Most successful entrepreneurs have a list of mentors and books that they have on hand acting as mantra for how we conduct and innovate our businesses. By being lucky enough to be one of those crazy work from home guys I find the discussions that I get going in my head from a good article or a book is needed to keep me sharp and often takes on the role of those old debates I used to get into with co-workers (Well that is the crazy shit I tell myself so I don’t attract attention to when I wander around my house in my robe yelling at myself).
Here is Part 1 of the books that always keep me challenged and pushing forward in my life and business even while wandering in my robe.
Trust your gut, the research is done and proven!
The Kolbe Concept and Kathy Kolbe’s work are both mind bending and life altering. These three books are a bit older now but they make no less of an impact now then they did when they were released.
When I was still working in a corporate environment doing marketing for a recruiting and coaching company I was introduced to the Kolbe A index. A test that validates our instincts and studies the Conative part of our brain. Kolbe Wisdom says that if we are free to be ourselves and faced with a task each of us will use a path of least resistance perfectly matched for ourselves to get to an outcome.
When I took the Kolbe A index and got my results it was one of the most liberating days of my entire life and gave permission to be who I am. I have long been branded on the ADD and ADHD scale but I and many other entrepreneurs will be happy to know that Kathy’s work attacks that the whole notion of this head on.
The impact of this work has been so great that I headed to Phoenix a few years ago to become a Kolbe Certified Consultant so I would be able to share this knowledge and coach people and businesses about it’s impact. So shameless plug time, if you have any questions about Kolbe don’t hesitate to contact me.
I have a lot more to say on the subject but I will do it in an upcoming series of articles, in the mean time if your are on twitter you need to be following @kathykolbe. At our growth seminar we were bugging Kolbe Corp that they need to be doing more in social media and now we have Kathy addicted to Twitter. Her tweets are always informative and will help to shed light on the tool.
Powered by Instinct: 5 Rules for Trusting Your Guts is a simple read done much like a conversation between two people. It might be to informal and lacking a bit of meat for some readers but it can be consumed in a few stress free hours.
The Conative Connection: Uncovering the Link Between Who You Are and How You Perform is Kathy’s first book and goes into a lot of the research, It was written in the 90’s so some of the research has changed but it is still very valuable information.
Pure Instinct: Business’ Untapped Resource This book goes into a lot of detail for how the Kolbe tools are used in a business group setting. I would suggest that you leave this one until you have a better understanding of the concept or if you like to read deep into a subject.
The “Secret” but built for Business without all the “When I wish Upon a Star” and still sit on my ass all this free money will come to me.
When I was on the road to getting the hell out of the corporate world and was looking for guidance for how I could take my small side evening business and make it more then just a hobby I got caught up in the whole “The Secret” movie explosion.
Do I regret it, not a chance. I credit myself with taking the time to study and listen to what the teachers from the movie were actually saying. In my opinion that 90 min movie will go down as one of the best pieces of marketing ever. Most of all it opened a dialogue to make it acceptable to say things like you are a business person who meditates.
If you take the time to look at the other coaching the teachers do you will understand that the Law of Attraction is only one law and a starting point. During the movie John Assaraf was the person in the movie that resonated most with me, I think because he came to it from a business perspective. I was on a conference call with him and his OneCoach partner Murray Smith when he said we all need to remember the next most important universal law, The Law of “GOYA” or GET OFF YOUR ASS. If you just sit on your couch and ask the universe to give you everything eventually they will come and take your house from around you and your seat out from under you.
From that I joined the OneCoach’s Business Mastery Program that taught me how to put the right things in the right order to create a successful business.
John and Murray took the process they were teaching clients with great success and published The Answer: Grow Any Business, Achieve Financial Freedom, and Live an Extraordinary Life It is a great read and provides a very good framework to help make sure as a business owner you doing the highest income producing activities that are right for your specific business.
