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November 26th, 2014

11/26/2014

Success And The Power of One
One Day – One Step – One Goal

Time Is Finite
Here we are looking for a way forward towards our goals. With just 24 hours in a day and 7 days in a week the question is:

“How do we achieve our dreams, find success and experience happiness in our life?”

A Story Of Napoleon
Napoleon the “Emperor of Europe” is reputed to have been asked, “How do you manage your time with so many things to do ruling a continent?.

He is said to have replied, that his work table had many drawers which contained files on many things that needed his attention. When he opened one drawer and took out one file he would close all the other drawers. He then focused all his attention on doing what needed to be done on that one file.

To get good results we should do one thing at a time. Ancient wisdom advises us that a journey of a million miles begins with just one step and then another and another repeated until we reach our destination.

We cannot be certain if we shall have the opportunity to act on our plans tomorrow. We have greater certainty about today and our capacity to seize the day.

Never do tomorrow what you can do today. Seize the day and act on your plan today.

From Jogger To Doctor
To succeed in business as in life we need a plan of action that sets out the practical steps we must take that lead to our goals.

One day, a student decided to go jogging to keep fit. He set out for his jog at 4:00pm heading from home towards a park. He spent some time meeting and talking to friends at the park. After an hour or so, he continued on his jog heading home. When he got home, he had a shower, ate his dinner and got down to his studies from 7:30pm until 10:00pm when he went to bed.

The next morning the student woke up had breakfast, got ready and headed off to school. When he got home he had lunch and had a nap until 3.30pm. When he woke up he thought about it and decided that since the previous 24 hours turned out to be productive, entertaining and restful he decided to repeat the activities of the previous day. This he did weekdays taking time out to rest and recreate over the weekends all through high school, medical school and throughout his life. He is today a successful specialist consultant surgeon.

Medical practice now takes up what used to be his study time. Otherwise, he has pretty much maintained his routine from his student days. The lesson we learn is;

Doing the best we can at the task at hand without distraction from thinking about what can be done later leads to success.

To succeed you need an Agenda for Action that sets out the following things:

List your long term goals with a time frame for achieving milestones of success
List the action steps you need to take to achieve these goals
Set out the priority for completing each of these action steps
Set out daily action steps that need to be taken to take you towards the milestones
Break down the steps into achievable chunks of task
Complete the allocated tasks for the day before moving on to the next task
Should you fail to complete the daily tasks reset your timeframe for achieving your milestones.
Review your Agenda for Action periodically to take into account changes that occur around you.

Remember to celebrate each milestone achieved and to enjoy the task at hand at the moment of action.

Start writing your Action Plan now. Seek advice on assessing if your plan of action is realistic and achievable.

Siddha Param
International Business Consultant
Reboot your business plan for sustained high growth

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SALES & MARKETING

11/19/2014

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Marketing Through Recommendations
Enlisting the socio-metric leader

Increase sales through personal recommendations of individuals who have influence in the community your business serves. Encourage these individuals to spread the word about your product through their social or business networks. This can build a community of customers who trust the recommendation of the influencer.

The challenge is in identifying the individuals who will promote the virtues of your product within their circle of influence. Stories of the benefits of a product narrated at a social or business event can convince prospects within the niche segment to buy.

Identify whom members of the community turn to for advice. The individual most often referred to by members of the community as the person to turn to for advice is very often the one with the most influence within the community. This in sociology is often referred to as, "the socio-metric leader". This individual is well respected and strongly influences members of her or his community. This individual may not choose to stand out and often may not know she or he is the socio-metric leader. However, this individual’s recommendations have a strong influence on members of the community.

Establish a relationship with the socio-metric leaders within relevant organizations and cyber business networking websites. The key is to get well-connected individuals sold on the product. They in turn will invariably promote the product to the individuals they influence.

Marketing campaigns targeting leaders in a group or known experts in a field don’t necessarily create a sequence of recommendations within the target community. This is probably because, too often the individual with the most influence within the group may not necessarily be, the most visible individual in the community. The challenge remains in identifying the individual that links the network together. This is the individual who can create the word of mouth chain reaction of positive recommendations.

Socio-metric leaders who are sold on a product or idea are more likely to influence those within their network to buy the product through recommendations. They are also more networked through the community then leaders with a formal title within the community.

There is a case of a beer company targeting tandoori restaurants in Britain as a channel to reach British beer drinkers which illustrates how socio-metric marketing works. It was assumed that the best person to recommend a beer would be the restaurant owner who recommended the curries to customers. It turned out that this assumption was invalid. The real promoters of the beer were the regular customers who drank the beer. All the owners' did was to leave the beer bottles on the table. As new customers noticed the beers and saw the regular customers enjoying the beer they too started ordering the beer. It was the regular customers who acted as the socio-metric leaders influencing the new customers by communicating their satisfaction.

When introducing a new product into a community the socio-metric leader who has influence within the community can help influence the buying decision within the community as these leaders influence key members of the community.

Understanding the local community networks and identifying the socio-metric leaders within is therefore an important marketing tool.

You should get involved in business events and web based networks. Identify the socio metric leaders within these groups who can promote your products and services in new markets and provide them with timely information about your offering.

Siddha Param
International Business Consultant
Reboot your business plan for sustained high growth

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Employee relations

11/12/2014

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THINK-PLAN-ACT

Entrepreneurs wishing to grow their business should think ahead on how to successfully manage the talented employees they hire to join them.

