Are you on send or receive?

When I was much younger, my MSG Schaffer asked me one of his important, character forming questions.

“PFC Hill, in order for us to have a meaningful conversation, one of us has to be on send, one of us has to be on receive. Now, do you want to send, or receive?”

I’m a little embarrassed to admit that although I answered ‘receive’, he felt it necessary to ask me the question twice.

I’m not sure if you’ve had previous military experience, but I can tell you that MSG Schaffer was being extremely generous by asking me the question a second time. We both knew he didn’t have to ask once, let alone twice.

Today, I”m still thankful for that question. I ask myself that all the time when coaching a client. “Do I want to be on send, or receive?”and “Does this client want to be on send, or receive?”

Even in life, walking down the street, am I on send or receive? The implication is, what would I miss if I am on send and not receive? And what do you miss by being on send?

For example, a client recently wanted me to help with a job application. They were frustrated with the web process and asked me to help. I agreed, but before we began, he wanted to send. He felt it was important to tell me about his work history and his career up to this point.

Because he had a long career (I believe he was in his mid-60’s) the time to ’send’ me his career history took quite some time.
As he took me through a history of an incredible life, from bridge engineer to aid worker to starving children in 3rd world countries, into self-publishing, authoring and careers beyond telemarketer and fundraiser, he indicated that he’d recently helped out a retired priest.

He felt lucky to have been there to help protect this priest, because he was about to be victimized by a con-man, all too willing to take the retired priest’s life savings to help him avoid his soul going to hell.

After listening, I told this Renaissance man that his real purpose as I heard it was defender of the helpless. And instead of applying for a job, he needed to first discover who needed defenders enough to pay for them, then simply go find them and let them know he was available.

Had I been on send and not receive, I would have missed the real opportunity to help someone discover themselves.

On that day, I was very glad for my Master Sergeant. Thanks MSG Schaffer, wherever you are. Message received.

Why don’t your customers wear tattoos of your brand?

Why don’t mothers have “Tide” Tattoos?

What would it mean for sales if they did?

I watched the Malibu Rum commercial yesterday for radio boom boom – the one with the two DJ’s giving the weather forecast and it’s all sunny, even at night.  The rest are just details.

There’s a line for their radio station at the end of the commercial http://radiomaliboomboom.com/

“It goes beyond traditional television spots by creating an experience where consumers can connect with the irreverent, vibrant spirit” of the brand, Craig Johnson, marketing director for Malibu said, describing it as “a fully integrated [consumer] experience.” (http://www.marketwatch.com/story/no-marketing-pullback-for-malibu-rum-2009-07-31)

It started me thinking about lots of things.  The thought chain went something like this.

“Wow, I imagine people dancing to the radio station music at house parties, drinking rum.

That’s cool, clever even.

Huh, that’s not product, it’s not even brand…its… culture.. the experience surrounding the product, not the product itself. Oh that’s genius, wish I’d thought of it.

Well, why then don’t people have Honda radio or Tide TV? In fact, what is the culture for Tide and Honda anyway? Oh, there isn’t one.  Wow, huge marketing gap there.

Who else does culture marketing really well? Harley Davidson of course. If someone gets a tattoo of your logo that’s significant pain and you’re really onto something… also DC comics with their Superman brand.  People get the red S tattooed on their arms too.  Heh, imagine mothers walking around with “Tide” tattooed on their arm or chest, now that’s funny!  Even funnier if you imagine them getting into a fight with the shout wipes moms over who’s got a better, cleaner culture. Yikes!”

The internal narrative went on of course.  But I began to take a leap to something else.  Large corporations spend a lot of time and effort to create a company culture so their employees feel connected and participate (hopefully) according to behavior they want.  So… if customers are an important part of the business (and they are) why don’t they have a culture, and why don’t companies spend effort to create, promote and sell that culture, like Malibu Rum, Harley Davidson and DC comics are doing? 

It’s because they don’t have an idea for how to go about it – in fact they’re not even aware of it as a possibility.  Most marketing courses at colleges are teaching product placement and brand marketing. No one is teaching culture marketing. 

So, how to do this?

First, what is the culture surrounding your product?  When does it get used?

Jennio Turkey might be the Sunday Dinner with family and friends.  Turkey is a part of the event, even the centerpiece, but it’s not the whole event.  What could you do with a Sunday Dinner, family culture?

What about the values? This is always important with company cultures, finding out what are the common values? This in many ways defines who’s ‘in’ and who’s ‘out’ (Just like in High School – cliques) .  What are the values of a Sunday Dinner? Family, Community, Tradition come to mind.

