of organization.

I’ve learned that without being organized, you only add stress to your work, and with stress comes more issues. Gladly, spring is coming up so why don’t you start on getting organized now?

Here are some tips that I have come across to keep me steadily organized when it comes to completing tasks and keeping on top of my goals:

  1. Get Rid of Junk – It’s important to always take away the clutter that you don’t need in your work space. Make sure that you make a ‘toss’ pile of things you’d like to throw away and a ‘store’ pile of things you’d like to keep. Be mindful of the value of things that will help you be efficient in the work place. Also, don’t forget to create and maintain a well-documented ‘to-do’ list.
  2. Store what’s important to you – Do not hoard things for the sake of having them or else it will take away from what you actually need! Create a way to organize your materials in a way that makes sense to you. Everything related to what you need to be successful, ensure that you keep it in a safe place to allow you to refer to it when you need to.
  3. Tackle your to-do list – This is where you should always invest your efforts for the biggest payoff in the long-term. Create file folders for each project. When you complete a project or tasks, go through the file and discard the unimportant documents from within then store and organize the file accordingly.
  4. Keep your desk (work space) clear! – The surface of your desk should always be visible. Keep it that way. Deal with every piece of paper that crosses your desk immediately, to ensure that you are getting tasks done in the most efficient way possible.
  5. Use Technology Wisely – Develop a method of storing phone numbers, and files on your computer and/or mobile phone. Online organizers which you can access via your computer or phone may take a little while to master, but will save you time in the long run.

Lastly, always remember to self-evaluate your progress to ensure you’re on the right path. Here’s an amazing article that I came across from Forbes explaining this: http://onforb.es/1hOBNaN

Have a great week, stay warm, and don’t forget to keep your eyes on the prize!

Frank.

Integrity When Selling Makes A Difference

By Comments & Opinion, Entrepreneurial, Business Insights, Sales Advice No Comments

SuperBowl49_EMR0100a_2014_SCC_SRGBI have no doubt that many of you were glued to the TV watching the championship games to see who would make it to the Superbowl in a couple of weeks (Patriots vs. Seahawks in case you missed it). While the Seahawks incredible comeback is its own story, I want to focus on the Patriots.

On the surface, the Patriots dominated the Colts 45-7 and earned Tom Brady another trip to the Superbowl. However, what happened after the game were accusations that the Patriots were cheating – specifically for deflating footballs during their championship game. As of writing this, the investigation is fresh and will probably take a while to fully examine. That point though is that this isn’t the first time that the Patriots have been accused of cheating. Back in 2007 they were fined $250,000 after a NFL investigation found them illegally videotaping their opponents.

This leaves the Patriots in a very interesting position, regardless of whether the allegations are true. I know many people who instantly scoff at any mention of the Patriots because of all the constant cheating allegations that have followed them. While they’re undeniably one of the top football teams, their credibility is always up for debate. The question I ask you is this: has anyone on your sales team made it so that your company’s credibility is lost? Worst yet, have they ever blatantly lied just to make a sale?

Whether it’s stretching the truth or promising things that simply aren’t possible, there will be a time when your client finds out the truth and then your trust is broken. Having integrity when selling is something that you would think would be common sense, however I thought it would be important to discuss why being dishonest during your sales process is simply a terrible idea:

Distrust Leaves A Lingering Taste – The biggest problem with the Patriots’ latest scandal is the fact that people are generally saying “again?” Obviously this is not the kind of reputation that any team or company would want when nasty things are being said about them. This doesn’t always have to be about blatant “cheating” as well. Terrible customer service or anything that makes anyone’s experience with your company unpleasant will unfortunately linger a lot longer than a good memory.

Hard To Earn Back Trust – As mentioned above, it is going to take a long time for the Patriots to lose their reputation as cheaters, and for fans to just see them as champion-level team instead of anything else. Earning trust is already a difficult task, but earning back someone’s trust after you’ve wronged them is an entirely different beast. It’s simply much better to not get into that situation in the first place.

