ROCKS, YOUR FOUNDATIONAL STRUCTURES

Every business stands on its structures: a foundational, complex mixture of underpinnings that create the fundamental configuration of the business itself. In the Master-Mind Alliance World we call these structures “ROCKS.” There are seven ROCKS: Offerings, People, Attitudes, Marketing, Delivery, Profits and Systems. For any business to flourish, to continue to exist, and certainly to reach DONE Business status, all the ROCKS must be functioning splendidly.

Offerings: you must offer things for sale that people want and are willing to pay for and can afford.

People: you must have the right people on the bus, people who can do what must be done with minimal direct supervision.

Attitudes: all the people associated with your enterprise, including yourself, must project a positive mental attitude, one of top notch service.

Marketing: if this does not work splendidly, all the rest of you have going on will not matter.

Delivery: the goods, products and/or services you sell must be provided in a way that knocks the socks off the buyer so they will return for more and refer their friends.

Profits: the money that comes in and goes out must add up to your favor.

Systems: all regular and repeating operations of your enterprise must be run by well tested systems, not by quirky personalities, not even your own. Systems rule.

Figuring out how to take all the logical and reasonable steps to get your ROCKS in order and functioning together as a highly productive unit, a lean mean machine, this is grist for the mill at every Master-Mind Alliance meeting, for it is part and parcel of creating a DONE Business.

A DONE Business is the grand goal, the top level, the ultimate accomplishment, for once achieved and maintained, business owner nirvana occurs. And that is ABSOLUTELY SPLENDID.

MAKE IT SO PEOPLE RESPOND TO YOUR VOICE MAILS

How do you get people call you back when you leave them a voice mail message? You want to talk to them, offer them something, perhaps sell them something, maybe make some money. But people resist, often vehemently. They often just don’t call you back. And of course you have no idea why. Did they not get your message? Are they out of town? What?

So what are you to do? How can you get people to call you back?

The answer is simple – once you understand the request and persuasion principle.

Imagine you own a mortgage company specializing in commercial lending. You work with individual investors who want to own commercial income generating properties. You’ve been in business for more than 20 years. You have phone numbers, cell phone numbers and email addresses. Your information is up to date and accurate because you keep it so.

Now you decide that you will go after some new deals. You will do that by contacting previous client investors in your database. You want this to work for you right out of the box. You’ve already prepared your best offers, rates, terms, the whole ball of wax. All that’s left to do is to make appointments with interested parties and outline the opportunity and close some loans.

So you start calling and most of the time you wind up leaving a message. The voicemail message you leave is simple. “Hi Jack. This is Herb with ACE Loans. Please call me back at 321-8778. Thanks.”

But after a few days of this, not very many people are returning your call. In fact, you’ve left two dozen of these this week and no one has called you back. This is frustrating.

Obviously this approach is not working and you need a better tactic.

I suggest you send an email first. Your email should present the bare bones of an offer and inform the person that you will call them to talk about it.

Here’s the email you send.

“Hi Jack,

Suppose you could borrow $400,000 at 3.4% for commercial real estate? Would you be interested? I’ll call you this week because I want us to talk about this opportunity.”

Jack now knows what you’re offering. In your email you’ve given him the chance to read, and if he wants, to re-read the reason for your communication. You’ve given him a reason to talk to you. When you call Jack, if you have to leave a voicemail message, the likelihood that he’ll call back goes way up, because he knows what you wish to discuss. Wow, $400,000 at 3.4%. You’ve made talking with you sound potentially interesting to him.

The formula:

Send short email with brief offer.

State that you will call soon.

State that you want to talk about possibilities.

Make the phone call – to the person’s cell phone number – that’s more personal.

If necessary, leave a message saying when you will be available.

That’s how you get people to respond to your voice messages.

TIME MANAGEMENT – 5 POINTS

Last month my Chalk Talk was about Time Management – the 5 Points. Winning with time is a must or we go bust. So what did I talk about exactly?

There are 5 keys to getting right with time, so you can beat the clock instead of having the clock beat you. To keep your business growing obviously your money making activities must be scheduled during peak money making hours and they must be started and successfully completed. And all conditions that contribute to that must be present and working flawlessly.

The 5 Points are: Block Out a Schedule, Work Your Priorities, Deflect the Urgent, Do the Hard Stuff First, and Schedule Your Distractions.

I think the first one in the most important, that’s why it’s first.

Block Out a Schedule says there are four kinds of time periods we can use: Show Time Periods, which are for our Top Money Making Activities. Prep Time Periods, which are for setting up Show Time Periods. Detail Time Periods, which are for finishing up. And Free Time Periods, which are for resting and rejuvenating.

Prep Time Periods are the most important. When our planning about how to use our Show and Detail Time Periods goes well, everything else has a far better chance of going well too.

And the critical thing about making these four kinds of time work successfully is that they are scheduled into our days and weeks and held dear. We must do that or we lose.

As usual, a link to a You Tube video of my Chalk Talk, was provided to all members for their review. 

THE POWER TACTICS OF INSPIRATION

People are people. To be happy and successful, they seek and need inspiration. As a business owner you want your people to do their best for you, to go all out, to go the extra mile. So give them sufficient genuine inspiration and they will.

Years ago a 45 year old man who’d never been in charge of anything before was given the responsibility to revive an organization of some 60 people who had not had a good day at work in over a decade. Everyone just knew the man would fail as many before him had tired and they’d all failed miserably. But this guy had a new approach, what I’ve chosen to call the Power Tactics of Inspiration.

The man definitely did not fail. The organization he directed became unbelievably successful, almost immediately. And the man who made the miraculous happen is and will be forever legendary in his field.

By properly talking to people you can get them to work tirelessly on your behalf, to go the extra mile every day.

By properly training people you can get them to act successfully on all the things what matters to you.

The proper talking is actually questioning in a particular way, in an inspiring way.

One inspiring questions is “What’s next for you, your top priority at home and here at work?” Yup, when you inspire people you ask about them, their goals, what they want.

Vince Lombardi became Head Coach of the Green Bay Packers football team in 1958. By using three hugely effective, inspiration generating Power Tactics, Lombardi turned a bunch of losers into a fabulously successful championship team. He did!

You can learn to do what Lombardi did.

Then by using the same Power Tactics Lombardi developed, you can push into productivity situations that confront you and make significantly improvements happen for your team and for yourself too. You can win bigger and bigger and more often. You can!

The Power Tactics of Inspiration will be the subject of our CHALK TALK in the March 2013 meeting of the Master-Mind Alliance.