RIP Paul the Octopus

The New Zealand Herald reported this morning

"Paul the Octopus, the tentacled tipster who fascinated football fans by correctly predicting results at this year’s World Cup, died Tuesday.

Paul had reached the octopus old age of 2 years and died in his tank on Tuesday morning in an aquarium in the western German city of Oberhausen, spokeswoman Ariane Vieregge said.

Paul seemed to be in good shape when he was checked late Monday, but he did not make it through the night."




Our thoughts go out to his family and friends. Paul will long be remembered for the successful predictions he made during the last Football World cup.

Prior to Warner Brothers meeting with the Government last night they called on Paul's expertise to decide where they would shoot the upcoming Hobbit Movie.




Also Opposition leader Phil Goff called on Paul's expertise to help him predict whether he could win next years election.

PRICELESS

Cost of Business cards $99, Election Flyers $782, Car signwriting $480 - Getting written endorsement from your son - PRICELESS

As many of you are aware I have put my hand up to support the local Shirley Papanui Community Board for the local body elections in Christchurch, New Zealand.

Last night I attended my first Public forum where candidates were asked to speak about their reasons for standing. As I was preparing my speech my son Sam offered to help and wrote the following speech








Voting Papers are out today

5 things you need to do to hold your people accountable

I have the privilege of helping hundreds of businesses every year and one of the biggest issues that they deal with is holding their people accountable for progress and performance.

Accountability is one of the major pillars of effective business execution. It’s not about your people working hard or being busy. It’s about everyone doing the right things that will move their area of the business forward - in line with the company’s strategic priorities.

This is a summary of a great article by Stephen Lynch, the Chief Operations Officer of RESULTS.com, on how you hold your people accountable. (read the full article here)

Here are the 5 things that you need to get right

1. Have the Company strategic priorities and your staffs individual priorities visible to them everyday.

2. Confront reality every week and keep progress visible by displaying the companies Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s).

3. Identify the key functional roles in the business and ensure only one person is assigned the accountabilty for each role and one person is not accountable for too many roles.

4. Everyone should know how they are performing so ensure every role has one objective number that measures their performance. Be disciplined in tracking this number and make it visible every week.

5. Accountability has to mean consequences if your people do not deliver performance. Ensure your people know what the consequences are or the rewards for achieving them. Are your people being held accountable for meeting the performance standards required in their role?

The discipline of holding people accountable for meeting performance standards every week drives effective strategic execution. (click here for the full article)

Are your people being held accountable for meeting the performance standards required in their role?

If you want to learn more on how to hold your people accountable check out the next RESULTS.com Webinar (click here for more details)

RESULTS.com donates $100,000 of services to assist Canterbury Businesses

It is fair to say that the whole Canterbury region has had a good shake and that things have changed after the 7.1 Magnitude Earthquake last Saturday. Office space, markets and of course the situation.

As a company nationally and globally RESULTS.com are committing $100,000 of their services to asstst other businesses in the Canterbury region who need to get clear about what they need to do right now.

This is honouring our Core value of “Make a Difference” and to give back to our community.

There are Christchurch businesses out there right now with a range of needs ranging from too little work to a sudden influx of too much. For some they no longer have office space, key clients have closed down or they can’t get paid. It is a time of sudden change and with that brings stress and a need for care, focus, planning and leadership of their teams.

The $100,000 of services with will be distributed with the following assistance;

1. 3 x G.R.O.W. (G=Goals, R=Reality, O=Options, W=Will) Workshops. Here at our offices on Thursday 16, 23 & 30 September 9.30am-11.30am. This workshop will focus on what has changed for business owners/leaders in their business due to the earthquakes and allow them to get really clear on what they have to do and when to adjust to these new changes.
   
2. 3 x Marketing Strategy Workshops to allow them to change and plan marketing and advertising for the current environment. Here at our offices on Thursday 16,23 & 30 September 1230-2.30pm.
   
3. 2 x 1 one hour (one on one) follow up sessions with a Execution Specialist from our national and global team. This is likely to be completed via Skype, online or by telephone to allow members of our wider team to make a difference here in Canterbury.

In addition many business have stock that they need to move urgently please put this out to your networks around the world. I am sure that many of these businesses would love the opportunity to help out.

Please help us to get the details of these offers of assistance to people you know who may appreciate some help or focus right now to get through the current environment.

