Style Versus Achievement?

Use More Style To Win More Often

How do we vote for presidents?  Is it on style or is it on achievement?  Get serious.  It is all about style.  The general public does not care about your previous achievements.  All it cares about is your current style of approach.  Are you sensitive to their needs?  Are you humble?  Do you listen well?  Are you exciting?  Are you relevant?  Are you current?  Are you popular?  Do you tickle their ears well enough?  Do you say the right things at the right times?  Do you refrain from offending anybody?  Do you respect everybody?  Can you handle yourself spotless when the criticism is the highest?  Can you be active, present, considerate and funny when those things are needed?  How does your style measure up?  These are the things the public likes the most.  They want to be warmed up by a leader, not turned off.  The majority of our voters want to see style, not a long list of accomplishments.  They certainly do not want to see any of your future plans.  Regardless of how good those plans may be.  They do not care.

Let's face it.  The public does not 'specifically' care if their leader can produce a quality plan.  The public does not 'specifically' care what accomplishments their leader has or has not produced.  The public prefers to support a leader who has the ability to win them over with style.  Style has more impact on support than does achievement.  A carefully crafted rebuttal is far more attractive to hear than the truth about how failure was not avoided.  This is how we rate movies, sports teams and politicians.  It is also how we rate products and services.  We are consumers who prefer style over function.  We are consumers who prefer style over usefulness.  We are consumers who prefer style over effectiveness.  We are consumers who want to be tickled with what we purchase.  It is more important to us as consumers to be in the right groove with the popularity we support.  That is who we are.  That is how we want to be defined.  Style commonly exceeds achievement.

How many business models truly understand this main stream of motion?  How many business models include some of this thinking in their marketing plans?  Most do not.  In fact, the only marketing effort to address this kind of popularity motion is often found in the marketing of politics.  Your candidates do it best. They truly know how to push the right public buttons.  It has nothing to do with achievement.  It has nothing to do with carefully arranged solution plans.  Getting elected has all to do with a cleverly crafted respect for the complete style of presentation.  The politicians who fail the most at this game are the ones who end up watching the competition fill the elected seats.  People, that is how it is done.  I know I am not presenting this point in the proper style.  I know I risk offending some readers.  The recognition of the truth on this subject matter is dangerous business.  That being said, let's examine the potential of this truth in our own business models.  Let's see what we can do to turn this truth into increased revenues.

Since the general public likes to be captured by the style of their interests, let's try seeing how well we respect that pattern in our own marketing plans.  Do we include a lot of style in our marketing efforts?  Do we think about style as we produce our business presentations?  Do we work on discovering better ways to improve our business style?  Is our product presentation loaded with style?  Does our advertising program include a lot of style?  Where is our main emphasis in our marketing plan, is it on function or style?  Check out Toyota!  Check out Geico!  Check out Nike!  Check out the NFL!  Check out the movie industry!  Check out Wall Street!  Check out the presidency!  All of these great models include style in their marketing ways.  Style is a major part of how they promote what they do.

Does your business model include style in its marketing efforts?

Page two.

Increasing Sales Should Never Become Hard To Do!

More Effective Marketing

My wife and I like to spend some time in the outdoors.  When the kids were young and home we went camping quite a lot.  We would leave home on a Friday night all packed up for the outing.  We would return on a Sunday afternoon.  We would practice a typical American outdoor weekend at a campsite.  During that time we searched for our favorite 'spot'.  We found many campgrounds to try out.  Eventually we found our favorite one.  It became our 'spot' to go camping.

We live on the east side of Mount Hood in the Northwest.  The campground we adopted was located on the northwest side of Mount Hood.  It was a special and beautiful place.  The setting was awesome.  Our favorite campground had about thirty small campsites.  It was located next to a full sized river that had rushing waters all year around.  We even learned how to fish in that river.  We have had a few fish fry's on the campfire.

