Success Formulae

Early birds may get the worm, but late birds get the job

2010-10-13T05:47:00.000-07:00

I just read a great article by Harvey Mackay which you might be interested in reading:

From the time we were kids, we've been force-fed the idea that first is best. It doesn't always work that way. Sometimes last is best.

The conventional wisdom is to be first across the finish line, first in our class in grades, first in line for chow, first for tickets to the Beyonce concert and first to be interviewed by a prospective employer. A, B, C, and D work just fine. E doesn't. You do not want to be the first candidate to be interviewed.

Advertising genius Pat Fallon taught me long ago that ad agencies which pitched new business first or early in competitive reviews almost never won the account. Those who were positioned sixth or seventh in a typical review had far better chances. Give any savvy ad agency an opportunity to select a time slot for a client pitch and they'll always take the last one, the one closest to the moment when the choice of agencies is made. These people make their living understanding human nature. They know what makes people tick psychologically.

Clients tend to dismiss the first pitches they hear as they would preliminary fights on a boxing card. Not to be taken terribly seriously. They're on the card to give them an opportunity to see what's out there, to try out their questions, and sharpen their reactions in preparation for the main event.

The same kind of buildup is used in assembling a concert program. You start with the aptly named "warm-up" acts. They're the appetizers. The headliner is the main course.

A similar pattern emerges in the selection of films and stars for Oscars. Those that win rarely make their box office debut at the beginning of a given year. The strongest contenders are those appearing at year-end. They end up with far better recognition and recall value in the eyes of Academy members.

Want to see true creative ingenuity in action? Watch what happens when a prospective client tries to schedule an agency pitch.

"We wish we could take the Monday eight 8 a.m. slot, but all our account people will be having open heart surgery that day. They should be up and around by Wednesday afternoon, though."

With most openings, the company's job specs are likely to be vague at first, becoming clearer only after they have had the opportunity to interview (and argue about) a couple of candidates. You don't want to be the test dummy, smashed into a wall, so the company can design a better set of wheels for someone else.

If you are going for a job interview, try to learn how many candidates have already been seen. If you ask, and the recruiter dodges the question, consider yourself to be among the first or second entrants, and be prepared with a good, believable reason why a later time would be better. Perhaps a conflicting business trip or prior engagement prevents you from doing an early interview. Particularly in this economy, people are so anxious about getting a job that they are willing to schedule anything at any time, often to their own great disadvantage.

If you can't avoid being first, try to leave the interviewer with something to think about: "I know you'll be talking with other candidates, and it might be hard to remember the first person you talked to, but I'm committed to doing everything I can to work for your company, and I'd like to be asked back for a second interview. These are challenging times, and I believe I can make an immediate impact in strengthening this business. When you bring me back in, I will give you a detailed plan."

I'm proud to have known the late Norman Vincent Peale, who told the story about the eager job applicant who sees a help-wanted ad and rushes down to apply. By the time he arrives, there are at least two hundred people lined up waiting to be interviewed. After waiting in line for some time, he bolts out, runs to the front, where a woman is ushering them in one at a time, and says, 'My name is Bruce Madison and you tell the people who are doing the hiring in there that I'm two-hundred-fifty-third in line and don't hire anyone until they've talked to me.'" He got the job, of course.

Mackay's Moral: The second mouse always gets the cheese.

Harvey Mackay is author of the New York Times No. 1 best-seller “Swim With The Sharks Without Being Eaten Alive.”

Ask for Feedback!

2010-09-07T04:23:00.000-07:00

In order to learn and continually develop your product offering and your
business you need to get honest and direct feedback from your customers,
clients or suppliers.

Sometimes this is easy - if you are doing a really terrible job people often
tell you! They also tell everyone else they know! Ouch! Very occasionally,
if you truly delight someone the same thing may happen. This is obviously
fabulous and the power of referrals is a great way to build your business.

However 95% of our customers rarely give direct and constructive feedback -
unless we proactively ask for it.

What are you doing to get feedback? When did you last ask what your
customers thought of your service? What else could you be doing to delight
them? What other services might they like you to offer them?

If you don't ask them what their needs are how are you going to meet them
and keep improving?

Don't be shy - start asking for feedback today!

If you would more information on how to do this for your clients or even the prospects you lost, call us on 0871 855 1584, and we’ll send you our FREE feedback forms.

Seven Profit Winning Strategies For Your Business

2010-03-03T01:57:00.000-08:00

Do you feel you are working long hours and working really hard, but still can’t seem to get ahead money wise?

Do you leave your financials up to your accountant, and don’t really understand them?

Imagine knowing exactly how to make more money in your business and more money for you without working any harder or longer!

It may be hard to believe that you could love that jumble of numbers, especially if you believe Math was not your greatest subject in school.

Don’t worry, you’re not alone. It took me three attempts to get my maths “O” level to a grade C. It was not until I took Economics as an “A” level that my interest in both business and psychology took hold. Now, I have save and create more money for Business Owners through focusing on numbers first, rather than beginning on the marketing side of their business.

In Business, most of the figures we do are for the Inland Revenue. But the secrets that the numbers hold can add value for the Business Owner and enable the business to be run smarter.

Seven suggestions to get you started:

Work out your margins on every product and service in your business. Include a portion of the cost to run the business as well as the cost to sell each item. As you sell products to cover costs and make money, most of you will put your prices up after this exercise. Include everything.