Kind regards

Karl

8 essentials to become an extraordinary presenter

I have recently began keynote speaking and absolutley loving the opportunity. It is interesting making the transition for a spectator to the speaker. I will start by saying that as soon as anyone promotes themselves as an motivational speaker they lose me. Motivation is not something you can get from another person and certainly not from what someone is saying - Motivation has to come from within. All you can hope for is to inspire people to become more. People are not by nature extraordinary, they make a decision to do extraordinay things. Getting the right mix of content and value as a speaker that also truely inspires people is the art of successful speaking.

Some tools I have found useful on becoming a better speaker include this article from John Spence author of Awesomely Simple.

John recently put some ideas in one of his blogs on how to get into speaking. This is a is a very honest and straightforward memo on what he truly believe it takes to succeed in the speaking and corporate training business.

1.First you will need to get a VERY clear idea of exactly what you are trying to achieve.

2.Once you have a good handle on what you want to be– you MUST put forth a Herculean effort to become as close to an expert on that subject or subjects as is possible.

3.You’ll need to develop a very, very clear set of values and key strategies that will drive your business.

4.You will need to get even more clear about exactly WHAT you sell– and make it super easy for those key target people to make a buying decision.

5.After you figure out all of the above—then you have to be an evangelist for your company and programs—not pushy, never overbearing, and absolutely not a pest — but a very professional and polished marketer of your service to anyone and everyone that meet your “Ideal Client” criteria.

6.As part of your sales effort you will also need a HUGE network of people that can recommend you – send you referrals – give you leads.

7.Another key factor is that people need to meet you and watch you present in order to trust you and want to hire you. That means for the first year or two you need to get out and do as many presentations as possible. You may have to do a lot of these for free or for very little money.

8.Lastly – when you do land a client… you have to simply dazzle, delight, enthrall and surprise them by delivering a level of excellence they had not imagined was possible (in every aspect of the program

The hard part is that no one else can do these things for you. People can help, suggest, guide and mentor you. You can read books on sales, networking, referrals, marketing (a very good idea). But in order to sell your programs and speeches – it MUST be you out on the street, in meetings, at seminars, sending letters, making phone calls, writing emails, sitting down with key decision makers and helping them become excited about the real value you can offer. Excited enough that they are willing to write you a check for $5,000 to $50,000 for you to come in and help their team. A lot of consultants, speakers and trainers know this is the way to build their business — but very few are willing to do the hard work to get it done.

Do NOT worry at all about selling programs. Worry your ass off about being the best presenter you possibly can be. Worry yourself to death about always delivering maximum value to the client. Drive yourself crazy worrying about being incredibly well prepared and totally focused for every presentation. Have a nervous breakdown worrying that your work is so good that the client will be overjoyed they hired you. Worry about all that stuff – and you will never, ever have to worry about being busy. Your clients will keep you booked for months in advance – at whatever reasonable price you want to request. Be fantastic in the information and presentation and the rest will take care of itself. That is honestly the secret!!!

You can read John's full article here and yes it is worth the full read as he illustrates - there are no shortcuts to success.

15 Warning signs that your business may suck

You may be pouring your heart and soul into your business but for some reason you aren’t making a ton of money.

There is no sure way to know if your business is going to fail or succeed. But there are generally warning signs should help you determine your odds of succeeding.

If you are wondering if your business is going to succeed or not here are 15 warning signs that your business may suck courtesy of Michael Bowers the Regional Director from the Ohio Small Business Dvelopment Centre

1. You’re not making a profit.

It’s easy to say that you have to make money, but in reality that isn’t true. You need to be making a profit. Bringing in a million dollars a month is useless if you are spending a 100 million. That means you would be losing 99 million dollars every month.

Successful businesses make profit. And although you may not be profitable right now, you have to work towards it.

According to the Small Business Administration, most businesses fail in the first 5 years because they can’t make a profit.

2. You haven’t talked to a potential customer

Do you think your business is cool? Who cares what you think! All that matters is what your customers think because they are the ones paying you.

If you haven’t talked to a customer yet, you better get off your ass and do so. And more importantly, don’t just talk to one, talk to a few.

3. You don’t love what you do

If you love your business you are more likely to spend more time on it. And if you spend more time on your business, you are more likely to succeed. If you’re just in business to make money, there is a higher chance that you’ll get burned out and you won’t work as hard.

