Let Everybody Else

Let everybody else, be like everybody else. You be you.

I have found that a common mistake in life of young and older is to try and be like someone else. Good luck. 

Chances are, that the very person you are trying to be like considers themselves to be one-of-a-kind. They may have, in the past, been highly influenced by others they admire, but now they are who they are because of decisions they made.

You need to be you. Absolutely, you may follow the lead of the right people and choose to make your results a reflection of they who influenced you. But once you start putting your hand to the plow (figuratively speaking) it is your signature on the finished work, not the people you are trying to be like.

You young folks out there have a once-in-a-lifetime-opportunty. Some of the very best people you will meet in your life are teachers. The great majority of these dedicated individuals are sold out in helping you be a better you. They are privileged to spend time with you in your formative years and really want to make a difference. They teach you subject matter that is relevant but I feel that the more important lesson they teach you young people is through an example of a life's work dedicated to others. You will never get this opportunity again. Do not squander it with bad behavior when the right behavior is what is required. 

Even if you are not young and most people reading this are not, be judicious who you choose to pattern your behavior after. Saying; "I want to be like so and so."" is just an excuse to not be like you. 

Do not be afraid to be you. After all, you are fearfully and wonderfully made.

I can't reach

I can't reach.

There are times when things are just too good to not share and this in one of those times. 

The basis of this discourse is a friend telling me, regarding a new endeavor I had just embarked on; "You will make it happen as is or find a way to make it happen." 

Herein lies a pretty simple illustration to a not so simple problem. 

Standing at a distance and watching the glass cleaner person from inside the building shielded the top part of the window from my view. The glass cleaner was diligently applying his trade and his window cleaning stuff. So far so good. 

Because I was interested and paying for the cleaning and mostly because I really like clean windows, I moved in for a closer look. The windows were clean,. almost. The very top perhaps 20% of every window was not being cleaned and from inside you could not see that portion, unless you moved close to the window. 

The ladder the window cleaner was using was good enough to reach most of the window but not good enough to reach all of the window. Which proves that; "Good enough never is." 

What should have happened is that the window cleaning person should have notified whomever was in charge and made them aware of the problem. "My ladder won't reach." 

Instead they moved ahead doing 80% of a job they got paid 100% to complete. 

Don't do a job 80% of the way when you can get what you need and do a job 100% of the way. Doing a job partially without asking for the help you need is unacceptable. Once you get the help, get the job done expeditiously, accurately and completely.

If you can't reach, get a bigger ladder!

I Am Thinking & I Think

Thinking is underutilized. 

My best thinking is done when I walk around the office as if I am in a daze. The wheels are almost always turning so the dazed-look is well deserved and hard-earned. When, during this process, I come to some conclusion, the dazed look will disappear and I am back to digging and doing. 

I really should do more thinking in an environment where people don't view me as milling around. Maybe I am sending the wrong message because I am not in the figurative ditch, feverishly thinking. But the process of thinking is extremely valuable and productive. When I think I can come to reasonable conclusions (hopefully) and make a decision to either draw a line or get help. Either way, the thinking leads me to some meaningful action and discourages the, ready-fire-aim, knee-jerk reaction.

 A good and very successful friend goes in an hour early, every day, just so he can think!

Thinking is underutilized, "I think" is over utilized.

Here, we teach that there is room for opinions in our business discussions, but not much. What you think is not helpful, what you know is invaluable. 

People really don't care what you think and I am high on that list. People care deeply about what you know supported by what you can prove. Sure, people will be nice and considerate when you espouse your opinions, but they have their limits, so don't waste their time or yours. 

"Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and to remove all doubt.
— ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

Passion or Performance

Passion will take you to performance. Performance will not take you to passion. Passion is a choice, performance is not. There is a clear difference between passion and performance. A difference that if you don't have passion, you will not notice. Nor will anyone else. If you have passion the difference is breathtaking!

Passion is hot. Set yourself on fire and people will come from miles away to watch you burn.

Performance is dry and cold and without passion. Passion will drive you to take action and increase your levels of activity in order to reach the next milestone. Passion requires love for what you are doing. Passion is not risk averse.

Performance will never be enough to make you stand out and be remembered. Performance is a has-been. Passion is a will-do. 

Passion will get you out of bed in the morning and have you running headstrong into the issues and opportunities you will face during the day. Performance will expect you to get out of bed but will only suggest that you move. Performance will not fan the flames of accomplishment.

Passion will have you demonstrable, to a point of lunacy, when you experience even the smallest victories or learn something new. Performance will plod along stepping boringly through the labyrinth of ho-hum tasks that must be done to get something, anything done.

Passion is absolutely necessary in order to be extraordinary. Performance is ordinary. If you want to be extraordinary, you have to first, stop being ordinary and passion will drive you to that place where you are not like everybody else. Let everybody else be like everybody else.

The common illusion is that to be extraordinary you have to work all the time and fully devote all of your energies to the endeavor. That is not the case. What you have to do is make the most of the time you have when you are working. Don't think of reasons you can't so something, rather think of reasons you can, and passion will lead you to that kind of thinking. 

Just Because You Can...

There are specific businesses that have been an integral part of communities for over 100 years, some more some less. These institutions have grown with their communities and experienced the ups and downs of life just as the individuals that make up the community have. They birth people, graduate people, marry people and bury people. 

