Billy Joel sings a song called, “Tell Her About It,” meaning that if you don’t, she’ll never know. If you don’t do the same for prospects, how do they know you’re there and valuable? Here are my suggestions:

1. Don’t be bashful about telling influential people how you help others (not how you do it but what results you accomplish). I mentioned this to the general manager of the Baglioni Hotel in London, one of my very favorite places, and on my last trip he asked me to run a strategy session for his top team.

2. Be bold in disagreeing with conventional wisdom. I think that human resource departments are largely disempowered and don’t have the money or initiative to purchase consulting services. I think attempting to market to senior corporate buyers on social media platforms is a waste of time. A lot of people don’t like those positions. All I care about is if they spell my name right and mention me in their outrage.

3. Have a thick skin. Most people reviewing on Amazon.com for example, have never written a book and a lot of them don’t even read the books they review. Don’t allow “smile sheets” or poor reviews from unsolicited sources to bother you. Find people whom you trust and listen to them carefully.

4. Associate yourself with the best of the best. I talk about “three Bs” as symbols of high-end success in any economy: Baume & Mercier, Brioni, and Bentley. As it happens, I’m often using all three products at the same time.

5. Accessibility and privacy are two different things. It is easy to contact me and get a response. I’m a private person, but as a public figure I believe that people have the right to a fast and accurate reply, so long as the inquiry or request is polite and reasonable. I’m probably easier to access than most people in my position. While I run some very expensive experiences, you can also hear me speak for only $100 in an upcoming LA event, and I have hundreds of free audios and videos.

6. Gracious hosting. Share the spotlight in terms of good ideas and new approaches, but not the tab. Always pick up the bill.

7. Get out of the house. I try to replicate all of  my successful experiences in the states in both Sydney and London, and occasionally elsewhere. You don’t become a global name by hiding in the house.

8. Expect others to make it work for them. I treat everyone as an adult. It’s up to them to make things work. I provide education, information, techniques, feedback, and so on. But if someone else doesn’t have the volition, that’s not my problem.

9. Attack multi-media. My app should be out shortly. Take advantage of all the diverse media outlets that exist and come into being.

10. Change your mind. If someone is successful doing something that doesn’t make sense to me, I acknowledge it and try to incorporate it into my thinking.

11. Change THEIR minds. Use clients as evangelists to “sell” prospects. Arrange and host events where they can interact.

© Alan Weiss 2012. All rights reserved.

Backhoe Top Speed: 20 MPH, all wheel drive

Bentley Supersports Top Speed: 205 MPH, all wheel drive

However, the Bentley cannot dig up tree roots, or at least I haven’t found the control for it.

May 14, 2012—Issue #138

This week’s focus point: Organizations and people can lose sight of their original mission–their raison d’être–or deliberately change it. A theater with a repertory company moves from finding great plays for its audience to finding plays to employ the actors, and becomes an employment agency. A consultant dedicated to improving clients becomes more focused on simply making money and reduces the quality of the work. A theater complex sees itself as a meeting space, not simply a movie house, and offers comedy shows, auctions, and business meetings. IBM (founded as “International Business Machine”) saw itself in the information business, not the punch card business, and today makes most of its profit from consulting, not hardware. These shifts can be negative or positive, but they should be made consciously, not by default or short-term need. Ask your clients about this, and ask yourself.

Monday Morning Perspective: We are being destroyed by our knowledge, which has made us drunk with power. And shall not be saved without wisdom. — Will Durant

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© Alan Weiss 2012. All rights reserved

Left to right: Guido Quelle, Chad Barr, Andrew Sobel, Susanne Quelle, Libby Wagner, Bill Lee, Aviv Shahar, Linda Henman, Stuart Cross, Sarah Shahar, Kim Wilkerson, Alan Weiss

Actually, neither, these are the participants at the most recent Private Roster Mentor Hall of Fame® Meeting in New York City at The Palace Hotel.

My car was returned after a couple of weeks of repainting because I was hit by a motorcycle. So I bought the backhoe in order to safely run into town on errands.

There are crooks all over the world whose firm belief is that you and I are stupid and they are smart. Of course, if they were smarter than the rest of us, they wouldn’t have to be crooks.

The stereotypical letter from some idiot in Nigeria which begins, “Dear blessed one…” and proceeds to tell you that they can provide millions if you’ll only help them has become the purse snatcher of the digital age. More recently, however, you’ll find that you receive strange “official” notices advising you that your trademarks will not be renewed or need protection or are being sought in foreign countries. The disclaimers about not being government notices are so small you’d need an electron microscope the read them.

I’m just returned from London, and on just one of my many trademarks, Alan’s Friday Wrap®, I have notices from:

Register of International Patents in the Slovak Republic

Patent Trademark Register in Vienna

Registration of International Trademars in the Czech Republic

These are all complete with bank transfer information! Some are for thousands of dollars.

This is why I advise to always use a trademark attorney and not merely an Internet filing. When in doubt, ship the forms over to your attorney. There are US scammers who do the exact same thing, advising you that you need “added protection.”

It’s one thing to be dumb enough to be a criminal. But when you think that makes you smarter than those earning an honest living, well, that’s simply delusional.

© Alan Weiss 2012. All rights reserved.

Alan reports from London, find out what is going to be on a roof near you.

and now also on iTunes

Concluded the Mentor Summit yesterday, worked on strategy with the Baglioni top management group, and dined last night at the outstanding Scott’s in Mayfair, with Stuart Cross and I hosted by Chad Barr.

Heading home today after some morning meetings. It’s interesting that London television news in the morning seems intent on scaring viewers to death: disease, strikes, conflict, accidents, scandals—a litany of horrors, all overplayed for the sake of trying to impress, I guess. It’s delivered with a studied monotone, inevitably by two people, where the one not speaking looks studiously bored.

While I was here, Prince Charles and Camilla were shown doing weather reports on TV, with the Prince focusing on weather over his castles. Sometimes I feel as if I don’t understand the language.

The hotel Internet connection, which is free, is also spotty, so I used my iPhone as a “hot spot” and that works perfectly. The Baglioni remains the finest boutique hotel in London, not to be missed.

Most lasting sentiment from a week in London: The diversity of my global community participants from so many different countries and languages, commonly seeking approaches to acquire and improve client relationships, a universal pursuit. In my earlier report, I think I omitted Japan and Israel, both represented here, as well.

I’m headed for the world-class Virgin Atlantic Upperclass lounge at heathrow, then on to Boston.

© Alan Weiss 2012. All rights reserved.

This was my first Mentor Summit in Europe. (I conduct these every 9 months of so, free, for all members of my Mentor Community.) We had representation from Germany, U.S., U.K., Ireland, Estonia, Denmark, Belgium, and Switzerland.

Some conversations that may be of help to you:

• Value is key to gaining the interest of prospective buyers, provided quickly at the first meeting.

• Being an object of interest to others leads to easier appointments.

• There is significant opportunity to work across Europe and in the U.S. for European consultants.

• We have to become accustomed to providing options with higher fees. If no one every resists even our highest fees, then they are probably consistently too low.

• Start-ups are very difficult for consultants since the money is scarce and oriented toward marketing and R&D, so you must demonstrate how your help with be relevant for these areas.

• Smaller business has owners who will make more emotional than logical decisions, and both husband and wife should be seen and convinced.

• Don’t worry about being liked by everyone, worry about pleasing the buyer.

• Turn coaching business into consulting business by providing the buyer with insights into what you’ve seen that is non-confidential about systems, procedures, communications, product mix, and the like.

• When you are with a buyer, do everything you can to reach agreement on the key business issues to be improved, and what the key objectives are. Don’t allow the conversation to stray or get out of your control.

• For every objective, have at least one measure of success and three statements of value (impact) created by achieving it.

© Alan Weiss 2012. All rights reserved.

The Ledbury is an excellent restaurant with a young, Australian chef. Stuart chose the tasting menu with matching wines, which was a marathon of courses. Scythia departed around course #14 to be sure not to miss her train home!

We finished the Mentor Summit today, then worked with the hotel top management staff after lunch on strategy and its implementation.

Tonight we dine at one of my all-time favorites, Scott’s in Mayfair.

© Alan Weiss 2012. All rights reserved.

After the second day of Shameless Promotion, Chad Barr and I dined at Ceccone’s in Mayfair, where we had two different kinds of warm octopus, just to start. We then retired to the cigar garden at the Lanesborough Hotel for some Madeira and a Partegas Numero Quatro.

The next day I ran the very intensive Sealing the Deal where we practiced the behaviors and language needed to proceed from a meeting with a buyer to a signed deal with the buyer. I hosted the seven earliest registrants to dinner in the excellent hotel restaurant, Brunello. I found out this morning that they went pub-crawling after I said goodnight!

Today was the first day of the Mentor Summit, with people from Estonia, the U.S., Germany, Denmark, the U.K., Ireland, Switzerland, and Australia, just to name a few. We focused on the best ways to dramatically improve both business and personal time. We have a cocktail reception for everyone in the early evening.

The newest member, Timothy Carroll, had joined us only the day before!

Tonight, Stuart Cross and how wife, Scythia, have invited me to The Ledbury Restaurant: http://www.theledbury.com/

© Alan Weiss 2012. All rights reserved.

May 7, 2012—Issue #137

This week’s focus point: When you hold firm opinions and defend your belief system, people who can’t debate well often resort to calling you names, typically “arrogant.” Don’t let it bother you. True arrogance is the belief that you have nothing left to learn, while true confidence is the belief that you can help others to learn as you continue learning yourself. (Smugness is arrogance without the talent.) Arrogant people often try to “sell” and “pitch.” Confident people share value, often providing their intellectual property for free in so doing. If you think you’re “selling,” you tend to believe someone wins and someone loses and you must overcome opposition. If you’re providing value, you tend to think that you’re trying to help others and would be remiss not to, since it’s a “win/win” proposition.

Monday Morning Perspective: When the house is finished, death comes. — Thomas Mann

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© Alan Weiss 2012. All rights reserved

• Another person’s view will often create better descriptions of our accomplishments than we create for ourselves.

• We need to use more drama, be edgier, and be bolder in our promotional conversations and literature.

• “War stories” and examples are powerful, and we need to be able to cite them readily.

• We should have case studies of our successes prominently available.

• Discussions that seek “how” we do things should be diverted to “what” we accomplish for our clients.

• Most web sites are poor supporters of our credibility. They should feature typical client results, testimonials (including video), and value.

• Peer-to-peer referrals among buyers is the most powerful way to gain new business, followed by public, widely-respected intellectual property.

• Intellectual property is most effective when used in diagnostics allowing prospects to evaluate what their status is.

• If you don’t blow your own horn, there is no music.

© Alan Weiss 2012. All rights reserved.

I slept for five hours of the six-hour, twenty-minute flight, woke up for breakfast on board and arrived at the Baglioni refreshed at 9 am to find my suite ready for me. I’ve continued my goofy streak by asking Virgin Atlantic baggage claim people to find my lost bag when it was simply circling in a lonely fashion on the carousel. It’s not the bag I usually use since mine tore, and I didn’t recognize it!

I had dinner with a wonderful past client on whose non-profit board I currently serve. We dined at Bibendum which is a trendy, unusual place (quail egg and smoked eel as an appetizer, the “best end of the lamb” as my main course). His partner is from Spain and they split their time among Seville, London, and New York, so we had a great time resolving world affairs.

Earlier I had stopped for Mass at the Brompton Oratory, a splendid 165-year-old church which has clung to some pre-Vatican II ways, including part of the service delivered by the priest at the huge, original altar, with his back to the congregation; communion taken at the railing; a friar leading the Rosary in a small side chapel prior to Mass; and a splendid boys’ choir which marches in, genuflects in one movement, and proceeds up to the organ in the choir loft.

Today was my first of two days of the Shameless Promotion Workshop, for which I accept a maximum of six people, and our participants are from Israel, Switzerland, Germany, Japan, and the U.S. Tonight we dine at L’Etranger, one of my top restaurants in Kensington (and, needless to say, an existential experience, if you get my drift).

We finish with another complete day tomorrow, then I conduct my Seal the Deal Workshop.

Part of the great food service at the Boston Virgin Atlantic Clubhouse.

Main door of the Brompton Oratory.

© Alan Weiss 2012. All rights reserved.

I’m off to London for a week of work: Shameless Promotion, Seal the Deal, Mentor Summit, Total Immersion with a Growth Cycle client, and a strategy session for the Baglioni Hotel, where I’m staying. I hope to include six great dinners, a trip to my favorite cigar club (in the Lanesborough Hotel) and to my gambling club of over 25 years, the Palm Beach Club (I kid you not).

The Virgin Atlantic Clubhouse in Boston is one-twentieth of the one in London, but it’s still terrific, with great food and service.

When I came through security, my computer hadn’t emerged, so I alerted the TSA folks that it was missing. They launched a search, until I realized I had already packed it back into my briefcase. I departed to withering looks.

I’m dining in the club instead of on the plane, and hope to spend the flight sleeping. I’m due to arrive in Heathrow at 7:20 am local time. It’s drizzly, damp, and foggy in Boston, so London will be a pleasure!

© Alan Weiss 2012. All rights reserved.

Here’s a Targa 4 as my loaner from Bentley, sitting next to my wife’s car.

Our first six goslings have emerged from a nest down by the creek:

Since my wife is recovering from knee surgery, we decided to take a limo to New York rather than the high speed train (Acela) which often wobbles severely (reminiscent of the Toonerville Trolley, an historical reference for some of you). On a beautiful Sunday with no traffic, we made it from ouw door to the Pierre Hotel in 2:45, as good as it gets (faster than the high speed train, ironically).