So, maybe Jennio Turkey could create churches or community clubs and community centers.  They are all aligned with the common values. (I threw church in there to wake up your brain, I don’t really think Jennio should sponsor churches.  It could lead to Hormel creating a Spam church, yuck).

Finally, what is the measure of success? When customers tattoo your brand on their arm? Maybe not, but other than sales trends you might want to measure how many times your brand shows up in popular culture, music , movies and such. 

Now how much would you pay for that kind of priceless word of mouth marketing and product placements?

Experts – get busy and share!

Are you a leader or other expert struggling to share your expertise?

You may know a lot.  Maybe you’re wondering how you share that with a larger audience.
Perhaps you’re looking to write that how-to book someday or maybe you’re considering a blog or radio show or perhaps even a tv show?

These can all be done but you may not think you have the resources today. So, start from where you are – you’ve heard that a time or two, maybe even said it to others.

I compare your expertise to a well. If nobody knows it’s there, what good is it? If nobody comes to the well to draw the water, what use is it?

But, if you consider closely, people are regularly asking for your help, right? You probably email people with suggestions, advice or answers to their questions. Recast those as blogs, after you take out the names and identifying information, of course.

The point is, you’re already providing value – just like a well. People are drawing from your talent, you just haven’t captured it as repeatable knowledge.

Once you gather enough of these emails and blogs, your book creates itself. No work, no hassle.

TV show? Ah, well, perhaps you’re a mentor or systems expert… if so, you have regular meetings where you give advice and direction. Just get in the habit of taping it each time. You have a home video camera I’m sure. Bring it with you and start recording it.

Edit the video for free with Windows movie maker. It’s an incredible free program that’s on your PC today. From there, you can post it on http://youtube.com or if you just want the audio, then do http://blogtalkradio.com

If you don’t regularly meet with people you can still capture the knowledge, just call your team on skype with http://pamela.com (a free recorder that captures up to 15 min of skype conversation).

Ultimately, no matter what, you have the capability to automatically capture your skills, talent, knowledge and expertise, you just need to have someone regularly come to you and ask.
Set up a partnership where you and another expert regularly interview each other and you have everything you need.

Want a better training? Try simulations for success

Here’s a game making template to create games that stimulate learning

I was talking to a corporate trainer today.  We were discussing how to get participants engaged in the training, especially if the training is about policies and procedures, a typically dry subject. The point of training is not the training, not the feedback forms that say ‘great job’ but rather the takeaway. Can the participants remember and effectively apply the lessons learned?

One of our discussion topics was games and simulations vs. a traditional ‘lecture’ style. How would you create a simulation for applying polices and procedures… you could do a role play scenario but we all know how well class participants feel about role play… about the same as public speaking. They are typically not up for it.

Then it hit me… role play… role playing games. What are the elements of a role playing game that allow it to be successful for the participants? I mentioned the most well known, Dungeons and Dragons and I wondered about what are the elements of a great story in D&D?

You have the following elements:

• Scenario – The scene or situation could be a city adventure, dungeon exploration or wilderness challenge
• Characters/Avatars – someone you invest your identity and consideration into – you start to care about your character, perhaps even developing a ‘backstory’
• Choices – you can explore the dungeon or explore the city, it’s up to you
• Stated goals – in D&D this is usually presented as a quest
• Challenges – There are monsters, puzzles and riddles that will resist or oppose you accomplishing your goal
• Outcomes are uncertain – The element of risk means that you may very well not succeed, depending upon your choices
• Teamwork – Especially important in the game is the ability to work together. Each party member has needed strengths that help and weaknesses that must be accommodated
• Randomization of the outcome – The dice rolls determine if the chosen action is successful, or more correctly, determine the amount of success or failure
• Modifiers to the random outcome – if you have certain skills, talents, abilities or ‘magic items’ you have an advantage that will help you
• A storyteller – Very important to the game, someone to narrate and keep the story going (the dungeon master)

So, now if you’re a trainer… This becomes a system to create a game or simulation that effectively teaches the lessons you want your class to remember (not just learn… remember and apply).