Working 40 hours a week just doesn’t cut it when you own a business. On average entrepreneurs spend 61.1 hours working each week.

4. You can’t take criticism

When a friend or family member gives you feedback about your business you shouldn’t get angry. Listen and try to really understand what they are saying.

Now this doesn’t mean you have to do everything they are telling you to do, but you have to at least listen. Who knows, one day they may give you advice that will change your business.

5. You don’t care about your customers

Customer service and support is something that can make or break your company. If you don’t care about your customers they won’t come back and buy from you again. Remember it’s typically easier to get repeat customers than new customers.

A good example of great customer support and appreciation is Zappos. They have great return policies and sometimes they’ll give you free next day air shipping.

And if you don’t think customer service is that important, Zappos was so good at it, that they ranked number 7 in customer satisfaction in the overall U.S.

6. People don’t talk about your company

Word of mouth marketing is the best way to grow your business. If no one is talking about your company, then you aren’t doing a great job.

Advertising and paid marketing is great, but the organic stuff is what really helps a business grow. For example people use Google because they heard about it from someone else. When Google first came out they never paid for advertising.

Out of all the marketing methods out there, word of mouth marketing is ranked as the most effective.

7. You’re not agile enough

The demands customers have over time change so you naturally have to adapt to them. If you aren’t agile you won’t be able to adapt quick enough, which means your customers will start going to your competitors who are adapting to their needs.

If you want to be agile, you have to learn about the 3 types of agility: strategic, operational, and portfolio.

8. You aren’t cheap

Lack of capital is the number one reason most businesses fail. This is why you have to be scrappy. Do whatever it takes to save a buck… as long as it doesn’t cost you more than it is saving you.

Plus in the business world there are always ups and downs. So if you don’t save while you are making a good amount of dough, you won’t have any cash to get you through tough times like now.

There are some things like recessions that aren’t in control. So save money when you can.

9. You don’t know when to spend money

It’s good to be cheap, but sometimes you have to spend money to make it. For example, paying more money for talented employees is a lot smarter than paying little money for mediocre ones. Mediocre employees can lose you millions of dollars by making the wrong decisions for your business. If you don’t believe me, just look at how Zappos lost $100 million.

10. You don’t have a good lawyer

Lawyers are worth every penny. A good lawyer can save your ass from a lawsuit or protect you when a customer refuses to pay.

Never skimp on legal fees and make sure you are working with a partner at a good law firm. If you can’t afford their fees, you can always bargain with them or come up with a payment plan.

11. You hate to delegate

If you try to do everything yourself, you’ll be limiting the true potential of your business. If you can’t trust your team to help out, then things will never get done quickly.

Plus I don’t care how smart you are, you’re not a jack of all traits. So you might as well delegate tasks to people who are better at doing them than you.

And if you don’t know how to delegate, read this.

12. You keep on making the same mistakes

There is nothing wrong with making mistakes, you just can’t keep on making the same ones over again. If you learn from your mistakes, you’ll save a ton of money and time.

And if you really want to learn from mistakes, you should learn from other people’s mistakes. Everyone makes them, so might as well learn from them and try to avoid them.

Trouble is that the biggest lesson we seem to learn from history is that we don't learn from history.

13. You hate taking risks

Sometimes you just have to roll the dice and take risks. Playing things conservatively works sometimes, but it doesn’t always work.

Switching up business models, laying off a whole department, or even moving your company location are just a few risky things that you may have to do. It’s too hard to predict what these risks will be for you, but when the time comes you have to be willing to take them.

If you hate taking risks, there’s actually a risk associated with not taking risks.

14. You’re on your first business

If this is your first business, you’re likely to fumble a lot. I hate to say it, but 78% of first time entrepreneurs fail. The odds just aren’t with you because you are stepping into a new territory.

And even if you are on your second business, your odds won’t increase drastically. Instead of having a 22% chance of succeeding, you’ll have a 34% chance of succeeding.

15. You can’t focus

It’s better to do one thing really well instead of doing 100 things at a mediocre level. Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Skype, and 37Signals are just a few examples of companies that did one thing really well.

Yes, later on they did start expanding their business, but at first they just did one thing really well.

