Business Tips

Great success is seldom if ever achieved in isolation. Irrespective of how much natural talent or ability someone possesses, they still need the support of other people. This is even truer in the case of any leader who wants to successfully lead any team to greatness. The level of success, which any leader is able to achieve is determined by the people they choose to surround themselves with. No leader can possess all the skills, abilities and attributes necessary to be a great leader. They must strategically identify and invite people with strengths in areas where they have weaknesses to join their team. This will bolster and support their efforts to lead their team to succeed.

Mother Teresa epitomised this concept when she said “You can do what I cannot do, I can do what you cannot do. Together we can achieve great things” The significance and potential for team members to support and assist one other to greatness is not a new concept, but certainly one, which has become more refined as the years have passed. It is never prudent to invest energy to improve areas where you have weaknesses, but rather to focus your effort on improving your strengths. To this end it is therefore wise to rather find people who excel in areas where you have weaknesses and invite these people to join your team. When you build a team of diverse people with varying levels of skill and ability, who have strengths, which support each other, you have the makings of a great team.

A perfect example of team members with varying levels of skill, knowledge and different attributes is the team, which supported Lance Armstrong to win seven Tour De France titles. He had Chris Carmichael anchoring the team with his knowledge of specific training regimens to bring the best out in Lance and Johan Bruyneel who offered the team invaluable input on tactics. Both of these men possessed strengths in areas where Lance had weaknesses. With the support of these two men, and the discovery cycle team, lance managed to bring the best out in himself and went on to achieve levels of success not matched by anyone else in history.

To become a great leader it is imperative that you explore your weaknesses and identify people with strengths in those areas to support you. There are a number of things great leaders need to do well to successfully lead their teams to greatness. There are not many people on this planet who have the ability to do all of them exceptionally well. So in order to grow into a great leader you must have an inner circle of support, to assist you in the areas where you need help. The people you strategically choose to bring into your circle of influencers or inner circle will make or break you and the level of success you get to enjoy, will be directly proportional to their ability to support you in the areas where you have weaknesses.

When you create your circle of influencers or inner circle, it is crucial that you think strategically. Avoid the natural tendency to surround yourself with people you like or with whom you feel comfortable. The people closest to you most certainly impact your effectiveness as a leader and either bolster or limit your potential as a leader. If you want to form a really great circle of influencers around you, it is crucial that you are intentional in your efforts to build relationships with the right people. When selecting people to support you, keep your vision and mission in mind and identify areas where you have weaknesses, which will hinder your ability to achieve your vision. Armed with this information try to identify the right people to support you and put a plan in place to invite these people into your circle of inner circle.

When selecting these crucial people to join your circle of influencers or inner circle, see if they meet the following criterion:

• Do they have the ability to influence others? One of the keys to expand your influence as a leader is to surround yourself with people who you can influence others to move in a specific direction. Your role is then to ensure that they can then influence these people to follow your lead.
• Explore their skills, abilities and attributes and see if they are complimentary to your own and the other people in your inner circle. There is great wisdom found in bringing people with strengths, where you have weaknesses into you circle.
• Only include people who add value to everyone in your team. When you include people in your circle who add value to everyone around them, you multiply the potential of everyone in your team.
• When building your circle, ensure that you look at the potential for everyone to work together. Consider how team members are going to interact and try to ensure that all the people in your circle are a good fit.
• The people in your circle must complement each other and help each other to raise their game. They must be open to help each other and readily share information and wisdom.
• They must possess high integrity, consistently display excellence, maturity and always show good character.

If you spend any time at all reading opinions on job search and hiring, you’ll often see “never send a picture along with your resume” treated as a hard and fast rule.

Among the many resumes my firm receives, occasionally some are paired with pictures. We’ve seen everything from self-portrait-style bar shots (on younger marketing resumes) to actors’ head shots (especially for applicants in NYC and L.A.), to traditional, professional corporate portraits.