Ensuring that integrity is something that is constantly talked about to your sales team will ensure that your company’s reputation stays intact.

What Does Professionalism Mean To You?

By Entrepreneurial, Achieving Wealth, Business Health, Foundations of Success, Planning for the future No Comments

logo-subheadingThis past weekend was the annual Wish Group Kickoff event, where we meet up with all of our employees to discuss what we accomplished in 2014, where we met our goals and, more importantly, where we didn’t meet our goals. I truly believe that in order to move forward, you need to take an honest look at your shortcomings and use those to get a better understanding of where you need to improve.

We always tie in a theme with these events to drive home our focus to the team. This year our theme was professionalism, and what that means to us. To communicate this better, we compared the professionalism of pro athletes and the incredible lengths they go through to achieve success. These were the most important comparisons that we made:

Visualize It – One of the biggest differences that you’ll notice when pro athletes get interviewed is that they mention that they have been dreaming of playing at the pro level since they were a kid. They would visualize hoisting the Stanley Cup over their head, along with the feeling of immense pride that comes with it. Visualisation is a powerful thing, especially when setting personal or professional goals. If you can picture your company doubling their sales or experiencing immense growth in a year, then that image will be a powerful motivator to continue pushing forward.

Cool Down Time – Once a big game is over and done with, athletes generally take some downtime to cool off both physically and mentally. This is a time for them to figure out what worked during a game and what needs improvement. Cooling down is critical for any profession, as it gives you a chance to take re-evaluate. Let’s say you had a really good client pitch – why did it go so well? Is there a chance that you can replicate it? On the flipside, if something didn’t go well in a meeting with a potential client, why didn’t it go well? Always try to analyze things when you have time to do so, as you’ll be able to look at things free from all the pressure that you were facing at the time.

Have A Coach – Natural talent is certainly beneficial, but that will only get you so far. All of the best athletes have enthusiastic mentors behind them, pushing them to their physical brink and helping them improve their techniques along the way. Without these coaches behind them, it’s debatable to see how far these athletes would have gone on their own. I’ve discussed the importance of mentorship in the past, and how having someone who can offer you advice is a crucial asset. A seasoned professional can offer you many insights to help guide towards better running your business, as well as avoiding any pitfalls that they’re encountered in their career.

This kickoff event is important for the Wish Group, and a tradition we’ve had for 11 years now. If you haven’t yet, I highly recommend gathering together with your team to discuss the direction that you want to go in 2015.

Find Out What’s Important in 2015

By Comments & Opinion, Entrepreneurial, Achieving Wealth, Business Growth, Business Health, Planning for the future, Leadership No Comments

1325784419new-years-resolutionLet’s be serious – there is no doubt going to be an overabundance in blog posts detailing the importance of setting resolutions for the new year. Be it lose weight, get a promotion, go traveling or anything in between, resolutions are something that most of us set at this time of year.

If you’ve been keeping up with my blog, you’ll know that last year I had mentioned that New Year’s resolutions are something that I’m not a big fan of. Personally, I find that this time of year has people motivated to make this year all their own, but then usually give up by February (gyms are the perfect example of this). I believe that you shouldn’t have to wait for a new year to motivate you to get what you want. You should always be striving to be the best person that you can be, and taking the proper steps in order to reach that goal.

I think it’s much better to use this time of year to set some guidelines for the bigger picture. I feel that the whole point of resolutions is to start thinking about areas of your life that you want to improve. Once you’ve figured out what exactly needs changing, it’s dramatically easier to make a list of objectives that you need to accomplish to reach your final destination. The main difference between setting a goal and a resolution is essentially the thought that you put into them.

This of course doesn’t mean that I’m completely against New Year’s resolutions though. I’ve known many people who don’t even state a resolution unless they’re completely adamant about accomplishing it. The difference between these people and those who I’ve known to not accomplish them is the fact that they turn these into long-term goals – much like I stated above.