You too need to focus your business and just do one thing really well. Don’t expand until you’re really good at doing that one thing. If you lose laser focus you can jeopardize your business like Legal Zoom almost did.

Conclusion

I wish I could tell you that everything is going to be ok and you’re going to do well, but I can’t. The odds aren’t in your favor so you have to look for the warning signs above and avoid them.

3 things to get your Frontline staff to execute your company Strategy

Even the most brilliant strategy is worth nothing if it isn't executed well, especially by your front line — the employees who interact daily with your customers. Unfortunately, these employees are regularly asked to execute strategies that others developed and that they may not understand, never mind feel committed or connected to. In fact, according to Robert Kaplan and David Norton, the founders of the Balanced Scorecard, only 5% of employees understand their company's strategy. This makes successful execution nearly impossible. So how can you help frontline employees not only understand but get behind your company's strategy?

The Harvard Business Review recently published an article on Making your Startegy Work on the Frontline where theyou can read the full article and the case studies.

We often see a clear separation between the processes of strategy creation and execution. Strategy is created by a small set of executives and then passed down through the organization to be translated and implemented, this separation is often responsible for poor execution.

The most succesful way to Engage all of your company is to take strategy creation out of the board room and bring people from all parts of the organization together, regardless of level, to think about the company's future.

For managers in orgnisations that continue to create strategies at the top of the organization and cascade them down here are three approaches to rally your frontline employees to take ownership and feel accountable for the company's future.

1. Communicate and Clarify

If employees are involved in creating the strategy, they are already bought into it, making execution both easier and smoother. When that's not possible, however, the strategy needs to be communicated across the organisation.

Managers need to relay it to their employees so that it feels real, achievable, applicable to their part of the company, and valuable to the customer. Being able to communicate this strategy on a single page execution plan that is visible to all of your people every day

Strategy communications should always be accompanied by metrics, which help frontline employees take ownership over their roles in the execution. The message should be two-fold: this is what we are trying to achieve and this is how we will measure if we are achieving it. Of course, some jobs will be more naturally connected to the strategy than others. For example, it is easier for a sales representative to understand how the strategy affects her job than an account receivables clerk. Yet, all employees should be bought into it. The role of managers to explain how the strategy creates value for the companies customers and help them integrate it into the work they do - regardless of how direct their relationship is to the customer.

2. Don't Dictate How

Leaders often over-define the specifics of how strategy should be executed. Leaders and managers can set the vision and targets but they shouldn't dictate how employees achieve them. More specificity may make frontline employees' jobs easier, but it eliminates their need to think and diminishes their sense of ownership.

By asking frontline employees how they can achieve thier objectives will often uncover new appraoches to execution that senior management hadn't thought of. New ideas pop up from the pressure of trying to solve a problem for the customer. Therefore often the best strategies comefrom the frontline staff.

3. Use Core Values to Guide Execution Decisions

Since you aren't telling your frontline employees exactly what to do, you need to rely on your company's values to help drive their decisions and actions. Thousands of execution decisions are made every day in an organization: a sales rep decides whether to give a large customer a deal on their next order; your researcher decides whether to explore a new feature for your product. It's impossible for any executive to create a strategy that dictates all of these decisions.

That is were core values come in. They help guide actions but also help employees make tough choices, especially when the choice pits employee, customer, and stakeholder interests against each other.

Core Values are best communicated through stories. If managers cannot tell stories about how the core values relate to their work, then the values aren't core. Find examples of employees using values to make decisions aligned with the strategy and then take opportunities — in staff meetings, over coffee, during weekly one-on-ones — to tell those stories.

It is likely that some of your frontline employees will voice objections to the strategy. If they do express concerns - listen to them carefully - as they are where the rubber hits the road. It is the managers role to allow these concerns to be communicated to the top of the organisation. Once the concerns have been heard and dealt with then people need to get on board with the strategy regardless of their opinion.

Principles to Remember

You should:

•Involve your frontline employees in strategy creation when possible.
•Share stories about employees who used values to guide strategic decisions.
•Ask for input about how the company can achieve its goals.

You shouldn't:

•Be overly specific about how to execute the strategy.
•Communicate the strategy without explaining how success is measured.
•Stifle objections to the strategy.

Here is a link if you want to understand more on how to be more effective in the execution of your company strategy from the Business Execution Experts