Archives for March 2012

How To Figure Out Technology

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apple-storeHere’s how you figure out technology: Hire a bunch of 25 year-olds! Seriously. Why are you trying to figure it out?  They already know it!

I was in an Apple store in Portland a few years ago to purchase a laptop bag and when I wanted to pay I was looking around saying, “Where’s the cashier? There’s no cashier!”  My buddy Josh, who was standing beside me (and 33 years old, I might add) said, “They’re different here!”

Josh then instructed me to put my hand up. As soon as I did, two people rushed over with hand-held terminals and asked, “Would you like to cash out?”

They took my merchandise, scanned the tags, swiped my credit card, and said, “Would you like us to email you a receipt or would you like me to print one out right now?”  No waiting in line, nothing.

The 25 year old tech-savvy generation make everything go a little bit faster and more efficient.

Scout for younger people on Facebook, Twitter or Craigslist.  Ask them to teach you little tech hacks to make your business run simpler and faster.  You don’t need to be a 20-something, just make sure you keep up with them.

Your Idea of Customer Service Sucks !!!

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I’ve started to get tired of hearing CEOs raving about their customer service.  Our call center team is great.  We answer calls quickly.  Our online chat is busier than ever.  Our customers rate our customer service team an XYZ…  Our cost to handle customer calls is at the industry average…

Who gives a shit cares?

The reality is, if your products were awesome, if your services rocked, if your website was crystal clear, then your customers wouldn’t EVER have to call customer service.  Companies truly doing it right, don’t need teams as large as yours.

One metric to consider.  Start trying to get this number as close to zero as possible – Customer Service Cost / Revenue.  Think of the increased margins you’d have.

How often do you call the customer service group at Amazon…

Perhaps it’s time to start thinking that customer service sucks.  Inspire your leadership team to ask the right questions, and really dig into the core issues.  Perhaps you can really start to inspect what you expect at your product level.  You’ll uncover areas to improve and thereby eliminate customer service teams completely.

Thoughts ?

Surfacing A Communication Issue

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Often the hardest part of dealing with conflict is removing the emotions and dealing with the issue at hand. Conflict, by nature, involves emotions and often the emotions are more important than the issue itself.  Either way, both must be dealt with and a great way to deal with the emotional and rational side of conflict is to get all the issues out on the table to be discussed in a rational way.

I’ve found these phrases really help communicate effectively when you’re trying to resolve a conflict:

When you … Describe exactly what the person did that you didn’t like, or what doesn’t follow your system, values and so on.  Don’t criticize the person, criticize their actions.  Be descriptive – not evaluative.

I feel … Tell them how their actions make you feel. For example, “I feel upset, frustrated, angry.”  Describe your feelings – and dig deep.  If you can truly get your emotions out you’ll have no problem addressing the problem itself.

I need … Describe what you need the person to do in the future in these situations so the conflict doesn’t return.  By focusing on this, you’ve addressed your feelings and the person realizes you are getting to the meat of the issue and focusing on getting the problem solved.

How do you feel? … Ask the other person to put their thoughts and feelings on the table. They likely have feelings, emotions and their own version of the facts that need to be heard and validated before the conflict can be resolved.

If you don’t allow them to be articulate, and if you don’t pull all of their feelings out, the conflict won’t get resolved.

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How to Write A Book That Sells in Airports

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Since publishing Double Double in April 2011, I’ve been getting quite a few questions from CEOs or business people who also want to write their own book.  So, instead of answering them all one at a time going forward, I figured I’d blog about it.

