As many of you know, one of my hobbies and passions is boxing.  I’m a bit too old to be super-competitive with some of the younger guys in the gym.  However, I’ve learned that the wisdom, patience and self-understanding that comes with age, helps to offset some of the age discrepancy.  As I rotate from business consulting to boxing each day, I can’t help but notice many striking similarities between business and boxing.  I’ve listed the top 10 below:

10) Learn to relax under pressure.  Tension wins you no points.  It wears you out mentally and physically faster, and shows your opponent you’re vulnerable and an easier target.  Always stay loose.

9) There is always someone bigger, stronger, faster, more experienced or hungrier than you out there.  But hopefully no one with all 5.

8)   Strength and size can easily be beaten by speed and precision.

7) The “fight” is won months and weeks before the competition.  Prepare, prepare, prepare. If you wait the day before, or decide to “wing it”, you’ll lose easily to a lesser opponent who prepares harder.

6) Persistence, Persistence, Persistence.  The winner of many boxing matches is not the hardest hitter, or even the best fighter.  It’s the fighter who is in the best shape, who tires last.

5) Have a strategy.  Boxing is like chess, not checkers.  For every action, there is a reaction.  Good opponents always learn from you, adapt to you, and try to time your next step to beat you there.  You must do the same.

4) Boxing, business, and life are about give and take.  You must learn how to take a punch.  If you’ve decided to play the game, learn how to take your lumps, counter attack, and move on.  Don’t be scared to get hit….hard.

3) Listen to those with experience whom you trust (i.e. boxing coach).  They can see things in you and your opponent that you can’t.  If you don’t know anyone like this, find them….fast.

2) Things NEVER go as planned.  As soon as the first jab lands on your nose, the plan may change.  Be willing to adapt on the fly.  Be in the present moment.

1) You must risk “coming inside” to land a hit and to win.  Thus, the only way you can win, is to risk getting hit.  No risk, no reward.

What a great piece on “Being an Entrepreneur” by Mark McGuinness (www.lateralaction.com).

_______________________________________________________________________________

I never wanted to be an entrepreneur.

I just wanted to write poetry.

Twenty years ago I would have told you “Business Is Evil”.

I associated entrepreneurship with people like Gordon ‘greed is good’ Gekko. I was so ignorant I didn’t know the difference between an entrepreneur and a Wall Street trader. To me, they were the same thing.

So I went to college to read English Literature. I thought it would help me as a poet.

It was a creative disaster. I ended up blocked and bored of literature. Time to change direction.

I never wanted to be a psychotherapist.

I just wanted to learn hypnosis.

I wanted to know what the mind was capable of. So I went to college to train as a therapist. I hoped it would change my life. It did.

I discovered I loved working with people, helping them learn, make changes, solve problems.

I went to London to seek my fortune. I set up practice in a fancy Notting Hill clinic. I worked with all kinds of people – bankers, hippies, drug addicts, estate agents, lawyers, venture capitalists, rock stars (real ones, not the social media kind).

And artists. I loved working with the artists, the writers, the actors, the film-makers. The ones who loved to create things. The ones who really inspired me. The ones who told me I inspired them.

One problem with therapy? The better I got, the less money I earned. My clients made changes, left their old selves behind – fast. I had to stop giving away free consultations when I realised they were working too well.

The main problem with therapy? My clients weren’t in a hurry to talk about their success. Sadly, it’s still hard for people to admit to going to therapy, at least in the UK. Seth Godin tells us “ideas that spread, win” – and I could see the therapy idea would never spread very fast.

Not unless I became one of those ‘pushy’ therapists who wrote the tacky books, whose names were always in the magazines, and whose faces were always on TV.

And I definitely didn’t want to be one of those therapists.

The real problem with therapy? I wasn’t in a hurry to talk about my success.

I never wanted to be a business consultant.

I just wanted to earn a living.

So when I was asked to help run a corporate training session, I thought, “How bad can it be?”.

It turned out to be pretty good. I found my skills were in demand. I saw them make a difference to people’s work, to their teams, to their company.

So I put on a suit and bought a briefcase. I learned to use PowerPoint. I talked less about feelings and more about actions. I helped people get things done.

I got paid more than I had ever thought possible for a day’s work.

I never, ever, wanted to be a salesman.

I just wanted more clients.

But clients don’t grow on trees. And for some reason, my partners thought I’d be good at sales.

I thought they were mad. I was the introverted poet, remember? How could I possibly be the pushy salesman?