And while the goals I’ve discussed are all personal, there’s no reason that they can’t be adapted for growing your business. Be it with a specific sales target, company revenue or anything else, don’t simply make a bold statement to your employees without backing it up. Rather, make them into a long term goal, and discuss with your team what it will take to reach these goals.

No matter how you do it, make sure that you do everything you can to grow personally, and professionally in 2015.

Grow From Your Difficulties in 2015

By Comments & Opinion, Entrepreneurial, Leadership One Comment

New Year 2015 formed from sparking digits over black backgroundWhen you’re going through difficult times in your life, it’s easy to think that you’re the only one who is suffering, while everyone else has a perfect life. But in all honesty, if you think that difficulties just happen to you, think again – it happens to all of us.

The difference between those who live their dreams and those who just dream is how you respond to life throwing a curve ball.  At a certain point, instead of expecting that things should go your way and getting stressed out when they don’t, the key is to mature and understand that sometimes the greatest gifts are setbacks, and the times where we feel most challenged. Life is about growth, not comfort. And growth means that we must hold steady amid massive uncertainty.

Surprising no one, this is extremely difficult. However, here is what I do when difficult times fall on me:

Take Life One Day At A Time – Goals are extremely important for personal growth, both whether you achieve them or not. That doesn’t mean that you need to trip yourself up by constantly worrying about the future though. As long as you are doing the best you can to reach your goals, the future will sort itself out.

Don’t Get Caught In Fear – Many of my past blog posts touch upon fear because I truly believe that fear holds back many people. So many once-in-a-lifetime opportunities are missed because people are afraid of failure, afraid of the risks involved, afraid of leaving their comfort zone… But really, if you’re going to be afraid of anything it should be of missing opportunities. Try not to ever let fear prevent you from at least trying. No matter what the outcome, you’ll grow from it.

Open Up And Ask For Help – It’s incredible what people can accomplish when they set their minds to it, but people can accomplish much more when they put their ego aside and simply ask people to help them. Be it a co-worker, a mentor or a friend, when you need some help don’t think that being “tough” and going it alone will do you any good. In many cases, that’s the opposite.

Finding the opportunity to grow will allow us to find meaning in the seeming chaos and to emerge stronger, wiser and with more gratitude for the journey. No matter what kind of journey you had in 2014, do your best to make 2015 even better. After all – the best is yet to come.

Happy Holidays from Wish Group

By Entrepreneurial One Comment

mSsdi5eIt’s at this time of year, during the last minute dashes for gifts or trying to rally your family members together to decide gathering details, that pushes work into an interesting spot in our lives. Some people go away for the holidays, some prefer to work right through the holiday time.

Whatever it is you do, the only thing that you have to ensure is that you make adequate time for your family. I understand the temptation of wanting to work, and I’ve brought it up various times before that working on the holidays can certainly get you ahead of the curb, but you should never put your work before family. Seeing your kids excited for the holidays is something that you simply won’t get again once they’re older.

In other words, this is a short and sweet reminder to make sure that you spend time with your family this holiday season, no matter what celebration you observe this time of year.

I want to personally wish everyone a happy holiday season from everyone here at Wish Group!

Thoughts That Stop Success

By Entrepreneurial One Comment

acclux_how_to_stay_motivatedWith the end of the year officially only a few weeks away, now’s the time to think about how to set yourself up for success in 2015. While setting goals and making plans is definitely part of the process, something else that you need to make sure you’re doing is approaching 2015 with a positive mindset.

If you’ve had a rough year or didn’t see the success that you thought you’d see, it’s all too easy to go into a new year with negative thoughts about your company’s future and sabotage yourself before you even truly get started. This is especially true for new businesses that didn’t grow as rapidly as expected.