Here is how I wrote mine – it may not be the ‘perfect’ process, but it worked for me, and it got my book into tons of Hudson’s Bookstores in Airports in the USA & Canada.  So here goes.  Hope it helps…

  • I first decided on a theme for the book.  I wanted it to be a practical, how to guide, for all businesses to teach their employees how to double revenue & profit in three years or less.  I wanted it to be easy to implement systems, that didn’t require a bunch of MBAs to figure out how to use them.  And I wanted it filled with real world experience, NOT theory.
  • I created a rough Table Of Contents, for all the areas I wanted my book to cover.
  • I then created a mini table of contents for each chapter.  I carefully thought about all the key points I wanted each chapter to cover.
  • Then, over the course of a few months, I walked around my house and office, wearing a wireless headset and I digitally recorded myself thinking out loud about all the ideas for each chapter.
  • I sent those audio files, and the DVDs that I sell for companies to learn from, to a transcriber in Sweden who I found on eLance.com I had her send me all the notes typed up.
  • I took all of her notes, and deleted, copied and pasted, and began making each of the chapters into a rough version of the final product today.  This took me about a year.  I should have in retrospect gone offsite to some retreat and bashed through them all in a couple weeks without distractions.
  • Once I had the finalized 16 chapters, I sent them out to CEOs who volunteered to proof read & comment on them.  I sent 3 chapters to roughly 5-7 different entrepreneurs.  In all, I had about 50 CEOs proof reading all the chapters for me, and they gave me some really valuable insights.  I thanked them all at the front of the book.
  • Then, the 1st round of editing began to include some of their comments.  Some ideas I tossed out.  Some I used.  Once I edited all the chapters, I sent them to a writer, who polished them all up for me and made them sound better than I could.
  • Then it was how to get published.  I could self publish, or use a traditional publisher, but luckily I stumbled on a hybrid of those two models in Greenleaf Books from Austin Texas.  I was actually teaching their CEO at MIT’s Entrepreneurial Masters Program the very week I’d finished editing.
  • The rest is history…  multiple rounds of editing and design help from Greenleaf, and my book Double Double is now helping thousands of companies grow.

If y0u’ve read Double Double already – I’d love your comments here on Amazon… and I’d love it if you’d email me your comments on the book, and a photo of you with it.

If you haven’t read it… You can get it here in Audio, eBook or hardcover.

Work with the Press

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51bWork to secure awards and press coverage about all the great aspects of your company’s culture.  Get the press talking about you and potential employees will flock to your organization.

 

In the early days of College Pro Painters, I learned to get media coverage to attract customers and employees due to the culture of the painting company I was running. While building 1-800-GOT-JUNK?, we worked hard to get written up by the media and bloggers.  We told them about the tours we’d take people on if they wanted to learn about our culture – and they came.  The more we told the media about our tours, the more people started coming to witness the awesome company culture they’d read or heard about.  We fueled the buzz.

I’ve mentored companies like CanvasPop.com and Achievers (formerly I Love Rewards) leverage their culture and free press about their company to generate thousands of media articles.  What have you been doing to generate free PR ?

For more information on this topic, check out: Generating Free PR.

 

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Meetings Suck: Turning One Of The Most Loathed Elements Of Business Into One Of The Most Valuable

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We all know that meetings suck, right?

You hear it all the time. It’s the one thing that almost everyone in business can agree on.

Except it’s not actually true… 

Meetings don’t suck.

We just suck at running meetings.   

When done right, meetings not only work, they make people and companies better.

In Meetings Suck, world renowned business expert and growth guru Cameron Herold teaches you how to use focused, time effective meetings to help you and your company soar.

This book shows you immediately actionable, step-by-step systems that ensure that you and everyone in your organization improves your meetings, right away.

In the process, you’ll turn meetings that suck into meetings that work. 

In life, we always hear about people who’ve made huge decisions from their gut – without data.Today, I want you to make a decision, not only from your gut, but also from some data.  A decision that is only $12 per employee but will be priceless for your business.

Right now, your gut is telling you something is wrong with your company’s meetings.  You KNOW everyone complains about meetings.

People HATE going to them, they HATE running them, and they really have NO idea which meetings are truly necessary but they hold meetings simply because they think that is what they SHOULD do.

Even some of the smartest CEOs in the world complain about meetings – Elon Musk publicly told employees at Tesla & SpaceX to walk out of meetings if they weren’t being run properly.

I sent Elon a message saying that wasn’t going to fix anything – the key is to fix the root of the problem – NOT continue to ignore why meetings suck.

A Meeting is – Any phone call, video call or occasion where 2 or more people meet to discuss or work-through office topics.

Most employees on average spend 1-2 hours per day in meetings.