One of the things I noticed about this little treasured site by the river is that it was often times ignored by the people who live nearby.  This campground was located very near a huge metropolitan area, Portland, Oregon.  In fact, it was located in the back yard of their huge city.  It was well hidden in the pines and behind   the huge freeway that led people out of the city for the weekends.  I noticed how empty this wonderful treasure was usually spaced.  It was never full capacity in all of the time we camped there.  In fact, out of the thirty or so campsites, the most we ever saw used was about ten.  It not only was a wonderful spot in nature, it also was often times ignored by the millions who lived nearby.  It was too easy to use.

Every time we drove two hours to get to this favorite spot, we noticed thousands upon thou sends heading out to go find their own favorite spots well past where this site was located.  Everyone drove right past the exit of this wonderful campground attempting to go out into the state further to find their own heavenly spot.  It is only human.  We will work harder to achieve less in our desire to believe it requires harder effort to succeed.  Going five to twenty miles was away to find such a wonderful spot too easy for the locals to comprehend.  As a result, they went further out to examine other spots that would do the trick.  Every single time we pulled up to this campground we felt like impostors sneaking in behind the locals to enjoy what they passed up.  It was too easy for them to see.  That was good for us.  The seclusion was part of the added benefit of the beauty we enjoyed.

Humans are very much like this story.  We have a tendency to make our work harder than it really should be to produce well.  We have this embedded illusion that good outcomes should be hard to achieve.  As a result, we often times drive too far to get what we deserve.  Many times, it is easier and more convenient to gather up success in the back yards of our efforts.  Sometimes increasing sales is easier than we might want to expect.  As a result of this truth, increasing sales should never become hard to do.  Make that truth your new rule.

With that in mind, do not get all caught up in the belief that in order to increase sales a huge matrix must be produced to manage your way through complicated efforts that require too much energy therms to produce.  This kind of thinking can irritate customers and frustrate the numbers that produce the success.  Increasing sales is easy stuff to do.  Do not make it complicated.  Do not believe for once that a monster plan must be worked out before increased sales occur.  That is simply not true.  If you fail to get this truth understood you will become like the many thousands from the city who drove right past a wonder of nature as they searched harder and longer for a site to congregate together in a second rate compromise.  Corporate America and small business America is famous for these kinds of moves.  Try to avoid the urge to support making it more complicated.  Increasing sales is simple stuff.  Just learn the art of doing the simple stuff more often.

Increasing sales should never become hard to do!

Page two.

Anger, Let's Manage It Better!

Do not go to war with too many things that are inconsistent with happiness.  Furthermore, if a decision is made to get involved and all wrapped up with stuff that threatens your happiness at least know what the threat is before going to battle with it.  Do not attempt to run opposite of your happiness blind-sided.  At least with this much awareness in your war to approach and attack those things that disturb your happiness you will know where your limits reside with what you permit to control that happiness.  If you exceed your limits of protection for the happiness you desire, do not go to war with those things that are inconsistent with your happiness.  This is very simple stuff, but many people get lost in this forest.  I have seen many business leaders get all wrapped up with these kinds of mismanaged business fundamentals.  They often times do not see what damage to success they are doing.

Let's circle the subject of anger.  Anger is often times found in the deeper parts of the root that causes many business leaders to go astray.  Sometimes business failure has nothing to do with product sales.  Sometimes business failure has nothing to do with customer service applications.  Sometimes business failure has nothing to do with missed marketing.  Sometimes business failure has nothing to do with poor accounting.  Sometimes business failure has all to do with poor anger management.  The truth is, anger exists everywhere.  Some people manage it well while others fail to get a grip on it.  Which side of this fence does your life live?

I am not a clinical psychologist.  I do not profess to be one of those trained leaders.  However, I do know that everyone in life with no exceptions faces issues of anger almost every single day of their lives.  The difference between those who manage it well and those who do not is likely resting somewhere in their perspectives and approaches.  There are thousands upon thousands of websites offered that deal with the issues of anger.  Anger management is a topical subject anywhere a person wants to travel.  It is traveling among all of us sharing our lives with one another.  There is not one person alive who does not travel life without dealing with issues of anger.  Everyone has it.  It is not an affliction that has been given to one or two special people.  Anger is harbored in every single soul on this planet.  Learn how to accept this truth.  If you have anger issues, you are not special or rare.  You are just normal like everyone else.  Get in direct alignment with this truth.