Then I asked myself a different question: “What would it be like if you succeeded?” Things looked very different after that. I stopped worrying about ‘being a salesman’ and started learning sales.

I bought books, CDs, DVDs. I listened to extravert salesmen, guys who were totally different to me – Zig Ziglar, Brian Tracy, Steven Covey.

I picked up the phone, over and over. I rang and rang and rang all day. I went to meetings. I wrote proposals. I was messed around. I persisted.

I closed a sale. Then another. Then another. Then a big deal rolled in, with my name on it.

I tasted success.

The problem with corporate consulting? My heart wasn’t in it. I wasn’t the guy in the suit with the briefcase. I’d wandered into someone else’s life.

So I wandered out again.

I decided to go for it, to live my dream and set up as a creative consultant, working exclusively with the cool, trendy, innovative companies.

So I went to college (can you see the theme here?) to study the creative economy. I learned about creativity, organisations, marketing, intellectual property. And entrepreneurship.

I thought it would make me a better consultant. It did more than that – it changed my life. Again.

I resisted the change, of course. I did an entire module on creative entrepreneurship without paying much attention. It didn’t hold my interest like the other courses. I couldn’t see how it related to me.

I never saw myself as an entrepreneur. That was for people like Bill Gates and Richard Branson, the empire builders.

And I definitely didn’t want to build an empire.

So I went back to the people I loved working with most – the creatives, the artists, the writers, the directors, the producers.

Instead of corporate cubicles and warehouses, I found myself in agencies and studios. Lots of glass and funky furniture. A PlayStation in the corner, or an electric guitar.

So far, so good.

I never wanted to be a blogger.

I just wanted to promote my business.

I read Seth Godin’s e-book on blogging, and knew I had to do this. No more cold calling, just sharing what I knew, putting ideas out there, watching the ripples spread, waiting for them to bounce back to me…

…and amazingly, they did bounce back. After months of plugging away at the blog, wondering whether I was wasting my time, new clients started to roll in.

Instead of ringing prospects up, hustling for a meeting, they rang me. They invited me in. They rolled out the red carpet. I didn’t have to sell. They asked what I would advise. It was like being a published author.

I found myself in airports, boardrooms, inner sanctums. On international conference calls. Talking to publishers about book deals.

Success again.

The problem with success?

There was only one of me.

I had to be on stage, in front of clients, in front of audiences, delivering a top performance, every time. I also had to be backstage, dealing with the equipment, the travel, the invoicing, the admin. Fixing the printer, making the coffee, chasing clients for documents, for payments.

Meanwhile the e-mail was piling up.

The day rate was great – but it wasn’t the real day rate. Things always took longer than I budgeted for – even when I budgeted for things taking longer than I budgeted for. Time off felt like money down the drain.

I wrote my blog, it brought me work. Great.

I was busy with clients, the blog went quiet, new business went quiet. Not so great.

I needed a break, but I needed to keep writing the blog to bring in new business. Not to mention the printer, the e-mail, etc.

It started to feel like a treadmill.

On the one hand, I had everything I’d always wanted – I was getting paid to do what I loved, my clients loved the work. I was writing for an enthusiastic audience, I was seeing my influence grow.

On the other hand, I was shattered. I knew I couldn’t carry on like this.

I read books on entrepreneurship, arguing with them all the way through. There was a little voice in my head, saying it was all very well for other people to build an internet business and get off the treadmill of hourly rates and endless hours. But I couldn’t do that. My business was different. I was different.

Then I realised the voice in my head was talking crap.

I finally realised I wanted to be an entrepreneur. I wanted to build a business, set myself free, travel the world. I wanted to reach more people, help them on a bigger scale. But I couldn’t see a way to make it happen.

Funnily enough, soon after I realised what I wanted, I discovered a way to make it happen.

If you want to know how you can make it happen for yourself, make sure you’re subscribed to Lateral Action and tune in next week. You’ll get some extended content from a guy who went from liberal arts major to lawyer to wannabe screenwriter to online entrepreneur… some of you know him as Brian Clark.

About the Author: Mark McGuinness is a poet, creative coach and co-founder of Lateral Action

This is a great article by Seth Godin, a well known author in the internet marketing world.  I saw this and had to post it.  Spend a few hours to and increase your customer visibility 10 fold.

Memo to the very small

What should my local chiropractor do? Or the acupuncturist? Or the pet store? What about that small church or mosque?