I will be back with part two of my book list very soon. I also want to hear about your great reads and resources. I am an avid business, marketing and personal development reader so I am always on the look out for new concepts.
Again here are the books I talked about in this post:
Powered by Instinct: 5 Rules for Trusting Your Guts by Kathy Kolbe
The Conative Connection: by Kathy Kolbe
Pure Instinct: Business’ Untapped Resource by Kathy Kolbe
and The Answer by John Assaraf and Murray Smith
The lifeblood of modern business, networking is a vital tool for just about anyone with any interest in running their own business/department/team. Basically, anyone with half a brain should realize the importance of a large network of contacts—in industry, in the marketplace, in the media, or even with Average Joe on the street. Networking raises your personal and company profile, can be used to secure contracts or deals that may otherwise pass you by, and help cement links with clients, investors, suppliers and just about anyone else. However, some people find stepping into the potential social minefield that is the networking circuit to be intimidating, as well as very hard work. If you are one of these people, you need to realize that networking really isn’t that hard—you do it most of the time without even realizing it.
Before you even start to think about networking in earnest, prepare yourself with an arsenal of materials. The Chinese (undisputed masters of the art of business networking) have a simple rule of thumb whenever they go out on business: get business cards printed. Ninety percent of businesses in the U.S. don’t use business cards period, and of those who do only 25 percent keep them updated regularly. Once you get your cards, you should carry at least twenty on your person at all times, preferably in a nice little business card case. Make sure all details are up to date—the card should feature your name, job title, contact telephone number, business address and email as a minimum, and you should also consider including some of your skills and areas of expertise on the back.
Then, buy a second business card holder fro all the cards you receive. Always keep a pen and paper on hand to write down the name and details of anyone who doesn’t have a card, and the minute you get to the office or your computer write everything down in a database. Write where you met, what they do, and any other info you can remember, and build up a definitive list of the people you meet who you may be able to work with in some capacity in the future.
Be confident in your networking, and always think long-term. Don’t discount someone as a contact because they may not be able to help you out immediately. Don’t run up to people demanding their assistance, either. Networking is a two-way street, and quite often it pays big dividends to be the person offering help, rather than the one asking for it. Make yourself useful to your contacts, start building a relationship, and then take things from there.
Always be polite and cordial, even if you think the entire population of the room/party/event you are at are insipid pond scum not worth the light of day. The irritating, pompous pest with an attitude problem and personal hygiene to rival your average skunk may one day turn out to be your best client, or the one man in town who can provide what you need.
“It’s nothing personal.” Bullspit! There’s no such thing as nothing being personal in the business world. No matter who’s involved in a business equation, people are either spending money they worked hard to earn, or are looking to earn the other person’s money through hard work. Unless you’ve won the lottery, any blood, sweat and tears poured into your business makes the scenario very personal.
If you’re running your business like a robot, void of emotion and looking at your clients like binary code, then they’ll eventually start tearing you apart like HAL 9000. You will get significantly more mileage out of your bootstrapped budget if you treat your customers like people. What’s the best way to do this? You’ve got to build relationships.
Especially in a world that’s virtually all virtual, prospects and clients want to know there’s a real person caring for them and their business. A prime example of this is the latest Allstate tagline stating that “You’re In Good Hands with Allstate.” Make your clients feel like they are individuals and that you will always be there for them and you will build immense loyalty. As you can imagine, customer loyalty bolsters your budget for several reasons.
For one thing, it’s always significantly more lucrative to retain clients than it is to shop out new ones. Even if you decide to raise your rates down the road, loyal customers will be willing to pay more because you’ve built up value with them. Your ideal clients should not take on the air of an accountant, constantly counting pennies, but should be looking beyond your fees and focusing on the positive results you’re producing for their business. If you’ve taken the care and time to build a solid relationship with your clients, then they’ll gladly pay more for the peace of mind they get from knowing you’re treating their business as if it were your own.