Arguments against including a picture with your resume range from legal (“Hiring managers want to avoid even the remotest possibility of a discrimination lawsuit”) to traditional (“It just isn’t done”).

Certainly there are plenty of instances when including a picture with your resume can backfire. But to extrapolate from there to “never” is overkill.

A few times when it might actually be advantageous to put up your headshot on your CV:

1. You’re applying for a job in the States, but for a foreign company – and you know the hiring manager is based in or from Europe. Companies in Europe love to see the person whom they are interviewing and are often confused when they call my firm as to the U.S. laws.

Every European resume we receive has a picture attached, sometimes right on the resume itself. European hiring managers making their first foray into U.S. hiring have asked us before about the lack of pictures on American resumes. This question hasn’t been from ignorance: they grasp the concept of U.S. hiring discrimination laws. However the rest of the world prefers a picture because, frankly, it saves time.

Resumes of people relocating to the U.S. also come to us with birth dates, gender, marital and family status, nationality, and other statuses that are supposed to be taboo in U.S. hiring law. Taking those things into account, a picture of the person you’re reading about suddenly seems less shocking.

This idea applies equally for U.S. firms, even if they can’t admit it on paper. For instance, if you’re a skateboarding company, you don’t want someone to walk into the interview room in a three-piece suit. You know that you’re not going to hire them due to there being a complete miss in fit between job seeker and corporate culture, as the rest of the employees interviewed with nose studs or tattoo sleeves.

2. Persuasion. If you look presentable, no matter other factors, the odds of you getting an interview and subsequent job offer are astronomically higher than someone who presents as if they just don’t care about their appearance.

To the human eye, youth is a big persuasion factor and, bar none is more of a positive if done correctly. Though, done correctly does not mean a headshot taken at a bar with an iPhone.

“Youth” is a flexible term here, remember, and in this case is synonymous with the concept of driven, composed professionalism. You might be decades out of college, but if your picture projects the image of someone with poise, confidence, and alacrity, that’s all that matters.

As for literal “youth,” if you don’t have much on your resume yet, I see no reason not to leverage what you do have to work with.

Of course, just because you shouldn’t “never” use a picture, that doesn’t translate to “always.” When don’t you send your picture in?

When applying to a really corporate position. About a year and a half ago, I was a finalist to be the Sales Career Guide for About.com and, quite excited to be in the running, I decided to lay out my vision to the editor.

I wanted to really change the way that the publication was marketed and, at that point I lost the job because corporate people sometimes don’t like to stand out as the risk is far greater than the reward.

I don’t agree, but then again, I am not on their payroll.

Another time not to send a picture is, of course, when a job ad or company’s website specifically states not to. Just like breaking any other application rule (such as not including a cover letter, etc.), this will land your resume a one-way ticket to the trashcan.

The revolution may not be televised, but there will be a broadcast through fiber optic lines across the world! For many, today will symbolize a rare day that only shows it’s face every 4 years, but for those who’s business is to make business on Facebook today represents something much bigger then leap year.

February 29th, 2012 Business pages, welcome to Timeline!!!

So what’s the big deal you ask? Well for internet marketers this change in design will dramatically change the way we use Facebook to market to end users. Traditionally, marketing on Facebook was a simple game. Drive traffic to your page, have the visitor hit a custom landing page with a value proposition to like your page (click like to get a 20% discount), then a second landing page arrives with a web form with an email opt in to get an address to send the coupon. Simple enough. You drive the traffic, you get the like, then you get the email. Now you have two platforms to market to your potential customer!!

It was sweet, it was easy, and it is now over!!!!

With the addition of Timeline for Business pages there will no longer be a “non-fan” tab. Facebook is allowing you to have 3 additional tabs, at 760 pixels wide. But in order for a visitor to see this tab they have to click on the icon or logo that is thumb nailed for the tab.

Studies also showed that the traditional Facebook landing pages converted over 40% more likes to your page then those pages without a landing page.