• Scenario – The scene or situation could be an office challenge or a story about co-operating with customers, or a new product launch
• Characters/Avatars – someone that the participants can use to try on different roles and approaches viscerally, so they can try different (and perhaps competing) approaches and perspectives
• Choices – you can follow the policy or choose to flaunt it, it’s up to the participants
• Stated goals – some definition of success, perhaps it’s not getting bad press coverage or increasing the stock price of the company
• Challenges – There are temptations, struggles and laws that will resist or oppose you accomplishing your goal
• Outcomes are uncertain – The element of risk allows your participants to possibly flaunt the rules and not get caught
• Teamwork –Each team member contributes strengths such as people skills or detail focus or goal orientation. These have strengths and weaknesses that require teams work together, especially if there is a time limit
• Randomization of the outcome – a percentage chance of success against odds are always a welcome part of any game. It’s the chief element of most games that keep us interested and engaged
• Modifiers to the random outcome – if the team can find or learn skills or other items in game that help them win, or perhaps cause them more challenge instead of actaully helping, this helps them see other resources they may not have known about
• A storyteller – In this case, the facilitator. Someone who can help out in the ‘rough patches’,  keep the game going and guide the debrief session so people can share what they learned

So you might have game pieces or scorecards to allow people to have tangible take home reminders of the lessons they learned. Something they can keep with them use to discuss with others about the lessons learned.

There you have it – a simple model to make any training event a memorable and useful one that participants will use again and again.  I going to find my multi-sided dice and character sheets.

Save time in the interview process – hire for mindset and fit

Save time interviewing – screen for skills and mindset

So having experienced hiring from many perspectives, I realize that a great failure of the system is hiring for skills only. Hard skills and soft skills to be sure, but still… just skills. The problem is managers look for ‘fit’ not just ‘skills’. It becomes the managers job to interview for fit. Some companies put their values in the job ad and hope or suppose that it will attract people with the same values, but that doesn’t really select preferred people based on those values. Even worse, the process doesn’t select for something even more important. Mindset. For example, manager mindset is different than employee mindset. One job seeker was having trouble in the interviews. He’d get really nervous. As we explored it with him I came to realize that he was ‘chomping at the bit’ to prove that he could do the job and that opportunity never seemed to come up in the interview. They’d ask a bunch of questions but it never seemed to focus on his skills or can he do the job, which he was very VERY eager to prove. I told him that isn’t why they have interviews. They have interviews to see if you ‘fit’. I told him that if you made it to an interview you already passed the ‘can you do the job’ screen. HR is responsible for finding out if people have the skills and experience to do the job. Therefore, they already know you can do the job in the interview. Furthermore, you were among the BEST of the people that could do the job. The only thing they really want to know now is do you fit in and can they work with you as one of their direct reports, that’s the point of the interview. So why doesn’t HR find people that match ‘fit’ or mindset as well as skill? That would save the manager a bunch of time. Simply because the manager doesn’t give them any measurable criteria or a standard for what they are looking for. So, what happens is it becomes a long drawn out process for everyone involved. I assure you, managers do not like interviewing, because it takes a lot of something they don’t have, time. What to do? There are lots and lots of tools that assess mindset. I’m not talking about ethics or values. I’m talking about is your desire to be the best in your field or is it the desire to make others the best in their field? Are you a ‘warrior’ or ‘villager’? are you open minded or are you concerned about being right? The best tool that I’ve found so far is behavioral interview questions. These (when done correctly) tell a manager what this person feels about customer service, innovation, adaptability or other considerations. If you’re a manager, give your HR team the behavioral interview questions you want to know about, that are important to your team and to anyone joining. Have HR ask them in the screen but also have them put the criteria in the ad. “The ideal candidate will have demonstrated success in dealing with customers in a retail setting, specifically having the ability to convert upset complaints into delightful customer experiences.” Put up to three of those criteria in a job posting and now that candidate knows what you’re looking for and knows if they ‘fit’. Oh, and don’t be discouraged if less people apply – that automatically saves you time if candidates don’t feel they ‘fit’.

Employees – Earn more – be worth more, break the rules

MN Employees: Do you want more money and a bigger salary or paycheck?

Teach yourself and your boss why you should be paid more.

The epic tale of the salesperson and the website that would not sell

I recently spoke to a salesperson for a global company.  His company still has not entered the Internet age.  They have a website, but they really don’t see the value in having people come to it, because they have no search engine optimization and no keywords – in other words, when you search for their service on google, they are NOWHERE to be found.  This means all the potential new customers go somewhere else.

Now, I told this salesperson that he needs to own responsibility to fix this problem.  He wasn’t convinced, so I asked him, how much would it be worth in additional sales?  He conservatively answered in the high 6 figures.  Needless to say if he made all these sales himself, it would mean a significant income boost for him also.

So then, the next question is, how much for search engine optimization?  Conservative estimates are in the three to four figure range.