Sunday night we dined at Remi, the favorite restaurant of Maria’s 78-year-old uncle, visiting from Turino. We seem him every year or two in the states or Italy. Basically, Maria speaks English which I translate into Spanish, which is close enough to Piedmontese to reach some level of communication. He’s a very successful designer/builder in wood, and has done several shops on Madison Avenue.

Monday evening, after a visit to the Grand Havana Room, we met friends and attended the New York Corporate Theater Fund gala for Harry Connick, Jr. at the Pierre. It was impressive that celebrities such as Michael Imperiole, Hal Holbrook, Joel Grey, Mariska Hagitay, and others mingled during the packed cocktail party with everyone else. David Alan Grier was the emcee.

After working with Dan Weedin (a member of my Growth Cycle Program) and his wife during Tuesday, we all had dinner in the R Lounge overlooking Times Square, and then say Evita.

Ricky Martin has received a bad rap in this show. His singing and acting are excellent, the audience clearly loved him, and the fact that he’s not Manny Patinkin shouldn’t surprise anyone. The lead, Elena Roger, is the first Argentinian actress to play Evita Peron in such a production, and she, too, has been unfairly treated by critics. She’s a fine singer (again, not Patty Lupone, but so what?) and a terrific dancer.

The entire show is sung, an operetta, and was outstanding, highlighted by wonderful sets and the best house orchestra I’ve heard since the revival of South Pacific. If you get the chance, go see it.

The limo takes us back this morning, and we’ll still have the afternoon to ourselves at home. One of the real benefits of Rhode Island—it’s close to New York! Now if we could just get rid of Connecticut….

© Alan Weiss 2012. All rights reserved.

Some business and personal practices require the individual to come up with stunningly stupid approaches. These aren’t genetic or hereditary. They are not your mother’s fault. She knew better, so get off the therapist’s couch and take accountability for your own mess.

One of the people in my mentoring program, a specialist in sales skills, informed me today that when she suggested to a client that salespeople take more effective notes in meetings with prospects, the legal beagles stepped in to determine “the legal risk in permitting note taking in meetings.” (No offense here intended for beagles, fine and intelligent dogs.)

There is no right to privacy in a public place where privacy is not a normal condition, e.g., standing in line at an airport. Yet two people took great offense at a picture I posted of a woman eating a sandwich (showing the lack of amenities in coach class travel), a woman they don’t know, merely eating a sandwich, and claimed I was engaged in “bullying.”

A woman approached me after a speech and told me that she was happy with my treatment of women, since she counted (she COUNTED), and determined that I used equal numbers of male and female pronouns. Another woman, minutes later, told me I was biased because I tended to laugh when answering women’s questions, but I didn’t laugh as much answering men’s questions. Both these women ought to have a sandwich while waiting for a plane.

A woman at the phone company, sounding like a zombie on Prozac, asked me in a monotone if the number I was calling her on was the number that was not working for outside calls. (I did NOT laugh at this question in responding to her.)

A publisher for whom I’ve written a recent book—bear in mind I’ve written 46—asked if I’d be willing to write an article for a magazine to promote the book. When I agreed, they had a ghostwriter contact me so that he could make sure the article was written well. (Now there’s a man I did laugh at as I told him to take a hike.)

There are people on the web ostensibly trying to become professional consultants and speakers who are both posting and downloading intellectual property that is protected by copyright so that it can be stolen. What kind of pea brain do you possess to believe you can be a responsible professional by stealing others’ works to save $16 on your way to a successful, ethical career?

Trust me, this idiocy is not their mother’s fault.

© Alan Weiss 2012. All rights reserved. (Ha, Ha!)

http://www.consulting-business.com/alan-weiss-consulting-interview-part-4.html

April 30, 2012—Issue #136

This week’s focus point: Never assume that one instance of poor service represents the entire organization or its leadership. If you were the owner, wouldn’t you want to know about poor performance at the customer level? Inform leadership and allow them the opportunity to improve and make restitution. At a restaurant last evening I felt I owed it to the owner to inform her of a really poor and rude server. When a CEO told me he was tolerating an executive vice president’s brutish behavior with people because “that’s the way he is and he brings in business,” I informed the CEO that the employees assumed he approved of the behavior and actually prompted it because he did nothing about it. The CEO was speechless, and a week later the vice president was gone. Isolated behavior (a bad day) is one thing, but consistently poor behavior and the reaction to it is a true test of organization values. What kind of behavior do you exhibit and/or tolerate?

Monday Morning Perspective: History shows us clearly that humanity is moved forward not by people who stop every little while to try to gauge the ultimate success or failure of their ventures, but by those who think deeply about what is right and then put all their energy into doing it. — Murray Gell-Mann in “The Quark and the Jaguar”

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© Alan Weiss 2012. All rights reserved

Quite a few consultants find themselves out in the cold after seeing a buyer without even knowing what happened Here are some situations to be aware of and avoid or deal with more productively.

• Your first meeting with the buyer has others present. Try to insist that the first meeting be one-on-one. Some buyers feel the need to “posture” in front of subordinates, and some subordinates see their role as undermining ideas “not invented here.” Tell the buyer that others can always be included later if the two of you think it makes sense.

• The buyer asks for a proposal very rapidly. Instead of thinking you’re so good that it hurts, understand that this is simply a slick way of getting you out of the office. Suggest that a proposal is premature at this point, and return to building a relationship.

• The meeting ends amicably with an agreement to get back together. This is woefully insufficient. You need a firm date and time, and only then if you’ve established a trusting relationship and rapport.

• You are delegated to subordinates or (shudder) human resources “to get their views.” Sometimes that makes sense and sometimes you must do it to please the buyer, but specify: “Let’s make a date now to debrief because I often hear things in these interviews that aren’t consistent with what you and I discuss.”

• The buyer takes calls and interruptions while you’re present. Tell the buyer that you can see he or she is busy, and you should reschedule since the issues you’re there to discuss are important. (If you’ve flown into town for this meeting, remind the buyer about that.) If you find a buyer checking email or phone messages, it’s time to go. This will either shock the buyer into more cordial behavior or save your time with someone who is rude and not worth your time.

• Never “pitch.” Never bring slides or handouts. Simply converse with the attitude that you are peers trying to evaluate whether you are right for each other in collaborating on a project that will be mutually-beneficial.

• Be interesting. Do your homework on the company and the buyer. Use examples and war stories. Provide metaphors. Provide value on the spot. Demonstrate that this is just the tip of the iceberg, and if you were hired the value would be incredible.

• If you are there because of a referral, remind the buyer of your mutual obligation to the referral source and that you’ll be informing the source of progress.

It’s tough to see key corporate buyers. When you do, make sure you stick around.

© Alan Weiss 2012. All rights reserved.

I serve on the board of the WOLFoundation, a global non-profit focusing on environmental issues. We recently judged entrants for the 2011 essay competition, and this is the winning piece.

An Orange County Almanac: adventures in suburban ecology

By Jason M. Brown, Utah Valley University

Abandon nature all ye who enter here!

My non-stop flight from New York to LAX is arriving and the crackle-soft voice of the flight attendant shifts me in my window seat. Through the small window my hometown of Yorba Linda creeps up the foothills of Orange County, indistinguishable from the rest of the Southern California megalopolis. The eastern forests had melted into crop circles; then into meandering shades of desert-tan. Suddenly, the tangle of North-South ridges that divide Southern California’s coastal plain from its high desert had given way to the bedazzling microchip geometry of sprawling civilization. With the ocean on one side and the mountains on the other, the lines that divide culture from nature were almost visible.

You see, as a kid growing up in Orange County, nature was this place we drove to. Each summer, my family would pack into the minivan for a whirlwind tour of Yellowstone, Yosemite or Mt. Whitney. In the cooler months we would camp among the Joshua Trees of the high desert.

It didn’t seem to bother us that subdivisions and mini-mansions steadily devoured the chaparral hillsides and historic orange and avocado orchards of our once sleepy corner of the county so long as each summer we could flee to pristine places far from the smoggy, fast-paced life of the suburbs.

Orange County was once promoted as a paradise; boasting mild temperatures and millions of acres of lush irrigated vegetable gardens and fruit orchards surrounded by undulating hills of oak and sage. But after the post-WWII boom, the “Orange” in Orange County became just another hue on the planners’ pallet: pastel, pavement, repeat. In fact, one might get the impression that ecology, a word we tend to use to describe nature does not happen around here. That’s certainly what I thought when I left home as a 20-something hoping to make a connection to nature through various back-to-the-land internships and graduate degrees. Nature, I thought, was long gone in and around Orange County. I was certainly not alone in seeing the world this way, our modern civilization has inherited 500 years or so of talking about the human world (culture) as totally separate from just about everything else (nature). Look at any map of the world, and the defining boundaries are those between land and sea, countries, and sometimes, depending on the map, nature parks. The lines we have drawn around nature, both in our minds and on maps, have become as real as the boundaries between countries.

Southern California is full of these arbitrary lines. Not only between the United States and Mexico, the land and the beaches, but also along the myriad National and State Parks that embellish the coasts and Sierra Mountains of the Golden State. But each time I return to the County of Orange—for Christmas, birthdays, backpacking trips with my brothers—the boundaries that seemed so clear to me as a college student blur just a little bit more, and the differences between ‘us’ and ‘them’ are slowly melt into thin air. Here is what I mean.

A coyote drank my latte!

My father loves to golf; I don’t. But when I’m visiting home I’ll play. Dad and I catch up, and I watch the turkey vultures ride the thermals that rise off the chaparral hillsides above the emerald green golf course near my childhood home. As we approach the ninth hole, we top a rise that looks out over the fairway and surrounding landscape—hills above, houses below. As dad tees up and waggles into position, I notice that just off of the north side of the path, the golf course abruptly ends. The contrast between the electric-green grass and the brittle-brown beyond it comes into stark and absurd relief. Bewildered, I walk the edge between Kentucky-blue and tumbleweed-tan, using my 6 iron as a tight-rope balance. It’s an eerie feeling, like seeing the camera pan out of an autopsied living room movie set, a place within a place. I raise my open palm to my brow to block the sun and plant my six iron-flag; I have found the fabled edge of culture’s flat-earth!

Suddenly, a lone coyote trots into view through the tumbleweed and sagebrush and we both freeze. She puts her nose to the ground and nervously shifts her weight between her grey-brown front paws. The fire in her eyes reflects the green behind me. Realizing I’m not a threat or a meal, she lopes onto the golf course just as my father blasts a muffled curse at his hook shot and we watch the coyote disappear into a hedgerow.

For Orange County residents the coyote is a wild animal out of place. Unlike dogs, who are treated like members of the family (culture) and unlike the iconic wolves howling in the wilderness (nature) the coyote defies any neat categorization. Reading the newspaper a few days later I stumble across an interesting page: the online Orange County Register’s “Coyote-watch.” The page features an interactive Google map that allows users to post recent coyote sightings in their neighborhoods (the reported sightings appear as paw prints on the map). Readers should visit the page with caution however, as it reads like a domestic-violence evidence file with gruesome pictures of battle-scarred dogs and interviews with shaken pet owners. One story profiled an award given by the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals of Los Angeles to the “Hero Dog of the Year.” This year’s recipient was a wire terrier named Ronald (after Ronald Reagan of course, this is Orange County). When a coyote entered his owner’s backyard over the back fence, Ronald courageously attacked the invader before it made a happy meal out of his companion, a silky terrier named Anna. Apparently the coyote mistook the backyard for a drive-thru.

The coyote’s inability to discriminate between suburban animals we hate (like rats) and suburban animals we love (like silky terriers) has gotten them into trouble with Orange County residents who have lost pets to these cunning hunter-foragers. In my conversations with friends and family, some take an empathetic tone: “Well, coyotes were here first, and with all the houses being built it’s no wonder they wander into our neighborhoods, they’re starving!” This is the classic image of a steadily advancing bulldozer over untouched wilderness. While this is certainly the case for many species unfortunate enough to have evolved on beach front property, coyotes, have in fact adapted quite well to the suburban landscape, and frankly made themselves right at home.

Here is what I mean. An ecosystem is an amorphous blob of a word that attempts to describe the interactions and relationships between all the living and non-living things in a given place. An ecosystem can support for example, a limited number of plants and animals. Plants of course make up the foundation of the food web because they produce their own food through photosynthesis. In a dry Mediterranean climate like Southern California, sun is abundant, but water limits the kinds and amount of plants that can grow. This means that even fewer of the animals that eat those plants such as mice, rats, rabbits, ground squirrels, gophers, etc. can find enough food and reproduce. This also means that even fewer of the predators that eat mice, rats, rabbits, ground squirrels, gophers, etc. such as coyotes can get enough food and reproduce.

Long before white people invented the suburbs, coyotes were present in fairly large numbers in Southern California. However, unlike many other species that have significantly declined or even gone extinct with the development of our peculiar habitat known as the suburbs, coyote populations have actually increased. While exact numbers are not known, some estimate that coyote populations in Southern California are some 10 fold larger than pre-colonial times.

How could this be? As we gradually shifted the sage and chaparral lands into irrigated lawns, gardens, and suburban woodlands we greatly increased the varieties and quantity of green plants that could survive here. This allowed more mice, rats, rabbits, ground squirrels, gophers, etc. to get enough food and reproduce. This in turn allowed predators like coyotes to get more food and you guessed it, reproduce. What’s more, to a coyote the high density of defenseless bite-sized domesticates (in the form of dogs and cats) we keep are much easier targets than the rodents they are accustomed to catching; and being omnivores, coyotes have no qualms about raiding a dumpster for a midnight snack.