Understand your customers. Work out ‘who’s who’. Calculate who your worst 20% of your customers are, especially any negative earners (see 3). Work out how you can bring all your negative earners, back up to the profit zone.

Investigate and ‘know’ your costs. Be like Columbo (remember him?) Put everything into your products, services, or overheads. This will help you after your focus has changed to that of net profit, not Turnover.

Learn to understand your financials. As the meerkat says, “simples”, but we know it’s not. So start simple, get someone to teach you and don’t leave it to your accountant. Once you understand them you will love them! Get the numbers running so that each month you can see what you’re getting and what you need to get. Make it as simple at first.

Identify the top components of your business that need to be measured. Liken their function to that of the gauges in a car’s dashboard. This identification and measuring process will enable you to keep your business running at maximum efficiency and highlight challenges before they slow it down. Work with your Success Formulae Coach to pinpoint what these components should be.

Graph your figures. This is a great way to see trends, actual figures vs last year’s budget. Pictures are often easier to understand than figures. They are also a great way to get the team fired up about doing better each month. This also focus everyone on reality.

Review every three months, for good results, every month for bad, and change after two. Once we have agreed what the best way of your earning greater profits are, make sure that you are taking the actions. Two months with no better results, and you should check your action plan- have you slipped into old habits?

Take some time with your Business Coach (and if you don’t have one, give me a call to get you going in the right direction) to identify what key areas of the financial side of your business you should be focusing.

With this greater financial understanding and implementation of management systems you will achieve greater profits and greater peace of mind in your business.

2009-11-09T07:59:00.000-08:00

Wow, what an incredible weekend! They say, “when the student is ready, the teacher will appear”, and certainly Chris said this or something like this regularly, the whole time.
Christopher Howard is a phenomenon, that is for certain, and believe me, I’ve worked with some who we might have said at some time were, or perhaps are the best.
But Chris Howard really resonated for me this weekend because of the commitment to excellence in everything he says, but also the awesome sales process he uses.
By now, you probably know me as the guy on the stage, but what you may not know is that whilst I have been achieving what many may call great success, I had suddenly decided that I wanted more, and I realised that I hadn’t taken advice from a coach in 10 years! Even though, I have achieved most of my 10 year goals- what does that say!
But Chris is definitely the distillation of the best way to “DO” this kind of stuff, and so I am taking action now.
If you are reading this, you probably attended the Christopher Howard weekend seminar, Breakthrough To Success, and so as a “thank you” to all of you who thanked me and who have offered help, I would like to send you something. Yes, you can find me online, from TV in Dallas, or ITN here, firewalking or arrow breaking, or from the various articles in the press, but there are two things which I would like to offer to EVERYONE who is now in contact with me from this Chris Howard weekend.
Firstly, something I have never done, but I am just going to do, for you all AT NO COST, is send you our DVD, ‘Fear into Action’, the Firewalk philosophy. Two things you should know about this video. The first, is that there is nothing else like it, and nobody else that has ever done this type of thing to date, so it is unique. The second is, it is old footage. You’ll see that I look younger and perhaps the fashion police were not around at the time, thankfully. But that’s how we did things ‘back in the day’. The footage and presentation is 14 years old.
Secondly, I am thinking about offering my £249 seminar, Fear Into Action to you, at virtually no cost. Why should I do that? I actually don’t know!!! But I do know that if you are looking at this now, something caught your attention at the seminar, and you perhaps were curious about what this is about. But because you attended Chris Howard’s seminar, and have taken an interest, I thank you, and want to reward you.
So, for now, I don’t exactly know what I am going to do, but here’s what my heart says:
“If this person has been to Chris Howard’s seminar and taken the time to connect, give them something, because something good will come out of it”
I don’t even know when my next one is, as I am currently planning my next trip to Dallas to train new firewalk instructors in my role as a Master Instructor for The Firewalking Institute, the organisation that taught Tony Robbins.
So here’s the deal: Thank you for taking action and contacting us. As a result of that, you can have, free of charge, a ticket to my next open event of “Fear Into Power”, and a copy of my DVD. All you need to do is tell us where to send them, who you are, and how we might keep in touch. I may even offer some coaching, later on, so give us a contact number so if we decide to do more for you, I can call you myself.
I am going to do more, I just don’t know what yet. But you’ve got to “be in it, to win it”, so get a ticket, or two and DVD, by just going here: www.successformulae.co.uk/contact/ and tell us who you are, and so I know you were a Chris Howard delegate, answer this question at the beginning of the text: What was Mr Cass’ first name, who co-spoke with Chris?
The other thing, is that many of you, asked me about my seminar, “Selling Me-the art of presenting YOU as the product”, so if you are a small business, that offers consultancy, or if you are a sole trader, where YOU provide the solution, then get in touch, I’m going to offer this two-day £975 seminar to you at a phenomenal price. It’s going to be so good, that I’m having to recalculate ALL the costs, to make sure, that if we offer it, the price is the absolute best. So, register your interest now.
Many, many people asked me about firewalking. So, if you’d like to come and do one, OR, if you would like to TEACH them, let me know. I am the only Master Trainer in the UK, and we are training new trainers next year. Alternatively, would you like to help us? Let us know.
We are going to give you lots of good stuff. Sign up and I’ll let you know what’s happening.
Wow, what a great weekend. If you have made the decision to do something and act, then we will help you in any way we can, and along the way, I’m certain that you’re deciding to sign up today, will help you get the results you want.
Awesome.
Steve