The web has changed the game for a lot of organizations, but for the local business, it’s more of a threat and a quandary than an asset. My doctor went to a seminar yesterday ($100+) where the ‘expert’ was busy selling her on buying a domain name, hiring a designer, using web development software, understanding site maps and navigation and keywords and metatags and servers…

These are businesses that have trouble dealing with the Yellow Pages. Too much trouble, too much time, way too expensive. So, should local micro-businesses just ignore the web? Or should they become experts in the art of building and maintaining a website?

We’re talking about people who don’t like to tweak. About local businesses that are struggling to be found by people a block or a mile or five miles away. Entrepreneurs who can’t be bothered to understand typography or HTML. Why does my dog’s vet have such a lame website? Why do basement waterproofing sites sit moribund? Do they all have to become experts and spend the money–or sit it out and lose out?

I think there’s a third way, one that gets them just about everything they need, takes an hour or two a month and costs about $60 a year. Here goes:

Step one: head on over to Typepad and sign up for their cheapest service. It’s about $5 a month. Pick a ‘quiet’ and professional blog layout. Your first post should include the name of your business, your address, your specialty and your hours and phone number. Click the button that says “Feature this post.” From now on, this post will be at the top of your blog (which is really your ‘website’, so first time visitors
will see it front and center. When you go on vacation or stock a new line of products or have a story to tell, just blog it.

The beauty of this first step is that for $5 you have a web server, a professional layout, no worries about design, a site you can edit yourself in no time and no hassles with weird domain names.

Next step: build a Squidoo lens about your business. List your hours and stuff. Then insert a google map of where you’re located. Put in a list of books if you think your potential (or current) customers will benefit from an understanding of what you do. Insert a guestbook so your favorite customers can give you testimonials. Put in an RSS feed from your blog, so every time you update it, it will show up here, too. If this is too tricky, have your smart next-door-neighbor do it for you. You won’t have to do it again.

Next step: Get a sign featuring your name and phone number. Something 1 foot by 2 foot or so. Printed on cardboard. Now, take your digital camera and start taking pictures. Pictures of your offices. Of your staff. Of your satisfied customers. Each picture should include the sign! Now, go post those pictures on Flickr. (And then put the pictures into a set and pull that set into your Squidoo lens, and post the best pictures on your blog too).

Last step: Ask your best customers to build Squidoo lenses about your business. Ask the ones who blog to mention you in their blogs. Ask the happiest of all to pose for a picture holding your sign, or to give you a testimonial for your blog.

So, you’ve probably invested a few hours by now. You’ve spent a few dollars, read a book or two on blogging. But you haven’t become an expert, not by a longshot, in any technologies. You haven’t tweaked a font or focused on a sitemap. Instead, you’ve been running your dry cleaner or writing your sermons.

Even better, no one is judging you on whether or not you’re an expert at building websites. No one is choosing not to do business with you because your website looks like your cat designed it. And you’re not spending big money tweaking tweaking tweaking just to get the last ounce of blood out of your site.

A month later, if someone types, migraine acupuncture des moines, into Google, they ought to find you. Or pet store 10706. The beauty of your situation is this: if only 5 or 10 new people a week find you via this ring of links and google searches, you’re going to have a shot at doubling your customer base within a year. For $60.

Seth Godin

This blog can also be read at http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2007/04/memo_to_the_ver.html

For all those business owners who have been burned by one of the larger Small Business Consulting Firms (and you know who they are).

Once upon a time there was a young man who was quite lonely in life and he sought the companionship of a fine woman.  One day, this man met a beautiful woman that he soon fell in love with very much.  He desperately wanted to find out how to make her fall in love with him. So like any smart, infatuated man does, he consulted her friends and family to discover how to make her fall in love with him.

He learned that she would instantly fall in love with a man who knew could cook delicious home meals. So the man decided he would learn to cook. He bought an expensive training video, dozens of cookbooks, the finest pots and pans, and thousands of dollars worth of spices and ingredients.

Finally the man began cooking one day. He turned on all the burners to begin boiling water. While reading the cookbook, he placed his hand on a live burner, and burned his hand badly. In pain and embarrassed, the man shouted angrily, “I hate cooking. Its painful and I will never cook again”.

And he never cooked again. He lost his true love, and never found a woman like this again.

____________________________________________________________

I hear this “I’ve been burned by consultants” phrase quite often from small business owners. Almost 75% of my clients have had a bad experience with one of the huge legacy SMB consulting companies out there (You can count them on 1 hand. Hint…they probably start with a “G” or an “I”). I’ve seen the look of anger, defensiveness, and embarrassment that comes across their faces when they revisit these experiences with one of these “Sales-Companies- Disguised-as-Consulting-Firms”.