So between the increase in wild rodents to hunt, a plentiful buffet of house pets to choose from, and vast quantities of curbside Diners, the suburban coyote seems to have it pretty good. What’s more, because these suburban coyotes are getting plenty to eat, scientists are observing decrease in the amount of time they spend hunting. Whereas a coyote in say Yellowstone National Park may have to forage for up to 60 percent of its waking hours, suburban coyotes spend that time resting. That’s right, suburban coyotes are only working for two and half out of seven days of the work week! So while my family vacationed in Yellowstone; Yellowstone coyotes would prefer to spend the summer months in Orange County!

Some residents of Orange County would have animal control exterminate these pet-eaters.  But as long as we are playing the game of suburban ecology, we will probably keep hearing the yip of yuppie coyotes foraging through Starbucks dumpsters after a morning jog through the park!

Eucalypts go home!

A few days after golfing with my dad and the coyote, I decide to go for a walk. While strolling through the familiar streets of my childhood, I stumble upon a cherished row of eucalyptus trees that lines a nearby street. A pickup truck’s worth of workers are cleaning up after their morning task, and the soft consonants of Spanish bounce from mouths to ears. It appears that they have just finished de-limbing one of the eucalyptus trees which now stands stark and naked among its shaggy-clad companions. One of the workers prepares to make a final cut at the base of the trunk. As the chainsaw sputters and chokes, my mind begins to wander in sync with the whine of metal teeth incising the fat, tan trunk. I passed by these trees almost daily growing up and never really put them in any kind of historical or ecological context. The trees were old, no doubt planted to protect orange groves against the Santa Ana winds. The first few inches of the saw’s sweep transect the trees outer bark and youngest growth rings. The tree rustles and I imagine the blade cutting through the rings that correspond to my 30 years of life on this earth, growing up here in Orange County. It would pass by rings made during my time in graduate school and college, the two years spent as a Mormon missionary in the Dominican Republic, high school, my first kiss, first camping trip and my birth.

The rest of the crew stop their tasks and begin watching the tree for signs of tilt as the earnest blade continues past growth rings made in the 1970s, when the orange and avocado groves the eucalyptus protected from wind were being swallowed whole by subdivisions and strip malls (my own home was built during this time). As the blade digs deeper and the once-flesh-now-dust flies, it passes the 1960s, 50s, 1940s, 30s and 20s. With the blade buried deep inside the bole of the tree, it approaches the growth rings of 1913, the year the first Avocado trees were planted and Richard Nixon was born just down the street from where I stand. Finally, the sawyer cuts through the teetering eucalyptus’ infant growth rings which must have been laid around 1910, when the Janss Investment Company purchased a portion of the Rancho Cañon de Santa Ana and began subdividing it into 10- and 20-acre agricultural plots which would later become my hometown of Yorba Linda.

In a snap and a crack the truncated bole thuds to the path along the sidewalk and the sawyer quickly begins to buck it into manageable sections. One of the other workers directs the few backed up cars to pass. As I walk past the downed eucalyptus and crew, I catch the tale-end of a scowl cast by an older woman in a black Mercedes as she surveys the scene and speeds off. For many in California, illegal immigration is a touchy subject and perhaps she is sizing up the tan-skinned workers as possible suspects.

Like the Europeans, Mexicans, Chinese and other ethnicities that call California home, eucalyptus trees are immigrants. Native to Australia, they were brought to California during the gold rush of 1849, with one of the thousands of Australians leaving Sydney who hoped to strike it rich. And like the immigrants they accompanied, the eucalyptus found fertile soil and a favorable climate in the rare California coastal sage and prairies. For a few years thereafter the eucalyptus was officially promoted as a “wonder tree” that would save California from an impending timber famine and whose pungent leaves were reputed to have medicinal properties. Many soon realized however, that the structural properties that gave eucalyptus its reputation as a good timber tree had come from the wood of centuries-old groves in Southern Australia. The wood of the fast growing young trees, saturated with water warped and cracked when harvested in California and was therefore useless. Although commercial production came to an abrupt halt, the tree naturalized throughout the coastal region of central and southern California.

In the age of ecological correctness, the eucalypts have become an easy target for those who strive for a kind ecological purity. Despite the literally hundreds of non-native species that have naturalized since the European colonization of the Americas, the Eucalyptus has in recent years been singled out as a symbol of a gaggle of ecological menaces known as “invasive species.” In his 2002 article “America’s Largest Weed,” ecologist Ted Williams calls for the total removal of eucalypts or, as he refers to them “eucs.” For purists like Williams, eucalypts simply do not belong in California, despite their ability to adapt to our climate.

California ecologists have gone so far as to remove eucalypts from public lands in order to restore native chaparral and coastal ecosystems, despite the fact that there are still hundreds of “non-native” plants throughout the parks. In the Channel Islands National Park, just off the coast of Sothern California, officials have decided to keep some eucalypts that are close to historic structures as part of the cultural heritage of the Parks, while removing them from other parts of the island.

It is striking that the language used to talk about eucalypts as an ecological menace and the language used to demonize illegal immigrants as social pariah is so similar. Both discourses make use of epithets, “eucs” or “wetbacks” to distance and dehumanize. Both attempt to demonstrate destructive habits, ecological (invasive) or economic (taking away jobs). Both are derided for uncontrolled reproduction and the danger they pose to native ways of life (whether that be human or “native” ecosystems). In a strange twist the eucalypts are anthropomorphized in order to be de-humanized, and the illegal immigrant is dehumanized to be de-naturalized.

The debate over whether or not to remove eucalyptus trees from spaces delineated as “nature” exposes how this stark boundary between culture and nature is not so black and white. Advocates of eucalypt preservation accuse people like Ted Williams of ecological purism, accusing him of a kind of ethnic cleansing in the name of native floral supremacy. Williams and other ecologists have argued that protecting native species is, in the end, about protecting biological diversity in the face of the homogenizing effect of exotics.

Ecology is about interactions. When invasiveness as an ecological category is about delineating which plants and animals do not fit our preconceived notions of what is “natural” we forget that ecology is not a snapshot of a single place and time; it is dynamic and evolving. It is revealing that in the case of the Channel Islands National Park, Eucalypts were kept only around cultural sites. In this case, eucalypts were interpreted as being tainted by culture and as such are not fit to act out their evolutionary agency on their own terms within spaces been deemed “natural” by cultural institutions.

From culture/nature to culture-nature

As I sit in the airport terminal waiting for my return flight to the east coast, I notice a small sparrow dip and weave through the airport corridors. Orange County is a living monument to our attempt to separate culture and nature. We have laid an iron curtain between the two domains, patrolled by pugnacious pups named after cold warriors. But just as in the cold war we didn’t seem to realize how desperately communists and capitalists needed each other, the domains of culture and nature are not so different after all. Even a place as developed and overrun by Homo sapiens as Southern California shares something of the infinite complexity that emerges between the cracks. The good news is that the cracks are getting bigger as we realize that our social environment is intimately connected with the physical environment. The moral to the story is not that one can find “nature” in Orange County if one would just look hard enough; nor is it that intact, robust ecosystems are wholly cultural constructions. In a world of increasing ecological catastrophe the task ahead is not increasing the strength of our will over an ever passive nature. Nor is it about getting back to some pristine primal wonderland. The task is to dismantle the strictly enforced boundaries we have set up between culture and nature and to watch what happens in the chaos.

Jason M. Brown grew up among the vanishing Orange Groves of Orange County, California. He studied anthropology at Brigham Young University and in 2011 completed two masters degrees at the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies and the Yale Divinity School in Forestry and Theology. He is currently teaching adjunct at Utah Valley University and Salt Lake Community College where he teaches Ethics and Values and World Religion. Jason is broadly interested in environmental philosophy and theology and is working with the Utah Interfaith Power and Light to reduce the carbon emissions of congregations in Utah. This summer he will be working as a forester for the US Forest Service (and blogging about it at www.utahforeststewards.org). He also blogs at www.barefootanthropology.blogspot.com.

Last week I noticed two small charges on my Chase MasterCard bill which didn’t look right. Sure enough, they were “pond scum” charges: Internet sites that trick you into a subscription, hoping to charge thousands of people a small sum for months until they catch on. (My wife sent someone a greeting card and now was charged $3.99 a month for the “benefit” do doing it again whenever she pleased.

The Chase system was awful. Dozens of prompts intended to prevent you from finding a living person. Then two people in succession who believed the priority was to get me off the line and have someone else deal with me. Neither had the inclination (or empowerment) to try to help, and when the second one put me on hold for the fraud protection unit, I waited five minutes and hung up.

I called the offenders myself, arranged to cancel the charges, cut my Chase card in two, and composed a letter to the president of Chase. I had been a customer for 25 years with a spotless record. It was over, I was happy.

This morning—Saturday morning—a woman called from fraud protection, told me she had listened to my conversations before I was “disconnected” and told me I was handled abominably. She said she would personally monitor my account and alert me to any future suspicious charges, and would take the recordings to management so that front line personnel could be better selected and trained. “I want to apologize for them, for myself, and for all of us here at Chase,” she said three times.

“Is there anything else at all I can do for you?” she asked.

“Well, you’d better send me a new card since I cut the old one in half,” I mumbled.

“I’ll get it out immediately,” she promised.

Credit where credit is due (no pun intended). That’s customer retention.

© Alan Weiss 2012. All rights reserved.

• Once a quarter, contact everyone on your list, remind them of your value proposition, and ask for introductions to those who could profit from it.

• Provide a description of your ideal referral, e.g., heads a profit center, manages a sales force, owns a small business, chief operating officer of health care organization, etc. That will increase the quality of suggestions.

• Call referrals on the phone, never send an email. Cite the referral source in your conversation or voice mail to create an obligation.

• Qualify the referral to be sure the person is a potential buyer. If so, focus on a personal meeting as the next step.

• Don’t try to “sell” on the phone. Spending money to travel to meet a true buyer is a cost of doing business if you’re a professional.

• Continue to mention your value to key contacts in your business and social communities: club members, doctors, attorneys, association colleagues, social contacts, etc.

• Don’t expect others who don’t know you to provide you with referrals. When strangers give me business cards at an event I simply throw them away. I have no idea of their quality and it’s not my obligation to check them out.

• Provide referrals to high potential referral sources to create likely reciprocity. You have to “give to get.”

© Alan Weiss 2012. All rights reserved.

April 23, 2012—Issue #135

This week’s focus point: There is no substitute for judgment and enthusiasm. You can’t teach them and it’s difficult to coach people to improve in these areas. Clients are often struggling to “force” more enthusiasm (“We need a motivational program”) or to “improve” judgment (“Let’s train them in decision making”). Yet this is more of a “buy” and not “make” decision. Most significant leadership jobs require both, and if these traits aren’t present they are unlikely to spontaneously arise. Ironically, the same is true for independent professional services providers. No one else will use good judgment for you, and if you’re not enthusiastic in your next meeting, the other person won’t be, either.

Monday Morning Perspective: We have reached the point where we cannot bear either our vices or their cure. — Livy

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© Alan Weiss 2012. All rights reserved

A lot of people ask me about the exotic cars I drive, so I thought I’d create one consistent with one of my brands:

Here’s a consultant’s evaluation of the mess in Cartagena:

• The incident reflects poor hiring, poor management, poor supervision, and poor controls. Senior people need to be fired, not just the agents involved.

• This kind of brazen behavior almost always reflects a continuing and wider-spread problem. That’s why the transgressions become so flagrant, because the limit keeps being pushed so long as no one is caught.

• The President has not set a good leadership example by leaving this to subordinates to untangle. He hasn’t sent a very strong message.

• The inappropriate overreaction that will follow will penalize good people by trying to over-legislate and restrict judgment as a compensation for what has actually been inferior people acting poorly at several levels.

• The “standard vices” will be involved: drugs, prostitution, and gambling, not just one of them.

• The media are being overly generous and tentative. Mitt Romney’s treatment of his dog had more investigative journalism attendant to it than this sad mess. It makes you wonder whether the media, as with Kennedy’s assignations, actually knew about it but didn’t report it.

• Instead of being handled rapidly and firmly, this will drag on and distract people with more important things to do for a long time.

• Remember Marshall McLuhan’s sage observation: “The price of eternal vigilance is indifference.” No one can be constantly on guard and attentive for long stretches. Do you think those airport screeners are as alert at the end of their shifts as at the beginning? You’ve had bags pass through a dozen airports only to be stopped at the thirteenth.

• The President deserves better, as do we all as citizens. But where does the buck stop? Harry Truman knew.

© Alan Weiss 2012. All rights reserved.

We often justify our action or inaction based on highly questionable axioms:

Beauty is only skin deep. But that seems more than deep enough for most, since virtually everyone in the media is good looking; we spend billions on hair dyes, exercise, cosmetic surgery, and air brushing; and people still stop and stare at beautiful women (and there are all those beauty contests).

Measure twice, cut once. Yes, unless you make sure you have more than enough material to cover errors, your want to get there first, and you have no trouble making corrections later.

Haste makes waste. Unless you’re a sprinter, and the next ten seconds is all that matters. Life is often looked upon as a marathon. It isn’t. It’s a continuing series of short sprints.

Money is the root of all evil. No, evil is the root of all evil. Oscar Wilde said that the only ones in the community who talk more about money than the rich are the poor. What you do with money is the point.

What goes around comes around. Not if you leave the spot you’re standing on and get on with your life.

If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Great, that means you’ll never raise a bar or create a higher standard in your life, but you will have the finest working abacus around. Henry Ford said his customers wanted faster horses, which is why he didn’t listen to them.

You can’t judge a book by it’s cover. If the cover is ripped and stained, then the book hasn’t been well cared for, and the same applies to people with dirty fingernails, yellowed teeth, and bad breath.

