Great leaders surround themselves with great and skillful
people. Jim Collins, author of Good to Great, and his team
researched what it takes for organizations to achieve
greatness. He identified great companies and found that
they all had the same kind of leadership. These leaders
were usually humble, yet passionate about the business they
were in. Unlike many of the celebrity CEO’s of today, they
were ambitious for their organization to succeed, rather
than ambitious for themselves.

They focused their organizations on a combination of what
they were passionate about doing, what they were good at
doing, and what would drive their economic engine (sustain
and/or make profitable).

Collins states that one of the first things these leaders
do is to surround themselves with the right people. Instead
of spending time and money on motivational incentives, they
find people who are already motivated. In other words, they
recognize that true motivation comes from within.

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Copyright (c) 2007 A Marketing Connection

That is a pretty powerful statement I made in that
headline. Everyone in the service industry should have
something tangible to sell to go with it. That something
tangible could be a process or formula that they claim as
their own.

You may be a copywriter and thinking Kelly has gone totally
nuts; or a physician thinking Kelly has no clue about what
I do or why.

Let me give you some examples of what I’m talking about
with this. Let’s start with a copywriter or graphic
designer that is providing a service.

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Jane and Bob have been working with their teams for a
couple of months, and they’ve really paid attention to
putting the right people in the right roles.   However,
other problems can arise that don’t have anything to do
with teams, leaders, and workstyles.

Differences in communication styles or the communication
styles themselves are often the cause of problems, rather
than the content that’s being communicated.  Often we see
these problems occur when the topic is difficult; no one
has trouble communicating around the success of the
project, the awards ceremony for the team, and the overall
good health of the company!

What if the topic is difficult?

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Gone are the days of simply getting hired because you have
the proper job qualifications and experience. The new HR
specialist is looking at a holistic recruiting approach.

In simple terms “Emphasizing the importance of the whole
person, and the interdependence of its parts”, as defined
in the dictionary. Meaning simply, recruiters are looking
at the complete you, and not just the standard
qualifications and experience you bring to the table.

Through holistic recruiting, the HR specialist now looks at
the complete you. And it’s your emotional intelligence that
defines the best part of the holistic approach to hiring.
Your core values as a person drive your EQ or emotional
intelligence. As such, the better you score at the EQ
level, the better equipped you are for fast track hiring
and thus, promotion. If you already communicate well, and
understand all that’s involved in being an active listener,
then your EQ is already on solid ground.

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Yahooooo…

Starting Friday, July 6th 2007, Calgary (where I live)
turns into a complete country party town for 10 days.

The Calgary Stampede is an event that’s been running since
1886 - and lays claim to The Greatest Outdoor Show On Earth.

We get probably half a million visitors in to Calgary
during the 10 day event (which is amazing since Calgary is
1 million people- we add 50% of our population in 10 days).

Get this, the total take home winnings from the Stampede
Rodeo is a whopping $1.6 Million - which is now the largest
prize winnings of any rodeo in the world, from my
understanding.

You’d certainly have to pay me well to sit on a bucking
bull! $1.6M would about do it ;o)

What would make people travel from all over the world to
see the Stampede?

***> HINT: The lessons of the Stampede can easily   be
adapted to your business.

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Copyright (c) 2007 Weiss Communications

Had another conversation with yet another entrepreneur who
told me he does not “cold call,” he only does “warm calls.”

I continue to be baffled by those who cut off possibilities
with a semantic twist. “Cold call, warm call,” it’s simply
a state of mind. Your mind. Your prospect does not make
those distinctions. Just because you have designated a call
to be “warm” doesn’t mean that the person you are calling
thinks it’s “warm.”  This “warm call/cold call” concept is
a smoke screen that covers the real issue.

The real issue is controlling your message. The real issue
is being able to communicate with a prospect so that they
understand and resonate with what you have to say. The real
issue is about having the skill necessary to communicate
with a prospect under any circumstance.

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The question of whether or not it is important for you to
be “liked” by your team is an interesting one.  You will
find that your answer may indicate more about your
leadership style than you may think.  Taking a look at your
leadership style will ultimately answer this question.

In one of our manager meetings, I threw this question out
to the 20 some leaders we had.  I split them into 2 even
groups, and gave each team their position that they would
need to debate.  One team needed to convince the other team
that it either was or was not important to be liked as a
leader.  This was not only a lot of fun, but it also
revealed a great deal about the real feelings that some of
our managers had about this topic.

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In your business, does it feel more productive, to be
fulfilling the orders, or spending half a day on marketing
or planning?

You see, the majority of people go into business to escape
working for a boss, or the long commute to work or the 9 to
5 boredom. They want freedom, flexibility and a better
income.

So, they take the incredibly gutsy move and go it on their
own. They step right out of their comfort zone and they
become the boss!

They are enthusiastic, because everything is new and
exciting. Their mindset is in exactly the right place, and
they attract the orders with their enthusiastic
personalities. This could be as simple as attending a
networking function, or dealing with the local printer, who
knows someone that requires their services or product.

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In the course of events surrounding my every workday, I
have the opportunity to interact with a great many diverse,
busy people. Depending upon who and when you may ask, many
will tell you that they are swamped and have little time
for anything outside of their normal routine. Most will
even go so far as to say that they never seem to have
enough time to get things done. While that may be true for
some, my experience tells me that while many people may
believe this to be absolutely true, most tend to exist in a
self-induced illusion of “busy-ness” and a general state of
disorganization, possibly chaos. This however, is often a
situation of their own choosing. Fortunately, there is a
remedy to their madness.

In surprising ignorance, the Chief Engineer stated to me
that he was too busy to consider any more new ideas. Too
busy? What? His brash comment instantly reminded of the
individual, who at the turn of the last century, had both
the audacity and the ignorance to proclaim that there was
no further need for the patent office. He believed that
everything humanly imaginable had already been invented!
One might be tempted to accept the conclusion that little
had changed in the last one hundred years. Neither
statement makes any real sense to me at all, especially
when considering that the technology employed by the
engineer was hopelessly outdated, somewhat unreliable and
quite costly. The company, a major manufacturer of railroad
switching equipment, is a leader in it’s field; a
revelation that appeared somewhat contradictory considering
this key decision-maker’s refusal to even listen to a bold
new idea.

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Copyright (c) 2007 A Marketing Connection

Your voice is the single most effective marketing tool you
have. Many of us are comfortable using more traditional
methods of marketing, which are generally impersonal and
one-way. You mail sales letters or post cards. You have a
web site. You run advertisements or articles prospects
read. You have a newsletter or even a blog.

These are great marketing tools and I use them all, but
they lack the intimacy you get when people hear your voice.

When I coach my clients I talk to them about contacting
prospects in a variety of ways, and in particular touching
as many of their prospects senses as they can. Most
marketing - especially in the beginning stages of the sales
process - involves sight and reading. Rarely smell, touch,
taste, or hearing.

I have been very successful using the telephone to grow my
business. I am not talking about cold-calling either. I’m
talking about teaching people over the phone. Teleclasses
or teleseminars.

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