And likely, none of those employees – front-line staff or leaders – have had any training on how to attend meetings or participate in them, LET ALONE How to RUN THEM.

Consider this…

If the Average employee spends just 1 Hour per day in meetings – that’s 1/8th of their time.

If the Average employee earns $50,000 per year.

And they’re spending 1/8th of their time in meetings, that means you’re paying $6,250 dollars per year for just ONE employee to attend meetings.

The reality is, employees spend 1/8th of their time – and 1/8th of your company’s payroll – doing something they have literally NO idea how to do.

The Reality is…

95% of employees are booking & leading meetings – and they have NEVER been trained on how to run them.

95% of employees have had NO training on how to show up and participate in the meetings they attend daily.

And 95% of employees and companies have no idea what meetings are even necessary to hold.

Meetings CAN be hugely effective – IF you know how to run them

Meetings don’t SUCK, we just SUCK at running meetings. 

Investing $15 per employee – to help ensure the $50,000 a year you spend on them is an obvious and easy choice.

This could be the most impactful $15 you’ll ever spend and will save the company’s money, time and resources instantly.

Buying a copy of Meetings Suck for 100% of your employees and having them read it this month will have a huge impact on your company’s success.

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Free PR: How To Get Chased By The Press Without Hiring A PR Firm

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Public relations has always been an essential part of doing business which is probably why you’re shelling out big money to an outside PR firm. But the truth is that you don’t need them. You already have all the necessary tools in-house to do as good a job as the so-called experts. 

Cameron Herold and Adrian Salamunovic have taught thousands of company execs how to exploit free media coverage and ditch these expensive, often ineffective outsiders. 

Cameron & Adrian have also built in-house PR teams, spent decades learning how to generate Free PR and how to leverage public relations to complement their sales and marketing strategy. 

In Free PR, you’ll learn how the media world operates while you gain invaluable insider knowledge and actionable advice on how to: 

  • Build your own in-house PR team
  • Provide effective interviews
  • Score great media coverage for free with just a few easy steps 

Landing public relations coverage for yourself and your company is a powerful tool to help elevate your personal brand. PR is easier to generate than marketing, PR is easier to leverage than marketing and PR is more cost effective than marketing. In other words, Public Relations is more critical than ever in growing your brand and your business. 

You’ve got more passion, commitment, a larger stake, and a deeper understanding of your business than any outside PR firm could ever have. So stop wasting money and take the reins yourself.  Learn the secrets to landing TONS of Free PR for your company.

What they’re saying:

“I think PR is the core for promoting any business. Public relations acquires customers! That’s what’s cool about this book.”

– Kevin O’Leary,  Shark on ABC’s Shark Tank

“The ultimate guidebook for those looking to get press, grow their brand, and get in front of the masses. Free PR is the roadmap you’ve been looking for.”

– Peter Shankman, Founder, Help a Reporter Out (HARO)

“Adrian and Cameron will show you the secrets of getting massive exposure for your business. This book is packed with actionable insights from two guys that actually know how to to do it.”

– Dan Martell,  Serial Entrepreneur & Investor (Intercom.io, Unbounce)

“I told Cameron to write the book on generating free PR. I’m excited to see that he’s finally sharing his secrets with the world. This is a must read for any entrepreneurial company and marketing team.”

– Verne Harnish, Founder of Entrepreneurs’ Organization (EO) and author of Scaling Up (Rockefeller Habits 2.0)

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Vivid Vision: A Remarkable Tool For Aligning Your Business Around a Shared Vision of the Future

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Many corporations have slick, flashy mission statements that ultimately do little to motivate employees and less to impress customers, investors, and partners. 

But there is a way to share your excitement for the future of your company in a clear, compelling, and powerful way and entrepreneur and business growth expert Cameron Herold can show you how. 

Vivid Vision is a revolutionary tool that will help owners, CEOs, and senior managers create inspirational, detailed, and actionable three-year mission statements for their companies. In this easy-to-follow guide, Herold walks organization leaders through the simple steps to creating their own Vivid Vision, from brainstorming to sharing the ideas to using the document to drive progress in the years to come. 