Curiosity killed the cat. Well, something killed the cat, perhaps, but its curiosity up to that point found it a mate, created a family and fed it. Lack of curiosity and stagnation are what kill most people, retired while they’re still at work.

No man is an island. A great many entrepreneurs, from Jobs to Branson, and Ted Turner to Coco Chanel, worked on a different planet, let alone island, from others around them. These days, boats, planes, and bridges can reach islands, and then there’s always the Internet.

Don’t count your chickens before they hatch. Listen, it’s helpful to know whether it’s likely you’re having eggs or chicken to eat tomorrow.

If you’re so smart, why aren’t you rich? It seems to me a better question is, “If you’re so rich, why aren’t you smart?” (Shirtsleeves-to-shirtsleeves: Without any increase in ability or intelligence, inherited wealth usually disappears by the third generation.)

© Alan Weiss 2012. All rights reserved.

April 16, 2012—Issue #134

This week’s focus point: For most of the entire post-World War II period, there have been three points of economic alliance: Japan, Europe, and the U.S. That is now clearly changing for the first time in a half-century to an emerging six points, with the addition of China, Brazil, and India. And there is an important question as to whether Japan and Europe will remain economically strong enough to have equal stature in the group over the next few years. This realignment creates the need for new expansion strategies, new competitive tactics, additional cultural adaptations, and more complex financial considerations. For consultants, their clients, and their clients’s customers, this should be seen as a tremendous opportunity.

Monday Morning Perspective: No mariner ever enters a more uncharted sea than does the average human being born (today). Our ancestors thought they knew their way from birth through all eternity; we are puzzled about the day after tomorrow. — Walter Lippmann

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© Alan Weiss 2012. All rights reserved

I recently flew to Phoenix and back first class on USAir and they did a very nice job. In fact, I handed out two recognition certificates to the flight attendants on each flight.

However, I  must not know any longer what it’s like to fly in the back. While waiting in the priority line to board, I noticed this woman behind me absolutely wolfing down a ginormous breakfast sandwich. I was looking when she boarded later to see if she had a sign, “Will fly for food.”

Consumed within two minutes.

I’ve found that some people are far better learners than others simply because they allow themselves to be open to it.

I received an email a few hours ago from someone who read Million Dollar Consulting, and wanted to tell me his key learning point, which he thought I should include in future editions.

“It’s about projectors,” he wrote, “and how you can choose the exact right one for your presentation. You haven’t really included that point.”

He’s right—I didn’t include that point. To read an iconic book on boutique consulting, on the shelves for 20 years through four editions, and come away with an insight about projectors, well, that’s actually pretty depressing.

Yet I encounter people all the time who have deliberately stoked their own learning dysfunctions:

• They read a book with an agenda, trying only to find support for their agenda, not the ideas in the book.

• Their intake of new ideas is through a strong filter of “Why this won’t work for me.” They know this, somehow, without trying it and despite the thousands it has worked for.

• They want to show you “their way” as a viable alternative (which it seldom ever is). This happens to me on Twitter on a regular basis. I’ll publish a valuable technique and someone will respond to me with, “But this works better for me.” (I routinely respond, “Good for you, this isn’t a debate.”)

• They are abjectly afraid of trying something new because of the blow to their ego when they may be forced to realize that they’ve been in error for a decade (and/or leaving a lot of money on the table). Better to be solipsist than to face an empirical truth endangering a carefully crafted self-image.

When I hear something new and relevant (or often questionably relevant, who can be sure?) I immediately try to use it or apply it. I want to see if it will work. If so, I can adapt it for my particular circumstances and be happier, more successful, and better looking!

I think back on consulting society meetings where some guy (seldom a woman, since women I find more open to new ideas and learning) is always pontificating, “I can make more charging by the hour that with value based fees,” or “My industry is different,” or “I have a unique approach.” I don’t want to take the time or energy to try to refute this nonsense, because these guys are closed to learning, and the door is locked and barricaded.

It’s not my job to change, them, though I’d certainly be open to learning how….

© Alan Weiss 2012. All rights reserved.

April 9, 2012—Issue #133

This week’s focus point: Consensus is something you can live with, not something you would die for. We need to accommodate legitimate, diverse points of view. Too often we move from the issue to the person. Once we question the legitimacy of the other person, we end honest debate and emotion precludes logic. We need to disagree without despising, debate without demeaning, understand without undermining. We’ll never gain influence if we demonize those who disagree with us.

Monday Morning Perspective: Each divorce is the death of a small civilization. — Pat Conroy

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© Alan Weiss 2011. All rights reserved

• Self-absorbed people have no sense of humor because if they engaged in laughter it would take time away from talking about themselves.

• Apple succeeded in large part because Steve Jobs simply fired people who didn’t cooperate. Compare that to the silos and turf wars you find in so many businesses today.

• The absolute worst situation for a small business are relatives in key positions who aren’t performing. The owners can’t improve them and won’t fire them.

• If you’re wondering why firms can be so inept at offering products and services and supporting new initiatives, just look at the Republican Party at the moment in the U.S.

• Brands have to be consistently and continually supported. Cadillac, Sears, Yahoo have all lost their luster over the years. Disney is a shadow of its old image of quality and service.

• Rhode Island has a law requiring seat belts in cars but not helmets on motorcycle drivers. Please don’t tell me we’re packing a lot of talent in the legislature. (Where still another bozo lawmaker has had to give up his positions after, inebriated, threatening police if they didn’t cover up the DUI of a colleague. Do any of you still think “Boardwalk Empire” is fiction?)

• Looking at vineyards and stored wine casks because you like wine is as exciting as watching cows because you like leather.

• Why are the setup instructions for a new phone or calculator more complicated than those for setting up an Apple desk top computer?

• How is it that educated adults still call and simply ask, “Is Marie there?” instead of identifying themselves first? When I ask who’s calling, they seem to be offended.

• A National Basketball Association star player can run the length of the court with the ball without dribbling once and still not be called for walking.

• These days, the pilot on Jet Blue going bonkers and behaving wildly isn’t as surprising as the fact that the passengers are not doing that every flight. After the TSA holds you guilty until stripped and proven innocent, the airlines hold you prisoner anyway in a cramped cell with barely bread and water.

• If you’re a volunteer, it doesn’t mean you don’t have responsibility and accountability. If you don’t show up or you do a lousy job, the excuse “I’m just a volunteer” doesn’t cut it.

• I’ve decided not to contribute to any more non-profits where the entire board isn’t contributing. If you’re directing the organization, you ought to have skin in the game, and not just other people’s money.

• “The Book of Mormon” is kind of a one-joke, smug satire. But would the writers have been bold enough to create and stage “The Book of Muslim”? I think there’s a line between being satirical and being just plain nasty, and also playing it safe.

• Most of those guys in the gym grunting like female tennis pros are lifting less weight than I am. Please.

• I don’t think being called a “stewardess” is a sign of disrespect. I think your employer not paying you a wage commensurate with your training and value is a sign of disrespect.

• At this point on American Idol, it appears that Steven Tyler has to be regularly awakened from a fog; Jennifer Lopez is basically posing and promoting; and Randy Jackson was let go with Paula Abdul but doesn’t realize and keeps coming to work. Where is Simon Cowell when you need him?

• Note to people starting a business: Marketing is more important than your product and service. I know that’s heresy, but if no one knows you’re there, you won’t sell a thing.

• All of the schools playing in the NCAA tournaments have excellent ballplayers, male and female, at guard positions. The difference is that the top schools have more talented big people. There just may be an analogy there for business.

• When people tell me they have a “unique” approach and they’re going to “revolutionize” an industry, I look for a bar and a drink. There is a thin line between Paul Revere and Chicken Little.

© Alan Weiss 2012. All rights reserved.

I’ve been asked repeatedly what traits and behaviors are endemic to my most successful mentoring clients. I recently listed them for the Mentor Hall of Fame meeting in New York. Picture the categories below as continua, not “have it or don’t have it,” not a light switch but a rheostat. The farther to the right you are, the more likely you will be brilliantly successful.

In no particular order:

1. Constancy: The ability and perseverance to keep doing the right things even without immediate payoff. Instant gratification is hard to come by in this profession. You must do the right things continually to succeed.

2. RTTT: Running Through the Tape is reminiscent of my old sprinter days (I lettered as a freshman), since I was taught to run to a point about 10 yards past the finish, while others unconsciously eased up at the finish line. I won a lot of close races. Don’t get to the proposal phase and then take it easy.

3. Accept not Resist: Those people who actively look for reasons my advice and approaches won’t work with them are very unlikely to succeed with me, or in life in general. Find ways to make things work for you, not reasons why they won’t.

4. Business Sense: There is an inherent ability to recognize opportunity that some people lack. If you ask me what you should do when you’re introduced to a buyer who says, “Why don’t you call me and we’ll get together?” then you don’t have much innate business sense.

5. Support System: Ideally your loved ones, but also colleagues and professional associates can tell you when you have been good and not just lucky, and when you have been awful and not just unlucky. You need people to bolster your self-worth, not undermine it. I remember by wife saying, “The hell with the mortgage, just do your best.”

6. Self-Worth: The chronic problem many have with self-esteem and not feeling good enough, no matter how effective you may be for clients. You need to understand you’re a good and valuable person no matter what is happening at the moment.

7. Intellectual Firepower: You must be able to deductively and inductively reason, debate, and understand metaphor and analogy. You should be widely read and widely traveled. You should neither eschew new learning or old learning, sports or lobster, television or symphony.

8. Primary Skill Set: This should include language ability, math ability, the skills to place things in perspective, basic consulting/coaching/training/facilitating skills.

9. Secondary Skill Set: Here we have command of power language, public speaking, writing, influencing, negotiation, conflict resolution, and so on. I also include here strategic thinking, planning, and organizational abilities.

10. Creativity/Innovation: I regard innovation as “applied creativity.” That is, you must be able to make new ideas pragmatic for others, monetize your own good ideas, and constantly reinvent yourself and your brands, as well as provide such talents for your clients.

11. Existential Awareness: You must be sensitive to others around you, to the environment, and nature. You cannot be oblivious or self-absorbed. Not bothering to understand the world immediately around you is like stopping at the bottom of a moving escalator.

12. Deliberate Change Generation: The best people don’t wait to cope with change or even adapt to it, they create their own for rapid growth. Consequently, they are always leading the pack.

13. Self-Regard: In addition to self-esteem, you must treat yourself well, buy yourself things, provide rewards, be appropriately confident (just short of arrogant). Powerful people enjoy being with people who are powerful and aren’t embarrassed to demonstrate it.

Where would you put yourself on these avenues of growth and success? What are you doing to improve? Note that these are both skills and behaviors. You don’t develop these in isolation.

© Alan Weiss 2012. All rights reserved.

April 2, 2012—Issue #132

This week’s focus point: My large, electric train layouts never worked perfectly. There were derailments, power failures, missed stations, spilled freight, and even small fires. In other words, they exactly replicated reality. Your clients will never undergo change (nor will you) as prescribed in some sterile book or conceptual model. Advice is lofty, actions are gritty. Seek success, not perfection. Accept that virtually nothing will be exactly as intended, but it will be better than before. Make midcourse corrections. Don’t be afraid to get your clothes dirty. No one ever won a medal for coming back from the wars with the crispest, cleanest, brightest uniform. Heroes are muddied and bloodied.

Monday Morning Perspective: Be not too hasty to trust or admire the teachers of virtue. They discourse like angels but they live like men. — Samuel Johnson

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© Alan Weiss 2011. All rights reserved

Guido Quelle is a member of the Million Dollar Mentor Hall of Fame® and the Million Dollar Club. He is a Master Mentor and a Graduate of the Million Dollar Consulting® College and Grad School.

Cultural Differences – Singapore Airlines vs. Frankfurt Airport Staff

by Dr. Guido Quelle

Most people who know me know that I am a great fan of Singapore Airlines and I try to use them as often as possible. Here is another example of the difference their employees make in regard to their contribution to the reputation of their company:

We landed in Frankurt after a most enjoyable trip from New York JFK returning from a fabulous week with members of the Million Dollar Consultant® Hall of Fame. I picked up our luggage from the conveyor belt to recognize that one of our bags was seriously damaged: One wheel of the bag was missing and zippers were missing, too.

The lady of Singapore ground staff whom I showed the bag said immediately “We take care of that.” Unfortunately “We“ was not only her, but also two ladies from Frankfurt Airport.

The conversation that followed was mainly characterized by formal questions of the Frankfurt Airport ladies who were lead through a computerized process. Here are some of the questions they asked me:

• “Can I have your boarding pass, please?“ – Me: “Of course.“
• “The one of your wife as well, please.“ – Me: “Why? It is my bag that has been damaged.“
• “Which flight number was it?“ – Me: “Look at the boarding pass!“
• “What class did you fly?“ – “We flew First Class. Why don’t you look at the boarding pass you just asked me for?“
• “Do you have a baggage insurance?” – “I have no idea! Why do you need to know that?“
• “How old is the bag and what did it cost?“ – “Do you want to fool me?“

The lady of Singapore ground staff of course recognized my being really unhappy and told their airport colleagues to just fill out the form in order to help us leaving the airport. Unfortunately she wasn’t permitted to work herself  on the computer.

While the Frankfurt Airport ladies still were very busy with the computer, the Singapore Airlines employee said the following: “You have two options: Option one is that you go to the Airport Baggage Service in order to see if they can repair the bag here or—what I recommend since I can imagine that you just want to get home now—you can call us to pick up the bag at your home or your office and we repair it or we send you the money for a new one.“ She was empathetic and I was happy.