These businesses were started and operated for the right reasons and they are alive with a personality and a purpose. Well, many still are.

The people who work at these businesses are driven to make their efforts make a difference. Doing the right things for the right reasons enriches their lives and the lives of the people they serve. When a community matter needed to be brought to light, the consequences of doing so were not going to make the determination; rather the "need to know" was always at the forefront. The trust that these businesses have with their customers was more important and vital to their success than possibly ruffling a few feathers of chickens that may have actually needed their feathers plucked. That trust, so richly deserved and coveted, apparently has a monetary value and can be bought and sold with less attachment than one would have to a cheap pair of shoes. 

These businesses need to spend less than they take in so they can stay in business. Nothing surprising here. Making money is the right thing to do given the right reasons. What is surprising, or really deeply disturbing, is that many of these community businesses have been taken over by organizations, that operate on the premise that the almighty dollar is their right-reason. In fact, they operate as if the dollar is their only reason. 

Making money is a by-product of doing the right things for the right reasons at the right time. If you do the right things for the right reasons at the right time, the money will hunt you down. Money should not be the main reason but it must be a direct result.

These detached conglomerates have intentionally dumbed down the value, the impact and the capabilities of these storied businesses. They destroy trust by destroying the capability of the business to do what it does best. They try to run an intimately local business from a distant place. Because they are owners, they can do these locally damaging things from a faraway place, but that does not mean they should. 

There are several companies that truly value the community newspaper and operate accordingly. More power to these companies that do the right things for the right reasons. 

Apple started with a Why and the Why was never just to make money. They make a lot of money, but their Why was to "Change The Status Quo" and to "Think Differently" and so on. The results of starting and continuing with a Purposeful-Why other than a Money-Why are undeniable. 

Just because you can doesn't mean you should. 

Tools For Thought

Tools For Thought...

Do what you say you are going to do, when you said you would do it or let people know why not and when you will.

Set reasonable expectations and then manage them, or customers will set unreasonable expectations and hold you and your company accountable.

Customer service is either good and getting better or bad and getting worse.

Selling is; Helping the Right People, make the Right Informed Decision at the Right Time. (That's it, don't complicate the effort.)

The sale ain't made until the money is paid. (Until the money is paid all you have done is take an order) 

We are what we tolerate.

It is easier to get customers than it is to keep customers. 

It is better to keep customers than it is to get customers. 

The real work doesn't start until the customer says yes.

The challenges of success are much greater than the challenges of failure. 

EASY rarely works well, or for long.

Show genuine appreciation inside and outside. 

There are some customers that you cannot afford to do business with. Move on. 

Over communicate under pontificate. 

Have a greater sense of urgency than your competition and your customers. 

When you stop learning, you STOP.

Do the hard things first and remember that everything is hard at first. 

Don't say; "No Problem. Say; "Thank You"

Return your phone calls and emails, promptly.

Listen more, Talk less, enough said. 

Solve problems as quickly as possible and do not avoid confrontation. 

Two emails addressing the same subject are plenty. Call or personally visit instead of the indifferent email correspondence.

Get and use a CRM as a condition of employment.

Aging is inevitable but growing up is not, because maturity is too high of a price to pay for growing up. 

You will only be as happy as you are grateful.

You cannot make other people happy, you can make yourself happy and by doing so show others how you did it.

The measure of your life will not be determined by what you accomplished but rather by what you were able to overcome. Only by overcoming do we accomplish anything. 

A Critical Need Ignored

Many, many times while working with community newspaper advertising sales teams across America, I have preached the critical need to educate all locally controlled businesses about the art and science of advertising.

The position I took then and still hold now, is that an educated client makes smarter decisions and can therefore make better-informed judgements regarding your value proposition and the proposition of other media. The primary reason that locally owned businesses are not more educationally-equipped to make reasoned advertising marketing commitments, is that their advertising sales person was too invested in the myopic view of their own world. The sales person saw the client or prospect through a very narrow lens and they still do. The sales people failed to realize or were not taught that selling is not their primary function. Their primary function is to keep clients sold and advertising-educated clients do not just buy, they stay bought! When you sell clients without the client having a considerable base of knowledge about what they are buying, you give them permission to leave whenever they desire.

Digital media is aggressively challenging traditional media because digital can connect the dots, even though the dots connected may be few in number. Traditional media that delivers digital as part of a solution is also blinded by the glare of the shiny new toys. Traditional print is still very powerful but not enough people inside the circle or outside the circle know it. One traditional compliments the digital-other.

Rather than making a real effort to learn the art and science of advertising, community newspaper sales folks took the path of least resistance. They knew enough to be dangerous, but they really didn't know, what they didn't know.  Why would these traditional and trusted media choose the path of least resistance? The answer may be as simple as, business was too good to acknowledge the critical need.

A recent study by Borrell and Associated proves that traditional media is still where it has always been specific to teaching clients. Clients and prospect still do not know the art and science of advertising. Is is not too late to learn so you can learn and teach. Who is going to care enough to take the time to learn so they can teach? You?

NOTE: Some great science comes from The Persuaders by James Garvey.
On page 47 Garvey writes; ... the fact that a great deal of what we think about comes not from sound reflection and careful argument, but from our lifelong exposure to images and messages that serve the interest of those who pay for them.