By focusing on mapping out how you see your company looking and feeling in every category of business, without getting bogged down by data and numbers or how it will happen, Vivid Vision creates a holistic road map to success that will get all of your teammates passionate about the big picture. 

Your company is your dream, one that you want to share with your staff, clients, and stakeholders. Vivid Vision is the tool you need to make that dream a reality.

miracle-morning

The Miracle Morning for
Entrepreneurs: Elevate Your SELF to
Elevate Your BUSINESS

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READY FOR EXPLOSIVE GROWTH AS AN ENTREPRENEUR AND ACCELERATED SUCCESS IN THE REST OF YOUR LIFE?

A step-by-step guide to enjoying the roller-coaster ride of growth — while getting the most out of life as an entrepreneur. A growth-focused approach: The book is divided into three sections, which cover planning for fast growth, building a company for fast growth, and leading for fast growth. Each topic the author covers — from creating a vision for the company’s future to learning how to generate free PR for a developing company — is squarely focused on the end goal: doubling the size of the entrepreneur’s company in three years or less. A down-to-earth action plan: Herold’s experienced-based advice never gets bogged down in generalities or theory. Instead, he offers a wealth of practical tips, including: How to design meetings for maximum efficiency; How to hire top-quality talent; How to grow in particularly tough markets; How to put together a board of advisors — even for a smaller company; How even the busy entrepreneur can achieve a work/life balance.

READY FOR EXPLOSIVE GROWTH AS AN ENTREPRENEUR AND ACCELERATED SUCCESS IN THE REST OF YOUR LIFE?

Hal Elrod’sThe Miracle Morning has helped redefine the mornings and the lives of millions of readers since 2012. Since then, careers have been launched, goals have been met, and dreams have been realized, all through the power of the Miracle Morning’s six Life S.A.V.E.R.S.

THESE SIX DAILY PRACTICES WILL FUEL YOUR EFFORTS TO CREATE AND SUSTAIN POSITIVE CHANGE IN YOUR LIFE.

Now The Miracle Morning for Entrepreneurs brings you these principles in a whole new light—alongside the Entrepreneurial Elevation Principles and the Entrepreneur’s Elevation Skills. These are essential skills that you need to create a successful business and personal life. Cameron Herold— Bestselling Author and a widely-respected expert on entrepreneurial mindset—brings his wisdom and insight to you using Hal Elrod’s powerful Miracle Morning framework.

DEVELOP A VISION FOR YOUR BUSINESS, AND BECOME THE INFLUENTIAL AND INSPIRING LEADER YOU WERE ALWAYS MEANT TO BE.

The principles and skills you’ll find in this book will help you to channel your passion and achieve balance in a remarkable new way. – Learn why mornings matter more than you think – Learn how to master your own self-leadership and accelerate your personal development – Learn how to manage your energy—physical, mental, and emotional – Learn how to implement Hal Elrod’s invaluable Life S.A.V.E.R.S. in your daily routine – And much more… You’re already an entrepreneur. Now discover how to take your success to the next level by first taking yourself to the next level. The Miracle Morning for Entrepreneurs is your roadmap to masterfully building an empire with a powerful vision, utilizing your areas of personal genius, with the right team at your side.

Start giving your business and your life the very best opportunities for success, right now.

double-double

Double Double: How To Double Your Revenue And Profit In 3 Years Or Less​

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A step-by-step guide to enjoying the roller-coaster ride of growth — while getting the most out of life as an entrepreneur. A growth-focused approach: The book is divided into three sections, which cover planning for fast growth, building a company for fast growth, and leading for fast growth. Each topic the author covers — from creating a vision for the company’s future to learning how to generate free PR for a developing company — is squarely focused on the end goal: doubling the size of the entrepreneur’s company in three years or less. A down-to-earth action plan: Herold’s experienced-based advice never gets bogged down in generalities or theory. Instead, he offers a wealth of practical tips, including: How to design meetings for maximum efficiency; How to hire top-quality talent; How to grow in particularly tough markets; How to put together a board of advisors — even for a smaller company; How even the busy entrepreneur can achieve a work/life balance.