This happened while the two other ladies were still fighting with their computer and with me, their customer.

It makes a difference how you approach your customers and clients. If you really want your business to grow, you need employees in every single department at every single position who have your customer’s best interest in mind.

Is this difficult? Sure, it is. But it is possible and some companies—like Singapore Airlines—are very close to that. Some companies—like Frankfurt Airport—will probably never get even to the undergraduate level. Ever.

©2012 Prof. Dr. Guido Quelle, Mandat Managementberatung GmbH

Professor Dr. Guido Quelle, “The Growth Driver,” is one of the rare people worldwide who focuses on creating profitable and sustainable growth as an entrepreneur, consultant, author and speaker for more than 20 years. With his consulting firm, Mandat GmbH of Dortmund, Germany, he successfully conducted more than 350 projects with 120+ renowned private and listed companies. His client list includes multinationals such as British-American Tobacco, Deutsche Post World Net, European Dental Partners, Mercedes-Benz, Volkswagen, and Erasmus University at Rotterdam as well as medium-sized companies. Quelle is the author and co-author of more than 100 professional articles, six partly European studies, two university course texts and eight books. The English edition of his German book “Profitabel wachsen” (“Grow Profitably”) will be internationally published by Springer Science and Business Media in October 2012.

From my wife, who’s recovering nicely:

Thanks to all of you who sent me emails and messages during and after my recent knee replacement surgery. I’m up and around, even doing stairs. I’ve started rehabilitation and there’s all kinds of family and professional support. Alan is cooking. (Kidding.)

I’m sorry I can’t reply to every single person, but I deeply appreciate your kindness and prayers.

Maria

Here is some interesting commentary on Facebook as a marketing tool, brought to my attention by Jim Powell:

http://adcontrarian.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/farcebook.html

From the Mentor Hall of Fame meeting at The Palace Hotel in New York City:

Success Practices

• Tell the client what others have been afraid to tell.

• Connect one-on-one, never email when you can phone, never phone when you can visit in person.

• Raise new ideas and don’t wait to “perfect” them.

• Provide options: “There are four options for us to examine….”

• Be frank and self-disclosing about your passion for the work.

• Create meetings by alerting the client that you’ll “be in the neighborhood” on certain dates.

• Focus on the buyer’s personal objectives in addition to the business objectives.

• Recycle and repurpose your intellectual property in different media at different times.

• Always pursue clients in the fourth quarter of their fiscal years when there are often funds that must be spent prior to year-end.

• Never worry about “too many leads” or “too much business.” Devise ways to stagger and coordinate business; streamline your model; delegate work to the client; and/or use subcontractors.

• Pursue success not perfection.

From our current Private Roster Mentor Community Hall of Fame® Meeting in New York City:

• Embrace your entire life, don’t “compartmentalize” your business.

• Simple is far more valuable than complex.

• Market even more when you are successful and have the funds to invest.

• You are far better served developing additional business in existing clients than trying to continually acquire new clients.

• A good idea isn’t enough—you have to monetize it through some kind of product or service offering.

• To grow substantially you can’t merely do “more of the same.” You have to think differently, and you may need help to do that.

• Mere interest is insufficient. Passion is required, in business and life.

• Always prepare a “Plan B” (e.g., to replay a key client or employee).

• Only an open mind can accept new ideas.

March 26, 2012—Issue #131

This week’s focus point: Organizations which are in terrible shape have usually been victimized by a series of poor decisions by management. There is no reason to believe that they will suddenly see the error of their ways, hire you, and adhere closely to your advice. Instead, they will be protective, defensive, and miserly. But organizations in great shape have leaders who make intelligent choices, are willing to listen to new ideas, and have money to invest. Which would you think are higher potential for your business? Don’t be fooled by the decades-old advice to find or create “pain.” Instead, find strong people for whom you can create growth, innovation, and excitement. They are your top prospects.

Monday Morning Perspective: Even if you are on the right track, you will get run over if you just sit there. — Will Rogers

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ISSN 2151-0091

© Alan Weiss 2011. All rights reserved

Are we increasingly treated as criminals until proven innocent?  Listen and find out!

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Folks, I’ve been through the real lows and the absolute highs in this profession, and I’m thankful the latter have been more abundant and permanent. But I know the roller coaster ride, and here’s a piece of advice, not just for consultants, but anyone: There is a difference between worry and concern.

Concern is the proper mindset for caring about an important issue, event, or condition. It means we apply ourselves to create effective resolution, monitor it, and utilize proper priorities.

Worry is the inappropriate reaction which dampens our talents, creates often irrational behavior, and moves in circles which, like a corkscrew, drills deeper and deeper while going nowhere but down.

We spend too much time worrying, which is emotional loneliness and captivity, rather than exercising proper actions because we’re concerned. When we’re concerned, we wade in and resolve issues, we don’t sit on the sidelines fretting about them. (To fret. A great infinitive verb.) Worry is draining and enervating. Concern is positive and energizing.

Being worried doesn’t accomplish a thing other than create great stress. Being concerned creates intelligent actions and resolutions.

So don’t worry about being concerned. But be concerned about worrying.

© Alan Weiss 2012. All rights reserved.

March 19, 2012—Issue #130

This week’s focus point: The busiest restaurants I go to appeal to all ages. The iPad is so popular because both kids and their grandparents can use it easily and to great advantage. You see every kind of demographic at baseball, football, and basketball games. Blockbuster films, from “The Godfather” to “Titanic,” have universal appeal. Broaden your own appeal, to all kinds of customers and clients. Don’t focus on ridiculous generational labels, be they “X,” “Y,” “Boomer,” or “Greatest Generation.” First and foremost, we are all people and can be attracted through practical value and obvious improvement. Just watch all those varied people at the ballpark eating the same hot dogs while they follow scores on an app on their iPhones.

Monday Morning Perspective: It is much easier to recognize error than to find truth; the former lies on the surface, this is quite manageable. The latter resides in depth, and this quest is not everyone’s business. — Goethe

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© Alan Weiss 2011. All rights reserved

A long time ago, the great science fiction writer, Robert Heinlein, created the neologism “grok” in the magnificent novel, Stranger in A Strange Land. It means to “grasp” and truly understand, sort of.

I’m introducing NORK, which means that “no one really knows.” No one really knows when and why the markets go up and down. NORK why some actors, athletes, business people make it, and others don’t. Certainly NORK when some buyers are ready to buy so a consultant can arrive at the precise right time and place.

We need to trust our own judgment, experience, and analysis before relying on those of others, because NORK, so we might as well believe in ourselves. You will be told that your book can’t possibly succeed, that you won’t enjoy the Caribbean, that you need to have a certification to be taken seriously, and that Apple stock was a bad purchase all those years ago. But NORK. If I’m going to fail, I’ll do it on my own terms, not because of NORK advice, and if I’m going to succeed it will be on my own merits.

We can’t predict the arrival and paths of tornadoes, or earthquakes, or the direction of investments, or the winner of sports championships—at least, not with any reliable degree of accuracy. Why listen to others, unless they’ve been there and done it well and can provide pragmatic skills that work for you right now?

If I had listened to the “experts,” I would never have gone into solo practice, invested the money I did in the manner I did, created my value-based fee approach, piloted the Goodyear Blimp, or written 45 books. But I didn’t and I did.

You know why? Because conventional wisdom is neither conventional nor wisdom. It’s a copout. It’s a product of NORK. And I’m not.

I grok NORK.

© Alan Weiss 2012. All rights reserved.

Here’s what they leave for you to use when they come and take your Bentley Supersports in for service. How can you not love these people?

(The Dog Star is a symbol of power, will, and steadfastness of purpose, and exemplifies the One who has succeeded in bridging the lower and higher consciousness. – Astrological Definition)

Every morning Buddy Beagle runs downstairs from the master bedroom to the kitchen door in order to go out into the back yard. Somewhere in descending two sets of stairs and traversing most of the house he picks up a stuffed duck along the way. He has at least two, and I don’t know where he stores them.

At the back door he attempts to take them out to the yard. The stuffed toys get wet and ratty out there, and he never, ever takes them back in. So we would take the duck out of his mouth at the door. He got used to this, and would drop the duck when we’d say, “Drop the duck!”

But then he pulled a new stunt, and when the door opened, he’d grab the duck again, run under Koufax’s legs, and zoom out into the yard. So now we have to actually kick the duck away when he drops it, like they kick the guns away from fallen criminals on CSI Miami. I’m sure Buddy is working on his next trick to get the duck outside.

Dogs do not get frustrated, they get even. They don’t mope and whine over being denied something, they figure out another way. They are amazingly resourceful. When Buddy spied the open dog treat drawer, he would lean on the front to grab some treats and inadvertently close it with his weight. I chuckled at this, until he learned pretty quickly to stand on the side of the drawer, where his weight actually kept it open. Once, he devoured a pound of pupperoni, and I stopped chuckling.

Dogs don’t give up. Just because something failed to work the first 20 times doesn’t mean it won’t work on the 21^st. They don’t hold things against you. You may have removed the loud toy, but they’ll still give you affection, and wait until the time is right to retrieve the toy and honk it once again.

A few benighted souls, arrogant in their superiority and dumb initials after their names, have told me they resent my using dogs and other animals as points of comparison to them and their careers. Well, if you take umbrage over that, I have a suggestion.

Why don’t you show me you can outperform them?

© Alan Weiss 2012. All rights reserved.

March 12, 2012—Issue #129

This week’s focus point: Almost every good intention, taken to extremes, has an invidious dimension that undermines us. Many people want to help others so much that they wind up in an extreme position, denying themselves, sacrificing their own objectives, surrendering their days and even their dreams. I call this a “propensity to help”: PTH. If you find yourself, advertently or inadvertently, constantly subsuming your own goals in order to please others, consider these remedies: 1. Remember the airlines’ oxygen mask rule. You have to put your own on first if you are to help others. 2. If people refuse to help themselves, it’s unlikely you can really help them. Coaching should never become codependency. 3. Say “no” with conviction. Ask yourself what the “musts” are in your life (e.g., family time) and never sacrifice them for others’ minor requests.

Monday Morning Perspective: They say that the seeds of what we will do are in all of us, but it always seemed to me that in those who make jokes in life the seeds are covered with better soil and with a higher grade of manure. — Ernest Hemingway (in “A Moveable Feast”)

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© Alan Weiss 2011. All rights reserved

Psychologists talk about the “fight or flight” syndrome, and many people in professional services debate what should be “free” and what should demand a “fee.” My experience tells me that most people go through a quick hierarchy of three possibilities when facing new business opportunities, and two of them are pretty bad.

I call them Flee/Free/Fee.

Rather than see a new prospect as an opportunity, many people see that person as a threat. This is primarily a self-esteem issue. They grow frightened because they may be rejected, forgetting that this is merely business and not a commentary on their self-worth. Or they fear that they’ll be seen as an imposter, someone who doesn’t measure up to others or even to their own repute. Still others fear success—what happens if they’re chosen and can’t perform?

You can imagine likely outcomes with prospects when someone is fearful of both failure and success! Consequently, these people tend to flee, making excuses that the “chemistry” was no good, or they have too much business, or the timing is bad.

Another group of people are confident that they can help, and want to help, but can’t justify taking too much money in return (or any money in return), and wind up working pro bono for no sane reason at all. These are the free people. Their self-worth is only marginally higher than the “flee” people, and their belief is that if they don’t charge then the expectations won’t be too high and they can more easily clear a lower bar.

Even non-profits these days have money, so using “free” as a default is silly, and doing so in for-profits (“I wanted the exposure”) is insane. (Non-profits have donors, trustees, patrons, grants, advertisers, fund-raisers, and a host of other sources for underwriting external services. I know, I’ve served on a dozen non-profit boards.)

This leaves the fee people, who believe in equitable compensation in return for the value they provide their clients. In fact, the philosophy I explain to my clients when they inquire about my fee basis is this: “My fee is based on my contribution to your dramatic results, with strong ROI (return on investment) for you and equitable compensation for me.”

That satisfies nearly every potential buyer with whom I speak and if it doesn’t, then I don’t want them as a client.

What is your response to new business challenges? Do you see them as the lifeblood of your business and growth, or as threats to your self-worth and self-image? Are you convinced that you have the value to help people and that you deserve commensurate compensation for doing so, or do you believe that, under scrutiny, you just don’t measure up?

If you are fleeing from new customers then you are in the wrong business, and certainly lack an entrepreneur’s confidence. If you are doing work for free, then you have a hobby—an avocation, not an occupation. If you believe that you provide tremendous value for which clients and customers should pay, then you have your fundamental business sense intact.

My suggestions to focus on fee:

• Ask your past clients what worth you brought to them.

• Resolve how the client’s condition will be improved after engaging you.

• Understand that ideas can be questioned and rejected without questioning the worth of or rejecting the individual.

• Examine what fees you pay, in what amounts, to people providing value to you. Ask if you’ve been comfortable with the value in return for the fee, and if so, ask why that is and how you can replicate it.

• Practice stating fees without equivocation, without loss of eye contact, and with conviction.

This is a capitalist world these days. Remember that when someone questions fee they are actually telling you that they don’t see enough value (to justify the fee). Consequently, focus on emphasizing your value and the improvement in the client’s condition. But you can’t do that if you run away, and it’s irrelevant if you provide something for nothing.

© Alan Weiss 2012. All rights reserved.

There’s a wonderful song from “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum” that includes the ingenue singing, “Look at me, I’m lovely.” She has a point, of course, but it’s a bit too much like listening to Donald Trump.