The bottom line is that small business owners must do their research. Search the Better Business Bureau. Look at Ripoffreport.com. Do a Google search for “[Company] Scam”. The the second you get a high pressure sales person putting you on a guilt trip around your business, run, don’t walk, in the other direction.

And just because you got burned cooking once, it doesn’t mean that cooking is bad. Consider it a learning lesson and move forward to make your culinary masterpiece in life.

There are reputable small business consultanting companies out there.  I can think of at least one off the top of my head

Technorati Tags: Fraud, Scam, small business consulting

Abraham Lincoln once said “Information is Power“. OK, he didn’t say that, but somebody important did…and its true in today’s business world more than ever. Below I’ve created a quick and simple overview on one of the most valuable, simple and unique market “spying” tools that I’ve ever been exposed to. You do not want to be in business in today’s economy without using this tool.  And very few people know about it.

Introducing Quantcast.com

Technorati Tags: competitor analysis, market competition, market research, quantcast, Quantcast.com

“Every 1 point increase adds $1,300 to an annual salary/income”.

Howdy ya’ll.  When she said this to me, a decade of small business consulting lessons all converged into one.  I could see it as clearly as the sun shines in the bright Phoenix skies.

We were on “Date Night” and were having a blast with the new Flip Video Camera we bought earlier that day.   “What’s the difference between Star Trek and Star Wars she” asked me.  I thought about just how I was going to answer this philosphically important question.

I was never a Trekie growing up. Rather, I was more into movies like Star Wars and ET. Star Trek was too….weird..for me to follow.

Unlike Star Wars, I never understood the undercurrents of tension between Spock and Captain Kirk or what it stood for.   We were in the movie theater at the luxurious Tempe Marketplace.    As I wolfed down the popcorn, enjoying the previews to the new Will Ferrell movie I thought about it and decided the fundamental difference between the two.   I informed my girlfriend that Star Wars has a New Agey “Energy” spiritual theme running through it.  While Star Trek was always more based on science and logic (thus the stereotype of a “nerdy” following).

While watching the new Star Trek movie we were both on the edge of our seats the entire time.  As I became emotionally involved with the developing characters , a new theme slowly became apparent. Later it hit me that  it was a theme following the same pattern of change management projects that I’ve noticed separate highly successful business owners and less successful business owners.

During small business change management projects, I’ve noticed that some business owners implement 85%-95% of change management consulting efforts while others implement only 50% or less. Some enjoy more spare time, more profits, and a happier workplace, and some don’t. What’s the difference? What’s the secret ingredient? Its the same one that the USS Enterprise discovered during its biggest moment of crisis.

Spock’s “race” is one that detests emotion. His race is taught from a young age to eliminate emotion from their reality at a very early age. Logic and rationality rule supreme with Vulcans. Jim Kirk, on the other hand, grew up as a maverick. He grew up speaking his mind, stirring things up, ticking people off, and pushing through to reach his goal even when everyone else comes up with “Logical rationality” to stay the course.

(Stop reading this if you haven’t seen the movie)

In the end, Kirk prevails and Spock, the logical one, gives up his reign as the #1 Captain to the more lovable Captain Kirk….the intelligent but more emotional new leader of the crew.

When looking back at all of my change management implementations, I often ask myself what is the difference between those leaders that embrace the change, stick with it, and persevere through the “pain period” and those that don’t. And one of the traits is emotional honesty. The best leaders always challenged and tested me. The best leaders always got temporarily upset at the freight train that was challenging their safe reality and they let me know. The best leaders “Freaked Out” regularly, sometimes daily, as I was slowly helping them redirect the direction of their steady freight liners.

The less successful ones were more “logical” about the change (rightly so). They were more of the mindset of “I can’t wait to see what happens when this is over.” They found it logically interesting, but didn’t invest themselves emotionally in the moment. And emotional investment is the glue that holds change management together.

Change can be scary. And if a business owner doesn’t embrace these feelings of fear, anger, and loss that come with change, that glue is missing. Any sales person will tell you that people buy on emotion, not logic. In the same manner, people change (or don’t change) based upon emotion, not logic. For humans, emotion will almost always win out over logic.

The way to overcome this is for business owners to constantly become more aware of their own “emotional intelligence”. This cemented in my mind, when taking part in a webinar with Dr. Pat Gangi on Friday, an expert on Emotional Intelligence (http://www.cornerstone-intl.com/).