I read this great article on Inc Magazine that discussed “5 Thoughts that Crush Success” and I thought the article really nailed it. I want to put my focus on two of the thoughts they mentioned and give my take on them:

“I’m Not An Expert.” – This thought normally creeps into people’s minds when they start up their new business. Once you tell people that you’re the President of a company, everyone will assume that you’re the expert in your field – otherwise you wouldn’t started a company! The problem is that you may not be used to being called an expert in your field, no matter how long you’ve been doing it. There was an old psychological study that said you need to put in at least 10,000 hours before you can truly call yourself an expert, and a lot of people still think this is true. You absolutely need to put in hours and hours to become great at something, but I don’t believe that after you hit a set amount hours you can suddenly say you’re the expert. You’re an expert in your field based on how much passion you have for the subject, and how much you’re willing to continue to learn as the subject evolves.

“It’s Already Been Done.” – Let’s face it, on a planet with seven billion people it’s extremely rare to come up with an entirely original idea. Just because someone else is already in your field or has a similar take on your idea, that doesn’t mean that you should abandon it. In fact, someone else having your idea can be a good thing. For starters, this means there is actually a market for your product or service and that it is indeed in demand. Another great thing about someone already trying out your idea is that you can see what type of success they’ve had and how you can make it better, along with figuring out what will differentiate your product or service to actually meet the needs of your customers.

Don’t let bad thoughts stop you before you even try. At worst case, you fail and then figure out what you need to change and adapt, so you can grow from it. Best case scenario is that your business will grow and prosper.

Holiday Homestretch

By Comments & Opinion, Entrepreneurial, Business Insights, Business Health, Foundations of Success, Planning for the future, Personal Accountability No Comments

With 37 days left in 2014, families and organizations are undoubtedly feeling the pressure of holiday crunch time. I’m pretty guilty of waiting last minute to buy all of my Christmas presents, but when it comes to prepping for the next year I try hard not to lose my focus and keep it going.

This time of year it really does feel like everything is working against you, though. The dreary weather sometimes makes it impossible for you to even get into the office, unexpected family visiting, hysteria at every store you visit regardless of what you want to buy…. It seems endless. During this chaos though is when you need to carve time to review how the year has been, since you’ll be busy the next couple of weeks preparing for 2015.

Revisit Your Earlier Goals – Hopefully you made a list of goals at the beginning of the year to guide your business. With so little time left in the year, you shouldn’t be looking at your list and attempt a mad dash to the finish. Rather, it’s a time to look at your list and see what has worked well for you. Hopefully you’ll find that you not only surpassed some goals, but that you also surpassed goals you added on a little later in the year. You’re bound to find something that was meant to be your focus that you may have let slip through the cracks…

Tie Up Lose Ends – If you do see a few loose ends that you were supposed to focus on for the year, you should do one of two things: (a) see why you weren’t able to meet this goal and attempt it next year or (b) decide if you should make it a priority for the coming year or if it’s actually a critical goal. Losing sight of a particular goal isn’t always a bad thing. Perhaps you subconsciously realized that this goal wasn’t essential to growing your business – especially if you’ve experienced tremendous growth in the year without it. On the flip side, if your business didn’t grow as quickly as you expected, then you should probably make it a priority in 2015.

Plan Your Time Off Accordingly – You’re not seriously planning on neglecting your family over the holidays, are you? No matter what holiday you observe, this time of year is important to spend with your family. I’ve talked about balance before, but I can’t stress how important it is to actually put your phone and computer down for a bit and spend time with loved ones. I can completely sympathize if a 100% disconnect is impossible, but don’t completely neglect your family either!

I’m very interested to know what your game plan is for the final weeks of the year. Please share your thoughts with me in the comments!

Escaping Negativity

By Comments & Opinion, Entrepreneurial, Self Education, Business Insights, Leadership, Personal Accountability No Comments

escape-negativityYou know those days? Those days where everything seems to go wrong, be it on a technical level or something else entirely? Those days are extremely difficult to cope with, but that’s all they are – just single days. The trap to be weary of is letting these days turn to weeks, then weeks to months until you’re consumed by this negativity.