Mensa has a monthly magazine, and as I gawk at the letters to the editor, I hear a refrain, “Look at me, I’m gifted” wafting through the room. Here are just three excerpts from the current batch of letters. I am not making this up.

“I propose the creation of a National Mensa Pride Day…..Dig out your Mensa pin, T-shirt, coffee mug, or whatever you have and display it on that day. Come out into the light and them them see that we are just like them—sort of.”

“I have been personally making up words all my life. If it gets the point across, it’s a word. All words are made up. If everyone waited for them to be in the dictionary, there wouldn’t be any words or dictionaries.”

“I had let my membership lapse some years ago, but then I heard two very accomplished trial lawyers comment favorably that another attorney was a member of Mensa—with obvious respect and maybe a little envy.”

You can’t make this stuff up.

Word. (It’s in the dictionary.)

A year of personalized work, tailored development plan, private meetings, small group meetings—a mastermind group on steroids. Discounted fee only until March 15:

http://summitconsulting.com/seminars/alans-growth-cycle.php

Ironically, it’s not the big disasters that undermine most professional services practices. It’s the little things, an accrual of blockage and inefficiency and calcification that creates stalactites along your path.

Don’t live with “necessary evils.” For example, do not tolerate:

• Late payments from clients.

• Vendors who underperform.

• Subcontractors who are difficult.

• Slow technology.

• Office interruptions.

• Requests for free help.

• Unrewarding professional associations and meetings.

• Non-responsive professional help (lawyers, accountants, et. al.).

• Lack of space or uncomfortable facilities.

• Overly-demanding and difficult clients.

• Demands for off-hour meetings.

• Lengthy, unproductive phone calls.

I could go on, but my day is limited. If you’re “living with” just two or more of these (and related) issues, excise them from your life.

Your business will be undermined not by a shark coming at you head-on, but by scores of piranhas taking nibbles out of the flesh of your business. You can get rid of these vicious predators.

Become a shark yourself.

© Alan Weiss 2012. All rights reserved.

March 5, 2012—Issue #128

This week’s focus point: If you read Walter Isaacson’s extraordinary biography of Steve Jobs, you encounter someone who, for a great deal of his life, was erratic, uncaring, often venal, frequently unwashed, and almost always condescending. Yet he forged a seminal organization which retained talent, innovated constantly, generated huge profits, and transformed a great deal of our professional and personal lives. There is no “royal road” to effective leadership. Toss out the gurus who insist leadership is best by consensus, or open book, or survey ratings, or financial focus. The more we try to homogenize and standardize behaviors, the more we suppress those who can shine in their own manner and in their own time.

Monday Morning Perspective: The best part of an affair in going up the stairs. Desire is always more satisfying than fulfillment. — French saying

Monday Morning Sneak Preview: Intellectual propert from my annual Thought Leadership Symposium. This year’s guest, Margaret Wheatley, author of Leadership and the New Science.
Video: http://youtu.be/m_MYhwzVE0c
Registration: http://summitconsulting.com/seminars/the-thought-leadership-symposium-2012-10.php

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ISSN 2151-0091

© Alan Weiss 2011. All rights reserved

In our business, language is everything. Language controls discussions, discussions control relationships, and relationships control business.

Too many consultants (and professional services providers) engage in conversations without any goal or objective, as if merely “chatting up” someone will lead to business. That’s like sailing out into the ocean with no destination and without navigational aids, and expecting to find a wonderful port by sundown.

Most likely, you’ll either wind up where you started if you’re lucky, or drown if you’re not.

Here are some guidelines I’ve distilled from several of my books:

1. Clarify for yourself what your minimum and maximum objectives are for the conversation (I call this “min/max”). A minimum objective might be to solidify the relationship, and a maximum objective might be to gain conceptual agreement leading to a proposal. If you don’t know your own expectations, you can’t calibrate your progress or success.
2. Always steer toward your goal. Don’t let a prospect ramble or change the destination. You can politely redirect the conversation by saying, “Excuse me, but I wanted to verify: I think you’re most concerned about retention of talent, is that right?” Or: “If I may interrupt you, you’ve given me so much information that I need to summarize in my own words so that you can tell me if I’m understanding you accurately.” Don’t sit there like a lump listening to the history of the world.
3. Look for signs of trust, e.g., revelation of useful information you hadn’t asked about, humor, respect for time frames and uninterrupted meetings, acceptance of “pushback,” requests for your advice, and so forth.
4. Honor time frames. Ten minute before the scheduled end of the meeting, begin to summarize and identify next steps with DEFINITIVE times and dates. (Only extend the time if the buyer invites you to do so, another sign of interest and trust. Don’t schedule another meeting or travel arrangements too close to the end of a meeting.)
5. Listen more than talk, which is achieved by asking provocative questions and being “in the moment.” Listen for which of your strengths (“baskets”) the prospect most mentions. Don’t be afraid to create a new “basket” if there’s a strong need for something you’re sure you can learn, acquire, and provide.

Assess your progress when you leave. Did you exceed the minimum objective? (If you always exceed your maximum objective, it’s not strong enough.)

Know your destination, observe the navigational aids, and use a power boat, not one subject to the winds and tides of your current location.

© Alan Weiss 2012. All rights reserved.

• When you arise in the morning, your belief must be that you have tremendous value to impart to a great many people.

• Focus on that value in your conversations, writing, speaking, and collateral. Don’t talk about methodology, technology, or models.

• Gaining business is NOT about finding pain or creating pain and alleviating it. It’s about improving the condition of your buyer. For strong people, that’s gain, not pain.

• Every day, make your intellectual property apparent to your highest potential clients through a variety of avenues. Don’t kid yourself: Posting on Facebook is not marketing to corporate buyers, for example.

• Every week, contact people you know and ask for their business and/or referral business. If that seems awkward or an imposition, see point number one above.

• The first sale is to yourself. Your age, gender, ethnicity, education, and the rest of your background are irrelevant to all legitimate, healthy buyers. Self-esteem will support that, not initials after your name.

• Be careful about to whom you listen and with whom you hang. Too many people seek to bring you down to their level of performance and pessimism, rather than raising themselves to your level of performance and optimism.

• If you don’t blow your own horn, there is no music. Hiding your value, your intellectual property, and your power is like hiding your money under the mattress—no one will steal it, but no one will see it, either, and it will never grow.

• Treat every experience as a learning experience, not a “win” or a “loss.”

• Understand WHY you are successful, don’t settle merely for the fact THAT you are successful.

• You grow by building on strengths, not correcting weaknesses. Most “self-help” approaches assume you’re damaged and try to “fix” you. Ignore them.

• Seek success, not perfection.

© Alan Weiss 2012. All rights reserved.

February 27, 2012—Issue #127

This week’s focus point: If most of your problems, setbacks, and defeats are caused by others, then how do you ever prevent them in the future? We need to “own” our failures, because that’s how we grow and conquer our fears. Blaming them specifically on others (“politics” holds me back at work) or creating imaginary resistance (“I have writer’s block”) simply deepens the hole you find yourself cowering in. Outstanding entrepreneurs, leaders, and performers take possession of their fears and obstacles, real or imagined, and overcome them. Face your fear. It won’t kill you, but allowing it to paralyze you will stop all movement. I’ve heard members of Mensa whine that they’re discriminated against because they’re “so smart.” If they’re so smart then they should figure out how to overcome that! (Disclaimer: I’m a member, and the only indication of intelligence that impresses me is not test scores, but success.)

Monday Morning Perspective: A society of sheep must in time beget a government of wolves. — Bertrand de Jouvenel

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© Alan Weiss 2011. All rights reserved

Vice President Biden recently visited Rhode Island to support the reelection of Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, of whom we can only hope that his last name does not presage his future. The Vice President’s press release informed the media that he would be traveling to “Road Island.”

Many people believe that this place is in New York, confusing it readily with Long Island, which you can actually see in places along the coast, across Long Island Sound. There are about a million people here, the state is all coastline, and if you drive from my house 20 minutes south or west, you’re in Connecticut; 20 minutes north, and you’re in Massachusetts; 20 minutes east, and you swim with the fishes. (That’s largely metaphoric, since the New England Mafia is geriatric, in prison, or both, as satirized brilliantly in a Sopranos episode.)

Roger Williams founded the place in the 17^th Century as a bastion of religious freedom in a time when most governments believed that conforming to an approved state religion was also patriotic. Atop the statehouse here (“the second largest free-standing dome anywhere”) stands “the independent man.” Touro Synagogue, the oldest synagogue in the U.S., is in Newport. I sometimes attend St. Mary’s Church in Newport, where John and Jackie Kennedy were wed.

The quality of life here can be quite high if you don’t have to work here, because there is very little middle class, and the state is rather business-unfriendly. Demographics skew toward blue collar or great wealth. The restaurants are awesome, better than Boston, per capita. The local arts and cultural scenes are rich in talent and diversity. (My wife and I have served on a dozen boards.) There is a significant academic presence: Rhode Island School of Design (arts); Johnson & Wales (culinary and hospitality); Brown University (ego).

Rhode Island, where I came propelled by the greed associated with the presidency of a firm I was to be fired from 27 years ago ( I still tell people I’m a New Yorker), is more a state of mind than a state of the union. I ask the jury to simply consider these facts:

• An amazingly large number of people here have never been to New York (three hours away) and some not to Boston (one hour away). I heard one man brag that his pickup truck had never left Aquidneck Island (Newport, reached by several huge bridges).

• About 90% of all boats in the hundreds of marinas never leave the docks, irrespective of weather, gas prices, or famine. Most owners simply drink somewhere aft, on an expensive floating bar. I guess we should feel relieved they don’t leave the docks.

• People have “summer homes” 45 minutes away from their main home. They pick up the mail and newspapers every day. Where I come from, a “summer home” is an airplane ride or six-hour car ride away. Here, it’s like going out for dinner.

• No one uses turn signals. This could be a state law, I don’t know.

• No one lets you turn across their lane. Absolutely no one stops to give you a break turning left. It’s a macho thing that has transcended gender, as in, “I may be an inferior, but I sure as heck can stop you from turning!” Unbelievably, this happens regularly outside our church parking lot with parishioners refusing to allow colleagues into the lot.

• People give metaphysical directions here. “If you want to try the new restaurant, turn left where Hugo’s used to be [a store demolished ten years ago] and then take a right where they removed the stop sign.” Oh. Thanks, that’s clear.

• Sprinkles on ice cream are called “Jimmies” here. My wife, the sommelier of ice cream, actually got into an argument at the window of an ice cream stand over it, when they told her they couldn’t understand her order. I dragged her away as she was screaming, “Do you SPRINKLE them on or JIMMIE them on, idiot?!”

• There are 30 or so municipalities, police departments, fire departments, library systems, medical response teams, school districts, and so on. The waste and duplication—in a state with grave financial problems—are vast. The place should act like Singapore, a city-state with coordinated services. Instead, it acts like a bad Boston bar at closing time.

• With all these problems, the governor, elected by a tepid 33% of the voters in a multiple-candidate election, announced that the annual Christmas Tree on the capitol grounds would be known as a Holiday Tree, so as not to offend anyone living under the sun. The verdict is still out on the Easter Bunny (Holiday Hare?). He’s going to have to do something about the Constitution, though, which clearly refers to a “creator.” Where’s Roger Williams when you need him?

• They pronounce my alma mater, Rutgers, as “Ruggers.”

• A common, quite physical landmark is “the great blue bug,” which is a termite that is 427,000 times actual size, perched on top of an exterminating business alongside Interstate 95. The thing is dressed up and lighted for Christmas (Holiday Time?). When there was a threat of demolition of the building, the then-mayor of Providence climbed up to the roof with the press in tow and issued a “stay of extermination.”

• It has snowed in this area at least since the onset of the Holocene Era, about 12,000 years ago. My math tells me that’s prior to Columbus, Roger Williams, and the New England Patriots. Yet every threat of snow here is regarded as Armageddon on the final day of the Mayan Calendar. People stockpile bread and milk; they exhaust supplies of snow blowers, portable generators, and bottled water. It’s the equivalent of natives in the Amazon rain forests fearing moisture. The “meteorologists” on television aren’t called, for example, “the sunshine boys,” but rather “THE STORM TRACKERS!”

• When people here say they’re going to “the city,” they mean Providence. They don’t seem to understand The City is New York.

We live an idyllic existence, with a great quality of life (we were at the fabulous Festival Ballet last night, a political satire produced by local journalists the night prior, and will be at Trinity Rep next week), with the means and ability to enjoy our environment and travel to New York whenever we wish. Even though I kid them, people here are basically friendly and nice.

They just need to get out more often, and when they are, allow a few people to turn in front of them.

© Alan Weiss 2012. All rights reserved.

I picked up a client at a nearby hotel and he offered to treat us to a couple of lattés at Dunkin Donuts on the way to my house. When we reached the window, the woman handed me the two cups.

“Can I have a tray, please?” I asked.

“No, we’re all out,” she said.

“Well, why don’t you tell us that when we order? What if I were alone or needed four coffees?”

“I guess we’d find a box for you,” she said, never apologizing. What’s happening here is that the franchise owner in East Greenwich doesn’t want to drive business away and is too lazy or cheap to find trays at sister stores, which are within two miles. The employee wouldn’t kid about it, didn’t apologize, and I was wondering why I was there.

Last night, my wife and I stopped in another chain, P.F. Chang’s, in the Providence Mall. We were seated in a booth although we had no reservation (and the place soon filled), were offered drinks within a minute, and the staff took pains to explain the menu options and suggest choices based on our preferences. The food was hot, great, and on time. The manager stopped over twice—the first time to make sure we were happy, and the second time to offer to buy dessert for us, as our welcome to his restaurant. He gave me his card and said that if I ever wanted to take people to lunch or dinner, which are generally packed, he’d get me in, no worries, just call his number.