So, um, let’s see, for thousands of dollars, he can receive a million dollar benefit? Or possibly more?

I told him that what he needs to do is own the responsibility for the website marketing in exchange for the leads.

Out of that, he could offer to give the additional sales to the other people on his sales force. Remember, we’re talking about him personally investing his own money in the marketing and promotion of the website for a 6 figure payoff.  If he wanted to, he could sell those leads to other sales people or take a percentage as a fee for managing the website.

But again, why not? Look at the math.  It’s worth it to him to start doing this immediately.

Will there be some challenges to convince his managers to let him take responsibility of the website? Probably. However, he’s a salesperson for pete’s sake. He needs to sell the benefits, which include the company no longer has to pay for a website that they really don’t care about and haven’t gotten results from.  They only care about sales, which is what his job is.  That’s what he offers.  “You give me control of the website, I’ll give you more sales.” Period.

It’s called aligning to common interests in sales-speak.

Now forget about him, let’s talk about you.  What do you bring that is of immediate value to yourself and to your company?  What do you bring to your customers?  Can you start bringing in more clients?  Would your company appreciate it? Would they appreciate it enough to pay you more?

If not, then would your company’s competition appreciate it more? IE would they appreciate it enough to pay you?  Maybe you’re working for the wrong company.

Never forget there’s more companies to work at than there are people like you who bring real value.

Learn more about leadership and value at http://srkinc.com and learn about making a difference at http://quantumcommonwealth.com

Alan Hill

(612) 819-1803

The Gift Of Adversity – Executive Leadership Trainer Shows You How

Business Leaders: Are you worried about the economic impact on your business?

Management Trainers: Is this your best opportunity to create value for your company?

“To whom much is given, much will be expected”

I always loved that verse in the bible.  But as you will see, I have a MUCH different take on it.

Most of us tend to think it implies those who have all the benefits of a wealthy income and lifestyle have an obligation to give back.  This is not a bad idea.  Trusting in someone to reach down to those who are disadvantaged is a great idea.

But what if you’ve not been given all the advantages?  What if you’ve only been given dis-advantages… what can be expected of you?

I have been given much adversity – how much will be expected of me?

Likewise, you may be experiencing some adversity in your business or work.  How much is going to be expected of you?

Here’s the point: What are you learning?  Some may learn “that which does not kill us, makes us stronger’.  That’s a great lesson, especially given some of the hubris of our last economic boom in America.

It’s also true that we learn a lot of value… real value… when challenged by adversity.  This might be expected of you to help your company during this economic downturn.

But what happens when you’re given more than just a little adversity?  Or perhaps more adversity than your peers?  What then will be expected of you?  How much more could be asked of someone in those circumstances?  Yet still, it rings out… “To whom much is given… much will be expected”

For me, a part of that answer is in teaching others to recognize the value of adversity.  To do more than just learn from challenge and change, but to go the extra mile and actively seek it out.  Welcome adversity and change.  A question I ask myself is: ‘How much a better person would I be if a little adversity is beneficial?”  And then “how much better would I be if there were more adversity?” and finally I ask myself “How much better would I be to others if I learned from THEIR mistakes and adversity, not just my own?”

Ultimately, “How much better would I be to the world if I taught this perspective to others… to learn from others mistakes and challenges as well as my own?”

What would the world be like in 10 years? 20 years? 50 years?

I have a lot to teach from my adversity.  What do you have to teach from yours?

Alan Hill

612) 819-1803

http://srkinc.com

http://quantumcommonwealth.com

Get the figures without the facts – A MN Executive Coach shows you how

MN – Entrepreneurs Are you struggling with efficient ways to measure value?

As a leader, do you wish you could help others gather information for decision making quickly?

Oftentimes in my coaching sessions I ask for an estimate of value or change in value.  Unfortunately records are not often kept.

I teach people a simple estimating or approximating procedure that allows them to determine a range of improvement.

It works because the unconscious mind gathers a lot (make that a LOT) of information that we’re not consciously aware of.  This process allows the conscious mind to more easily access the unconscious parts of ourselves that are more aware of events and surroundings.

I first ask them to rate the original state on a 5 point scale using the following phrases

Excellent, Good, Fair, Poor, Bad.  Then I ask them to rate it again after they made the improvement on the same 5 point scale.

Next, we attribute a percentage to each point as follows:

Excellent – 100%

Good – 80%

Fair – 60%

Poor – 40%

Bad – 20%

So if for example, they rated the original state as ‘Poor’ and the improved state as ‘Good’ then that equates to an estimated 40% improvement.