To over-simplify, she explained how there are actually metrics by which people can measure how emotionally intelligent they are and provide ways to improve emotional intelligence. As she talked, I noticed that those business owners that are more emotionally intelligent, are able to embrace change and take their companies to the next level. Those that aren’t as emotionally intelligent, still do well with change, but not as well as the others.

After the webinar, I asked Dr. Gangi, “Is there evidence that emotionally intelligent employees require more money to hire and retain than less emotionally intelligent employees. Her answer shocked me:

“High EQ people definitely earn more. A survey released in February 2009 by Talent Smart showed that people with high EQs make an average of $29,000 per year more than people with low EQs. On average, every point increase in emotional intelligence adds $1,300 to an annual salary.”

I can not prove it, but from personal experience, I can testify that the same percentages apply to business owners navigating change management initiatives.

As a business analyst, MBA, and business owner, I obviously understand the value of logic, analysis, and probabilities. These are fundamentals for successful change management and long-term business ownership. But as a business owner, the ability to allow yourself to feel and comfortably express the negative emotions involved in changing an already successful business, is an important intangible to reaping the most out of a change management initiative.  One of my Phoenix clients of four years is about to enjoy his 3 straight year on the Inc. 5000 as a result of his ability to emotionally invest in each change management project he undertakes  to constantly improve his company.

So we left the movie theatre after two hours of classic movie-making, endlessly talking about how cool the movie was, and discussing the implications it suggested in our own lives.  Without boring my wonderful girlfriend with the business implications, I hypothesized:  Much like the USS enterprise, through becoming aware of, and embracing the fear of the unknown, business owners are more likely to “Live Long and Prosper” (Sorry, but I had to say it.)

Technorati Tags: change management, emotional intelligence, managing change, small business consulting, smb consulting, star trek

What do rock climbing and marketing have in common?

I just went with my girlfriend to Camelback Mountain in Phoenix for the first time today.  Let me say that you don’t “hike” camelback mountain; you “climb” Camelback mountain.  How does this relate to marketing?

When I was younger, I sometimes looked down on sales, marketing, and PR to some degree as a necessary evil….Like “I’m too smart for that”.  I used to think that if the steak was good enough, sizzle wasn’t needed.  I’m sure experienced marketers get a chuckle out of this.

My life experiences have taught me otherwise.  I’ve understood more about marketing and sales in the last two years than I have in 33 years.

I remember walking into consulting assignments that a sales person sold, beginning implementation, and having the client tell me that he couldn’t do the things we were talking about….it was too much work.  Then he reminded me that the sales person who sold the job “assured him” that this assignment wouldn’t be any extra work for him.  I suppose that was the only way he could sell the job to this client…promise that he would save lots of money without doing any work….it was an uphill battle from there to create lasting change with a client conditioned in this way.

Today, while heading up the mountain with my brave and beautiful girlfriend, she kept asking “How much further” and everyone kept saying “Just 2-3 more minutes”.  We were on the border of turning around every time, but “Just 2-3 minutes” wasn’t that bad.  Well it WASN’T 2-3 minutes EVER, but we kept going with that hope.

1/2 hour later we reached the top and saw the most amazing view of Phoenix I’ve ever seen.  And I’m grateful to those people who told us “2-3 Minutes” knowing full well that this wasn’t the case.

On the way DOWN, some people asked us, “How much farther until the top”.  Without thinking, I told them candidly “About 30 minutes”.  To my amazement the “leaders” of the group were upset with me because some in the party now wanted to turn around and didn’t want to fulfill their initial goal.

Looking back, I see that many in sales and marketing take this approach as well.  If a person wants to change, and you really care about this person, sometimes you have to “Wrap the medicine in Candy” as a brilliant marketing guru once told me.

I’m still a bit unsure of how I would have answered this again in the future.  I’ve heard people say that you need to sell people “What they Want” in order to start them on the path of getting “what they need”.  Otherwise they’ll waste their time and money buying “quick fix” solutions that leave them in places they don’t want to be.

My client ended up in a great place after putting in the extra effort and hours needed to grow his business.  His business has thrived in the current depression as a result.  While I cursed my salesperson at the time, I now look back in gratitude at his intuitive understanding of human motivation.

Technorati Tags: camelback mounting, change management, hiking, marketing, mid-sized business consulting, rock climbing, sales, small business consulting, smb consulting