Leadership is everything. It informs employee behavior, for better or worse. At Dunkin it’s a crap shoot. Some people are terrific, some act as though you’re disturbing them, and that’s because the owner doesn’t set a tone or example, but leaves things to chance. That’s why I often go to Main Street Café and not Dunkin. But for Chinese food, I’m going back to P.F. Chang’s.

Postscript: I bought my wife a new iPhone for Valentine’s day, following her new laptop for Christmas. I’m a very good customer of the Apple store in that same Providence mall. But for the first time, we had mediocre service. The woman checking people in at the door was busy chatting up her boyfriend, and when someone finally showed up to help us and I told him it was a long wait, instead of saying, “Sorry about that, let me help you now,” his response was, “What can you do, we’re busy.”

I’m guessing he used to work in Dunkin Donuts. And I’m guessing the manager there isn’t going to last too long.

© Alan Weiss 2012. All rights reserved.

When you’re coaching people or simply observing clients, you’re well served never to assume someone else is “damaged” or malicious. We tend to make too many assumptions about others’ motives without any evidence.

There are four key vectors to consider when, in fact, people are being hurt. Develop evidence to support your conclusion so that you can properly help in each instance.

1. Consciously hurting others. This may be through emotional manipulation, peer group humiliation, withholding important information, providing incorrect information, starting rumors, and so on. Passive/aggressive people deliberately hurt others, though seemingly unintentionally (though it’s highly intentional). Bullies (emotional, psychological, physical) try to hurt others because of their own perceived inferiority, attempting to lower others to their levels.

You must confront these acts with observed behavior and the ramifications of that behavior. If it continues unabated, it should be grounds for dismissal. I was the fourth in a line of coaches trying to prevent obscene workplace tirades and humiliation from an executive vice president whose division delivered large profits. He refused to stop his behavior or get counseling. I told the president that the entire workforce considered it HIS preferred behavior, and this man was his proxy, since the president refused to put a stop to it. A week later the vice president was fired. His division continued to produce large profits.

1. Unconsciously hurting others. These people are generally oblivious to the world around them and/or totally self-absorbed. They are the people who speak loudly on the phone in public areas, use inappropriate language, demand attention at others’ expense (they monopolize the help in a restaurant), or drive at 20 miles an hour on a 45 mile-an-hour road because they are talking on the phone.

It usually helps to bring the behavior and its ramifications to the attention of the transgressors, since they are unaware of both what they’re doing and how it impacts others. “Why are you changing the temperature in the room when all the rest of us are comfortable, and you haven’t even asked us? Put on a sweater.” If they are apprised and refuse to change their behavior, then they enter category 1 above.

1. Consciously hurting yourself. This can range from physically harming yourself (e.g., cutting) to emotional and psychological harm (e.g., constantly sacrificing personal objectives for others, denying yourself what is rightfully yours, and so on). This often stems from a need to punish, feeling alienated, and feeling unworthy.

In this case, people have to be encouraged to reveal their feelings of inferiority or lack of worth, or explore why they constantly accede to others because of intimidation or a false sense of protocol. Many people deliberately dress, use language, and comport themselves so as not to draw attention or praise. They are often afraid of exposing their own perceived ineptitude.

1. Unconsciously hurting yourself. These are people with very low self-worth who “automatically” and consistently place themselves in inferior positions. They never try to “win” or to gain praise, or to stand out favorably in a crowd. When I once forced such a person to explain why she couldn’t speak up to a prospect who was asking reasonable questions, she said, “I guess I just can’t imagine why he’d listen to someone like me.”

There are people walking around believing inherently that they don’t deserve, don’t count, don’t merit any success and, if it comes, it was an accident, a stroke of luck. Their defeats and setbacks of course, are because of their own lack of talent. I’ve found that people in this category are carrying “baggage” and self-limiting beliefs that are never examined or even apparent. But they are guided by them nonetheless.

Examine why and how people are hurting and being hurt. Don’t assume it’s always the same reason or situation or solution. And it doesn’t hurt to ask this of yourself, as well.

© Alan Weiss 2012. All rights reserved.

February 20, 2012—Issue #126

This week’s focus point: If you want to be regarded as a brilliant conversationalist, ask others questions. If you want to be perceived as a smart business person, ask others about their business philosophy. If you want to be associated with thought leadership, hang out with thought leaders and watch what they do. The worst thing you can do is to try to prove you’re “the second smartest person in the room” by constantly citing your sources, credentials, and experiences. Confident, bright, powerful people appear that way because they are content to listen to others, to prompt them to speak, and to analyze and learn in the process. I may be an exception, but I’ve never been able to learn too much while I’m speaking.

Monday Morning Perspective: The man who is neither bent upon pleasing his fellows nor afraid of offending them will enjoy great peace. –Thomas Kempis, “The Imitation of Christ”

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© Alan Weiss 2011. All rights reserved

• If you’re unsure what to do with a client, or have conflicting objectives, simply ask this, “What’s in the client’s best interests?” If you let that be your guide, you’ll make the right decision.

• You should be able to cite three things you’re better at doing for clients than anyone else in your field.

• If I visit your web site and don’t find you credible in about ten seconds, you have a weak and undermining home page. (It’s probably self-centered, not client-centered.)

• No one cares about YOUR mission. They care about THEIR mission.

• Verbs such as identify, clarify, prioritize, list, review, and organize are so weak that they can barely stand without assistance. Don’t use them in objectives or actions.

• If you’re afraid to use adjectives such as unique, distinctive, and seminal, then you’re not any of them.

• If you want to joust, buy armor and a horse. If you want to fence, buy a rapier or an epee. If you want to present, lug along a projector. But if you want to converse as a peer, then bring along a lexicon that matches the buyer’s.

• Most successful dogs sniff around a while and smell the wind before becoming heavily engaged in a new situation. Not a bad approach for a consultant, either.

• There is more bad advice circulating in solo consulting circles than there are successful solo consultants. Be careful about what and to whom you listen.

• If you discuss “collaborating” or “alliances” without an actual client and business deal on the table, you might as well draw on an easel with your fingers. You’re merely doing a conceptual rhumba, and no one will notice once the music stops.

• The only way the bank will accept your mortgage payment is if you give the bank money. They won’t accept lists, hopes, intent, position papers, references, or PowerPoint. They want cash. So I suggest you spend the predominant amount of your time in front of people who can give you cash in return for your value, preferably on a continuing basis.

© Alan Weiss 2012. All rights reserved.

February 13, 2012—Issue #125

This week’s focus point: Despite the historical claims that “involvement” and “consensus” and “commitment over compliance” are important for employee productivity and performance, I’ve often thought that high-performing cultures are imposed more than gelled. Referent, charismatic leaders can galvanize people to action and add the important element of speed, which is often the victim of consensus and involvement. Steve Jobs was known as a tough guy, as was Roy Vagelos as CEO of Merck and Jack Welch as CEO of GE. But they achieved startling results and developed loyal employees. Perhaps one problem is that instead of developing great leaders we’ve tried to compensate for mediocre ones by asking people to take on some of those accountabilities at lower pay grades. Order in the world often (usually?) must be imposed. Perhaps high performance must be as well.

Monday Morning Perspective: The best is the enemy of the good. — Voltaire

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© Alan Weiss 2011. All rights reserved

Having conducted another Mentor Summit (where members of my global community gather for a few days to learn, network, and have fun), here are some observations I’d like to share with all professional services providers.

• You are usually much better than you think you are. Your actual competence is ahead of your perceived competence because of self-limiting beliefs. Find people who can help you overcome those inaccurate beliefs. We tend to focus on our setbacks but not our victories. Growth is about building on strengths.

• Nobody will know how good you are and how potentially important you are to them unless your name and fame appear before them. Viral marketing and word-of-mouth are fine, but the onus for that broadcasting falls on you. Simply generating material without getting in front of buyers is the equivalent of the old “sitting at your desk waiting for the phone to ring.”

• It’s more important to be “in the moment” than to have a script. However, visualizing what may happen in any meeting results in a very limited range of alternatives that you can prepare for. Begin by visualizing what you’ll wear, how you’ll travel, what the buyer’s office will be like, and so on.

• Your future is about the choices you make. You’ll be the same person in five years you are today except for the choices you make.

• When you encounter obstacles or challenges there are three possible outcomes: You will change them so that you proceed on your path; you will change your attitude and create a path around them; they will change you and your path will no longer be your own.

• If you tell me that you don’t read the Wall Street Journal because it takes too long, then you need to learn to read better. (Did you refuse to go to school because it took too long?)

• Understand your value and be able to explain it thoroughly and quickly in a provocative manner. Identify the most desirable buyers for that value. Determine how best to attract them to you. Offer a range of options that lower the barriers of entry to learn about you and pursue your help.

© Alan Weiss 2012. All rights reserved.

Financial Statements are Gold Mines

by Phil Symchych

Phil Symchych is a member of the Private Roster Mentor Program Hall of Fame, a Master Mentor, and a graduate of the Million Dollar Consulting® College.

There is gold sitting in your financial statements. The trick is to mine it and turn it into cash. Every month!

I advise business owners to sit down with their internal accountants and go through their entire financial statements—that’s the balance sheet, income statement, aged accounts receivable and aged accounts payable—line-by-line, every month.

First, this will force your accountant to explain the statements to you, the owner. You can ask the accountant questions, and, they probably won’t have all of the answers. That’s because they make certain assumptions. Ironically, you have the answers and, together, you can make sense of the financial statements.

Second, this will force you to explain transactions to your accountant. It’s amazing how discussing and thinking out loud can clarify what is going on for both of you.

Third, the review of accounts receivable will identify which customers need to be called or jobs need to get wrapped up so that the customer will pay. That will generate quick cash.

Fourth, reviewing the accounts payable will show which suppliers are treating you well and need to be paid quickly (hint, all of them) and also if there are any unresolved issues that need to be discussed.

There is lots of gold in your financial statements. You just need to sit down with your accountant, mine it, and turn it into cash. Every month!

Did I mention the :every month” part? By staying on top of your financial statements, you will maximize your cash flow and prevent small problems from growing into large problems. You will also be utilizing your accountant more effectively. They’re not just data clerks, they’re gold miners.

Well, what are you waiting for? It’s the middle of the month. Don’t you have your financial statements yet?

Copyright 2012. Phil Symchych. All rights reserved.

Phil Symchych CA, MBA is the president of Symco & Co. Management Consultants and they specialize in accelerating profitable growth for small and medium businesses around the world.www.symcoandco.com

February 6, 2012—Issue #124

This week’s focus point: Bill Russell, the great basketball player, observed that a true champion is at his best when under the most pressure. I’m writing this on SuperBowl Sunday, and you’ll know the results when you read this. There are always players who want the ball when the game is on the line, and others who become nervous and flustered. We have to be at our best when facing our key challenges: in a buyer’s office, mediating conflict, dealing with family crises, making tough decisions. Most people can do well when economies are strong and predictable. But in volatile times, those who thrive on flexibility and determination rise above the crowd. The only way to test yourself–to be a champion–is to stand tall in tough times with the confidence of your talents, to want to thrive and not merely survive. You have to call for the ball.

Monday Morning Perspective: Wit is the denial of suffering. — Sigmund Freud (Which is why most humor is rooted in pain.)

Learn RESOLVE: http://www.summitconsulting.com/resolve/

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© Alan Weiss 2011. All rights reserved

Why consultants need to think like Dick Fosbury

By Patrick Lefler

Patrick Lefler is a member of my Private Roster Mentor Program

A recent mention by Alan regarding high jumper Dick Fosbury and how he changed the sport by focusing on what really mattered—clearing the bar, not perfecting the popular jumping technique at the time—prompted me to write about why it’s important for us think like this Olympic champion.

Manifestations of innovation come in various sizes and shapes and many are the result of attempts to exploit changes in the environment. In the area of track and field, the 1960s were a period of unusually rapid change due to the introduction of high-tech, lightweight materials that were used in everything from running shoes to vaulting poles—and as the environment changed, innovation followed with lightweight shoes and new techniques for running and throwing. But perhaps the most significant innovation during this period had nothing to do with these more obvious high-tech changes; rather, it was the result of a simple (low-tech) change in the composition of the landing surface that high jumpers used to cushion their falls after jumping.

Up until the early 1960s, the landing surface for most high jump venues was piles of sand or sawdust. Because of this, high jumpers all used similar techniques—the Straddle, the Western Roll or the Scissors Jump—designed to give the jumper the best opportunity to clear the bar and land on his or her feet after the jump was completed. This was essential to prevent injury because the landing surfaces had one thing in common: they were hard—not soft—and landing on anything other than one’s feet was the surest way to get a back or neck injury. But as the decade progressed and an increased emphasis of safety permeated the sport, deeper piles of foam replaced the hard sandpits and sawdust. With this safety change, the sport of high jump became ripe for innovation.

Enter Dick Fosbury. As a 16-year-old high jumper from Medford, Oregon, Fosbury was a below-average jumper who used the traditional Straddle technique. Hungry to improve, Fosbury began experimenting with different technique and over the next two years improved his jumping height from 5 feet to 6 feet 7 inches. His secret? A new way of jumping that allowed Fosbury to go over the bar backwards, headfirst, curving his body over the bar and kicking his legs up in the air at the end of the jump. This required him to land on his back, but he was able to land safely thanks to the new deep foam matting. This new technique was soon dubbed the “Fosbury Flop.”