Quite a while ago, I was delivering performance appraisal seminars, but the first hour was always taken up by Managers complaining about their Employees.

Finally, I blurted out,
“What is the percentage of really poor employees out there?

Silence…

Well, when the answers came in, all the estimates were between 3-5%. To hear the Managers complain, however, you would have thought it was 100%.

So, the upshot of the whole deal is that, the vast majority of Employees can, and will, do a good job for you, if you show the way!

Also, most performance appraisal discussions should be positive ones if the majority of people are performing well (but most Employees and Managers dread appraisals!)

This should be a happy day! So why isn’t it?

Because it’s hard work, and we are pulled in many other directions.
To succeed, however, need to:
- lead properly and consistently to build trust,
- communicate properly and consistently to build trust, and
- act consistently to build trust.

Mutual trust, builds mutual success.

We need to be realistic, as well.

Few Employees, just show up and blossom into top performers. (Be honest, were you a star in your first job?)

As Owners and Managers, we need to show the way, by being organized, clear and consistent to make our staff successful. It’s our responsibility.

If we are unhappy with our staff, perhaps we should ask ourselves,

“Did you hire fools, or did they get that way working for you?”

I am sorry…my purpose is not to insult Owners & Managers, many of whom are great people. We need, however, to stop and think over how to get the best results.

Successful Employees means successful Managers, Owners and Businesses.

Let’s THINK, PLAN & ACT

THINK
About exactly what you want and don’t want done.
Define & describe it so Employees can target what you need.
Put it in writing. Don’t just talk about it.

PLAN
Plan how and when will we communicate with Employees on expectations
and reinforce that over time.
Plan how you will Orient, Train & Coach for performance success.
Note-Canadian Employers are steadily falling behind in these areas.

ACT
Follow through consistently on our obligations to enable Employees to
follow through on theirs.
Consistency that Employees can count on builds confidence, trust and open communication.
Those are key building blocks to collaboration on mutual goals and contributions to success.

So, to wrap it up
THINK-PLAN & ACT your way to mutual success.

By Guest Writer

Dan Furlan, CHRP
hrstrategies.ca

© Dan Furlan

DISCLAIMER
All views and content in the above article are solely that of the Guest Writer and does not in any way constitute an endorsement or promotion or views of StrandRidge.com and/or its owner who collectively disclaim all and/or any liability whatsoever that may arise from copyright claims or by a viewer of this website reading, acting on, contacting and/or interacting, and/or establishing a relationship and/or transacting in whatsoever manner with the Guest Writer herein. StrandRidge.com and/or its owner have the sole and absolute discretion to edit, add and/or remove this Article from StrandRidge.com

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HIGH PERFORMANCE RITUALS

11/5/2014

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RITUALS FOR HIGH PERFORMANCE
The process for achieving your goals

To sustain high performance under good and bad economic times it is necessary to remain confident in yourself and the quality of your offerings.

Confidence is an essential quality for business leadership. To sustain confidence you need more then knowledge of developments in your business.

Confidence can come and go depending on how changes in the environment impact us. Uncertainty and unexpected events can shake our confidence and impact our performance negatively. Indecision and hesitation to act decisively can happen when market conditions change rapidly.

A well planned business encourages individual and organizational rituals that boost confidence. Rituals and good practices can help you organize your day and focus on attaining achievable targets that lead to attaining longer term goals.

Rituals are important and all successful individuals have them. It may be something as simple as dressing in a particular way, having coffee at a regular café or listening to a particular musical piece before getting down to making the leadership decisions after a briefing on the latest developments.

The following ritual processes have been used by successful business leaders of large multi-national corporations:

Visualizing Outcomes
By visualizing the process as a guarantee of ultimate success, an individual effectively rehearses the necessary actions thereby gaining confidence in saying, “If I have already succeeded in my mind, I can now succeed in the actual performance”. It is important for you as an individual to picture yourself and the organization experiencing the feel-good of success.

Performing Set Actions
Before starting the day anything from that simple morning ritual of sipping coffee on the go, to a more elaborate ritual of starting with some physical exercise followed by meditation and a set breakfast menu may be the necessary ingredient for confident decision making and performance throughout the day. These rituals for success have been effectively utilised by cafés, gyms and a whole host of other businesses to advertise their offerings.

Words of Affirmations
The recitation of a one word company pledge or private prayer or the reading of a quotation may be just the inspiration needed to boost your self-confidence. Leadership can always draw strength from words of wisdom that inspire positive action. To be effective, affirmations must spur us to act with confidence. It is important to remember that success comes to those who dare and act. Many Japanese corporations start the day with the entire staff from top corporate leaders to shop floor personnel reciting the corporate pledge to work diligently and produce quality products.

Invoking Symbols
For some it may be wearing a particular item of clothing before an important sales meeting. Your symbol for confidence may be in the form of displaying your corporate logo, wearing a branded watch or a special ring or even using a particular leather brief case. In the British House of Commons, the Chancellor of the Exchequer will arrive on budget day with the budget in a brief case that looks like it has seen better days. Yet, interestingly this old ritual helps focus attention on the important content.

In preparing your high growth business plan it is vital to define your corporate culture by encouraging rituals that boost confidence and motivates you and your team to act decisively until success is achieved.

Siddha Param
International Business Consultant
Reboot your business plan for sustained high growth

Do share this article on social media and with those interested

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November 26th, 2014

SALES & MARKETING

Employee relations

HIGH PERFORMANCE RITUALS

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