Now, back to the management of anger issues in our business world.  Once we identify anger as one of the common inclusions for human traits we can get on with finding ways to manage it better.  My neighbor might be able to handle stress and anger much better than me.  In fact, he might be able to manage it so well that I may actually believe he never has any anger issues.  Did you know that?  The truth is, he may actually have more anger issues in his life than I might be managing myself.  He just may be able to manage them better than I might do and therefore anger might not appear on the surface of his life like mine do.  In fact, my neighbor is just completing a serious divorce.  One thing I noticed about this process, he has managed the ugly stuff that comes with that kind of anger very well.  He is deeply frustrated and terribly hurt by the divorce process but has managed to hold his deepest anger in check.  He is managing it very well so far.  Trust me, he has some very serious anger issues that are helping to contribute to this divorce.  He has just learned how to manage them well.

I once had another neighbor go through this same stuff, divorce.  They ended up in jail.  Later in the process of their troubled relationship she tried to commit suicide.  He retaliated by bashing in the windows of her automobile.  We called the police for help that night.  My youngest daughter was very afraid of what the neighbors were doing.  They did not manage their anger very well.  Both of these examples had anger issues.  One group has learned how to manage those issues better than the other group.  Neither couple had a simpler thing to deal with.  Both couples had serious issues that were cutting deeply into their hearts and souls.  The difference between them was how they managed the anger.  Some work on it better than others.  Anger is living in all forts.

In your business model make sure you have this kind of management understood.  It may not be about accounting, marketing and the improved relationships between consumers and product deliveries...it may be more about managing your anger properly.  Over the past few years, both of my neighbors ended up in a divorce over their life of managing anger issues.  We all are faced with issues of this magnitude.  How we deal with them is often times the mark of where we are headed and where we will end up.  Managing tough stuff in life is real, it is consistent and it is manageable.  All of us can do the good work while the stage gets set on fire.  Learn how to manage anger in your business model.  Help your business model become more able to perform better by doing what is right to do when the weather is not so good.  Learn the art of managing anger more professionally.  Become smarter.  Become more giving.  Become more honest.  Become more controlled.  Know your sources.  Know your limits.  Know your strengths and know your weaknesses.  Be a great business leader.  It is not a natural thing to do.  You must work on it to make it happen.

How do we learn to do this kind of work?  How do we learn to manage our anger?

Should Business Leadership Be Convenient Or Rewarding?

Great Leadership Does Not Come In A Speed Boat

How convenient is moderately successful?  If you own a small business model, not.  To a small business, performing moderate success is a lot like living on the edge of almost failing.  Almost failing is not a convenient place to live.  I know, I repair failing business models.  Nothing is convenient when success is almost always absent.  That is the bone honest truth.

I meet a lot of leaders in business who try to perform their work in a more convenient fashion.  Convenience in performance is actually one of their driven goals.  It is actually planned.  They shoot for it.

Many business leaders work their daily routine looking for ways to do more with less impact.  They are trying to get a lot more done each day and the their measure of a good day is often times achieved by how much work they actually got done.  Many business leaders get caught up measuring sheer volume of task completions well ahead the quality of their lessons learned from the few deeper tasks performed.  Quality of work is often times compromised by feeling better about getting more things done.  This kind of drive promotes the increased search for convenient ways to do their work patterns.

I like convenience.  I have no challenge with it.  It should be pursued.  Every business leader needs to figure out the most convenient methods for doing their daily routines as often as they can perform them.  Convenience is a vital success tool.  I recognize the importance of this ideology.  However, if the quality of the work performed is compromised to get more things done quicker...not good.  Quality work will always exceed in results well ahead of volume completions.  If you are a business leader know this truth.  Learn the art of respecting this truth.  Teach your mental system how to respect, honor and perform better levels of quality work.  Do not get wrapped up trying to do more things that are of lesser quality.  Those types of misunderstandings will hurt your long term performance results.  Those leaders will lose more often.  It is kind of a law of business.  A hidden one.