In 1968, Fosbury used his new technique to win the NCAA championship and qualify at the Olympic trials. At the Summer Olympics in Mexico City, he won the gold medal and set a new Olympic record at 7 feet 4.25 inches, displaying the potential of the new technique. Despite the initial skeptical reactions from the high jumping community, the Fosbury Flop quickly gained acceptance.

Almost immediately after Fosbury won gold in Mexico City, the Fosbury Flop became the most popular style among high jumpers worldwide. As the world record for the high jump has progressed since then, all record jumps have been made using Fosbury’s innovative style. And today, it’s rare to see any jumper—man or woman, elite or non-elite—use a style other than the Fosbury Flop.

So why does this matter for consultants? The answer is that like Dick Fosbury, we need to have the ability to recognize and act on changes—sometimes dramatic and other times quite subtle—in the operating environment of our clients. While his competition focused on refining existing techniques and higher-tech innovations such as lightweight shoes, Fosbury recognized that the change in the landing surface (foam replacing hard sandpits and sawdust) was the real catalyst for a game-changing innovation.

As consultants, we need to think like Dick Fosbury. Are there shifts in the environment that others have missed; subtle changes that could be potential game-changers for our clients? Don’t be satisfied to run with the rest pack – think different (as Apple likes to say). Today’s changing environment—regulatory, demographic, technology, etc.—is ripe for innovation, but the real winners will be those who can exploit value from changes that others have most likely have overlooked.

© 2012 Patrick Lefler. All Rights Reserved

Patrick Lefler is the founder of the Spruance Group—a management consultancy that helps growing companies grow dramatically faster by providing unique value to clients’ most pressing product and pricing strategy needs. He has previously held leadership positions at a number of different firms including Goldman Sachs, Citibank and Wall Street Systems. He is also a former Marine Corps officer and a graduate of both Annapolis and The Wharton School. Patrick can be reached at (908) 500-0613; email at plefler@spruancegroup.com or visit his website at www.spruancegroup.com.

Here’s how you schedule time to get things done. Let’s say you want to write an article or position paper.

1. Choose the audience you seek to influence, probably those most appropriate for your value proposition. (5 minutes) [Bank lending officers]

2. Choose a topic that will be provocative and timely. (10 minutes) [Identifying the best candidate for safe loans and repeat business]

3. Choose a working title, not something for all the ages. (5 minutes) [Behind the Interview: The Prospect Within]

4. Select 4-6 key points. (10 minutes) [1. The lessons in the first greeting; 2. How to assess behaviors in an interview; 3. The key questions to ask to appraise the business proposition; 4. The key questions you want to be asked.]

5. Write an edgy opening paragraph. (10 minutes) [Why do lending interviews reveal so little about the customer and so much about our own fears? If the objective is to increase business, then we should first increase our own probabilities of identifying and welcoming high potential prospects. That's not usually done with a shaky wooden chair and a bare lightbulb overhead.]

6. Write about each of your points, making sure to include your rationale, an example so that it’s not merely conceptual, and a graphic if it helps explain the point. (20 minutes per point)

7. Write a closing that’s a call to action. (10 minutes). [The next time prospects walk into your office, invite them to sit in a comfortable chair, offer them some refreshments, and remind yourself that they represent opportunity, not threat. Ask yourself how they might speak positively of the experience, no matter what your ultimate decision. That, alone, might increase your business more than you can imagine.]

8. Reassess the title to see if you want to now adjust it. (5 minutes) [The Human Banker—Stepping Out from Behind the Green Curtain]

That entire process above, with six points, requires about two hours. Spread it over four days, and it’s a half-hour a day. Put that in your calendar at 10:30 each morning, and don’t change it, no matter what.

That’s how you get work out. I’ve probably taken a week off the process above for most of you! Stop fooling around, discretionary time is wealth, and you are eroding yours.

© Alan Weiss 2012. All rights reserved.

I have a client who is seeking a consultant to assist his small business with CRM. Specifically, he needs to find out what CRM software makes the most sense for his needs and his growing business. IF THIS IS YOUR EXPERTISE (not merely your experience with CRM and a recommendation), contact Peter Meyers. You can reach him at peter@standanddeliver.com. Tell him you heard of this from me.

I want to emphasize, this must be your expertise, not merely your experience with particular software. Please don’t write to me about this.

In my RESOLVE free video series I recommend starting the day optimistically and not pessimistically. This morning, I received an email which said in part:

“Thanks, Alan.   I watched all the videos and got a lot of good advice.

“One problem…If I have to start my day with optimistic people, I’ll have to start sleeping around.  My husband is Mr. Doom and Gloom personified.”

The RESOLVE series:

http://www.summitconsulting.com/resolve/

I was a client of Diners Club for 20 years. When it became simply another type of MasterCard, I stayed with them. I paid my bills in full, each month, for 20 years.

Unbeknownst to me, Diners Club cards were taken over by Bank of Montreal. Not long after, I received a form letter telling me my credit had been limited to a cap of $20,000 “after a review of my spending and credit information” and it basically explained they felt I was too much of a risk for anything higher. (I’m an American Express Black Card member, and my net worth is up there.)

I cut my card in half and sent it to the president, telling him basically that if they want to alienate clients with my history (and credit score), good for them, they succeeded. A month later, a woman calls from the “presidential complaints unit” (they apparently must receive a lot of complaints to have a separate unit) and tells me this is Bank of Montreal’s policy. But they don’t want to lose me, would I please come back.

“No,” I said, “unless you show me some sign of gratitude for my business. For example, raise my credit to $25,000 as a show of faith.”

She told me they could only do that with a full credit check and, of course, every credit check damages your credit score in this loony age of paying attention to computer numbers and not people.

“Ciao,” I said.

Today, I received a letter from the vice president of that woman’s presidential complaints operation (a LOT of complaints to merit separate officers), and he said, “Too bad you wouldn’t come back, but if you decide to reapply, we’ll review your application carefully.”

I suggested he not hold his breath.

Canadians are wonderful, polite people. But even my Canadian friends admit that service standards are lower in Canada than in the U.S. Bank of Montreal probably has more people in the “presidential complaints unit” than in its retail operation.

But it is good at something. It’s earned my Dumb-Ass Stupid Management Award. Congratulations!

© Alan Weiss 2012. All rights reserved.

January 30, 2012—Issue #123

This week’s focus point: Be judicious in terms of those to whom you choose to listen and heed. Very few pundits and prognosticators are ever held accountable for their predictions, whether financial, social, political, or technological. Most who claimed they “predicted” the Great Recession were “predicting” it for 20 years. I hardly find that useful. Those who said Steve Jobs’s departure would devastate Apple are seeing record performance numbers from that company, but if it stumbles in six years they’ll claim they predicted it. Most of us are far better served by not trying to forecast the future but rather by performing well in the present, in the moment. Because I will tell you this about tomorrow, assuming the sun continues to shine and the earth continues in orbit: There will be people in search of value for which they will gladly pay a fair price. Adjust your value to the need, or create need around your value. That should take care of tomorrow rather nicely (along with purchasing Apple stock).

Monday Morning Perspective: He who doesn’t turn runs far. — Chinese proverb

Free videos on RESOLVE: http://www.summitconsulting.com/resolve/

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ISSN 2151-0091

© Alan Weiss 2011. All rights reserved

There are certain words and phrases that, while originally well intentioned, have become hackneyed and trite. “Have a nice day,” “meaningful,” “impactful,” and “good to great” all come to mind.

I’m not merely fossicking here, because “We want to go to the next level” has become one of those tendentious phrases that seems to mean so much but results in so little.

Whether that “next level” is financial (which it usually is), or competence, or repute, or anything else, I’ve found that it’s less a matter of action than one of thought. That’s because you seldom reach new heights by merely doing more of the same of what you’re doing now. You have to change your mindset and thought patterns if you truly want to metamorphose into a new being.

Fortunately, that’s not physically difficult—there are neither cocoons nor hibernations required. Unfortunately, it can be quire difficult mentally, because different frames of reference and perspective are required.

Earlier today a woman wrote to ask exactly where in Los Angeles my June workshop would be, since that would depend whether she would go. (This is a workshop that would normally cost at least $1000, but I’m doing for $100!) Upon investigation, I find that her days are totally filled, primarily because she is “selling all day” and feels obligated to run at 4:30 or so in the morning. If you’re in a rut that doesn’t allow you the time to explore how to leave the rut, guess where you’ll remain? (Hint: Not on the next level.) This is why doctors who schedule back-to-back patients every day all week can’t improve their practices.

Here is some quick help:

1. Who are you? How do you define yourself? Are you a consultant, or are you someone who dramatically improves sales results or ensures strategic goals are exceeded?
2. What do you do? Do you “coach” or “consult” or “facilitate”? Or do you improve your clients and help them reach results unattainable without you?
3. Why are you doing this? Is it to make money, or to salve your ego, or to implement a methodology you love? Or is it to make a difference in the world and create a legacy?

Look through a telescope, not a microscope. Change your mentality so that you’re thinking big and not constantly stuck on trifles and trivialities. There is a hebetude around people who immerse themselves in the granular and specific. There is an excitement around those who forge new paths and provide new ideas.

If you want to arrive at “the next level,” start aiming for three levels above that.

© Alan Weiss 2012. All rights reserved.

(The Dog Star is a symbol of power, will, and steadfastness of purpose, and exemplifies the One who has succeeded in bridging the lower and higher consciousness. – Astrological Definition)

I have a new, free video series on RESOLVE: http://www.summitconsulting.com/resolve/ and, as I frequently do, I use my dogs as examples throughout the videos. I talk about how optimistic they are every day, and how they integrate learning.

The responses to the series have been fantastic, but one person wrote to say that he resents being compared to dogs (“If my dogs can do it, you can do it” I say at one point), and feels I should come up with different examples (in my free videos). He never mentions the worth of the content.

I recall once asking an audience of raucus consultants to be quite and sit down (“SIT!” I shouted) so that I could begin my speech. They laughed and did so, except for one guy who said, “I’m a CMC and won’t be talked to like that! You have no right to insult the best people in the profession!” (Well, I’m a GWWPUWIE—guy who won’t put up with inflated egos, so sit down and shut up.)

I’m constantly telling people that I’m surprised at how stupid I was just two weeks ago. You can compare me to a slug if it will help me learn something. I’m nether so insecure nor so arrogant that I need a constant, positive litany of my standing or recognition of the indecipherable 19 initials after my name.

You could be a lot worse off than being compared to a purebred German Shepherd. And if you don’t like dogs, I’ll remind you that it’s a long, long fall off a phony high horse.

© Alan Weiss 2012. All rights reserved.

January 23, 2012—Issue #122

This week’s focus point: I’ve read that Picasso’s mother told him that he would become Pope if he joined the clergy, and a general if he joined the military. But he reported that he preferred art and “I became Picasso.” The great architect Frank Lloyd Wright said, “I once had the choice between hypocritical humility and honest arrogance, chose the latter, and have never regretted it.” I’m suggesting that, short of tedious smugness, we take some time to recognize our strengths and build on them. Too much of “self-help” is about correcting weakness, as if we’re all somehow damaged. Organizations and individuals grow by building on strength. And if you don’t blow your own horn, there is no music.

Monday Morning Perspective: Without great solitude, no serious work is possible. — Picasso

Gaining RESOLVE: My free video series on RESOLVE, beyond accountability, beyond discipline: http://www.summitconsulting.com/resolve/

You may subscribe and encourage others to subscribe by clicking HERE.

Privacy statement: Our subscriber lists are never rented, sold, or loaned to any other parties for any reason.

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ISSN 2151-0091

© Alan Weiss 2011. All rights reserved

Here’s a surgeon’s observation on my approach to RESOLVE:

“Developing resolve translates to the creation of new neural pathways, and then making conscious choices to use the new paths over the old.”

Vicki  Rackner  MD

To view my free video series on RESOLVE, visit here:

http://www.summitconsulting.com/resolve/

I’ve known a couple of actual rocket scientists, and they were nice people, but they were  no better than I at trying to open plastic-sealed tools, operate the cable remote, or understand why Snookie is even vaguely interesting.

Fortunately for all of us, consulting is not rocket science. Here’s why:

• The obvious solutions and improvements are usually the right ones. (Occam’s Razor).

• You often have to merely cut to the chase: “He can’t be helped, coached, or re-skilled, and he stole from you: Fire him!”

• Most of what you tell the buyer he or she already knows, consciously or subconsciously, and merely requires some authoritative validation.

• The vast preponderance of people want to improve and create better conditions and support constructive change.

• If you deal with decision makers and not low level people, you will have ample authority to act.

• Most people take gratification from work well done which utilizes their talents, which is easy enough to arrange.

• There is virtually no barrier to entry in the consulting profession, nor likely to be one any time soon, meaning smart people can readily set up shop and acquire clients, rapidly outstripping those who also gained easy entry but who have no talent.

• You can improvise as you go.

• You have a laboratory in front of you (the client’s operation) in which you can prove and disprove things, and from which you can build an inventory of models and approaches.

• You don’t have to worry about inventory or returns because your dealing with advice and knowledge.

• Very few organizations have the residual, captive talent that can provide the same frames of reference, perspective, and skill sets that external consultants can provide.

• If you’re not dumb enough to base your fees on time units, you can establish huge margins.

• Our fees pale in comparison to most expenses in Fortune 1000 companies, where it can cost $200,000 to cover ruined postage, or mist the plants, or remove spilled food.

• If you’re a generalist, you can diversify and insulate yourself from economic and perceptual changes in given industries.

• Technology inevitably allows us to do more with less and lower labor intensity.

• It’s a rare exception for anyone to care what your gender, background, age, ethnicity, or schooling are.

• You are certainly not going where no man has gone before.

© Alan Weiss 2012. All rights reserved.

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