Doing your job becomes incredibly difficult when you constantly create barriers that stop you from performing well. As cheesy or clichéd as it sounds, your state of mind has a tremendous effect on your surroundings. I won’t turn this into a debate on whether you believe me or not, but I do want to offer some points on how to evaluate your negativity to see if something productive can come from it.

Talk It Out With Someone – This of course works with most difficulties in life, but its important to talk this out. Discussing your issues with different people in your life will give you a different view of your situation. You’d be surprised by how many coworkers might be going through the same situation you are. Don’t limit it to coworkers either. Friends, family, significant others… There are rarely any problems you experience that haven’t been dealt with by someone else. Perhaps you won’t like what you hear, but at the very least you’ll have a different opinion.

Pinpoint Your EXACT Cause – After you’ve discussed why you’re feeling so negative with other people, I imagine that you’d have a general idea of what type of negativity is consuming you. What’s important though is that you figure out EXACTLY why you’re being negative. Was it something that has been building over time, a bad experience that you can’t shake or do you feel unfulfilled with what you do? Pinpointing the exact reasons for of your bad vibes can have a better understanding of how to resolve these underlying problems.

Look At The Big Picture – After you’ve talked it out and narrowed down the exact reasons of your negativity, it’s time to act. This will depend entirely on you. Consider the options though, and don’t act on instinct. Perhaps you are long overdue for a vacation, or there’s been something brewing between you and your manager for a long time coming. As drastic as it sounds, you also have to consider that you are simply not happy with the organization you’re with, and its time to move on. As difficult as that might be, in the long run staying somewhere that makes you feel negative isn’t beneficial for either party.

Escaping negativity isn’t easy, but you’ll be thankful once all is said and done.

Mastering Efficiency For Better Business

By Success & Inspiration, Entrepreneurial, Business Growth, Foundations of Success, Leadership, Personal Accountability No Comments

2594377_origThis past week I had the pleasure of taking part of an internal strategy summit with all of the Presidents of the different Wish Group companies, as well as attending our quarterly meeting with all of the companies. Admittedly, one of the challenges that we face with having so many different companies under one umbrella is a unified focus. While I’m perfectly happy with the success of each company all they have achieved, I adamantly believe that if all of the companies combine our synergies, we can become a much more efficient unit.

In fact, the heavy focus of this quarterly meeting was on efficiency. As with all of our meetings, we pick one theme and message to drive home to the team and our leaders felt that efficiency was certainly something that any company can always improve on. As such, from both our strategy summit and our quarterly meeting, here is what we are doing to increase our efficiency that can be applied to any company.

Re-examine How Things Currently Work – The first step towards making anything more efficient is taking an honest look at how things are currently working. I say honest because if you keep telling yourself that everything is perfect, nothing will ever improve. Examine some of your shortcomings and try to assess what mechanics you can put in place to streamline processes that will make you work smarter.

Assembly Line Principle – One of the analogies that we used to drive home efficiency is one of the most successful business efficiency success stories of all time – the assembly line. Henry Ford was famous for taking a long, complex process and turning it into something that made it significantly easier to produce more cars in less time. The main idea behind this was to have staff focus on using their strengths, instead of spreading them thin by trying to do everything. This is incredibly difficult at a start up company as everyone is always wearing multiple hats, but try and discover what tasks your team members excel at and whenever possible give them those tasks.

Trust Your Team – Tying into the previous point, once you’ve discovered what areas your team members are adept at, trust them to complete their task. If you’re constantly worrying about the kind of work your team is doing, it’ll leave less time for you to focus on running your business. Have faith that your team will always produce the best work possible.

I’m certain that efficiency is always top of mind for your company, so I’m curious to know what tasks you think you could be doing more efficiently, and what you want to improve on in your company.