Business leadership should strongly evaluate how much they perform convenience-type moves at the expense of quality-type moves.  If the business model is struggling a bit, take a deeper look at this simple scenario.  The answers might be resting near the idea that the quality of work performed has become often times compromised by the sheer desire to get a lot more things done.  The business troubles might be circling this simple idea.

If crossing a lot of items off the list of "things to do" in a fast motion is the goal of the business leader, watch out.  If that is the case, some important things are not being handled properly.  Quality work may be something that is being compromised too often.  This is where the old saying, "the hurried-er I go the be-hinder I get" makes its notice.  Double work takes over when the quality of performance is compromised.  Double work is a silent killer to the cost of energy therms a business must endure.  Double work leads to increased labor costs with less successes to generate enough revenue to cover those increased costs.  Long term, that kind of math does not work well.  It can easily chew up company profits.

Be vary leery when the desire for convenience exceeds the desire for performing quality of work.  This kind of driven force is a silent killer to the control of costs a good business leader must deliver.  Sloppy work that centers itself around convenience compromising is sloppy work that will need to be done again.  Sooner or later the extra effort to improve the quality of that convenient work performed will demand to be re-done properly.  That is when it becomes double work.  The business will pay twice to complete what should have taken once.  Two bucks for every dollar spent is not a very convenient way to succeed in business.  It is a silent killer to success.  Slow down, do better work.  Quit chasing the "things to do" list with too much vengeance.

How convenient is double work?

The Most Damaging Process To Production...Politics.

It Takes Courage To Avoid Politics In Business

One of America's favorite pastimes is politics.  Just mention any candidates name in a small crowd anywhere and watch what happens.  If you do not hear comments mentioned about that political candidates name, you will at least notice some facial expressions telegraph that others have heard you mention that name.  Politics is a big time pastime for most Americans.

During an election year the advertisements on all media are flooding the airwaves and dominating the public exposure lanes with one political message after another.  Thirty minutes cannot run past our view without some bumper sticker, phone call solicitation, media advertisement or political message getting inside the center of our routine paths.  Politics is big stuff with Americans.

Take the evening news.  First run stories are usually prepared spins about how one of the politicians tripped on their tongue.  It is fodder for media attraction efforts.  Politics runs high on the popularity charts.  Millions upon millions of Americans run parallel with the world of politics.  It is such a severe process that many workers live in offices that carry on the political traditions inside their employee ranks.  Office politics is big business.  This is even true where young entry level employees pump gas in a filling station.  Politics is everywhere.  Try working in a government office!  Try working in a quasi-public office, one that provides service to other business models, a B2B operation...they have some serious politics going on.  Politics is everywhere.  It runs deep inside the halls of most places where people work.

How productive is the political environment?  I contend that it is not productive.  In fact, in my 40 years of retail leadership the political forces of most working environments has produced a lot of damage to the productivity of most working environments.  I have a long list of wonderful examples.  Furthermore, that list is in a constant state of growing larger every single time the winds of politics takes over.  Politics selects the leaders, the executive directors, the managers, the assistants and the key workers.  Very few of them are selected by the record they carry on the list of true accomplishments they have produced.  Most of the political winds make special arrangements to select who they prefer instead of promoting the workers who get the job done well.  That is not an unusual pattern.  That is how politics works.  It is not a world centered around production.  It is more interested in promoting favors from favorites.

The most damaging process to production is not poor bookkeeping, lack of product knowledge or poor sales and marketing abilities.  Instead, it is the insurgent permissions of high politics that does the most production damage to a business model.  Politics enters while productivity exits.  Favors and favorites become the king and queens for the day.  That is how politics works.  Play it and win the position, but lose in the production game.  Weigh the options.  This is usually how it spells out.