So now what?

Well, here’s the painfully good news that is shocking the Facebook marketing community!!

it’s all about engagement. This means that you have to have quality engagement and topics on your page to keep your fans interested in what you say. If you have a custom tab created with a 20% off discount in exchange for an email address then you need to interact with your fans and organically drive traffic to that page. It’s not as clean as it was, and it will take more time, but Facebook is putting a much larger emphasis on engagement, and less on a funnel system.

So, how do you engage? It’s simple, how do you engage in real life? Transfer that to your Facebook platform. If you tend to talk a lot about sports, then talk about sports on your page. Mix in your business talk with what interests you and your customer base. the company Buffalo Wild Wings knows that its demographic is highly male who like sports, so they don’t have to talk Hot wings, they can talk about the NFL, cars, mowing lawns, or anything that they feel is interesting to their demographic of men.

I refuse to wait around on someone that is late. Always be early! Pause there for a second, because I know that you’re saying, “John, always be early? That’s a strategy? What do you mean? I know I should be early.” The keywords in that statement are I KNOW. I want you to make a mental note right now and take a look at the last ten sales presentations that you did. Were you early, were you late, or did you walk in at the same time as your prospect?

I can almost guarantee you that the times you were early your closing ratio had a higher percentage. Why? When you walk into the sales arena and you’re there first, the potential customer sits down and it’s your territory. You own it, because you were there first. You have also had the opportunity to calm your nerves and build your confidence before the person arrives.

You’re going to meet someone at a neutral location. Let’s say you meet them at a local restaurant to sit down with them and share your business, product, etc. You get there first so they are entering your arena. It’s just a mental mindset. Now, think about it this way. The prospect is sitting there waiting for you. I bet you can almost feel your stomach turning flips as you imagine walking up to the table knowing that they have been waiting on you.

When you are late, the person that has been waiting on you has already likely made up his mind about what you are about to offer him and the answer is simply no thanks. After all, if you can’t be on time for an appointment that was scheduled last week, then how on Earth will this person be able to depend on you if they invest in your product? If you are late, then you might as well just reschedule or call off the appointment all together. It’s over! I don’t care if you disagree with me, it’s the truth and you know it.

My original mentor that mentored me over 18 years ago had earned over $30 million dollars at that point in his life. When he introduced someone to his business in direct sales, if they were one minute late, he wouldn’t show them the business. He would say, “Respect my time. I was here at 1:30. You showed up 1:31. Reschedule.” You’re probably saying, “John, I can’t do that!” Yes you can. Make a decision. I did. I refuse to let anyone waste a second of my time.

When I was building my business and conducted hotel presentations for business overviews, I started promptly at 7:35pm. The doors were actually locked at that time, and no one else was allowed to enter the presentation. One thing that aggravates me and upsets me to no end is when someone schedules a presentation that is supposed to start at 7:30pm and twenty minutes later they’re still waiting for that one person to show up.

Respect the people who are there on time and get started on time. Don’t worry about those people that are late for a business or product that you’re sharing. Instead, focus on the people who are on time. They want to hear your presentation, need it and are serious about investing in it. NEVER start a business presentation late. Always be there early and start on time. The key is to always be there before your potential client.

Here’s another inside tip for you. In a restaurant setting, always drink water. Why? coffee and soda give you bad breath. Remember, you are being judged on every aspect of your presentation. I also suggest that you never drink alcohol at a sales presentation. It’s unprofessional in my opinion. Drink water and that will be one less thing to worry about.

If you don’t agree with this, that’s fine. Just continue to lose sales. I’m giving you tips about the subconscious mind of your potential client. If you show up late drinking a cup of coffee, sweating, running behind schedule, looking like a slob, why should anyone buy from you? Think about that. Show up early. Dress professionally. Drink a glass of water. Be relaxed and then go for it. Get laser-focused and open up a brand new relationship.