Transcending the business barrier and achieving a personal level to the business you do creates a third dimension. Any additional element you can add to your client relations serves to fortify your situation as a whole. Here we can apply the apples-to-apples scenario: You should always be thinking of how you can distinguish your apple from all the other apples out there. Especially in tough economic times, when businesses are having as much luck trying to stretch their budgets as they would using a timing belt as a rubber band, you need to illustrate as many value points as possible. If all other elements are equal in comparison, a client will remain loyal to you if you’ve established and maintained a personal rapport.
In addition, when you take the time to build a personal relationship with your clients, then you naturally garner a better understanding of what they want and what their business needs for the greatest success. A little extra TLC will then actually help save you time and money, as you’ll be able to handle their account more efficiently. And not that we’re encourage sloppy business, but a personal relationship will also help foster some added forgiveness for the occasional error!
Another huge positive for you bootstrappers is the fact that when you maintain a personable level with your clients, then they are significantly more likely to refer your business to others, increasing your word-of-mouth business, which is…uh huh, go ahead and let it roll of your tongue…free!
As a dedicated business owner, you probably spend much of your day focusing on how you can help your clients. Bravo! This is what you should be doing as a human being anyways, helping others as much as you can. However, some of us get on a path of helping others through our businesses and just keep rolling along with the same mentality. But as much as we applaud helping others, we also strongly suggest that you help yourself.
Along with your business, you also need to invest in yourself. A proper education will ultimately enable you to help a greater number of people to a greater degree. Think of it this way. Let’s suppose your current business is like Charlie from Flowers for Algernon before the procedure. The poor guy had a big heart and great intentions, but he couldn’t even beat a mouse in a maze. But afterwards, he was able to actually contribute to society. Not that we’re saying your business is mentally challenged, just that no matter how well intentioned your business pursuits are, you’ll always be able to offer a greater degree of help to others through continued education.
And if you’re one of those number-oriented people who goes to sleep by the sound of your ROI ticker, then your educational pursuits may require an extra degree of patience. Self-edification doesn’t always produce immediate, perceivable results, but trust us, your clients will see the difference and you’ll build their loyalty on a foundation of marble instead of balsa wood.
Besides, never before have we had access to so many experts and such powerful materials as we do now. From a full master’s program to a community college course, and seminars to certification courses, there are plenty of education avenues that will suit even a bootstrapped budget. And with the Web providing thousands of new articles on a daily basis, you can take the completely free route and hold yourself to reading one or two new articles every single day. Create a cranium-cramming schedule and put aside a certain block of time every day for your personal edification. To not keep up with what is out there is causing you to miss a lot of amazing breakthroughs. In addition, the trend has been that with the more knowledge we have, the easier things tend to be later on. If you put some front-end time and effort towards investing in yourself, then things will get much easier down the road, unless you regress like Charlie of course then you’re just plum out of luck.
The power of personal development is infinite. It’s amazing how set some of us become in our ways. Not necessarily in a stubborn manner, but because we become programmed to go on autopilot, functioning in ways that are familiar to us. We don’t even realize that we’re capable of so much more because we haven’t challenged ourselves in such a long time. Pursuing personal development open’s our minds to the limitless possibilities within us. Become a better you, and your bootstrapped budget will become a bad ass boot-up-the-competition’s-butt budget, or something like that.
Here are some of the programs that I am currently investing my learning dollars in.
Tomasz Gorecki, fellow blogger and long time contributor to this site sent me a link today that I wanted to share with everyone. If this video does not stir your passion it will hopefully give a not so gentle kick in the ass we all need.
The video is from the Web 2.0 Expo in New York this past September with a presentation from Gary Vaynerchuk. So let’s start hustling!
Oh I almost forgot to mention take a look at Tomasz’s Blog on his journey to get debt free. It’s a great story and is packed with lots of good tips. Debt In Your 20’s Is The Kiss of Death
Sit back and enjoy.