Who has the best opinion that carries the most weight.  That is the key to political victory.  Work that side of your effort and most likely the right stuff will happen to the right people at the right time.  The only thing that will not happen is a higher level of healthy productivity.  Politics will win out at the expense of lowering productivity.  Every business model that has practiced this concept for development has had to endure lower levels of productivity.  That is how it works in business.  In order to produce great success in the business world the numbers, the work, the effort, the pure leadership, the honest learning, the adjustment to errors, the risk of trial and the blood, sweat and tears endured will become the best ingredients for higher levels of successful production...not politics.  Skip the politics.  It produces less.

Page two.

Freedom Is Not Free...Neither Is Leadership

Leaders Are Not Free

Recently I have been bumping into many community leaders.  The nature of what I am doing right now brings me in front of many of them.  I have a project going on.  This project requires my presence to be in front of other business and community leaders.

One of the things I notice about the sincere corners of these leaders personalities is that they are completely aware of the fact that they are not free.  When the discussion circles the idea of freedom, they find it comical.  They do not especially consider their leadership work as part of something that creates freedom for their lives.  In fact, they uniformly agree that their leadership positions actually restrict their sense of freedoms.  They easily admit that their leadership work promotes falling in line and doing exactly what is expected of them to do, sometimes against their own better judgement.  This kind of work is not what many of us would consider, 'freedom' supporting.  I would agree.

Freedom is not free...neither is leadership.  There is an especially expensive price we all must pay to become free in our leadership ways.  In order to earn the right to lead, we must first pay the price of freedom.  It comes with a huge toll.  Once we find our leadership roles, we discover that we give up some of those freedoms we fought so hard to obtain.  Some of the lack of freedom we discover can be found in our lack of free time.  We cannot just go do what we want to do anytime we feel like doing it.  Our leadership roles come packaged with certain time requirements.  We certainly are not free to choose how we want to spend our time.  With leadership we inherit some serious time constraints.  We are not free to roam about the cabin, so to speak!  Our time is strictly governed.

Furthermore, the lack of freedom might be found in the personal anguish we must endure to get placed where we want to go, where we want to be and how we need to do what we do.  Our desire to lead our work responsibilities places us directly in line of some challenging decisions.  We discover how much weight leaders carry to conduct their business in a leadership fashion.  Many lives depend upon the selection choices that leaders perform.  The outcomes of those decisions carry a long list of huge responsibilities.  Leaders must learn how to accept this role with no regrets, no whining and thick layer of tough skin.  Leadership is not free.  It does not come without some personal anguish.  It never has and it never will.  Great leaders know and recognize they must pay this price.  The freedom to lead does not come free.

The lack of freedom might also be found in the added pressures we must absorb as we manage the challenges that have no obvious solutions.  Leaders do not always know what is the next best thing to do.  Some challenges arrive to their front desk with rotten options.  None of the immediate choices appear very good.  Many leadership decisions come with a "no-win" set of options.  Sometimes any choice selected will only guarantee a sour result.  That's why the leaders get paid the big bucks.  They must endure the sour reasoning why they must make some of the ugly choices they are faced to select.  Great leaders do this kind of work very well.  In many cases, others will never know how much these kinds of heavy decisions weigh these leaders down.  The price comes very high.  Freedom is not free.

In this day and age, many leaders find themselves placed in moral situations.  They discover they have walked right into the cross-hairs of a loaded perspective that is on the other side of their decisions making choice.  Once the confusion of the conflict is discovered, they must make a closing selection on which way they plan to decide.  A serious price will be paid.  Their morality is being tested.  Often times these types of moral situations get set on fire.  Freedom is not free...neither is leadership.

All of these mentioned realities were very evident in the hearts of the community leaders I have been meeting lately.  One of the things I notice about the sincere corners of the personalities of these leaders is that they are completely aware of the fact that they are not free.  Freedom does not come with leadership.  In fact, it comes with confusion, challenge and restrictions.