Now, you can easily estimate financial or efficiency improvements.  Usually people will remember (or can estimate) financial figures or time performance.  But they usually only know the ‘before’ or ‘after’ number, not both.  Fortunately, since we have an improvement number now (40%) it’s easy to calculate the change in numerical terms.

Give this a try next time you have to estimate a performance improvement. You may surprise yourself by how much you actually remember.

For an easy way to teach your team this principle – share this article with them and ask them what they thought.  This will help instill it as a permanent process in your business.  All you have to do is remind your team of it when you ask for data that’s unavailable.

Alan Hill is principal of http://srkinc.com and Co-Founder of http://quantumcommonwealth.com

Please visit these websites for more information about how we can help your Minnesota business grow profit through business strategies.

Minnesota Leaders – Now you can easily teach teams to solve problems

MN Executive Coach reveals how to solve system problems

Did you know your business is a series of systems … all linked together?

This troubleshooting process allows you to perform each step in isolation.  Oftentimes problems in systems are intermittent, which may trick you into believing that you’ve solved the problem only to have it reappear later.

Requirements:

This process requires you have a system diagram of all component parts or at least a complete understanding of the parts of the overall system and how they integrate together.

You will also need an escalation list of people, teams, departments that are responsible for systems connected to yours.

Process

C – Confirm

I – Isolate

R – Resolve or attempt to resolve

V – Verify resolution has solved the problem

E – Escalate to another if resolution process fails

Confirm – This step asks you to ensure you can recreate the problem consistently. Once you can recreate the problem consistently you can more readily isolate (the next step).

Isolate – This step requires the system diagram.  Systems are usually designed in a linear or ‘chain link’ fashion, which means each component is linked to (or dependent upon) 1 or 2 other components before it.  This uses the old ‘garbage in-garbage out’ idea – if you’re having trouble with the output of a particular component, look at the components that are connected before that component and also component in question.

One easy way to perform this step is to temporarily replace the component or modify the procedure and then re-confirm the problem (the previous step) disappeared.

In human systems you can ask the person to ‘imagine… for the sake of argument…’ an alternative idea, feeling, response or thought.  This allows the person to ‘try on’ or ‘swap out’ one thought, feeling or response for another.

Resolve – Once you are sure you’ve found the root cause, replace the faulty component or procedure.  In business systems, this might mean you improve, change or delete the procedure.  In human systems ask the person to try a 30 day experiment – where they agree to act as if this new thought, feeling or response is a normal response.  The agreement is after 30 days if they don’t like the feedback they get from the new behavior then they can go back to the ‘old’ way of doing things.

Verify – This step is important and overlooked.  It’s more than just rebooting the system or declaring the ‘problem is solved’.  It includes monitoring for a period of time to ensure the system is stable.  If the system is not stable, you may either go back to the Confirm step or Escalate (the next step).

Escalate – Systems operate within systems – which means they have isolated inputs and outputs.  Therefore the entire system may be getting an input that needs to be fixed.  Computer systems may be getting incorrect data from a database.  Human systems may be getting bad information.  If the source of the fault is outside of the system, then escalate using the escalation list.

This process is a simple method for continuous business improvement.  You easily implement this by teaching it to your team with instructions to place blame on the process, not the people.  Teach them to use this method everytime there is an irate customer, a product delay or other business problem.

Here’s a secret, you don’t have to wait until something is broken to use this process and improve things.

Check us out at http://quantumcommonwealth.com for more great ways we can help you grow your business.

Attention MN Inventors: Fastest Market Research Ever! FREE!

Entrepreneurs – do you have the Executive Coaching to know if your idea will sell?

How can market research uncover what your customers really want?

How can you do this BEFORE investing any money in a patent or business plan?

The best answer I ever received came from Margaret Thorpe from the Univ of St. Thomas Small Business Development Center. Took her longer to explain it to me than to do the research and find out the answer.

1. Identify the industry you are targeting as your customer.
2. Find out the big trade assocation(s) in that industry.
3. Research their annual convention keynote speech (web or trade magazine).
4. In that speech there is always 2 slides…
A. What are our top challenges this coming year
B. What are our top solutions for these challenges
5. If your product or service fits in with B. you have a winning product or service. if not, try another industry.

As a business development specialist in Minnesota, I’ve used this to help lots of entrepreneurs know if they have a winning idea before they invest any money. I advise them to do this quick study first before they even apply for patent protection because it’s so quick to do.

If you want to discuss further, please don’t hesitate to contact me. My website has my contact information.